Lesedauer 6 Minuten  

Key points at a glance:

  • Complex tasks must be broken down into individual steps
  • Each step is trained and reinforced separately
  • The criteria are raised step by step
  • The individual parts are gradually joined together
  • Patience and precise timing are crucial
Contents Hide
1 Key points at a glance:
2 The art of shaping
3 Essential foundations
4 The training plan
5 Tips for successful training
6 Motivation management
7 Common challenges with complex tasks
8 Practical benefits

The art of shaping

Teaching a horse to lower its head politely when you want to put on the headcollar is one of the relatively simple tasks that can be achieved quickly with positive reinforcement and precise timing. With clicker training, however, you can also teach highly complex tasks — as long as you break them down into sufficiently small steps. Take “retrieving” a feed trough as an example. It’s a complex task made up of many separate actions. To us, it looks like a single action: “Bring me the trough.” For training purposes, though, we need to break it down into its basic building blocks and build it up step by step. This process is called “shaping” — gradually shaping the desired behaviour.

Essential foundations

Before we start the actual training, the horse should:

  • Clearly understand the click as a marker signal
  • Know the basic clicker rules (no begging for treats)
  • Be curious and motivated
  • Work with us in a trusting way

The training plan

It’s best to carry out this kind of learning exercise in a quiet environment, such as a round pen or an otherwise empty arena. Trying it in the turnout area will only distract our pupil with other horses. The same applies if other horses are being ridden or lunged in the arena at the same time. The fewer outside distractions there are, the better our horse can concentrate — and the quicker we will see progress.

Phase 1: Sparking interest in the object

First, the feed trough needs to become an interesting item for the horse. “Click” below always means “click and reward” — we’ve shortened it for easier reading. We start with:

  • Click for looking at the trough
  • Click for stepping towards the trough
  • Click for pointing the nose towards the trough
  • Click for every touch of the trough

Important in this phase: the horse should learn that interacting with the trough leads to positive outcomes. At the start, we click very generously for any sign of interest in the object.

Phase 2: Targeted interaction

Once the horse has understood that the trough is interesting, we encourage more active behaviour:

  • Click for nudging the trough with the nose
  • Click for stronger nudges that move the trough
  • Click for touching the trough with the lips
  • Click for opening the mouth on the trough

In this phase, we make sure the horse becomes more active and tries out different behaviours. We wait until each behaviour is reliably offered before raising the criteria.

Phase 3: Moving the trough

Now it gets exciting — the trough should start to move:

  • Click for lifting the edge of the trough with the lips
  • Click for holding on a little longer
  • Click for the first small movements of the trough
  • Click for more deliberate movements in one direction

This is often the most challenging phase. Some horses quickly try out different options, while others need more encouragement. The important thing is to mark every tiny bit of progress positively.

Phase 4: Learning to carry the trough

Once the horse can pick up the trough confidently:

  • Click for taking one step with the trough
  • Click for taking several steps
  • Click for changing direction
  • Click for carrying it to a specific point

Carrying the trough over longer distances usually develops on its own once the previous phases are well established.

Phase 5: Establishing the handover

The final step is teaching a clear handover:

  • Click for bringing the trough close to us
  • Click for putting it down in front of us
  • Click for releasing it cleanly
  • Click for completing the entire sequence

Phase 6: From exercise to reliable behaviour

Once all the individual parts work reliably, the exercise can be reinforced in different situations:

  • Different starting positions of the trough
  • Varying distances
  • Different environments
  • Introducing distractions
Horse eating from a trough on the ground
With clicker training, you can solve all sorts of problems or teach brilliant tricks © Adobe Stock / zanna_

Tips for successful training

Getting the timing right

With complex tasks, timing is especially important:

  • Mark the exact right moment
  • Don’t wait too long for improvements
  • Better to click too often than too rarely
  • If unsure, take a step back

Motivation management

To keep motivation high during complex tasks:

  • Never try to train the whole sequence in a single day
  • Keep sessions short and successful
  • Switch between phases
  • Reward achievements generously
  • Take a break if motivation starts to drop

Common challenges with complex tasks

The horse loses interest

  • Return to the last successful step
  • Lower the criteria temporarily
  • Check the quality of the rewards
  • Add occasional “jackpot” treats
  • Keep training sessions shorter

Frustration in the horse

  • Start with short, simple tasks
  • Immediately switch back to an easier exercise
  • Create moments of success
  • Redefine intermediate goals
  • Stay patient

Practical benefits

What may at first seem like a mere “circus trick” can be genuinely useful:

  • The horse learns to move objects in a controlled way
  • It develops problem-solving strategies
  • The partnership with the human is strengthened
  • Complex action chains become understandable

These skills also carry over into other areas of training, making the horse a more active, thinking partner.

It’s fascinating to watch a horse’s development when you start with very simple exercises and gradually increase the complexity. For example, you can easily practise hoof lifting with clicker training, even with a young horse. Once horses understand the basic principle, most of them are highly motivated to tackle more challenging tasks.

Training complex tasks with clicker training clearly demonstrates what horses can achieve when we break tasks down into manageable steps. Success depends on careful planning, precise marking, and patiently building each stage of the training process.


Team Sanoanimal
Latest posts by Team Sanoanimal (see all)