Reinforcing Me

On Friday, I had a very reinforcing experience regarding clicker training. So much of the training itself is reinforcing, but sometimes it's nice to get feedback from others. Clicker training is still not very mainstream and more often than not raises eyebrows with many people. The most defensive, of course, are those with a long history of training with other methods. Many of us who clicker train, come from those same backgrounds so it's easy to understand their resistance since we had those ourselves....but it's frustrating to see them discount it without really considering it fully.

Elly's owners came to visit her on Friday. I have written about Elly in previous blogs: mat exercises, WWYLM, and single rein riding. I have been very happy with her progress but no one has really asked her to do much in the way of "dressage". When I ride her, my goals are Alex Kurland's exercises; when my student rides her, my goal is the student's position, confidence and control, as well as developing a feel for the horse.

Elly's owners are wonderful people who adore her but outgrew her and wanted a place she could live happily, with attention from kids, preferably one "special" kid. I had a student who was ready for a more able mount so it seemed like a great match. The owners' opinion of Elly was that she didn't love flatwork and might have some discomfort in her body somewhere that prevented her from cooperating when asked to carry herself much. She would stop and begin backing up in earnest. They were aware of her training background which included quite a bit of pressure and "gear" and were happy to hear that I was not a fan of that approach. They had her checked thoroughly by vets and chiropractor who found nothing so they decided that just being a beginner horse was what she wanted to do.

On Friday, her teenaged owner just wanted to get on her bareback for a bit and go for a little hack. I told her my challenges with lesson ponies wanting to roll in the new sand I put down in the arena and asked if she'd mind taking Elly out there for a minute or two first to give her another "no rolling allowed!" ride as I had done the day before. She was happy to do so and when she got in the arena, she picked up the reins and began to walk around. A look of astonishment crossed her face and her mom said, "Look at her, she looks great!". I don't even remember what the girl said, but it was something about how light or soft or easy she was. I had to admit, Elly had immediately responded to the reins being picked up by gathering herself into a lovely little frame. I said the girl must have learned a lot riding her new horse and she said, "no, she was never like this before!".

What a great thing to hear. I had told them the things I was doing with her, and the mom said repeatedly how happy she was- that she had tried previously to get the trainers to keep the excess gear off her and "just let her find it herself!" but were either over-ruled or it was done subversively. Elly made no attempts to roll, so they went off down the road as they had when in previous years, daughter riding and mom walking alongside. When they returned the mom said that her daughter expressed how happy Elly seemed. I was very glad to have them see it and believe it and VERY glad to have the opportunity to work with this horse with the approval and support of her owners.

More single rein riding

I had another interesting experience again today with Elly and single rein riding. One of the biggest challenges that kids have with Elly is that she is VERY food motivated. She understands the rules about mugging when clicker training but if she sees food elsewhere: she is a freight train about dragging kids to a little dropped piece of hay or to the prime target- grass! When being ridden, she doesn't casually drop her head, she rams it down with an intent that makes you feel like your arm has been pulled right out of its socket. And trying to get it back up again is not easy. When she's done it to me, I have the experience, strength and timing to almost always prevent it and if not, to get her back again immediately. The kids don't have a chance and it can make riding her very unpleasant.

I have given some thought to all this as it corresponds to single-rein riding and decided that the theory about using SRR to prevent a horse from bolting or bucking should work for grass diving as well. Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to watch the tail end of a demonstration given by a western trainer about starting horses and he demonstrated what happens when you pull on 2 reins to try to stop a horse who has put his head down to buck. You end up with a horse with his head curled under....exactly the position a horse puts his head to power off a good buck. By using one rein and taking the hip away from the horse, he can't do so. My theory was that it should work for Elly's piggish habits as well.

We began in the round pen although I was a bit distracted thinking "riding" and didn't do any ground work with her first. I was on the mounting block when I realized this and thought, well, she's been so good, I might as well see what happens if I skip the ground work this time. She was just wonderful. I'm trying to work on catching her with a 2nd and 3rd ask for a give before she goes completely back to straight and low. Riding down the road in our little serpentine was good practice for this. I want to get her hind end more underneath her and so I really focus on the step under response and we had a great session. I even went to some trot work with it and it was a fun time.

So I hopped off and opened the round pen, climbed back on and headed through the barnyard for the road. She was very good going through the potentially scary parts and wandered toward grass once or twice along the way but it was easy to re-direct her with a simple slide down. Once we got to the driveway where the hayfield is on one side and the lawn on the other, it was a different story and I really got to put my technique to work! The grass is at its spring premium right now and she hasn't had but a nibble here and there. Pretty quickly I found myself about 15 feet into the hayfield with a backing, circling horse. She did have a habit when I got her, of backing when she was displeased with something. Usually it was when someone was asking for more than simple dressage work.

I did find success but it wasn't simple. It was really important to anchor my hand on the saddle to give some added strength to resist her diving. And I had to be quick when she did dive to catch her before her head was down too far. I also had to be willing to let her back up and not give to her until she gave her hip....and then of course immediately give to her to reward her and immediately after that be prepared to slide down again. I also had to switch from left to right in a heartbeat depending on where she headed....I had the road as my goal and she twisted and turned so much that I was constantly having to change the side I slid down in order to keep her headed in the correct direction. I used no leg aids unless she was simply standing with her head up- which wasn't much- but then I just quietly closed my leg to ask her to go forward....which initially just got her resisting but after some time I guess she realized she wasn't getting what she wanted and so she gave in. Not at all once of course. She'd go a few steps and try again but we eventually made it to the road.

This is long already so I'll save "Part 2" for another time because our experience once we got to the road was interesting as well.

Flipping on down the road

Earlier this week I took Elly down our dirt road for the first time this Spring. I have ridden her in the round pen several times and been very pleased with how the single rein riding is going. I set up cones and focus on softening her to one direction as we cross the round pen, then when we arrive at a cone, I slide down the rein further, look back at her inside hip, and release the rein when I feel her step under herself. I need a lot of practice at this so that I can feel the subtle differences in how far she steps under.

I've gotten a bit of a chuckle out of her as I warm her up with the same exercise on the ground as well as some WWYLM, and some mat work. A couple times she has spied the mat in the center of the round pen when I am riding and in a very determined fashion, marches over and plunks her front feet firmly on it. The first time, she caught me off guard and her effort was so genuine, her stomp stomp of each foot so confident, that I had to Click/Treat. But then she did not want to leave the mat. She figured she ought to be able to stand there and get rewarded for it. Luckily, having watched Keri and Oliver on the "Shaping on a Point of Contact" DVD, I had a good model to follow, although Keri had been working in hand at the time. I closed my leg and asked her walk off and although she was not happy about it, she did eventually step forward and I immediately C/T'd for that. As Alex says, for everything you teach, you also have to teach the opposite. So she had been taught to stand on a mat, now she had to be taught to leave it as well. One might think she should already know that since she knows to move off from a leg aid, but this is new territory and she might have thought that she should stand regardless of how much I tried to "distract" her with my leg! So I did reward her for leaving it, and worked some on riding past it without letting her pull me to it, and then rode her directly to it, rewarded her for standing and then again for leaving.

At this point I decided we were ready to enjoy some of the lovely weather with a walk down our dirt road. Lessons will be starting up soon and if there were going to be any problems with heading out this Spring, I wanted to see them while I was on board, not a student. Elly came with the reputation of being a fantastic trail horse but I've seen a fair bit of wiggly, not wanting to go forward from her, as well as a "I'll just drag this kid off into the puckerbrush and find myself some sustenance". I did allow her to stop a couple times as we went through the barnyard to look at flapping plastic, different pieces of equipment here and there, etc. She never spooked but did want to take a good look. The end of the driveway is always a bit challenging because we have young cattle across the road and the noise, smell, and odd movements seem to be reason for alarm for the horses. We got past that but as we headed off down the road (which is literally down as it goes downhill), her wiggliness appeared.

Having just been using the single rein riding, I decided to continue. When she veered left to try to turn around and go back to the barn, I slid down the right rein and asked for a give of the hip. This redirected her but she over corrected and headed off to the right in an effort to turn back that way. I slid down the left rein and asked for a give of the hip in that direction. And so on we went, in a many-looped serpentine. I focused on the stepping under of that inside hind and as soon as I felt it, I was sure to release the rein, regardless of whether she really felt like the front end was going in the right direction. I knew I could always ask again if she didn't completely give. But I don't think I ever had to. Instead, I could catch her sooner before she got perpendicular in the road and redirect her. And she softened and didn't require as much of a slide down before yielding her hip. As a result, our tight serpentine gradually flattened out until we were doing a very shallow serpentine down the center of the road. I kept "straight" in my mind and did not allow her to wander, but neither did I insist on absolute straightness. Before long, I decided to be happy with the progress we'd made and did ask for a big step under in order to turn around.

Then I had a bit of a surprise because instead of hustling back up the hill to the barn, she was very relaxed, looking around at the surroundings and walked calmly home. I'm quite sure that if I had "gotten after her" to make her go down the road and go straight, I would have also have had to get after her to walk slowly up the hill. Now we shall see how well I can convey that to her younger riders!!!