After the success with Filly and Bonitao I decided it was time to play with Billy. Being a large horse with less training experience I had wanted to see how effective I was with the other two before committing to playing with the big lad.
I needn't have worried, he was incredibly good. If anything easier than Filly and so eager to please. Simple games today much as I have with Filly recently.
We started with the touching game with cones. This is a simple task but allows the use of all the porcupine and driving games at the same time and most importantly gives those driving and porcupine games a purpose. The purpose in this case was to YoYo Billy back to a cone and then use driving with the carrot stick and string, or porcupine with rope pressure to get his nose over the cone. Usually they then become curious about the cone and touch it with their nose which is the purpose of the game. To be honest it took Billy a while to figure this out. Then he got a nice long rest as a reward.
Of course this game is not about the cone at all, it is about giving purpose to the various driving games that I needed to employ to get him to touch the cone. It is about building communication with Billy to explain what it is I want him to do where the porcupine and driving aids are the letters and words in the conversation. Just driving him aimlessly around with no purpose would be like shouting random words at him and expecting him to learn and respond to them.
From the touch it game we moved onto some gentle circling, again using the cone as a focal point. As with Filly the other day the cone was used as the place to stop on each circle, and touch if he wished. Slowly you could see it dawning on him that the cone was the place to ask questions as to what I wanted next. This all went so calmly that I decided not to do too long a session. I wanted to finish whilst he was still eager to do more.
The last minutes were spent just being together quietly. The photos show what I mean. He was, like Filly, so gentle that it felt like a very special time and a real strengthening of the bond.
I needn't have worried, he was incredibly good. If anything easier than Filly and so eager to please. Simple games today much as I have with Filly recently.
We started with the touching game with cones. This is a simple task but allows the use of all the porcupine and driving games at the same time and most importantly gives those driving and porcupine games a purpose. The purpose in this case was to YoYo Billy back to a cone and then use driving with the carrot stick and string, or porcupine with rope pressure to get his nose over the cone. Usually they then become curious about the cone and touch it with their nose which is the purpose of the game. To be honest it took Billy a while to figure this out. Then he got a nice long rest as a reward.
Of course this game is not about the cone at all, it is about giving purpose to the various driving games that I needed to employ to get him to touch the cone. It is about building communication with Billy to explain what it is I want him to do where the porcupine and driving aids are the letters and words in the conversation. Just driving him aimlessly around with no purpose would be like shouting random words at him and expecting him to learn and respond to them.
From the touch it game we moved onto some gentle circling, again using the cone as a focal point. As with Filly the other day the cone was used as the place to stop on each circle, and touch if he wished. Slowly you could see it dawning on him that the cone was the place to ask questions as to what I wanted next. This all went so calmly that I decided not to do too long a session. I wanted to finish whilst he was still eager to do more.
The last minutes were spent just being together quietly. The photos show what I mean. He was, like Filly, so gentle that it felt like a very special time and a real strengthening of the bond.
No comments:
Post a Comment