Shangrila Llamas

Using Click and Reward for the Tunnel Obstacle

Harry made us this wonderful tunnel obstacle.  Deirdre Martin and I tried it out for the first time this morning. It has been in their pasture for a few days so they weren’t scared to approach it. But no one had voluntarily gone in it. 

The other boys were not so willing. We took them through it with halters and leads.

It was easy to get them to duck down to touch my hand using Click and Reward.  

They had to keep their head down and in the tunnel to finish eating their reward.

I backed further into the tunnel keeping them on a very loose lead and they again touched my hand on command were clicked and ate their reward.

Each boy handled it a little differently. Raphael stopped in the middle of the tunnel.  It took me a minute to realize that he wanted me out of the way to get out of the tunnel.  I was going too slow!

For the next touch they followed my hand out of the tunnel and received their reward.

It took very little time and the next time through they just followed my hand all the way through.

The second time through, I faced forward and they just followed me through to get a click and reward outside of the tunnel.

Then we worked on going through it faster with no hesitation.

Deirdre would shake the Tunnel to proof them against the noise wind or someone bumping into might make.

This made a great obstacle to get them to follow us anywhere.  Deirdre plans on covering one end next so that they have to go into a cave as opposed to an open ended tunnel.

W also took them through in the other direction.  It is important to go both directions.   They can get very one sided with obstacles, especially with jumps.

We had a great time playing with our new obstacle. Since we were already out there we then took them over the jumps and through the tires. We picked up feet, showed teeth and other general training that we wouldn’t have done had we not already had them on lead. 

Click here to see an article on the last Clicker clinic.
Click here to see an article on Using Click and Reward at Public Events.