Trainer in Training Doing Some Training

Our family, meaning me!, has been immersed in clicker training for the last few weeks.

It’s good when spouses can share passions, by which I mean that we can both be totally obsessed with our individual passions and not mind that the other is preoccupied. He is still working at the tractor GPS thing and I have the horses.

I finally took the plunge and  got the horse tricks 101 academy. The Goblin Child has been watching the videos with me, a little, she has the attention span of a gnat. We saw a horse playing with a ball and I told her we could teach Princess Onna to do that. I didn’t realize she would remember much less with such enthusiasm. I thought I would sneak out and get Onna started so G.C. would be able to see more progress when we tried together. I expected Onna to respond well, or at all.

The first time I messed with her she stood looking at me blankly. I was getting decidedly worried about being able to keep my promise. Fortunately I was able to work with her a couple of times and she started to get it.

We, both children and I, were going out for a ride. I had all three horses tied to the pickup, the proper two saddled, and realized I had to put one of them away. I told G.C. to make sure 8 didn’t get under the horses. I ran Rusty back to the pen and got back to find G.C. giving 8 cereal. She informed me that it was like clicker training, she gave him food and he followed her.

But that’s not the full story of our young trainer in training.