I have had the privilege of continuing to play with Salvadora, a six year old ex polo pony. Given the amount of rain in the last few days playing with Mini in an open field did not appeal. Out focussed by the weather !!
Salvadora has many issues it is fair to say. To start with she is extremely over-reactive to any movement the human might make. She tries her heart out to interpret what any movement means and what she should do, which means she cannot relax around any human that so much as twitches. I felt that this was the area which I would be best employed on trying to improve.
For a Parelli student the game to play is obvious, the Friendly game and lots of it. I interpret the friendly game as being anything I do around a horse when I don't expect a response. It is not just about waving sticks and strings around as many seem to think, it is about getting the horse confident with anything I might want to do. Saddling a horse is friendly game in my book. When you put a saddle on you are not expecting a response, just a calm, confident standstill. When you groom a horse you are not expecting a response which when you think about it is remarkable. For example if I push on a horses flanks I expect a hind quarter yield in response to the porcupine pressure, but if I groom or massage the area I expect a standstill. How is the horse expected to discriminate that pressure in the same spot has two different meanings ? The answer is our body energy and intention. If I have a strong energy and an intent focus then I am asking for the yield, if I am relaxed and have low energy with no intent I expect standstill. For this the horse has to read not only the pressure being applied, but also the overall body energy and intention of the human. After all I may apply considerable pressure to a muscle in order to do a deep massage, so the amount of applied pressure is not a signal, conversely I expect the horse to yield to just 4 ounces of porcupine pressure.
When looked at in these terms it is remarkable that we can ever groom or massage our horse, remarkable that they are in tune with us enough to discriminate the difference between friendly, porcupine or driving games.
This knowledge can also help us analyse what might be wrong in the case of Salvadora. She cannot make these distinctions properly yet and so gets anxious in her efforts to escape what she sees as pressure but are in fact just friendly games.
To get over this I have just been playing loads and loads of friendly games, which whilst being very active have been played with no intention to make her move and low body energy.
To start with she was very very head shy if I lifted my arms above shoulder level, so this needed to be fixed rapidly. Now it is very easy to make a horse head shy, it can be done in a matter of minutes. The way horses learn is to trial lots of different actions in response to perceived pressure and the action that causes the pressure to be removed is now the learned response to that pressure. Thus to make a horse head shy raise your hands towards the head and as soon as that horse moves its' head away drop you arms. Just a couple of trials at this and you are well on the way to a head shy horse.
To counter head shyness we must do the opposite. So with Salvadora I raised my arms and flapped them around (great for fitness !!) and she predictably shied away and ran backwards. I just stuck with it and gently followed her, but kept up the arm waving with one arm, whilst simultaneously putting pressure on the lead rope to ask the head to lower. As soon as she yielded to the pressure all the commotion stopped and we rested. Slowly she started to pull back less and I saw less of her belly and more of the top of her head which was a relief.
We got to the point that I could wave my arms around and she would stand still, but head shyness is not cured all at once. We went through several cycles of quietness, followed by extreme reaction as her old ways resurfaced. All we can do in these circumstances is to try and bury the old responses under layer upon layer of new desired responses. The old ways will still resurface from time to time, but with less and less frequency.
The lowering head response is desirable as it is a relaxed posture, so asking for a relaxed posture whilst commotion is happening at least gives a more desirable response to commotion than running backwards and rearing.
By the end of two sessions of this we have made good progress. I can now throw loops of ropes around her neck and then uncoil them again (good training for one rein riding). We can play the circling game whilst I rhythmically swing the stick and string around in the middle of the circle, thus reinforcing the friendly game even when she is moving. She is becoming happier to just stand still whilst I chat with folks at the yard, not perfect but much better.
All in all I am hoping that we can make live for her a little calmer and less stressful which is a desirable outcome in itself.
Salvadora has many issues it is fair to say. To start with she is extremely over-reactive to any movement the human might make. She tries her heart out to interpret what any movement means and what she should do, which means she cannot relax around any human that so much as twitches. I felt that this was the area which I would be best employed on trying to improve.
For a Parelli student the game to play is obvious, the Friendly game and lots of it. I interpret the friendly game as being anything I do around a horse when I don't expect a response. It is not just about waving sticks and strings around as many seem to think, it is about getting the horse confident with anything I might want to do. Saddling a horse is friendly game in my book. When you put a saddle on you are not expecting a response, just a calm, confident standstill. When you groom a horse you are not expecting a response which when you think about it is remarkable. For example if I push on a horses flanks I expect a hind quarter yield in response to the porcupine pressure, but if I groom or massage the area I expect a standstill. How is the horse expected to discriminate that pressure in the same spot has two different meanings ? The answer is our body energy and intention. If I have a strong energy and an intent focus then I am asking for the yield, if I am relaxed and have low energy with no intent I expect standstill. For this the horse has to read not only the pressure being applied, but also the overall body energy and intention of the human. After all I may apply considerable pressure to a muscle in order to do a deep massage, so the amount of applied pressure is not a signal, conversely I expect the horse to yield to just 4 ounces of porcupine pressure.
When looked at in these terms it is remarkable that we can ever groom or massage our horse, remarkable that they are in tune with us enough to discriminate the difference between friendly, porcupine or driving games.
This knowledge can also help us analyse what might be wrong in the case of Salvadora. She cannot make these distinctions properly yet and so gets anxious in her efforts to escape what she sees as pressure but are in fact just friendly games.
To get over this I have just been playing loads and loads of friendly games, which whilst being very active have been played with no intention to make her move and low body energy.
To start with she was very very head shy if I lifted my arms above shoulder level, so this needed to be fixed rapidly. Now it is very easy to make a horse head shy, it can be done in a matter of minutes. The way horses learn is to trial lots of different actions in response to perceived pressure and the action that causes the pressure to be removed is now the learned response to that pressure. Thus to make a horse head shy raise your hands towards the head and as soon as that horse moves its' head away drop you arms. Just a couple of trials at this and you are well on the way to a head shy horse.
To counter head shyness we must do the opposite. So with Salvadora I raised my arms and flapped them around (great for fitness !!) and she predictably shied away and ran backwards. I just stuck with it and gently followed her, but kept up the arm waving with one arm, whilst simultaneously putting pressure on the lead rope to ask the head to lower. As soon as she yielded to the pressure all the commotion stopped and we rested. Slowly she started to pull back less and I saw less of her belly and more of the top of her head which was a relief.
We got to the point that I could wave my arms around and she would stand still, but head shyness is not cured all at once. We went through several cycles of quietness, followed by extreme reaction as her old ways resurfaced. All we can do in these circumstances is to try and bury the old responses under layer upon layer of new desired responses. The old ways will still resurface from time to time, but with less and less frequency.
The lowering head response is desirable as it is a relaxed posture, so asking for a relaxed posture whilst commotion is happening at least gives a more desirable response to commotion than running backwards and rearing.
By the end of two sessions of this we have made good progress. I can now throw loops of ropes around her neck and then uncoil them again (good training for one rein riding). We can play the circling game whilst I rhythmically swing the stick and string around in the middle of the circle, thus reinforcing the friendly game even when she is moving. She is becoming happier to just stand still whilst I chat with folks at the yard, not perfect but much better.
All in all I am hoping that we can make live for her a little calmer and less stressful which is a desirable outcome in itself.
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