Although it is a while since the last blog I have been playing with both Filly and Billy. I have been somewhat short of time to write about as well though.
Filly and I continue to work on excellence at all the various games and this has been going pretty well. In particular we have continued to work on maintaining gait through the figure 8 and weave pattern. This has improved beyond measure but is still being done with a sour look on her face. In general I have been given the impression by her that she is rather bored with the whole thing which tells me that I have been a little too strong on the consistency with insufficient variety to keep her mind occupied. Remembering that "communication is two or more individuals sharing and understanding an idea" I realised that my responsibility of listening to her communication had been lacking and it was time for a total change of scene. She was telling me she needed a break and a change of scene.
It was not a very pleasant afternoon with gusty strong winds and the occasional light shower, but horses are fairly waterproof and I had a good jacket on so we went for a walk to the big field. Remembering that in the past Filly had been absolutely terrified of open spaces I was pleased when she excitedly but totally left brained entered the field. She was off to explore. The field had recently been muck spread to encourage hay growth next year and it was interesting to observe that she did not want to eat any of the grass where the muck was. This make evolutionary sense for her to be adverse to this as in the wild it would encourage the spread of worms. So we went further and further from the entrance looking for good grass. As it happens the edges of the field had been left un-tainted and despite this being near a noisy (due to the wind) hedge this is where she chose to graze. Slowly we worked our way further from the gate to the end of the field where she caught site of some very large cows in the next field. Head up and attentive. I was pleased to see that she was evaluating them with a sceptical left brain rather than just going right brained and running away. Back to grazing, but with the odd glance in the direction of the cows.
Spending time like this just quietly grazing allows close observation of the small details and I offer up one such detail below for thought and comment.
I have been continuing to read Equitation Science (Paul McGreevy and Andrew McLean 2010) and it raises an interesting suggestion. It acknowledges that horses have left and right brain behaviour and draws an analogy with left and right brained rodents and their dominant paws. It has been found in rodents that left pawed individuals have associated higher stress levels and speed of fear arousal. Left pawed suggests right hemisphere dominant brain which fits with the Parelli horsenality model. When horses graze they tend to have a handedness (hoofedness ?) as to which front leg they prefer to have forwards as the eat. The book suggests that there may be a parallel with horses and we can determine which leg is preferential from observing them grazing and then possibly use this to discover something about the inherent characteristics of the horsenality of the horse. They muddy the waters a little by then asking which leg is the dominant one, the forward one or the supporting one. However it seems to me that in Parelli with so many horse having had their horsenality determined it would be possible to test this hypothesis with enough subjects to get a statistical result. For what it is worth Filly favours her right front leg forward (by a factor of around 2 : 1) and I believe she is a Left Brained introvert, which suggests to me that the forward leg is dominant.
Any comments from others would be of great interest.
Filly and I continue to work on excellence at all the various games and this has been going pretty well. In particular we have continued to work on maintaining gait through the figure 8 and weave pattern. This has improved beyond measure but is still being done with a sour look on her face. In general I have been given the impression by her that she is rather bored with the whole thing which tells me that I have been a little too strong on the consistency with insufficient variety to keep her mind occupied. Remembering that "communication is two or more individuals sharing and understanding an idea" I realised that my responsibility of listening to her communication had been lacking and it was time for a total change of scene. She was telling me she needed a break and a change of scene.
It was not a very pleasant afternoon with gusty strong winds and the occasional light shower, but horses are fairly waterproof and I had a good jacket on so we went for a walk to the big field. Remembering that in the past Filly had been absolutely terrified of open spaces I was pleased when she excitedly but totally left brained entered the field. She was off to explore. The field had recently been muck spread to encourage hay growth next year and it was interesting to observe that she did not want to eat any of the grass where the muck was. This make evolutionary sense for her to be adverse to this as in the wild it would encourage the spread of worms. So we went further and further from the entrance looking for good grass. As it happens the edges of the field had been left un-tainted and despite this being near a noisy (due to the wind) hedge this is where she chose to graze. Slowly we worked our way further from the gate to the end of the field where she caught site of some very large cows in the next field. Head up and attentive. I was pleased to see that she was evaluating them with a sceptical left brain rather than just going right brained and running away. Back to grazing, but with the odd glance in the direction of the cows.
Spending time like this just quietly grazing allows close observation of the small details and I offer up one such detail below for thought and comment.
I have been continuing to read Equitation Science (Paul McGreevy and Andrew McLean 2010) and it raises an interesting suggestion. It acknowledges that horses have left and right brain behaviour and draws an analogy with left and right brained rodents and their dominant paws. It has been found in rodents that left pawed individuals have associated higher stress levels and speed of fear arousal. Left pawed suggests right hemisphere dominant brain which fits with the Parelli horsenality model. When horses graze they tend to have a handedness (hoofedness ?) as to which front leg they prefer to have forwards as the eat. The book suggests that there may be a parallel with horses and we can determine which leg is preferential from observing them grazing and then possibly use this to discover something about the inherent characteristics of the horsenality of the horse. They muddy the waters a little by then asking which leg is the dominant one, the forward one or the supporting one. However it seems to me that in Parelli with so many horse having had their horsenality determined it would be possible to test this hypothesis with enough subjects to get a statistical result. For what it is worth Filly favours her right front leg forward (by a factor of around 2 : 1) and I believe she is a Left Brained introvert, which suggests to me that the forward leg is dominant.
Any comments from others would be of great interest.
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