horsegirlonajourney

Principle #5: The attitude of justice is effective

Posted on October 4, 2009 by horsegirlonajourney

The attitude of juh-wuh?

This one means “trust, but be ready to correct, no more one than the other.” Trust your horse to do his job, and if he makes a mistake, help him: answer his question, bring him in for reassurance and try again, ask for the gait again, or whatever is appropriate for the situation.

justice

Salsa’s next Life Experiences include the equine dentist on the 15th, and for that he has to be sanguine about needles (for the sedative) and trailers (for the treatment room). I don’t have toothpicks so have yet to start the needle project, but today Jan and I decided spontaneously to see how he feels about loading in a trailer. He hasn’t been in one since we brought him home, and that day was stressful for him anyway.

We removed the divider and opened the doors wide, and were glad to see hay already bagged and ready for Erin’s next trail ride. We got Salsa and brought him around the drive, and I told Jan I was just going to focus on the hay and walk right into the trailer and make the hay my goal and destination (versus “get the horse in the trailer”). We knew we might be embarking on an hour’s process but as Dan needed a nap, we were okay with that.

So of course Salsa hopped right in. Not even a hesitation, just trot trot trot UP step step CHOMP. He took his bite of hay, chewed it twice, then turned his head toward the door, so I promptly turned him around and out we walked. We repeated this sequence five times: trot trot trot UP step step CHOMP reverse hop out. I decided that was enough for the day, and not to push for the next thing (standing aside while he goes in).

trailer

I am working hard at knowing when to quit, as it has dawned on me that our on-line sessions are way too long. Right now it’s too much pressure for Salsa, who is still not quite sure about this whole “partnering with humans” thing. He’s also a left-brain extrovert with a strong dominance streak, so keeping sessions intense but short is the way to go, at least for now. And it’s too much repetition for Rocky even though we are progressing through patterns and have begun Project Look Where You’re Going And Watch Your Step (LWYGAWYS).

We took Salsa to the arena for some free time, so he could roll and shake and sniff things while we threw the ball for Jedi. Salsa could not help himself and had to follow Jan all over the place. Once he did give her a driving look and she stopped walking backwards (practicing draw) and projected her energy at him, and he stopped and licked and chewed and didn’t try it again. I have suspected for a while that Jan is his favorite human.

Rocky had a bloody ankle this morning but was not limping or tender, so I determined to do 10 minutes of traveling circles (our level 2 on-line patterns, finally at the trot). I had not even thought of asking for a trot yet when Rocky offered one, so we went around a few times and included the little pole-on-riser obstacle I set up Friday. He swerved at the last minute and squeezed between it and a barrel, which was fine: I was not asking him to step over it but rather to LWYGAWYS. On another lap he did go over it without bonking it, so that’s much improvement over last time, and I think I only had him go over it three times total today, and not in a row.

We made a few loops in each direction and when he was in my field of vision I watched him for signs of rhythm, relaxation, and contact. Maybe it’s wishful thinking but he did not seem quite as high-headed or braced to the outside, and he definitely kept the inside ear on me. We also managed to use most of our 22 feet, although with the belly of the rope on the ground I’m not sure exactly how far out he was.

I am still unsure whether the brace is totally dominance or if it’s partially (mostly?) habit and muscle memory, from having done it that way for so long out of resistance (previous owners were fond of longeing) and soreness (took me a long time to find the right treatment for the lameness/arthritis).

illo-canter I can feel, now, when he’s giving me the hoof and when he’s willing to play along, and today he felt willing to play along and also impatient — they had eaten their morning buckets but not received their hay yet, because I’d wanted to play with him for 10 minutes first. I got the sense that he was offering to trot because he knew we were going there anyway and he figured that the fastest way to lunch was to get through his homework as quickly as possible. On one circuit he broke gait — upwards. But after a quarter lap of what I shall generously refer to as a “canter” (not sure what else to call the hop hop twist swish quiver stomp kick da-da-DA da-da-DA da-da-DA), he put his cut ankle down and flinched, and just as he asked the question I disengaged him and brought him in with a look. That’s right! With a look, I disengaged his hindquarters and invited him in. Me! With a look!

I sent him to the two pedestals, both squares together to form a rectangle for teaching, and asked for all four feet. I wish I’d had a video camera rolling because he had no anxiety about getting all four feet up there, but he sure was not paying any attention to where he put them. At one point he looked like an elephant on a ball (and about to fall). At another he had a front hoof wedged in the crack between the two pedestals and one hind foot barely on the wood at all, with just the very tip of his toe. Another time he took one more step and got his foot on the plastic mounting block. Yet again I had reason to be grateful for his sensitivity, because it took only a gentle porcupine and moving his nose over the foot that was in front (thank you Bill Dorrance) to get him to lift it up again before he broke through and sliced himself to ribbons on the plastic shards.

This is the drawback of cookies as incentive and end-of-session: he was so excited about standing on his magic cookie carpet, he was not safely and sanely standing. Next time, I’m taking away one and he will have to learn how to stand on just the one, steadily.

We hosed off all of his feet and scrubbed the crusted blood and mud off the hind leg, then stung him with a little Betadine iodine solution (“virtually painless”) and smooshed on some SWAT to keep the flies away. He’s a little tender right on the inch-long gouge but was not swollen or sensitive around it; I think he’ll live. It’s been a while since I’ve gone out and found him randomly bloody, so he must be learning something about where his feet are.

hoof

Categories: Feel, Health, Leadership, On-Line | Leave a comment

No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses ~ Herman Melville

Posted on October 2, 2009 by horsegirlonajourney

I realized I hadn’t given Salsa any undemanding time since his first week, so today his session was merely me taking a chair into his day pen to read, with my back to the gate. He approached and retreated and kept an eye on me and licked and chewed a lot. He nudged me a couple of times but I managed to restrain myself, and only petted him once. Leslie came to take him to the Back 40 for his nightly turnout (and hay) and I didn’t turn around. When I heard her at the gate in the back, I put the chair away and came back into the house.

Rocky had a tough night. I accidentally got him in the face with the leather popper twice. I was way too rough with the snap three times. And he got tangled in the 45-foot line so badly I had to unclip his halter and rescue him so he didn’t get hurt; later he put his leg through a loop of rope tied into reins, when I fumbled and dropped it just as he started pawing.

Yet, we survived.

We worked on circles tonight and I stopped when I got a quarter lap of contact and relaxation, because by that point if I tried to keep going, things would have worsened rather than improved. We worked on stepping over a pole on risers, a total of eight inches off the ground at its height, and he hit it with a hoof four times out of five, whether walk or trot, forward or back or sideways. He had trouble figuring out to go sideways across the pole and I tried hard to reward the slightest try. In the end we got two steps at an exaggerated phase one (“exaggerate to teach, refine as you go along”) and he got a long rest and lots of praise. That was the activity in which I bapped him too hard with the snap a few times, because I was asking him to step two feet over the pole and then stop, and he kept wanting to go all the way over and turn and face.

All I needed to do was a gentle wiggle each time and if he kept going, let him turn but not stop, just keep stepping over and feeling the wiggle until he figured out I was asking for something else, and then figured out what I was asking. By the third time I realized how unpleasant I was being, shouting at him when he was only doing what he thought I was asking, and I dropped the rope and apologized verbally, stroking him lightly around his chin and waiting until he licked and chewed. After that I was probably lighter than I have ever been, with the wiggle-stop, and I vowed to pay a lot more attention to my body in the future — at this point, much more attention to refining my body language and consistency and strength, and less attention to whether he’s walking or stopping!

We did some traveling circles at the trot, for exercise, and for communication, and at the very end, he got on pedestals with all four feet and stood there while I gave him some cookies. Once he even had all four feet on a single pedestal — we have two squares, and I put them together into a rectangle for practicing.

Finally, I tied the reins into a loop and put the small mounting block on the pedestal, so I could try rubbing and stroking him while I stood up there, and see if he shook his head and got all displacey like he does recently when I saddle and cinch. And he did! I thought back to the Fear Makeover video and did the same thing Linda had her student do: match his energy and add four ounces, rubbing him vigorously until he was still. We did this for quite a while before he relaxed his head and neck. I kept one hand on the friendly spot and rubbed with the other. I also lifted my knee and brushed his side with it, which set off another round of head bobbing. I kept it there until he stopped, then released.

I did this on the left side and the right side. He had a much harder time standing there with me on his right, but had about the same amount of head bob — although he stopped sooner, I think because by then he had figured out that I will stop when he does. He did not flinch when I ran my fingers down the sides of his spine, but his headshaking consistently happened when I touched the ribs closest to his hips. Hrm, how interesting! He would shake at the ribs in the girth area too but not every time, and I didn’t get around to touching under his chest to see his reaction.

I was able to lean over him and rest my cheek on his withers on the opposite side from where I stood, and to lean my arms and chest on his back, while he stood still without tension. Again, easier for him to do this with me on his left.

One neat thing was when I scratched him gently behind the poll, along the bridle path, and suddenly he was leaning into it and wanting me to scratch vigorously, and he was making faces! He so rarely does that with me, but there’s something going on right now with the trees, dropping some kind of sticky sappy seeds and they get on the horses and after you scrape off what feels like a blob of dry honey, they have a little puncture, like a bite. Rocky has these all over his body now. I scratched some that were lodged in his mane, until they broke apart and came off. Other than two or three times leaning into my hands and a silly pleasure-face when I scratched his buttcrack, Rocky has never asked for touch like this, ever. I was glad to oblige and it gave us a great note to end on.

I swear he looked astonished when, after a few minutes of both of us relaxed and still, with me draped a little bit over him, I got down and took off his halter. I could tell that he was relaxed but I didn’t want to confirm any expectations that all of this was just preparation for sitting on him. He likes being ridden, or he has in the past, not resisting being mounted, and stepping out nicely, so either he’s very sore in the ribs, or I traumatized him somehow, or he’s bored and annoyed with my lack of progress, or who knows what.

I feel deflated and defeated, normal part of the learning cycle. I don’t know how to teach the circling game. I don’t know how to engage him for riding. I don’t know how to find that relaxed and willing partner to do stuff with. I don’t know anything about riding or horses under saddle — how to tell if they are straight, or relaxed, or bracey, or anything. Just so much I don’t know. I saw playfulness where Erin saw dominance; I saw extroversion where Erin saw introversion; I feel like I am always waiting for something, waiting to get over the next hurdle or climb the next step or something.

I don’t know how to tell if I’m exercising him enough or too much, or to feel if I’m doing too much in one direction or another. I don’t know when I’m lacking leadership and when I’m respecting his thresholds. I *think* I am doing right in backing way off and rubbing him, but maybe I need to be moving his feet a lot more and bringing his life up, to earn leadership and to engage him better? I don’t know!

I’m not crushed or frustrated so much as sad that as we approach our two-year anniversary together, we aren’t out riding four or more times a week, becoming more athletic and having fun with patterns and games and the trail. I feel like I’m letting Rocky down. I know he’s happy, but he’d be even happier if we were really forging an active partnership, and he would still have the other 20 hours a day to eat and laze!

I can see that for the first time in the two years since I met him, he’s fat. You can’t see a single rib, and from the front, his belly sticks out past his shoulders. It only took two years but by golly, he no longer looks like he’s starving at the knacker’s holding pen.

Static electricity is making his tail all floofy, too. He was not swishing his tail when I took this picture, just holding it still and out from his body. Tomorrow I’ll go rub him, or at least his tail, with a dryer sheet.