Yesterday morning I again went to play with Billy. This was an early session as I had to leave for work mid morning. In fact I am writing this in Hyderabad !!
We all know that some of the Parelli techniques can spook untrained horses, particularly the waving of the stick and string. As a result I am always very careful around the yard to respect the presence of others. This can prove inhibiting at times, especially on wet days when everyone wants to use the indoor school. I tend to wait until late evening in this case, or take the horse for a walk in the surrounding fields.
In the big field that houses Billy at the moment there are however two other horses, an older dominant mare and a young filly, so I have had no choice but to play with them around. To start with they were startled by the training, but the field is big enough for them to not feel trapped and be able to move away. The filly has however shown increasing interest recently, to the point of continually getting in the way, which is a bit of a pain. I have had to drive her out of the way on more than one occasion, but this seems to improve my standing in Billy's eyes. On one occasion, previously mentioned, I drove the mare away which caused a profound change in Billy's attitude to me.
Today, however, as I entered the field the filly and mare were lying down, only Billy was grazing / on guard. I expected them to get up but they remained where they were, and so I continued to cause Billy to catch me and we started playing. We started with reinforcement of the normal set of games and moved on to more circling. We were quite close to where the filly was lying and so I expected her to get up as the energy of our games increased. Then I heard an odd noise. Looking around the filly was now flat out and snoring !! Now I am used to being ignored, but really.
From circling we progressed to some more leading work. Up to now Billy has at best walked with his nose next to my shoulder, or just behind. I wanted to progress to the point where he would confidently walk alongside me such that I was next to zone 3. This puts his nose out in front of mine and thus requires more confidence on his part to meet new experiences before his leader. It is of course the position I will be in when riding him as well, so in a way this is his first steps to being backed.
To achieve this I rest the carrot stick lightly on his withers, if he gets behind me the stick is lifted up and moved over his hindquarters, phase 1 (p1). If he does not move forward the stick is moved up and down in the air, phase 2 (p2). Still no response and he his rhythmically, lightly tapped, phase 3 (p3). Finally the firmness is increased, phase 4 (p4). This procedure is awkward. A more flexible shoulder would be a great advantage as tapping the hind quarters whilst facing forward means moving the arm backwards to an uncomfortable degree. I have to face forwards as the direction in which I look is the signal as to direction to move in.
I thought this might prove difficult, but in practise he rapidly learned to move up on my shoulder so that his nose/head was in front. Directing him is then a matter of turning my head to look in the new direction (p1), turning my body to move in the new direction (p2), using the stick alongside the head if turning into him (p3) and finally tapping the neck/head with stick (p4). This is again leading up to the aids that will be used in the saddle when riding freestyle.
We never actually got back as far as zone 3, but well into zone 2 was a good start.
His reverse however is getting really really good. Just walking backwards in zone 2 made him stay in tight formation with me for many paces. Not quite straight, but compared to the Filly, very good indeed.
The preparation for backing continued with the drunken man walk. This consists of walking around in a very unsteady fashion and winding up lightly bumping into his whithers and giving him a nice scratch. This is to prepare him for people preparing to mount, and in general being clumsy around him. I am planning on walking him to the pub at Christmas after all.
Desperately hoping that no one in the local houses was watching I started. He looked a little startled at first so I did the approach and retreat method. Wobbling towards him then away. Even leading him backwards in a very unsteady fashion so that he had to follow me. After a few minutes of this I could walk all the way into his whithers and lightly bump him, with only a slightly unconfident look on his face, or was it a look of profound pity for me having gone mad ?
To up the pressure a little more I then started skipping around him, again retreating initially and eventually going up to his whithers and jumping up and down next to him. Again preparation for mounting later. This was to say the least hard work. The principle of him moving more than me having been reversed, and it is fair to say that I was a little sweaty at the end.
Neither of these procedures were completely straight forward, with him backing away several times. By closely observing his reactions I could just keep the upping the pressure and then releasing so that we slowly moved his threshold of fear towards him until I could stand next to him and continue jumping. The reward was of course the nice long scratch on the whithers.
I am continuing to read about the subject and have now moved onto another of Robert Miller's books "Understanding the Ancient Secrets of the Horses Mind". This is again a fantastic read with huge amounts of information on horse behaviour. To be honest I am learning so much that I find it difficult to understand how it is possible to effectively train a horse without a deep understanding of this subject. I have discovered that many of my assumptions about behaviour have been profoundly wrong and have in hindsight lead to mistakes on my part. But learning any subject without making errors is impossible. I really look forward to applying the new knowledge to my training. Remember that this is about my "journey" in natural horsemanship, these books feel like someone has kindly stopped to give me a lift for a part of that journey.
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