As I mentioned a while back there is one of the yard girls "W" we are giving a few pointers to so that she is better able to handle the Naturally trained horses at the yard. She had a couple of sessions with Billy and was getting on pretty well with the seven games once she had learned to bring her body language up to the assertive level when needed. The other night we were going to have another session with Billy, but it was raining and Filly was in her stable so she decided to take the "easy" option and play with Filly instead. I did point out that she was more dominant than Billy, who is much the bigger horse, but she still wished to play with Filly.
In fact it went pretty well considering. We managed to introduce circling, sideways and squeeze game. Sideways was particularly good, but then Filly is very good at it. Other than that it was interesting watching the interaction between them. The look in Filly's eye to start clearly said "Oh Goody, fresh meat" ! W quickly discovered that Filly likes to stand on the exact spot you are.
Some assertiveness simulations using the carrot stick, savvy string and a cone to aim at soon got W's attitude changed and things progressed in a more orderly fashion.
This brings me to the topic of the right level of assertiveness to apply. As Pat says it is no fun playing tag with someone who isn't trying. So if using the stick and string and the horse needs to be tagged and you always aim to just miss and NEVER make contact, even lightly, you are the kid in the playground who doesn't know how to play. You are then the one which the other kids, Filly in this case, are likely to pick on and bully, or worse just ignore.
I am NOT advocating continually tagging the horse with the stick and string, but if you have arrived at phase 4 trying to get an appropriate response and you don't sincerely try to tag the horse you are guilty of not playing the game and therefore the horse will see no point in putting effort into playing with you. Watch horses playing in the field, they take chunks out of each other but as long as it is done according to horse etiquette there are no hard feelings and respect for each other grows. And there is the difference between hitting the horse according to a human set of values (fear, retribution, frustration) and applying appropriate pressure in phases according to the horses set of values. Thus the name Natural Horsemanship. We try to be Natural according to the horse, not the human.
As a footnote I did play with Filly myself from my chair and online. Again it went pretty well. Circling was good and we even managed some figure 8 at trot. I made one mistake as I circled her into Ritchie and W at a trot, causing them to scatter and Filly to panic, but other than that we had a great 5 minutes of fun.
In fact it went pretty well considering. We managed to introduce circling, sideways and squeeze game. Sideways was particularly good, but then Filly is very good at it. Other than that it was interesting watching the interaction between them. The look in Filly's eye to start clearly said "Oh Goody, fresh meat" ! W quickly discovered that Filly likes to stand on the exact spot you are.
Some assertiveness simulations using the carrot stick, savvy string and a cone to aim at soon got W's attitude changed and things progressed in a more orderly fashion.
This brings me to the topic of the right level of assertiveness to apply. As Pat says it is no fun playing tag with someone who isn't trying. So if using the stick and string and the horse needs to be tagged and you always aim to just miss and NEVER make contact, even lightly, you are the kid in the playground who doesn't know how to play. You are then the one which the other kids, Filly in this case, are likely to pick on and bully, or worse just ignore.
I am NOT advocating continually tagging the horse with the stick and string, but if you have arrived at phase 4 trying to get an appropriate response and you don't sincerely try to tag the horse you are guilty of not playing the game and therefore the horse will see no point in putting effort into playing with you. Watch horses playing in the field, they take chunks out of each other but as long as it is done according to horse etiquette there are no hard feelings and respect for each other grows. And there is the difference between hitting the horse according to a human set of values (fear, retribution, frustration) and applying appropriate pressure in phases according to the horses set of values. Thus the name Natural Horsemanship. We try to be Natural according to the horse, not the human.
As a footnote I did play with Filly myself from my chair and online. Again it went pretty well. Circling was good and we even managed some figure 8 at trot. I made one mistake as I circled her into Ritchie and W at a trot, causing them to scatter and Filly to panic, but other than that we had a great 5 minutes of fun.
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