Equiosity

Horses know how to reinforce us. When we get ourselves organized and well balanced, they reward us with glorious rides. This is one of the many reasons the Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons are so useful for anyone who handles horses.

Our guest this week, Anita Schnee, is a Feldenkrais practitioner who has been attending my clinics since 2016. She's the perfect ambassador to explain the Feldenkrais Method® and to relate it to training.

Should I make you wait until you listen to the podcast to find out what the great news is? I think not. I’m delighted to finally be able to announce that the first lesson in my DVD series is now available on line. “Lesson One: Getting Started with the Clicker” is available as an on-line mini course.

I’ve been working on this project for several years. I’ve had it mostly done for a while, but there were other things that kept pushing it onto the back burner, including getting the Equiosity podcasts out every week. One of the advantages to not traveling for clinics is I have time for more projects, including getting “Lesson One” up on line.

The original lesson was produced in 1999. It was updated in 2006. So it was more than time for an update. Rather than remake the entire lesson, I have built the course around the original material. Every bit of the original has been broken down into small, bite sized pieces. I introduce you more fully to the horses who were featured in that lesson. Why did they stand out amongst the equine clicker pioneers? What did they teach us about clicker training. Their stories will inspire.

I’ve added so many details to the teaching. But again rather than replace the original video, I’ve added to it. Some of the video expands the lessons. And some of it points out details we didn’t yet realize were important. In these sections I am coaching an earlier version of myself as I point out the changes in handling details. It’s a good way to learn. You see the reminders. We did it this way originally, but this is better, and what’s more, this is why it’s better.

So if you are just getting started in clicker training, this is a great resource for you. It’s an easy way to learn great clicker training basics. And if you’ve been following my work for a while, I think you’ll also enjoy this course. For you it’s a look back. You’ll see the evolution of the training, and you’ll get to meet the many horses and their handlers that I have talked about in these Equiosity podcast and my clinics.

(And I should just add, this podcast includes not just the announcement about the course, but a discussion of how to teach backing in a square. That lesson is in second DVD lesson: Ground Manners, but Dominique had a question about how it is taught so we jumped into that discussion as well.)

To learn more about the new Lesson One On-line course go to: https://www.theclickercenter.com/dvd-lesson-1

And to order go to: https://the-clicker-store.myshopify.com/products/lesson-one-getting-started-with-the-clicker-on-line-lesson

I know many of us head to our horses to get away from the news, but sometimes the news intrudes and our horses can help us make sense of what we see in the headlines. Dominique turned both to her horses and to Murray Sidman’s book, “Coercion and It’s Fallout” to bring some clarity to events that were occurring in Montreal.

The metaphors work in both directions. Our horses can help us understand these larger events. And the “real world” can provide insights that bring clarity to the puzzles our horses present. In this case we are looking at control and counter-control.

We’ve talked a lot about constructional training in these podcasts. This week we’re exploring two related topics.

The first asks how do you look at the world? Are you a glass half empty sort of person where you get mired down in the problem? Or is the glass half full where you have a clear vision of what you want and you go about learning how to get there? You could be using a positive reinforcement procedure to try and stop an unwanted behavior. Or you could be using what can look like a very similar procedure to teach your learner a set of desired behaviors. It can sound like a difference that makes no difference, but when the root is different so too is the plant that grows from it.

So in this podcast we’re looking at constructional training. My interest is not just how does this effect the training strategies we use with our horses, but also what is the ripple effect into the rest of our lives? Our horses can teach us so much that carries over into our interactions with other people.

When Dominique and I get together to record a podcast we usually don’t have a subject mapped out in advance. These are truly conversations, not planned lectures. When we connected via zoom, Dominique said she had something she wanted to talk about, but she wasn’t going to tell me in advance what it was.

That always makes for the best conversation. Dominique has been wanting to talk about emotions and emotional behavior for a long time. Now finally she was bringing this “cat” out of the bag. It is a fascinating subject. Looking at emotions through the lens of behavior analysis, prompts many changes in our thinking - and our training.

This is part 3 of our conversation with Kyle Hetzel. Kyle is a zoo keeper. He used to work with big cats, sea lions, giraffes, wolves and other wild animals. But he is currently working in the children’s zoo section of a large west coast zoo. Kyle wants to bring what he has been learning from the wild animals to the handling of domestic animals.

In Part 1 Kyle introduced us to some of the exotic animals who were his early teachers. In Part 2 we shifted the conversation to barnyard animals - goats, mini horses and a very large steer named slider. As we continue on with the conversation, the focus is very much on cooperative care.

It’s easy to get stuck in a training rut. Kyle’s work with the zoo animals helps us all to be more creative in our training plans. And he shares with us an effective team training approach that includes the farrier and veterinarian.

I was tempted to call this episode: “Just Because People Tell You Something Can’t Be Done, Doesn’t Mean It Can’t Be Done”. But I thought that might be a little long so I called it instead: “Cow CAN Stand on Three Feet.”

This is part 2 of our conversation with Kyle Hetzel. Kyle is a zoo keeper. In this episode he shares his experiences working with barnyard animals. Kyle started out working with big cats, sea lions, giraffes, wolves and other wild animals. But he is currently working in the children’s zoo section of a large west coast zoo. Kyle wants to bring what he has been learning from the wild animals to the handling of domestic animals.

I met Kyle through my clinics and Science Camp. Kyle shared video of the work he’s been doing with the barnyard animals in the children’s zoo. It was so inspiring. There’s so much “just get it done” handling with horses and other hoofed animals. To see Kyle training the goats and horses under his care for voluntary medical procedures was inspiring. It’s good training. It’s caring training. There’s a lot here that needs to be shared, so that’s what we’re doing in this podcast.

In this episode we talk about cooperative care in handling horses and other barnyard animals. What does cooperative care really mean? Kyle describes in detail the control his animals have throughout the training sessions. Learn about foot care for a steer named Slider, plus the goats, even the giraffes. I ask the question - how do you trim the hind feet of a giraffe? You can find out in this fascinating conversation with Kyle.

There are many paths that bring us to horses. Kyle Hetzel has taken one of the more unusual ones. Kyle is a zoo keeper. He has worked with big cats, wolves, marine mammals, giraffes, but these days he is working with domestic animals in the children’s zoo section of a large west coast zoo.

Working with wild animals has taught Kyle the importance of team work and cooperative care. He wants to bring what he has been learning from the wild animals to the handling of domestic animals. In part one Kyle introduces us to the animals who have been his teachers.

There’s Wyatt the wolf pup who developed cataracts and needed eye drops. There’s Maggie the sea lion. At 33 she was the oldest sea lion in a US zoo. She was rescued from a facility where she had had minimal handling. She now needed specialized care to see her comfortably through her geriatric years. And Rosie a giraffe who was injured as a young animal, who very much made her preferences known to the handlers involved in her on-going rehab. And Kie, another sea lion who taught Kyle to listen carefully to the animals in his care.

In this episode Kyle introduces us to his animal teachers and shares some of the important lessons they taught him.

There were so many titles I could have given this episode. Another good one would have been: “We Haven’t Known What We’ve Known”. That’s a quote from Dr. Jesús Rosales Ruiz. It refers to this huge jig saw puzzle we’ve all been working on that’s called animal training.

But in the end I decided to call the episode “Happy Alligator Toes” because how often do you get to use a title like that? You’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out what it means. What would you guess? I wonder if you are anywhere close. To find out, listen to the podcast.

Science Camp was held over the weekend of Feb 19-21. Dominique and I didn’t want it to end so we invited one of the participants, Lisa Clifton Bumpass to come share an afternoon’s conversation with us. Lisa is a dog trainer turned zoo consultant. She’s been a regular attendee at the horse clinics I give in Half Moon Bay CA. What Lisa learns from the horses she takes back to the teams she works with in zoos. It is so much fun to think that the work we’re doing with horses is helping giraffes and alligators and other exotic animals to live more comfortable lives.

In Part 1 of our conversation we talked about constructional training. This week we begin with the difference between extinguishing and abolishing a behavior. From there I ask Lisa to describe the team building she does in her consulting work. We got to watch a beautiful example of this at the beginning of Science Camp. One of the participants, Kyle Ketzel, works at the San Francisco zoo. He shared with us a video of one of the animals in his care.

Since it’s a zoo, you might expect that it would be a video of a giraffe or an elephant, but no. The animal Kyle wanted us to see is Slider, a steer who lives in the children’s zoo. After the fall Science Camp Kyle learned he had only two weeks to prepare Slider for foot care. If the procedure couldn’t be done safely with Slider cooperating calmly throughout, he would need to be sedated.

Kyle described Slider’s previous history with having his feet trimmed as a wrestling match, so Slider’s association with foot care was anything but positive. But what we saw was a relaxed animal who put his own foot up on the trimming block and who stood calmly participating in the procedure.

Three people were involved in the foot trim. Kyle was at Slider’s head so he was the one in charge of reinforcing Slider. A second keeper was kneeling by Slider’s bent knee. She was helping to steady his leg, but even more than that, she was monitoring Slider’s pulse. A third person was trimming his hooves. They were all communicating with one another and with Slider. It was a beautiful example of great team work and great training. I wanted to Lisa to describe the team building work that she does so that is primarily what we talked about in this week’s episode.