I have been enjoying playing with Salvadora recently, and being on holiday I have had the time needed to play the "catch me game" again.
There are certain games that we play with horses that need time, they cannot be rushed and must be played to completion. The "catch me game" is one of these.
A quick description. The aim of the game is to get the horse to accept you as a leader and to follow you without question accepting that as leader you will provide them with "safety, comfort, play, water and food". To achieve this we borrow from natural behaviour of a herd in the wild. When a young horse joins a herd it will probably be driven around by the dominant mare of the herd for a considerable time, until it submits to her leadership. I have heard tales of this behaviour lasting for 5 days ! The basis of the game is that the mare will drive the new horse until it follows her. This leaves us with the odd situation that to achieve this connection with a horse we have to drive it from us. I have often seen video of this game played in a round pen, personally I feel this does not provide enough space, especially if the horse is predominantly right brain. I like a little space so that I can add and remove pressure on the horse just by varying my approach distance.
Salvadora, as recently noted, is currently displaying mostly right brain behaviour around humans. Possibly this is due to her past experiences with humans that keep re-emerging to haunt her. Thus a larger space is very beneficial and we are lucky at Shana to have a large indoor arena, with safe sides and a good surface.
I had not intended to play this game with her, but circumstances dictated it. On the first day I had taken off the lead rope to swap for a longer one and she left me. I had not kept hold of her on purpose using the brief period of liberty to "test" the connection. What connection ? :-( .
Salvadora is probably the most right brained horse I have ever played with and as such she is teaching me a huge amount. The first thing I learned, after driving her around for about 20 minutes with no sign of acceptance, was that merely holding the carrot stick was too much pressure on her. This was evidenced by the fact that as she past between me and the side wall of the arena she accelerated into a flat out "escape" gallop even if I was more than half the arena width from her. Now I don't want so much pressure that she is looking for escape that much, I just want to move her around and give her the opportunity to find comfort and leadership from me.
Abandoning the stick and just using my arms as "sticks" was a bit of a breakthrough. The escape gallops lessened and she started to throw glances in my direction, rewarded with me backing away further. I found that even in such a large arena I had to read her every second of the session and frequently back away to give her more space to think, whilst at the same time ensuring by driving her that being away from me was not a place of comfort and safety. This is where I personally learnt so much. On occasions I was the full length of the arena away from her juggling pressure with thinking time. I found that just a movement of my arm to block her would change her direction of circle. Again, it was hard to judge how often and when to change her direction.
I asked for two reasons. If she was galloping around in escape mode I asked to interrupt the pattern and make her think. If she was looking a bit too comfortable then I asked for direction changes just to remind her that I was still driving her and acting as the dominant mare. In this case I would make frequent changes after just a few seconds.
When she did eventually turn to look at me I walked off away from her with a "leaders" walk, just as I had seen at James Roberts and on various videos. Too much pressure for Salvadora so she took off again. On the next opportunity when she looked at me I knelt down. This resulted in her looking at me for longer, licking her lips and becoming more interested in me. I then did loads of approach and retreat, as long as her attention was on me. From kneeling I would approach and as soon as she thought about leaving, kneel again.
If she left me then of course I drove her away firmly with a clap of hands and a neck forward drive and we were back to driving again awaiting the next opportunity. Eventually in that first session she walked with me as I went past her nose, stopped with me next to the halter and that was the end of the session.
Since then I have played three more times and last night we had a breakthrough. The sessions had become quicker to achieve connection, but it had been difficult to maintain connection as we walked away from the entrance door to the arena, a fact I was using as a real test of the strength of bond. Last night after around 20 minutes of driving she came and stood next to me and then calmly and confidently walked at my side around the whole arena with me making turns away from her to test the draw. Turning into her, of course, slows down escape attempts if she has got little ahead of me and tended to keep her with me. Turning away opens the door for an escape and thus tests the connection.
I figure we probably need to play this game at least another 3 or 4 times to really create the bond I am after, and then play it regularly thereafter at the beginning of a play session to test the connection is still intact.
I love playing with many horses, they all have so much to offer and teach me. As I said before, Salvadora is the most nervous right brain horse I have played with, although she tries her heart out to please. I find I have great joy in trying to help her through her fears. We may not be doing "cool" things like standing on a pedestal or backing through a hanging tarpaulin but trying to get her confident and happy in the company of humans is for me the coolest thing I could be doing at the moment.
There are certain games that we play with horses that need time, they cannot be rushed and must be played to completion. The "catch me game" is one of these.
A quick description. The aim of the game is to get the horse to accept you as a leader and to follow you without question accepting that as leader you will provide them with "safety, comfort, play, water and food". To achieve this we borrow from natural behaviour of a herd in the wild. When a young horse joins a herd it will probably be driven around by the dominant mare of the herd for a considerable time, until it submits to her leadership. I have heard tales of this behaviour lasting for 5 days ! The basis of the game is that the mare will drive the new horse until it follows her. This leaves us with the odd situation that to achieve this connection with a horse we have to drive it from us. I have often seen video of this game played in a round pen, personally I feel this does not provide enough space, especially if the horse is predominantly right brain. I like a little space so that I can add and remove pressure on the horse just by varying my approach distance.
Salvadora, as recently noted, is currently displaying mostly right brain behaviour around humans. Possibly this is due to her past experiences with humans that keep re-emerging to haunt her. Thus a larger space is very beneficial and we are lucky at Shana to have a large indoor arena, with safe sides and a good surface.
I had not intended to play this game with her, but circumstances dictated it. On the first day I had taken off the lead rope to swap for a longer one and she left me. I had not kept hold of her on purpose using the brief period of liberty to "test" the connection. What connection ? :-( .
Salvadora is probably the most right brained horse I have ever played with and as such she is teaching me a huge amount. The first thing I learned, after driving her around for about 20 minutes with no sign of acceptance, was that merely holding the carrot stick was too much pressure on her. This was evidenced by the fact that as she past between me and the side wall of the arena she accelerated into a flat out "escape" gallop even if I was more than half the arena width from her. Now I don't want so much pressure that she is looking for escape that much, I just want to move her around and give her the opportunity to find comfort and leadership from me.
Abandoning the stick and just using my arms as "sticks" was a bit of a breakthrough. The escape gallops lessened and she started to throw glances in my direction, rewarded with me backing away further. I found that even in such a large arena I had to read her every second of the session and frequently back away to give her more space to think, whilst at the same time ensuring by driving her that being away from me was not a place of comfort and safety. This is where I personally learnt so much. On occasions I was the full length of the arena away from her juggling pressure with thinking time. I found that just a movement of my arm to block her would change her direction of circle. Again, it was hard to judge how often and when to change her direction.
I asked for two reasons. If she was galloping around in escape mode I asked to interrupt the pattern and make her think. If she was looking a bit too comfortable then I asked for direction changes just to remind her that I was still driving her and acting as the dominant mare. In this case I would make frequent changes after just a few seconds.
When she did eventually turn to look at me I walked off away from her with a "leaders" walk, just as I had seen at James Roberts and on various videos. Too much pressure for Salvadora so she took off again. On the next opportunity when she looked at me I knelt down. This resulted in her looking at me for longer, licking her lips and becoming more interested in me. I then did loads of approach and retreat, as long as her attention was on me. From kneeling I would approach and as soon as she thought about leaving, kneel again.
If she left me then of course I drove her away firmly with a clap of hands and a neck forward drive and we were back to driving again awaiting the next opportunity. Eventually in that first session she walked with me as I went past her nose, stopped with me next to the halter and that was the end of the session.
Since then I have played three more times and last night we had a breakthrough. The sessions had become quicker to achieve connection, but it had been difficult to maintain connection as we walked away from the entrance door to the arena, a fact I was using as a real test of the strength of bond. Last night after around 20 minutes of driving she came and stood next to me and then calmly and confidently walked at my side around the whole arena with me making turns away from her to test the draw. Turning into her, of course, slows down escape attempts if she has got little ahead of me and tended to keep her with me. Turning away opens the door for an escape and thus tests the connection.
I figure we probably need to play this game at least another 3 or 4 times to really create the bond I am after, and then play it regularly thereafter at the beginning of a play session to test the connection is still intact.
I love playing with many horses, they all have so much to offer and teach me. As I said before, Salvadora is the most nervous right brain horse I have played with, although she tries her heart out to please. I find I have great joy in trying to help her through her fears. We may not be doing "cool" things like standing on a pedestal or backing through a hanging tarpaulin but trying to get her confident and happy in the company of humans is for me the coolest thing I could be doing at the moment.
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