What is target training for horses and why is it great enrichment? If you’re looking for ways to build a strong relationship with your horse while teaching them a new skill, target training is for you. This simple behavior lets you get started with positive reinforcement training for horses in an easy way.
Target training is not only very useful for your horse’s care, it’s an excellent enrichment activity. Let’s take a look at what target training is and what it can offer your horse. Then scroll to the bottom for a video.
What is Target Training for Horses?
Target training, or targeting, is a behavior trained using positive reinforcement. A target is an object – usually a stick or baton – that the horse touches or approaches in order to get a reward. Wherever the target goes, the horse follows, and the trainer rewards the horse – usually with a tasty treat.
A target can take many shapes but often looks like a ball on the end of a stick. In fact, many positive reinforcement trainers repurpose crops or dressage whips into DIY handheld targets by adding a buoy or tennis ball to the end of the whip. Instead of moving away from the whip, the horse learns to move toward the target.
Usually, you’ll give the horse a treat when they touch their nose to the target. Some clicker trainers also teach horses to move other body parts, like the hindquarters, to the target.
Why is Target Training Good for Horses?
Targeting is a really good skill to teach your horse! We won’t get into too many details as this brief article is about using target training for horse enrichment. But in short, you can use targeting to shape many other behaviors as part of a positive reinforcement training plan.
If you don’t use positive reinforcement, don’t scroll away! This is one of the easiest but most useful skills you can train. You don’t have to be an equine clicker training pro to use target training. So why is this skill great for all kinds of horses?
Target training lets you guide your horse without pressure or force. You can use target training to position your horse’s head high or low for care, showing them where you need their head to be without pulling or forcing it down. You can also teach your horse to station in one place and hold still voluntarily using target training. This is ideal for veterinary or farrier services, or guide them toward new objects – and a lot more.
The best part is that it lets your horse be an active participant in whatever’s happening. From basic riding training to a major vet visit, teaching your horse to target does the job in a way that’s cooperative and less stressful for everyone.
But target training has other uses too – as equine enrichment! Just teaching your horse to target using shaping – which you might know as clicker training – is great mental stimulation. The horse in the video below makes it look easy, but learning to target and other positive reinforcement skills takes some brainpower for horses. Many horses seem to love the mental challenge of a good reward-based training session. It’s also a great way to bond with your horse.
Target Training for Horse Enrichment
Once your horse knows how to target, you can offer targeting sessions as a form of fun physical and mental enrichment. There’s endless variety in a fun target training session! You can teach and practice this skill anywhere, so you have lots of options for location. You can target train in the paddock, in an arena, at liberty outside the barn, and more.
Changing up the length of the session, the behaviors you ask for using the target, and the rewards in your bag create so much variation that your horse will probably never get tired of a good targeting session.
Enrichment is about encouraging your horse’s natural behaviors, and target training is great for promoting movement, proprioception and balance, and fine motor control. A targeting session can get your horse bending and stretching, or jogging around the field alongside you. For nonridden horses, activities like this can help keep your equine friends in shape in a willing, cooperative way. Exercise without using pressure or force? Sign us up!
Targeting is a behavior that can always be improved on. Once your horse knows the basics of touching the target, you can teach them more complex skills. Try following it as it moves, changing speed, or staying “at station” on their target for longer periods of time. Including sessions of known skills alongside more challenging activities can keep energetic horses engaged.
Target sessions can work alongside other enrichment that encourages movement, like pasture obstacles, poles, rolling treat toys, and track paddocks.
You can set up a simple target training session with your horse at any time – all you need is a target, some food rewards, and the knowledge to train your horse effectively. That last part is the important bit…
What You Need to Know First
It’s important to note that with great fun comes great responsibility! Target training is a simple behavior to teach and use, and it’s a great starting point if you want to explore positive reinforcement training. But you should take on all behaviors with the knowledge and commitment to teach your horse safely and humanely.
If you want to teach your horse to target but don’t have much experience with positive reinforcement or clicker training, try reaching out to a professional trainer. There are many highly skilled trainers with an online presence and free resources including videos to help you. If you can, try to find a force-free positive reinforcement trainer to show you in person or teach you virtually. My hope is to have resources on this site for basic positive reinforcement skills soon, so do check back!
Horse Targeting in Action
This video shows targeting in action! The original audio had to be removed because the sound of cicadas was overwhelming (yes, really), so you won’t be able to hear the whistle that signals to the horse that his targeting was correct and a treat is on the way. This trainer uses a whistle but you may be more familiar with a clicker (as in clicker training). There’s a mix of simple reaching for the target and following a moving target, and lots of emphasis on taking the treats politely and gently. It’s a myth that training with food makes horses pushy or food-aggressive, as this video definitely shows.
Do you have any training stories to share? We want to hear about it in the comments!