Sorry for the delayed updates, but things have been a bit busy. Physio for my hip injury soaks up a fair amount of the day, but it is going very well.
I have been having great fun trailer loading both Filly and Bonitao. Now we have our own trailer this can now be done with some consistency which has allowed real progress to be made.
Bonitao proved to be particularly challenging. It was actually relatively easy to get him to load into the trailer, but getting him to remain there long enough to put the bum bar across and tie him up took a long time. I admit I was slow in diagnosing the problem. Standing in the trailer was fine as long as I did not approach the interior myself. So the issue turned out to be the presence of a predator in the cave on wheels, not the cave itself. Loading him whilst I remained on the outside of the trailer, the usual Parelli way could not fix this problem, time to switch games from circling and driving games to the YoYo game.
I switched position from standing on the ramp to standing in the trailer itself and then using the draw to request his presence in the trailer. This relied strongly on timing and rewarding the "slightest try" by relaxing the pressure. The slightest try could be as small as a small weight shift in my direction. Slowly I upped the definition of slightest try. The movement of a hoof, foot on the ramp, all four feet on the ramp, foot in the trailer etc. Between each try he was rewarded with being allowed to back out of the trailer. If he fought against the request the response was to out persist him in his evasion attempt and use the carrot stick and string to make the wrong response uncomfortable. This could just be picking up the stick and swinging it, all the way up to tagging him with the string on the zone I wished to influence. Again timing is crucial to the extent that if he should give a try when I am in mid swing I can convert the tagging by the string into a friendly stroke.
Influencing his motion was of course only part of the solution, the other part was to gain his trust in me whilst I was stood in the trailer. One of the quickest ways to Bonitaos heart is through food. Using food in this way has to be done with care so that it acts as a reward, not a bribe. In particular I kept the food out of sight and only produced it when I had achieved a correct response, or he had shown a "try" in trusting me. As a method this really worked well, and soon he was standing all the way in the trailer and munching on an apple, carrot or pony nut. To prove to him that this was about the YoYo game and not the trailer itself I also regularly used the driving game or porcupine game to back him out of the trailer without merely trapping him inside. I tried to time this backup so that it was my idea for him to leave the trailer and not his. Having backed him out I made sure that his rest out of the trailer was much shorter than his rest in the trailer, again a way of rewarding him for remaining with me. Of course this exactly how you would approach playing the YoYo game with a horse with better drive than draw.
This highlights the use of Parelli games. I feel too many folk just play the seven games with their horse without a purpose. That is fine whilst the games are being learnt, but there real value is in being able to use the games to succeed in a particular task. If the games are just being played at a level 1 competence for long periods of time without there being a purpose behind them they can rapidly become the seven tortures for the horse. After all the seven games are just the ABCs of a language and I am sure you would have found it boring and de-motivating if your secondary school teacher had still been using the ABC chart instead of using the language to study more advanced and interesting topics.
What was the result of all this playing. Well the first time Ritchie tried to trailer load him she stuck to the task and her principles for 5 hours ! The first time I tried it took 3 hours, the second 1 hour and yesterday about 15 minutes.
The ultimate goal is to get him to trailer load first try at Liberty. In fact an even higher goal as suggested by Linda Parelli in a DVD is that if you happen to pass the trailer the horse should ask you if you want him to load or not. THEN I think you really have not only trailer loading sorted out but you also have a fantastic rapport with the horse.
I have been having great fun trailer loading both Filly and Bonitao. Now we have our own trailer this can now be done with some consistency which has allowed real progress to be made.
Bonitao proved to be particularly challenging. It was actually relatively easy to get him to load into the trailer, but getting him to remain there long enough to put the bum bar across and tie him up took a long time. I admit I was slow in diagnosing the problem. Standing in the trailer was fine as long as I did not approach the interior myself. So the issue turned out to be the presence of a predator in the cave on wheels, not the cave itself. Loading him whilst I remained on the outside of the trailer, the usual Parelli way could not fix this problem, time to switch games from circling and driving games to the YoYo game.
I switched position from standing on the ramp to standing in the trailer itself and then using the draw to request his presence in the trailer. This relied strongly on timing and rewarding the "slightest try" by relaxing the pressure. The slightest try could be as small as a small weight shift in my direction. Slowly I upped the definition of slightest try. The movement of a hoof, foot on the ramp, all four feet on the ramp, foot in the trailer etc. Between each try he was rewarded with being allowed to back out of the trailer. If he fought against the request the response was to out persist him in his evasion attempt and use the carrot stick and string to make the wrong response uncomfortable. This could just be picking up the stick and swinging it, all the way up to tagging him with the string on the zone I wished to influence. Again timing is crucial to the extent that if he should give a try when I am in mid swing I can convert the tagging by the string into a friendly stroke.
Influencing his motion was of course only part of the solution, the other part was to gain his trust in me whilst I was stood in the trailer. One of the quickest ways to Bonitaos heart is through food. Using food in this way has to be done with care so that it acts as a reward, not a bribe. In particular I kept the food out of sight and only produced it when I had achieved a correct response, or he had shown a "try" in trusting me. As a method this really worked well, and soon he was standing all the way in the trailer and munching on an apple, carrot or pony nut. To prove to him that this was about the YoYo game and not the trailer itself I also regularly used the driving game or porcupine game to back him out of the trailer without merely trapping him inside. I tried to time this backup so that it was my idea for him to leave the trailer and not his. Having backed him out I made sure that his rest out of the trailer was much shorter than his rest in the trailer, again a way of rewarding him for remaining with me. Of course this exactly how you would approach playing the YoYo game with a horse with better drive than draw.
This highlights the use of Parelli games. I feel too many folk just play the seven games with their horse without a purpose. That is fine whilst the games are being learnt, but there real value is in being able to use the games to succeed in a particular task. If the games are just being played at a level 1 competence for long periods of time without there being a purpose behind them they can rapidly become the seven tortures for the horse. After all the seven games are just the ABCs of a language and I am sure you would have found it boring and de-motivating if your secondary school teacher had still been using the ABC chart instead of using the language to study more advanced and interesting topics.
What was the result of all this playing. Well the first time Ritchie tried to trailer load him she stuck to the task and her principles for 5 hours ! The first time I tried it took 3 hours, the second 1 hour and yesterday about 15 minutes.
The ultimate goal is to get him to trailer load first try at Liberty. In fact an even higher goal as suggested by Linda Parelli in a DVD is that if you happen to pass the trailer the horse should ask you if you want him to load or not. THEN I think you really have not only trailer loading sorted out but you also have a fantastic rapport with the horse.
No comments:
Post a Comment