I am now deemed fit enough to go back to work. So it's Athens and back today. As a result playing with Filly is bound to become a little more sporadic, but on the upside I will have more time to study natural horsemanship in the comfort of my hotel room or cockpit.
I had time for a quick session yesterday before sunset. Again I was playing in the field which adds the challenge of keeping her more interested in me than the lush grass. The theme was just to remain consistent and ask for a little more. We started with touch it game, using barrels with food treats on them. This naturally lead onto figure 8 around the barrels. I am trying to get figure 8 at trot but she tends to break gait around the corners. To overcome this I don't actually do the figure 8 pattern. The direct line thinking approach would be to just do repeated figure 8 and bully her into maintaining the trot. What I do is circling game at trot with the barrels as obstacles. So one circle may go around both barells, the next round one but inside the other, the next might change the circle direction around a barrel and then through the gap and around the other barrel. But that is one half of the figure 8 pattern just thrown into the mix ! Then we circle the other way doing similar patterns until we again change direction around a barrel.
I remembered hearing on a DVD that changing direction can be difficult for many horses to start with and they then need a consistent circle for a while to get confident again. The training I am using reflects this by not asking for a direction change every half a circle, but allowing her to get confident in the new direction first. Slowly I will reduce the time between direction changes to the point that we are actually doing figure 8 at trot. Once that is confident the plan is to repeat the whole process at canter and hopefully get flying lead changes in the middle.
I hate to say this but I must dash to get ready for work now !
I had time for a quick session yesterday before sunset. Again I was playing in the field which adds the challenge of keeping her more interested in me than the lush grass. The theme was just to remain consistent and ask for a little more. We started with touch it game, using barrels with food treats on them. This naturally lead onto figure 8 around the barrels. I am trying to get figure 8 at trot but she tends to break gait around the corners. To overcome this I don't actually do the figure 8 pattern. The direct line thinking approach would be to just do repeated figure 8 and bully her into maintaining the trot. What I do is circling game at trot with the barrels as obstacles. So one circle may go around both barells, the next round one but inside the other, the next might change the circle direction around a barrel and then through the gap and around the other barrel. But that is one half of the figure 8 pattern just thrown into the mix ! Then we circle the other way doing similar patterns until we again change direction around a barrel.
I remembered hearing on a DVD that changing direction can be difficult for many horses to start with and they then need a consistent circle for a while to get confident again. The training I am using reflects this by not asking for a direction change every half a circle, but allowing her to get confident in the new direction first. Slowly I will reduce the time between direction changes to the point that we are actually doing figure 8 at trot. Once that is confident the plan is to repeat the whole process at canter and hopefully get flying lead changes in the middle.
I hate to say this but I must dash to get ready for work now !
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