If Your Surgeon was Clicker Trained, Why Not Your Horse?
Posted by
Robin Foster, PhD, Cert. Applied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB), Cert. Horse Behavior Consultant (CHBC)
An orthopedic surgeon is using clicker training to teach medical students surgical techniques. Learn more about clicker training and how it can help your horse learn, too.
In horses, clickers can help train performance skills in-hand and under saddle, as well as develop polite ground manners and self-control. | Photo: Alexandra Beckstett/The Horse
A clicker is a small, inexpensive, colorful, plastic sound maker, which looks for all the world like a child’s party favor. This tool was introduced into dog and marine mammal training four decades ago with sweeping success. In contrast, horse owners and trainers have been slow to adopt clickers into mainstream training practices.
Clickers have been used to help people become better dancers, golfers, and even surgeons. Earlier this month National Public Radio science correspondent Shankar Vedantam interviewed I. Martin Levy, MD, a physician who has incorporated the clicker into surgical skills training. Levy serves as Orthopaedic Surgery Residency Program director at Montefiore Medical Center, in the Bronx, New York.
At one point during the interview, Levy demonstrated the use of a clicker to teach a medical resident how to tie a surgical slider knot
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Robin Foster, PhD, CAAB, IAABC-Certified Equine Behavior Consultant holds a doctorate in animal behavior and has taught courses in animal learning and behavior for more than 30 years and currently teaches university courses in equine behavior and welfare at Virginia Tech and the University of Guelph. Robin’s research looks at equine learning and behavior. She also provides in person and remote behavior consultations.
If Your Surgeon was Clicker Trained, Why Not Your Horse?
Clickers have been used to help people become better dancers, golfers, and even surgeons. Earlier this month National Public Radio science correspondent Shankar Vedantam interviewed I. Martin Levy, MD, a physician who has incorporated the clicker into surgical skills training. Levy serves as Orthopaedic Surgery Residency Program director at Montefiore Medical Center, in the Bronx, New York.
Editor’s note: Listen to Vedantam’s short interview with Levi from NPR’s Morning Edition (6 minutes), or his full NPR’s Hidden Brain segment “When Everything Clicks: The Power of Judgment-Free Learning” (51 minutes).
At one point during the interview, Levy demonstrated the use of a clicker to teach a medical resident how to tie a surgical slider knot
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Written by:
Robin Foster, PhD, Cert. Applied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB), Cert. Horse Behavior Consultant (CHBC)
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