As I mentioned in one of my recent posts I have been fortunate enough to be asked to help with a young horse called Dodger. He is of indeterminate breed, but comes from Ireland, is 18 months old and has real character. He had become a little pushy, somewhat difficult to lead, but trusted humans almost completely. He definitely has his own opinions. I would class him as a horsenality cross between Filly and Billy, erring on the Billy side. We have done a horsenality chart on him and it was no surprise to find a left brain extrovert with just a touch of right brain thrown in. In other words a really fun horse which is, to me, an ideal Parelli partner.
The first few sessions we played the catch me game. This was to establish our roles as leader. Up until now he had tended to look on humans as completely equal if not slightly beneath him, that needed to change. As I have mentioned before the catch me game is played at liberty. The idea is to drive the horse around until he turns faces and follows us as his leader. It is similar to introducing a new horse to a herd. The dominant matriarch will tend to drive the new comer around for up to 5 days until they submit to her leadership. Thus in this game we act like the feisty matriarch and using the driving game move Dodger around until he gives us both eyes and finally follows us around the school. If you try this be prepared for a long long session with a sweaty horse and trainer at the end of it.
In the case of Dodger he was not going to submit lightly. He had spent many hours thinking of himself as a cut above humans and suddenly finding that this was not the case was quite emotionally stressful for him. This could be seen by the fact that he wound up in a full body sweat, rather than just the usual exertion areas. I am sure that many of you have experienced getting sweaty just at a thought that raises your emotions, well the same happens to horses.
Watching his reactions to all this was interesting. To start with he was going around the school with his head turned to the outside and lots and lots of dominant head tossing. This was enough to convince me we had chosen the right game to play as a start. When I tried to change his direction of circle he tended to push through the pressure of the stick and string again with lots of head tossing showing that he had learned to push into pressure and in the past it had, to an extent, worked.
As time progressed he realised that these old tactics were no longer going to work and he had to find a different answer. This was signalled by a slight lowering of the head and much more compliance with the change of direction signal, however he was still circling me at a goodish pace.
One slight snag was that the school we were working in is relatively small, though has a nice surface. The problem was that as I was moving him around I had to be careful not to create too much of a squeeze for him to pass through between me and the wall. Thus I had to take real care as I drove him around the school that I was also positioning myself so that he did not feel claustrophobic.
As James had shown us, in a rectangular school as the horse goes around a corner the geometry tends to turn the head towards the centre of the school. This can be used, with good timing, to help teach that turning and facing the trainer is part of the correct response. As the horses head is bent around the turn back off the pressure a bit. Dodger quickly picked up on this and soon we had the turn and face response occurring fairly regularly. The problem now was to try and get Dodger to understand what his next move should be.
Whilst he was still head tossing and acting dominant I felt I had to keep driving him, but as soon as the dominance started to subside I could back off and help him solve the next piece of the puzzle. Any re-occurrence of the dominance and it was back to driving game.
As he was standing quietly contemplating me I walked up and down past him in a assertive leader type walk, head up and purposeful. He just stood still. To start with as I got nearer to him he would leave with another head toss and then I would drive him on. If he just stood there I persisted in walking up and down past his nose being careful not to get behind the drive line. As I was walking past his nose I started to ask for his zone 1 and 2 (front end) to yield which was a gentle way of reasserting my dominance whilst trying to unstick his feet. When a horse becomes rooted to the spot it is easier to ask just the front or just the hind legs to move, not all four at once. Soon we had a nice yield followed by him sticking to me at walk for a few steps. With that I removed all pressure by kneeling down and relaxing. The catch me game was nearly done, I just needed a better stick to me and we then finished on a good note.
The owners, Gary and Helen, supported me through this process, and made sure that in the early stages he did not try and jump the gate out of the school. Since then they have continued with the game and by all accounts it is coming on well, reducing from the nearly 1 hour that it took with me to ten minutes or less. His general attitude also seemed to take a turn for the better with leading becoming less stressful.
I have played with Dodger since then but will recount those sessions another time.
Ritchie and I may be going on holiday tomorrow for a week so the blog will be out of action unless I get wifi in the hotel :-)
The first few sessions we played the catch me game. This was to establish our roles as leader. Up until now he had tended to look on humans as completely equal if not slightly beneath him, that needed to change. As I have mentioned before the catch me game is played at liberty. The idea is to drive the horse around until he turns faces and follows us as his leader. It is similar to introducing a new horse to a herd. The dominant matriarch will tend to drive the new comer around for up to 5 days until they submit to her leadership. Thus in this game we act like the feisty matriarch and using the driving game move Dodger around until he gives us both eyes and finally follows us around the school. If you try this be prepared for a long long session with a sweaty horse and trainer at the end of it.
In the case of Dodger he was not going to submit lightly. He had spent many hours thinking of himself as a cut above humans and suddenly finding that this was not the case was quite emotionally stressful for him. This could be seen by the fact that he wound up in a full body sweat, rather than just the usual exertion areas. I am sure that many of you have experienced getting sweaty just at a thought that raises your emotions, well the same happens to horses.
Watching his reactions to all this was interesting. To start with he was going around the school with his head turned to the outside and lots and lots of dominant head tossing. This was enough to convince me we had chosen the right game to play as a start. When I tried to change his direction of circle he tended to push through the pressure of the stick and string again with lots of head tossing showing that he had learned to push into pressure and in the past it had, to an extent, worked.
As time progressed he realised that these old tactics were no longer going to work and he had to find a different answer. This was signalled by a slight lowering of the head and much more compliance with the change of direction signal, however he was still circling me at a goodish pace.
One slight snag was that the school we were working in is relatively small, though has a nice surface. The problem was that as I was moving him around I had to be careful not to create too much of a squeeze for him to pass through between me and the wall. Thus I had to take real care as I drove him around the school that I was also positioning myself so that he did not feel claustrophobic.
As James had shown us, in a rectangular school as the horse goes around a corner the geometry tends to turn the head towards the centre of the school. This can be used, with good timing, to help teach that turning and facing the trainer is part of the correct response. As the horses head is bent around the turn back off the pressure a bit. Dodger quickly picked up on this and soon we had the turn and face response occurring fairly regularly. The problem now was to try and get Dodger to understand what his next move should be.
Whilst he was still head tossing and acting dominant I felt I had to keep driving him, but as soon as the dominance started to subside I could back off and help him solve the next piece of the puzzle. Any re-occurrence of the dominance and it was back to driving game.
As he was standing quietly contemplating me I walked up and down past him in a assertive leader type walk, head up and purposeful. He just stood still. To start with as I got nearer to him he would leave with another head toss and then I would drive him on. If he just stood there I persisted in walking up and down past his nose being careful not to get behind the drive line. As I was walking past his nose I started to ask for his zone 1 and 2 (front end) to yield which was a gentle way of reasserting my dominance whilst trying to unstick his feet. When a horse becomes rooted to the spot it is easier to ask just the front or just the hind legs to move, not all four at once. Soon we had a nice yield followed by him sticking to me at walk for a few steps. With that I removed all pressure by kneeling down and relaxing. The catch me game was nearly done, I just needed a better stick to me and we then finished on a good note.
The owners, Gary and Helen, supported me through this process, and made sure that in the early stages he did not try and jump the gate out of the school. Since then they have continued with the game and by all accounts it is coming on well, reducing from the nearly 1 hour that it took with me to ten minutes or less. His general attitude also seemed to take a turn for the better with leading becoming less stressful.
I have played with Dodger since then but will recount those sessions another time.
Ritchie and I may be going on holiday tomorrow for a week so the blog will be out of action unless I get wifi in the hotel :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment