Clicker training Rubic + General update

Tomorrow we talk with Aileen the animal communicator. I'll give you an update them.

Today I started Rubic, the horse I ride, on clicker training. He was frightened of the box clicker and jumped back so I switched to the iclick. That was better, he was still more wary than dogs or Niko. But that could have been he wasn't used to the concept of getting his own rewards. By the end, I think he mostly got the target the end of the crop idea. I think he thought he had to target close to where my hand was holding it which isn't quite right. He was less pushy than I thought he'd be. We'll see where this goes.

I really like Alexandra Kurland's book on CTing horses. Her writing style and voice is so positive and clickerly. No trace of "you're cruel to use harsh methods" and very encouraging of any use of the clicker or clicker concepts. It's also a very good rewriting of Don't Shoot the Dog. I'd imagine some people might have an easier time with her version than with Karen Pryor's, though both are very readable.

Yesterday a guy came to gave us a driveway quote and I worked with Tom and he didn't react at all. Uh, wow! His normal pattern is to react a bit, barking, looking out the window, and then within a minute or two be redirected and after that be fairly focused on treats with maybe one or two slight reactions if the stimulus increases, but it's easy to redirect after the initial redirection. However, I had him in my room with me yesterday and was able to keep his attention on me by starting eye contact as soon as the guy pulled in and skipped any early reaction. That's probably the way it should be all the time. But it takes a lot more effort to be prepared.

Still have to figure out the Niko food adventure. He was on canned for a while and then he broke into the dog's Pet Promise dry and liked that better. I didn't put it away for a couple days and he preferred that to his fish canned. Rargh! Then, Mother brought out the prescription food she bought from the vet around the time of his diagnosis and he's been eating that which he seems to like okay. I tried to figure out why he liked the dog food better. Possible reasons: higher meat contact, chicken flavor (the prescription is part chicken part pork), breaking into food is more fun. There are probably others but that's what I came up with. I read the ingredients on the prescription dry and was quite annoyed. Beginning ingredient list: Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken By-Product Meal, Pork Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Chicken, Chicken Liver Flavor, Fish Oil. Um ahem! My understanding of bladdar inflamation according to the holistic vet books is that it is caused by grain based pet foods. This food has not one but two non meat items as its first ingredients! And corn gluten meal isn't even a whole food. Growls. Obviously Niko should probably go back to eating canned, but we have this bag of the prescription cat food. I'm tempted to only use it as treats since I'm pretty sure you can't donate prescription food.