One of the major differences with positive reinforcement is the eagerness of the animal to work out what the handler requires.  During many training sessions the handler\animal interactions may seem much more like a game of twenty questions, than more traditional training sessions.  Instead of the handler being actively involved in ‘making’ the animal do what is required, the trainer is almost a spectator, allowing the animal to find the answer.  The animal however, is actively involved in the session, working hard to find out what the handler wants this time. 

When working in this way, the animal actively seeks the reward using all his reasoning and memory skills.  When starting a new behaviour or improving a current one,  the animal will try many different behaviours in order to see if any of them are the one that the handler wants.  This is commonly known as seeking.  Seeking is most often seen when the handler is focused on the animal but offering no known cue or when using a new prompt or cue that the horse does not understand yet. 

The animal will tend to run through all of his repetoire of known behaviours.  A clicker savvy animal will often do this very rapidly, trying each potential action only once or twice before moving on to the next.  To the casual observer this may look like uncontrolled behaviour but it is actually a very effective and clever strategy for the animal to work out what you want.  The animal knows that you will signal the behaviour you want, as soon as it occurs and not punish any wrong guesses, so he will try as many things as he can think of, listening out for the one that gets the click!.  This tells him he's on the right track - it's like playing the hot and cold game.

Some handlers may not like this sort of seeking behaviour or don’t feel comfortable with anything off-cue.  For those who feel worried by this apparent lack of control, this doesn't mean the end of clicker training or using positive reinforcement.  It does mean that you probably won't be using shaping, and particularly free shaping, as part of your clicker training (positive reinforcement) repetoire to 'get' behaviours.  Instead, you will use more dependent learning methods such as targeting, modelling or negative reinforcement.  These require the handler to show the horse what is required each time and even physically guide the horse.  Alternately, you may wish to restrict your training to one behaviour at a time and ensure that each is put on cue quickly and securely before moving on to any other behaviour to minimise any off-cue moments. 

In either case you will be less likely to receive off-cue behaviours or see seeking behaviour.  The downside is that you don't really get to see your horse turn into the type of creative genius that so enthralls most avid clicker trainers. 

You will however, still see many great results from encorporating clicker training into your regime.

© Horse Play Limited 2006