Chrome's Dinner Manners

I was going to get the video for this yesterday but I got held up at work until after dark so I couldn't get the video I needed. I just wanted to share a video of Chrome backing up for his dinner. He had started crowding me and making ugly faces so I taught him to back up instead. As you will see in the video he's learned it so well that he wouldn't even approach his bucket (which is what I want), but I wanted to show off his backing so I lured him forward with a handful of feed. Once he was next to me I asked him to back up. He started to come back forward before I told him he could so you get to see him do it twice. :D

This was taught without a halter, lead or whip. I used solely body language to teach it and his dinner as a reward. I could have taught it with clicker training, but I've just been so busy I only have a couple of minutes and it was easier to just do it this way. Now that he's learned to stand several feet away I'm going to use clicker training to teach him to put his ears forward so I can have him stand back, put his ears forward and then release him so he can eat. I don't like the grumpy faces he's been giving me, so I'm going to do that purely for aesthetic reasons. :)

So anyway here is the video.



Sorry my lens was dirty. I actually dropped it (YIKES!!!!) and forgot to clean the lens off because I was so worried that I'd broken it. Luckily it's fine. So what do you think of the super polite colt? :D