Click Clop - Equine Behaviour Consultant

15/10/2026

Our third session using the choice buttons, we stepped up the difficulty and presented both boards at once to really offer choice for the first time. Larry showed incredible understanding of the boards.
If you've been following my Instagram page you'll have seen that we have been using the boards regularly to give him control over rug use. He has chosen a few times to wear the rug but mostly chooses to not have it. 4th session will be posted soon along with an explanation of the paper I've based this training off of.

08/10/2026

This was the second training session for our choice buttons, I continued with the rug on symbol and introduced a waiting period after the rug was put on. This helps to create a connection between the symbol and the rug staying on. I then decided as he was progressing nicely, to also introduce the rug off symbol. This symbol would be easy to introduce as I could build it in to taking off the rug normally. Unlike in the study I'm basing the training off, I will not be putting Larry into an uncomfortable physiological state to facilitate his understanding of the consequences of wearing or not wearing the rug. If you would like to learn more about this study it is linked on my website (in the The Science page), or I can make a video discussing the paper at a later date

04/10/2026

We're entering the wet and windy season in England and I thought it was a good time to start Larry's training with choice buttons. Mejdell et al. 2016 researched if horses could choose whether or not to wear a rug using symbols to communicate. They trained them over a few weeks to touch a ⚫️ for stay the same, ✖️ for rug off, and ➖️ for rug on.
Larry is already familiar with target use so knows that touching something presented to him will give him a handful of chaff so I introduced the ➖️ rug on symbol in this first session.
If you want to know more about this paper, the link to it is on my website and I'd love to make a video discussing it some day.

01/10/2026

You can sometimes find equine uses for common pet items. LickiMats are brilliant for smearing molasses or other treats onto but don't discount the simple soaked grass nut or sugar beet. Really great for foraging enrichment but also a useful tool if you have a horse struggling emotionally with a task like clipping, farriery, or even loading as a longer high value reinforcer can help change the emotional perception of an event

01/10/2026

One of the few things I enjoy about owning horses in Autumn and Winter is the gorgeous sunsets when sorting them out in the evening. Something to consider when taking care of horses during the changing light is that horses night vision is better than ours but their ability to adapt to the light is worse. So if you're using a headtorch your horse will struggle to adapt their vision to the bright light, and then back to the dark which can be an added stress to them.

27/09/2026

What an absolutely fantastic event the professional horse trainers forum was yesterday, incredible presentations from a variety of speakers on some really interesting and novel topics. If you didn't manage to catch it's hopefully this becomes an annual event as the information was so incredibly important for both owners and professionals.

I found the presentation by Christa Culbert to be enlightening as I hadn't realised how much patterns described everything we do with horses and their learning. It has changed my perspective on creating training plans alongside incredibly insightful presentations on mounting block behavior, mental health, the abc's of horse training, when training goes wrong, and hoof care

21/09/2026

Enrichment doesn't need to be complex, different hay presentations using different heights and complexities can be something small towards enriching the environment.
These multipack bags are also great as they are a lot cheaper than buying individual blocks.
This is the start of my series on low cost DIY enrichment for horses and ponies, keeping it simple with £15 multipack hay blocks (£1.50 per block), a small net (I believe it was £2) and a branch that fell into our paddock (free)

19/09/2026

When we spend all day with horses who are educated and experienced we often forget how scary things can be. Young or naive horses can find things like sprays challenging as the sound, sensation, and smell can be offputting.
A good desensitisation technique can prevent horses from becoming sensitised early and allow them to be confident around new things.
Boop has been handled at liberty for all our spray training which makes something novel (spraying mane and tail) not scary at all!

18/09/2026

I have made a brief questionnaire about cost of living and equine care. I plan to make a more in depth blog post using the data from this questionnaire so please do share it. If you have any feedback on the questionnaire please let me know

This brief questionnaire will ask questions about your position in the equine industry and how the cost of living is impacting your ability to care for horses or work within the industry.

18/09/2026

I often see posts from people talking about "if you can't afford to meet your horses needs you shouldn't have a horse" however this is only part of the problem.

Last year my hay was £30 for a large bale, it went up to £80 over the late summer and only recently dropped to £60. I get through a bale every 5 days for 4 horses living out 24/7. And as the grass hasn't grown, thats almost all year.

Unexpected vet bills can quickly drain your bank. Livery costs rise, feed import becomes more expensive, other para professionals costs rise, fuel costs Skyrocket. It's not just about individual budgets.

Unfortunately we're in a time where everything has become exponentially more expensive and meeting basic welfare needs has become more difficult. I'm going to be doing some videos about budget friendly DIY enrichment and how to meet certain welfare standards without having to completely change your environment. For some people it isn't as simple as changing your yard to increase your horses access to turn out because the alternative is 5x the cost.

I'm also planning on doing some preliminary research into how the cost of living has impacted average equestrians costs and will be putting out a survey soon but please message me or comment if you want to share your experiences or how your managing costs.