Interesting session which put this to the test today. I was doing cloverleaf pattern leading her loosely on line. I did it a few times both reins, until she got it & she was following body cues, nice & relaxed; so before she got bored I thought I’d change it up a bit & instead of leading her around the markers, I’d stand still by a marker & send her around it in a circle. Immediately her head went up, she froze, staring into the distance – aha! So when I asked for anything away from me, she became unconfident, couldn’t do it.
I can’t believe I’m only just seeing this, but better late than never. Now I need to change my strategies. I’ve been trying the same things over, and both of us getting disheartened by poor results, never moving on because I felt I hadn’t fixed issues. I’ve worked on confidence with her before; she loves to play “touch it”, we do leading from other zones including behind, successfully, including at liberty – but I am never very far away. I think I need to develop these things & build distance gradually; make sure she understands she will always come back to me.
I need to be more subtle with her. I know she is very sharp, a quick learner, but she is also very sensitive, and I think I have been shouting at her. I need to be firm, but I must be fair. I need to control my emotions. Slow things down. Give her time to think. If it’s not working, change my strategy.
I’ve noticed an improvement in her attitude generally since I’ve redefined the leadership boundaries. I’ve also noticed that she needs a long phase 1 when I ask for something; & I need to ask more quietly and give her a lot of time to react. By intervening or upping the pressure too quickly I was crushing her confidence and being too ready to be critical. Now by going more slowly, I am getting a result much faster! Hallelujah!
Tuesday 29 November 2011
Sunday 27 November 2011
Using herd dynamics
Although the natural horsemanship methods I attempt to follow relate to herd hierarchy and relationships, somehow I've lost my way a bit so a timely visit from my friend Susan (who has been studying and working with herd dynamics for many years) is a huge help and learning her approach is taking me right back to basics and making sense of a what is going wrong. Already since her visit there is a difference in Lucie's attitude and she seems much happier to have our relationship and position more clearly defined.
There is some old video footage of me with her before she went lame, where she is really connected & engaged in playing around some obstacles at liberty. So I needed to find out what had gone wrong. I felt that although my horse looks for leadership, at the same time she questions it & imposes herself for example, by blocking me with her body or head. I have been confused about this, but the answer is that I have been confusing my horse!
Susan noticed that when I was handling Lucie I was making a lot of movements which were giving imprecise signals with my body and the rope and being very confusing for my horse. I hadn't realised quite how bad my rope work & body language had got! When you are on your own you don't see these things, except through your horse, and I did know my ability to interest her had gone right off recently, and she is uncomfortable around the obstacles. As Susan observed, she goes through the motions, knows what is expected such as going around the tires, but her body language says she's not enjoying it. Some video here of me:
http://youtu.be/ZvYyUajvZdc
When we changed places, I immediately noticed that Susan's body language is very calm, assured & clear. Her shoulders invite the horse to follow her and when she stops, she is firm & still; when she moves off, it is a clean movement and she takes the horse with her. My body is all over the place in comparison - so that's something I need to work on. I know these things but I haven't been applying myself... must do better! http://youtu.be/13g1WxS42wM
It may look very simple stuff but here are the building blocks of a good foundation for the relationship with your horse in which the horse accepts your leadership and from that, your ideas.
I must emphasise that the problems I have been having are of my making, because I am following certain training methods but applying them badly - the fault is mine, not the horse or the training methods! I will be working on myself very hard now, my body language and energy control particularly, and no more flapping about vaguely with the rope and hands. My aim is to have a happy horse who wants to do things for me; if I don't it's my fault. You can make a horse do something, but can you get them to want to do it... I am better at saying it than doing it, but hopefully thanks to Susan's help, we are going to get back on track.
Some of Susan's comments:
"Lucie uses very readable body language and some of it is clear and some very subtle!!
I started by walking the area, owning the space and dictating our path, all the time watching her reactions and reading the signals she was displaying, the main things she did were to block with her head into my space, it was quite subtle but clearly showed her to be trying to take a dominant role in our new relationship, I moved her back and pushed her head away then led her off. Her flat back ears were another signal of her not totally accepting the situation as were the focusing of her attention outside of the area when she decided her blocking wasn't having an effect. As I said she is quite subtle with her language and it could be overlooked if you were not reading her, at some points she turned in when halted and again blocked me I responded by doing what another Alpha horse would and cut across her brushing her head out of the way with my body and walking positively in a different direction this forced her to follow my lead which she actually did willingly. Once she started to understand her position in our pairing her ears became much softer and responsive to my language, she halted with soft interested ears flicking towards me, she was still blocking with her head at first but was told each time to move it out of my space she accepted this with soft ears and body language and she stopped blocking very quickly, each time she respected what was being asked of her she was rewarded with a lowering of energy and a stroke on the neck or head. It is very important to build up the asks in a session in small steps, reading the horse each time and responding clearly in the correct way that they understand.
She is a lovely mare and once she has clear signals and bounderies presented to her she definately starts to respond well, the only problem at the moment is she tires quickly and it is important to keep the sessions short with the opportunity to follow the same method outside the area on walks to keep her interested and alert, this is something Sheila has been doing since the visit.
I would say that Sheila is too hard on herself and working alone is not easy especially if you start to go stale and have no-one there with a second pair of eyes to pick up on things that maybe need a different approach, Sheila is very capable and experienced and will definately get her relationship with Lucie back on track."
"The pressure and release in Herd Dynamics are used as a mare would with her foal to start with, just placing the horse in the foal position each time and correcting them when they overstep or start to take the lead, all the time building up the very close mirroring that the mare needs to establish to keep the foal safe, when she moves the foal moves when she stops the foal stops etc etc, once this has been established the distance between the two will be increased but always retaining the connection. Once they understand this then the relationship of other herd members and the language they use to move each other around is introduced, it always starts with small gestures and asks and only increases in energy if the horse does not respond. I say it is like teaching a child to read, small sounds and words to begin with, praising each time and not moving up to the longer words until they understand the small ones and how they connect together. With horses the language is the body and its energies.
Pressure should be subtle and release immediate upon compliance, exactly how horses use it."
If you like what you read, and would like to know more about herd dynamics and how to use it in your training, or would like some similar help from Susan, this is her website: http://herddynamics.wordpress.com/
There is some old video footage of me with her before she went lame, where she is really connected & engaged in playing around some obstacles at liberty. So I needed to find out what had gone wrong. I felt that although my horse looks for leadership, at the same time she questions it & imposes herself for example, by blocking me with her body or head. I have been confused about this, but the answer is that I have been confusing my horse!
Susan noticed that when I was handling Lucie I was making a lot of movements which were giving imprecise signals with my body and the rope and being very confusing for my horse. I hadn't realised quite how bad my rope work & body language had got! When you are on your own you don't see these things, except through your horse, and I did know my ability to interest her had gone right off recently, and she is uncomfortable around the obstacles. As Susan observed, she goes through the motions, knows what is expected such as going around the tires, but her body language says she's not enjoying it. Some video here of me:
http://youtu.be/ZvYyUajvZdc
When we changed places, I immediately noticed that Susan's body language is very calm, assured & clear. Her shoulders invite the horse to follow her and when she stops, she is firm & still; when she moves off, it is a clean movement and she takes the horse with her. My body is all over the place in comparison - so that's something I need to work on. I know these things but I haven't been applying myself... must do better! http://youtu.be/13g1WxS42wM
It may look very simple stuff but here are the building blocks of a good foundation for the relationship with your horse in which the horse accepts your leadership and from that, your ideas.
I must emphasise that the problems I have been having are of my making, because I am following certain training methods but applying them badly - the fault is mine, not the horse or the training methods! I will be working on myself very hard now, my body language and energy control particularly, and no more flapping about vaguely with the rope and hands. My aim is to have a happy horse who wants to do things for me; if I don't it's my fault. You can make a horse do something, but can you get them to want to do it... I am better at saying it than doing it, but hopefully thanks to Susan's help, we are going to get back on track.
Some of Susan's comments:
"Lucie uses very readable body language and some of it is clear and some very subtle!!
I started by walking the area, owning the space and dictating our path, all the time watching her reactions and reading the signals she was displaying, the main things she did were to block with her head into my space, it was quite subtle but clearly showed her to be trying to take a dominant role in our new relationship, I moved her back and pushed her head away then led her off. Her flat back ears were another signal of her not totally accepting the situation as were the focusing of her attention outside of the area when she decided her blocking wasn't having an effect. As I said she is quite subtle with her language and it could be overlooked if you were not reading her, at some points she turned in when halted and again blocked me I responded by doing what another Alpha horse would and cut across her brushing her head out of the way with my body and walking positively in a different direction this forced her to follow my lead which she actually did willingly. Once she started to understand her position in our pairing her ears became much softer and responsive to my language, she halted with soft interested ears flicking towards me, she was still blocking with her head at first but was told each time to move it out of my space she accepted this with soft ears and body language and she stopped blocking very quickly, each time she respected what was being asked of her she was rewarded with a lowering of energy and a stroke on the neck or head. It is very important to build up the asks in a session in small steps, reading the horse each time and responding clearly in the correct way that they understand.
She is a lovely mare and once she has clear signals and bounderies presented to her she definately starts to respond well, the only problem at the moment is she tires quickly and it is important to keep the sessions short with the opportunity to follow the same method outside the area on walks to keep her interested and alert, this is something Sheila has been doing since the visit.
I would say that Sheila is too hard on herself and working alone is not easy especially if you start to go stale and have no-one there with a second pair of eyes to pick up on things that maybe need a different approach, Sheila is very capable and experienced and will definately get her relationship with Lucie back on track."
"The pressure and release in Herd Dynamics are used as a mare would with her foal to start with, just placing the horse in the foal position each time and correcting them when they overstep or start to take the lead, all the time building up the very close mirroring that the mare needs to establish to keep the foal safe, when she moves the foal moves when she stops the foal stops etc etc, once this has been established the distance between the two will be increased but always retaining the connection. Once they understand this then the relationship of other herd members and the language they use to move each other around is introduced, it always starts with small gestures and asks and only increases in energy if the horse does not respond. I say it is like teaching a child to read, small sounds and words to begin with, praising each time and not moving up to the longer words until they understand the small ones and how they connect together. With horses the language is the body and its energies.
Pressure should be subtle and release immediate upon compliance, exactly how horses use it."
If you like what you read, and would like to know more about herd dynamics and how to use it in your training, or would like some similar help from Susan, this is her website: http://herddynamics.wordpress.com/
Friday 25 November 2011
Back to basics
I’ve taken myself back to my books & training DVDs to re-examine our relationship. Sometimes you have light bulb moments and then wonder how on earth you didn’t see these things before! Sometimes you are too close to your own horse to see what’s happening. Sometimes you just need to re-examine things. If things are going wrong and your horse isn’t doing what you asked, you probably asked it wrong.
Most important is to observe your horse. I thought I was doing this, but now I’m looking again, and seeing things I didn’t see before, or had interpreted wrong. Ask yourself whether the horse is confident or unconfident in each situation; this may change from day to day & moment to moment. Just because they’re fine with something one day doesn’t mean it is okay (safe, as they see it) the next. You need to look at it from their point of view. There might be a lion behind that log pile today, even if there wasn’t yesterday. If you can convince your horse that you are going to keep it safe & be the leader your horse needs you to be, then it will be much easier for the horse to trust you. But you have to prove it, and with a sceptical, nervous horse like Lucie, you may have to prove it every day & in every way.
I’m saying all this because although I read it, talk it, know it – I forget! So these are some of the things I’ve been reminding myself of.
Video filming is also a very revealing tool; for me, it’s sufficiently embarrassing to motivate me to do something about improving my body language. Also I see what is happening with the horse beside me, and can observe her body language too.
Thursday 24 November 2011
Introduction
I’m not much of a blogger but maybe the discipline will be good for me! I’ve had Lucie for nearly 3 years now & you would think we’d be doing lots of interesting things but instead I feel as if we have gone backwards from the progress I made with her in confidence and leadership in the first few months, and before the lameness from bone spavin meant we couldn’t do much for over a year now. That meant not being able to push her in case it hurts, & avoiding tight turns & small circles, & of course not being able to ride her; but there are still lots of things we can do on the ground. What is my aim with her? Trail riding - not possible at present; and games, agility, obstacles on the ground, and liberty. Somewhere between the pain & my ambitions with her, Lucie has lost the pleasure of groundwork. First and most important, I want a happy horse that wants to do these things with me. I can make her do these exercises, but I want her to be involved, to enjoy, to have confidence in me and in herself. So I need to look again at how I’m presenting things to her, as there is obviously something not working. I need to understand her fears & confidence issues - and try to be the leader she needs me to be.
Sometimes you have to go right back to the beginning & start again, & that’s what I am doing.
Sometimes you have to go right back to the beginning & start again, & that’s what I am doing.
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