A chilled Filly

Saturday 26 May 2012

It's not about the water


The phrase "It is not about ....." is heard regularly from the lips of Pat and Linda, but this week it really hit home to us. Our horse, Bonitao, has always had trouble getting his feet in water. He absolutely refused to go through large puddles and definitely not into lakes. Ritchie has worked on this from time to time over the years, and whilst it got better, it was still not a favourite activity until this week.
We are going to a play day on Sunday at Larisa Tasker's yard and so not wanting to wait until we are already late for the show Ritchie has spent a fair bit of time trailer loading him. Another activity he is not over keen on, the issue being trusting a predator to enter the trailer when he is in there to tie him up. So patiently Ritchie has built his trust in her and it is now much better than before.
A couple of days ago she was trailer training in the field at Shana near to the water feature to which she was paying no attention at all. After an hour or so of trailer training she took him to the water feature for a drink. He was a little hesitant but still drank from it. Then he put a foot in it, very unusual. Then two feet and started splashing the water. At this point another horse was brought to the water and happily walked in and started splashing around at the far end. A few minutes later, with some well timed encouragement from Ritchie he had happily joined the other horse and was having great fun pawing with his front legs and making everyone around wet.
What caused this change ? Well I believe that the trailer training had made him more trusting in Ritchie’s leadership, and the fact that the water had never been a focus, just an afterthought, probably helped as well. Thus it was the trailer training that made the difference and made the entry to the water "Not about the water" but about his trust in Ritchie.
The next day I took him for a longish hack out and on returning to the yard took him to the water for a drink and to see if he would enter with me on his back. Well he was reluctant to start, but I made the water a place of rest and when asking kept my focus on a point beyond the water, not the water itself. Soon we had two feet in, but not for long. As soon as he showed interest in the water I took him away for a trot, then brought him back again for a rest, but kept my focus on the far side. I had just decided that we had achieved enough for the day with two feet when he suddenly walked calmly right into the water and started playing with it as the previous day. Had he noticed my sudden relaxation about the water as a focus ?
We stayed there for around 5 minutes and then I asked him to leave. He was actually slightly reluctant to come out !!
What an informative, interesting couple of sessions !

Thursday 24 May 2012

Aikido part 2

Second Aikido lesson last Monday evening. The folks at the Dinton club are really good, the instructor had even followed the suggestion I made to look up Mark Rashids work and then made several mentions during the evening as to how Aikido concepts were relevant to horsemanship. On top of that it is great fun, except being flattened repeatedly by ones wife of course
For me it is already paying dividends. In essence the idea of creating an opening, or space for the opponent to move into and then gently directing them there seems a lot like "making the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult". But with more subtleness and feeling.
I am beginning to understand that combining the Mark Rashid / Aikido feeling about horsemanship with the detailed technicalities of the Parelli program will make a very powerful whole.
There is one section in his book where Mark denigrates Natural Horsemanship then provides example after example of what I interpret as Natural Horsemanship, which is a bit odd. Don't let those sentiments from Mark put you off reading what is a very enlightening book though. "Nature in Horsemanship: Discovering Harmony Through Principles of Aikido". In reality it dovetails almost perfectly (in my view) with Parelli.

Wednesday 23 May 2012

Better day with Mini

Just a short session with Mini yesterday, it was a bit warm to be out in the sun for too long, but then I'm a cold weather guy !
The theme was to continue with the relaxation on the circle combined with Mini being tuned into to me and not just mindlessly lunging round and round. That is the snag with a horse that has been lunged in the old fashioned way too much, they tend to go brain dead and assume that as they are going to be circling with no purpose (in their mind) for ages they had better switch off to preserve their sanity. Of course this is not what we want. We want them to be asking us questions all the time. Circling should be viewed more as a mind exercise for them than as physical exercise. The physical exercise is just a nice by-product.
To get Mini thinking all I had to do was ask him to walk in a circle. In the past I am sure he always trotted circles, to be honest I can understand why. For the human getting a small pony to walk a 22 foot circle takes forever and is rather dull unless you have a strong reason to do it. I, of course, have a strong reason so it was kind of fun.
Mini was keen to keep setting off at trot and thus kept breaking his responsibility to maintain gait. A gentle correction was needed to get back to walk, though many fewer than in the last session. I did not have to circle him into a fence this time for example, a gentle wiggle of the rope was enough usually. He was also tending to pull out on the rope quite hard, again this is a fault of lunging. During lunging it is traditional to have the horse keep the rope tight on the circle, whereas I want to train as if there was no rope in preparation for liberty circles and to improve the mental rather than physical connection between us. Rope tension has to be analysed to find the cause. It could be that the horse is counter arcing its' body and thus leaning on the rope. It could be that the hind legs are close in on the circle and in effect the horse is trying to walk out on the circle. It seemed that with Mini both were present. The nose was tilted out but the hind legs were also tilted in. I picked the hind legs to work on first and so kept asking for a little sideways move of the hind legs by staring at the hips and trying to very accurately waft the stick and string at them. This would get a few steps of being straight on the circle and much reduced rope tension. Note that by pushing the hips out of the circle I reduced the rope tension which may be counter-intuitive but works.
With the hips a little better I moved to the head tilt. There were two strategies. First when he pulled hard with the head I would just step back and ask for a change of direction on the circle, again something it is hard to do with traditional lunging kit. In effect I was over correcting the tendency to pull out. This got rid of a large part of the pull. To finish off I just increased the tension on the rope whenever the head bent outwards, putting the head where I wanted it to be and then immediately releasing. Of course the head just went out again and we repeated. Slowly he learnt that if he carried his head on the correct arc then he was left alone.
This was a good example of reacting with appropriate pressure. If he pulled hard with a phase 3 pull I responded with phase 4 and we changed direction. If he just leant a bit on the rope I responded with an ounce more and put his head back in position. Thus we formed a harmony of pressures. We had a conversation rather than a confrontation. I think my Aikido classes are beginning to pay off !
Talking of which we went to our second session last Monday. Great fun again and strangely after a two our workout we both commented on how more energised we felt, rather than just worn out. Next session next Monday !

Thursday 17 May 2012

Getting Mini to tune in

Another fun session with Mini yesterday. His liberty stick to me is getting really good, he only left me twice in about 20 minute game. Very responsive and seems to really enjoy it.
Once we had had a bit of fun and got a connection I went to work on trying to get his circling game a bit softer. As soon as I ask for a circle he sets off at a good pace and clearly tunes me out. It is just head down and go ! There are several ways to get over this problem and I used many of them yesterday.
He is maintaining his first responsibilities to maintain gait and maintain direction with enthusiasm but not much thought.
Not act like a prey animal ? Probably that is ok, but when circling I just don't exist for him so who can tell ?
Look where he is going, definitely not being upheld. Here was the clue I needed to help him through his problem.
To get him to slow down I could just wiggle the rope at him, but he soon pushed through that pressure, not something I want to encourage. I could flap the stick and string in front of him, but that just irritates him and he speeds up if anything, again not something to encourage. What I needed to do was break the pattern and get him to tune in if only briefly. The answer was to put an object in the way, not a small one but a big one he couldn't miss. So whilst he was circling I started to move around the field to get him used to travelling circles, then nonchalantly walked over to the fence. Suddenly, as far as he was concerned, a huge barrier appeared in front of him and he nearly trotted straight into it. That is how tuned out he was !
I sent him in the other direction whilst standing at the fence and he set off in a mindless circle only to bump into the fence on the other side of me. We kept this half circling going until he could complete the half circle in both directions at walk. Each time he got to the fence I let him stop and think about it for a moment before asking for the next half lap. We got a lot of licking and chewing at the fence line just before he made some nice connected half laps.
I then moved away from the fence and asked for more circles. Now you didn't expect me to say they had improved did you ? They hadn't much, but he was now checking in with me from time to time. I would ask for walk and we would inevitably wind up in his favourite gait, trot. Fine let him trot, but if he cantered I would just step smartly backwards and change his direction. Every time he even thought about canter we changed direction for about ten minutes. Suddenly we were getting nice, connected trot circles.
Now I asked for direction changes if he changed from walk to trot, five minutes later we had walk circles on a loose rope. Having managed one connected walk circle in each direction I called it a day.
Lessons to learn from this for me were to think laterally, don't just wiggle the rope or stick and string at the horse if it is not even tuned into you, that won't achieve much except to desensitise them to wiggling ropes and strings.
This was also my first conscious use of the ideas of Aikido to redirect unwanted energy. When he cantered on the circle I just redirected that energy in a different direction, in this case in a complete change of direction. It was very effective. Maybe being bounced off a mat by the Aikido club will be useful for my horsemanship after all.

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Aikido

Last night Ritchie, my godson Rory and myself attended our first Aikido class at Dinton near Ayelsbury, England. To start I would like to thank the members of that club for the very warm welcome we received. We will definitely be going again !
But what on earth is an article on Aikido doing in a horsemanship blog ? As it turns out a huge amount.
Aikido is a non-aggressive martial art which concentrates on avoiding conflict. If attacked then the defender uses the ideas of Aikido to deflect the attack, use the attackers energy to defeat themselves and do all possible not injure the attacker.
What was interesting was the very light forces that were involved by the defender to achieve their aim, often it was the back of the hand that just pushed lightly on the attacker, throwing them off balance and depositing them gently on the floor.
Talking of being deposited on the floor, we were told "the mat is your friend, you are going to spend a lot of time on it and getting back up off it! ". This was very very true, for two hours I spent more time on the floor than I have since I was a young kid !
The first part of the session concentrated on how to roll properly, forwards and backwards. Apparently it takes anything up to 18 months to get really proficient at this, by which time you can be thrown to the floor from a good height and be unharmed. A useful skill for riding in itself and one which one of the club members said he had had to use in the past, getting up with no injury at all.
We then joined in with the rest of the club and learned to perform several techniques to overcome various attacks. All performed in slow motion as we tried to learn the complex sequence of moves required to get the correct result. There is a lot of emphasis on slow and right, rather than quick and wrong. As one of the members pointed out to me "if you do it to quickly you can mask many holes in your technique". Sounds familiar for horsemanship as well.
The inspiration for getting invloved in Aikido comes from Mark Rashid who practises the art and also runs Aikido for Horsemanship workshops ( http://www.markrashid.com/ ). He emphasises the ideas of not fighting the horse, but using their energy and redirecting it in a constructive direction. For example if the horse tosses its' head don't just tie the head down with bits of leather, that just masks the problem. In a clinic I watched he got the lady with the problem horse to not fight the head toss, but redirect it. When the horse threw its' head up she was told to just turn the horse using a direct rein. Thus the energy of the head toss is just directed into a turn, useless energy becomes useful energy. After around ten minutes of this the horse stopped tossing its' head and walked around with lowered head and a slightly puzzled look on its' face as it realised that its' previous tactics to evade the bit no longer worked.
Mark also emphasised the ability to breathe properly from the diaphragm whilst riding. Many people lock up and this creates a brace in their lower body which results in a lock up in the hips of the horse. Many of the riders at his clinic improved dramatically just by breathing properly. I heard this so many times last night at the Aikido class. At times I was told to stop a roll and get my breathing sorted before continuing over.
One last, but major, similarity was the concept of intention. It was astonishing to me that when I was playing the part of the attacker, just a shift in the intention of the defender would deposit me gently on the floor. There was one technique where the intention of the defender moved from my belly to a point on the floor behind me. With no other discernible change I found by back bending gently backwards, my knees bending and I arrived in the spot the defenders attention had shifted to. That rings all sorts of similarity to horsemanship bells in my head. Being able to shift ones attention to the place where you wish horse to be, rather than on where the horse is, seems like following a focus and feel to me.
Thus, to me, it seems that this gentle (and it was very gentle) art has a lot to offer to horsemen and I look forward to studying it further.
On an aside I described Mark Rashids work to the instructors last night and they were very interested in the concepts, and immediately understood the similarities. One even related that a friend in Scandinavia had used Aikido to tackle reindeer, land them gently on their backs for veterinary procedures.

Friday 11 May 2012

Phases and timing

I have long put off writing about this topic as it is so big and important I wanted to try and get a deeper personal understanding before committing my thoughts to the blog. I am not sure I am all the way there yet, but I'll give it a go and rely on comments to clear up any mistakes I make.
To start with what am I talking about ? When we train horses we mostly use a process of negative reinforcement to get the responses we want. Don't get worried about the word negative, it does not mean anything bad. In fact from the horses point of view negative in this context is good. It refers to the removal of applied pressure when we get the desired response, so the negative refers to the taking away of pressure (see my blog Reinforcement  and Reinforcement 2 for further details).
There may be some people out there who think that the application of any pressure to a horse is a bad thing and they train using only positive reinforcement where you patiently wait for the horse to offer a desired response and then reward that response with a treat. Clicker training is an example of this method, and to an extent it can work, but I don't think it is appropriate to use it exclusively for horse training. Horses are just not that tuned into treats, as we know their hierarchy of needs is "Safety, comfort, play, water, food". Thus using food as a reward in positive reinforcement is rather a long way down the list, but the comfort of removing pressure is near the top of the list and thus a stronger reward for them. Even this statement needs some qualification as for left brain introverts food can be a good motivator, but then a left brain introvert already has the first three needs covered otherwise he wouldn't be a left brain introvert !
Pressure should be provided in phases and in the Parelli program this is simplified to four discrete phases although in reality each phase of pressure can be subdivided infinitely. Thus to get the horse to back up when on the ground phases one might just be a stern look, phases two a wiggle of a finger, phase three a light wiggle of the rope, phase four a strong wiggle on the rope.
Back to the issue of timing. When we first apply a new pressure to a horse it has no idea what its response should be, thus to find comfort and have the pressure removed it will attempt a variety of already known responses in the hope that this will get the reward of pressure removal. I would like to suggest that while the horse it attempting new responses then the current phase should be maintained, but if it stops new attempts that is the time to go up a phase. If you go up phases whilst the horse is still making new attempts then in effect you are punishing the horse for trying to solve the puzzle. Go too far down this road and you have achieved a state of learned helplessness in the horse.
In the learning period of a new skill as soon as the horse even thinks about the correct response then quit the pressure and reward the horse with comfort by going to neutral or even retreating away from the horse. What do I mean "thinks the response"? Well, for a backup this may mean pointing the ears backwards, or shifting the weight back, any small sign of thinking backwards.
As we refine the response we wish to get the desired result with lighter and lighter pressure so that eventually the horse appears to be following our thoughts. (They aren't of course, our thoughts just generate small changes in our bodies that maybe even we don't notice so it feels like mind control !). At this point the changes in our phases need to change. The horse knows now to go backwards at say phase 3, but not at phase 1. We also have to ask which bit of phase one we want the response from. The answer of course is the onset of phase 1, not thirty seconds later. Thus in our minds we need to relate the timing to the onset of a phase, not sometime into it. Now evidence from some "persistence of object" trials (McGreevy) suggest that horses short term memory is something less than 10 seconds. This suggests that if you keep phase one going for more than 10 seconds then they have forgotten all about its' onset and are responding to a continuing phase one, not its beginning. Note this is attempted ONCE the horse has the basic response sorted out and is to refine that response. I do not mean to imply that if the horse is still trialling responses at whatever phase you are currently using you should blindly increase that phase in 10 seconds time.
There is an even more subtle aspect to the application of applying pressure which if mastered will really pay dividends. When I started Parelli I was very guilty of asking for a response by applying pressure just at the point that the response was actually impossible for the horse. Thus there was not a chance that it would (could) respond to the onset of pressure which in hindsight was a bit unfair. Let me use the idea of an indirect rein to illustrate. When riding an indirect rein is where we ask the horse to pick up a hind leg and step it under the belly, in front of the other hind leg. That's the simplest way I can think of explaining it ! If we ask for this move by applying phase one pressure just as the desired hind leg has landed on the ground at the beginning of a stance phase of the gait it is a bit unreasonable to ask it to pick that leg up and move it. The application of the phase of pressure should happen just as the weight is coming off that leg as it enters the swing phase and the move is physically possible. An increase in the phase should also be timed to coincide with a point in time that the move is possible, not just at an arbitrary point where we think "he should have done it by now". This timing of the phases gives the horse the best opportunity to respond to the onset of a phase rather than at sometime later. After all if the horse cannot physically even attempt the movement we cannot reward the response close to the onset of a phase but only at some point where a) the horse can physically make the move, and b) he has actually trialled it as a response. I cringe now thinking of all the times I have asked for a physically impossible response and then upped the phase too soon as the response was not forthcoming !!
As we continue to refine a response it is important to know how to quit an ask. For example if we have gone all the way to phase 3 to get the response and then the response has occurred it is tempting to give a reward by instantly quitting all pressure and hoping that the horse has remembered that phase 2 and 1 came earlier. If having got the response we drop back to phase 1 and then quit if the response continues at phase 1 pressure then we have made a stronger connection of the response to phase 1 than if we quit at phase 3. If the response fails when we drop to phase 1 then up the phases again to the required level and drop back down when it occurs. This will rapidly get the horse to associate phase 1 with the response.
I'll go into one last aspect of quitting the phases. The quit should be done on a yield, not an escape. For example, if asking for the forequarters to yield away from a stick and bag it is important to stop the pressure as the horse yields away with confidence and relaxation, not as the head shies away in fear. If you do the latter you are well on the way to developing a head shy horse. Thus if I am teaching this response I will be asking just the head to move away to start with and in addition looking for the head to move in a relaxed way. This maybe just a fraction of an inch to start with (a thought), but done with confidence before I quit. This is preferable to a full spin done by the horse out of fear as an escape. It can therefore be seen that we need to quit not just on the response, but the quality of the response. In this example we may need to follow the head of the horse around as it "escapes" waiting for that golden half second where it is a yield from understanding and confidence. I guess this is an illustration of principle 3 "communication is two or more individuals sharing and understanding an idea". If the horse is escaping from the pressure it is not understanding the idea and is communicating to you that "this is too much pressure for me to be able to think through the problem, give me a chance". The snag is that to the heavy handed horseman they will feel that on the surface they got the desired response, whereas in reality they just got an escape.
There is much much more to say on the subject, as in effect it is the essence of horsemanship. We mainly communicate to our horses through the medium of pressure and release, so the correct application on release of that pressure is what underpins the majority of our interactions with them. I hope this blog will provoke thought and comments on where I have misunderstood concepts and thus improve my own horsemanship.

Wednesday 9 May 2012

Catch me game with Mini

Another fun session with Mini yesterday. He was in a smallish paddock when I arrived at the farm and so I decided to play with him there. As usual I started the plan as can be seen via the link on the right side of the blog. Item 1 : Have horse catch you.
Well Mini did come up to me, but then showed a reluctance to stay with me. Time to play the catch me game with him. I do not know if he has played this before so decided to assume that he hadn't. As my previous posts on the subject have explained the catch me game is designed to make it more comfortable for the horse to remain in your presence and give you attention than to ignore you and go his own way.
If Mini did not pay me attention then he got driven around the field, should he give me the attention of just and ear then the pressure was removed a fraction, if he gave me both eyes then I backed right off.
Mini showed a few right brain tendencies during this game so I had to carefully balance pressure with retreat to keep him thinking his way out of the pressure I was applying without putting on so much pressure that he just tried to escape. At times this meant very very little pressure, and at others I had to get relatively strong. I also employed a bit of mirroring towards the end of the game where I just matched his energy and movements, trying to create a harmony between us. I also took to kneeling down when he gave me two eyes to completely remove the pressure. The worked like magic, just as it had done with Salvadora.
When the game ended is was very very sudden. He turned to face me, and unlike previous times, where he just stood and stared, walked straight up to me with a confident look. We then played the "stick to me game" at liberty for around 20 minutes. Only once did he try to leave me, so back to catch me game and he was back by my side. I can only assume that he had done some liberty before because it was very smooth and responsive.
I guess because of my personality type I find liberty easily my best Savvy of the four, and certainly the most fun one. Looking forward to another session soon, just hope it stops raining long enough !

Thursday 3 May 2012

What is approach and retreat ?

An interesting session with Mini yesterday. The theme became "Friendly Game". On this occasion it was the very basic applied stimulus of rhythmically swinging the carrot stick and string with low body energy and looking for relaxation in Mini's demeanour.
The response was surprising, Mini was pretty upset about the practise. He started regularly, couldn't relax, backed all the way to the end of the 22 foot rope and stood staring at me. I had of course allowed him to back up trying to establish a distance threshold at which he would be happy. There didn't seem to be one, although the reaction was just unconfident staring when 22 feet away.
Now I would like to make the distinction that he was not right brained about this, which would have implied the instinctive "run away" response. He was blinking and therefore thinking throughout. But his thought process was "I am not sure I feel confident about this, I'll keep a very close eye on it in case it attacks", at which point I guess he would have gone right brained and run away.
Thus he demonstrated clearly for me the difference between right brain instinctual responses and left brain unconfident responses.
After a good long time and slightly sore arm muscles I decided that this was not going to improve any time soon and I needed a new tactic. I had tried approach and retreat with no difference at all except he stepped back quietly as I approached and stood still as I retreated. I tried walking backwards whilst facing him, which resulted in him following, but at the end of the rope. I tried walking facing away from him and he came almost to my shoulder. Interesting. (My arms were now getting seriously tired, but I was also fascinated to find a solution. Saved going to the gym !) In fact with my backed turned he even put his head down to eat. Being a bit slow on the uptake I thought that maybe we were getting there so turned to face again, to find him slowly but purposefully backing to the end of the rope.
Maybe the key was my body angle to him. I tried standing at 90 degrees to him, but still out ahead of zone one. He seemed to relax somewhat. I tried walking sideways as I approached him. Much better he stood still until I actually stood in front of his nose facing sideways, still swinging the stick. I moved away sideways and turned my belly more towards him, he started looking unconfident so I turned back. Eureka ! The answer was the angle of my belly button relative to him. Point the belly button at him and he felt pressure, turn it away and it released the pressure. Now I have heard of this many times before, the belly button acting as a laser of energy projecting from you, but I had never seen such a dramatic demonstration of it.
This also gave a new meaning to approach and retreat. It was not related to distance at all, nor to the intensity I swung the stick and string, it was related to body angle. All I had to do to approach was turn my belly button towards him and turn away to retreat.
With this key in place we made swift progress and soon I was standing very close to him with a relaxed Mini. In fact this seemed to improve his whole attitude towards me and we had a brief but fun travelling circle session before putting him to bed.

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Great day with Salvadora

Another day of catch me game with Salvadora. What a contrast to the first few days. The actual catch me game took all of 5 minutes. We then spent a long time just walking and trotting around with the "stick to me" game. Very responsive. Transitions were a dream, up to trot anyway as I can't run fast enough to get her to canter !
However there was still this undercurrent of tension where I felt that she would leave me at the slightest disturbance. And so it happened. A few horses got loose in the yard outside the school and she immediately went right brain, left me, ran around and called to the other horses.
All I could do was redirect her feet from time to time to try and redirect her attention and emotions, and patiently wait for her emotions to subside. Once they did she was soon back at my side as though nothing had happened. This does show that the connection is not that strong yet, if it was she would have just stayed with me. That will come in time.
Interestingly I now find that putting the halter back on makes her a little more anxious and pushy. To ensure that I was upholding principle 2 (Don't make or teach assumptions) I made a point of opening the school doors and then walking two laps around the school with her.
Fortuitously Liz then turned up for a chat. This was a great opportunity to teach her patience (standstill). She kept trying to push past me to get out of the door, not aggressively but persistently. My response was that for every foot that came forward I moved two back. This really frustrated her and resulted in some pawing at the ground. I was not going to give in, or indeed respond to that. I just ignored the pawing, but attended to the two feet back if she moved forwards. Eventually she was at the end of the 12 foot rope, so I had to move back with her. I kept this up until she could stand still for just 15 seconds, then lead her back to her stable. Next time I'll ask for 30 seconds thus making a game out of it.
End of a very satisfying session.

Catch me game with Salvadora

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.