Percy Day 2

Yesterday I groomed Percy and practiced with the bit. Today, we ventured Out. Our farm can be a scary place because of all the non-horse activity that goes on. While the horses become accustomed to things they see daily, the horse corner is at the back of the farm and the adventure begins when you leave that area. The barn, the run-in sheds, the paddocks and the round pen are all close together and are surrounded by pastures and fields in which they see the livestock and machinery. But to get to the larger arena, we have to travel around the livestock barn, through the barnyard (not visible from the horse barn) and out into the front field. This requires passing many a frightening sight.

First on the right is the sheep "race"...a cluster of blue panels that hold a group of sheep and funnel them into a chute where they can be vaccinated or even into a contraption that flips them so their feet can be trimmed. The horses almost like it better when there is activity going on here- when it's quiet they are suspicious! Then we proceed to where farm machinery is parked on the left and at the same time on the right is the livestock barn with some loose metal roofing that flaps noisily in the wind. If you make it past that, the real excitement begins: the barnyard. You just never know what you will find. Immediately on the right is the barn door, immediately on the left is the shop. The wild card in all this melee is my husband. He does not have 1st or 2nd gear. He gets out of bed in 3rd gear in the morning and shifts up from there. He is likely to pop out of one of these buildings at any moment- if you don't know him, you would assume by the way he comes out that the building is on fire. Add to that, he doesn't believe in going anywhere empty handed, so he may be preceded by a huge roll of black plastic pipe. Or one of our favorites- he carries 50 gallon black water tanks on his head, thereby becoming a large water tank with legs (always a favorite with the horses). There may be a livestock trailer with various forms of livestock parked there as well, vocalizing loudly or banging the sides.

So you get the idea that venturing out with the babies is, well, an adventure. So recently I have tried to come up with a plan that uses more tools than just head down to keep things calm and under control. First, I took one of the larger mats and put it in the drive right next to the sheep race. Beyond that, I put the large orange traffic cone in the middle of the drive at the top of the rise going down to where the machinery is parked. Mother Nature provided some deep luscious grass right next to the truck and livestock trailer (empty today). Back closer to the barn, I put the mounting block.

Percy walks happily to the paddock gate with me but then begins to LOOK. He has been out here before, has practiced getting on the trailer out here, but his body language said, "you just never know....". I like to them to look around but also like them to remember that I am on the other end of the rope. I pulled up my lesson with Ande and Alex of "hyper-clicking" to keep their attention. I clicked for every tentative step forward. Every one. After a few steps we'd practice head down. He was very good about leaving his nose in the dirt until I clicked.

Next Alex lesson that I pulled up was rewarding them for difficult behavior with something they like and so I had planted the mat right there for him to go to. The mat is a secure and safe place, so he marched right onto it and stood like a statue (well, a statue that wiggled from flies). If he had not been so fond of the mat, I would have been risking "poisoning" the mat by putting it in a scary place. But I felt I had enough good experiences under his belt that it would work the other way, and the mat would calm him in a scary place. After being clicked several times for standing, I asked him to put his head to the ground while still on the mat- more calming behaviors. Then we walked off again.

I did this last week as well and last week, I turned around and we went back to safer zones after our first trip to the mat. But today, I thought he was staying cool so we continued on. Clicks for stepping bravely forward with me, stopping now and then to put the nose in the dirt. And that brought us to the cone! So he got to touch the cone a bunch of times for clicks and treats- another thing he loves to do and is rewarding for him. Here too, last week, I had let him turn around and go back to the mat after this but today we continued on down the little hill toward the stock trailer and the grass. Once we got to the grass, I let him put his head down and graze- a calming and rewarding behavior all by itself.

Here, the Jack Russells made it interesting. I forgot to mention that there is a stack of giant straw bales behind the shop, covered with black plastic. It can be scary in the wind but today was still. Straw stacks mean mice and rats, however. And Jack Russells love to hunt mice and rats. So under the black plastic they went. I stood with Percy for about 15 minutes while he grazed and the Russells rustled and popped out of the plastic here and there, and then were quiet and then sneezed, and then got in a fierce argument....it was not dull. Percy spooked several times and once did a very good imitation of his mummy. I'm not sure how they do it but at one second they are next to you and the next second they are 10 feet away. They don't hit the end of the line. They just kind of levitate to the side. I couldn't blame him. The darn dogs were startling. But it was good for him to go back to grazing each time and get less and less concerned with the rustling.

Finally the dogs scared all the vermin deep into the pile and came out, panting happily and I decided we'd all head back to the barn before my husband came home and started anything new..... Oh, but when we got back to the paddock, we did a quick mounting block lesson. Alexandra Kurland has a whole session on teaching a horse to stand for mounting and that is another piece of preparing Percy to be ridden. As well as self bridling- clicker trained horses bring themselves to the mounting block to be ridden. So I climbed up on the block and worked a bit with Percy positioning himself just exactly where I wanted him. I patted and rubbed all over his back and reached over and patted his far side for several clicks and treats. Last week I actually jumped up on him- just lay over him like a sack a couple times. He was very, very good and I was very, very happy.

Planning the Day

I think the lesson I learned today was that I need to be very careful in the order I work horses in and the thought preparation I need to do between different horses. The other day went so well, having the same general lesson for three different horses and one flowed nicely into another and I got smarter about what I was doing with each horse. Each one benefited from the work I did with the previous horse.

Today I had a different experience. I managed to salvage the day but I had to put some serious effort into it. The morning started out with a lovely short ride on Elly. Actually, it started with some lovely ground work with her, followed by a bit of time spent on the Mounting Block Lesson which had fantastic results (trickling down from the mat lesson and getting her four feet under her) and then some lovely riding. It was my first time back in the saddle this Spring and felt great. Elly was responsive and quiet...I saw none of the anxious uncomfortable horse that she can sometimes be.

So that should have set me up for a perfect afternoon. The next horse (pony) I chose to get out was Stowaway. He is the least clicker savvy of all the horses here and the most shut down. Having been a lesson/camp horse, he is pretty dead. It took many many targeting lessons to get any positive reaction out of him at all. I'm not sure he really gets it yet that he can actually do something to enhance the game, but at least there is a light in his eyes when he hears a click. I felt he was overdue for some time with me which is why I made him my second project of the day. But he is so heavy to work with- accustomed to being dragged around and having to ignore all manner of tactless handling- that by the time I was done with him, my handling had become pretty coarse. He did really well and I longed him for a bit and he was thrilled to get clicked for some trot work- it was great to see a little liveliness to his step.

So then I got Ande out and that's when I noticed the trouble. I was carrying over some of the heavy feel I had from Stowaway. Ande had been so light and positive the previous day, and I realized I had lost that. As I worked, I focused hard on what we had achieved, how I had achieved it and what that had felt like. I did get it toward the end but it took a lot of mental/emotional effort on my part. I think if I had taken a few moments before I pulled him out of his paddock, to mentally prepare myself...the way watching the DVD had inspired me...we would have had a smoother day together.

After putting him away, I turned to Percy and then Rumer. The farrier is due on Monday so that always gets me hustling to work on feet. I had a really good time with both of them yesterday and was hoping to build on it today. But they had both had been listening to me click others in the round pen next to their paddock and were very anxious to get their turn! I knew Percy could get antsy listening so I chose to do him first but oh boy was he a wiggle worm. He just couldn't contain himself waiting for me to give him something to do. Every move I made, he tried to figure out something special to do in response. Back up? Step over? Swing my hip around? Good grief he was all over the place and getting more frustrated each second because he wasn't getting it right! I finally froze in place and clasped my hands together at my waist: Grownups are Talking cue. He got it- phew, he seemed to say, I know that one! And it got him to hold still! I did a lot of Click/Treat for that because I knew he was really itching to move. I then proceeded to head down because I wanted to calm him down some more and he seemed to be OK now that he at least knew what I wanted and he was getting rewarded for it. That was fairly successful but he also took a swipe at my leg while his head was down- typical colt style but he hasn't done that in a long time and with just breeches on, I reacted a lot more strongly than I had during the winter when I knew I had a lot of cushion between me and any teeth! So I knew he was a little more stressed than I really wanted so I decided to give him something to sink his teeth into! I got out his loopie toy and let him pick it up and hand it to me about 10 times. By this time, he really seemed quieter so I returned to yesterday's cross-tying lesson. I ran a long lead through a tie ring on one side of the aisle and another through the other side and attached both to his halter. I did not tie either but just held them and played with pulling first one and then the other, C/T ing when he yielded to each. He remembered from yesterday so I dropped both leads, leaving them through the tie rings and began working with his feet. He was an absolute star for that (front feet only) so I called it quits for the day and considered it a good day to go from Mr Ants-in-his-Pants to standing quietly for having his feet picked out!

Then I cross-tied Rumer and we did more work with her feet. She made huge progress yesterday with her hind feet. Really relaxing her hind legs and letting me pick them up instead of snatching them up. Today we went through the same process but I was even able to pick them out without her pulling away. I did consciously let go of her foot any time she pulled away at all. My instinct is to want to hold on and not "let her get away with" pulling away. But she knows the game well enough now that pulling away and getting her foot back is no reward compared to getting a C/T! So that was another good lesson for me today.

So now, I know I need to get an emotional/mental frame of reference as well as an objective lesson plan before I work with each horse. And I need to plan the day so that each horse gets the best opportunity to do his best work.