training talk || v.2 open

[Faded...]

@astro. lol Goats are odd lol Some goats are really stubborn some are really slow and some are energetic lol Twinkle is stubborn but will do most things for a treat

[cornspurrd.]

I've been training my cat a little bit recently. He gets uninterested quick so sessions are 3-5 mins long but he knows sit, stick em up, and he's learning spin.

He has this little pom pom toy that he likes alot, so I'm going to buy another one and glue it to a plastic stick to make a target. Hopefully I can use it to better lure Leo into doing some tricks :)

[Mycorrhizae]

I've been training my cat a little bit recently. He gets uninterested quick so sessions are 3-5 mins long but he knows sit, stick em up, and he's learning spin.

He has this little pom pom toy that he likes alot, so I'm going to buy another one and glue it to a plastic stick to make a target. Hopefully I can use it to better lure Leo into doing some tricks

That's a good session length for cats! I think the longest I've ever done with a cat is ten minutes, and that was for an attention motivated cat. Target training with cats is a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. All my cat does is follow the target, but at least it's a good base if I want her to do something more.

[caf.]

small riding update from me, since i feel like i need to do a better job for myself of analyzing my rides and all. my coach set up a small gymnastic for us this week since we haven't done one in a long while, and i rode it both Sunday and Monday. Jazz surprised me this week; he was putting in the same number of strides as the big horses, and overall seemed to handle himself very well despite the fact that grids tend to make him (and me) very anxious since they're so claustrophobic.

ironically, i was super pleased with him when i did end up coming off. in one of the last lines of the Sunday lesson, i swung my seat out to the right and leaned left through a left-hand turn to try and counterbalance, as i thought he was going to drop the left shoulder and motorcycle through the turn, but he instead dropped his right shoulder and shot out from underneath me (which is totally my fault - i knew it as soon as i did it). i managed to hand on with one rein and one hand, and i was so proud of him when he cantered for a few strides, realized i wasn't going to get back up, and slowed to a halt. even when i just kinda gave up and dropped off of him, he really didn't move. that's been an overall improvement, really - even at the cross-country schooling a few months ago when i popped off and my air vest deployed (if you're not familiar with those, it's sort of a wearable airbag - it's really loud and very startling when it goes off), he just backed up a few steps and then hung out and waited for me to come get him. it shows that he's getting more bombproof - these major events just aren't shaking him up as much as they used to - and that he trusts me more, since when something goes wrong like that, instead of running off like a crazy horse he just waits for me to retrieve him and give him an instruction. that feels like a weird thing to be proud of, but knowing how i like to take him on trails alone and all, it makes me feel better knowing that he's less and less likely to ditch me if something bad happens. plus, if i ever put kids on him when he's much older, it's nice to know he's starting to pick up on slowing down and stopping when a rider starts losing control.

the actual jumping still needs work, as always, but it markedly improved over the course of the two lessons. the turns were our weak spot, but by the end of the Monday lesson he was reliably waiting on me to direct him and turning in a relatively balanced manner. he could still serve to slow down a little going down the line, but i'll give it to him considering his striding was still technically correct. one of my good friends also jumped him tonight through the same grid - i didn't see her lesson, but she said it went really well.

anyway, that's plenty enough rambling from me. how's about a new topic question to get discussion rolling again?

How smart do you think your animals are? Does that help or hinder your training efforts?

Jazz is a really intelligent little horse - i'm not sure why that is, perhaps he has some cowhorse in him? it makes my job harder in his case - my main pet peeve with him is his habit of anticipating what i'm trying to ask. i remember the time i taught him walk-to-canter - i couldn't walk him in a straight line for weeks because he'd shoot off into the canter with the slightest motion of my hips. it's definitely irritating in a lesson scenario, where we mostly drill the same thing over and over - he stops paying attention after the first two reps and just tries to guess what comes next. i feel that his intelligence also predisposes him to spooking at things other horses wouldn't even notice - he's still really skittish about that One corner of the arena where a saddle pad blew at him One Time.

my dogs...bless them, neither of them is really that bright. i think the sheltie's a little smarter than the mix, but both of them make training a challenge. i'm actually not sure if the sheltie's really as dumb as i think he is or if he's just uninterested in training - he picked up sit and lie down really quickly, but he just doesn't seem to 'get' anything else i try and teach him. the mix is preciously confused - his first trick was 'shake' since he already likes to paw at people and i thought it would be cute to put it on command, but now it's just his go-to move for whenever he doesn't get what i'm asking. it makes me crack up every time, how he just quietly stares at your hand and slowly puts his paw on it, but he doesn't seem to grasp the concept of a treat lure just yet. hopefully, it's something that will improve with time - he is three or four now, but i think he still has some growing up to do mentally.

there i go again, off on my tangents. what about y'all?

[Winstalgia]

How smart do you think your animals are? Does that help or hinder your training efforts?

Both. Marty isn't too smart and in tough problems he gives up quickly. It doesn't help in training but it doesn't make it difficult either.

Stella is smart but it's a pain. My grandpa taught her to roll over. So when I tell her to sit she drops into paying down and then instantly rolls over. It's annoying when all I want her to do is sit.

[Mycorrhizae]

How smart do you think your animals are? Does that help or hinder your training efforts?

In some ways, "smarter" animals are easier to train. They'll pick up on what they need to learn faster and you can sometimes even skip a few steps. Downside is, they know exactly what they're doing. So they do the behavior before you ask them. And it's just, no, you need to wait until I tell you. Or they'll do something that's technically correct, but not what you had in mind. A "dumb" animal might take a bit longer to learn the behavior, but I feel like once they learn it and you keep up with it, they're not going to get too creative with it.

Of course, measuring animal intelligence is really hard. I know a lot of people think a dog that learns a lot of tricks and does them well is smart, but like I said, a less intelligent animal can do it and usually fairly reliably. A lot of people (older ones, mostly, who tend to have a different view of animals) think my dog is dumb as a box of rocks. Because she doesn't always do what she's told. She knows the commands, but she will decide if it's worth it or not to actually do what you want. She also only reliably listens to me since I trained her. Drives my family mad, but I told them they need to work with her if they wanted her to listen, but they never did. So they think she's dumb. But this dog also learned how to open doors on her own and even dragged things around the kitchen so she could jump on counters. So she is smart. But she chooses to use her intelligence in ways that suit her.

I have worked with some animals that are truly dumb. As in legit brain damaged. And that is extremely difficult. Of course, in that case, it's also the fact that you can't tell what the animal is thinking even if you know the species pretty well. If there's something wrong in the head, then the animal's behavior will be off which means you need to really learn that individual really well. In those cases, I also have the problem where I think they actually forget what they learned so it's really slow going.

But the hardest animals I have ever worked with were also the smartest, which were crows. I had to sit with one of them for hours every day for a month before she was even comfortable with me being around her. It took us three or four months to get to the point where I could walk up to her and touch her feet and have her remain calm. Or she'd come over to me to get a treat. If I had the time, I probably could have gotten her to the point where she could be handled in another few months but she went to another facility with someone who could work with her every day.

[cornspurrd.]

.How smart do you think your animals are? Does that help or hinder your training efforts?

oh My..I have the smartest dog ever? Catches on to everything I teach him very very fast. It's good and bad. He's not challenging me as a trainer, he isn't teaching me anything. He's a great first dog but I'm wanting to learn more as this is the first time I've trained a dog, and I still don't know much about training despite how much my dog knows.

My dad said today he'd take me to home depot, whether or not that will actually happen is slim. But!! If we do we'll get some pvc's to have 6 weaves rather than four, and a few more jumps. Ekeemdjdd.

[Winstalgia]

Anyone have tips or something for teaching dogs to shut up/hush?

Oh and I'm going to start training Talisker (Tally, the new kitten) how to sit and do simple tricks.

[Faded...]

I was so exited i got my horse Cisco to do liberty really well and riding with no tack while at a canter and still listening

[Winstalgia]

I was so exited i got my horse Cisco to do liberty really well and riding with no tack while at a canter and still listening

that's great!

Glad someone posted... I wanted to but didn't have anything to say.