On-Line

On-Line

Practicing draw felt like reinforcing drive…with Rock at the wheel

Posted on June 12, 2009 by horsegirlonajourney

I did my homework this morning: S-turns (S-pattern) with Rock to encourage draw. But instead of a friendly draw, I think he was putting his ears back and driving me!

I know about “wipe that look off your face” and “don’t let him come to you with his ears back, send him out/back him up again until he’s polite and respectful,” but I’m not sure how to incorporate those into S-turns.

When Erin first taught him the S-turn, he interpreted it as a send, and got RBE when the pressure didn’t release and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He figured out the puzzle and became, in the words of Ron Weasley, “bloody brilliant!” at the S-turns. I don’t want to put sends back into it and confuse us further.

But then on one turn he almost snaked his head. It wasn’t a strong movement so much as the thought of head movement, with a little bit around the ears and eyes and mouth. I felt it clearly and I knew I couldn’t just keep going without addressing it.

If what you’re doing isn’t working, try something else; you have a 50/50 chance of being right. ~ Parellis

I drove him back in a yo-yo and went with him, trying to keep projecting my energy, and I used the stick to keep his hindquarters exactly straight. I tried to be particular and passively persistent until he had a good brisk back and the steering worked and we did almost a full circuit around the arena in various zig-zags. When he had two ears and two eyes on me and wasn’t bracing against going back, I gave him a rest. I am still learning to sense a more subtle brace than planting all four feet and sticking out his tongue, but he licked and chewed immediately at getting the breather, so I think I did okay.

As I write, I realize I am focusing on the positive and discovering that I did try and learn things. At the time, I felt ineffective, clumsy, unsure, and useless. Like I was just making things worse instead of better and stirring up resentment and “wrecking” the relationship. I kept remembering Erin saying on Tuesday that there was no relationship/connection happening at all when I first put Rocky on-line and sent him to a circle; I had thought she meant just at that moment, but today was wondering if she meant all the time. That he’s always subtly driving and I just didn’t know. I don’t think that’s the case, but during the homework, I would have believed it.

After the massive yo-yo, I tried more S-turns and still got ears back. However, I’m also not very far in front of him because I can’t run that fast (forward or backward, and I tried both), so part of that could be that he’s so close he can’t give me two eyes and see me. I don’t want to keep acting as if it’s dominance when it’s not, especially when it is dominance often enough that I get to practice that strategy too. Yet if I judge by the rest of his facial expression and not just ears, it’s dominance. (Sigh.)

He never allowed tension to develop in the rope — he kept it slack the entire time, even when I tripped over a cone and landed on my butt right in front of him. Nice to know that he won’t run me over.

At the end, I did a couple of driving game fore- and hindquarter yields, 360 degrees, which he did but not particularly enthusiastically. This was to see if the driving game worked and to let us end with something we’re confident with, keeping the belly of the rope on the ground.

I ended with a traveling yo-yo about 12 feet back to the cone and then a wait. And wait. And waaaaaaait. For him to drop his head, give me two eyes, swivel both ears forward, and lean toward me like “can I please come in now?” When that happened I invited him forward and he came with a fast walk and happy face, so we ended there and I put him back into this pasture where he could finish his beet pulp and probiotics and supplements in peace.

I’m not in good enough shape to jog backwards steadily for 20 minutes in arena sand, much less do wind sprints, so I ended up going in little bursts with only two or three turns each. Even when I was running 16-20 miles a week, Back In The Day, I was never fast. I tried to churn my legs fast enough for Rocky to get up some speed at the trot but if I did that, I couldn’t sustain very long AND turn AND manage my rope and stick. This is a problem that will resolve over time simply by continuing to practice running backwards towing a horse.

Meanwhile I have been feeling sad and deflated becauase I am not spending as much time with him as I want to, and here it is June and I have barely ridden him. It feels like years ago that I started the Freestyle patterns and he learned to follow the rail; it has been months. It’s partly the barefoot transition and not doing it the way I now, in retrospect, wish I had done (but that’s about moot as the guy is coming Monday to measure and roll-trim). But it’s partly just me. Not being provocative enough. Not giving him enough physical exercise in our play sessions. Not introducing new stuff or higher gaits. Not being able to apply the appropriate strategy at the right time. Diving too deep into the classroom instead of going out and making mistakes in the lab….

Categories: Learning Experience, On-Line | Tags: deflated, Horsenality, provocative | Leave a comment

My plan for ‘solving’ Rocky’s opposition reflex to stepping on his rope

Posted on June 5, 2009 by horsegirlonajourney

I’ve been struggling with this one for a while. On one hand, Rock doesn’t always panic when he steps on his rope while grazing, and when he does panic, it’s not as big as it used to be. On the other, he still does sometimes panic, and I have not been able to tell what makes those times different. It might be that he’s stepping closer to the snap and therefore has less play in the line when his head comes up.

Rock can't wait to learn the new way to lead by the leg

I called the Parelli Savvy Club Gold hotline today for the first time to ask what I should do about this. I spoke with a woman named Julia and told her what I have been doing: lots of porcupine to bring the head down, lots of head down, variety in putting the halter on while squatting, etc. (And as I talked I got a warm thrill as I remembered how hard this was for Rock when I started, and how these days I barely have time to close my hand on the line now before he lowers his head.) I explained that this mostly happens when we’re out grazing, as I try not to trip him him when we’re playing, although that has happened to.

We talked about a lot of things but here are my action items:

I can handle the rope better (or take it off for grazing) so he doesn’t get into this situation. I thought that I wasn’t supposed to manage it during down time, that he was supposed to learn to deal with it. Turns out nope, once I put the rope on, it’s my responsibility to manage it. I can do that!
She asked if he pulled back when tied, which made me realize I hardly ever tie him. He’s on the high line for at least an hour, sometimes two, every morning to eat his beet pulp and supplements and pellets out of a bucket, so he gets practice at tying, but that’s a rather yielding setup as well. She suggested that when I tie or practice tying to a rail, I wrap the line rather than tie him hard. (There’s a Savvy Club DVD segment about how Pat teaches horses to tie and not pull back, which I will review.)
Instead of holding both sections of the rope when leading by the leg, just hold the one side. I’ve been holding both to keep slack on the halter and just apply pressure to the leg. Now it’s time to play porcupine in both places at once, the leg and the head, so Rocky can solve that puzzle: lower my head and step forward. Now that I think about it, well, duh. When riding a person often uses multiple cues, many of which are porcupine. And you don’t see David Lichman‘s horses doing the Spanish Walk with their noses in the air. Julia said to practice this in a safe environment where Rocky feels comfortable so he can tune in and solve the puzzle without additional stress, and to go as slowly as he needs.

One thing that resonated strongly was the idea that when a human puts a humany thing on a horse, the human needs to stick around to give release. We were talking specifically about the rope but I think it applies beyond the line and will ponder it further. I said that I was always nervous about just turning a horse out with a lead danging from its halter, because it seemed to me like a good way to break a neck or take a bad fall. She agreed, and noted that when it comes to lead ropes, the horse can’t give himself release the way a human can.

I can simulate a downward pull by stepping on the rope, letting it slide under my boots and holding it in my hand so I can give Rocky drift if he needs it. I saw Pat do that with the rescue horse at the Reno Celebration (“want to learn how to do a backflip?” he joked). But if the horse is standing on his rope he can lower his head but he’s still trapped until he figures out how to move his feet. By then the release isn’t connected with the lowering of the head.

Heading out to the Back 40 now, either to lead them to the Back 80 (now that Sterling is living down the road a piece at the trail-riding ranch, the herd doesn’t have a fearless leader through the pass) or to practice leading by the leg in this new way, or both.