Back from holiday with a reasonable tan and a head swimming with the ideas in the book "Equitation Science". Not a book for the faint hearted, but worth a read. Somewhat scathing about Natural Horsemanship but it really just says that the principles are not yet scientifically validated.
Having arrived home I was of course keen to seen Filly and continue preparing for a good audition. Two gentle days later and we are back on track. Playing with a Filly whilst suffering from jet lag is taxing, but keeps me awake and on my toes.
We now have a well established pattern of having Filly roll next to me as soon as we get into the school. She is now very confident with me in close proximity to the extent I have to be careful she does not actually roll onto me. This is a great exercise for building trust between us, and fun as all these interactions should be.
I am still working on getting lightness in the sideways game and have found that giving her a destination, preferably with a carrot on it, makes this much easier to achieve. We can now get to the end of the 22 foot line with only phase 1 or 2 pressure and more importantly with accuracy about the direction. I must start with the 45 foot line soon.
Yesterday we played a bit at Liberty and I found that my hind quarter yield no longer worked. Back to reinforcement online. Even then I had to go to phase 3 or 4 once to get her really responsive. Interestingly as I have noted before she became way more enthusiastic and attentive after a single phase 4 than when I was just trying to be gentle. This is becoming a repeated pattern. It seems that she responds to me better after I have really stepped up and asserted leadership at least once and even seems to enjoy my company more. I guess from her point of view she feels more safety and comfort around a strong leader than a weak one. Still it is hard to have to do this on occasion and I have to take care to use Principle 5 "The attitude of justice is effective" rather than just "Show her who's boss".
Having re established my leadership online I continued to work at Liberty which went much much better. To really reward her for a good hind quarter yield as soon as she started to turn and face I would remove all the pressure by turning and walking away. Within seconds a little Filly face would appear at my shoulder and contentedly walk with me.
All in all a good fun session which softened the blow of coming back to a cool windy England after the holiday.
Having arrived home I was of course keen to seen Filly and continue preparing for a good audition. Two gentle days later and we are back on track. Playing with a Filly whilst suffering from jet lag is taxing, but keeps me awake and on my toes.
We now have a well established pattern of having Filly roll next to me as soon as we get into the school. She is now very confident with me in close proximity to the extent I have to be careful she does not actually roll onto me. This is a great exercise for building trust between us, and fun as all these interactions should be.
I am still working on getting lightness in the sideways game and have found that giving her a destination, preferably with a carrot on it, makes this much easier to achieve. We can now get to the end of the 22 foot line with only phase 1 or 2 pressure and more importantly with accuracy about the direction. I must start with the 45 foot line soon.
Yesterday we played a bit at Liberty and I found that my hind quarter yield no longer worked. Back to reinforcement online. Even then I had to go to phase 3 or 4 once to get her really responsive. Interestingly as I have noted before she became way more enthusiastic and attentive after a single phase 4 than when I was just trying to be gentle. This is becoming a repeated pattern. It seems that she responds to me better after I have really stepped up and asserted leadership at least once and even seems to enjoy my company more. I guess from her point of view she feels more safety and comfort around a strong leader than a weak one. Still it is hard to have to do this on occasion and I have to take care to use Principle 5 "The attitude of justice is effective" rather than just "Show her who's boss".
Having re established my leadership online I continued to work at Liberty which went much much better. To really reward her for a good hind quarter yield as soon as she started to turn and face I would remove all the pressure by turning and walking away. Within seconds a little Filly face would appear at my shoulder and contentedly walk with me.
All in all a good fun session which softened the blow of coming back to a cool windy England after the holiday.
No comments:
Post a Comment