Fun Friday: Teach your horse to Pick Up items

One of the most fun tricks I ever taught Kyra is to pick up items. It is very versatile too because once your horse can pick up stuff, you can teach them to hand it over. Kyra can now pick up and hand over a flower, her food bowl, my clicker, a dog toy, a whip and anything else she can grab with her teeth.

How to start

I started with something really easy to pick up for Kyra: a piece of cloth. In the beginning Kyra didn\’t know what to do with it, so I knotted a carrot in it. That stimulated her interest. I clicked and reinforced for small steps like touching and sniffing the cloth, then examining it with her lips and after a while she tried to grab it with her teeth. Yeey: jackpot! This took a lot of sessions, to be honest. From this early start I developed a clear strategy to set horses and people up for success if they want to train their horse to pick up items, so that they don\’t have to get stuck in this part of training.

Putting a cue on the behaviour

Once Kyra understood this new trick, she wanted to grab everything off of the ground. That is the reason I started with an item that was easy to distinguish: the cloth. The cloth itself became part of her \’cue\’. I didn\’t want her to grab my brushes or other day-to-day items. What did happen, so that\’s why it\’s important to know when you can start adding a cue (a \’final\’ cue) to the new behaviour. Once she learned what to do with the cloth I added my final cue to it, the verbal command \’Pick up\’ with a pointing finger to the object I want her to pick up. After Kyra learned the cue I started teaching her to pick up other items. I bought a dog rope toy that is safe and easy to grab. I wish this would have been my training object.

Shaping the behaviour further

Later on I practised with her empty food bowl, my gloves in winter, her halter, the lead rope and so on. It turned out that it is a very versatile exercise. Then I raised my criteria and I threw the item a step away. Now I only clicked and reinforced after picking up the item that was one step away. The next criterion was to move towards me one step with the item in her mouth. Then I taught her to hold the item until I could grab it. In this way she learned to put it in my hand instead of dropping it in front of me.

Play fetch with your horse

Now Kyra can fetch an item that I have thrown several meters away and bring it back to me. One day I asked her to pick up her toy while sitting on her back. She did it!  I use a treeless saddle, so I have to use a mounting block to get in the saddle.Wow, now I don\’t have to dismount anymore whenever I drop something from the saddle. Bonus! This week I stumbled upon a lovely video of a horse that picked up three rubber rings and put them on a cone. I don\’t have rubber rings, but I asked Kyra to put her toy in a bucket. That was fun too. Here are the videos of Kyra\’s tricks. Video 1: Kyra playing fetch from the saddle Video 2: Kyra giving me flowers (that would be a nice trick to perform one day) Video 3: Kyra putting her toy in a bucket Video 4: Kyra handing over her food bowl after eating If you like the videos go to YouTube and subscribe to my channel so you won\’t miss new clicker videos. HippoLogic Clicker Challenge October 2019: Teach Your Horse to Pick Up Items Join the Clicker Training Academy if you want to improve your clicker skills What is the HippoLogic CTA? It\’s an online place where you can learn to train every behaviour you have in mind with R+. We have a small, all-inclusive community in which students can thrive and develop.

• Professional, personal positive reinforcement advice on your training videos
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• Student levels are novice to very advanced clicker trainers

Join the HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy for personal advice and support in training your horse with positive reinforcement. The first 25 founding members get an additional 90-minute coaching session with me for free (value $150 CAD).

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

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