After the last episode with Billy which resulted in a very right brain episode when I tried to mount from the ground I needed to carefully consider my next move. In a way it was fortunate that I had to go to Hyderabad in India for a 5 day trip. This gave me more than ample time to analyse the situation whilst eating curry for breakfast (it's true they serve curry for breakfast !), lunch and dinner.
Now I have repeatedly said the plan provides an analytical tool for solving just this sort of problem. So let's break the problem down into component parts.
1) He initially was happy when I put my foot up into the stirrup.
2) He was initially happy when I bounced round to face forwards
3) He exploded when I tried to stand up in the stirrup
4) This then lead to him not being happy with my foot being placed in the stirrup at all and it took considerable time to get back to that point
5) Even after all this he was happy, even very willing, to allow me to mount from the mounting block and ride him.
This has to all be considered in the context of the sections in the plan prior to "Mount with Savvy", so let's take them one at a time.
"Have the horse catch you". No problems there at all. Once on the mounting block he walked over at liberty to allow me to mount. I would say that constituted catching me !
"Halter with Savvy". Not really relevant to the problem. He had willingly accepted the halter earlier on.
"Touch all Over". This is an interesting section. Whilst I had touched him all over with my hands, how about my boot from the ground? As I swung my foot up to the stirrup it inevitably touched his side as he is a big boy and I am not that flexible. In addition as I hop around to face the front it is quite possible my toe was touching his side.
"Place feet down". Not an issue.
"Standstill". Another interesting section given his reaction to my mounting. I had done lots of standstill with commotion occurring around him such as slapping the ground with a stick, skipping towards him and bumping him with my knee, but not standing next to him and swinging my foot up and down.
"Saddle with Savvy". Again an interesting section. His standstill when doing up the girth is not great.
"Prepare to be Ridden". This mainly concerns preparing for what was going to happen once I was mounted and riding and we didn't get that far.
"Pre-flight checks". These had actually gone very well so I don't feel there was an big problem here."
Looking at the list we therefore have possible problems in "Touch all Over","Standstill" and "Saddle with Savvy". All are confidence sections as may be expected as he was certainly not confident as I tried to mount.
Armed with this knowledge I now needed to decide on a course of action.
"Touch all over" and "Standstill" are closely related in this instance.
Whilst I had done the touch all over with my hands I clearly needed to get more athletic and introduce my feet as well. To this end I spent a long time working on getting his confidence as I gently rubbed his side and belly with first my knee and then my foot. Interestingly he was fine with my knee, but it took some time, and muscle cramp, before I could rub his belly with my toes. I guess from a prey animals point of view I predator swinging their claw laden feet at his soft underbelly was going to be a bit alarming. I allowed him to retreat as he needed to until slowly he realised that I was just playing the Friendly game and could relax as I rubbed him. I think a few more session may be needed for total acceptance.
Now I needed to work on the "Standstill" section with the same sort of activities. The main difference being that in this instance my foot was going to be swinging around near his belly, not just gently caressing it. This is where the Can-can dancing came in. Boy those girls must have be fit ! It took a long time to get a good standstill as I swung my leg up and down, hopped around to simulate turning to face his front etc. It was also the warmest day of the year so far, so I built up quite a sweat.
With this on its' way to being sorted I moved onto Saddle with Savvy. He has always taken a few steps as I placed the saddle on, normally backwards. I had been rather lax in sorting this out, so now the time had come. This involved swinging the saddle onto his back, and if he moved off helping him to move backwards further than he wanted. This is an example of reverse psychology. If it is his idea to move I say "good idea lets move more". Not what he expects, so he rapidly decides that it is not his idea to move, but mine. This is one of the few times you can use opposition reflex to your advantage. By making the movement our idea he will tend to oppose you and want to stand still, which is what we actually want.
The same procedure had to be gone through with doing up the girth. This took a long time before I could get an acceptable standstill as I bought the girth up under his belly. Basically I just took a feel on the girth under his belly without actually buckling it up. If he moved, I moved with him and caused him to move further for a bit, until he decided to stop, at which point I let go of the girth to reward the standstill.
All this took several hours, but was rewarded in the end with I more confident Billy.
The "Touch all Over" section is partly there to check the horse for confidence, but also to check that he is not sore anywhere on the day. Given his extreme reaction to my mounting attempts we also decided to get him checked over by a chiropractor. She did find that his back is sore just in front of his hips, and in a spot such that mounting from the ground was likely to have caused discomfort.
I hope this post has given an insight into how to use the plan to analyse and fix problems that may crop up. For me it certainly provided a way to think about the problem and hatch a possible solution. My solution may not work, only time will tell, but it is better than floundering looking randomly for a solution. The worst thing I could have done was to have just persisted in trying to mount without finding the underlying issues. This would have only lead to frustration and possible injury for both of us. As the Parellis are so fond of saying "It is not about the ...". In this case "..." is mounting.
Now I have repeatedly said the plan provides an analytical tool for solving just this sort of problem. So let's break the problem down into component parts.
1) He initially was happy when I put my foot up into the stirrup.
2) He was initially happy when I bounced round to face forwards
3) He exploded when I tried to stand up in the stirrup
4) This then lead to him not being happy with my foot being placed in the stirrup at all and it took considerable time to get back to that point
5) Even after all this he was happy, even very willing, to allow me to mount from the mounting block and ride him.
This has to all be considered in the context of the sections in the plan prior to "Mount with Savvy", so let's take them one at a time.
"Have the horse catch you". No problems there at all. Once on the mounting block he walked over at liberty to allow me to mount. I would say that constituted catching me !
"Halter with Savvy". Not really relevant to the problem. He had willingly accepted the halter earlier on.
"Touch all Over". This is an interesting section. Whilst I had touched him all over with my hands, how about my boot from the ground? As I swung my foot up to the stirrup it inevitably touched his side as he is a big boy and I am not that flexible. In addition as I hop around to face the front it is quite possible my toe was touching his side.
"Place feet down". Not an issue.
"Standstill". Another interesting section given his reaction to my mounting. I had done lots of standstill with commotion occurring around him such as slapping the ground with a stick, skipping towards him and bumping him with my knee, but not standing next to him and swinging my foot up and down.
"Saddle with Savvy". Again an interesting section. His standstill when doing up the girth is not great.
"Prepare to be Ridden". This mainly concerns preparing for what was going to happen once I was mounted and riding and we didn't get that far.
"Pre-flight checks". These had actually gone very well so I don't feel there was an big problem here."
Looking at the list we therefore have possible problems in "Touch all Over","Standstill" and "Saddle with Savvy". All are confidence sections as may be expected as he was certainly not confident as I tried to mount.
Armed with this knowledge I now needed to decide on a course of action.
"Touch all over" and "Standstill" are closely related in this instance.
Whilst I had done the touch all over with my hands I clearly needed to get more athletic and introduce my feet as well. To this end I spent a long time working on getting his confidence as I gently rubbed his side and belly with first my knee and then my foot. Interestingly he was fine with my knee, but it took some time, and muscle cramp, before I could rub his belly with my toes. I guess from a prey animals point of view I predator swinging their claw laden feet at his soft underbelly was going to be a bit alarming. I allowed him to retreat as he needed to until slowly he realised that I was just playing the Friendly game and could relax as I rubbed him. I think a few more session may be needed for total acceptance.
Now I needed to work on the "Standstill" section with the same sort of activities. The main difference being that in this instance my foot was going to be swinging around near his belly, not just gently caressing it. This is where the Can-can dancing came in. Boy those girls must have be fit ! It took a long time to get a good standstill as I swung my leg up and down, hopped around to simulate turning to face his front etc. It was also the warmest day of the year so far, so I built up quite a sweat.
With this on its' way to being sorted I moved onto Saddle with Savvy. He has always taken a few steps as I placed the saddle on, normally backwards. I had been rather lax in sorting this out, so now the time had come. This involved swinging the saddle onto his back, and if he moved off helping him to move backwards further than he wanted. This is an example of reverse psychology. If it is his idea to move I say "good idea lets move more". Not what he expects, so he rapidly decides that it is not his idea to move, but mine. This is one of the few times you can use opposition reflex to your advantage. By making the movement our idea he will tend to oppose you and want to stand still, which is what we actually want.
The same procedure had to be gone through with doing up the girth. This took a long time before I could get an acceptable standstill as I bought the girth up under his belly. Basically I just took a feel on the girth under his belly without actually buckling it up. If he moved, I moved with him and caused him to move further for a bit, until he decided to stop, at which point I let go of the girth to reward the standstill.
All this took several hours, but was rewarded in the end with I more confident Billy.
The "Touch all Over" section is partly there to check the horse for confidence, but also to check that he is not sore anywhere on the day. Given his extreme reaction to my mounting attempts we also decided to get him checked over by a chiropractor. She did find that his back is sore just in front of his hips, and in a spot such that mounting from the ground was likely to have caused discomfort.
I hope this post has given an insight into how to use the plan to analyse and fix problems that may crop up. For me it certainly provided a way to think about the problem and hatch a possible solution. My solution may not work, only time will tell, but it is better than floundering looking randomly for a solution. The worst thing I could have done was to have just persisted in trying to mount without finding the underlying issues. This would have only lead to frustration and possible injury for both of us. As the Parellis are so fond of saying "It is not about the ...". In this case "..." is mounting.
2 comments:
Even if you are not super fit YET, you will be SOON :-) I loved this blog post, setting yourself and your horse up for success. Way to go!!!!
Keep up the good play...
Petra Christensen
Parelli 2Star Junior Instructor
Parelli Central
Thanks Petra. I was trying to illustrate the thought process I employ when I am sorting out a problem. I may copy the last couple of posts to the website so it forms a permanent record of how to use the plan. Do you think that would be a good idea ? Maybe needs editing a bit to make the context clear for people coming to it without having followed the blog. Does anyone else have an example of how the plan has helped and could write about it for inclusion as well ?
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