Merc shaping eye targeting 6 Aug 23

I did this quick video about Cooperative Care training and specifically cleaning or wiping eyes.
I wanted to show that I use my clicker to give Mercedes information, as well as where I feed, where I stand and how I present my hand.
I don't move my hand towards her, she moves towards my hand. This is very important if we want the horse to volunteer to participate, ie cooperative training. In this way, if they are slow to do the behaviour, what we call high latency, then we know they're not feeling ok about it and we can do something differently or give the horse a break or take a step back in our criteria.
After these sessions, I would then work on duration, where she rests her eye on my hand for longer amounts of time. Then I would introduce the next step, either wearing a glove, or holding some kind of cloth. When we raise the criteria in this way, we lower our criteria (expectation) of what she's previously offered and start with whatever she offers as far as moving her eye to my hand and shape it back to some nice duration with her eye pressed on my hand. Next criteria (step) might be dampening the cloth slightly, or wriggling a finger slightly, or pressing the eye lids apart slightly. They're all approximations towards the goal behaviour of being able to wipe or clean or inspect the eye or insert ointment.