As you may guess from the title more catching game was played with Billy. He seems to be getting the message that if he sticks to me all pressure is off, but if he runs away a predator suddenly materialises in the field.
It was a difficult session though, probably as a result of having no sleep for around 32 hours before playing. I was not quite as sharp as I needed to be. We still had some good moments when he would walk next to me for minutes at a time, then suddenly something would break the bond and he would canter away in a nice right brain exhibition. I wish I knew what signal I am giving out to have this happen, could be I am actually just boring him with the stick to me game, or an external influence acts as a catalyst. We did manage to walk the entire length of the field, about 200 meters with some really nice stops and backups, all at liberty. I know it is pushing things to play at liberty this early on with Billy, but I feel that if it can be done it strengthens his bond with me much quicker than coercion online.
It is so different to playing with Filly and really drives home the fact that these horsenalities really exist and are very important to understand to get the best out of the horse.
I then went and played a bit with Filly. I have been working on the one leg restraint using a thick rope as shown in Pat Parellis' farrier DVD. To say it is not a problem with her is an understatement. She almost holds the leg up herself as I wrap the rope around the knee. When I entered the box today she was a bit feisty, but a couple of minutes of this on each front leg and she transformed into a really gentle well behaved filly. It is in effect the same as just holding the leg up with the hand, but much less tiring on the back and thighs. It's applied in such a way that a quick flick of the wrist and it falls off over the front of the knee so there is no more risk of injury to the horse than holding the leg with the hand, but a lot less chance of injury to me.
We then moved to the indoor school where a cone had a nasty habit of chasing us again, which was a bit scary to start with. I am using approach and retreat with this training.
Another method called flooding is a way of desensitizing the horse to a stimulus by just keep applying it however scared they get until they slowly relax and settle down as they realise it won't hurt them. Then keep going for a long time to really make the lesson of desensitisation stick. In the old days it was called "sacking out". The snag with this is that it creates a really right brain extroverted horse for a while which could cause injury to Filly and/or me.
Flooding is a very quick method but I prefer approach and retreat as I am a coward at times. In this method the stimulus is applied gradually and removed quickly as soon as the horse looks a bit too wary. Slowly the threshold of approach gets closer until they can touch the object, or in this case it was touching her hind legs as we walked. As I mentioned in a previous post I am doing this by drawing the dragging cone closer and then letting it drift back. A bit tricky handling two 22 foot ropes, one for her and one for the cone, and a carrot stick, but doable with thought and planning. This time I took a leaf out of the flooding procedure and carried on the approach and retreat long after acceptance had crept in. I hope that this will reinforce the desensitisation so that it will last longer, but I think we both got a bit bored walking up and down the school. It was the aim to make her bored with the cone of course.
Quick update on her YoYo. WOW what an improvement. She now backs up with energy when I get to, at most, phase 2. Much more importantly there is no sign of defiance on her face which was my real aim.
It is also interesting how all this training is transferring over into box manners as well. She used to be really difficult at feed time, with ears back and teeth out. Today she patiently waited as I took the halter off and placed the food on the floor of the box. I'm not saying she was wearing a halo, but at least the trident tail and horns weren't out. So much better than when I had to go in with a carrot stick for self defence.
One last note : I have nearly finished writing a simple database program for windows that allows me to keep horsenality charts on the pc. Importantly it asks the questions that are on the chart without you being able to see which part of the chart the question comes from. The idea is to prevent bias creeping into the result. If you want a mild LBE (who doesn't ?) then using a chart you maybe tempted, even subconsciously, to put the ticks in the appropriate places to get one. With the program that is no longer possible so the chart is more objective. Multiple horses can be entered and multiple charts stored for each horse. It is in early stages of debugging at the moment and my guess is that the finished article will be available sometime after Christmas. Could you comment if interested so that I can get an idea as to how many people want a copy. If it is only me then I can live with a few bugs and stop development early !!
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