As soon as we use our bridge signal we need to promptly deliver the treat, but how? Which way is best? This isn’t an exhaustive list, just some options and things to consider, to help you pick the approach best for you and your horse in each situation.
First, remember not to mess with your treat pouch until after you bridge/click. Otherwise touching your treat pouch can become an inadvertent bridge and may distract or confuse your horse. So, try not to grab the treats until after the bridge.
Generally, we want to feed the horse for their position. This is best for when the horse is still learning food manners and working on simple, still behaviors. This means click, get the treat, then feed where you want the horse to be. If you are teaching the horse to face forward, feed with their face forward. If the horse turned to face you when you clicked, that’s fine, just keep your hand closed and extend your arm past the horse to where they should be. The horse will learn its easier to stay in position and wait for the food to be delivered to them.
You can also feed to reset the position. Feed the horse to restart the pattern of the behavior you’re working on. So for example, cue back up, they back up a few steps, click so they come forward again to get the food. You create a yoyo. You can do this when working in small spaces or if you need the horse to shift to restart the behavior they’re doing.
Open bar/Closed bar is when you feed repeatedly while the horse is doing what you want, then stop when they stop doing the desired behavior. This is a fabulous approach when you need to get duration on a behavior or keep a horse’s focus while something uncomfortable happens that they aren’t prepared for, like a vet or farrier. When we don’t have time to build duration properly or counter condition these difficult things.
You can also trickle feed for the same purposes. Trickle feeding is when you slowly slip food out of your fingers, keeping them focused on working the food out of your hand. You can also use a lick toy or treatball that keeps them focused on eating the food. This also works well for developing movement with horses who are anxious with movement behaviors.
We can feed for movement with trickle feeding to lure specific movements. We can also use feeding a little more forward or a little more backwards to encourage a few more steps. This becomes especially helpful when riding, so the horse knows its ok to take a few slow steps rather than slamming on the brakes for the treat if you’re asking for left, feed a little more to the left, and so on in any direction.
We can also use tossing treats in buckets for riding, driving, agility, reverse round pen and so on. The horse learns that after the click to go to the next bucket to eat it. This encourages a bit more movement and helps with movement anxiety and sudden stops. It can also be a fabulous option for working on stationary behaviors where you want to move around them but they stay still, being able to toss the treat in the bucket so they stay still can help. This is also great for horses who aren’t ready to come up close and eat from our hands.
We don’t need to toss in buckets when riding, we can also just reach down and feed them. If you’ve been very deliberate about feed position you might need to teach your horse you actually want them to reach around to get the treat, but most figure it out quickly!
