Capturing
Capturing:
When a behavior is performed freely by the horse and we are able to reward it to encourage the behavior to occur again.
So many times we will look out and see our horses doing something incredible or just incredibly silly. If only we could get them to do these things when we ask them to!
Capturing a behavior is exactly that. Taking the things a horse does naturally and getting them to do it again, when we ask. We can do that by using our handy clicker. It allows us to ‘capture’ anything that we are there to see happen. Using capturing is an easy way to teach many tricks. Laying down for example.
When your horse goes to roll, click and reward. It is that easy.
Does that mean you have to wait patiently for your horse to offer a behavior by chance? Not at all! We can set up the environment to encourage our horses to offer a desired behavior. What will cause a horse to want to roll? Riding, a bath, a good place to roll. We can introduce these things to the horse so that they will be more likely to offer the behavior we want to capture. Go for a nice ride, give a bath, trickle water down your horses back. Take you horse to a good soft spot with deep dirt. Then wait. By introducing all the necessary ingredients our horses will most likely be happy to offer the behavior we are looking for allowing us to capture it.
What other behaviors do you like to or have you been able to capture with your horse?