​We must remember, that as the trainer we are standing in front of the metaphorical mountain, looking up at our goal.  It's a bright sunny day, and we can see the various roads winding their way up.  It is clear to us where we're headed, and we're anticipating our arrival.  The horse, on the other hand, is standing at the bottom in the dark, with  a spotlight shining only a metre or so in front of his hooves.  He can only see far enough to take one step at a time, and has no idea what the end goal is.   It's crucial that we retain our empathy for just how difficult the learner's job actually is, and if we ever find ourselves beginning to think "oh come on! Why don't you just do it! It's obvious what I want you to do!", we should go away and smack our heads against the wall, then come back, apologise to our horse, and train better. 
(If you haven't played the Training Game before, you must try it! It's great fun and it gives you a real insight into what it actually feels like to be an animal being trained).

One more thing ​I’ll just put upfront right now: there are no fixed formulas.  Many people seem to want a recipe - simply complete step 1, then step 2, and you will have x result. But it doesn’t really work like that. Sorry.  Behaviour and training is a study of one (Dr Susan Friedman said that!). Each animal has different skill sets, talents and temperament, as do us trainers, and all these factors (and more) influence the outcome of each session. Bottom line is, there's many roads up the mountain. Treat your barn/arena/paddock as your laboratory - get out there and experiment. But! Do your horse and yourself a favour, and do some thinking and some PLANNING first, before unleashing your fanciful ideas and hopes and wishes upon your unsuspecting equine.

So, having just said above that a "step 1, step 2" approach is not appropriate, I am now going to set out some numbered steps for you to follow.  Ha!  

So you have an idea of something you want to train.  That being the case, here's some questions and prompts you can now ask yourself, so that you are clear and confident on how to get to your end goal.  If you're not clear on how to get there, then how is your poor horse ever going to be successful?  Don't leave him floundering in the dark while you wander around aimlessly.
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1.  What’s the end goal? Be specific!  
You’re not married to every detail, things may change as you go but you should be clear on how you want the behaviour to look when you’re finished.  This clarity is what enables you to make decisions as the shaping session progresses, rewarding one attempt but not another, gently steering the horse in the right direction as you build the picture you want to see. 

Specifics are important!  So don't just say "teach him to bow".  Instead say "bow with left cannon-bone resting on the ground, head lowered, with nose at knee level".  It's a really good idea to google images or video so you can see the different variations and visualise your end result.  To some extent your horse will decide how he wants to do it, and you can be guided by him, but it's best to start out with an idea at least.

​By way of example, below I have put a collection of bow photos (I googled 'horse trick "take a bow"').  This is just a few of the possible variations.  I have sorted them according to my personal preferences.  Look at the top row versus the bottom row - does one look more elegant and the other more effortful or extreme?  It does to me.  This is not a criticism of the trainers in question but simply a matter of style.  In many cases the photographs are a "moment in time" and the horse has probably moved through a variety of different angles and positions on its way into and out of the bow.  I have to admit though, some of these look downright dangerous to me (e.g. the ones where the front plane of the head is lying flat along the ground).   Regardless, you can see how this exercise helps you to build a picture of where you want to end up (and therefore, how you will get there).

​4a. What are his existing skill sets that can contribute?
Depending on the behaviour you're training, useful existing skill sets may include targeting, mats, liberty leading, picking up/holding objects, following a feel on a rope or mirroring your body movements etc. How can we use these to our advantage, to make it easier for our horse to be successful (and therefore make our training more efficient)? 

For example, if I want my horse to retrieve a letter from a letterbox, and he already knows how to pick up and hold an object, we are halfway there before we've even started.   If I want to hold a target near my horses hip and have him perform "carrot stretches" by keeping his nose on the target, I need to find a way to explain that he should keep his feet still and bend his neck around rather than disengage the hindquarters to follow the target as he naturally would want to do.  So I put a mat down and have him stand on that, before presenting the target where I want his nose to be for the stretch.

It is the trainer's responsibility to alter the environment, the props, the surroundings, the training space to ensure success for the horse.  Think creatively and constantly about this.

5. What objects or props do we need?  How shall we set them up?
In this context I am talking about objects ​we might be using as part of the behaviour.  So the letterbox or basketball hoop or pedestal etc.  Before you start training, and throughout the training process, examine how you can set these up to best help the horse.  For example, when I first taught Hokey to fetch a bottle from the chilly bin, I propped the lid up with a towel so he could more easily nudge it open.  I then quickly discovered I needed a way to hold the bottle upright inside the chilly bin, because he can only pick it up from the neck when it's sitting vertically and he often knocked it with his nose before getting a hold on it.  So I sat it in a small bucket wedged between two bricks.  Once we had the set-up working well, the training progress accelerated markedly.

• NO PRESSURE: ​Tricks are a fantastic opportunity to practice full focus, zero pressure training. This sort of training is like a beautiful flowing conversation between you and the animal. There is no risk of ego or ambition tainting your purpose; you'd be hard pressed to get even a little bit impatient or downcast if things don't go quite right when you're teaching your horse to smile. In contrast, if our overwhelming focus day after week after month is preparation for the next show we have already paid entry fees for, or fixing that problem behaviour, we are much more likely to pour on the pressure and the negative talk. The horse suffers for it. (Doesn't mean you can't compete. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do "serious" training. Just means you should be aware of the potential impact of doing nothing else but that).

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• KEY SKILLS: It's also a great way to practice timing and training plans and reinforcement schedules and adding cues and getting stimulus control and all that important stuff.

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• GOALS! With tricks you have a concrete, black and white goal you are working towards. Your dressage horse will never be "finished" (unless his name is Valegro in which case omg Charlotte what the hell are you doing reading my blog PLEASE leave a nice comment?!). There is always something more to work on, to improve upon, and that's precisely why so many of us love the sport. I know that Western and jumping are the same. BUT this complexity does make it more difficult to have clear criteria for each training session. With tricks, you hone your instincts by shaping a single specific behaviour and rapidly seeing the horse progress towards the goal (or not) as a result of your training choices. ​​

 

• "TRICKS"? An equally valid argument is that to the horse, it's all tricks. If you break up the components of basic groundwork and your chosen ridden discipline into small chunks (as you should, because you are a good trainer), then who decides what is "trick" and what is not? A clicker trained horse performing piaffe in hand at liberty... is that a trick? Or an advanced dressage movement? Certainly the horse doesn't differentiate, unless the training methods and/or the attitude of their human is different for one vs the other.   ​​