Qucik note today as no much to report.
Played with Billy to start with as we can have 2 horses in the school at the same time. So Billy and Bonitao were bought in. Ritchie had a lovely session with Bonitao and I played with Billy. Playing with more than one horse around is good for teaching Billy to maintain concentration on his herd leader, me (sometimes !).
A previous session had Billy being very unconfident but then there had been snow blowing through the indoor school, he had not been out for days and just generally felt unhappy with life. Yesterday they all went out in the fields and as a result he was a different horse. It is important to remember to play with the horse that turns up and not get frustrated because they are not the same horse as yesterday. As a result when he was unconfident I through my lesson plan out and did an impromptu confidence lesson, but yesterday after a quick evaluation I could continue with the lessons needed prior ro backing him.
As for Filly she was much much better, probably partly due to a day in the field. I did all the usual preparation including placing the feet, touching all over but emphasising even more the fact that she moves her feet and I stand still. It is a good exercise in control to try and pick out all your horses hooves making sure that at least one of your feet is anchored to the spot. Even when you change sides ! Same for touch all over. Can you groom your horse without moving your feet ? The principle behind this is control of the horses movement. Don't forget that many of the horses games are lost by the horse that moves its' feet first, so I am mimicking this behaviour and making sure I win.
We then moved to the online direct/indirect rein exercise, but to generalise the submissive behaviour I handed this over to Ritchie.
By generalise I mean that the behaviour should be fixed in different places and with different people. At least 3 or 4 different locations should be used and ideally 3 or 4 people. We can only use one location at the moment due to the snow and only Ritchie is available for the other person !
It was interesting that she also had a few dominance problems, with some spirited attempts to kick her, but after 20 minutes of playing this passed and Filly assumed the same submissive attitude she now has with me. To end the session I had a bit of fun at liberty with her, with just a few little dominance challenges, soon corrected. I am getting more confident that we are moving in the right direction with her and she is going through a stage where she not only needs but wants a little bit if firmness in her training to feel that she has a leader.
We have to balance the "Love, Language and Leadership" trio and at the moment she needs more Leadership. It actually seems to be helping the Love part as well.
Please don't think that I am advocating dominating your horse through fear and intimidation, I am not. However not showing firmness WHEN required and trying to always win through love does not lead to a balanced relationship. It does not demonstrate your leadership qualities to the horse and so the trio becomes unbalanced. There are other important ways to establish respect and leadership including being very provocative in the play, inventing new and exciting games, changing games rapidly (with a LB horse) and most importantly controlling movement.
With a horse like Filly this will be a continuing balancing act. She will always be trying to test her dominance. Every moment she is saying "Am I boss ?" No Filly "What about now?" No Filly "Is it my turn now ?" No Filly and so on. Believe me that previous sentence is exactly what playing with Filly feels like and I love it !! I must be a bit odd I guess.
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