Peggy Hogan fell in love with horses at age 3. Alongside passion for horses, she began to train dogs. At age 15, Peggy owned a dog that was trained to respond to hand and verbal cues; she even found an agent for the dog!
Since those early days, Peggy has been devoted to improving communication with all animals, but her passion has remained with horses. She began to study Natural Horsemanship, but the use of pressure and negative reinforcement led her to hunt for something different. She immersed herself in the teachings of Peggy Cummings, a master clinician and founder of Connected Riding, and transformed her ability to stay connected with a horse on the ground and in the saddle. Now, Peggy uses Connected Riding with its emphasis on ease of movement and postural balance with alignment for both horses and humans.
Peggy heard about Alexandra Kurland who was using positive reinforcement in a technique called clicker training and achieving very clear communication with horses. Peggy saw the effects and knew clicker training was right for her. She began to watch and learn from clicker trainers of other species. She learned from renowned trainers, including Ken Ramirez and Dr. Susan Friedman.
Peggy investigated ways to add shaping, capturing, luring, and targeting—pressure-free techniques—to teach equine behavior. Peggy embraced the idea that horses would respond and offer behavior freely, if given the choice. Using positive reinforcement and offering more control to the animal have led her to the development phase of consent signals, start buttons, and requested behaviors.
When you watch Peggy's current videos, you will see horses, at liberty, offering behaviors that range from freestyle to agility to medical procedures. Peggy has trained full-sized horses as well as miniature horses; her techniques have been used to help rescued horses. Peggy's current goal is to share the steps for learning about clicker training, primarily the lesser-known techniques of shaping, capturing, luring, and targeting, all fueled by the horse’s control and power of choice. With clicker training, the horse owners can achieve wonderful results that, until now, were reserved for professional trainers. Peggy has been a guest speaker at ClickerExpo since 2013.
Learn more about Peggy on her website, her Facebook page, Instagram, or on Twitter.
