I found these illustrations on the eclectic horseman webpage (http://eclectic-horseman.com/pyramid-of-training-for-the-everyday-horseman-part-1/) Followed by a very informative 4 part article by dressage rider Terry Church. I highly recommend this article.
As far as Sophie- well we took our first baby trail ride yesterday! I can tell I am going to have to do a lot of work building her confidence on the trail. I probably won't go back to the arena for some time, because I need to get her confident with this new environment in which everything is constantly changing. I'll keep working on building her foundation- training and constantly engaging and challenging her mentally and physically. My hope is that after every ride she will come back with a little more know how and that will eventually make everything else start to become easier for her. I have noticed that I really have to be careful how much I introduce to Sophie- she is easily overwhelmed and I need to establish a can-do attitude.
Today was day 7 for Miss Sophie- as you can see we have progressed to riding in the sheep pasture. We have been working a lot on 3 things in particular- One Rein Stops, cruising (aka setting the gas pedal and making sure it stays), serpentines and today was our second lesson with backing.
So after I knew I had good hind end control and could moderate her speed, I knew it was time to keep running forward! One rein stops (aka emergency stop) are similar to the hind end control except it really reiterates the concept of stopping with one rein- if she were to buck, bolt, spook, or run off I need to know that I have a way of slowing her down and getting her to stop.
Once I knew I had a clutch (hind end control) and a brake- I knew I could start working on my gas pedal. I start slow at the walk and get her to just walk when cued. Meaning- not jogging-not bolting- just walking. Once we are good at the walk- we go to the trot. Here it is important that I don't progress until she is trotting on her own at a good relaxed trotting speed. In fact, if they jog here I don't get too picky. Especially because she is more nervous, I don't want her to really feel wrong and get frustrated with me. She needs to feel relaxed with me- this predator on her back. It means a lot to them to just let them get used to that. Finally, I start working at the lope. From my video, I hope you can see that whenever she got speedy at the lope- I just calmly shut her down and went back to that one rein stop. Then I calmly get her going again. Chances are high that when she is running at any point- it means she has stopped thinking and started reacting. My job is to get her thinking again....which leads me to another thing that we were working on-
Serpentines! Buck Branaman starts with a lot of serpentines, as does John lyons and countless others. It's very similar to a lot of the ground work exercises I do in that there is a) lots of changes of directions and it also gets her bending and giving and it also helps them relax. With Sophie, it felt a lot like I was riding this crazy little slinky. She would go one way, then another when I asked her to say go right. This will get better with practice! She needs to develop the muscles and the know how, it's just one of those things that I will probably work on every day for quite awhile. It's a great thing to start off with because it gets them thinking and relaxed.
Finally, we went to our second lesson with backing. This is another thing that takes practice...it was the first time I put her in a bind with the bridle and I let her figure out that it was attached to her feet. I had to just hold pressure on both reins until she discovered that the only time she gets a release is when her feet go back---but it starts with little itty bitty tiny baby steps. And when she hints that she's moving one foot back- I give her a total release and let her soak.
Someone once told me that horse training is a lot about putting a horse in a bind and letting them just figure it out. From my experience, nothing is further from the truth.
Today I repeated what I did the last couple of days- basically walk, trot and canter in the round pen. Then I took her to the big boy arena where my husband's weaner calves are living. I got her to track the calves around the pen calmly at the walk- it was a really good introduction to steering around the pen and desensitizing to the cows too! In fact, she was more worried about some pallets that were pushed up against the fence than she was about the calves. Not too shabby! Pretty soon we'll be hitting up trails. I'm not sure if she has just lived in her pen her whole life or if she has had any kind of exposure to pastures or what...it'll be interesting to see how she reacts to everything! I am pretty excited. If she keeps going this good, well. I might decide not to sell her! I might sell my goof ball of a horse instead. He's a good horse too, but I am having a blast with this one!
Well today we had our second ride and I did exactly the same thing as I did yesterday, except I spent some time really getting her to flex. I got her going at the walk really good, then I went up to the trot and then the canter. Every time she broke gait I made sure not to pressure her because that wouldn't have done anything but worry her, so I just eased her on back up. I just needed to check that my gas pedal was working good. Now it's time, and I think tomorrow we will move up to a bigger arena. She is going confident and relaxed. At certain points she even offered to stretch her neck down and I felt her whole body just chill out. Wow, I love that! Now I need to keep going with this great momentum we have. Pretty soon I'll start working on getting her stop cue. Up to this point I have only offered to guide her with one rein or another, then to gently disengage her hindquarters to get her to stop. I need her to practice going left and right but also eventually she will learn to do one rein stops and to stop and back up with one rein. I don't start using two reins until she really understands these things.
What a wonderful day, and I couldn't have had a more text book perfect ride with Sophie! She did great, had a wonderful attitude and I was able to get a lot of forward movement.
First I got her using the thinking side of her brain- then I repeated my lesson from yesterday
And I made sure I could get her to give to me on both sides
She got lots of reassuring pets
Then we started getting her to disengage her hindquarters-
Which led to going forward and lots of changes of directions- always keeping her nose tipped inside!
Changing directions here...
Really encouraging that forward movement to free up her feet and her brain
She got the hang of it pretty quickly- and she felt wonderful (if only a little unbalanced and unsure)
I got up to a lope
And then we wound down and finished with her giving some more.
She's a pretty good girl. I couldn't have been happier about how this day went. And she will remember this ride her whole life- you can count on that!
This is what we did today- a lot of half way mounting- petting - and saddle flapping! Do this about 200 times on each side...you won't need to work out, I promise!
My sister got this action shot of my taking the bridle off for the second time. I had to be careful not to bang her teeth and make her fear bridling!
Well I am 1/4 of the way through my personal challenge and we are so very close to our first ride. Today we worked on Up Downs- mounting half way and just getting her to accept that weight and the noise of everything flapping around. I tried to be real obvious about everything so as not to scare her. The last thing this over reactive thing needs is something taking her by surprise (and me too!) Slow and steady wins the race in the long run. Sometimes it feels like forever, but I have faith that we will pull through. It's intimidating when you see really good trainers breaking horses in a matter of hours- and while it is totally possible to do- this is the best way I know how. One pain staking step at a time. But at least I won't have to go back and fix a whole bunch of mistakes (hopefully!)
Side-line hobbles, one-legged hobble and regular hobbles
The end result? A soft eye patiently waiting.
I was pretty excited today to finally teach Sophie about hobbling. This is one of those lessons that is essentially hard to teach (at least for me!) but rewarding in the fact that you can see results pretty quickly if its done right.
I never understood the importance of hobbling, and unfortunately I had to learn the hard way that it is pretty dang important. You may wonder why I say that and I will paint you a picture to help you understand. Say you have a horse that has very little training and/or has never experienced ropes or hobbles and he stumbles upon some barb wire hidden in the sage brush. What would he do if he became trapped? Chances are he would panic. If that wire somehow got wrapped around a leg or...heaven forbid a neck, well. Let's just say you might not have that horse for very much longer. I have been around horses for too long to underestimate how stupid crazy they can be sometimes (and believe me, I've seen some crazy!) Which is why I believe that EVERY horse needs to be trained- at least to the point that if they DID happen to get into trouble, they would be smart enough to not struggle and to wait for someone to come save them. Sure, they might get hungry in the process, but I'd rather see that than a dead or dying horse the next morning I went out to see them in the pasture.
Which leads me to my lesson. The reason why I say it is hard to teach, is because I am essentially taking the horse's legs away from him. A horse always knows their instinct to run, and if something impairs their ability to run they think it is the end of the world and you may as well give them to the lions. It is my job to teach them that even though they only stand on 3 legs or are hobbled, they will survive if they think their way out. It really forces a horse's brain to search for an answer and to not use the fight or flight reaction so much. It teaches the horse patience and humbleness and it allows them to wait for a person to come save them. Essentially, in a world where the horse searches for us to be their leaders it also helps develop a mutual sense of trust and respect.
I highly recommend Clinton Anderson's Hobbling DVD if anyone reading this is interested in more information. You can see him work a couple of horses and you can see for yourself what the results are. It's just all stuff that a horse needs to know to be a good horse citizen. The more you know the safer you are.
So after 2 and a half weeks off I finally felt comfortable enough about Sophie's leg to start working her again. We still got a lot done though on our break though- we got her wormed, her feet trimmed and I was able to practice trailering a bit more also.
Here's a recap of today-
We practiced saddling and I flapped the stirrups to let her know they were there.
I took an empty grain sack and rubbed it all over her, flapping and desensitizing her to it (note: this is the end product of many days of desensitizing. Please don't ever just go up to a horse with something like this unless you know they are ok with it)
Then we practiced pick me up off the fence. She is getting more comfortable with seeing me up there.
And also playing with the saddle...she has to know that it moves around up there and makes noise.
Sophie is doing pretty well and I am happy with her progress. I've still got a few more lessons I want to cover before we go for our first ride. I want to make sure she is happy and accepting everything new that I show her, so I am taking the time that it takes. A lot of people like to rush into things wham bam shezam...but I like taking my time and knowing that she's confident and I'm confident. This way I don't have to go back and fix a lot of problems later on. I love that she is relatively untouched because she hasn't developed any bad habits. That's just the way I like it!
Well it's been awhile since I've updated! Right after Christmas I was able to get her loading in the trailer and we gave her a little hoof trim right before we took off on vacation. Yesterday we got back and to my dismay...she was pretty sore on her back right. It's swollen and she is favoring it a bit. She can still put weight on it, but it is clear that it bothers her in the walk and trot. Needless to say, the training is going to be slowed way down until I can see that she's better. I took her out and ran the hose over it for 20 minutes (this was also her first hosing, so it did her good desensitizing her to it!).
The back right is swollen on the pastern
I am wondering how this happened and hoping it isn't serious, but I am pretty sure she slipped in her pen. We have been getting some weather up here in King's River, and her pen has turned pretty mucky. It may also have something to do with getting her first trim- however Chad didn't take a lot off the backs...it may have leveled it to an angle she's not used to and influenced her balance. I'll keep a close eye on it for the next few days. If it gets worse, I may have to take her to the vet (good thing I got her loading!)
And how did the loading go? Well, it went surprisingly well. I spent two days approaching and retreating. First I get her going real good over this little ply wood bridge that I made. I get her to go up and back off. Then I put the bridge in front of the trailer and get her going all around the trailer and over the bridge next to the trailer. The bridge gets her used to that hollow noise you get when you are in the trailer, and it also gets her using the thinking side of her brain. Also, it's closer to the ground than the trailer so it is easier to learn how to back off an edge (Have you ever seen a horse that wouldn't back out? They think it's the edge of the universe coming out of the trailer!) Once they get confident at this, then I start actually bringing her up to the trailer, letting her investigate and then backing away. I do this about 100 times. Then I ask her to put one foot in the trailer and back out. I do this 100 times. Then I ask her to put 2 feet in and back out 100 times until I can get her whole self in and it's not a big deal. She feels comfortable because I have let her build her confidence. I love loading horses because every horse is different and I enjoy the challenge. It really tests not only the horse, but the handler because it takes a good deal of timing and experience to do it well and it's something I always try to get really good. I want my horses to back out well, because you never know what kind of trailer the next person will have.
Here's a picture of the rear of my two horse straight load and my bridge in front
And the trim? It went pretty well. She was at first terrified of Chad because she had never had another person really handle her. Chad was pretty good though, and she settled down and gave him her feet. I wish I had pictures, because he handled her very well. It's important that she learns to act well not just around me, but other people as well. This was a hard concept for Sophie, but we worked through it.
