Zoe's yoga 2

I wrote about Zoe a while ago and the overarching theme with her is still the same- relaxation. She will now relax on the cross-ties while I groom her, putting her head as low as the ties allow. I reinforce this a LOT still because the distractions for her are many. She knows what is going on in the whole county. Something I have come to realize about the head down exercise is how many repetitions it takes in a good situation before you can expect it to work in a worrisome one. This is a light bulb realization for me- one of those duh! realizations. To a certain extent the exercise is relaxing in itself- the way that breathing deeply can be relaxing. But it is far more effective if you know how to breathe properly and practice it many many times in a quiet situation so that when you use it when tense, it is immensely effective. The same is true for head down and I regret that I did not understand this better with Smarty.

I do not know what Zoe's future holds but I do know that if she can learn to calm herself down, as so many horses have learned to do thanks to Alex's work, she will be a much happier horse regardless of her future career. She does have her tongue chewing habit, but I see that as a coping strategy rather than a calming strategy. It keeps her lid on, but does not reduce the heat under the pot!

Today I brought her into the aisle and increased my criteria for her head down behavior. Not only was she to put her head down, but I wanted her two front feet square. Due to a slight conformation issue, she got in the habit of grazing with her right foot back and her left forward. I have not concerned myself with this before in the head down exercise but I decided to give it a go today. Since I was introducing new criteria, I followed the rules and relaxed my standards on the other criteria. I did not expect her nose to be touching the floor or her head to stay down for more than a second at first. I asked her to stand square, then asked for head down and clicked as soon as she did it. Luckily, she did not move her foot before putting her head down but after it was down so I had time to click before that foot went back. When she lifted her head for the treat, I would give it to her, re-align her front feet and ask again. It took many repetitions but finally she left her feet square long enough to come up for the treat without needing to be re-set.

This was a small thing, but I felt I was able to introduce something difficult for her without really changing the external stress levels. I thought this might be a good baby step before throwing anything too stressful at her. I wanted to get her really working on responding to the cue and feeling the relaxation. I saw no tongue chewing which was great. There were a couple things going on- other horses coming to the door, dogs barking, etc which caught her attention but each time, I gave her only a second or two to listen to the distraction and then asked her to lower her head and she did.

My daughter also noticed that while she remains quiet for grooming, when the saddle comes out, the tongue chewing begins. So after we had several successes at head down with feet square, I brought out her saddle pad- no saddle, just pad. She had been relaxed and quiet for quite some time while we were working and I was curious to see her reaction. While she didn't offer to put her head down when I put it on her back, I watched carefully, and she didn't seem at all concerned. No ears pinning, no tongue chewing. I think I will continue to work the saddle in as the next distraction. Since no one is riding her, we can introduce this just as if she were three and was wearing a saddle for the first time. Hopefully we can bypass the saddle being a trigger for nervousness (or excitement or irritation or whatever it is that is causing the saddle to trigger tongue chewing!).

The Kizzy Challenge

Kizzy had a great lesson yesterday- she loves it when I can make the lesson about her instead of the kid on her back! Luckily, this time I was able to make it about both pony and rider. Miss Kizz can get quite stubborn and just plain refuse to move. And you can't tell the little rider to kick harder because that gets a Kizzy-sized buck...nothing which loses a rider and really quite comical to watch except for the worried look on the child's face. As I've said, we don't know much about Kizzy's past except that it was unpleasant so the fact that she is willing to be a lesson pony at all is a stretch. The kids LOVE her because of her size and her cuteness. She does love to be groomed, and closes her eyes peacefully as she gets pampered.

And of course, the pony in her will do anything for food. So clicker training is very successful. But she doesn't like it when the lesson is about the kid and I don't give her opportunities to earn treats. So she goes on strike. I think this is what worries a lot of people about clicker training- that the animal will not work without food. But in fact, the issue with Kizzy is that I have taught her to work for me and somehow I need to transfer that to working for the kids.

So yesterday I did something which has been successful before. I had the rider give a little squeeze with her leg and then I clucked to get Kizzy to move. As soon as she took one step, I clicked and treated her. Kizzy was glad to see that I was making her the queen so she was more than happy to oblige. The rider gave a tiny squeeze and Kizzy marched right off- no second thoughts, no ears swiveling back and no little bucks. I knew this would work but then I had to come up with a way to make this worthwhile for her little rider! So the lesson became about aids, a balanced position and counting steps! For Kizzy, the lesson was about moving off promptly when the child squeezed and then keeping up the walk. The rider gave a gentle leg aid; Kizzy marched off; the rider had to count steps with me as we gradually increased the number of steps for Kizzy to get clicked; and then when I did click, the rider had to be sitting up tall with a deep seat and heel because when Kizzy hears a click, she slams on the brakes! We had a couple instances of "hitting your nose on the dashboard" at first, but with giggles and lots of repetitions, her rider became more and more secure. The real challenge was counting steps. I love that exercise because it is so valuable for connecting a rider to her seat and to the horse. For the little ones, it is good practice for posting preparation so they learn to feel rhythm of the gaits. Now with Kizzy, it is very challenging as counting her steps is kind of like counting the number of pecks of a woodpecker. By the time we got up to a count of 25, (starting with 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20), I couldn't even say "twenty-three, twenty-four" fast enough to keep up with her steps! That was also great fun for the rider. So as long as they are giggling and learning, I consider it a lesson well worth the fee. Having Kizzy reinforced as well was icing on the cake.

Once Kizzy was moving off nicely and staying in a walk, I put a rail out so the rider could practice turns. I set up a cone about 10 feet in front of E, and put the rail at X, parallel to the long side. Now the rider was going to get "tagged" (I use a clicker with a "ping" sound for clicking or "tagging" the riders). She had to ride down the long side and at the cone she was to look at the rail to plan her turn ("tag" if she remembered to look), keep her eyes on the rail until she got to E where she was to turn and then lift her eyes up to a rock on the hill once Kizzy was turned ("tag" if she rememberd to lift her eyes up) and then ride right over the center of the rail (final "tag" for hitting the center of the rail). Then Kizzy got clicked after she stepped over the rail. Both pony and rider learned the exercise and were rewarded accordingly!

It has been a continuing challenge for me to come up with lessons which are reinforcing for ponies as well as riders. This lesson is a keeper!

Cart Before the Horse

Today I took the new cart out to meet Rumer. I was very pleased with her reaction as it was definitely eye opening but she didn't hesitate to come right over and investigate it. (Unlike Percy who did a very impressive trot around the outside of the paddock with his eyes popping!) I just pulled it into the paddock and she followed right along, getting closer and closer to it. Pretty soon she had her nose all over it as I walked and so I turned and did loops and circles so she could see and hear how it moved. Sometimes it turned toward her, sometimes it turned away from her, but she never left it. And this was without the clicker! I do think it shows a great maturity on her part and shows a clicker trained pony who isn't afraid to investigate scary things (to give him credit, Percy did finally stop showing off his fancy trot and came over also).

After a couple turns around the paddock, she seemed to be comfortable with it (eyes showing more curiosity than concern), so I clicked her as she reached over it. And that opened a new chapter. "Well, if you want me close to it, I can do better than that," she seemed to say. She walked right up alongside me and I clicked again. Pretty soon she was walking along with me as the cart bounced along behind. She got clicked several times for this! Then I turned it to face her and managed to bump her with one of the shaft ends on her chest for an immediate C/T when she stood. So I worked the shaft back along her side, tapping her with it on her shoulder, C/T, and barrel, C/T.

Originally I was going to leave it in the paddock for them to investigate but whenever I stopped, they just wanted to eat it. I guess I will have to take it out to them regularly and maybe leave it where they can see it but not reach it!

Elly update

Elly seems to have gotten over her little tiff with me for taking her out in the rain. After our last ride (which I blogged about below), two days later I took her out into the arena. She was a little distracted, looking for monsters to come down off the hill out of the woods but I just kept focusing on the single rein riding as a way to access her mind and body. Slowly but surely, she stopped worrying about outside things and got softer and more responsive. I've noticed an interesting thing that I need to think about, which is that I feel she bends much better to the right, and yet she seems to have more trouble taking treats to the right when I am riding. To the left, she is much more likely to have her nose poked out on a loose rein, whereas to the right, she bends easily, although she can get curled under. But when I hold out a treat in my left hand, she easily turns to take it. If I hold one out in my right hand, she hesitates a moment, and then seems to struggle to turn to get it as if she has a stiff neck. I hope that even taking the treats will help soften her up as she bends right with her poll higher....

I taught a lesson on her today and had the student go "back to basics" with her, first on the ground, then under saddle but in the round pen mostly at a walk and riding on the buckle. This student rode her all last year but took the winter off and even though her position is good after a winter off, she and Elly seem to have lost all communication. Elly basically just tunes her out and the rider is not a strong personality so the last lesson was pretty frustrating as she couldn't get Elly to do anything other than plod along. So I handed her a clicker and a pouch of hay stretcher pellets and started off by just having her reinforce Elly for stepping brightly off and then staying with her for several steps. Then we added in some back steps to practice the "cha cha" exercise of Alex Kurland's. I would call out "five steps forward" and when they had done that "3 steps back" in a random pattern. I helped the rider with her positioning, food delivery and being solid in her presence.

After this was going well, I had her do a few minutes of asking Elly to give her hips in a very simple exercise to lead up to giving the hips at the mounting block. I really had to chunk this down for the girl as she repeatedly got stuck and Elly responded to this and stalled out as well. Hips don't give when they're stuck! Finally we had a couple good responses from both horse and handler and I felt Elly was much more in tune with her handler, so I had the girl mount up.

At this point I had her repeat the go forward cue and click/treat for a prompt step off just as they had done on the ground. But now, the cue came from her leg. I know how responsive Elly can be to a leg aid and it is very frustrating to watch this girl kick away at her sides while Elly tunes her out and plods along. All it took was one click for a trot step transition and Elly said "OK!". A light touch from the girl's leg and she trotted right off. We repeated this many times so the girl could experience just how easy it can be. Not only that, but after all the hip gives and treating with the rock back, Elly put herself into a nice little self carriage several times- even though the girl rode on the buckle the whole time. I even managed to get a couple photos!

Food delivery

A hot topic amongst clicker trainers these days is food delivery and how the mechanics of it can affect our training. To quote Kay Laurence in her article "It Does Matter a Toss"

"what your reinforcer is, how you deliver it and where you place it all have impact on the behaviour and need to be part of the error free ease of constructing the learning, not making it harder."

This notion has become prevalent with horse trainers as well and has opened my eyes to how I deliver rewards. As a result, I am trying to be very conscious of my delivery with both the different horses and the different behaviors I am rewarding.

First- the different horses: the differing sensitivities follow right through to how the varying personalities take food from my hand. While Zoe is the last horse I would put a child on, she's probably the safest horse to hand feed. Her lips are so very careful that you can hold a peppermint between your thumb and forefinger and she'll extract it without ever giving you the worry that your finger will go too. Some ponies, on the other hand, sometimes seem to think that the best way to insure they get all of what's offered is to take your hand also! Clicker training does offer lots of opportunities to work on hand feeding manners but I need to be consistent in how, where and what I offer.

The other variable is what I am rewarding. Mostly I like to ask the horses to back away from me as I feed so that they do not get reinforced for leaning or stepping toward me. This is especially critical with the lesson ponies. Kids have a tendency to protectively pull their hand back as they feed and so ponies can quickly learn to scramble after that hand so the treat doesn't get dropped. But there is also Alexandra Kurland's mantra "feed the horse where he is supposed to be". If he has barged forward, then yes, the treat should be offered back where he should have been. But if the horse is backed off for some reason, then holding the treat out to my side so he has to reach for it may be necessary (not luring the horse into position- once I have clicked, he gets treated, but he may need to reach forward for it rather than tucking his nose back for it). Or if I am rewarding a horse for a nice relaxed head down, then I might deliver the treat right to a comfortable place where his nose already is to encourage him to maintain that relaxed pose.

I have also noticed how the food and hand disappears from the horse's sight when it is under their nose. So if they are at all worried about whether or not they will get it, they can get a little grabby in desperation. As I unfold my arm to deliver the treat, I try to use that as a direction signal for the horse to follow to find the hand and treat. If the arm unfolds toward their chest, they need to rock back and tuck their nose in or step back to find it. If the arm unfolds toward their nose, they just need to use lips to find it as I present it right at their muzzle. If the less-experienced ones reach to the side toward me, they have to follow my unfolding arm back to where they are aligned with head straight in front of body.

This unfolding action is what I am most trying to concentrate on right now. I need to do it promptly but not hurriedly and be sure that the horse can clearly see where the treat is going to end up so they don't get anxious about finding it.

Knickers in a Twist

That pretty much defines Elly today. The day before yesterday, I took her for a hack with my daughter and her mare. We've had a crazy week of weather and although we started out in sunshine, we were only a couple minutes out when it started to rain. The situation worsened with neighbors shooting at targets, dogs barking and pretty soon the mares decided it was not wise to continue down the road. I tried working Elly through it and for the first time in a long time, she used her panicky backing in response. I could deal with it OK as long as she stayed on the road but when she backed to the edge of the road, there was a substantial drop off and I did not trust her not to step backward off the edge knowing her panic and her odd body movements in that mentality.

So I got off and did some serious hip gives as we proceeded down the road. When she wanted to stop, instead I asked her to bend toward me and give her hip away from me- similar to the way Alex Kurland asks for hip gives at the mounting block. I don't know if this is what Alex would have recommended in my situation but I chose to do it in order to try to get Elly to focus on me and give her hips to get her out of her backing and/or barging. Once we got past a scary bit, I got back on and we continued for a while until it became apparent that the rain was getting harder and so we turned around. At this point it started to pour and both mares wanted to jig home. Elly's head was curled into her chest in a way to make me uncomfortable and I decided to hop off and do the hip gives back up the remaining distance. Actually I was going to get on at one point but my seat saver was so soggy at that point that I decided against sitting on it! (and yes, the sun came out as soon as we untacked and turned them out again).

So today I decided we'd start in the round pen and see how far we got. She seemed to throw all her old cranky behaviors at me: unwilling to go forward, pulling me in the direction she wanted to go, curling under when she wanted to resist my hand. I was very glad we had lots of good rides under our belt for me to think about and go back to. When she didn't want to go forward with just a give of the hand, I gently closed my leg and waited. She took a tiny step forward and I clicked. Hmph! she seemed to say. She took the treat and I repeated. She reminded me of a toddler who just doesn't want anything you offer and simply wants to be cranky, but can't resist the goodies and takes a few minutes to come around. I clicked after one step, then two, then three and then four until she was stepping off willingly.

Her mat was in the round pen and so once she was moving, she headed straight for that. I decided to let her go to it as a reward for going forward. Silly girl first had to do a little spook at it before insisting she stood on it! So I C/T'd and once again we were stuck. She just stood there doing a little tap dance with her front feet on the mat. "I'm standing here darnit, click me!". I just kept the light pressure on her sides and held my hands forward and waited her out until she made a tiny movement forward and caught that with a C/T. She took her treat along with a step back so she was squarely on her mat again :) So I reapplied light leg pressure and we went two baby steps forward before a C/T and she backed onto the mat again. Eventually we made it off the mat although she had to sway her butt around so she didn't step on it with her back feet. Good grief! Talk about toddler! (she's 12 so no excuses).

I decided to avoid the mat for a bit and that made her angry but it was a good exercise to ask for 3 gives of the rein as we approached it and then a big hip give to turn her away from it. The hip give got a C/T so she was being rewarded for listening to me even when she really wanted to go to her mat instead. Pretty soon she was bending nicely to the right but nothing special to the left so I worked on that direction for a while. When she went to the right, I asked for a higher frame in front as she wanted to curl her head under along with the bend right. She responded well.

At this point we were fairly close to what I expect from her so I decided to end with letting her go to the mat again. I asked her for head down on the mat so we could finish on a relaxed note. That was good and when I then asked her to step off, she seemed to be trying to step ON the mat with her back feet this time. This is a challenge even when I am on the ground, but since she was offering, I helped her by keeping my left leg on since her butt was swinging to the left. She got several steps on the mat with a hind foot for a C/T each time but then would step off. Luckily, just as I was running out of treats, she set both hind feet firmly on the mat and stood. So I gave her everything left in my pockets and jumped off. Phew! More tomorrow!!

Ability to Recover

We've had crazy weather for a week which made it difficult to do much with horses or computers! Rain, high winds, hail, power outages, etc.

Percy had a scary moment yesterday and it's been interesting to look back on it. I had him on the cross ties for grooming when my Jack Russell went bounding out of the barn with hair all standing on end in that four legged bounce that Jack Russells have. I don't know what he saw, heard, or smelled but the horses all reacted, including Percy. He tried going backward, hit the cross-ties and came forward (good boy) but hit them going forward so then he went up a couple times, partially spun on his hind legs and got the tie over his poll etc etc. He never did break the ties (even though they are quick release AND I have them tied with baling twine for that purpose) so he definitely respected the ties each time he hit them and just kept looking for new ways to get away. When he stopped for a second, I did a click and my daughter and I were able to both released a side and I put a lead rope on him. He did not go up again but was still very head high so I took him out of the barn and let him go so he could run and see what was going on. But he just stood there with his buddy so I put the lead back on and brought him back in!

I did not put the ties on him but put him back in the same spot, clicked for head down a couple times and then went back to grooming him just holding the lead. He was completely fine and I was thrilled at how well he got over it and went back to his old self so quickly. He did seem to get the tie in his mouth as there was some blood on his lip and I then noticed he had also cut his eyelid. I got a small bucket of cold water and a clean rag to hold on it. It took a couple different approaches with clicks before I could find the approach that was the least threatening. Interestingly, it was to go up his face and slide over his eye from the center. That way, he didn't see the rag coming at his eye and he was perfectly content to let me hold the cold rag on it, rinse it and do it over several times. It had been quite a session so I let him out again.

I was expecting his eye to be all swollen this morning but it was fine so I'm glad I was able to get that cold rag on it yesterday. I think all that I had done when he cut his lip open was good practice. It could have made him more hesitant about treatments but instead, the clicker-training taught him that he could handle it, tell me what was OK and what wasn't so I could try different approaches and he could go right back to our regular relationship without any damage having been done. I will be very careful with the cross ties for a while: going back to the routine I used when I first introduced them and gauging his reaction to decide how to proceed.