Dee returns home

Today, Dee returned home to her owner. I actually feel far more relieved then upset. She just wasn’t what I was expecting, and I needed to make the decision to re-train her or let her return to her owner. Priced at $3,000, letting her go was more logical then spending more time and money, hoping things would work out.

As husband said, I already have a project horse (Z) and right now, for a variety of reasons (i.e. returning to school, boarding horses vs. owning a farm etc…) it was wiser to reduce the herd.

to do what is right

Today, I made the decision to let Dee go back to her owner. You may remember she came to me on a free lease last August and while she is gorgeous horse (no doubt about that), she simply isn’t what I want right now. Really, I want a horse that I can just enjoy, uncomplicated, and not another project.

When Z comes back I have a project for quite some time…

I’ve contacted her owner and hope to have her picked up before Z returns. I appreciate Dee’s owner trusting me these last months to look after one of her treasured babies. It’s been a joy to have her with me.

learning manners and becoming relaxed

It’s way overdue to Dee on a regular schedule and training program. I really have no excuse that isn’t just lame.

One area that we worked on over the weekend was her leading. Dee bolts forward – she’s eager to go which is great, but not at all paying attention to me. She can also bulge into me with her shoulder or hip while she eyeballs something to her off side.  Asking her to stop behind me at my command and tickling her with the tassel of the dressage whip to get her to bend properly will now be part of our regular work.

With that in mind I took her out to the large pasture in company with Z (led by hubby). The weather had turned cold and on Saturday it was drizzling; on Sunday even colder. Training in the pasture is good as there are a lot of new sites to look at as well as the other horses who graze in that area.

Z, at 4, is already more reliable and calm, then Dee, at 10, who is more animated in looking about and more sensitive to her environment. Having Z with her, helps steady Dee so when I have a second person to help I’ll bring them out together.

The other issue with Dee is that she has beautiful movement when she is at liberty. As soon as you put a saddle on her, all that dies away. Under saddle she becomes stiff, slow to respond, and flat in her gaits.

To combat this, I’m starting some ground work with her that encourages her to engage into trot (from walk) with a more relaxed head set and impulsion from behind.

This is where the target stick comes into play. In a few sessions she knew to touch it got a click and a treat. From there I asked her to move at walk and touch it. Then I’ve started to ask her to move from walk to trot, with her head reached out to touch it. While doing this it became clear that moving to trot invoked excitement, which sometimes resulted in her bulging into me or pinning her ears (common issue with food aggressive horses).

Yesterday we worked more – this time with the target stick in one hand, my dressage whip in the other. The whip excited her so I needed to keep my energy low; the whips’ purpose was just to tickle her outwards on the circle and let her know that angling her hip to me was not permitted (this could easily result in a kick by her and damage to me).

This regressed her somewhat. Every time you add something new, most likely this will happen. You just have to work through it.

Once she gets comfortable with this and is performing pretty consistently, I’ll put the saddle on w/o stirrups and we will start again. Because she is trained to ride, I expect these steps to progress rather rapidly. The question is how cemented in her is her old training and behaviors?

Juggling treats, clicker and target stick

Horse training would be easier if I had four arms.

I’ve worked on Dee, moving from walk to trot. During this transition she lifts her head, braces her neck – and as Mary noted on CSH, this is somewhat conformation as her neck comes straighter out of her shoulders whereas T-man’s neck comes out more horizontally.

I’m sure we were amusing to the birds who were are only audience.

My routine today: with the leading arm hold the long target and get her moving and targeting. This required her to lower her head more then she usually would at walk – nose to about knee level. My other hand holds the whip and the clicker. My big coat is full of carrot bits.

Move forward, target, click, treat. Ask for trot with the whip and if she continues to keep her head level without popping it up, click and treat. If she bowed her body into me, tickled her ribs with my whip tassle and once she expanded the circle, click-treated. When she mugged, waited until she looked away, click-treat (clearly getting this though she still hopes that being obnoxious gets something — it WONT!).

All this was done at liberty in the large arena with no halter or leadrope. Even when she got irritated at me (“Just give me the treat dammit!”) and left, she would do a large circle and return. If you wait and give the horse a chance (not chase them) they will re-engage. If they don’t, you have a whole ‘nother problem then targeting.

She hasn’t quite figured out that I am looking for a certain posture – not a head down to the ground, but the head lower (like the above photo of her) and then a firm PUSH OFF from behind without the head coming up. Not sure how to describe this but it’s an overall change in the body POSTURE not just the head; it’s quite clear to me but others who have watched don’t see those minute changes.

When the transition is correct what I personally notice is that the neck arcs more proudly like you would see with a horse at play, the hindlegs have stepped further under, especially the inside hind, the back lifts just slightly and you might even seen muscle movement at the base of the neck right above the withers, next to the mane crest or if  the horse is extremely fit, you can see the line of the rib cage (it’s abs) as it pulls up it’s back.

Like I wrote yesterday this is the beginning – to change her posture from stiff walk-trot transitions to fluidity. Solid work today but we are being hit by freezing rain and snow tomorrow or Wed.

PS cutest thing – I call and Dee is the first to start coming. If I stomp my feet up and down (cue to trot), Z who is behind sees it and starts to trot, Dee then trots, then the girls break to canter in a race to reach me first, and I shout HO! and they both slide to a stop an arms’ length away and wait. Two peas in a pod.

Education begins… Now…

For some reason I’ve been intimidated about training Dee. Not that she is bad; perhaps it is my thinking that she is so super special… or maybe that she is so different then other horses I’ve owned… whatever the reason, I’ve thought the way I usually approach training would not work and perhaps I wasn’t worthy of her.

Today, she was the first horse to approach so I decided to put aside my doubts and just work with her. I’ve decided that, like the others, I will be teaching her to imitate my own posture, and to respond to a head down cue.

First step: clicker training her to touch a Target. We’ve done several sessions and yesterday it was obvious she understood she was to touch the Target – a sock covering foam on my short target stick (photos below); and a rubber ball on the end of my longer target stick.

Step Two: Reward only behavior that is not mugging. Dee is extremely bad about demanding treats and then practically sucking down your entire hand to get them!!

When you have this problem (which is much like how Pandora pony was when we started) you must IGNORE mugging (aka begging) behavior and reward only when the horse looks away. The horse learns that looking away gets the treat – and she showed quite clearly tonight that she is starting to understand this too.

Step Three:  Like Z, Dee is also dominant. She will push into your space and disrespect it. We can’t do close work until she understands that running over the top of me or pushing her shoulder into my boundary, or trotting in my pocket is not acceptable.

I started working with her on the lead to understand this. I would tap her with my long dressage whip on her rib cage and when she expanded her circle, moving away from me, she got a click-treat.

Step Four: She already knows to mimic my quick step and take trot, but what she doesn’t know is that I want her head to be slightly lower, and her back lifting, and her hind leg stepping under – instead of her typical manner of moving into trot which is high headed, arched-U-shaped back and small steps with hindquarters.

Now this is where I felt we wouldn’t get there. I have dealt with another horse that was extremely resistant to head lowering during trot – Big Guy. And Dee is even more resistant than he was! Could we do it??

Today was a breakthrough as she clearly showed me it is possible. She kinda forgot and easily just eased into trot the first time, and I clicked and treated! Yeah Dee!

We did some more work, and naturally she regressed. This is how Clicker Training happens in the beginning before the horse truly understands exactly what you want. Then they do it for a while, then decide, “what the heck, I just want the treat” and revert to mugging. Ignore the begging, and they eventually go back to the desired behavior.

I’ve already seen this play out with touching the Target. She did it on her own in the beginning of today’s session, but then decided she would rather have the treat and not work for it. When she finally went back to touching the target, I did a few more treats and then we moved onto another exercise in case her refusal to touch was due to boredom.

Overall, a very successful day with Dee and has me thinking that we will just be fine if I just take my time and not let myself feel overwhelmed. Improvements come in increments and I need to remember that.