# Macarena and Flamenca, 2015



## Bondre

8th January
We did some schooling out in the field, and I even managed to get my son to come out and take some photos. Macarena is quite forward when she gets going, so I always do a few trot and canter circles before she settles and starts to listen. We are working on getting a nice regular gait at the trot, and on her canter leads as she is stiff on her right lead. We hopped over a low jump a few times to see how she did. She has a great jump, and I need to work on distances with her as she tends to get in too close.








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## Bondre

11th January
Trail ride up to the open fields past Los Canales. There's a big area that hasn't been ploughed this winter which is great for letting her open up. 

15th January
I finally decided that Flamenca is rideable on non-stony ground. I bought her in December, skinny and with hopelessly overgrown front hooves. The farrier trimmed too much toe (she has almost certainly got sunken coffin bones) and lamed her on the spot. Since then I have taken more off her heels until her foot is getting more balanced, and now, a month layer, she has grown enough sole to walk sound on even ground. She's put on weight too and looks nice. 
I rode Macarena and Alberto (son) rode Flamenca. Up the road to some non-stony fallow fields where he did circles at the trot. He hasn't got the hang of riding trot yet. Macarena was pleased to have company, but she's not accustomed to going alongside another horse and gets excited. She wanted to speed up at first, but I said no way, and she calmed down and trotted beside Flamenca fine. We crossed into a different field and trotted again, but this time Flamenca broke into a gentle canter. DS was having problems getting her back to a trot, and while he was trying to circle her, Macarena was getting pretty explosive. She really wanted to sprint up and overtake her friend, but I wouldn't let her of course, because then Flamenca would speed up rather than slowing down. For a minute or so, Macarena was cantering on the spot - it felt like she was bouncing in fact - and she was so stressed that I worried she was about to do a phenomenal buck or rear, but no, she contained herself very well. By that time, DS had Flamenca trotting back to us and the sticky moment had passed. 
Once we returned to the yard, DS put Flamenca away and I took Macarena out to our schooling fields to let off some steam. After a good fast canter to stretch out, she did some really nice canter circles and long figure eights, with lead changes on the diagonal, and she even picked up her right lead correctly (she often misses on the right). Then DH appeared on a dirt bike and we chatted a bit before I headed back for the yard across the fields. He passed us on the road, and Macarena coiled up under me (at the walk lol) asking for a sprint. Her reaction to the dirtbikes is the same as to a horse cantering - she wants to go faster. (Except she always loses to the dirtbikes!) So she was asking for a sprint, and since she had worked so well, I gave her the go, and we flew back across the fields. And them I had to take her all the way back round the furthest field at a loose walk to cool her down.
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## Bondre

18th January
Took Macarena out through the forest and up the steep rocky hill to the cairn. Good for hind-end development! From there we went down the far side to the old gypsum quarry ( more like a scrape and spoil heaps on a hillside). DH and DS were out on the dirtbikes and the old quarry is a favourite spot of theirs; sure enough, I heard the noise of the bikes coming up the hill towards us.

Macarena tensed up when they arrived, and leapt forwards into a canter as DH passed, with DS bringing up the rear on his bike. Macarena was pretty stressed about being between the two bikes, and when they peeled off to the quarry we continued down the track..... and cantered and cantered some more until she got a grip on things and we could stop and turn round. So I guess she bolted ops!: Totally my fault for letting her race after the bike the other day. 

So we turned and cantered back to the quarry, where she freaked again and wouldn't stop, so carried on along the track in the other direction a bit further. Then turned round and back to the quarry again, and this time we met the dirtbikes on the track. We passed them at a (nervous) walk, so I was happy about that and decided we had seen enough of dirtbikes for the day! 
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## Bondre

21st January
I took Macarena out and Astrid (6month old pyrenean mastiff) accompanied us, which was nice. Astrid enjoyed herself enormously! She's gradually getting used to the idea of horses, but has a bad habit of crossing too close in front of them which earns her dirty looks and head shakes from Macarena.

We went up to the abandoned land below the 'monte'. Some men were cutting up felled trees with chainsaws. Macarena spotted them from far away and wanted to check them out, but when we approached she decided she didn't like them after all and wanted to scoot off. We went to and fro a few times until she relaxed about the chainsaws (the men probably wondered what the heck we were doing!) although I didn't insist on her getting too close. 

We did a couple of big circles at the canter to get her to relax a bit, and poor Astrid followed us faithfully. She hasn't realised yet that when we do circles it isn't necessary for her to follow in our tracks. Her tongue was hanging out a yard when we finished. I bet she slept well that night!
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## Bondre

27th January

Last Sunday was a dirtbike day, and Saturday was really windy, so it was a non-riding weekend. Flamenca's Easyboots arrived on Tuesday, after having to exchange the first pair for a size larger, so Tuesday evening I enthusiastically rushed down after feeding the goats to try them on. And they fit!

I saddled her up and off we went. This was the first time I've ridden her since we brought her home, as I didn't want her loading my weight without the hoof boots on. And guess what, she's gone herdbound in the last month and a half of just eating and hanging out. I took her down the fields, but she started getting very nervous, and one of the boots fell off, so back up to the land beside the yard to do a few circles. The other boot fell off there, and then she tried to skidaddle back to the gate. 

My son had come to ride her too, so I put her on the lunge rein and he rode a bit on the lunge before we called it a day. It was almost dark by then. 

Two lessons learned:

1. Put the Easyboots on tighter.
2. Flamenca needs work on her herdbound-ness.
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## Bondre

28th January
I decided to work with Flamenca this afternoon and do some barnsour exercises. I put her Easyboots on the tightest fitting - and they didn't fall off  We started with some easy circles on the patch of land beside the yard, at walk and then a bit of trot on the near side to the yard.

From time to time she would chuck her head in the air and bunch up as if she was thinking of rearing. The head-chucking seemed to be looking for a hard contact to avoid, but my response was to lower my hands, give a tiny tweak on the reins and push her forward. So she had nothing to evade, haha. I am riding her in an unjointed portuguese curb (after trying her in a single-jointed snaffle, which she didn't much like), and she goes very nicely in the curb. Riding in a curb is new for me, as in England as a kid it was all snaffles and kimblewicks or the occasional pelham, and now my other horse Macarena is bitless. It's always good to learn something new! 

Anyway, Flamenca was ok until I took her round behind the yard and then asked her to walk up past the yard gate. She sidled in to the gate and we got stuck there. She was really nervous when I asked her to leave and kept going sideways/backwards/doing crow hops until we were hard up against the fence. There was nothing I could do from on top of her to get her out from the fence. 

In retrospect, I should have asked DH to give her a slap on the butt ( he was watching the spectacle). The trouble was he had tucked himself into a corner between the yard wall and a giant hay bale, and Flamenca was showing every sign of wanting to join him in his corner..... so I was insisting he get out of the way before anything went too wrong. (I still can't believe he had cornered himself there seeing just what Flamenca was doing only five metres away :shock: ).

Anyway, after a few minutes of unsuccessful manouvering I got off Flamenca, gave her a good whack on the butt, led her away from the wall, and got back on. Then we did some more herdbound exercises without any further hiccups, and I ended up taking her up to the house (she attempted a slow-motion spin on the way but couldn't pull it off), where I dismounted, petted her and unsaddled her. 

I hope a few more sessions like this will improve her. At least she's nowhere as bad as Xena was. The bad thing about Xena was that she was extremely herdbound, green, and she had massive holes in her training. Whereas Flamenca is only moderately herdbound, is old and wise, and has a solid base of training to work from.
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## Bondre

30th January
I had company today on my ride  - DH decided it was time to swing a leg over Flamenca and hit the trails. This of course meant a very.... gentle.... ride. DH doesn't like speed on a horse, and even less so riding in an English saddle, as he says they're slippery and there's nothing to hold onto lol. I need to look for an Australian saddle for him. He likes the Spanish vaquero saddles, but I hate them - they keep your legs away from the horse's side so forget subtle communication with your legs and seat. I reckon a stock saddle would be a good compromise.

Anyway, Flamenca was an angel, she didn't put a foot wrong. Which was a huge relief! (She's fine in company, it's just on her own we've got the herdbound issue to work through.) The last time DH rode was on Xena, who refused to walk home and jogged the entire return journey with him, so he swore off the horses for months. Not that he's a big fan of riding, but if at least we can poddle round the trails together once a month, that's good. Just like I get on his dirtbike and whizz round the circuit at the speed of light lol.... or maybe just a touch slower 
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## Bondre

3rd February
After a week of not having enough time, I finally rode Macarena again. It was pretty windy, though at least not icy cold with the wind, so she was a bit jumpy. I took Astrid with us; she has the bad habit of crossing in front of Macarena, who gives her pinned ears.

I took her through the pine forest to the big apricot plantation by the solar panels. We trotted up the first (forested) side, planning to canter down the next side, but when we arrived at the corner, the huge arrays of solar panels on the far side of the fence were creaking and groaning eerily in the wind. Macarena tensed right up and I decided that it would be better to walk the boundary of the solar panels if I didn't want a panicked horse bolting under me. I'm a bit wary of cantering round the plantation since one day a pigeon flew noisily out of a tree and Macarena spooked sideways into the line of apricot trees. Fortunately there was a tree missing in the line just where she spooked so I had room to brake and turn her; otherwise I would have got pretty mangled in the branches. 

We walked the boundary of the solar farm without any spooks, and cantered the last side of the plantation. In mid-canter she put her head down a bit and did a mini buck. This caught me by surprise as it was her first every buck under saddle. Perhaps it was the wind in her tail? Anyway, I let her know that wasn't acceptable and she didn't try again. She was pretty fresh throughout the whole ride, though I guess she didn't do bad considering:
1. the wind,
2. a week without riding, 
3. she's only four, rising five.
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## Bondre

Yahay, just looked outside and it's SNOWING! Not that it's going to lie - the ground isn't cold enough - but snow is snow, and we haven't seen a single flake in two or three years. 

So to celebrate, here are some pics of the animals:

Macarena and Flamenca (recently arrived in this pic and still skinny)



The dogs. Platina giant-sized, Astrid medium-sized and Babosa the tiny white creature in the middle lol:



The lovebirds. Boom (green) two months old, Bam (yellow) still an awkward fledgling. And no, I didn't name them!



Goats.



The cats. Bichita (the siamese) was still a freaky kitten here. La Roja is her adoptive mum. They both love the dirtbikes!


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## Bondre

After nearly a week of vile weather (freezing cold and gale-force winds) and no riding, I finally took Macarena out yesterday. She was very fresh and I thought some schooling on the fields was in order. Her ideas were more along the lines of once round the field at the gallop and back home lol. 

I started with lots of trotting to settle her. Big circles mixed with smaller circles and serpentines when she started speeding up. 

Her trot is her worst gait. She tends to either pull and tank along or if she's not keen on where we're going she trots as if she's on the verge of collapse. It's hard to get her doing a decent working trot and relax, and when we do get it, she stretches her neck and wantsto travel with her head too low for my taste. I don't know if this is her rounding her back (maybe she's trying for low deep and round), as she always does this after her fast trot with high head carriage.

Once she settled I asked for some canter, and what a contrast to her trot. She has a lovely collected canter, plenty of impulsion without pulling or trying to race off. But she didn't manage her right lead at all yesterday. Some days she picks it up fine and other days she just doesn't get it. 

There's a spooky little building at the far ended of the field - a little dark shed behind some pine trees. It's the sort of place I'd have been scared of as a kid, but that doesn't really explain why Macarena is also scared of it! At the start of the ride she was on the verge of bolting every time we went close, but by the end we managed to walk past calmly (although she did give it her best bug-eyed suspicious stare :shock: ). 

After the schooling I took her for a short round in the forest, with more trotting up hills to get her in shape. She was still looking bug-eyed at all kinds of stuff that she's well familiar with. I guess she was just having a fresh 4yo day


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## Bondre

Bondre said:


> 8th January
> We did some schooling out in the field, and I even managed to get my son to come out and take some photos. Macarena is quite forward when she gets going, so I always do a few trot and canter circles before she settles and starts to listen. We are working on getting a nice regular gait at the trot, and on her canter leads as she is stiff on her right lead. We hopped over a low jump a few times to see how she did. She has a great jump, and I need to work on distances with her as she tends to get in too close.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I moved the photos that went here and now they've disappeared, so here they are again:


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## Bondre

What a relief! Flamenca is OK again.

She had a mouth full of barley-grass seeds over the weekend. Those horrible pointy seeds that get stuck in your clothes. I noticed her eating badly on Thursday night, and on Friday she was slobbering saliva and half-chewed food all over. I checked her mouth and found two small ulcers on her lower gums and some seeds stuck behind her lower incisors. I cleaned the visible seeds out and washed out her mouth with salt water.

Saturday she was still slobbering. I worried she just have some seeds in her back teeth and called the vet. He'll come on Monday. Cleaned her mouth again.

Sunday slobbering but less. Cleaned her mouth and found a couple more seeds. Took her hand-grazing in the afternoon and she was eating well. The fresh grass stalks are easier on her mouth than the dry hay.

Monday she was almost normal. The vet had to reschedule for Tuesday.

Tuesday she was fine. No surplus saliva. I cancelled the vet and explained.

I'll be giving an earful to the fodder merchant who sold us that fodder. One giant bale was infested with those seeds, and I've had to ditch it.



Isn't she just the sweetest?
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## Bondre

Such a long time has gone by since I posted here that I don't know where to start....

Flamenca's Easyboots arrived which means I could start riding her. She had a rather barn-sour attitude at first, and we had a bolshy episode when she flatly refused to leave the yard area mounted. I had to actually get off her in order to unstick her from the yard wall safely as she was on the verge of rearing. I did a couple of sessions on barn-sourness and was relieved to see a rapid improvement. It seems she was just trying it on:

"Hey mom, I've spent the last two months hanging out and getting fat, I'm ok with that, why change anything? If you don't want to ride me out it's fine by me, don't worry".

Actually she loves going out on the trails, look at her alert face and pricked ears . 



Anyway, after a bit of a tune-up I decided my son could start riding her, and I'm delighted to say that he is doing very well and greatly enjoying her. He's a confident novice, no finesse yet but good at keeping his balance. His first canter on her was bareback carrying a bunch of bulky broccoli plants over her withers. We were bringing the two horses back from hand-grazing, and he hopped on Flamenca. She went down the far side of the field instead of following Macarena, until she realised she'd got it wrong and cantered across to join us. My son was thrilled about it, and didn't drop a single broccoli plant!

Now he's hooked I need to give him some lunge lessons with Flamenca so he can work on his position and I can watch him more closely and correct all his mistakes. At least Flamenca has taken him smoothly through the vital confidence-building stage of discovering that yes, he can trot and canter alongside me and Macarena on the trails without mishaps. 




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## SueC

Hi Bondre, just found your journal and love your menagerie! Are the goats for milking, or capretto, or both?

The horses look nice! Are they a Spanish breed? And I notice you ride bitless, which I think is cool. Not that I have anything against bits (the right ones for a horse, not what's in fashion or tradition), but bitless and bareback are great things to have in the repertoire, and improve horsemanship.


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## Bondre

Hi Sue, thanks for the visit! I'm sorry that my journal is so sadly out of date  . Since spring started I never seem to have time to update it, but perhaps now the long hot summer afternoons - when the mere idea of going outdoors makes you wilt - will be more conducive to journal-writing.

Yes, we have quite a collection of creatures. The goats count as livestock rather than pets of course, so goats aside our head count isn't remarkable: two horses, two cats and one dog, two lovebirds who rule the roost over a gerbil companion and four quails, and various chickens. Some of the goats are very tame - the bottle-raised ones still think I'm their mother - but some of them are devil's spawn lol.





We sell the milk to a local cheesery where they make a variety of goats cheeses; they are starting to export, but I doubt they've reached Australia yet. And hope they never do, as I'm sure you produce plenty of your own cheeses over there to be needing to import European cheese. I'm all for local markets ;-)

The horses are both gems (in my entirely unbiased opinion)  . Neither of them are registered, but I suspect that they both have mostly PRE blood as they are both that type, particularly Flamenca (but she is too small to be purebred).



I think Macarena might be hispanoarab - she has a delicate head with a slender muzzle - although sometimes she looks more like a donkey with those long ears and her wobbly lower lip lol.



Yes, I ride her bitless (though at first more out of necessity than conviction) and have since become a convert to bitless riding. I got her at 3 1/2 with basic ground training,* but I think her previous owner had messed around a bit and she was afraid of being tied, of being washed, and of wearing a bit. She was fine about a saddle but a bit was not good news. So I researched into bit less bridles,* made myself an Indian rope bosal, and started riding her with that. At first I planned on "progressing" to a bit over time, but as she does fine like she is and I'm not planning on ever selling her, I don't see any need to try getting her to wear a bit. 
Bareback is another story.... I used to ride ok bareback in my teens, but I think I am too old, she is too young, and the ground is too hard to do anything beyond pottering bareback nowadays  .

Here are some pics of my son tantalizing Flamenca with a handful of fresh alfalfa across the irrigation stream.

Hey, that looks tasty! 



Can't quite reach....



Wish my neck was a bit longer....


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## anndankev

I absolutely adore Macarena, and now Flamenca also.

To have your son enjoy them with you, and Flamenca to take care of him is a precious thing.


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## SueC

Those horses really are beautiful. What's PRE, excuse my ignorance? I've heard of Andalusians and Lusitanos, and I love the Spanish-look horses, regardless of ear length or convex profiles (Lusitanos) etc.

What breed goats do you have? Here in Australia we have mainly Saanen, Toggenburg, British Alpine, those sorts of types, and Nubian. And lots of feral goats, of course! Milked a Saanen as a teenager and made my own cheese. Want to keep a house cow or a couple of goats to do it again, but have to finish the house first! :rofl: Busy enough with our horses, donkeys and cattle. Also we are getting chickens when the house is done (nearly there, but crawling across the finish line).

Hot weather: We get plenty of that here in summer! What drinks do you make for cooling down? Our favourite is an iced tea made like this: Brew four green tea with jasmine bags in a litre of hot water, let it cool, put in a 2L jug and make up 50:50 with orange juice. Throw in some lemon and/or lime slices, refrigerate, serve over ice cubes.


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## Bondre

Hello Ann, nice to see you here. You're right about the joys of sharing my love of horses with my boys. Flamenca is just the right first horse - kind and gentle and with that sort of wise "surprise me if you can - but you won't succeed" face that old grey horses are so good at.

Here are some pics of her doing her job with my boys. My younger son isn't really a horse person but she's gradually convincing him that horse-riding isn't necessarily dangerous and can actually be fun.






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## anndankev

Two sons. Uh-oh, need another horse.


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## Bondre

Sue, not ignorant of you not to know what PRE stands for. In Spanish-speaking countries,* the Andalucian breed is officially known as Pura Raza Española - although the breed DID originate in Andalucia. I suspect the decision to adopt the Andaluz breed as the "official" Spanish breed was a case of regional politics, as there are several other native Spanish breeds (but none quite as charismatic and popular as the Andalucians). So it seems the rest of Spain was perhaps a bit jealous of the popularity of the Andalucian regional breed.... lol.

Our goats are Murcianas, from the region of Murcia in the southeast. They are small, smooth-haired goats, brown or black, and noted milk-producers. There are of course LOTS of native Spanish breeds of goats, as they are the ideal livestock for this rugged dry terrain. (Though the average Murciana is too highly bred nowadays to consider scrambling up a mountainside - our goats would fade away if they had to walk kilometres every day in search of food!). And nowadays the foreign breeds (mostly saanen and alpines) are starting to get a foothold too, though why we need to cross-breed escapes me. In any case I have heard that while the first generation Murciana x Saanen turn out well, the F2 generation deteriorates.... plus the fact that the Saanen is a much bigger goat, so Murciana nannies covered by a Saanen billy could have problems kidding.

I do love the Toggenbergs though  . Such sturdy little creatures. They remind me of Thelwell ponies!

Your recipe for iced citrus tea sounds very refreshing. I'll have to try it! I've been subsisting recently on my home-made aquarius - one litre of water with a small teaspoon of salt, a large tablespoon of sugar, and the juice of one lemon. 

And of course, there's gazpacho..... yum!  . I'm going to go and make some right now for lunch. Back later!
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## SueC

I've just got to ask - are you native Spanish with incredible English, or originally English-speaking and moved to Spain later in life?

That thing about the politics of adopting the Andalusian as the official Spanish horse even though it's not strictly Spanish reminds me a little (but in reverse) of when an Irish person said to me, "Irish Stew was actually not an Irish dish, but an English one, which the English decided to blame on us!" I'm not sure if that is true or not, but it was funny anyway. 

Gazpacho, very nice. I also love the tapas - especially the regional cheese and the pickled or BBQ octopus, that sort of stuff. And Alcazar cake. And we love making Paella. I visited Spain with my parents once when I was around eight years old, but we only went along the "bottom" coast, the boring, overpopulated part (as I think is true for France's south coast) - if I had a TARDIS, I'd be going off the beaten track to the real, traditional places. What's it like in the region where you live? The scenery looks nice.

Oh, and have you seen Gaudi's buildings for real? I didn't on our brief Spanish visit. If I had a TARDIS etc... I think it's fascinating architecture...


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## Bondre

I'm English born and bred, moved to Spain after I graduated and never went back. I studied zoology but was impatient with the whole academic thing and went back to earth on an organic smallholding in Andalucia for a few years lol. Then I got married and we moved over to the south east and set up our dairy goat farm.

It's very rural here, the locals aren't very used to outsiders beyond the South American immigrants who come here in quantity as agricultural workers. There's lots of "off the beaten track" here! Probably because there's nothing very spectacular culturally or environmentally to make people want to come here to visit. Although there are some internationally famous Neolithic cave paintings just down the road.... in a rather inaccessible cave on a mountainside. No signposts, no fenced pathway, no guided visits, no nothing. You need to be reasonably agile to get up there. If this was England, it would all be fenced off and you'd have a guide with mountaineering credentials to take visitors up and down safely. So there are some good things about being in a forgotten corner....

We're in a little green patch just between the desertic south-east and the desertified cereal-growing plains of La Mancha (Don Quijote country). It's primarily a fruit and vegetable growing area so lots of leftovers and windfalls for the horses  . At the moment their diet is supplemented with peaches and nectarines, which slightly offsets the sad lack of grazing. 

I've travelled most of southern Spain over the years, and have lived briefly in the north west, but I haven't ever been in the north east. So no, I haven't seen Gaudi's creations. But I think the Alhambra and other Moorish monuments are equally amazing.

I've been dipping into your journal again, Sue. There's a lot to read in there! And good stuff too, worth reading slowly and pondering. Don't want to skip through it. So perhaps I'll get round to contributing in another couple of months.... Do you have photos of your straw bale house anywhere? It sounds a wonderful construction. I'd have loved to be able to build one myself - I love doing stuff like that - but I've always ended up with bricks or stones and mortar.
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## SueC

Straw bale house construction photos here, in chronological order:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/redmoonsanctuary/sets/72157628414190373

With all these photos, you can click on them to get them fullscreen and with the captions/comments (which are hidden on the tiled multiple-photo display). We specifically documented our build in detail to provide a resource for other owner-builders and interested people.


Our general photos include these but also the farm / animal photos and have the newest ones first:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/redmoonsanctuary/

No, we don't have a camel, but Brett would like to hire one for a day just to see Sunsmart's reaction! :rofl: (Occasional excursion photos are also included in this collection, hence the camel ;-)).

If you click on "albums" on this page, you can also specifically just see the flora/wildlife sanctuary photos (we steward 52 hectares of wonderfully preserved and species-rich remnant vegetation on our place), or the beginnings of the permaculture garden.

The academic thing can be really unpleasant - bad office politics and all that. We have a friend who had to repeat his honours year when he was a new graduate because another research team who wanted to publish first stole his samples from the laboratory and never gave them back. All his work just gone like that, and no consequences to the people who did it (as no forensic proof). This kind of stuff unfortunately is not uncommon.

I think being on a farm and putting your knowledge into practice is a super way to go. Basically that's what we decided to do five years ago. I got nerve damage to a vocal cord that ended anything to do with public speaking and I needed to have something alternative to get really engaged in. So finally, we are practicing what I was preaching all my life. ;-)

I love that "untrodden ways" scenario you were painting earlier. Where we live is one of the few places in our region where you don't constantly hear motorised vehicles. The rural road we live on is a dead end and has mostly just the local farmers using it, plus the school bus and milk truck (several dairies on our road, including a goat dairy - whose milk isn't trucked out, but made into cheese in situ).

Your area sounds like a nice place to live, if you have a love of nature and untrammelled living!


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## Bondre

Gosh Sue, that's quite a collection of photos of your place. It looks absolutely beautiful, the landscape is fabulous. Your creatures must all be very happy living there (and you guys too!). Your strawbale house is quite palatial. I had expected something smaller - althrough I thought the strawbales were generally load-bearing, whereas it looks as if you have used a timber frame construction so I guess that allows two stories. Did you have to order specially compact bales? And I'm not quite sure if you lined the whole house with plasterboard, or whether you plastered straight onto the bales in some places? 

Time to have a space for the lovebirds in this journal. They've got big news! 

Boum, the female, is nesting 

The proud parents are only young so I don't know if the eggs will be viable? She is seven months old, and her partner Bam is just six months. But they are SOO cute together! 



They lived in the house with us until six weeks ago, pretty much free-range, but they wear getting a bit destructive. Boum started shredding paper with her nesting urge and destroyed part of one of my son's posters. So it was time to rehabilitate an empty chicken house for small flying birds to live in.

They are actually very happy with their new house, as although it is smaller than having the run of our house, it is 100% their territory. They share it with a gerbil, and are mutually curious but not antagonistic. We made several suitable nest holes in the walls for the lovebirds, but no, contrary as ever Boum has made her nest on the ground, in a secluded corner originally intended for the gerbil. In fact, the gerbil had chosen it as her sleeping place until a bossy female lovebird evicted her.

She started incubating three days ago, so another three weeks to go....

The male, Bam, is pretty bored. He watches over the nest but doesn't help incubating. He's always very pleased to receive a visit, and doesn't let you leave. Boum emerges briefly to greet visitors and then returns to her nest, perhaps with a few straws tucked under her wings to add to the pile. 

Here she is shredding straws, while the yellow male is busy with his favourite salt lick (my sweaty and salty neck lol):



And here with various straws tucked into her feathers, hedgehog-style, for transport:



And here is her fiercely guarded treasure 



We can't see into the nest, but my son experimented taking blind shots with the camera and finally discovered the eggs. It turns out the huge mound of straw she is constructing doesn't actually surround or contain the eggs, but is more like a protective barrier. 

And here are the happy couple in the entrance passage to their nest:


_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> Gosh Sue, that's quite a collection of photos of your place. It looks absolutely beautiful, the landscape is fabulous. Your creatures must all be very happy living there (and you guys too!). Your strawbale house is quite palatial. I had expected something smaller -


There is a bit of visual illusion going on there!  It's actually only about 180 sqm plus a 20sqm attic. This is smaller than the ridiculously large houses Australians generally build these days (our nation now holds the world record for average house size, and it's not one to be proud of). We were adamant to make no duplicated anythings: Australian family homes offered by the major builders these days have informal and formal living areas, informal and formal dining areas, home theatres, and other forms of unnecessary duplication.

And now there's a new fashion starting: Outdoor kitchens, complete with refrigerators, to serve the outdoor dining areas (which have outdoor heaters...). More duplication! Really crazy in terms of environmental footprint, and actually cleaning, servicing and maintaining a house.

When I was 30, I shared a Federation house in Hobart, and I loved the philosophy of that architecture: There were generously sized bedrooms, one generous kitchen, one dining area, one living area. That was it. The ceilings were high and you felt like you could breathe. If you wanted to be alone you could go for a walk, or you could go to your bedroom and it didn't feel like a trap. If you were out in the shared spaces, you were social with everyone else. No splitting off into little cliques: All or nothing.

This experience really influenced me when we designed our own house. We've used exactly the same principles. The three bedrooms all take Queen beds, and there is one communal living/dining area with the kitchen in the corner. The attic is for private guests and doubles as an office for me. Two of the bedrooms are in a separate wing with a bathroom. This is a fine arrangement if you have children, but unfortunately we do not, so in our case we are going to be using that as a bed and breakfast wing for paying guests who are looking for eco-holidays (we are avid walkers and climbers of the local mountains and will be doing guided walks off the beaten track).

The reason the house looks large is in part that we have high ceilings (like that Federation house), which rake extra-high in the living area. The communal space feels like a cross between a library, a greenhouse and a Middle Eastern chapel. It's an amazing space to be in, and I much prefer that to having a larger floor space. (But my word, did it complicate the building process! We spent weeks plastering off scaffolds out of buckets...and still have a little of that to go.)




> ...althrough I thought the strawbales were generally load-bearing, whereas it looks as if you have used a timber frame construction so I guess that allows two stories.


Actually, you can have multiple storeys whether you do load-bearing or infill construction. Infill construction is easier to get passed by the local authorities and it appealed to us because we didn't want to wait for ages for the bales to settle, or think about how to physically crush them down to their final equilibrium position with load-bearing construction.

Basically, if bales in load-bearing houses still settle after you plaster, your plaster will crack. With the infill method of construction, you're compressing as you go (we did it with fence wire loops and gripples, all of which stayed in place) and there are hard "stops" at the wall tops, held in place by the house frame. 

Also with the infill method, you're working under a roof that's already keeping the place dry - people who build load-bearing houses have a problem if they get caught out by the rainy season coming around while they are still building walls. If the bales get wet through when building, you can throw them away and start again...





> Did you have to order specially compact bales?


You have to make sure that the bales you get are super-dry, mould-free and tightly and evenly compressed.




> And I'm not quite sure if you lined the whole house with plasterboard, or whether you plastered straight onto the bales in some places?


You have to plaster over every nook and cranny of a strawbale wall, to stop fire hazard and to protect the straw from damp. This is as true inside a house as out. A lot of water is vapourised during showering, cooking etc. The lime plaster "breathes" so that you don't get problems with condensation on the inside of the wall - which people get if they use a non-breathable plaster, or if they try to paint or waterproof their plaster. The lime plaster has a higher affinity for water than straw does, so if the plaster gets damp when it gets rained on, and if that causes dampness in the straw touching the plaster, the lime will suck the moisture straight back out the moment it dries. That's why lime plastering over natural materials is so durable, and it's actually a very ancient and well-tested technique.

We have some plasterboard in the house, but only for some of the internal dividing walls. This is made into feature colour walls and used for hanging photos etc.

You can plaster straight onto the straw. Mesh is only necessary around areas you want to shape, like window and door openings, and niches. The plaster gets pushed hard into the straw and penetrates to around 5cm. This is plenty of tooth (and makes for good arm muscles ;-)). Every wall needs three coats of lime plaster, so it's actually quite thick when finished.

(...these days someone just has to tap me and this information falls out. We get asked these questions a lot! )

Spain has a good climate for straw-bale construction. Seasonally arid is a real plus.


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> We were adamant to make no duplicated anythings: Australian family homes offered by the major builders these days have informal and formal living areas, informal and formal dining areas, home theatres, and other forms of unnecessary duplication.


Absolutely! Even here, where houses are normally quite modest, people tend to have two kitchens. They have a smart kitchen in the house, and then build a utility kitchen in the garage, which is the one they mostly use. Not quite sure of the point of this...?

Like you, I'm all for houses that are designed for the inhabitants' comfort and enjoyment. I hate formal spaces that seem never to be used. In a family house one is always fighting mess and disorder, so I have a relaxed attitude about it. I've got more interesting things to do with my life than stressing over whether the house is in showcase condition or not lol. 



SueC said:


> And now there's a new fashion starting: Outdoor kitchens, complete with refrigerators, to serve the outdoor dining areas (which have outdoor heaters...). More duplication! Really crazy in terms of environmental footprint, and actually cleaning, servicing and maintaining a house.


Yes, managing a house like that sounds like a full-time job. Weren't houses originally intended to serve their owners, as a place where you can safely meet all your life necessities? Rather than the owners ending up serving their houses.



SueC said:


> so in our case we are going to be using that as a bed and breakfast wing for paying guests who are looking for eco-holidays (we are avid walkers and climbers of the local mountains and will be doing guided walks off the beaten track).


It sounds a heavenly place for a holiday. Do you have any plans for taking Wwoofers in the future? 



SueC said:


> You have to plaster over every nook and cranny of a strawbale wall, to stop fire hazard and to protect the straw from damp. This is as true inside a house as out. A lot of water is vapourised during showering, cooking etc. The lime plaster "breathes" so that you don't get problems with condensation on the inside of the wall - which people get if they use a non-breathable plaster, or if they try to paint or waterproof their plaster. The lime plaster has a higher affinity for water than straw does, so if the plaster gets damp when it gets rained on, and if that causes dampness in the straw touching the plaster, the lime will suck the moisture straight back out the moment it dries. That's why lime plastering over natural materials is so durable, and it's actually a very ancient and well-tested technique.


Where we lived in the north of Spain the houses were built of timber frame with straw and adobe infill, covered by lime plaster. They were great houses, big and solid, and using all local materials. Here the older houses are stone with.lime mortar, which is the most common traditional building material here. But of course only viable when people had time ( and the necessary knowledge) to build with stone. If you had to pay someone to build a stone-walled house nowadays it would cost an absolute fortune.



SueC said:


> Spain has a good climate for straw-bale construction. Seasonally arid is a real plus.


Yes, where we live would be ideal. Plenty of straw available around here too, which is a must. How many bales did you use in your house?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> Absolutely! Even here, where houses are normally quite modest, people tend to have two kitchens. They have a smart kitchen in the house, and then build a utility kitchen in the garage, which is the one they mostly use. Not quite sure of the point of this...?


Wow, what a strange thing to do! When we lived in Italy when I was a kid (we mostly split our time between Germany and Italy), I didn't observe the Italians do this. For them, the kitchen was the heart of the home, and that's the philosophy we have in this house as well. Lots of good things come from the kitchen, and the processes are interesting, if somewhat messy. Why would anyone want to go to the garage for cooking? The people cooking shouldn't be socially isolated. Plus, what about the aromas? We've just made a thick honey/almond gingerbread slab, and the house smells divine...

Is the two-kitchens business a peculiarly Spanish thing? Or is it some modern fad that has invaded more countries?




> Yes, managing a house like that sounds like a full-time job. Weren't houses originally intended to serve their owners, as a place where you can safely meet all your life necessities? Rather than the owners ending up serving their houses.


Which philosopher said that people become slaves to their possessions? Was is Diogenes, who famously lived in a barrel?




> It sounds a heavenly place for a holiday. Do you have any plans for taking Wwoofers in the future?


Yes, we're just a little step away from that, and should be doing that before the end of the year. We were officially declared a human residence last week, even though we still have one room and the attic to finish, trim to do, and internal doors to paint... and so we are now legally living here at last! :rofl:




> Where we lived in the north of Spain the houses were built of timber frame with straw and adobe infill, covered by lime plaster. They were great houses, big and solid, and using all local materials. Here the older houses are stone with.lime mortar, which is the most common traditional building material here. But of course only viable when people had time ( and the necessary knowledge) to build with stone. If you had to pay someone to build a stone-walled house nowadays it would cost an absolute fortune.


Yeah, but you can't beat houses like that, I think - all those local-materials houses built the old-fashioned way. One of our aims here was to create something timeless - something that didn't ever feel like a brand-new house, or something modern. Something that kind of grew from the landscape... like those houses you are describing. We very consciously avoided using any metal in the windows, anywhere really. We only have metal ceiling battens for carrying the plasterboard ceilings. The whole house frame is local plantation pine. 

We also have no carpets, and nothing synthetic. The worst material we worked with was the floor sealant for the oxide-coloured concrete floors. These look great, and we just use rugs and bedside mats etc where we want them. The attic will probably get sisal matting if we can find it (as it's a particleboard floor), and if not, cork tiles.




> Yes, where we live would be ideal. Plenty of straw available around here too, which is a must. How many bales did you use in your house?


I think it was 520, from memory. Took the two of us less than four weeks full-time to build all the walls to six courses, then about that long again part-time to fill in the nitty-gritty little bits at the wall tops and do the fiddly things. It's the plastering that's the killer if there are only two of you, but we are getting there... and the interior outfitting, like tiling, cabinetry, woodwork...

Are you living in a traditional stone house?


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## SueC

...those lovebirds: Very pretty! Not sure I'd have one free-ranging in my house, as they don't house-train very well. A university colleague had a pink-and-grey galah free ranging in her house. The back of the sofa looked like one of those islands on which guano is mined, her electrical cables were semi-shredded, and it took to attacking visitors' earlobes while she dissolved into giggles and made little baby-talk about it, "Oh funny birdie, pwaying with visitors!"

No parallels to you, just thought you might enjoy the anecdote. ;-) That bird was a menace, and I thought it would have been better off remaining with its family group in the forest from whence it was poached as a chick. (Imagine, a biologist _paying_ a _poacher_ to have a wild bird! :shock

How big are the eggs? Maybe you could give me an idea by estimating how many it would take to make a family-sized omelette? ;-) Only joking. Good luck with the hatching!


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> ...those lovebirds: Very pretty! Not sure I'd have one free-ranging in my house, as they don't house-train very well.


They were fine as babies but once they learnt to fly it was harder to contain them. "Their" passage was separated from the lounge by a curtain, but they soon learned to get past that minor obstacle. And then they started to shred the fly screens in the windows, and we had an escape.... and it was time for them to have their own accommodation. 

I never imagined myself keeping domesticated birds as I've never been a parrot person at all, and prefer my birds in the wild. We got them because my younger son was very keen. But these two are actually very loveable and we have all fallen under their spell. 



SueC said:


> (Imagine, a biologist _paying_ a _poacher_ to have a wild bird! :shock


Horrific dual morality :shock: Maybe she was a microbiologist?!



SueC said:


> How big are the eggs? Maybe you could give me an idea by estimating how many it would take to make a family-sized omelette? ;-) Only joking. Good luck with the hatching!


About the size of the last phalange of a little finger. So you'd need quite a flock of lovebirds to think of making omelettes. :rofl:
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> Horrific dual morality :shock: Maybe she was a microbiologist?!


Entomologist! :rofl: I suppose that made her an expert in classifying some of its food!




> About the size of the last phalange of a little finger. So you'd need quite a flock of lovebirds to think of making omelettes. :rofl:
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


While it's quite the reverse with an emu (we have emus in the bush at our place.) "Honey, I found an egg. Call the neighbours, we're all having omelette!" :rofl:


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> Wow, what a strange thing to do! When we lived in Italy when I was a kid (we mostly split our time between Germany and Italy), I didn't observe the Italians do this. For them, the kitchen was the heart of the home, and that's the philosophy we have in this house as well. Lots of good things come from the kitchen, and the processes are interesting, if somewhat messy. Why would anyone want to go to the garage for cooking? The people cooking shouldn't be socially isolated. Plus, what about the aromas? We've just made a thick honey/almond gingerbread slab, and the house smells divine...
> 
> Is the two-kitchens business a peculiarly Spanish thing? Or is it some modern fad that has invaded more countries?


I've only come across it around here. It seems pretty weird to me too. The kitchen is my favorite room in the house, and I wouldn't want to be parked in the garage smelling petrol smells while I was cooking.

I think this originated with the move from country-living to village living. The kitchen in the village house wouldn't be suitable for making black puddings when the family butchered their pig in winter, or for preserving tomatoes in summer, or any culinary activity requiring space and firepower. So they would make a fire in the back yard, and over the years progressed to building the garage complete with fireplace and chimney. So the dual kitchen mentality evolved from a definite need, and persists even though nowadays few families keep pigs to kill. The garage kitchens are normally quite civilised, much more plush than really necessary, and are the preferred place for celebrating big family meals and get-togethers (keep all those messy visitors out of the house - Christmas dinner in the garage lol!). And so then of course you need a toilet in the garage too....



SueC said:


> Which philosopher said that people become slaves to their possessions? Was is Diogenes, who famously lived in a barrel?


Diogenes or whoever, he'd be horrified by the sheer bulk of possessions people accumulate nowadays. Years ago I read a great 'permaculture philosophy ' book by someone who had lived a time in a traditional adobe hut in an African village. He wrote that the rule there regarding possessions was simple - if you brought something new into the hut, something else had to go, or soon the hut's inhabitants wouldn't fit in their own dwelling. So no hoarders there. 



SueC said:


> Yes, we're just a little step away from that, and should be doing that before the end of the year. We were officially declared a human residence last week, even though we still have one room and the attic to finish, trim to do, and internal doors to paint... and so we are now legally living here at last! :rofl:


Glad to hear that you are now living in a legal dwelling! So one is obliged to get an official inspector to tell you if your house is liveable-in :shock:



SueC said:


> Are you living in a traditional stone house?


Yes, it's stone built with tiled roof, and the main part of the animal housing is the same. Lucky goats living in a stone barn. The house is only one-storey, and we couldn't get building permission to raise it, so we had to expand backwards into the farmyard and that part is built with conventional materials. We put in false ceilings and loft insulation - very necessary because tiled rooves aren't great at keeping heat in (or out). The house does pretty well in summer despite having a large south -facing wall; we're in the middle of a heatwave at present (41' yesterday), and although the stone walls are heating up by now, they cope so much better than bricks or concrete. 

I'm not saying much about the horses here recently  . It's been too hot for riding the last few days, and they are having a lazy time. Here's a photo of Macarena enjoying some windfall peaches. They just LOVE their fruit!



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## Bondre

Today the temperatures we're a bit more reasonable so I got through the evening goat feeding early and went to ride Macarena. It's been four or five days since I last rode, and I always find that my guilt-induced stress levels increase exponentially with several days without riding. Plus there's nothing so relaxing as spending an evening on horseback. 

It was hot, though bearable thanks to a breeze that never quite managed to be cool (but at least it tried hard). I saw several little owls at their hunting posts, and seeing as I was on horseback they didn't startle or fly off as I went by. I heard the raucous shrieks of a pair of great spotted cuckoos in the pine trees. These cuckoos are specific parasites to magpies, so I always cheer them on when I see them! They are highly visible and audible, not in the least bit like the skulking common European cuckoo. 

I took Macarena up to the stubble fields near the rocky sierra for a good canter. Astrid, my pyrenean mastiff, accompanied us as usual. When she first came out on our rides she would run round and round in circles after us when I cantered round the edge of a field, but now she's getting wise to our habits, and knows when she can take a short cut. She's not a fast dog, and she gets left behind at the canter, so she has to use her head rather than follow blindly if she wants to keep up. (Though if I'm cantering in a straight line and no short cuts are possible I always wait for her).

Macarena was going very relaxed the whole time, almost like a western pleasure horse (or what I imagine a wp to be like, seeing as I've never ridden western). She even picked up a right canter lead spontaneously, which is unusual for her. I'm sure an equine chiropractor would be SO good for her, as her right side is quite stiff, but of course no such thing exists here.

We met a tractor on the way home, which caused a minor excitement, though I don't think she was really scared of it. Possibly a bit startled by the big round metal structure it had hooked up behind (for rolling up the irrigation hoses). 

Our neighbour was flying his falcons in the field next to the stables when we arrived back, together with a radio controlled helicopter! He explained (shouted from a distance) that he uses it to encourage his birds to fly higher. 

Peaches for supper again lol!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> Diogenes or whoever, he'd be horrified by the sheer bulk of possessions people accumulate nowadays.


Reputedly, Socrates once spent a long time looking around the Athens markets. Some of his students were following him around. When he finally spoke, he said, "So many things I do not need!"

...and that was before the invention of plastic!

I have Socrates moments every time I go to a shop!




> Years ago I read a great 'permaculture philosophy ' book by someone who had lived a time in a traditional adobe hut in an African village. He wrote that the rule there regarding possessions was simple - if you brought something new into the hut, something else had to go, or soon the hut's inhabitants wouldn't fit in their own dwelling. So no hoarders there.


Seems like a good rule to keep life simple. You will have heard of the Tiny House movement? The guy who runs the strawbale.com website, Andrew Morrison, is an international strawbale educator, and his DVDs were some of the best resources we had for our build. He and his wife are now doing the Tiny House thing:

Build A Tiny House - TinyHouseBuild.com

Small is Beautiful: hOMe by Andrew & Gabriella Morrison | HomeDSGN

Basically, it minimises the amount of resources used and the time spent paying for and maintaining those resources, and allows them to spend more time on creative pursuits, relationships, etc. It's going back to the small African hut thing, in a 21st century way. I really admire the movement and think it really beats the standard spend-your-life-in-debt-paying-off-your-mortgage-in-suburbia thing.




> Glad to hear that you are now living in a legal dwelling! So one is obliged to get an official inspector to tell you if your house is liveable-in :shock:


Yeah, funny!  By the time we told them we'd completed, we were a year past the regulators' deadline for completing an owner build (you have two years here, officially, but some people take twenty). Nobody said a thing (except the lady at the office said, "Shhhhhh!" when I mentioned this to her :rofl. Our regulators don't inspect anymore either, just require us to take detailed photos of the construction process.

We actually moved into the house when the office had its scratch coat on, and used that room as a temporary bedroom. Mice and cold were keeping us awake in the caravan, and our house was warm and nicely rodent-free and, even at that really embryonic stage, far more comfortable than our "legal" caravan! Although the caravan stage was a fun time, since the caravan was in the donkey paddock, and the donkeys used to scratch themselves on the axle when we were sleeping at night. And, they'd always stick their noses into the door when we opened it in the morning! 




> Yes, it's stone built with tiled roof, and the main part of the animal housing is the same. Lucky goats living in a stone barn. The house is only one-storey, and we couldn't get building permission to raise it, so we had to expand backwards into the farmyard and that part is built with conventional materials. We put in false ceilings and loft insulation - very necessary because tiled rooves aren't great at keeping heat in (or out). The house does pretty well in summer despite having a large south -facing wall; we're in the middle of a heatwave at present (41' yesterday), and although the stone walls are heating up by now, they cope so much better than bricks or concrete.


Yeah, great materials. And yes, we didn't use roof tiles, but a zincalume roof in a skillion facing away from the sun!




> I'm not saying much about the horses here recently  . It's been too hot for riding the last few days, and they are having a lazy time. Here's a photo of Macarena enjoying some windfall peaches. They just LOVE their fruit!
> 
> 
> 
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


This is very cute. Our horses too loved the windfall peaches and nectarines we had last summer. And Sunsmart is crazy about figs - my parents have a fig tree and those were his summer treats when he was a harness horse. I can't stand figs, but am thinking of putting a tree in for the horses and for those people who like figs!


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> Reputedly, Socrates once spent a long time looking around the Athens markets. Some of his students were following him around. When he finally spoke, he said, "So many things I do not need!"
> 
> ...and that was before the invention of plastic!
> 
> I have Socrates moments every time I go to a shop!


AMEN!



SueC said:


> Basically, it minimises the amount of resources used and the time spent paying for and maintaining those resources, and allows them to spend more time on creative pursuits, relationships, etc. It's going back to the small African hut thing, in a 21st century way. I really admire the movement and think it really beats the standard spend-your-life-in-debt-paying-off-your-mortgage-in-suburbia thing.


I hadn't heard of it before. It's great to see people standing out against the some of the more stupid 'norms' of western culture - like the ingrained idea that the bigger the dwelling, the better. Just as I write, I've remembered one of my husband's family sayings (it loses a bit in the translation ): your house, to fit inside; your land, all that you can embrace.The traditional houses in his region were all pretty small - it was seen as a waste of time and resources upsizing the house, time and resources that could be better employed on your land. 



SueC said:


> Sunsmart is crazy about figs - my parents have a fig tree and those were his summer treats when he was a harness horse. I can't stand figs, but am thinking of putting a tree in for the horses and for those people who like figs!


Macarena goes nuts over figs too. The horses actually have a small fig tree in their patio - so you can imagine where all the figs go! Which is fine by me. I'm not a fig enthusiast either.

Here's a photo of Bichita chilling out on the small milk cooling tank. (And no, the tank is not in use, so no need to worry about cat hairs in the milk). Cats know how to cope with the heat - sleep through it!



_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

Yesterday I rode Macarena in the fields, and my son took videos of us. It was late evening and she wasn't very keen on being schooled, plus the field is full of thistles so it's unreasonable to expect perfect circles or straight lines from her! But she settled and did some quite nice trot work, though her canter was more enthusiastic than what I was asking for. Still, I haven't schooled her in the fields for ages, so I can't blame her for being green.

Here are a few screen shots I liked.

We started off trotting with her head up like this:





We had a few rocky canter departures:





Before she started to listen a bit better:



But she just couldn't pick up her right lead. Help! How can I teach her this? She just ISN'T getting it.

And then she started to bring her head down and we ended with some nice trot 







I see I'm leaning forward slightly at the trot. I try SO hard not to do this, but my upper body just creeps forward despite myself. Also my stirrups look shorter than they feel, and I've got my heels way forward of my hips. I thought my leg position was good but looking at these pictures I'm not so sure. More things to work on here.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Love the photos, Bondre! This is my favourite:










Looks like a dressage performance!  Gorgeous movement.

Posture: Could it be related to the saddle? My father has a Spanish-made saddle we got for our first horse. I can never ride in it with my legs where I want them, and it is very difficult to sit right. No problems in my own saddle, which is very differently cut:










I really do think that the saddle can make a huge difference to how you can sit... Are you happy in your saddle?

Have you tried riding with your stirrups two to three holes longer, to see how that affects your seat?


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> I really do think that the saddle can make a huge difference to how you can sit... Are you happy in your saddle?
> 
> Have you tried riding with your stirrups two to three holes longer, to see how that affects your seat?


I tried lowering my stirrups one hole; it felt odd at first but I am persisting, and I think this is a better length for me. I'm working consciously on keeping my lower leg a little further back too. The saddle is comfortable and I like it - though it's nothing special - but it would be interesting to try other saddles for comparison. Unfortunately I don't know anyone who rides English round here, so not many English saddles around to try out.

Life has gone a bit off the rails since I last posted here. An annoying pain in my rib cage suddenly got worse, and turned out to be shingles (fortunately a mild attack). I could barely believe this as I had always thought shingles was an old person's disease. But not so. It lies in wait for a break in your defenses, and attacks like wildfire when it finds one.

The doctor told me to take hideously expensive antivirals, and though I was rather against this I took them and they did help. You're meant to start this medication within 72h of your first symptoms, but I saw the doctor five days after it started (it was a mild case and I thought I had a digestive pain and a rash, not shingles). And in any case, since it's a virus the medicine doesn't actually kill it off, just encourages it to go dormant again, and a number of alternative approaches are equally effective. The doctor was one of those awful sorts who make you feel a nuisance if you ask questions; I was in his surgery for five minutes, and he gave the impression that was four minutes too many. No discussion of possible causes of my outbreak, which I think was a major omission. Shingles doesn't just happen, there's always a reason, and I think he should have covered this with me.

Anyway, me being me, I have a hypothesis (no thanks to the doctor). I suspect I am gluten intolerant, and the continual stress this causes to my immune system, added to a stressful episode at home, gave the virus the opening it needed. So now I am trying out a gluten -free diet - and gosh, is it difficult. I'm not a huge bread eater (not like my husband who says a meal isn't a meal without bread on the table) but the darn stuff creeps insidiously into almost everything. I thought corn flakes would be OK, but no, they contain barley malt which has gluten. I'm not the sort of person who can get by on fruit and protein. I need bulk. And the local town doesn't hold much in the way of alternative cereal products. It gets as far as rye bread and rice cakes (which I don't much go for) and sputters to a halt.

To top it all, the doctor told me that I wasn't at all contagious with shingles..... but three days ago my oldest son went down with chickenpox. Is that a big coincidence or what?? So now the poor chap is getting very itchy and bumpy. I should take him to that awful doctor and get him to cough all over his tan.

Anyway, amongst all this I've been riding quite often. Several slow rides with Flamenca plus my younger son, who is slowly gaining confidence. One slow ride with my older son the first day of his chickenpox, when we thought it was just a cold, and he felt awful but wanted to get out of the house for a while. Another slow ride with my husband on Flamenca. Macarena doesn't mind plodding along with Flamenca on these days. She sticks her nose in Flamenca's bum and goes onto autopilot. I try to get her to walk alongside Flamenca, but unless the trail is wide enough for her to keep a good distance, she won't have it for long. She distrusts her buddy, as she knows that Flamenca's front end is sharp (though Flamenca would never bite Macarena when they are under saddle, only in their free time on occasions).

Yesterday I finally took Macarena out on her own. It was a really sultry hot evening, so not great for action, but we managed a bit of schooling in the fields and then a few small jumps. I made an advance with her difficult right canter lead - I discovered that if I sit the trot for at least ten beats before asking for the canter, she picks it up better. She is very stiff on that side, so I keep the canters short for the moment. I reckon if I try to canter her too much on her stiff side, she won't want to pick up that lead as she knows it's uncomfortable - but if I don't canter enough, she'll never work out of the stiffness. So how much is good?

An equine chiropractor would be great here. I read somewhere that it's not difficult to learn how to do this yourself, so I'll have to look into it.

My son took some videos of us jumping, so I got some screenshots. She was a bit nervous as there were some new things in the field, most notably the swimming pool which we had put up since the last time I rode her here. And two noisy, splashy people in the pool. So this was all good experience for her to get under her belt.

The jumps were only tiny cross rails with a canter pole one stride out, which she needs to help her get her stride. I didn't want to ask too much of her in the circumstances, but she did well. What I most love is the short, collected canter she does when we jump.









I love how she's looking towards the jump in this one.




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## SueC

Nice photos! The longer stirrup length looks more comfortable, and your legs are further back now in a nice position.

Do you have any opportunity for changing doctors? Yours sounds like a royal pain in the neck. Unfortunately, it's often the way in modern medicine: Treat the problem, but don't bother figuring out why it happened. I think big pharma is largely responsible for GPs' continued drug "education" and this shows.

I had a super GP once who taught me a little trick about viral infections: I was getting recurring colds etc (had a very public job) and not only did she say, "Now, what's up with your immunity?" and discuss possible problems contributing, but she also recommended a treatment for cold sores as a good general natural antiviral. It's 500mg of Vitamin C, along with therapeutic doses of zinc and lysine - an amino acid that helps your body fight viruses. The Vit C and zinc is in there because we often don't get enough and due to increased demand in illness. When I was taking one a day it significantly reduced how many colds I was catching. The dose is upped when you have an infection starting, just like for the cold sore treatment. I have passed this tip on to many others and it might be worth a try. Also, of course, eating foods naturally high in Vit C, zinc and lysine sounds useful - always better to get it through the diet than through a supplement, if you can.

Gluten free means you can still fill up on potatoes, rice, polenta, quinoa etc. Although oats and rye contain gluten, it seems wheat gluten is the major culprit for many. Whatever the underlying cause(s), hope you find it/them and that your self-help will bring you the results your doctor didn't. (Coughing all over his tan! :rofl


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> Do you have any opportunity for changing doctors? Yours sounds like a royal pain in the neck. Unfortunately, it's often the way in modern medicine: Treat the problem, but don't bother figuring out why it happened.


Well, yes, I wasn't in the least impressed with him. I have private health insurance so he was a private doctor, and definitely no better than your average GP (and worse than many). I had a great GP before we moved house three years ago, the sort of chap who would go into all the ins and outs of your problem, but these sorts are sadly few and far between. But don't believe anyone who claims that private medicine is better - not in my experience. 



SueC said:


> I have passed this tip on to many others and it might be worth a try. Also, of course, eating foods naturally high in Vit C, zinc and lysine sounds useful - always better to get it through the diet than through a supplement, if you can.


I came across the high lysine - low arginine thing on the internet, and am doing my best to follow it. But I do love summer tomatoes, which are high in arginine, and that messes my ratios up a bit. I'll get my son eating plenty of vitamin C, and hope that speeds up his chickenpox. 



SueC said:


> Gluten free means you can still fill up on potatoes, rice, polenta, quinoa etc. Although oats and rye contain gluten, it seems wheat gluten is the major culprit for many.


Yes, I think it's the wheat, particularly in bread, that causes me problems. I'm not eating bread but still getting small amounts of wheat that sneak into other foods, and I'm OK. I haven't had that rib cage pain again. But maybe if I could cut out wheat 100% in my diet, I'd feel even better....? 

Here are some photos of Flamenca, who hasn't appeared for a while. I rode her yesterday, after not having ridden her in an age. She is getting a bit herdbound with Macarena, so it's good for her to go out alone sometimes. I schooled her a bit in the fields, and then we went back towards home, but I turned her away at the crossroads towards the pine forest. 

She was peeved and tried to turn around for home. She did her trick of flinging her head up and down and doing tiny bounces with her front legs. I turned her back and insisted we continue, and she complied. She tried the same thing a bit further on, but she doesn't really insist in her rebellion. It's so easy to convince her. Last year I was battling with a horrible barnsour mare (Xena), and she was a different story. Flamenca's mild protests are a piece of cake in comparison.

Anyway, we went for a short walk in the forest, just to relax her and show her that it's OK to travel alone lol. When we got back to the house (not the horses' yard) I unsaddled her and decided to wash her as she was pretty sweaty. I don't have running water in their yard (I trailer down a 1000l tank for drinking), so I don't wash them as much as I would if I had a hosepipe. Flamenca likes a bath (not so Macarena who is like my sons and prefers to be dirty hahaha), so the stop off at the house with a carrot and a wash was a nice treat for her. And positive to finish the ride somewhere different too, so she doesn't just associate home with good things.

A clean horse:



Ten minutes later, back at the yard, a dirty horse:



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## Bondre

I've been thinking about barn sour horses recently, and wonder why it seems to have become such a common problem. Please feel free to post here about your experiences with this problem, whether you have had barn sour horses or not. I'm interested to read everything!

I grew up riding in England in the 80s, and I never, NEVER came across a single barn sour horse then. I hadn't even heard of the term until I joined this forum two years ago. And yet, since I got back into horses in 2013 in Spain, out of the five horses I have owned or had on trial, two were badly barn sour, and Flamenca (sweet as she is) is also a mild case.

So what's the story with all these barn sour horses? For anyone who has never experienced this, I can assure you that it is AWFUL to have a badly barn sour horse. My worst case was Xena, a green broke, messed-up six y.o. mare. I bought her cheap because I was sorry for her, and I really worked on her issue but I never truly managed to get through to her. I did a ton of confidence-building exercises with her. I even built a round (rectangular) pen to do join-up with her, which certainly improved our relationship on the ground, but didn't make the least difference under saddle. I slowly increased the distance we could ride away from home without her freaking out, but it was so, so slow. A major part of the problem was that she had no basis of training to work from, so I had to teach her to go straight, to yield to pressure, and so on. But I didn't have time to work with her every day, (which she probably needed) as I already had my four year old Macarena who I was spending most of my time on. I found it terribly frustrating to have a horse that I basically couldn't do a darn thing with, and sold her to a young local chap who wanted a project.

Working on relaxation with Xena:



Before Xena was Tormenta, also barn sour who stressed terribly about leaving the yard. She was the alpha mare out of my two, a very bossy sort, with nice ground manners, but sadly used to getting her own way under saddle. I had her on trial as a suitable beginner's horse (!!), but didn't get on with her, and she was blatantly unsuitable for my DH, so back she went.

What a relief when I finally found Flamenca as a companion horse and for my boys to learn on! Yet she also has the makings of barn sour, but since she is basically well-trained she responds to correction unlike her predecessors. When she says "time to go home mum!" it's easy to work through her minor resistance and convince her that we're turning right rather than left. Whereas with Xena this sort of discussion turned into major balking and finally rearing when she discovered she wasn't allowed to call the shots. She was only 13.2hh but that got pretty scary.

Even Macarena, my first (and permanent) horse, was horribly barn sour in her previous home. When I first saw her, she was in a small dry lot and her friend was in an adjoining, larger, pen. She was just halter broke, stood quietly while I looked her over, seemed nice and relaxed. I asked her owner if I could see her being lunged, so he shut the other horse away to take Macarena through into the larger pen. And Macarena went nuts. 

She started running up and down the separating fence, and when the chap opened the gate between the two pens she exploded through that gate like a bronc entering the ring and continued bucking and whinnying like crazy. Even so, the chap attempted to free lunge her, but as you can imagine, it wasn't a success. Poor thing, she was frightened and confused. 

Even so we bought her, and never had the merest hint of barn sourness with her. I kept her with another mare, and they got on fine, but Macarena never latched on to her. Actually I think she latched on to me, which I guess is why I never had problems with riding her away from home once I started her under saddle.

So what is it that makes all these horses barn sour? I think it must be excessive leisure time and insufficient work. They're all bored out of their hides because their owners don't do much with them, and they don't have much of a relationship with their owner or any other human. All of the horses in question here were spending most of their time doing nothing before they came to me. I worked every day with Macarena when I got her, since she was a youngster and I wanted to get her started, and she appreciated having a job to do at last. But other two (Xena and Tormenta) were older and more ingrained in their habits, and weren't pleased to have landed themselves a job. I think Tormenta could have been worked through it with routine and consistency, but Xena left me with a real horror of barn sourness. 

Back in England, when I was a youngster, all those horses had jobs too. They were ridden regularly, on their own or in groups. And none of them ever tried on the "I'm scared, I wanna go home" trick (as far as I can remember). So maybe this is the key - work and routine. 

As I said at the beginning (if anyone has got through to the end of my rambling lol), comments on anyone's experiences are very welcome!
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## Bondre

I wanted to add this photo of Xena to my post but couldn't, so here it is:

Xena in a typical nervous posture. Her favourite trick was to run sideways through my leg. 


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## SueC

Bondre, I think that this happens when horses basically don't get exposed to much variety as youngsters. There is a tendency for people to breed horses in their back paddock and keep them there and only there nearly all the time. When they get educated they tend to go mostly just into yards/arenas for that process, usually at the same place. These horses grow up enclosed - by stables, small paddocks, yards, arenas - and develop what I can only liken to agoraphobia. It's a genuine fear of strange spaces, particularly open spaces. These horses have very small comfort zones - and it's not their fault. No wild horse grows up like that - essentially institutionalised.

When people take battery hens out of their cages, they don't know what to do. They huddle and are afraid of open spaces. It takes rehabilitation, time and preferably other, "normal" chickens used to free ranging to get these hens behaving in a semblance of normal.

Same with horses. The two retired horses I took on last year were so used to their own stables and small yards it took them quite a while to get used to free ranging across large open spaces. They started off adopting a large tree to stand under and just watched everything from there, including the two other horses here, whom they already knew as they all used to be stablemates and indeed one is the dam of my riding horse. They would venture out to graze within a short distance of that tree and retreat to under the tree the moment anything worried them. Gradually they ventured further and further from the tree.

After two months they were comfortable across all aspects of the 4ha horse pasture, but it took quite a while for them to want to go out into the 58ha of pasture/bush tracks which the others go out into for day use most days. Even when the herd was strongly bonded and grazing very close to each other in the 4ha pasture, the two new ones to our place wouldn't follow the others out for quite some time. When they started, they would dart nervously maybe 50m into the open area and then gallop back like the clappers to stand under their adopted tree.

This went on for months, with gradual increases in distance ventured in the open pasture, and time spent there. It is only recently (eight months after arrival) they decided that about 4ha around our house are safe and acceptable. They are comfortable there now, but still wary of the other 54ha on that open space. I expect that eventually they will increase their range and follow the other horses into the as yet unexplored areas.

This is not how horses raised ranging on large open pastures behave. We looked after a Caspian mare as a favour to someone as a while. She was raised free-ranging and from Day One of arriving here she eagerly explored every nook and cranny of space that she was given access to.

Romeo, our nearly 31-year-old gelding who's been here for five years, was raised free-ranging until a yearling and never hesitated to explore a new paddock or space either. My riding horse was not raised free-range, and I spent about half a year getting him used to open spaces back when I first agisted him (pre this farm). So, when he moved to this farm, he was "old hat" about open spaces and explored them normally. His tight bond to my old, free-range raised Arabian mare would have reinforced that.

How horses respond to venturing away from "home" with a rider is closely related to how comfortable they are exploring new spaces on their own. You have a much easier time of it with horses that weren't institutionalised as youngsters - but it is possible to gradually desensitise most institutionalised horses until they behave normally, or nearly so. However, patience, reassurance and gentleness are key to this - I've seen quite a few horses turned into "dangerous horses with vices" by people who have roughly pushed them too far, too soon, mostly out of a misconception that horses ought automatically be doing what their human handlers tell them to (or else!). That approach really shows very little understanding of what is actually going on.


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## Bondre

Sue, this makes so much sense. Yet I have never come across this explanation before. How do you always manage to put a different spin on things? - and give a much more realistic interpretation than the commonly-accepted wisdom too.

Most people seem to put barn-sourness down to a lack of confidence in, or respect for, their rider. I tried my ****edest to be a good leader for Xena and I got her to respect me in the round pen, but it didn't help her problems out in the big world in the least. Which is totally understandable in the light of your explanation. 

Very interesting what you say about how long your horses are taking to get used to living in wide open spaces. So many horses are kept here in relatively small dry lots, so they are likely to be life-time agrophobia sufferers unless they get ridden out on a regular basis.

I wish more than anything else that I could keep my two in a large pasture, but the local land-use doesn't really permit this. I get so wistful (read jealous lol) when I see all these wonderful photos of horses in endless rolling grassland on the forum. At least, I guess the horses don't miss what they don't know - and would in fact be nervous for months if I could turn them out in a pasture situation. 

Thanks for your insightful post 

Here's a photo of Macarena on Saturday. We celebrated the Tevis cup day by going up a small, rocky mountain locally. We couldn't get to the top - too many rock steps for comfort - but we enjoyed the change in scenery. Home is the white cluster of buildings top left.



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## Zexious

^I think you both make interesting points!
My horse, while I wouldn't necessarily call him 'barn sour' is /definitely/ buddy sour, and can be quite the fretted. He's really the first horse that I've worked with extensively who has this problem, and it certain tests my patience!

Bondre, that picture is so beautiful <3 I will just have to live vicariously through you and your adventures


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> Sue, this makes so much sense. Yet I have never come across this explanation before. How do you always manage to put a different spin on things? - and give a much more realistic interpretation than the commonly-accepted wisdom too.


I'm just telling you what I have observed. ;-)

There is a sharp difference between the commonly accepted horse lore in some quarters, and the actual contemporary animal behaviour research on such topics. People generally will anthropomorphise and psychologically project unless they have pretty acute metacognition, coupled with an education and/or aptitude that has already led to the debunking of myths and opened their eyes to things like cultural and social programming.

I'm a qualified and experienced biologist, and I base my understanding of the natural world on a whole lot of existing understanding taught to me during my university education, coupled with making observations of what I see, trying to find patterns, adopting working hypotheses and then seeing which hypotheses are best supported by the evidence.

Not telling you anything new here though I'm sure, Ms Zoologist! ;-)

Having said that, I also didn't really have much time for certain popular ideas about horses and their training when I was a kid growing up riding. Even then, observation and evidence were important to me. If what some people were saying wasn't borne out by what I was actually experiencing with my interactions with horses, I dismissed that.




> Most people seem to put barn-sourness down to a lack of confidence in, or respect for, their rider.


That old chestnut! That's pretty much the standard explanation some people have for pretty much everything that doesn't work for them as regards horses. It's a pretty lazy explanation and it assumes that the fault lies in the horse, which is of course comforting to their egos. It also assumes horses somehow conform to a simplistic alpha theory based on fairly shoddy research with institutionalised wolves more than half a century ago, long since debunked by animal behaviourists, but persisting in the cultural lore.

That whole concept of respect as applied to horses by some people isn't just anthropomorphic, it's also quite militaristic.

If you haven't already come across him, you might enjoy reading our late Aussie horseman Tom Roberts, whose series on horse training and riding was the best written resource I had as a young rider when I started training my own horses. Roberts wasn't an academic or an animal behaviour scientist, but he didn't even consider those "respect" ideas you are mentioning here. He was a superb horseman and proponent of gentle and intelligent horsemanship, and based all his ideas on observation, experimentation, evidence, thinking things through.




> I tried my ****edest to be a good leader for Xena and I got her to respect me in the round pen, but it didn't help her problems out in the big world in the least. Which is totally understandable in the light of your explanation.


Glad that you found it useful. Just persist with horses like that - and it helps if they have a non-institutionalised horse they can hang with or at least go on rides with. 




> Very interesting what you say about how long your horses are taking to get used to living in wide open spaces.


Have a look at their body language through the different stages. The two chestnut horses are the newbies. Start at the bottom of this page and then scroll up:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/redmoonsanctuary/page2

...the most recent photos are always added to the top, so it's all in reverse order. Then flick over to page1 overleaf, which includes the most recent pictures.




> So many horses are kept here in relatively small dry lots, so they are likely to be life-time agrophobia sufferers unless they get ridden out on a regular basis.
> 
> I wish more than anything else that I could keep my two in a large pasture, but the local land-use doesn't really permit this. I get so wistful (read jealous lol) when I see all these wonderful photos of horses in endless rolling grassland on the forum. At least, I guess the horses don't miss what they don't know - and would in fact be nervous for months if I could turn them out in a pasture situation.
> 
> Thanks for your insightful post


A pleasure. You know, in Europe we were in the same boat. Just turned out wherever we could and did lots of trails. It's quite a baptism of fire to have to deal with an institutionalised horse (such as our first horse) on a trail when they first start...

In situations where there is little space for horses to roam at pasture, people can make up for that to a large degree by exposing their young horses to lots of different situations and places, in the company of their dam or another confident adult horse at first. Walk them far and wide on a lead too, set up a horse playground, that kind of thing... which is also very useful even for free-ranged youngsters.

How's the shingles? Settling? Have you tried eliminating the foods you thought weren't helping? A fellow student when I went to university had awful dermatitis developed in response to cleaning products, which didn't stop when cleaning products were removed from the equation. The skin on her hands was red raw and had splits all over her fingers. She eventually found that removing tomatoes from her diet allowed her skin to heal, in her case. I think she gradually went back to eating tomatoes, later on, with no ill effects. All very interesting though!


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## Bondre

Zexious said:


> ^I think you both make interesting points!
> My horse, while I wouldn't necessarily call him 'barn sour' is /definitely/ buddy sour, and can be quite the fretted. He's really the first horse that I've worked with extensively who has this problem, and it certain tests my patience!


Hi Zexious, thanks for visiting! How is Gator doing? And how are you? I haven't seen you in your journal for a while. Are you OK for riding now?

Yes, buddy-sour horses need patience - which I do have, but not in unlimited quantities lol. I can cope with Flamenca's mild case fine, but Xena did my head in - and she seemed to get worse in some aspects, which must have been my fault for trying to push her too fast. Though at the time, expecting her to go less than one hundred metres up the track CALMLY and return at the walk didn't seem too much to hope for after a couple of months working with her lol. So just as well I found an enthusiastic buyer for her; we just didn't click, and life is too short to be riding a horse you don't like 'for fun'. 



Zexious said:


> Bondre, that picture is so beautiful <3 I will just have to live vicariously through you and your adventures


Glad you like it. It's funny how everyone else's pictures always look the best - like the grass on the other side of the fence. I suppose because I see this scenery every day, whereas other people's scenery is always new and interesting. But you're right, it IS a nice picture, and Macarena came out very cute. She was a bit nervous because it was a new place and very different to what she's used to, and I had a busy time trying to take photos and keep her still and not drop the mobile onto the rocks in the process. Fortunately she spotted something interesting which kept her occupied for just long enough to snap some fast shots 
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## Bondre

I haven't been here for a while, as the heat has keep me from doing much riding, and last week we went away for a break. So relaxing not having to get up every morning and milk the goats! Just not having to do that is a holiday in itself. We spent the week in the nearby mountains, where we enjoyed cool weather, crystal-clean rivers for swimming, and spectacular scenery.

It's always a bit stressful leaving the animals, although we are lucky to have a friend who faithfully stands in for us on occasions and knows the complicated routine for taking care of them all. The boys were nervous about whether the lovebirds would be OK, seeing as this their first year in the menagerie at holiday time. But no problems, they are raising chicks (amazing seeing as the adults are supposedly not viable until 10 months old, and ours only hatched last December), so they are too busy with that to think about trying to escape when someone enters the aviary.

The horses were pleased to see us. Macarena gave a display of youthful high spirits to show me how bored she has been and how much energy she has. Flamenca is too old for such antics and watched from a safe corner of the dry lot.

- Look at me, I buck and then buck again -









- I gallop towards the corner -





- Quick turn on the haunches -



- I catch my breath -



- I snort -



- And off I go again - (with sound effects lol)



I hope she doesn't try any of those airs above ground when I ride her today ;-)
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## Bondre

Only had time to ride once what with catching up with things after the holidays. We came across some foul, stinking heaps of chicken manure waiting to be scattered and ploughed in to the vegetable fields. Macarena didn't actually mind the smell much, and of course Astrid dived straight into the stuff and applied it liberally to her neck. No hugs for her afterwards lol! Macarena behaved fine, especially considering that I've only ridden her once in the past two weeks. She actually picked up both canter leads going in a straight line in the open fields (normally she can only get the right lead on a circle, and with difficulty).

Yesterday we took them out hand-grazing as some grass is coming up after the downpour ten days ago. All the lushest green stuff turned out not to be grass, but a kind of summer sedge that they don't like a lot, but there was some new couch grass mixed in which is more palatable.

And then..... Macarena hit the jackpot!

She found a watermelon.

Yum yum slurp slurp.



Ever heard a horse eating a watermelon? I should have done a video instead of the photos. She wasn't the cleanest when she finished either ;-)



She polished it off in about five minutes, and didn't share a single slurp with Flamenca. Mind you, if Flamenca had caught on, she wouldn't have shared either. But not to worry, because they both had watermelon for dinner, five or six whole ones between them. 

In case anyone's wondering where the watermelons come from, it's watermelon season here, and there's a whole field of them almost opposite the horses' dry lot. They were harvesting today, and as always there are some fruits that fall out of the giant crates when they're loading the container lorries, and these casualties are what I collect afterwards for the horses.
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## Bondre

I had an interesting ride on Macarena yesterday. I decided to take her to an area where we haven't explored much as it's a bit further afield, beyond a big stone quarry that's cut into one of the local hillsides. She used to hate all the massive stone blocks whenever we went past there, but she barely gives them a sideways glance now. 

Beyond the quarry are several dirt tracks that are new to us, so I picked the first one that branched off the main track. Macarena was on mild alert, as it was all new to her - the dwarf pine tree that might be a bear, that sort of stuff! The track turned out to be a hunters' trail, barely two wheel tracks worn between the esparto grass clumps, and eventually faded out, leaving us on the edge of a young pine plantation. But just through the pine trees I saw a much bigger trail, so we cut through the trees and joined that one to continue exploring. Macarena continued alert and interested, but when I decided the track was heading off in the wrong direction and we turned around, she was noticeably pleased and more relaxed to be backtracking. 

The amazing thing was that when we reached the point where we had joined the track (entering through the pine trees, no path at all) she recognized it. She suddenly slacked off and looked to the right, through the trees, saying 'hey mum, where are we going, you've overshot'. This was the first time either of us had been in this area, and no, I wasn't cuing her subconsciously by looking out for the spot myself because I wasn't planning on turning off the track onto the hunters' trail. But I could tell by the hoofprints that she was spot on! So there's more going on in that head than I gave her credit for.

On the way back, she had a panic attack. This is the second time it's occurred, both times caused by a dirt bike (though not the same one). But not all dirt bikes make her freak out like this....

We were almost home, had just reached the last half mile where the open fields (where I school her) run alongside the road. I heard two dirtbikes coming up from behind - still a good way off - so I turned her off the road into the fields. The first bike went past - my son with an 85cc - and she tucked in her back end and tensed slightly. The bike passed, she relaxed. The next bike approached from behind - DH with a 125cc. She tensed again, and then suddenly panicked. 

She wanted to head for home at a flat-out gallop, but knew I didn't want her to, so she was galloping 'on the spot' which involves quite a lot of up and down movement. Very tense and nervous. I was talking to her, trying to calm her. Let her go forward a bit because she was on the verge of rearing, did a tight circle to bring her back to me, and stopped. She had her head high and did a short, sharp snort of alarm. The dirt bike had long disappeared by now (not so two neighbours who were out walking and must have been watching in bemusement). Then she made to launch forward again, I restrained her, and she reared. One small rear to test her balance or gather impulse, and then a big rear, the sort that makes me hold onto the neck to keep steady and not unbalance the horse, while you're thinking 'please, that's high enough now, that'll do'. 

After that she was calmer, we jog-trotted a bit until she was calm enough to walk the remaining stretch to home.

Almost exactly the same scenario as the last time. Same fields, same reaction (minus the rear), not the same dirtbike but possibly sounds similar? The first time was with a 250 4-stroke, that had a really deep growling engine noise, and the 125 2stroke is pretty noisy too, especially when it's going slow (which it was). The thing is she is OK with most dirt bikes, as my husband and boys ride and she has met the things and seen them around her dirt lot regularly. So why has she totally freaked out on two occasions?

I wonder, just wonder, if she's remembering something from her earlier existence? Her previous owner had a quad, which have quite growly engines, and I just wonder if he used to ride around outside her enclosure while she freaked out inside? No proof of this, but there must be some trigger that occasionally causes the panic reaction whilst normally the dirt bikes just make her flick an ear and bunch up a bit.

And if it is a reaction to one particular bike, or engine noise, how best to work her through this and convince her it's not as dangerous as she evidently believes?

Those panic attacks are quite worrying. She's normally so chilled and OK about things, it's odd that as a five year old she's doing this stuff that she never did at three and a half, when I first got her and started exposing her to the wide world of the trails.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

I wonder if the sound of these things is painful to their hearing? Trailbikes elicit a far worse reaction than any other kind of motorised vehicle, in all the horses I have worked with. I don't hear as well as a horse does, and even to me it is a most unpleasant sound, on a par with fingernails down a blackboard. There's something about it reminiscent of a super-sized attacking wasp from a B-grade Italian horror movie...


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

^^That could be it Sue. 
There was a story in the news not long ago about a phone ringer that could only be heard by people under 30.
Apparently in the UK they were using that same noise frequency to repel teen loiterers in stores!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5434687


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## SueC

About that "attack sound" idea: We have bees, and when we work with them the guard bees will often "buzz" us to warn us off, as in: "Go away or I'm going to sting!"

Our 31-year-old Romeo eats his breakfast in the orchard. I saw him get buzzed by a bee once, and he turned on his heel, took off in an instant gallop, and unhesitatingly went through a two-string electric polybraid gate he knew was there and then as far away in the paddock as he could get. This is a very sedate and experienced horse, but it will give you some idea of natural reactions. It does make good sense he acted that way, since mass attack by bees is prevented by such behaviour. Romeo has never been mass attacked by bees, and I'm not even sure he's ever been stung by one, but evolution and instinct run deep.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

There was a store back when I was kid that my parents used to frequent. I remember there being lights in one part of the store that emitted a sound that not only gave me the "willies" in my stomach but made my teeth hurt. I always asked to wait outside. I remember one time asking the store clerk how they worked with that noise all day, they thought I was a little odd, but no one else seemed able to hear it. 

Makes you wonder how many things horses react to of which we are oblivious.


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## SueC

Has anyone here read "All Creatures Great and Small"? James Herriot recounts in it how a cowhand in Yorkshire could herd ornery and uncooperative cattle by imitating the sound of some kind of biting fly. The whole herd would get nervous instantly at the sound and stick together and become much easier to shift.

We've just come back from returning some "stickies" to a box of our bees, and it gave me a chance to listen closely to the sound of a "warning buzz" - it's not like the sedate buzzing sound of bees flying around collecting nectar and pollen, it's a deliberate sound they make when you are impinging on them - they hurtle themselves at you making little "meeeeeaaaoow" chainsaw sounds. When we started working with bees four years ago, that sound, especially coming from multiple bees, used to really trigger something primeval in me and it would take all my conscious thought to say to myself, "I'm in a bee suit, I'm wearing gloves, it's OK!" and not go instinctively running off into the sunset like my old horse.

And believe me, when you're not in a beesuit and that sort of thing happens, running off into the sunset as fast as possible is the perfect response to that... :shock:

So my guess is that the sound pattern of the trail bikes is actually very similar to the warning / attacking sounds of bees, wasps, etc, and that this elicits an instinctive escape response.


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## Bondre

Interesting about the bees, Sue. I wouldn't hang around if I heard angry chainsaw buzzing either. I'd be jostling with Romeo at the far corner of the paddock :rofl:

Yes, I remember that from All Creatures Great and Small. They were my favourite books as a teenager and I read them all, plus watched the TV series too. But it's a long time since I read them, (they're in my mother's house in the UK), and I've forgotten many of the stories. Herriot pictured faithfully the often dour character of the Yorkshire farmers he worked with. We went to the Yorkshire Dales every summer when I was a kid, so we knew many of the places he wrote about, and knew what the locals are like too! Undemonstrative but with huge hearts under a stony facade, the salt of the earth.

Got a bit sidetracked and my forum / coffee time is up, so I'll be back later with further ruminations on Macarena and dirt bikes.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

Thinking more about Macarena's extreme reaction to the dirt bike, I really do believe there's a large element of association in her fear. Something about the noise of the bike is triggering memories of fear and flight reactions, so she goes back to that in her head and wants to get the **** out of the situation. The two bikes she's been so scared of are both yellow, and her previous owner's quad was yellow too. Ccoincidence or not? She has met a third yellow bike that doesn't freak her, so I think it's the combination of noise and colour that convinces her that the demon quad is back.

Another curious thing - when I had Xena last year, I organised a round (rectangular) pen set-up to work her there, and one day I thought I'd try Macarena in the round pen seeing as it was positive for Xena. 

Not a good idea. She was tense and nervous at seeing me on the ground and her being loose together with me. Why on earth? I've never mistreated her on the ground (nor under saddle) so why was she scared of me just because I wanted her to move around the round pen? She did a lot of neck snaking and some frankly disrespectful bucks in my direction. 

I tried it twice, with similar results, and wisely decided that at best it was a waste of time, and at worst it could be detrimental to our relationship. She's fine under saddle so why bother doing ground work in a round pen?

And thinking about why she reacts negatively, I remembered how her previous owner free-lunged her when I first saw her. It was like round penning from hell. He carried a bundled-up lunge line in his hand, and made her run around by shouting and gesticulating. She bucked and bronced and when she came too close he chucked the rope on her face to keep her away. No wonder she was freaked out when I put her in the round pen and asked her to move around me :-( 

So I reckon free lunging and growly yellow bikes or quads stir up memories of fear and cause a seemingly disproportionate reaction.

No doubt some will say that a horse's brain isn't capable of such memory by association, but I am convinced that it is. 

Sue, I'm sure you have an interesting opinion on this one ;-)
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## egrogan

Bondre said:


> Here's a photo of Macarena enjoying some windfall peaches. They just LOVE their fruit!
> 
> 
> 
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Bondre, somehow I only just found your journal and have been reading through from the start, but had to pause at this photo to reply.

The first therapeutic riding program I volunteered with had this lovely old soul named Star, he was probably in his 30s and still giving lead-line lessons to preschool kids with special needs...anyone, poor old man had no teeth to speak of, but a real love for persimmons. All summer, you'd see him staring up at the tree waiting for them to fall. Once on the ground, they needed some time to soften up, but once that happened, he was the only one allowed in that pasture and he'd slowly and contentedly gum them from the ground until he was full. If a horse could ever look pleased with himself, that's how he would look eating them. He died (peacefully) about a year after I started volunteering there, and was buried under that persimmon tree. As he should have been.

Anyway...thanks for sparking a happy memory...back to reading about your menagerie


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## Bondre

Hi Egrogan, welcome to the menagerie 

That's a lovely story about Star. I can just imagine him with his favourite tree (talk about manna falling from the sky lol). Macarena is even more hooked on figs than the other fruit, and guess which sort of tree they have on their dry lot? She stands under it, looking upwards hopefully, just as you say. If a fig falls off, she wants to make sure she gets it before Flamenca. 

Thanks for sharing the happy memory.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

I did a positive reinforcement session with Macarena and the yellow dirt bike, which was surprisingly easy as she wasn't scared of it in the least. I parked it outside the dry lot, up against the wall, and brought her out. I had my pockets full of pieces of carrot, and Macarena's very sensitive nose knew the carrots were there even before I gave her the first piece, so her attention was more on my pockets than the dirtbike lol. So we looked at the bike and she had her first piece of carrot, I walked her away and repeated. She checked the bike over with her muzzle and I had to prevent her from nibbling the bike's saddle.

I took her away and my son started the bike. This time she did pay more attention; she took a good look at it with her head in alert position, and then we approached it and she relaxed, so another piece of carrot. We walked around it and my son revved a bit. More carrot. 

Then he got on it and rode it slowly around in a circle. Macarena barely looked at the bike. She was still too focussed on my pockets :shock:  

So I suppose / hope that was educational for her. The next step will be to ride her with the bike in motion. 

I have learnt something too - not to expect 100% concentration from her when treats are involved. I never treat her normally so the idea of interesting pockets is new and very exciting to her.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

This week seems to be a non-riding week. First of all, not much time, and second, I am modifying Macarena's bridle (very slowly), so unless I ride her in a halter, I've got nothing to put on her. Nothing bit less at least. Up until now, I've been riding her in a crossover bridle, but recently I have been feeling that the crossover piece under her jaw doesn't release enough, and it seems to bother her when I ride with contact. So I want to turn it into a simple sidepull and see how she does with that. 

I've done the noseband, but when I tried it on her the whole bridle moved around far too much on her head and didn't feel at all secure. The problem is that it's a Spanish bridle with no throat latch, designed for using with a bit. So I am doing a major remodelling. 

I am removing the buckle from the cheek piece, and sewing it fixed - seeing as it's only for her I don't need it to be adjustable, turning the split reins into normal English reins, and using all the bits I've removed to make the throat latch. No doubt it would be much easier to buy a sidepull bridle - it's not as if they're terribly expensive - but then I would have two bridles that I don't use (instead of just one), and that idea sits uneasily on my conscience.  My grandmother would be proud of me! She was a real scrimper and saver, (as were most people who lived through both WWs in England) and brought my mother up the same, who has passed the mentality on to me.

I'd be interested to hear if other people share this mania for mending and adapting equipment rather than just going and buying something new. It's so ingrained in me that I'll love my modified bridle so much more than if I bought a smart, brand-new sidepull.

So here I am, spending hours fixing the bridle. It had better be an improvement when I'm done :shock:

Here is Macarena modelling the intermediate version with the new noseband, before I started hacking it all up to make the throat latch.

Oh ****, problems with the upload. Pictures tomorrow. 
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

The photo loaded after all - here she is in her smart "new" fixed noseband. Matches the blue and yellow ribbing round her saddle pad. 


_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> No doubt some will say that a horse's brain isn't capable of such memory by association, but I am convinced that it is.
> 
> Sue, I'm sure you have an interesting opinion on this one ;-)
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


;-) Well, I'm just going to say that people who say that haven't actually spent much time learning about the brain, they're just regurgitating cultural stereotypes! 

The key word is amygdala.  If you want, I'll post something from a recent discussion involving just that, not from the public HF. Racehorses and traumatic memories, and how to counter, and how far you might be able to counter.


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## Bondre

I'd be interested if you could post that, Sue.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

I found an article by Grandin (Safe Handling of Large Animals) where she states:

'The amygdala in the brain is probably the system centrally involved in both fear behavior and the acquisition of conditioned fear.'

and

'High-frequency sounds activate the amygdala more effectively than low-pitched sounds.'

Interesting! Will continue searching. 
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

I've just read a great short article by Australian equine behaviourist Andrew McLean. A couple of important points that he makes:

Horses have the largest amygdala of any domestic animal, and often selective breeding increases their flight response in the search for reactive rather than dull horses. 

And this (I quote):
'In 1995 neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux showed something radically different about fear that we never knew before. Until then I used to teach students that animals can learn to do things and they can also learn to forget things – we call that erasure. LeDoux said that although this is true with other learned behaviours, this is not the case with the fear response – fear responses are never forgotten, they are indelible, and you cannot erase them.'

He states you can work on habituating a horse to whatever causes the fear response, but you can never be 100% certain that the horse is 'rehabilitated' as that fear response can return at any moment if the stimulus triggers it. 

I had another fear response from Macarena last week. We were approaching home, still half a km away, and I heard the dirtbikes approaching the house from the far side. They were far off and not noisy. Macarena heard them and was alert but not scared. We were trotting and rounded a low hill, so the noise came more clearly, plus the bikes were closer now (though not coming in our direction) when one of them revved making that awful whine and she went into her fear response. 

I slid off her immediately deciding that if I'm on the ground with her she's braver, plus she won't try rearing again (don't want that to become a habit). She was freaked but we managed to walk home in a reasonable state. Though the first section was bad as it was really stony, and leading a scared horse through that was hard to say the least. There were no more bike noises and after about 100m she relaxed.

So habituating her to a parked or slowly-moving bike is obviously no use at all. It's the noise - just as you said from the beginning, Sue. Maybe I can try her with a slow-moving bike with revving close to home. If I can get her to chase it, she should get braver about it.

Andrew MacLean calls this Approach Conditioning, and says he uses it for horses that are afraid of heavy machinery etc. Joel Reiter also recommended it to me here in my thread on this problem in the training section (How best to get your horse's mind back during a panic attack). 

I think this will have to be my next step.

_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Those are some nice quotes you dug up on the subject of fear, and it makes complete sense evolutionarily that it should be hard to forget things that are frightening and/or dangerous. Humans get PTSD and the like, now imagine herbivorous flight animals, and then, according to your source, herbivorous flight animals with an even larger amygdala from selective breeding for sensitivity etc! (That was something I'd not come across yet and thanks for digging it up - makes sense though, doesn't it?)

I thought you handled that situation with Macarena really well. Like you, I found that horses are more reassured if you get off their backs and appear beside them when there is trouble, and especially if you place yourself between the horse and the trouble - which is exactly what a mare will do with a foal.

A while back we were discussing spook responses on 40+ and elsewhere, and I transferred that to my journal and continued the discussion there, starting with this post:

http://www.horseforum.com/member-jo...nkeys-other-people-479466/page21/#post7653002

It continues down the page, and on post 206, I was doing a horse's point of view of a situation with Sunsmart that was very similar to the situation with Macarena and the trail bikes. You may have caught it before, but I've so many pages of stuff now that I thought I'd link you to it for quick comparison.

I'm also always interested in any thoughts readers may have on this stuff. We all just live and learn.


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> I'd be interested if you could post that, Sue.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


OK, so someone was working with a racehorse that had had a bad accident, which involved tearing a muscle off the bone, and after it was healed, and the vet cleared the horse to race again, this very talented horse was not the same, it was frightened and unsettled around the race track and in race situations, and not performing nearly as well, mind not on the job etc, behaving erratically at work and in the stables, and they tried blinkers and blinders and ear plugs and all that stuff which to me is only band-aid stuff anyway - and even a horse's imagination can outpace its senses. So this person asked me what I thought.

So I wrote up for them some general similar experiences we had had with some of our horses who had gone through trauma, so they could compare notes. Here it is:

It's so difficult when this sort of thing (race or other significant trauma) happens.

Some general scanarios first: We attempted to retrain a horse that had gotten incredibly nervous from people driving him with an electric whip and had gotten to the point he would just jump the track fence (in pacing hobbles) with cart and driver attached and smash everything to pieces, so he went to the dog auction. (This was _not_ the horse's fault, it was the stupid greedy people who thought an electric prod could replace a proper education.)

We got him to the point we could drive him and race him, but though his nervousness improved, he never 100% dropped that fear in a racing situation. He ran 800m in 54 seconds back in the late 1980s when in Australia only a few champion horses did that, but he never saved it up for the end of the race, he did it in the first lap and then would only place at best. We tried all sorts of things, and we even tested if it was 100% psychological by trialling him on valium (which was permitted here for figuring out these kinds of situations), and on valium, he behaved like a normal horse and saved up his sprint to the end, and he won each of the several trials he had on valium by a big gap to the next placegetters (valium does not improve physical performance, it just cuts anxiety). The vet figured there was a possibility that doing a few months of competition in trials with the anxiety chemically suppressed on trial day might reprogramme his brain. It works for some horses, but didn't have significant lasting effects for our horse. Off valium, he was just the same as just before, and clearly we weren't going to race him on it or use it long-term with him.

We also rode this horse, and in riding situations he never lost his cool - as the nervousness was a _learnt response to a specific situation involving harness driving_. He was an excellent riding horse and, as you can probably imagine, a fabulous jumper! Although we worked for years trying to desensitise him again in harness, and we made a lot of progress, we could never get him to the point where he would have been if he'd not had his traumatic experiences in the racing industry. (A calm, patient, thorough education is the best start you can give a horse, and it's so important that they get and keep their confidence.) In the end, he just became a family riding horse. I still have him, he's 31 this month and has very few molars left but is doing well on twice daily bucket feeds.

We had other horses not quite as traumatised who did very well again in racing with us, like my Dad's current project mare Dezba, who was ready to be sent to the dog food factory as stressed and not performing. She was given to my father as a gift and is going fine after lots of TLC - not a remarkable horse or anything, but they're having fun - one win and a big string of minor placings in the two years since adoption, and far better than her two years pre-adoption, and that's enough to finance the hobby of someone who is 77 next month.

We also had one young mare we bred ourselves who was very talented but had the misfortune to be involved in a bad situation with multiple horses falling in her very first trial. Dad spent months getting her confidence back away from trials by working her on the same public track the accident happened, then match racing her with friends' horses on the same public track, and then entering her in another trial when she was happy again. And - in that trial someone drove into her legs and she nearly fell again. Months of work undone and back to square one. Long story short, she had interference in all of her first five trials and each time her fear of being in that group racing situation was reinforced. It cost my father about two years with her before he could actually race her, and though she was raceable, some of that nervousness persisted and made her likely to break gait in tight situations.

Traumatic events get written automatically into the amygdala of the brain and produce an aversive response that can be very hard to crack, even with lots of effort. Basically, you can never 100% erase what is stored in the amygdala - for reasons of evolutionary survival. You can only reduce it. Sometimes you can reduce it to very small by having very good follow-up experiences that never reinforce the fear and are enjoyable and fun and feel safe for the individual who's had the bad experience. So that's what you have to try to do with a horse who's had trauma.


...some excerpts from my response to watching a race video of the horse coming back from a horrific injury:

_Specifics - and I'm just thinking out loud here:

The race video link: I did notice the horse didn't look comfortable - tail swishing from the last back straight on especially - and I do wonder why the driver thought it necessary to lay into the horse like that with his whip. If he's belting the horse then I think that is most unhelpful, if he's just belting the plastic triangle, it's still bothering the horse and the driver is moving around so much in the cart it can actually unbalance the horse. (My father once went through a stage where he would get so excited during tight finishes that he'd bounce up and down in the cart without even being aware of it, to the point it was unbalancing for the horse. He made a valiant effort to stop doing that when we showed it to him on the replay! :rofl

_(The driver was, it turned out, hitting the shafts of the cart rather than the horse. That's a plus, but I think it could be managed better still.)_

I'll have to tell you straight off we don't belt our horses in races (or anywhere else for that matter). They're supposed to enjoy racing and go from there. This view makes us industry minority but we had excellent horses over the years who raced very well for us. The most they get is tapped gently with the whip to say, "OK, go now!" How is a horse supposed to enjoy racing if he's getting a belting in the home straight? It will just create a sour horse, or a numb horse, or a depressed horse, none of which are going to be very happy about going to races.

I think a horse who is clearly still showing unabated signs of trauma has no business being in races again...he needs to be de-stressed away from racing and brought back slowly and carefully.

Also are you 100% sure that the injury he had isn't affecting his potential speed?

About the shadow roll etc etc: I see those things as temporary aids only. Can this horse get a nice spell so he can calm down, and can you work with him again to very slowly bring him back, without much pressure? He's got to enjoy himself to get better again. Get him eventually very fit again before he goes back to racing, so that in race situations (including in any lead-up trials) he's never demoralised by not being able to run fast easily etc. When horses get demoralised, they give up. - The advice I am giving you is not usually well received in industry, where horses are seen as having to "earn their keep" and usually there's not much allowance made for time and lots of TLC. But we've done exactly that repeatedly with horses who were demoralised in big stables, who went on to run better for us than they had for anyone before.

I hope that's some use to you! It's mostly general advice - I don't know you or the detailed situation. Happy to chat about it again though.

_So that's the stock standard kind of thing we think when we see horses still showing signs of trauma back in races and not happy. He's a nice little horse and I really hope he makes a decent recovery. His prospects are better than the repeat-trauma mare in our general examples above, as he's only had one trauma, which has not been majorly reinforced by another accident. Also, he hasn't been abused by his handlers like the first case study I wrote about with the electric whip people. I think he could go well with careful rehabilitation - with the proviso that there are no physical issues remaining from his injury. Pain-free doesn't always mean that the body is 100% functional again after injury, and sometimes that can cost you your edge. I do think though that mental trauma alone can explain that young horse's current issues. Essentially it's a horse with PTSD. Often, horses like that don't get properly rehabilitated, because of the time and TLC involved and the economic considerations that often drive the industry - it often costs people less money and time to sell the horse to the dog food factory and get a new, fresh horse in. And this is a sad state of affairs...and very similar, apparently, to what war veterans experience when they return with PTSD, and the army will just replace them with someone not yet traumatised...


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## michaelvanessa

*buzing lights*



Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> There was a store back when I was kid that my parents used to frequent. I remember there being lights in one part of the store that emitted a sound that not only gave me the "willies" in my stomach but made my teeth hurt. I always asked to wait outside. I remember one time asking the store clerk how they worked with that noise all day, they thought I was a little odd, but no one else seemed able to hear it.
> 
> Makes you wonder how many things horses react to of which we are oblivious.


to raining cats and dogs i think what you are refering to is the harmonicks of a flouresent light transformer the bussing sound thay make.
when i was born and up to 10 years old we lived in the city and was in an apartment block 15 floors up.
on the 12 floor all the lights were acuated by a centrial time swich and then devided in to seperate relays to balance out the loads that relay made one hell of a buzzing sound.
i think the apartment next to the intake cubard the sound must have drove them nuts.


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> Those are some nice quotes you dug up on the subject of fear, and it makes complete sense evolutionarily that it should be hard to forget things that are frightening and/or dangerous.


I must get into the habit of considering the evolutionary significance of behaviour - it always helps put things into context. My favourite subject at uni was behavioural ecology, but that was many years ago and now I'm out of practice of using that mindset.



SueC said:


> I thought you handled that situation with Macarena really well. Like you, I found that horses are more reassured if you get off their backs and appear beside them when there is trouble, and especially if you place yourself between the horse and the trouble - which is exactly what a mare will do with a foal.....I was doing a horse's point of view of a situation with Sunsmart that was very similar to the situation with Macarena and the trail bikes.


Yes, I read that discussion and it got me thinking. So many thanks for that, Sue, and bsms too if you read this. Between you both, you made me challenge the accepted 'wisdom' that if you dismount when your horse is scared, you're rewarding him/her and thus reinforcing the being scared emotion. Bsms wrote "I can't honestly think of a time when any of my horses acted relieved that I was dismounting. Happy to get home? Yes. But I've never seen my horse act like dismounting during a ride was winning anything", and I thought, YES, of course, why do people talk like if you dismount, you've lost the battle?? Probably because, in the minds of those people, horse riding IS an ongoing battle rather than a remarkable attempt at inter-specific communication and cooperation. 

I hadn't thought this through before  and just went with the idea that you should always win over the situation from the saddle. So liberating realizing that this is a load of guff! :clap:

I just re-read your post about Sunsmart and the bogeymen (out if interest, what species of bogeymen were you dealing with?). Really good stuff, worth reading on a regular basis until it sinks in. Seeing as when your horse freaks out, your reactions need to be instinctive as you haven't got time to be thinking through the situation, so you want to have the right instinctive reactions on hand. Your Sunsmart-eye view of the event is helpful too. Always worth trying to put oneself in their shoes (or their hooves I suppose, seeing as Macarena doesn't use footwear ;-) ).



SueC said:


> I'm also always interested in any thoughts readers may have on this stuff.* We all just live and learn.*


Not related to fear and spooking, but I wanted to share another example of Macarena's good associative memory. The other day some friends visited, and when they reversed their van outside the yard gatr, the steering screeched and made a noise just like the high-pitched squeal of a pony. Just like the high-pitched squeal of OUR ex-pony, who we gave away to a young couple to teach their young son last March. I was going into the yard with food when it happened, and Macarena was predictably focussed on the munchies, but her head shot up and she whinnied at that van as if her life depended on it. 

She is not the sort of horse that whinnies at strangers. She greets me every time I approach the yard, but if we meet unknown horses out riding (a rare occurrence) she would never dream of neighing to them just because they're horses. So she obviously believed that her ex pony friend was in that van. 

Last summer was the first time I had evidence of her associative memory, over something as seemingly insignificant as a fly mask. She first came to us in August (2013), and her companion then was Picara, an Arab mare who she got on very well with. It was summer and her friend habitually wore the fly mask. Autumn came and I put the mask away. In winter, Picara left (she was sadly chronically lame, and went to be a companion horse / possible brood mare) and a new mare arrived. She was very bossy and Macarena soon learned to keep her distance. 

Spring came, and the flies started to bother them, so I put the fly mask on Tormenta. Macarena's eyes popped out when she saw her. She went voluntarily up to the boss (which she NEVER did, out of self -preservation), sniffing her and very alert. She was clearly trying to figure out the fly mask and was confused about the identity of the horse wearing it (it looks like Tormenta, it smells like Tormenta, but it's got Picara's black thing on it's face). Her confusion didn't last long. Tormenta put her ears back and bared her teeth, and that decided it for Macarena lol. (It acts like Tormenta, ergo, it IS Tormenta). :rofl:
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

I am glad that some of my instances of hypergraphia are of practical use to you! :rofl:

You asked about the nature of the bogeymen from that link. I'll tell you because it's you! ;-) Would you believe, two snow white Arabian mares in the distance? In a neighbour's paddock that had for the previous 30 years only held bay Standardbreds? And it's not as if he'd never seen a grey Arabian mare before, since my mare was at my parents' place most of her life until we brought her to Redmond in 2010.

Sunsmart was still a stallion back then, and I was thinking, "How crazy is that? If he knew what they really are he'd be falling over himself to chat them up!" But alas, they were too far away to smell and he seemed to think they were space aliens.

A few years later, when I had him agisted in Albany in 2009, he had a very similar reaction to an Appaloosa. He'd never seen any horse that colour before and I don't think he realised it was a horse at first. I was leading him to get him used to the new environment. I had the lead looped over the nose, which is a great trick in potential situations like that - then the horse won't break away from you in a panic. He didn't react as drastically as in that initial scenario, and it wasn't nearly as long, but it was a similar type of thing. After a few repeats he realised there was nothing to worry about. These days he's not nearly such a chicken!

Speaking of chickens: Do you have any? And what breeds if yes? This is actually leading on from our amygdala topic, in a very obscure way. Bear with me, we'll get there in the end! ;-)

When we get chickens, we want to get heritage breeds that have good survival skills for free ranging. The ISA Brown, the most popular laying chicken in Australia, is used by most commercial egg farmers, battery or shed or commercial (so-called, mostly) "free range". Backyard chicken keepers often have them too - they lay profusely for a year or two (and then that's it, mostly). But, ISA Browns have very poor survival skills, and their mothering skills aren't great either. I read that since they were developed for commercial egg farming, which was initially nearly all battery based, the ISA Brown as a breed basically was the kind of chicken most suited to incarceration - kind of like a chicken almost lobotomised by selective breeding. Put a heritage breed chicken in a battery, and it stresses out. (Plus their egg laying patterns would not satisfy commercial farming.) It's not nice for the ISA Brown either, but they have been dulled down genetically, so to speak.

So I'm basically wondering, is there an ISA Brown equivalent horse breed? Horses that have been deliberately dumbed down or horses that will cope better with rough styles of education and riding than more sensitive and intelligent breeds? You were talking about amygdalas tending to increase in size in horses selectively bred to be more sensitive / reactive. I wonder if any breeders went dead in the opposite direction to breed animals that wouldn't mind bullying and rough treatment as much as an Arabian or TB would?

"Docile" in domesticated animals is probably somewhat associated with lower intelligence, less interest in the world etc. Not always, as I think Clydesdales are quite docile, but also still very bright.

These were just some of the thoughts that spun out of that discussion for me. I wonder what you think?


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## egrogan

Bondre said:


> So many thanks for that, Sue, and bsms too if you read this. Between you both, you made me challenge the accepted 'wisdom' that if you dismount when your horse is scared, you're rewarding him/her and thus reinforcing the being scared emotion. Bsms wrote "I can't honestly think of a time when any of my horses acted relieved that I was dismounting. Happy to get home? Yes. But I've never seen my horse act like dismounting during a ride was winning anything", and I thought, YES, of course, why do people talk like if you dismount, you've lost the battle?? Probably because, in the minds of those people, horse riding IS an ongoing battle rather than a remarkable attempt at inter-specific communication and cooperation.


I think I must be the only person in the world who feels so much more confident _on _the horse rather than _next to the horse_ when things are going south. It's not because of the "reward for misbehavior" reason, but because I truly just feel more confident about controlling myself when I'm not on the ground worried about getting knocked down, stomped, or trampled. I've never been on a horse exploding in a bucking or rearing fit, so I suppose I'd feel differently then. But even the one time Isabel truly bolted on me and took off as a blind runaway crashing us through trees, the thought of getting off her and leading her home after that terrified me, while the thought of staying on her to get home wasn't great but was a much better option. No idea why.


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## egrogan

SueC said:


> Speaking of chickens: Do you have any? And what breeds if yes?


Oh Sue, you just opened a huge door here...in my non-horsey world, I am head over heels about my silly little flock of chickens. I have 8, four different breeds right now: Golden Comets, Rhode Island Red, Barred Plymouth Rock, and Golden Laced Wyandottes. They're all between 2.5 and 3.5 years old, over the hill if you care about good laying, but they've all spent most of their lives with me and they're decidedly pets at this point, so they stay even though they don't lay as well these days. I can admit that I'm more than a little sentimental about them.










You should pop over to this thread, it's been quiet lately but used to be quite active: http://www.horseforum.com/farm-animals/officialish-chicken-photo-thread-112282/

And earlier this week, someone sent me this link to a woman who's taught her chickens an agility course, and I just can't stop laughing about it:


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> You asked about the nature of the bogeymen from that link. I'll tell you because it's you! ;-) Would you believe, two snow white Arabian mares in the distance? In a neighbour's paddock that had for the previous 30 years only held bay Standardbreds?


Gosh, how embarrassing for Sunsmart!  I can understand him not wanting word to get out that he mistook two gorgeous ladies for freany aliens. 



SueC said:


> A few years later, when I had him agisted in Albany in 2009, he had a very similar reaction to an Appaloosa. He'd never seen any horse that colour before and I don't think he realised it was a horse at first. I was leading him to get him used to the new environment. I had the lead looped over the nose, which is a great trick in potential situations like that - then the horse won't break away from you in a panic. He didn't react as drastically as in that initial scenario, and it wasn't nearly as long, but it was a similar type of thing. After a few repeats he realised there was nothing to worry about. These days he's not nearly such a chicken!


Macarena has never seen a spotty horse either so I can't say what she'd do. She's not keen on donkeys, particularly when they bray, but she's good with sheep and dogs. Though I suspect she rather dislikes dogs, as she continually makes faces at my pyrenean mastiff who comes riding with us, and weaves in and out and behind and under the horses with precious little concern for her safety.... she's never been kicked and she doesn't realize that those hooves can hurt. There were some annoying noisy mastiffs one place we ride, the sort who run interminably along the fenceline barking, which rather scared Macarena at first. I used to growl back at them, which would send them off, and helped her to feel braver about ignoring them. The day Macarena turned her back on the noisy pair to graze I knew she had got over her fear of them. 

If Sunsmart is less of a chicken than when he was younger, then that is no doubt thanks to you. If it only took you both one major nervous wreck, followed by a minor freak, to make him braver, you're obviously a great confidence-builder. It's so easy to feed their nerves and make things worse. As you say, if you'd had to let go of him when he saw those terrifying Arabian beauties, the next time would have been so much harder. I just hope I will achieve similar results with Macarena and the dirtbikes.



SueC said:


> Speaking of chickens: Do you have any? And what breeds if yes?


Yes, we have a bunch of chickens who enthusiastically devour the fly grubs in the farmyard and help fight the endless summer battle against these awful insects. Have to admit, the chickens are really DH's territory - I'm not much of a domesticated bird person (though I've fallen for the lovebirds) as I prefer my birds wild ;-) He has leghorns and bantams at present - the bantams are a cute little gang - but he had Black Castilian chickens before that. This is a local breed, very rustic, but they ate a lot and laid little, so he exchanged them for leghorns. The black cockerel was one handsome guy though! 





SueC said:


> So I'm basically wondering, is there an ISA Brown equivalent horse breed? Horses that have been deliberately dumbed down or horses that will cope better with rough styles of education and riding than more sensitive and intelligent breeds? You were talking about amygdalas tending to increase in size in horses selectively bred to be more sensitive / reactive. I wonder if any breeders went dead in the opposite direction to breed animals that wouldn't mind bullying and rough treatment as much as an Arabian or TB would?


This is a great question you've brought up, Sue! I have no real answer as I don't have a ton of experience with different breeds. But I do wonder (and I wouldn't dare to say this anywhere else on a HF) if the quarter horse might be the ISA Brown of the mainstream horse world? :hide: 

Time for disclaimers lol: I've never owned, worked or even knowingly seen a QH in the flesh so who am I to say such a thing. But from all that I've read on the forum, it does seem to me that since QHs are / were bred for working, they need to be able to cope with rough and ready treatment at times. And if they were selectively dulled so as to be less reactiveto the unknown, that would surely be helpful in a working horse. I'm not trying to say they're stupid, because I think dullness towards the unknown and intelligence are two quite different qualities, and doubtless a QH has to be smart to work cattle. 

Do you have any equine ISA brown candidates up your sleeve? I bet you do. ;-)
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

egrogan said:


> I think I must be the only person in the world who feels so much more confident _on _the horse rather than _next to the horse_ when things are going south. It's not because of the "reward for misbehavior" reason, but because I truly just feel more confident about controlling myself when I'm not on the ground worried about getting knocked down, stomped, or trampled. I've never been on a horse exploding in a bucking or rearing fit, so I suppose I'd feel differently then. But even the one time Isabel truly bolted on me and took off as a blind runaway crashing us through trees, the thought of getting off her and leading her home after that terrified me, while the thought of staying on her to get home wasn't great but was a much better option. No idea why.


There are, of course, also situations where it's safer and more straightforward to stay on. I think our instincts are probably going to tell us which is which.  Probably I didn't discuss it at all because I was a bit gobsmacked by some people's perceptions of horse behaviour / thinking around the topic of getting off in hairy situations. "Rewarding the behaviour" indeed and "reinforcing its fear" that way, what bonkum... The concept of reassuring your horse doesn't seem to occur to some people. You can do that on the back of a horse, but sometimes the horse is more comfortable when you are right next to it - I think especially so in young horses or green horses or insecure horses.


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## SueC

egrogan said:


> Oh Sue, you just opened a huge door here...in my non-horsey world, I am head over heels about my silly little flock of chickens. I have 8, four different breeds right now: Golden Comets, Rhode Island Red, Barred Plymouth Rock, and Golden Laced Wyandottes. They're all between 2.5 and 3.5 years old, over the hill if you care about good laying, but they've all spent most of their lives with me and they're decidedly pets at this point, so they stay even though they don't lay as well these days. I can admit that I'm more than a little sentimental about them.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You should pop over to this thread, it's been quiet lately but used to be quite active: http://www.horseforum.com/farm-animals/officialish-chicken-photo-thread-112282/


I'll put it on my list! - Erin, you have such lovely chickens! We saw Wyandottes and Barred Plymouth at a poultry show here and really liked them, you don't see them that much in Australia. We too want to get a variety of breeds. But not till the house is complete...

In 2011 we built the dome structure for a permaculture chicken tractor with an elevated perch. It's the same radius as the round vegetable beds in the vegetable mandala we laid out which has a frog pond in the centre like the centre of a flower in a child's drawing, with the vegie beds the petals around it. The design was championed by Linda Woodrow:

https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Permaculture_Home_Garden.html?id=P9VUAAAACAAJ

- and the idea is that once a bed is harvested, you put the chickens in their dome over what's left and they'll eat what's left, plus insects, and dig and fertilise everything as they go, and have a whale of a time doing all that, and then when you move your chickens on, pretty soon you can plant in that bed again with much of the preparation work already done for you - and you never have to muck out your chicken yard!

When we finish the house, we'll cover the dome in wire netting and get our sadly neglected vegetable mandala up and running again. A completed dome looks like this:










You make a wire netting skirt around the bottom and attach with tent pegs, which helps keep foxes out, in fox areas. An electric fence wire offset around the circumference also helps...




> And earlier this week, someone sent me this link to a woman who's taught her chickens an agility course, and I just can't stop laughing about it:
> http://youtu.be/s-kBiA5Qk1Y


:rofl: Brett and I both watched that just now and think it's hilarious! Those chickens are so conditioned to the "I'm going to feed you" hand movements! Chicken agility - what next? Maybe chicken ballroom dances? :rofl:


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## Bondre

egrogan said:


> I think I must be the only person in the world who feels so much more confident _on _the horse rather than _next to the horse_ when things are going south. It's not because of the "reward for misbehavior" reason, but because I truly just feel more confident about controlling myself when I'm not on the ground worried about getting knocked down, stomped, or trampled. I've never been on a horse exploding in a bucking or rearing fit, so I suppose I'd feel differently then. But even the one time Isabel truly bolted on me and took off as a blind runaway crashing us through trees, the thought of getting off her and leading her home after that terrified me, while the thought of staying on her to get home wasn't great but was a much better option. No idea why.


You're not the only one who prefers to stay on their horse - in normal circumstances I'm with you on that. But occasionally it is preferable to get off - and most important I think, to realize that getting off isn't a big deal, not as if you've failed in any way. Which is how some people put it over, as if by dismounting you're allowing your horse to get away with bad behaviour. 

I have only dismounted through 'necessity' twice in two years with Macarena. Once was to encourage her through a large, muddy puddle that spanned the path - she dislikes water, but above all she hates muddy puddles of unknown depth where the bottom is invisible and often slippery. I can honestly understand her there. (And no, I didn't get her through the puddle, even by standing in the middle of the darn thing myself. She advanced a third of the way but then she slipped a little and refused to go any further. Water is a work in progress).

The second time was the dirtbike event, and my decision to dismount was based on her evident fear, the fact she reared the previous time, and the rather inadequate bridle she was wearing at the time. It was my first version of a sidepull, but it wasn't stable on her head and I wasn't happy about the idea of trying to control any fireworks with it. The ground definitely seemed a better bet! 

If it happens again when she's wearing more appropriate headgear, I don't know whether I'll dismount again or not; we'll just have to play things by ear.



egrogan said:


> Oh Sue, you just opened a huge door here...in my non-horsey world, I am head over heels about my silly little flock of chickens. I have 8, four different breeds right now: Golden Comets, Rhode Island Red, Barred Plymouth Rock, and Golden Laced Wyandottes. They're all between 2.5 and 3.5 years old, over the hill if you care about good laying, but they've all spent most of their lives with me and they're decidedly pets at this point, so they stay even though they don't lay as well these days. I can admit that I'm more than a little sentimental about them.


Your chickens are beautiful! You sound very fond of them. I love the breeds with barred and speckles colouring like the Plymouths and the Wyandottes. I watched that video with my sons and we all loved it, especially when they went racing off at the end. So funny! Their owner was obviously having a ball with them, great to see someone 'playing' with their chickens. 
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> Gosh, how embarrassing for Sunsmart!  I can understand him not wanting word to get out that he mistook two gorgeous ladies for freaky aliens.


:rofl: At least the Appy was a _gelding_!




> Macarena has never seen a spotty horse either so I can't say what she'd do. She's not keen on donkeys, particularly when they bray...


We filmed our horses' reactions when our donkeys arrived! My mare was still alive and swanning around with Sunsmart:






It was so funny to see their reactions. One thing we unfortunately didn't get on film was Romeo's reaction. This is an unflappable old horse and he's always been very brainy and Zen. When the trailer rolled up and came to a halt, Romeo, whom we'd left in the driveway, went right up next to the trailer and unhesitatingly did a long nose-to-nose "hello" with them, while my other two ran floaty circles and made eyes-on-stalks! He supervised them in a very uncle-like manner for days, eyes crinkling up like they do when friendly horses survey foals. The donkeys adopted him as an Honorary Donkey.

My mare and Sunsmart were quite the item, so he and the donkeys roamed together much of the time by choice. Once, when he nearly died of an illness, he was lying on the ground and the donkeys were in a circle all around him, putting their snouts gently on him every now and then, and they kept vigil all night. I was out several times during the night and would hold the old horse's face in my lap until I nearly froze and go back in to bed (the horse was warm in a quilted winter rug) to warm up - not to sleep, so much. Thankfully the horse pulled through. I'll never forget the donkey vigil. I've never seen anything like that before or since.



> ...but she's good with sheep and dogs. Though I suspect she rather dislikes dogs, as she continually makes faces at my pyrenean mastiff who comes riding with us, and weaves in and out and behind and under the horses with precious little concern for her safety.... she's never been kicked and she doesn't realize that those hooves can hurt. There were some annoying noisy mastiffs one place we ride, the sort who run interminably along the fenceline barking, which rather scared Macarena at first. I used to growl back at them, which would send them off, and helped her to feel braver about ignoring them. The day Macarena turned her back on the noisy pair to graze I knew she had got over her fear of them.


 Nice! You know that thing about having your mare follow a trail bike? That's a great idea, especially if you can rig it with the driver to act like he's trying to get away from your horse whenever she gets too near. If horses get the impression that things are running away from them, they suddenly get very brave. Sunsmart used to be boggle-eyed about cattle, until we brought him to Redmond and he lived on the same land as cattle, and when he realised _they_ were nervous about _him_, he rather started enjoying himself:






He isn't mean to the cattle or anything, he just likes playing chasey, and I love his "Aren't I clever?" expression as he runs up to our camera at the end! 




> If Sunsmart is less of a chicken than when he was younger, then that is no doubt thanks to you. If it only took you both one major nervous wreck, followed by a minor freak, to make him braver, you're obviously a great confidence-builder. It's so easy to feed their nerves and make things worse. As you say, if you'd had to let go of him when he saw those terrifying Arabian beauties, the next time would have been so much harder.


In situations where what a horse is afraid of is actually not dangerous, only the horse's reaction is potentially dangerous, I seem to be very left-brain driven, and also to have gotten the knack of playing "mother hen" so to speak, emotionally. If the horse's potentially dangerous behaviour made me afraid, then I could just forget trying to do stuff like that, because the horse needs to feed off calm, reassuring, warm vibes from you to calm down itself, as the situation unfolds. So somehow, I don't get nervous in those situations simply because I can't afford to get nervous, and I think it's a protective response towards the horse that does it.

The only other parallel I can give you: In my late 20s I was teaching Science here in Albany, and we had a beach day with the Year 8 cohort, who were new to High School. A few of the girls from my class had forgotten their lunch, so I volunteered to walk them through an Industrial area to get to a lunch bar. And as I was shepherding these young girls along, I suddenly became instinctively aware of something amiss. I searched the street and found my bad vibes were coming from a guy in the otherwise deserted street who just seemed to radiate unpleasantness and malice. I crossed the road with the girls and suddenly had a very powerful feeling that if he were to approach us I would somehow tear him limb to limb to protect these girls. Now let me tell you, a) I sucked at combat type things until my husband gave me basic Kendo training after we had a burglar at our place, and I'm still not great at that kind of stuff, and b) I was, intellectually at least, an ardent fan of MLK's philosophies of nonviolence. So, this was a completely surprising thing to be feeling, for the first time in my life. It was a mother cat kind of thing, and it so powerfully charges your body when it happens that you actually do think afterwards that you would have had a good chance of actually tearing someone limb to limb, or die trying. 




> I just hope I will achieve similar results with Macarena and the dirtbikes.


I think dirtbikes are one of the hardest nuts to crack. I'm kind of terrified of encountering them, since quite a proportion of the ones I came across on horse trails near Albany, back when we agisted him near town to make his riding education solid, were ridden by brainless people who took pleasure in deliberately trying to scare horses, by revving up to them etc and chasing after them. :evil: It's awful when that happens, because it's a very real danger and then I too get terrified. Once, I heard they nearly put this young Percheron mare through a barbed wire fence with her rider:










...the grey mare following a friend of mine on her magnificent and now deceased TB Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, in a happy jaunt in the Albany Harbour on a sunny day.

Some people. 




> Yes, we have a bunch of chickens who enthusiastically devour the fly grubs in the farmyard and help fight the endless summer battle against these awful insects. Have to admit, the chickens are really DH's territory - I'm not much of a domesticated bird person (though I've fallen for the lovebirds) as I prefer my birds wild ;-) He has leghorns and bantams at present - the bantams are a cute little gang - but he had Black Castilian chickens before that. This is a local breed, very rustic, but they ate a lot and laid little, so he exchanged them for leghorns. The black cockerel was one handsome guy though!


Yes, very handsome! Are they a dual-purpose breed - eggs and meat? Looks that type. (Sorry, Erin!  I wouldn't eat your old hens, promise! Not because one can't, but because they're your special lot! )




> This is a great question you've brought up, Sue! I have no real answer as I don't have a ton of experience with different breeds. But I do wonder (and I wouldn't dare to say this anywhere else on a HF) if the quarter horse might be the ISA Brown of the mainstream horse world? :hide:
> 
> Time for disclaimers lol: I've never owned, worked or even knowingly seen a QH in the flesh so who am I to say such a thing. But from all that I've read on the forum, it does seem to me that since QHs are / were bred for working, they need to be able to cope with rough and ready treatment at times. And if they were selectively dulled so as to be less reactiveto the unknown, that would surely be helpful in a working horse. I'm not trying to say they're stupid, because I think dullness towards the unknown and intelligence are two quite different qualities, and doubtless a QH has to be smart to work cattle.
> 
> Do you have any equine ISA brown candidates up your sleeve? I bet you do. ;-)
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


:rofl: :hide: :rofl:

You've voiced my thoughts exactly, and my disclaimer exactly! :rofl:

That's hilarious, and also saves me writing another few paragraphs! Perhaps we should consult bsms for his opinion?


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

SueC said:


> So I'm basically wondering, is there an ISA Brown equivalent horse breed? Horses that have been deliberately dumbed down or horses that will cope better with rough styles of education and riding than more sensitive and intelligent breeds? You were talking about amygdalas tending to increase in size in horses selectively bred to be more sensitive / reactive. I wonder if any breeders went dead in the opposite direction to breed animals that wouldn't mind bullying and rough treatment as much as an Arabian or TB would?
> 
> "Docile" in domesticated animals is probably somewhat associated with lower intelligence, less interest in the world etc. Not always, as I think Clydesdales are quite docile, but also still very bright.
> 
> These were just some of the thoughts that spun out of that discussion for me. I wonder what you think?


Sue, I know you had QH's in mind, but I will give you another example, perhaps not ideal but relevant none the less. 

My daughter's Caspian x.

The Caspian breed is only about 50 years in the western world of breeding. For a goodly amount of time prior they were forgotten (since 7th century AD) to the modern world.

Although with the discovery of the remains of a Caspian Horse dated to 3400 BC, gives it the claim to the oldest breed of domesticated horse still in existence, breeding within the herds of more recent eons was mostly governed by natural selection until Louise Firouz "discovered" them and exported them for the purposes of organized breeding. At one time it was believed that there were only about 500 of these horses still in existence. 

How this relates to breeding for temperament is this...the Caspian horse is known for its demeanor. Though very active even young children can ride and handle stallions. They are know to be brave horses, (non spooky) curious and intelligent. 

Now, given their limited organized breeding history, is their demeanor an example of what horses, if left to their own devices would be? Perhaps the calm and cooperative nature of the Caspian is what is natural while the other breeds bred in the hands of man for a much longer time, with more sensitivities are the human created outliers. 

By the nature of an evolutionary survival response, a horse would prefer to conserve energy so that when danger really has reared its ugly head, the horse would have all of its reserves to aid in its escape. A horse who is unnecessarily running about at every sound would be at a distinct disadvantage when it really became necessary to escape. 

Quarter horses are also a recent development from an organized breeding to a set of standards point. That really did not become something earnest until the mid 1800's. At which point, certain standard characteristics became important to breed for. 

So I suppose I am reversing the question to you. Is it possible that because of our own tainted perspectives and desires to enhance performance that suits our needs, that it may be that the native nature of the horse is to be calm, sensible and brave rather than skitterish, fearful and of high spirits?


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## bsms

My horses tend to be Arabians: 2 were 100%, one 75% and one (Bandit) 50%. Cowboy is the outlier, a BLM mustang who shows no sign of Arabian blood.

I think it is obvious we can breed horses for personality. In Border Collies, one breeder told me she liked to breed dogs for a long initial run. I know of some bred to be more aggressive, since range sheep and cattle may go a year or more without seeing a human and don't respond to a nice dog.

I think a big part of Mia's problem was she was champion Crabbet bred on the sire's side, and all racing lines on the dam's...then she lived in a corral her whole life! It was a bit unfair to expect her to be an equine cucumber when we went out. However, I've heard she's been doing better since she was worked into a real herd and able to roam with the herd. I think a lot of problems we have with horses is rooted in how few get to live in a real herd at any time of their life. If a kid is raised in a bad orphanage, with little human contact, no family structure and little exercise, how well would we expect him to behave?

Quarter Horses vary so much it is hard to think of them as a breed. A horse who can do this has to be pretty intense:










OTOH, I had a neighbor ask me once why my horses were alive. That seemed kind of odd, but he said most horses in backyards around here seem unaware of everything around them, while mine seemed to be interested in everything. My guess was that Mia MADE them get interested...it is a little quieter with her gone. Still, mine move around more and interact more than what I normally see in the average backyard QH.

But I'm not sure that equates to spooky. Cowboy is observant. He'll even run away from an angry human or an angry horse...but not much else. I think being born wild and living some amount of time as a wild horse taught him to assess before moving, and to move as little as possible and then assess some more. He can become quite agitated. That is one of the reasons no one wanted him - a 13.0 horse who was too much trouble. He objects to pain. He resents hard treatment. He can be competitive. But he doesn't 'spook' much. After all, a horse who races mindlessly in the wild dies. Generally speaking, no horse bolts away from the herd. And wild horses don't run endlessly "just because".

From my very limited experience, I have two strong preferences in horses: an Arabian mare or a mustang gelding. The Arabian mare may be a pain on a trail ride, but she'll give you everything she has if you are good to her. The mustang gelding may tell you to go to hell, but he'll have a reason and thinks things through on the trail. Bandit is half & half. 

But he has also been out with a herd, roaming on square miles of land. He does get nervous about stuff, but he's never lost his mind with fear. He wants to be a safe distance from something scary and he may push hard to get that distance - but it is NOT mindless fear like Mia had. I think the total melt-down kind of fear comes from bad raising, and I think most modern horses are raised wrong. Letting a horse spend its first 5 years roaming in a herd would be my prescription for getting a sane & sound horse. I think it would at least lay a good foundation for a human to refine...but I know it isn't going to happen.

Oh - and if Cowboy was about 4 inches taller, he'd be an awesome horse for me. I just feel a bit oversized on him. But he has "courage" on a trail:










"_it may be that the native nature of the horse is to be calm, sensible and brave rather than skitterish, fearful and of high spirits?_"

I'd say yes, basing it on a sample size of one formerly wild horse.


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## Zexious

Bondre, I love your journal because I love the way that it promotes so much interesting, thought provoking conversation <3 It's always such a joy to read, and so well written!

As far as personality, I think people put too much emphasis on breed and not enough to do with the individual. Nature vs nurture and all that!
I'll come back and elaborate a bit, but a certain Mexican restaurant is calling my name!


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## SueC

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> Now, given their limited organized breeding history, is their demeanor an example of what horses, if left to their own devices would be? Perhaps the calm and cooperative nature of the Caspian is what is natural while the other breeds bred in the hands of man for a much longer time, with more sensitivities are the human created outliers.


Yeah, that's a good point! We had a Caspian mare boarding here with us for nearly a year after my Arabian mare died. She was sharp as a tack and very independent, and she was a "thinker" rather than a "run first, ask questions later" sort of horse. Indeed, I think in that she was very like our donkeys, with whom Caspians actually share a few characteristics, such as the "thinking not running" tendency, being less herd driven, and similarities in the hooves! (The boarding mare's hooves were remarkable, and like an intermediate between donkey and horse hooves. Super feet!)

Thinking about reasons why, I don't think Caspians necessarily have a closer phylogenetic relationship with donkeys than other horses, I think it's probably parallel evolution (traits recreated afresh rather than passed down from a common ancestor) from being in a very similar environment. Caspians and donkeys are both desert animals and indeed their ranges overlapped. Two genetically divergent equine groups with similar selection pressures...

Of course, not all equids developed in that particular environment. Zebras are probably more skittish than donkeys. They certainly run away more than donkeys do - and also have more reason to, in their particular environment which is saturated with some of the most enormous terrestrial carnivores left on the planet. Staying to think, there, is not necessarily an advantage - and responding to false alarms not as costly as not responding would be...

The zebra's ecosystem of origin is more productive than the donkey's - and the extra feed (and higher quality of feed) available just might make it more feasible to run, as well.

So I think that a number of different "modes" were present even in nature, amongst different equids.




> So I suppose I am reversing the question to you. Is it possible that because of our own tainted perspectives and desires to enhance performance that suits our needs, that it may be that the native nature of the horse is to be calm, sensible and brave rather than skitterish, fearful and of high spirits?


Oh yes, I think that was implied already when Bondre dug up the information on increasing amygdala size in certain breeds of domestic horses, as compared to wild horses. I think we humans impose all sorts of genetic traits, physical and behavioural, on our domestic animals very rapidly through selective breeding. We can probably see that most clearly in the dog - where infantilising of features and behaviour has, for instance, been prized in small companion dog breeds, who are so far removed from what actual wild canines are like. To give just one illustration from the rich minefield of that group!

But I do think different people often want different things from the particular breed they are developing from a domestic species, and like in the dog, I think that can lead to developments in many different directions. So, we now have some horse breeds that are probably more reactive than their ancestors, and some that are less reactive, etc etc.

I will say though, that the environment in which domestic horses are brought up seems to me to have a huge influence on how skittish they are going to be, as already discussed here:

http://www.horseforum.com/member-journals/macarena-flamenca-2015-a-536297/page5/#post7821034

...which I know you've seen, but I don't want to repeat myself here, for those who haven't seen it and might want to explore this idea.

Thank you very much for contributing here, RCD, it's great what can happen when ideas bounce around in a critical mass of people who like to think about such stuff! 

And to all of you on this thread! This is the kind of horse discussion I enjoy, and with people whom I really enjoy. :loveshower:


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## SueC

Zexious said:


> Bondre, I love your journal because I love the way that it promotes so much interesting, thought provoking conversation <3 It's always such a joy to read, and so well written!
> 
> As far as personality, I think people put too much emphasis on breed and not enough to do with the individual. Nature vs nurture and all that!
> I'll come back and elaborate a bit, but a certain Mexican restaurant is calling my name!


Thank you, Zexious, for reminding us that there is a great deal of individual variation in any group. Probably a bell curve in the middle, and then minorities either side, including extreme outliers.

I guess the bell curves might be in different spots on the spectrum for different breeds, for a given trait.


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## SueC

PS for RCD: Caspians versus Arabians. Both desert animals, one closely associated with humans for a long time, the other not so much. Arabians are more reactive than Caspians. In part that could clearly be due to the human influence via selective breeding...but does size come into it as well? Does running pay off more for a longer-legged, faster animal? Donkeys suck at running compared to horses. How fast are Caspians? (Our guest not as fast as our own horses.) And does anyone else here think small ponies are generally less skittish than larger horses?

Over a certain size, running is less effective - too heavy. Very large animals / slower herbivores often stay and fight as a group - making circles with the young on the inside and the adults facing out, and fighting by striking, trampling, using horns, etc.

Just to throw a few more thoughts in, which I haven't the time to develop this morning...

And the Arabian, in my experience, while it can be skittish, is also highly intelligent, and when it has a strong relationship with you, will trust your judgement of a particular situation it would run from without you, so its skittishness isn't difficult to handle when you and the horse are good buddies.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Sue,
Have you ever heard of genetic memory as it relates to psychology? It is the concept that over a long period of time, the experiences of a species become part of the genetic code of the animal, becoming instinct.

An example as I have seen it suggested, that horses, whose ancestors existed in areas nearly void of trees and hills/mountains, if put into into a state of reaction will flee, while those who evolved in areas of trees or mountains will buck. 

The theory there is that in the plains the predator comes from the ground and gives chase, while in wooded or mountains, the predator is more likely to jump suddenly from above landing on the horse's top side. 

Your example of zebras brought this to mind.

Our Caspian at least, is as fast, if not faster than a quarter horse stallion. After my daughter rode him for the first time, the boy who returned him to the paddock accidentally put him in with a bunch of mares and their world champion stud. As we were driving up the drive we saw the dust up as the stallion was attempting to beat the snot out of Caspian, but couldn't catch him. Luckily they noticed and got in to remove the stud from the pen. He is quite fast!


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## SueC

bsms said:


> Quarter Horses vary so much it is hard to think of them as a breed. A horse who can do this has to be pretty intense:


To give you parallels to this photo from my own tradition: That 1970s German book I have on horse riding / critiques of industry and riding is studded with photos of young Warmbloods lying down in the middle of arenas surrounded by huge human crowds, and their handlers sitting on them, sitting beside them etc.

Also an HF colleague who was training a mustang from scratch, one of the first things she taught her horse to do was exactly that!

For those who haven't seen the link:

http://augustusthemustang.wordpress.com/

The lying down is towards the start of her archives.


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## SueC

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> Sue,
> Have you ever heard of genetic memory as it relates to psychology? It is the concept that over a long period of time, the experiences of a species become part of the genetic code of the animal, becoming instinct.
> 
> An example as I have seen it suggested, that horses, whose ancestors existed in areas nearly void of trees and hills/mountains, if put into into a state of reaction will flee, while those who evolved in areas of trees or mountains will buck.
> 
> The theory there is that in the plains the predator comes from the ground and gives chase, while in wooded or mountains, the predator is more likely to jump suddenly from above landing on the horse's top side.
> 
> Your example of zebras brought this to mind.


Ah, topography, that makes sense! And one desert can be quite flat and another quite hilly... 

I'm going to go off and look at different types of donkey in the wild on the African plains, versus various parts of the Middle East...




> Our Caspian at least, is as fast, if not faster than a quarter horse stallion. After my daughter rode him for the first time, the boy who returned him to the paddock accidentally put him in with a bunch of mares and their world champion stud. As we were driving up the drive we saw the dust up as the stallion was attempting to beat the snot out of Caspian, but couldn't catch him. Luckily they noticed and got in to remove the stud from the pen. He is quite fast!


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

bsms said:


> Quarter Horses vary so much it is hard to think of them as a breed. A horse who can do this has to be pretty intense:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .



Just exactly what is it you are trying to say here BSMS?????!!!! (said with feigned indignation)


This isn't your idea of intense? 












His daughter actually sleeps like this on occasion, snoring loud enough to wake the dead. (nothing wrong with her that the vet can find, just a weird horse).


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## anndankev

Is that Oliver?


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Yes, one in the same. That picture was taken in the spring and he was enjoying the warm sun. Strangest horse that one! Here is him sunny side up. Looking mighty fine for a "grade" horse.


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## anndankev

anndankev said:


> Is that Oliver?





Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> Yes, one in the same....



:rofl:


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## bsms

Hmmm...



















I'm thinking Oliver is more closely related to the blue fellow on the far right than to Bandit on the far left...mg:


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## Bondre

Gosh, this thread has been a busy place while I was asleep :shock:  I'll have my work cut out to catch up this morning!



Zexious said:


> Bondre, I love your journal because I love the way that it promotes so much interesting, thought provoking conversation <3 It's always such a joy to read, and so well written!


Thanks! I'm very much enjoying the discussion too. This kind of virtual encounter is the forum at its best. 

:thumbsup:



Zexious said:


> As far as personality, I think people put too much emphasis on breed and not enough to do with the individual. Nature vs nurture and all that!
> I'll come back and elaborate a bit, but a certain Mexican restaurant is calling my name!


Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

bsms said:


> Hmmm...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm thinking Oliver is more closely related to the blue fellow on the far right than to Bandit on the far left...mg:


We were told he was a Tennessee Walking horse, but all I see anymore is Quarter Horse and a tank of one at that. He is power and loves the really hilly, rocky trails, never wants to go home. At 15.2 he is at the larger end for a QH. I do like my big horses! 

As for the metallic shine, believe it or not he is not wet or showsheened, and I didn't mess with the picture, that is how he is.....ground stabilized flax seed.


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## bsms

He's a big boy! I'd probably have to rethink how I sit and ride if I were on a horse that big. Mia was 15.3 & 900 lbs, and she was broader across the back than 15 hand Bandit. Bandit is the narrowest horse I've seen. There is OK depth to him in the vertical, but it is like riding a fence rail. My western saddle adds some width. The Australian one does not, and really drives home how slender he is










...although from the side he looks more like a normal horse:










But I think he'll make a good riding horse. He banged his knee pretty good a few nights ago, then cut it yesterday, so he's probably going to have a couple of weeks off riding. I think it is frustrating for him, too. If you gave him a choice between carrying my 160 lb and 35 lb saddle on his 800 lb body, or staying in his corral, he'd choose going for a ride. Most of the horses I know in southern Arizona live in corrals, or worse. I think a lot of the 'problem horses' around here need nothing more than more room and exercise.


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> I think a lot of problems we have with horses is rooted in how few get to live in a real herd at any time of their life.


Yes, I'm sure this is of huge importance. At least in the US, it sounds as if a percentage of horses do live in herds at some stage in their life, but in Europe it's really uncommon. And so we're dealing with dysfunctional individuals who have to make the best of a stressful lifestyle. 

Of my two, I'm fairly sure Macarena had a quite stressful youth. She lived in a small dry lot, alongside another mare, who she was badly herdbound to. I don't think her owner took her out for walks on the lead rope or did anything resembling getting her acquainted with the world around her. All she knew of the world was what she saw from inside her enclosure. So it's not surprising if she has some fear memories engraved in her amygdala that surface occasionally. 



bsms said:


> After all, a horse who races mindlessly in the wild dies. Generally speaking, no horse bolts away from the herd. And wild horses don't run endlessly "just because".....
> I think the total melt-down kind of fear comes from bad raising, and I think most modern horses are raised wrong. Letting a horse spend its first 5 years roaming in a herd would be my prescription for getting a sane & sound horse.


I am wondering if living in a herd tempers the mechanism for indelibly recording memories of fear? I think this makes sense - when a horse grows up in a herd, he is surrounded by older and more experienced herd members, who help him learn to respond to scary stimuli without his fear turning to full-blown panic.

In the herd, I imagine that there's a lot less panic going on than in isolated, domestic horses. If one individual panics, he runs to the herd, towards his comfort zone, and depending on whether the danger is real or imagined, his panic is either defused or the whole herd runs with him. So when the young horse sees a fallen branch he panics momentarily, but the other herd members don't react, so he realises the fallen branch is entirely safe and relaxes. And seeing as the fallen branch is no more than a brief startle, it doesn't get recorded in his amygdala and he doesn't get hung up about fallen branches in the future. 

Whereas the domestic youngster that is raised outside the structure of a herd lacks all those experienced eyes to judge a potentially risky situation. He sees the fallen branch and has no-one to tell him that it's OK. Maybe he has a human accompanying him, who might reassure him and get him through the situation. Or maybe he has a different sort of human who punishes him for startling and raises the horse's stress levels, creating the 'perfect' panic situation that the horse will never forget. 

Now I am more aware of all this, I believe Macarena has three panic memories engraved in her amygdala - one involving dirt bikes or other ATVs, one involving being made to run in circles in a travesty of free lunging, and one involving slippery muddy surfaces. Perhaps she slipped and fell in her wash stand one day? I will never know, but I do know that when I first got her, washing her was very stressful for her. I couldn't tie her to wash because she would pull back in panic. Now I can wash her in hand or tied, with patience and understanding, and she tolerates it.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> Sue,
> Have you ever heard of genetic memory as it relates to psychology? It is the concept that over a long period of time, the experiences of a species become part of the genetic code of the animal, becoming instinct.
> 
> An example as I have seen it suggested, that horses, whose ancestors existed in areas nearly void of trees and hills/mountains, if put into into a state of reaction will flee, while those who evolved in areas of trees or mountains will buck.
> 
> The theory there is that in the plains the predator comes from the ground and gives chase, while in wooded or mountains, the predator is more likely to jump suddenly from above landing on the horse's top side.


I guess you would seem the same differences in learned behaviour too. A horse whose default reaction is to bolt will learn to buck if it is raised in enclosed spaces that make bolting impossible. 

I mention this because my horse's fear reaction seems a combination of the two things. On several occasions I have discovered her bucking and broncing in her enclosure, obviously alarmed (pictures on page 5 of this journal). I don't know the cause but when she does it it's always dusk and she always stops and looks out in the same direction and gives her sharp alarm snort. My husband says she's playing but I wondered about this (particularly because of the alarm snorts), and these comments of yours have confirmed that bucking can be just as valid a panic reaction as bolting. 

So perhaps in evolutionary terms, through domestication and enclosure of horses we are favouring bucking over bolting.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> I guess you would seem the same differences in learned behaviour too. A horse whose default reaction is to bolt will learn to buck if it is raised in enclosed spaces that make bolting impossible.
> 
> I mention this because my horse's fear reaction seems a combination of the two things. On several occasions I have discovered her bucking and broncing in her enclosure, obviously alarmed (pictures on page 5 of this journal). I don't know the cause but when she does it it's always dusk and she always stops and looks out in the same direction and gives her sharp alarm snort. My husband says she's playing but I wondered about this (particularly because of the alarm snorts), and these comments of yours have confirmed that bucking can be just as valid a panic reaction as bolting.
> 
> So perhaps in evolutionary terms, through domestication and enclosure of horses we are favouring bucking over bolting.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


We highly suspect Oliver is proud cut. He was a working stud until 7 yo and still has a thing for the ladies, he is in a rather large paddock, but bring in the ladies to an adjoining paddock and while at liberty, he will act like a crazy horse (makes trail rides an adventure). 

Perhaps your girl is catching something on the wind of a nearby suitor?


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## Bondre

^^^ Could be. Something comes on the wind from time to time that she finds disturbing. 

We had another stressful ride this evening. Her worst nervous events are around dusk, so I'll have to try riding her earlier and see if she's more relaxed. 

I had planned schooling her in the fields to try out the new sidepull bridle, but after a couple of big trot circles she started getting silly and did some bucking. I turned her towards the far end of the fields, where the dreaded spooky shed hides amongst the big cypress trees. Of course, there were noises of birds settling for the night in the tress, and there was a pile of vegetable crates 100m along the road that just could have been a human - or a motorbike - so she got tense again. We went down the road to check out the pile of inoffensive crates, then continued fine until we met a scary puddle.... You can imagine. When they have a bad day, they do it properly :-(

We cut across some unploughed fields to avoid the puddle, had a long drawn-out battle of perseverance to cross the irrigation pipes which I won by trickery, and then she got her revenge being hot and spooky for the next ten minutes. She was just starting to relax when Astrid (my dog) emerged from the undergrowth behind us and Macarena did another magnificent jump, buck and fart :shock: 

We paused for grazing to get our wits back, and managed to traverse the fields near the yard (which since the dirtbike incident are scary, despite having ridden through them regularly for the past two years) at the walk on a loose rein, which was good. Until a rattly old car came up behind us and she was ready for another bolt. Just jumped a bit and she was OK again. 

So I am wondering by now what the heck is going wrong. Today I spent most of my time talking to her and rubbing her neck to relax and reassure her. Which might have helped - or not. I really don't think that I am making her nervous. Though I admit that when she is explosive that I'm not as relaxed as normal, though I do my best to hide it. I can feel the adrenaline coursing through my legs, and maybe she can feel this too? 

She is like a different horse recently. I like a bit of action when I ride but this amount of stress and nerves is not good for either of us. I'm not even sure if it is just nerves, or if she is taking advantage. I suspect a bit of both.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> PS for RCD: Caspians versus Arabians. Both desert animals, one closely associated with humans for a long time, the other not so much. Arabians are more reactive than Caspians. In part that could clearly be due to the human influence via selective breeding...but does size come into it as well? Does running pay off more for a longer-legged, faster animal? Donkeys suck at running compared to horses. How fast are Caspians? (Our guest not as fast as our own horses.) And does anyone else here think small ponies are generally less skittish than larger horses?
> 
> Over a certain size, running is less effective - too heavy. Very large animals / slower herbivores often stay and fight as a group - making circles with the young on the inside and the adults facing out, and fighting by striking, trampling, using horns, etc.
> 
> Just to throw a few more thoughts in, which I haven't the time to develop this morning...
> 
> And the Arabian, in my experience, while it can be skittish, is also highly intelligent, and when it has a strong relationship with you, will trust your judgement of a particular situation it would run from without you, so its skittishness isn't difficult to handle when you and the horse are good buddies.


I'm sure you're right about slower herbivores reacting in a different way to fear. But I also imagine primitive horse breeds to less reactive on the whole, so I guess it's very difficult to separate the human influence from the natural component of fear reactions in different breeds. 

Temple Grandin has something to say on this one too so I'll throw another quote in (from this article http://www.equisearch.com/discoverhorses/article/whats-your-horse-thinking-23298 )

_ Grandin says the inborn temperament of animals also plays a role, as some species and breeds are even more sensitive to fear than others. She calls these more fear- prone animals, which tend to be finer boned than less sensitive types, "fear monsters." Arabian horses in general fall into this category; as a result, they tend to have a low tolerance for rough handling.

Some trainers swear rough handling is effective. But what's interesting about these trainers is that if you check out their horses, they're all big-boned, low-fear horses who habituate fast to treatment that would crush a high-strung animal--such as an Arabian. (For you Arabian lovers, note that Grandin also observes that high fear and high sensitivity tend to correlate with intelligence; the greater "awareness" of such horses makes them highly trainable--by the right methods.)_

Interesting that Grandin associates bone structure with intelligence and reactivity. Lots of room for further speculation here! 
:think:

_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> _Grandin says the inborn temperament of animals also plays a role, as some species and breeds are even more sensitive to fear than others. She calls these more fear- prone animals, which tend to be finer boned than less sensitive types, "fear monsters." Arabian horses in general fall into this category; as a result, they tend to have a low tolerance for rough handling.
> 
> Some trainers swear rough handling is effective. But what's interesting about these trainers is that if you check out their horses, they're all big-boned, low-fear horses who habituate fast to treatment that would crush a high-strung animal--such as an Arabian. (For you Arabian lovers, note that Grandin also observes that high fear and high sensitivity tend to correlate with intelligence; the greater "awareness" of such horses makes them highly trainable--by the right methods.)_
> 
> Interesting that Grandin associates bone structure with intelligence and reactivity. Lots of room for further speculation here!
> :think:
> 
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


It is interesting, but I think the key is rough handling rather than either intelligence or bone structure. 

My two most intelligent horses are Caspian and Oliver, they react very poorly to rough handling. Different breeds, different bone structures, but similar intelligence, being on the very high side as horses go (we actually ran an experiment to determine this). On the other hand, they are also the least flighty, most confident and curious. They have rarely been treated roughly and never as a matter of course. Anyone who has been too rough or aggressive has met with pain themselves. 

When we bought Caspian, they told us not to bother to ever try "laying him down", he will never succumb to tonic immobility, they had tried multiple times, he just doesn't. From what I understand, it requires an extreme fear reaction (I am sure you can elaborate on this or correct me if I am wrong) which Caspian apparently skipped somewhere along the gene pool. 

The other two, Cowboy and Ghost are retired Texas ranch horses and Cowboy is even more stoutly built than Oliver, Ghost is less so....both have been most likely handled excessively roughly for many years and are more flighty. Behaviorally under saddle, Cowboy is much like Macarena. Neither of the boys is particularly intelligent. They lived in large open spaces most of their lives, in large herds. 

The way it appears to me is that rough, unfair handling, perhaps during some critical period of brain development (not excluding genetics) is by far more determinative of spookiness than either intelligence or bone structure.


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## Bondre

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> The way it appears to me is that rough, unfair handling, perhaps during some critical period of brain development (not excluding genetics) is by far more determinative of spookiness than either intelligence or bone structure.


Yes, that thing about bone structure sounded rather too convenient a generalisation. The sort of thing where you can find lots of examples of horses that DO fit the rule, so then someone makes it a rule, although there is no genetic link between the two characteristics.

I'm not sure if you ARE suggesting lack of intelligence and spookiness are linked? Seeing as your two bright boys are calm characters, and your less bright boys are spooky - or that this is mere coincidence and the important factor is rough treatment. 

Earlier in the article that I quoted from was Grandin's description of fear pathways in the brain (originally in Animals in Translation). She says there are two pathways, one 'slow' that involves the cortex, and one 'fast' that leapfrogs the cortex. We are talking twelve milliseconds of difference between slow and fast. Slow is more accurate, as the cortex analyses the scary stimulus to make sure it really is scary; fast is not accurate as no analysis is involved. 

The human brain uses both fast and slow responses, which explains why we can get a fright from the shape of something or a movement in the corner of our eye, only to relax a fraction of a second later when we realise that it's just a bush or a cat jumping off a wall behind us. In the horse's brain, emphasis is on the fast fear pathway. Speed over accuracy. 

It would be interesting to know if more intelligent horses also use the slow fear pathway, or whether the pathway is hard wired into their brains and intelligence doesn't play a part there. Grandin's assertions that highly intelligent breeds like Arabs are also more spooky seem to support the hardwiring theory - if they were able to use their intelligence to analyse the cause of their fear, as humans do, they'd be less spooky rather than more. 

Which is why I was wondering about your horses, RCD, as the intelligent two are the least spooky ones. Out of interest, have you written anywhere on the forum about the experiment you performed to evaluate their intelligence? If so, please give me the link, I'd love to read it.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

First of all, let me just say that this is an extraordinarily interesting discussion and on a level that is sadly not seen in many horse and training discussions "out there". Loved reading everyone's posts! 



Bondre said:


> _Grandin says the inborn temperament of animals also plays a role, as some species and breeds are even more sensitive to fear than others. She calls these more fear- prone animals, which tend to be finer boned than less sensitive types, "fear monsters." Arabian horses in general fall into this category; as a result, they tend to have a low tolerance for rough handling.
> 
> Some trainers swear rough handling is effective. But what's interesting about these trainers is that if you check out their horses, they're all big-boned, low-fear horses who habituate fast to treatment that would crush a high-strung animal--such as an Arabian. (For you Arabian lovers, note that Grandin also observes that high fear and high sensitivity tend to correlate with intelligence; the greater "awareness" of such horses makes them highly trainable--by the right methods.)_


And then you get the ironic situation where the latter, rough-handling types start dominating HF training discussions insisting that what they do is right for everyone and all horses, when they probably aren't particularly experienced at working with the high-strung sensitive types (who are often termed "crazy" by what I suspect are people who have no idea how to properly train them...and the "crazy" is really the most ironic kind of psychological projection I know - it's humans, specifically human bullies, who are experts at being crazy and at crazy-making...and at removing such horses from the gene pool)...

...the types that we have now repeatedly taken in and rehabilitated from trainers with that attitude, and professional ones at that. (Remember, politicians are also professionals, every one of them! ;-) Making your money off something doesn't automatically imply best practice or even halfway decent ethics.) Friends likewise; Rikki-Tikki-Tavi whose photo (in the harbour) I posted earlier was an OTTB who'd set a track record in Queensland and "a horse noone could do anything with anymore" until my friend picked him up and started treating him with decency and patience. He was a fabulous horse, I loved him to bits, he was very like Romeo both in disposition and in the kinds of problems he'd had with people.

(This is just something thrown in for fun. Once when we were taking photos of my friend and Rikki riding in the harbour, I was invited to have a splash on the big, solid, 17hh horse, and found that my friend's stirrup irons didn't accommodate my leg length, so I had a stirrupless jaunt on him. It was my first ever ride on Rikki-Tikki, but we already knew and liked each other well. I got completely soaked by the water thrown up by the horse legs at speeds faster than walking, and ended up looking like a drowned rat and freezing in the wind:










But my favourite photo was this:










:rofl:

..."it's moments like these"...)


Getting back on topic, it's horses like these that get ruined, not to mention depressed, by rough handling. And they're wonderful horses!  So the common training prescriptions handed out on training pages don't suit these kinds of horses, who will do anything for you if you treat them with decency and kindness and bother to connect with them and show them another way of doing things before hopping on. And while the less sensitive horses might be able to cop the rough training methods, it's my experience (and the experience of the professional horse people whose training manuals I found really worth reading and applying) that they also do better with a kind and fun approach that considers the needs of the horse!


PS for RCD: So your Oliver and my Sunsmart aren't just the same height and colour, but also both tanks! :rofl:




























He's not always shaggy:










...but he's always a tank.


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## SueC

I also just wanted to make the distinction, for any guest who doesn't know it, that forcibly laying horses down to impose dominance on them is not the same as a horse volunteering it for you in trick training, as is the case in the Augustus the Mustang link I posted earlier.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre,

I have posted the experiment. It was one that as a zoologist, you would be familiar and probably conduct with much better controls. My youngest was homeschooled for a couple of years and we were working basic scientific method. We brought a full length dressing mirror down to the pasture and put it just inside the fence where the horses could see it. 

Caspian (brave thing that he is) was the first to approach. He looked, mouthed, sniffed, looked behind it, then returned to looking at his reflection and stood there apparently admiring himself first at one angle and then the other for a long time, showing no intention of leaving. Oliver then approached the mirror and chased him off. 

Oliver sniffed, mouthed, looked behind it and then looked at himself briefly and walked away. 

Cowboy approached next but the instant he saw his reflection, he spooked away several feet. Began to approach once again, and ran off upon seeing the reflection, as if it was some kind of ghost horse. This happened several times.

Ghost, never even approached the mirror, he was simply content to watch everyone else. (as a confounding factor, Ghost is pushing 30 so he doesn’t move if he doesn’t have to). 
I believe from observations that Caspian recognized the reflection as being himself. Oliver recognized it as yet another in a series of weird human objects which was of no threat to the herd, but did not have any real interest other than that. Cowboy, thought his reflection was just plain scary and Ghost figured it wasn’t worth the effort (may be actually intelligent on his part, my assessment of Ghost’s intelligence is based more on other things). 

Another comment on the fast vs slow fear pathway, which I have also posted previously, but is very observationally relevant to the link between intelligence and fear pathway.
My daughter was riding Caspian alone, bareback to a neighbor’s which involved cutting through the woodland. A deer jumped out next to him and ran off. Caspian did not spook immediately, but three seconds later. My daughter swears she could see the wheels turning in his head and relays it like this: Hello deer! You surprised me. Why are you running? It can’t be because of Lil’ol’me? If it isn’t me, then that must mean….OMG danger! Spook.

Another “experiment” I did more recently and have not posted, was another basic one of two stages testing object permanence.

I let the horses see a treat which I placed under a feed pan and then showed my hands to be empty. Both Oliver and Caspian pawed the pan to get the treat out. Cowboy walked away, Ghost stood there expectantly, waiting for his treat. With the other two I upped it a notch and did what we think of as “the shell game”

I presented the treat, put it beneath one pan and then moved the three pans about. Both Oliver and Caspian, would continue to search, even if their first or second attempt resulted in no treat being uncovered (repetition 10). Additionally, Oliver figured out that by sniffing, he could locate the treat without having to turn each pan over. 

A commonality that Oliver and Caspian share is that they both came to us with very little training and handling and both had long periods of “ground work” in that they were not ridden, but played with for months, in Caspian’s case a year, before beginning formal training after age 3. In Oliver’s case, for eight months I spent about six hours a day “playing” with him on the ground, exposing him to new objects, new environments through hand walking and allowing him to explore to his satisfaction anything his heart desired. When he became tense about something, I spoke to him reassuredly and then invited him with me to explore the subject of his anxiety. 

The attitude that both my daughter and I consistently took towards them throughout this period was “here horse let me help you learn”. Whether this approach is causal in their non flighty behavior, I cannot say. Only that it is a shared experience of learning to trust the environment and that both have become extremely calm mounts.


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## bsms

Bondre said:


> ...Earlier in the article that I quoted from was Grandin's description of fear pathways in the brain (originally in Animals in Translation). She says there are two pathways, one 'slow' that involves the cortex, and one 'fast' that leapfrogs the cortex. We are talking twelve milliseconds of difference between slow and fast. Slow is more accurate, as the cortex analyses the scary stimulus to make sure it really is scary; fast is not accurate as no analysis is involved...


I copied that part and pasted it into a thread about training ( http://www.horseforum.com/horse-tra...-training-good-bad-606090/page18/#post8002945 ). I hope you don't mind.

I think journals are much more personal and intimate threads than the discussion threads. I'm really enjoying reading this one for the thoughtful, polite exchange of ideas. The people on your thread are not arguing. They are exploring ideas together. I find your journal and SueC's to be much more thought provoking and challenging than the average debate thread. Your journal has lots of "why" comments instead of the typical "you must do" comments.

Your post gave me a "light bulb" moment on something I've been wrestling with, so I copied it without thinking to ask permission first. Only afterward did I think, "Hmmm...maybe that wasn't a good thing to do" - and too late to change my action! I hope it doesn't create a problem. This is a wonderful thread and y'all are teaching me a lot.

:loveshower:​


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

SueC said:


> Getting back on topic, it's horses like these that get ruined, not to mention depressed, by rough handling. And they're wonderful horses!  So the common training prescriptions handed out on training pages don't suit these kinds of horses, who will do anything for you if you treat them with decency and kindness and bother to connect with them and show them another way of doing things before hopping on. And while the less sensitive horses might be able to cop the rough training methods, it's my experience (and the experience of the professional horse people whose training manuals I found really worth reading and applying) that they also do better with a kind and fun approach that considers the needs of the horse!
> 
> 
> PS for RCD: So your Oliver and my Sunsmart aren't just the same height and colour, but also both tanks! :rofl:



I see you share my affinity for Kipling as well as horse type! Though if I was to stand in position as you did for a picture, you wouldn't see me at all, except a glimpse of the top of my head behind Oliver!

It has become common practice to see only black and white rather the full spectrum of colors that makes up our world. IMO although black and white is best to give contrast, it is the colors that brings beauty and wonder.

I do agree with you that all too often horses are labeled "crazy" or "dangerous" and as biology would have it, there are some, just as in the human population, that simply have irrevocably mis-wired brains or deficits in processing, recall or perception that are the cause of the behaviors. Some can be worked with to the point where some harmony between human and horse can be reached, and some unfortunately cannot. 

Quite often though, because of the glut of horses to be had, the necessary time to determine if it truly is an issue of "crazy" is not thoroughly explored. Like a factory, one process is applied and if the animal is non responsive, it is moved out, no alternative, often more time consuming/expensive process is sought. This becomes especially true when horses are a means of earning a living. I can cut those people some slack in that their livelihood depends upon timely success, however, that does not necessitate that their opinion on the matter is final nor is it more weighty.

I approach things this way; sensitive or not, most horses will respond to the creation of a positive motivation. Once they see that a certain behavior will have a reward (something in it for them), whether that reward is a relief of emotional tension, physical pleasure, food, or pleasing its human, most will respond.

With avoidance of punishment, many horses will not respond well because the punishment of emotional tension created endures long after the human stops applying pressure, in which case, the horse never truly gains "release". 

The human may think they provided a release of pressure, but in fact, the horse itself continues to indirectly feel that pressure and has not obtained "release".


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

I will offer this up for digestive thought as well...

http://www.appliedanimalbehaviour.com/article/S0168-1591(12)00168-2/fulltext


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> I'm really enjoying reading this one for the thoughtful, polite exchange of ideas. The people on your thread are not arguing. They are exploring ideas together. I find your journal and SueC's to be much more thought provoking and challenging than the average debate thread. Your journal has lots of "why" comments instead of the typical "you must do" comments.


Thanks, bsms. I've always enjoyed reading your well-thought-out posts about Mia since I joined the forum. I think Mia was in fact the first forum horse who I knew by name. I'm glad to see you here 



bsms said:


> Your post gave me a "light bulb" moment on something I've been wrestling with, so I copied it without thinking to ask permission first. Only afterward did I think, "Hmmm...maybe that wasn't a good thing to do" - and too late to change my action! I hope it doesn't create a problem. This is a wonderful thread and y'all are teaching me a lot.
> 
> :loveshower:​


OMG, no problem at all. I'm delighted if something I wrote gave you a lightbulb moment. It's just so good when that happens! I took a look at your post in Passive Leadership, and it's an interesting question you raise. Whether you can hardwire trained responses into the horse's nervous system. Would that be conditioning? 

This brings me to a subject I wanted to float here, which is the one rein stop. I reckon that the way people teach this (by endless repetition), they are trying to hardwire it into the horse's brain. So when they give the cue, the horse reacts 'instinctively' and stops, even if it's in mid-panic reaction.

I need to stop for a moment and reply to everyone before I continue with this subject. It could get long.... (warning!) :icon_rolleyes: :idea:

_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> And then you get the ironic situation where the latter, rough-handling types start dominating HF training discussions insisting that what they do is right for everyone and all horses, when they probably aren't particularly experienced at working with the high-strung sensitive types (who are often termed "crazy" by what I suspect are people who have no idea how to properly train them...and the "crazy" is really the most ironic kind of psychological projection I know - it's humans, specifically human bullies, who are experts at being crazy and at crazy-making...and at removing such horses from the gene pool)...
> 
> ...the types that we have now repeatedly taken in and rehabilitated from trainers with that attitude, and professional ones at that. (Remember, politicians are also professionals, every one of them! ;-) Making your money off something doesn't automatically imply best practice or even halfway decent


Absolutely Sue! How many professionals do I know who do their job better than I would do it? (count on my fingers and have several to spare) :rofl: But seriously, that is not only because of the abundance of inept professionals but also because I am the busybody sort who likes to know how to do everything. ;-)

What you say about the rough training practices prevailing heare in the training threads is unfortunately very true. I remember last year there was a girl with a mare who had reared twice, once in hand, and she (unwisely) posted about it. OMG, the extreme reactions, the people who presumed to tell her to junk her horse because of the rearing. I felt like a voice in the wilderness trying to turn the tide and reassure her that no, all was not lost, and that two rears didn't make her horse a write-off.

If that was true, it would be time to send Macarena off to auction because she too has reared twice with me, in two years :shock:

Of course, it's very hard for people to judge a situation from a description in a forum etc etc.... but I do abhor the absolutism of some posters who insist that their, and only their, way works.... and I wonder if it would still work if they were dealing with sensitive intelligent horses instead of you-know-what....

Continuation of this line of thought in brief... (post after next)


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## SueC

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> I see you share my affinity for Kipling as well as horse type! Though if I was to stand in position as you did for a picture, you wouldn't see me at all, except a glimpse of the top of my head behind Oliver!


That must be nice for Oliver! ;-) My build was more appropriate for basketball, which I find boring - and I love riding...

Choice of horse type with Sunsmart: His great-grandmother and my Arabian mare (Crabbet with Polish racing lines) both had massive thoraxes and wide backs - wider than the Warmbloods I'd learnt on as a child in riding school - and as a long-legged rider that was very comfortable to me. When I was scouting for a riding horse to eventually replace my mare as she got older, I had my eye on Sunsmart for years. Like those two mares, he was an athletic tank. He would run lap after lap of the sand track in harness training like a Roman chariot horse without even breaking a sweat, and go, "Another lap, yes?" and he was equally happy to go slower or faster. My father used to say, "With this horse I could take a newspaper with me and read it during training."

When we did his early saddle education, the first time I trotted him at speed around the sand track as a rider, I did this test: Shift my weight as far as I could to the left, then the right, by nearly hanging off his side, to see if I could unbalance him. Didn't affect him at all, he kept tracking straight (seat aids develop later in the process). For the second half of my life, it was more important than ever to have a horse who was very steady and balanced physically, and big enough to laugh at carrying my weight. I think that forestalls many accidents when you're not content to plod along at slow speeds.

I can't take the credit for the naming of my friend's OTTB, but it was a fabulous name IMO! Speaking of Kipling:










"I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me."

That phrase just got engraved on my mind as a child after reading this story:

The Cat that Walked by Himself by Rudyard Kipling

This was my first taste of Kipling in English, and I found the story in my very first own English-language book, Gerald Durrell's Favourite Animal Stories, an anthology we bought in England when we were over there putting our horses into quarantine for their move with us to Australia. Great story! 




> I do agree with you that all too often horses are labeled "crazy" or "dangerous" and as biology would have it, there are some, just as in the human population, that simply have irrevocably mis-wired brains or deficits in processing, recall or perception that are the cause of the behaviors. Some can be worked with to the point where some harmony between human and horse can be reached, and some unfortunately cannot.


I agree broadly with what you say here, but would make the distinction that I believe the truly genetically miswired horses are in the minority, and that the vast majority of horses described by humans as "crazy" are just a mirror to the craziness and ineptitude of the human handlers, and those horses' (significantly reversible) "craziness" is environmentally produced, by things like rough handling, inability of trainers to communicate what they want to their horses and unwillingness to reward horses for trying, and inappropriate living conditions.

I agree with bsms that many horses these days are raised in totally inappropriate environments - their surroundings, socialisation, nutrition, ability to self-exercise etc all far removed from what it natural for a horse. One of my favourite books exploring horse behaviour is "Horse Watch - What It Is To Be Equine" by zoologist Marthe Kiley-Worthington, who worked with domestic horses running in natural family groups and was in a great position to show differences in behaviour between herd-raised horses and horses raised artificially, and to do some serious myth-busting of beliefs about horses commonly held by the horse industry.

You'd love her experiments with things like horse understanding of human syntax!

To get back to human craziness, I don't think it's been great for humans' mental health to become industrialised...I think many children these days, like horses, are having battery hen or indoor shed type existences rather than free-range, and when they grow up, they have many difficulties, including a difficulty relating to nature. Deprivation and abuse tend to go in cycles. I think people who abuse horses tend to fall into two categories - people who were abused themselves as children, and people who are independently sadistic and enjoy the power they have over comparatively helpless creatures - and the larger the creature, the greater the ego boost for those individuals.

I'm painting with a broad brush here, as it's difficult to put in a paragraph something that would take entire chapters to properly address.




> I approach things this way; sensitive or not, most horses will respond to the creation of a positive motivation. Once they see that a certain behavior will have a reward (something in it for them), whether that reward is a relief of emotional tension, physical pleasure, food, or pleasing its human, most will respond.
> 
> With avoidance of punishment, many horses will not respond well because the punishment of emotional tension created endures long after the human stops applying pressure, in which case, the horse never truly gains "release".
> 
> The human may think they provided a release of pressure, but in fact, the horse itself continues to indirectly feel that pressure and has not obtained "release".


:clap:


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## Bondre

RCD, thanks for sharing your experiments. That is such a good way to get children interested and involved in behavioral science. Inspired, I went with my oldest son to try the treat and bucket experiment this evening.

Maybe I started at too high a level, but all I can say about Macarena is that she surprised me. I thought she was brighter lol. My son had a piece of hard baguette (she loves it), showed it to her, and put it in one of two buckets, then turned both buckets upside down. She tried upturning a bucket with her nose but a in four repetitions never found the right bucket with the bread under it (despite having a 50% chance of success!). I honestly thought she would observe and go straight to the correct bucket. And that her sense of smell would guide her too - or maybe dry bread doesn't smell much? It seems I've got a long way to go still in my understanding of a horse's brain. 

Flamenca did better - but she had the advantage that in the first trial, the piece of bread showed under the edge of the bucket and she found it right away. She had a 50% success rate - which she should achieve through pure chance anyway. So no geniuses in my small sample herd.

Anyway, the important thing was all four of us enjoyed the experiment, and my son commented that he's sure the lovebirds would do better.... so that sounds like another experiment in the pipeline ;-)
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

OK, so on to the question I wanted to put to you all, about the one rein stop. In introduction, I posted a thread about Macarena's fear of dirtbikes in the training forum to see what responses it elicited (http://www.horseforum.com/horse-training/how-best-get-your-horses-mind-616961/). The replies were broadly divided between habituation to the scary stimulus and 'control your horse' ie: teach her the one rein stop. 

Superficially, this seems reasonable enough. An instant stop button for the horse. Works even during mid-panic - as long as you've already taught your horse the manoeuvre (read 'drilled it into him' for 'taught', as it seems to involve endless repetition). But the old name for the one rein stop gives the game away, I think. It used to be called 'taking your horse's head away'. If a horse is panicking and you take his head away, he learns he has to submit because with his head at your knee, he can't do much else. So it sounds more like learned helplessness to me - the horse abandons his panic reaction because he has learned that once his rider bends him in Tao, he has to submit.

Is this a fair interpretation? Or is there any element of true relaxation in a horse that learns the ORS? Is it a meditative procedure that teaches him to relax in spite of himself, or does it just oblige him to submit? Is it passive or dominant? 

I'm hard-put to see anything passive about the technique but I'm willing to consider all points of view ;-)

I read a great article yesterday about interpretations of "natural horsemanship", and the dubious ethics of some of their fast-result techniques. For example, desensitization: (always hated the term). NH uses flooding, ie: you flood the horse with the scary stimulus but don't let him escape. In the end the only way the horse can cope is by shutting down. He learns helplessness. It may appear that he is calm but in fact he is in a state of grievous internal stress. And so on.... really worth reading. 
http://www.bethbehaviourist.co.uk/articles

And all this made me doubt the validity of the one rein stop even more.

But I WOULD be very grateful to anyone who can point me in the direction of true, relaxing exercises for horse and rider to help reduce the horse's stress levels when things get complicated.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre, 

Having had two research chemists as parents, my youth was filled with many experiments. Often I would sit at the table and say something to the effect of "I wonder if..." and the response was always "why don't you find out". 

They could have answered my question for me, but instead encouraged me to discover it for myself (sometimes with their aid in setting things up properly). 

That is so wonderful for your son! 

No experiment is ever a failure regardless of results, it simply is an opening of a door to other questions waiting to be answered!

See if you can teach Macarena to search and find the treat (I used baby carrots). Help her out if she is having difficulty by revealing the hidden treat to her not once but several times, before allowing her to search. Then see if over time, she will make the connection that the bucket you lifted will be the bucket to look for it. 

The memory of location isn't really the point, but that she even knew to search under either bucket for it is proof that she understood that just because she can't see something, doesn't mean it ceased to exist. It had to go somewhere, perhaps like when you disappear into your home for the night or a buddy leaves to go out for a hack? 

Piaget has come under some fire as of late regarding the timing of the development of object permanence in humans, but it is a development of higher order thinking, not believed present at birth in humans, but developed as neurons and synapses begin to mature and connect. 

Keep working with them, it is a lot of fun when you finally see them catch on!


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

There seems to be a couple of definitions of one rein stop. One is a beginner move, head to the boot and often followed by disengagement. 

There is another one as well, a bit more advanced in concept, literally riding only using one rein. A couple of weeks ago, my trainer had me do this with Oliver. We were in his usual bridle with two reins present, but worked on stopping with a slight nose tip only using one rein to cue the stop, a strong additional cue from the seat. 

I have to say though, if I was to find myself in a situation where I was in danger, I will use, whatever is necessary to keep everyone (my horse included, lot of rabbit holes in Texas) safe.

With One Rein Riding - Bing Videos


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## bsms

The way I was taught it, a ORS is a learned reaction - a response to a cue. Nothing more. The lady I took lessons from for 4-5 months didn't want us to EVER pull a little on one rein toward the hip because that was their "immediate stop" cue.

A horse can put its nose to your knee and gallop. 

When I was around 20, I visited a friend in Idaho who had been hired to run a small farm. The farm leased out some pasture to some cows, and they left a horse who knew how to work cattle. His name was Sham. Sham liked working cattle. He hated being ridden for recreation. 

So one day, I was riding him for recreation :icon_rolleyes: in a large pasture fenced with barbed wire. Maybe a bee stung him. He had a big ol curb bit and I barely knew which end to attach it to, so maybe I did something. I don't know. But he exploded off at a gallop. I had been told no horse could run with its head at your knee...but Sham sure did! Full bore gallop toward a barbed wire fence and I was getting snot on my blue jeans!

Fortunately, an old cowboy I had met had told me some stories, and he said if a horse would not turn with the reins, just haul back and kick his shoulder. He'll move his shoulder over, and you can turn him that way. So I tried it, and it may have saved my life. Sham gradually turned, and a few minutes later he ran out of steam - with his nose still next to my knee.

So folks TALK about taking the horse's head away from him, and maybe it sometimes stops the horse without training. But folks also talk about teaching a one rein stop. My question was: If you are teaching a response to a cue, why not use a cue that A) is more instinctive to people, and 2) has no use for anything else in riding - ie, The Two Rein Stop! If you are going to teach it to stop when someone pulls ONE rein, why not teach it to stop when people pull TWO reins?

Never got an answer. My horses have all been taught The Two Rein Stop. Even Mia learned the Two Rein Stop in a curb bit, and then accepted it in a snaffle. But then, who could sell books or DVDs promising to teach a horse a secret...quiet, hope no one is listening because this secret is worth $29.95 (+ $14.95 shipping)...it's the "Two Rein Stop"! Even Pat Parelli couldn't sell DVDs teaching The Two Rein Stop! It is just too darn obvious!

Earlier, my "light bulb" moment was thinking that a highly habitual cue might bypass the conscious thinking part of the brain. That sounds good. But I've been thinking about it some more. When the horse has totally blown its brain, it doesn't work. Once the horse has decided "It is time for a Full Bore Fear Bolt" and gets about two strides into it...you are along for the ride until the horse starts thinking again. So the super habitual cue doesn't bypass the brain.

But done immediately, maybe it becomes an alternative for the brain to pick: "Try this!" If Mia was just about to launch into a bolt, she'd respond to turn cues. Eventually, if she was just about to launch into a bolt, she'd respond to The Two Rein Stop (maybe I can patent it?). But maybe it works because of what a lady who trains OTTB said to do - when they are about to explode, GIVE THEM something to do. In desperation, let them latch on to YOUR idea instead of needing to come up with their own (Run Away!).

That would explain why it works, but only when the horse is still trying to make up its mind about what to do. Because once the horse has committed to its own plan of action in response to severe fear, the rider's idea becomes too little, too late.


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## SueC

In the European tradition in which I learnt, the one rein stop wasn't used, just half-halts, two-rein stops, seat aids for those purposes. We were always told that you could influence direction far more easily than speed in a frightened horse (which I think is true), and one common piece of advice was that if a horse started to bolt, to ride it, terrain permitting, into a large circle whose radius you aimed to decrease as the speed dropped. Hurting the horse's mouth (and it's hard for me to see how the ORS wouldn't hurt the horse's mouth) was to be avoided at all costs, not just as a general maxim for all riding, but also in spooks/bolts as pain would add to the fear of the horse and disconnect you further from having influence. The idea was, start working with direction, then start to do the normal aids you would do to slow down / stop a horse. I've never actually tried the decreasing-size-circle thing out myself, other strategies worked, terrain didn't permit trying, etc.

Re ORS, or indeed decreasing the circle size too rapidly, I'd also not be comfortable in a spook situation to do something that has significant potential for unbalancing a horse to the point that it may fall. The injury risk to horse and rider falling at speed in a headless way is very high, and I think if you had to it would even be safer to ride it out, terrain permitting. And as bsms found, when you limit a horse's sense of sight, it may then be totally unaware it is approaching a "trap" in the terrain; to run flat tack into barbed wire won't end well for anybody. 

I've only ridden in one flat-tack bolt in my life, and that was when I was a child, on our family's first horse, when a whole group of horses bolted, and that's not something I ever want to experience again, nor have I in the three and a half decades since. (The story is referenced here: http://www.horseforum.com/member-jo...nkeys-other-people-479466/page24/#post7721418) Good working relationship, early intervention, schooling in dressage, rider confidence, the horse feeling that you are a reliable ally, choice of bit, much independent trail riding away from groups, and pairing up a young skittish horse with a laid-back experienced horse who remains calm under pressure are all things that I think help to counter spooks and bolts, as is staying out of a horse's mouth when it very first startles. Exposing horses to sights and sounds from the beginning, rather than keeping them in the relative experiential vacuum of stables and yards...and never, ever punishing a horse for being afraid of something...just getting it through its fear and out the other side.

Again, just scratching the surface here... and have to go do other stuff now! ;-)


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## anndankev

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> There seems to be a couple of definitions of one rein stop. One is a beginner move, head to the boot and often followed by disengagement.
> 
> There is another one as well, a bit more advanced in concept, literally riding only using one rein. A couple of weeks ago, my trainer had me do this with Oliver. We were in his usual bridle with two reins present, but worked on stopping with a slight nose tip only using one rein to cue the stop, a strong additional cue from the seat. ...


RCD, 

The way you have just learned is the way that I was taught, and practice.

Haven't looked at your video link yet, will do. It annoys me a bit to have seen the term 'One Rein Stop' become commonly used to refer to 'taking his head away'. But, there is nothing I can do about it. LOL

A lot of people use the original one rein stop. A cowboy or two are the one's who showed me the way.


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## bsms

Done properly, an ORS wouldn't hurt the horse's mouth because if done properly you do NOT pull the head all around. I find the emphasis on pulling a horse's head far to one side is counterproductive. It tends to disconnect the head from the shoulder. Bad idea, IMHO. But what I was told by someone who loved the ORS was that it shouldn't result in the head moving more than a few degrees. Sure isn't how some people teach/preach it, though.

The way I normally see it taught is like this:






Unbalancing a bolting horse just seems stupid to me. Looks like he might have trained Sham. The more I'm around horses, the more I dislike what I see being taught as "Natural Horsemanship" - what I see too often seems to be neither natural nor horsemanship!

Also - I don't use a 2 rein stop by just hauling back with both reins. It is Bump, Bump, Bump. With a snaffle, it may include TINY side to side with the bump bump bump - but never just straight back and hold. I don't get into a tug of war with my horse. But I also haven't found ANYTHING that will quickly stop a horse who is full into a bolt with the possible exception of a pulley rein stop.

For a full bore fear bolt, if terrain permits, I actually like just riding the horse and calling its name. Some advice I got from a dressage book seems right to me: *No one stops a bolting horse. They stop a horse who has stopped bolting*. If I don't aggravate the bolt, then it ought to end in 200 yards. Probably 20 with Cowboy, and 30-40 with Bandit.

Mia & I did lots of bolts, and I'll be happy if I don't experience them again. We did so many because I was green and I put her in situations she wasn't ready to handle - then blamed her. She was a forgiving horse, and I gave her a lot of practice. :icon_rolleyes: I know I'm older. I hope I'm at least a little wiser.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Anndankev,

I only knew the first type forever. 

The video is just the basic concepts of riding in a halter with a lead rope.

The idea behind the trainer starting to teach me to ride with one rein came about when we were out riding and I dropped one of my split reins after it got snagged on a tree while riding through thick juniper brush. He asked me what I would do if Ollie had stepped on it and snapped it off in the middle....it was a good question. So when we got back to the arena we decided to start teaching Oliver some new things. Its kind of fun really...


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

bsms said:


> For a full bore fear bolt, if terrain permits, I actually like just riding the horse and calling its name. Some advice I got from a dressage book seems right to me: *No one stops a bolting horse. They stop a horse who has stopped bolting*. If I don't aggravate the bolt, then it ought to end in 200 yards. Probably 20 with Cowboy, and 30-40 with Bandit.
> 
> Mia & I did lots of bolts, and I'll be happy if I don't experience them again. We did so many because I was green and I put her in situations she wasn't ready to handle - then blamed her. She was a forgiving horse, and I gave her a lot of practice. :icon_rolleyes: I know I'm older. I hope I'm at least a little wiser.


 
There is one time I have found the one rein (as in your video) to be quite effective, but it requires precise timing. It can prevent a bolt from ever happening. A horse with bolting/spook/bucking tendencies tenses, _immediately_ ask for the head around and disengage. More than anything else, I think it snaps their mind back on the rider and off the ******. On a horse used to doing it, there is surprisingly little pressure needed.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Sue,

Here is my favorite Kipling.... 

Poems - 'The Gods of the Copybook Headings'


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## anndankev

I watched the video about riding with just the lead line. I thought he relied too much on the line, pulling the horse around on the side with the line until facing the way he wanted, etc... He really did not add anything about 'weight' or the other aids.

By that I mean using your body to focus direction. Legs, torso, especially focus.

Reflecting on riding Elwood, one of my favorite ways was with a bareback pad, rope halter and single line. I would hold the tail end in my other hand though and use it also for additional direction as well. 

Options for cues to turn include; leading rein or neck reining for the other way. Or lifting the tail up and he would turn away. Any of those only if he had not already responded to the turning of my torso and accompanying leg pressure.

To back I used the same manner as if I had two reins, and sort of sucked back or contracted my body. If that didn't work I could lean forward take hold of the line under his neck with my free hand while keeping a hold of it with the first hand, making it cross his chest then could put backwards pressure on his chest. (That was also a second way to change sides of the line, besides tossing it over his head.)

If in the course of my usual riding he became a bit resistant, I would go back to riding a few days in a row with the single line and bareback pad. It would really help us get back into sync with each other. And lighten both of us up.


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> "I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me."
> 
> That phrase just got engraved on my mind as a child after reading this story:
> 
> The Cat that Walked by Himself by Rudyard Kipling
> 
> This was my first taste of Kipling in English, and I found the story in my very first own English-language book, Gerald Durrell's Favourite Animal Stories, an anthology we bought in England when we were over there putting our horses into quarantine for their move with us to Australia. Great story!


Have you read all Kipling's Just So stories? It was one of my favourite books as a child, great for a young animal-lover (and for adults too). Kipling was very good at coining memorable phrases, like the "I am the cat that walks by himself " one that you quoted, and I can still recall many snippets three and a half decades later. There was the Elephant's Child, full of insatiable curiosity, the Yellow Dog Dingo who ran the kangaroo all over the Australian salt pans before breakfast (though I can't remember why...), the Parsee who filled the rhino's hide with cake crumbs. Such imagination! 

I was lucky enough to read the stories in my father's leather-bound edition, from when he was a boy, with one lovely engraving per story.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

*NERD SCIENCE*




Bondre said:


> Maybe I started at too high a level,


I probably would have started with one bucket, to get the horse used to the procedure of nudging an upturned bucket to get at something underneath it. But then, I always like to break down new things into small sequential steps, for horse or human learners! ;-)




> but all I can say about Macarena is that she surprised me. I thought she was brighter lol. My son had a piece of hard baguette (she loves it), showed it to her, and put it in one of two buckets, then turned both buckets upside down. She tried upturning a bucket with her nose but a in four repetitions never found the right bucket with the bread under it (despite having a 50% chance of success!).


Here's an alternative interpretation: _If_ you guys were putting the "wrong" bucket she knocked over back in place after each time she had pushed it over, then she might have become convinced that the treat was somehow attached to that particular bucket and that you were deliberately trying to hide it from her, hence renewed interest in the same bucket. From her point of view, why would you interfere after every time she pushed a particular bucket over...might you deliberately be trying to get between her and her treat? Why, she thinks, are you so interested in that bucket if it's not significant (to the treat)?

Of course, I might have misread what you did here. You may have repeated the same experiment over from the beginning, in a new place, for each of the trials. In that case it's a fair test - but it has to be in at least a slightly new place, so that the "location" slate is clean.

I'm also assuming the horse is allowed to observe which bucket the treat was put in before it was put upside down? Are the buckets different colours? That would be helpful, over and above having identical buckets, unless you are trying to see if the horses can accurately observe and remember _location_ or _order_ from sight. Horses' vision up close isn't that great, and they often need training to be able to follow that you are manipulating objects in subtle (to them) ways. Figuring out you have a carrot in your hand is one thing, and following that hand. But doing something new like hiding it from them and expecting them to find it, rather than hiding it because you don't want them to have it/yet (which is what we usually do when we hide treats from them) may take some getting used to. Once they catch on to the game, though, I expect the horses would improve.

*RCD*: The mirrors/reflections investigation was very interesting and entertaining! The science buff in me though is really aware that there is much human overlay going on in the interpretations. While you probably had reasons to feel that Caspian was admiring his own reflection - you know how to read your horse better than someone who's never met him - scientifically we can't validly conclude that from the observations. He might have been just as fascinated by a similar TV image of a horse that wasn't him. Of course, the TV image wouldn't move when he moved. But, I don't think we can say for sure that the horse therefore realised it was him - it might have been just an interesting phenomenon to him that he thought was worth looking at and thinking about.

An anecdote about horses and their reflections in windows: At my parents' place, the horses often came into the garden to eat the grass down. We had to be careful with the stallions because they were wont to attack their own reflections in the windows. The difference with windows is they couldn't look behind them, of course, but that's a simple test: Look at whether stallions who attack their own reflections in windows equally attack their mirror images after being shown there is nothing behind them, or if there are significant differences in behaviour.

My hunch, and it is only a hunch, is that there wouldn't be a statistically significant difference in this windows versus mirrors experiment... 

But that's why experimenting is such fun!  I don't have a stallion on the place, so someone else might have to volunteer. My father is down to one stallion after gelding Julian, and it's a very elderly stallion who probably no longer attacks his reflection in the window...


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## SueC

Treats postscript: I usually put a few carrots in the grooming kit bag I hang off the tie rail when tacking horses up. The horses have all seen me take carrots out of there enough times to figure they come from the bag. If I leave the bag hanging up when they are loose in the area later, they will try to search the bag for leftover treats. This is despite of the fact that I never let them help themselves to treats from that bag, and that not all the horses have successfully found treats in the past when searching the bag, as I very rarely have leftover treats in the bag when I finish.

Of course, the smell may linger...and they may logically be going after the smell. Or maybe they are now convinced that's where carrots actually _grow_ or otherwise simply _materialise_? ;-) I mean, grass comes from the ground, that much is clear to them. Carrots come - from the magic bag? Or the human pockets? Or the human hands? ...I doubt many horses have actually dug up their own carrots...

Just like young kids think electricity is a magic thing that comes from the powerpoint, until they become aware of the process of electicity generation and delivery behind all that (how unromantic! :rofl.


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> Have you read all Kipling's Just So stories? It was one of my favourite books as a child, great for a young animal-lover (and for adults too). Kipling was very good at coining memorable phrases, like the "I am the cat that walks by himself " one that you quoted, and I can still recall many snippets three and a half decades later. There was the Elephant's Child, full of insatiable curiosity, the Yellow Dog Dingo who ran the kangaroo all over the Australian salt pans before breakfast (though I can't remember why...), the Parsee who filled the rhino's hide with cake crumbs. Such imagination!


Haven't come across it, probably as I missed it when in that age bracket! I will have to look out for it when I go to the library! 

But your descriptions make me wonder - have you read _Cautionary Tales for Children_? (_From the Publisher: One of Hilaire Belloc's most famous works, "Cautionary Tales for Children" satirizes a genre of admonitory children's literature popular in England in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The seven stories contained in this work are macabre parodies of childhood lessons, and will entertain more sophisticated readers who can appreciate these tales of disproportionate punishment. Presented in a classic picture book style, illustrators have captured the foibles of children like Jim, who let go of his nurse's hand and was eaten by a lion; Matilda, who told lies, and was burned to death; and Henry King who swallowed string. The consequences range from naughty children being whimsically eaten by lions, to stern reprimands for a boy who fires a loaded gun at his sister. Originally written nearly a century ago, Belloc's sprightly verses are a quick and cathartic read for teenagers, and reflect a trend of literature that is still popular today.)_

If you like Roald Dahl's _Revolting Rhymes_, you will laugh at this too! 




> I was lucky enough to read the stories in my father's leather-bound edition, from when he was a boy, with one lovely engraving per story.


Oh, that's wonderful! There are some arts to books that are slowly being lost, unfortunately.


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## SueC

RCD, thanks for that Kipling poem, brilliant!

You might like this poem:

The Blind Men and the Elephant

Maybe one for the training forum? ;-)

Note to all: I think that this poem really shows why having these kinds of rare discussions such as we are now having, are so valuable!


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

SueC said:


> *NERD SCIENCE*
> *RCD*: The mirrors/reflections investigation was very interesting and entertaining! The science buff in me though is really aware that there is much human overlay going on in the interpretations. While you probably had reasons to feel that Caspian was admiring his own reflection - you know how to read your horse better than someone who's never met him - scientifically we can't validly conclude that from the observations. He might have been just as fascinated by a similar TV image of a horse that wasn't him. Of course, the TV image wouldn't move when he moved. But, I don't think we can say for sure that the horse therefore realised it was him - it might have been just an interesting phenomenon to him that he thought was worth looking at and thinking about.
> QUOTE]
> 
> Sue, I have actually thought about re-doing the mirror experiment and adding a few things, such as after he sees himself, adding a piece of hay to his forelock and seeing how he responds to the new reflection. Still not scientific, I know, but what with animals really can be as the observation of behavior is always tainted by individual perceptions? Even Worthington I think injected a bit of that in her book as well.
> 
> Windows have never held his fascination, other than the people on the other side, remember this one?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is another picture I didn't post here of him about to walk into the house following my daughter. If I hadn't said something, I think she would have let him in to have a soda and a sit down on the sofa to watch cartoons and he would have been happy to oblige!
> 
> Maybe I'll bring a video of horses down to him on my computer and see what he does....he is rather obsessed with my smart phone, seems to prefer John Denver over modern country and Smetana (particularly the Moldau) over Grieg....he does nothing with the sound of mooing cattle, over loud speakers, but the rest of them start looking for them....
> 
> I'll have to come up with something that is different and perhaps more scientific.
> 
> There is just something about that Caspian that is really unusual that I can't quite put my finger on. We actually don't really like each other all that much either, but he's got something different going on in that head of his and I want to understand it.
> 
> I remember that one as a child...and yes, might be good for the training forum, however many have stated they don't click links.


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> In the European tradition in which I learnt, the one rein stop wasn't used, just half-halts, two-rein stops, seat aids for those purposes. We were always told that you could influence direction far more easily than speed in a frightened horse (which I think is true), and one common piece of advice was that if a horse started to bolt, to ride it, terrain permitting, into a large circle whose radius you aimed to decrease as the speed dropped.


We were obviously taught the exact same equitation although we were on opposite sides of the North Sea. I learnt to use two reins and my seat for brakes, plus circles if the horse is going at speed and resists. In fact, Macarena's brakes are fine; she tends to be a bit hot, which I am happy with, but when I ask her to slow she normally complies.

My question about the one rein stop was more in the context of how to calm a horse that is panicking but not (yet) bolting, which is how it was suggested to me to use it in that training thread. Sorry I didn't make that very clear in my original question.



bsms said:


> But done immediately (the one rein stop) maybe it becomes an alternative for the brain to pick: "Try this!".... when they are about to explode, GIVE THEM something to do. In desperation, let them latch on to YOUR idea instead of needing to come up with their own (Run Away!).
> 
> That would explain why it works, but only when the horse is still trying to make up its mind about what to do.


Yes! That's exactly what I'm referring to - let's call it the preventative ORS (not a very catchy term, but I'm not trying to sell any DVDs ;-) ).



Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> There is one time I have found the one rein (as in your video) to be quite effective, but it requires precise timing. It can prevent a bolt from ever happening. A horse with bolting/spook/bucking tendencies tenses, _immediately_ ask for the head around and disengage. More than anything else, I think it snaps their mind back on the rider and off the ******. On a horse used to doing it, there is surprisingly little pressure needed.


Yes, same thing! So now we're all on the same page, how do you all feel about the preventative ORS? If you teach the horse the technique, does it actually make him relax in a tight spot, or is it rather a way of teaching him to hand over the control to his rider and resign himself to fate? Or is it like pressing a reset button, that distracts the horse enough to make him forget whatever is worrying him? 

To date, I haven't been successful at distracting Macarena in a tense situation, and if I keep her too static things get very hairy. I think I will try teaching her the preventative ORS with disengagement, and see if it helps when she gets fraught.

We did another treat and bucket experiment this evening; just one bucket, and she made the connection just fine between the disappearing bread and the upturned bucket. Then some lateral movements on the ground to see how much pressure she needs - a gentle poke with fingertips. 

Maybe I should just spend a bit of time doing fun stuff on the ground with her? Like home-made experiments and groundwork mixed in that seems like a game. I always have the tendency to just get on and ride, or take her out to handgraze, or whatever I have "on the schedule" (hoof care, bathing, stable cleaning.... the list is endless) and don't spend a lot of time messing around with them in other ways. I must make an effort to do more varied exercises with her.

Though I REFUSE to buy a carrot stick :rofl: :icon_rolleyes: :rofl:
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> But your descriptions make me wonder - have you read _Cautionary Tales for Children_? .... illustrators have captured the foibles of children like Jim, who let go of his nurse's hand and was eaten by a lion; Matilda, who told lies, and was burned to death; and Henry King who swallowed string.


Yes! I vividly remember parts of the Henry King poem, and Matilda rings a bell too. 

Something like "Here's the tale of Henry King who swallowed little bits of string......(tumtitumtitumtitum) and tied themselves in knots inside."

Amazing how inconsequential stuff like this lodges in your memory!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> Or maybe they are now convinced that's where carrots actually _grow_ or otherwise simply _materialise_? ;-) I mean, grass comes from the ground, that much is clear to them. Carrots come - from the magic bag? Or the human pockets? Or the human hands? ...I doubt many horses have actually dug up their own carrots...


:rofl: :clap: 

I need a treat bag like yours, that makes carrots materialise inside. It reminds me of the magic porridge pot.... 

I've never seen them pawing the earth after root vegetables, but both Macarena and Flamenca are very clear on where figs come from. Macarena spends long periods every day in fig season gazing wistfully up at the ripe figs in the higher branches of the fig tree, waiting for one to drop. (They have already destroyed the lower branches). She also knows where wasps come from - from the holes in the stone wall that surrounds the fig tree! Stretching up for figs is a dangerous business - best done at dawn and dusk when the wasps are cold and slow. 



SueC said:


> Just like young kids think electricity is a magic thing that comes from the powerpoint, until they become aware of the process of electicity generation and delivery behind all that (how unromantic! :rofl.


How about banknotes that come out of the magic hole in the wall? My oldest had a major disappointment when he realised that the availability of money was related to something called a bank balance. Up till then he wondered why everyone wasn't rolling in it, if all they had to do was go to the cashpoint and press some buttons..... Talk about easy money 
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> We were obviously taught the exact same equitation although we were on opposite sides of the North Sea. I learnt to use two reins and my seat for brakes, plus circles if the horse is going at speed and resists. In fact, Macarena's brakes are fine; she tends to be a bit hot, which I am happy with, but when I ask her to slow she normally complies.
> 
> My question about the one rein stop was more in the context of how to calm a horse that is panicking but not (yet) bolting, which is how it was suggested to me to use it in that training thread. Sorry I didn't make that very clear in my original question.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes! That's exactly what I'm referring to - let's call it the preventative ORS (not a very catchy term, but I'm not trying to sell any DVDs ;-) ).
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, same thing! So now we're all on the same page, how do you all feel about the preventative ORS? If you teach the horse the technique, does it actually make him relax in a tight spot, or is it rather a way of teaching him to hand over the control to his rider and resign himself to fate? Or is it like pressing a reset button, that distracts the horse enough to make him forget whatever is worrying him?
> 
> To date, I haven't been successful at distracting Macarena in a tense situation, and if I keep her too static things get very hairy. I think I will try teaching her the preventative ORS with disengagement, and see if it helps when she gets fraught.
> 
> We did another treat and bucket experiment this evening; just one bucket, and she made the connection just fine between the disappearing bread and the upturned bucket. Then some lateral movements on the ground to see how much pressure she needs - a gentle poke with fingertips.
> 
> Maybe I should just spend a bit of time doing fun stuff on the ground with her? Like home-made experiments and groundwork mixed in that seems like a game. I always have the tendency to just get on and ride, or take her out to handgraze, or whatever I have "on the schedule" (hoof care, bathing, stable cleaning.... the list is endless) and don't spend a lot of time messing around with them in other ways. I must make an effort to do more varied exercises with her.
> 
> Though I REFUSE to buy a carrot stick :rofl: :icon_rolleyes: :rofl:
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


 
My daughter did a lot of home-made ground obstacles with Caspian for about a year. Garbage cans, tarps hanging in the trees (when he was ready), dragging a tire by a rope (again when he was ready), strange things......she would just lead him over, under, beneath, behind...pick your preposition, and then change things up every once in a while by adding new things or different uses for familiar objects. It was fun for both of them. I believe it built understanding between them and gave Caspian something to occupy his mind rather than standing around at pasture all day. At some point she was ready to ride him through those same things and it was "old hat" by then. 

I wish I had taken video of her playing hide and seek with him at liberty last spring. She would run behind a tree and "hide" and he would come "find" her by craning around the tree at which point she would run to another and they repeated this process over and over again. We have a lot of fun with our horses even out of the saddle. 

As to how your gals will respond to the one rein...With Ollie it always seems like "Huh? What did you say? Oh yes, onward!" and all Tomfoolery is forgotten. I don't think he sees it as uncomfortable or unpleasant, at least no more so than being in a state of anxiety to begin with. 

So I guess I would say all you can do is train her for it and if you don't like the results then back to the drawing board, you may find a use for it somewhere else. 

I am sure some of the others may have some different ideas for you.


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> Done properly, the ORS wouldn't hurt the horse's mouth because if done properly you do NOT pull the head all around. I find the emphasis on pulling a horse's head far to one side is counterproductive. It tends to disconnect the head from the shoulder. Bad idea, IMHO. But what I was told by someone who loved the ORS was that it shouldn't result in the head moving more than a few degrees. Sure isn't how some people teach/preach it, though.


Yes, I can't understand the insistence on over-flexing the horse's neck either. As you say, it encourages the head to disconnect from the rest, and if that happens you lose a very useful method of steering - as you discovered with Sham. I always assumed that a horse's shoulders follow its head until I met Xena last year, and she taught me otherwise :shock: which was actually a useful lesson for me as it made me think more about shoulder control. Glad I didn't have to learn this lesson on a horse galloping towards a barbwire fence though. 



bsms said:


> The way I was taught it, a ORS is a learned reaction - a response to a cue. Nothing more. My question was: If you are teaching a response to a cue, why not use a cue that A) is more instinctive to people, and 2) has no use for anything else in riding - ie, The Two Rein Stop! If you are going to teach it to stop when someone pulls ONE rein, why not teach it to stop when people pull TWO reins?
> 
> Never got an answer. My horses have all been taught The Two Rein Stop. Even Mia learned the Two Rein Stop in a curb bit, and then accepted it in a snaffle. But then, who could sell books or DVDs promising to teach a horse a secret...quiet, hope no one is listening because this secret is worth $29.95 (+ $14.95 shipping)...it's the "Two Rein Stop"! Even Pat Parelli couldn't sell DVDs teaching The Two Rein Stop! It is just too darn obvious!


I was taught the Two Rein Stop, as was everyone learning to ride in England when I was young. From Sue's comments, in Germany they also taught this. Of course, the two rein stop doesn't just use the reins - the seat is an important part of it if you want to do a graceful halt without the horse resisting the rein pressure. 

And perhaps that is why the US clinicians have opted for the one rein stop - not because it's a better way of stopping the horse but because it's faster to teach, easier and more foolproof. Imagine trying to teach a novice rider to use their seat in a one-hour clinic. Or doing public demonstrations of relaxing your buttock muscles. It wouldn't pull many crowds. (Well, perhaps the butt relaxation would draw crowds, but for all the wrong reasons :rofl: ) Also, it's too easy for a novice to do the two rein stop badly and make their horse rear, if they use it on a frightened horse. And then word would get out that X trainer's methods create rearing horses - very bad for business. 

The two rein stop has been around for centuries. It's effective and elegant. (How many one rein stops have you seen done in dressage?) The one rein stop may be useful in a specific situation, but I personally don't see it as a substitute. 
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## bsms

Darn! With all the NH Clinic people running around, I was hoping I could put a patent on The Two Rein Stop and start selling DVDs...pretty safe bet, though, that no one will pay to watch ME butt flexing/relaxing! :rofl:

I don't think a One Rein Stop actually exists. Not as a method of stopping a scared horse. Here's why:

Let me say I think there is a big difference between a spook and a bolt. In a spook, the horse has been startled and it wants to create a buffer zone. In a bolt, the horse has decided to run away, has made a couple of strides forward and is now mentally and physically committed to running away.

As RC&D wrote, "_There is one time I have found the one rein (as in your video) to be quite effective, but it requires precise timing. It can prevent a bolt from ever happening. A horse with bolting/spook/bucking tendencies tenses, immediately ask for the head around and disengage._"

In Mia's case, I never did the lateral flexing with her even when a trainer told me she needed it. Maybe it was a 3 decade old memory of Sham whispering a warning to my subconscious. But we never did the lateral flexes, and I never taught her a ORS.

However, in a snaffle, if she was just about to explode forward, I could yank on one rein and she would do a 180. A less hard yank would give me 90 deg. This was also true if she was backing toward a ledge she wasn't paying attention to - a hard yank to one side and she would spin 180 and SEE the ledge.

My turn cues are normally an opening rein, maybe with my pinkie wiggling on top of the rein to say tighten the turn up.

So I wouldn't call it a ORS or any type of "stop" - it was just an emergency-level turn.

If she spooked and spun 180, she'd then start to gather to make the big leap away and begin a bolt. At that moment, a hard yank would spin her around 180, and we'd be facing the scary thing again. She'd spin 180 again, start to gather, and I'd yank again. She'd spin 180, be facing the scary thing, and...we might do 10 of those before she'd relax and figure out whatever had scared her was no longer there.

In those cases, she WANTED to bolt. But an aptly applied TURN cue would leave her facing the scary thing, so she'd need to start all over. And it worked very well in terms of preventing a bolt. Once a horse is lunging forward, fully committed to running away in fear, stopping it is tough. A pulley rein MIGHT work. A curb bit MIGHT work. Or not. 

But in the initial reaction, turning a horse to face the threat would break the bolt for a few seconds, at least. Repeated, it would break the bolt completely.

The problem I had was that doing 4-10 turns of 360 deg was a strong mental stimulation to Mia. Like James Fillis wrote in 1890, the result was that she matched the 'scary thing' with the strong mental stimulation. The latter was very much like a terrifying moment, so in her mind I just PROVED the scary thing WAS scary, and her reaction to it was "right".

When I switched her to a curb bit, if she spun and gathered herself, a couple hard bumps straight back, using just my forearm (one, since riding a curb bit western usually means using one hand)...and she'd stop. Stop. Pause, turn her back without a yank. Facing the threat. but now she wasn't as wound up, and she seemed to understand that spinning away would not let her run away - because bsms was there and would bump the curb and she honored the curb.

So then she would stand still, facing the threat - coyote, motorcycle, bicycle, big bird, whatever - and almost always the scary thing would go away. Once she realized that standing still meant the scary thing ran away, her bolting days were over. Why bolt when you can stand still and make the scary thing do the running?

I have no empirical evidence this is true. But her behavior using a turn cue with a snaffle looked like what people say to do with the ORS. The only difference is that I didn't disengage her because once she faced the scary thing, she wasn't going to rush forward unless she turned another 180 first. Besides, I was too busy trying to stay on to use much leg. And one of my best tack decisions, for what I needed then, was buying my Australian-style saddle:








​ 
The poleys are GREAT for helping a new rider stay on a spinning horse!

James Fillis, inventor of the Fillis Stirrup, on nervous horses, writing in 1890:"The impressionability of a horse can be greatly diminished and modified by breaking. Custom establishes mutual confidence between horse and rider. If the animal has not been beaten, or violently forced up to the object of his alarm, and if the presence of his rider reassures him, instead of frightening him, he will soon become steady. It is a sound principle never to flog a horse which is frightened by some external object. We should, on the contrary, try to anticipate or remove the impression by "making much" of the animal.

I have already said that a horse has but little intelligence. He cannot reason, and has only memory. *If he is beaten when an object suddenly comes before him and startles him, he will connect in his mind the object and the punishment.* If he again sees the same object, he will expect the same punishment, his fear will become increased, and he will naturally try to escape all the more violently....

...My only advice about the management of nervous horses is to give them confidence by "making much of them." If we see in front of us an object which we know our horse will be afraid of, we should not force him to go up to it. Better let him at first go away from it, and then gently induce him to approach it, without bullying him too much. Work him in this way for several days, as long as may be necessary. Never bring him so close up to the object in question that he will escape or spin round ; because in this case we will be obliged to punish him ; not for his fear, but on account of his spinning round, which we should not tolerate at any time. In punishing him, we will confuse in his mind the fear of punishment and the fear caused by the object. In a word, with nervous horses we should use much gentleness, great patience, and no violence." (page 186)​


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> If she spooked and spun 180, she'd then start to gather to make the big leap away and begin a bolt. At that moment, a hard yank would spin her around 180, and we'd be facing the scary thing again. She'd spin 180 again, start to gather, and I'd yank again. She'd spin 180, be facing the scary thing, and...we might do 10 of those before she'd relax and figure out whatever had scared her was no longer there.....
> 
> The problem I had was that doing 4-10 turns of 360 deg was a strong mental stimulation to Mia. Like James Fillis wrote in 1890, the result was that she matched the 'scary thing' with the strong mental stimulation. The latter was very much like a terrifying moment, so in her mind I just PROVED the scary thing WAS scary, and her reaction to it was "right".
> 
> When I switched her to a curb bit, if she spun and gathered herself, a couple hard bumps straight back, using just my forearm (one, since riding a curbbit western usually means using one hand)...and she'd stop. Stop. Pause, turn her back wthout a yank. Facing the threat. but now she wasn't as wound up, and she seemed to understand that spinning away would not let her run away - because bsms was there and would bump the curb and she honored the curb.
> 
> So then she would stand still, facing the threat - coyote, motorcycle, bicycle, big bird, whatever - and almost always the scary thing would go away. Once she realized that standing still meant the scary thing ran away, her bolting days were over. Why bolt when you can stand still and make the scary thing do the running?


Interesting stuff. If anyone has experience in dealing with a scared horse, I think it is you! Every time I read about you and Mia I am amazed at how you managed to reach a working agreement with her - it could all so easily have gone very wrong if you had gone about things in an egotistic and dominating manner. 

I read this today in an article from the Australian Equine Behaviour Centre (AEBC - Articles):

_Whether the horse is shying, swerving, accelerating, shooting backwards or bucking, it seems that the faster the legs move the more indelibly it is remembered._

This seems like a good and simple rule to bear in mind. When things get hairy, keep the speed to a minimum. And I think your experiences with Mia confirm this (in my understanding at least). It seems that in a snaffle, all those 180 turns that you needed to calm her were also helping her to remember the scary moment. Although her legs weren't moving continually fast, as in bolting, I imagine they were pretty nifty in the spins, which helped engrave the memory. 

In the curb bit, she needed just one 180 spin to calm down. Less leg movement = less memory of the scary moment, so soon your bolting problem was solved. 

It seems a bit simplistic, but it just goes to show how different their wiring system is to ours. I wonder if I sent my boys out to run - or preferably sprint - when they're revising for exams if we'd also see a positive result? Or just improved fitness? :clap:
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> I wonder if I sent my boys out to run - or preferably sprint - when they're revising for exams if we'd also see a positive result? Or just improved fitness? :clap:
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


An interesting aside; if your boys are heavily prone to the kinesthetic learning style, it actually may have a positive effect. 

My third child when asked to sit still at the kitchen table while practicing spelling words, would fail at learning them miserably. If on the other hand I allowed him to walk around while spelling, he'd learn them very quickly! 

To this day (he just turned 23), he learns best when he is being active, if he is moving, his brain is too, he's a mechanic for a luxury German car company.


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> Though I REFUSE to buy a carrot stick :rofl: :icon_rolleyes: :rofl:
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Why would anyone buy a carrot stick? A sensible person buys a bag of carrots and cuts carrots into carrot sticks themselves! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


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## Bondre

^^ soo many not sensible people out there :shock:

Just last week there was a thread about a green horse and it's NH owner was frankly dumbfounded that it WASN'T desensitized to the carrot stick. 

What the devil IS a carrot stick anyway? Isn't it just a stick? So where do the carrots come in?

:shrug:
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> SueC said:
> 
> 
> 
> *NERD SCIENCE*
> *RCD*: The mirrors/reflections investigation was very interesting and entertaining! The science buff in me though is really aware that there is much human overlay going on in the interpretations. While you probably had reasons to feel that Caspian was admiring his own reflection - you know how to read your horse better than someone who's never met him - scientifically we can't validly conclude that from the observations. He might have been just as fascinated by a similar TV image of a horse that wasn't him. Of course, the TV image wouldn't move when he moved. But, I don't think we can say for sure that the horse therefore realised it was him - it might have been just an interesting phenomenon to him that he thought was worth looking at and thinking about.
> 
> 
> 
> Sue, I have actually thought about re-doing the mirror experiment and adding a few things, such as after he sees himself, adding a piece of hay to his forelock and seeing how he responds to the new reflection. Still not scientific, I know, but what with animals really can be as the observation of behavior is always tainted by individual perceptions? Even Worthington I think injected a bit of that in her book as well.
Click to expand...

It's one of those classical problems with animal behaviour study. Jane Goodall, for example, knew jealous behaviour when she saw it, but said she couldn't publish the concept of jealousy existing in chimpanzees back when she started because she would have copped even more flak than she was getting already for inappropriate anthropomorphising (from a discipline which then presumed human exceptionalism, which is still every day getting more scientifically valid evidence mounted against it). So we're always trying to avoid falling into either pit! 

I think the best way to go it to perform more experiments like the one you are suggesting - keep varying things, see if anything leaps out at you.  Many discoveries are serendipitously made.


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> ^^ soo many not sensible people out there :shock:
> 
> Just last week there was a thread about a green horse and it's NH owner was frankly dumbfounded that it WASN'T desensitized to the carrot stick.
> 
> What the devil IS a carrot stick anyway? Isn't it just a stick? So where do the carrots come in?
> 
> :shrug:
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


In my usage, a carrot stick is a more macro version of a julienned bit of carrot, used for dipping into hummous, sour cream, taramasalata etc. ;-) That's they only kind of carrot stick in my universe, and I think that's how it's going to stay! :rofl:










Delicious!


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> And perhaps that is why the US clinicians have opted for the one rein stop - not because it's a better way of stopping the horse but because it's faster to teach, easier and more foolproof. Imagine trying to teach a novice rider to use their seat in a one-hour clinic. Or doing public demonstrations of relaxing your buttock muscles. It wouldn't pull many crowds. (Well, perhaps the butt relaxation would draw crowds, but for all the wrong reasons :rofl: ) Also, it's too easy for a novice to do the two rein stop badly and make their horse rear, if they use it on a frightened horse. And then word would get out that X trainer's methods create rearing horses - very bad for business.


And I believe that you have put your finger upon it right there! People these days seem to be more interested in the sizzle than the actual steak. Marketers, anyroad. But as we've seen plenty of times in many different marketing situations in our modern society, sizzling is frequently not connected with any actual steaks. 

And the Kipling poem RCD posted a link to makes a very similar point... so perhaps we should all read it again, in the context of horse training! 

Too many people looking for quick fixes and simple solutions, in complex situations.


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## SueC

Two quick things that came to mind as I was reading everyone's new posts:

When bsms posted the advice from Fillis, which I think is good advice, I was thinking that with a young or inexperienced horse I'm basically taking on the role of substitute mother/herd mentor. It is from the mother than the foal takes its main cues about what is and isn't actually dangerous, early in its life.

My Sunsmart was a big chicken when I first introduced him to the world beyond stables, yards and trotting tracks, mainly, I think, because he was raised in a pretty artificial environment. I had to mentor him through various false-alarm type scary situations. I also vividly remember when he first came to our farm in Redmond. He had bonded very strongly with my old Arabian mare, who was herd raised with lots of room to roam and experienced lots of things in her early education, and was not easily spooked. One time, when the horses were grazing, some of our locally resident emus (big birds about the size of ostriches) came into view. Sunsmart hadn't encountered emus before, and became almost hysterical at the sight of them. My mare continued to graze. Sunsmart then danced circles around her and tried to face her in the direction of the emus, which she'd already noticed, but he seemed to think she was still unaware of and needed alerting to. Also he tried to herd her away. She raised her head and gave him a look - and returned to grazing. This kind of response is very valuable to the more inexperienced horses in the group. At any rate, it made Sunsmart revise his initial response to emus. Romeo, also an experienced horse and initially herd-raised, further reinforced that by his own level-headedness. Horses actually learn from what you could call the culture of their group.

Two photos some of you may already have seen on my journal. This is my father and me in the mid-1980s training Classic Juliet to go in the cart when she was somewhere between one and two years old, which is the usual age we were getting young horses used to a cart.










At the critical stages we always had two people with a horse. Here I elected to drive and dad to lead. This was her first lap around the sand track with a driver. She'd been long reined extensively in preparation and had been familiarised with the cart. Next stage after this would be my father driving and me babysitting at the head, without a lead rope, just for the horse's confidence. The person at the head got pretty fit! :smile:










If you think about it, the babysitter who continued to mentor from beside or in front of the young horse was taking exactly the same physical, and psychological, position as the mother of a foal will. We found that this helped the young horses' confidence no end, and they soon did independently what they had been taught initially with their babysitter present - just like in a herd learning situation. (In a herd, the inexperienced horses will never be pushed to the front in a scary situation - they will be shielded by their mothers, and other mentors. Yet many humans will, unnaturally, push the horses to be the first when there is a scary situation...instead of protecting them.)

I make a similar argument about the helpfulness, in certain situations, of getting off a riding horse and adopting the same physical and psychological position when dealing with something scary or new. I always find the horse really relaxes if it sees me touch the thing of which it is so frightened. Pretty soon, in most cases, if you give it time and are relaxed about it (and don't try to _force_ the horse closer), the horse will be approaching and sniffing the scary thing itself.

The other thing I wanted to relate is that when Sunsmart was getting his intense trail education back in 2009, he encountered many cattle, which back then he still thought were bogeymen. And each time, early on, he would stop and stare. I learnt that if I deliberately rode a volte on the track, by the time the horse was facing the cattle again he would be calmer - as if the "break in transmission" itself was helpful - as in, "I'm seeing them again, nothing bad has happened, getting more old hat." In a way it's as if the facing away and turning back repeats, rather than prolongs, the lesson, and of course, repeating is always more helpful than prolonging, as a training principle.


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## SueC

bsms said:


> The more I'm around horses, the more I dislike what I see being taught as "Natural Horsemanship" - what I see too often seems to be neither natural nor horsemanship!


Marthe Kiley-Worthington once remarked on how funny it was the the emphasis was so often on the horse_man_. Think about it - all the gurus I have personally heard about from the American "horsemanship" industry are men. I'm sure there are women as well, but obviously vastly outnumbered. Why is that - and what is being missed here? Much of what I see coming out of America on that score seems to me imbued with a testosterone-driven mentality - having to "win", making others submit, the preoccupation with rank, all that silly stuff that many young men seem to think so important, and makes them comparatively obnoxious, compared with their later selves too. I think a lot of their "training methods" are projections of this kind of stuff, and have very little to do with how horses actually tick.

I think the word "natural" in "natural horsemanship" is given to the same misconceptions as the word "natural" in the food industry. For years, the sugar cane growers here ran an ad with a jingle that said, "Sugar - a natural part of life." Is sugar natural? Yes. But so is cyanide and sodium flouroacetate. Does our metabolism include pathways for utilising sugar? Yes. But...is it natural to be eating the massive amounts of sugar found in the Western diet? Well, no, it isn't...


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

SueC said:


> If you think about it, the babysitter who continued to mentor from beside or in front of the young horse was taking exactly the same physical, and psychological, position as the mother of a foal will. We found that this helped the young horses' confidence no end, and they soon did independently what they had been taught initially with their babysitter present - just like in a herd learning situation. (In a herd, the inexperienced horses will never be pushed to the front in a scary situation - they will be shielded by their mothers, and other mentors. Yet many humans will, unnaturally, push the horses to be the first when there is a scary situation...instead of protecting them.)


Sue, that is such an interesting point. I never really thought of it in those terms, but I guess that was exactly what we were doing for our horses with all the hand walks without realizing it (protecting them). 

Dare I say it felt like the "natural" thing to do?

In another vein; 
All this talk about bending and such, I found a video of Stacy Westfall training her project colt, Jac and thought y’all might find it helpful to see how she uses lateral flexation in her training. 

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Horse+softness+of+cues&FORM=HDRSC3#view=detail&mid=B616FA4507A0FD0B0C75B616FA4507A0FD0B0C75


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## bsms

I'd argue "horseman' is both using the "man" as the generic human, and also a historical artifact. I'd hate to have to write "horseman/horsewoman" all the time, and "horseperson" doesn't do much for me either. It is also a term that started when most riders were men.

In terms of DVD trainers, there are plenty of successful women making DVDs. In the US, Julie Goodnight, Stacy Westfall & Jane Savoie come to mind. There are many others, and my shelf probably has more books by women than by men.

The "natural horsemanship" segment seems to be dominated by Australian men and American ex-cowboys. My guess is the target audience is 95% female & frequently middle-aged, and virtually all very inexperienced with horses. I think that segment of the market is looking for an authority figure, and a big, bombastic guy with cute (trite) sayings and total confidence that he knows THE way is what sells. Think of it as Donald Trump Horsemanship...:eek_color:

I also think the dominant, "just do it" approach does work and work well with many horses. A ranch horse tends to be dominated because no one has time to fuss with taking lots of time. If you need to ride 20 miles to the work site and spend 8 hours working cattle and then 20 miles back...well, there isn't a lot of time to dismount and coach a horse past a scary thing.

The good news is that the horse soon accepts the human as dominant and then learns all the scary things were not so scary after all. A tired horse is much less likely to spook hard. My rancher friend told me Mia didn't have anything wrong with her that a few 50 mile days wouldn't solve. Given the sheer quantity of his experience with horses, and how many he had ridden 50+ miles in a day, I'm sure he was right. Part of MY problem was that she could ride ME into the ground. I'd be barely hanging on in the saddle while she was still fresh.

The end result is not a browbeaten, dead head horse. Lesson horses tend to be that way because they are ridden by pee-poor riders. Harry Chamberlin and VS Littauer both strongly believed that many horses were ruined by an emphasis on dressage training in an arena when what most horses and most riders are capable of doing well is covering ground. But a ranch horse is taught primarily by simply riding lots of miles. My friend's favorite horse was a stallion who, he said, didn't calm down until the first 20 miles were behind them. When they have a young, spooky horse, they figure the first 10-20 miles are to get the boogers out of the brain. The real training in calmness comes during the next 20-30 miles. And if that is done in the company of a couple other horses for a month, then you have a pretty calm horse who hasn't been whipped into doing anything. The horse is learning much like it would in a herd.

The problem with the NH/DVD types is they divorce the miles from the method (and the other horses). They also pretend it is gentle when much of it is just techniques that work well on a ranch because the person using the technique knows horses, can read them, and will put the miles on the horse to get the finished product. The ranch techniques work fine - with a good rider, open country, other horses and lots of miles to cover and work to do.

NH people sell their techniques by promising to build a bond that will make riding miles possible. The ranch techniques they use work by putting on so many miles that a bond results. The NH people say, "When your horse trusts you, you will be able to ride through hell". Ranch work says, "After you ride through hell, the horse will trust you".

Those ranch techniques are NOT the only way to build a trusting, reliable horse. "_If you think about it, *the babysitter who continued to mentor from beside or in front of the young horse was taking exactly the same physical, and psychological, position as the mother* of a foal will._" That is an excellent one-sentence statement of what I would call real natural horsemanship - horse training that works with how horses naturally learn things. If I dismount, then lead Bandit past a scary thing with me between him and the scary thing, I'm not just teaching him the scary thing is not scary. I'm teaching him I care about his well being and will protect him - to the point of putting myself at risk.

It takes more time. But it doesn't require a large herd, or open country, or riding 30+ miles a day. Assuming a middle-aged woman is capable of mounting from the ground - and many do not seem to be - then it is actually what many middle-aged newcomers want to experience with their horse. A relationship of mutual trust and understanding.

But you can no more sell that to 10,000 admirers in a stadium than I can sell the Two Rein Stop.

Think of how many threads on HF start with "How do I get my horse to trust me?" My answer is "Act trustworthy". But that isn't what they want. They want a gimmick. No work trust.

They complain that they have had their horse for 4 days and haven't bonded. I want to reply, "_No $%#@, GI - how many close friends do you develop in 4 days?!!!!_" In the military, we used to joke that bonding came from shared misery. That isn't entirely a joke. My wife and I are close in part because we've been together for 28 years, with a fair bit of shared misery along the way. You don't build a relationship like that in 4 days...but the NH clinicians promise you can.

< / rant >

Sorry. Society wants a quality pizza you can cook in a microwave in 30 seconds. Or a 2-day method to build ultimate trust with an animal smart enough not to be fooled by gimmicks.

PS - The people who write journals about their horses are not the folks who want a 2-day technique to build trust. The next time someone wants to know how to get the horse they've owned for 3 days to trust them, I may just post a link to some journals. If they have the patience to read through a few hundred posts, they may learn what it takes. If they don't, then my advice wouldn't help them anyways...:evil:


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## Bondre

The bucket experiment: 
I came across this article, again from the Australian Equine Behaviour Centre, which throws more light on horses' ability to find food in buckets.
_
I decided to design an experiment that was later published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science. The experimental design utilised the horse's well-known ability to be cued to the delivery of food to either one of two feed goals in a test arena. One by one, each horse was held by a handler in the middle of the arena facing the feed goals. There was a feed goal to the right, and a feed goal to the left, and a person sitting beside each feed goal. The person sitting beside one of the feed goals would stand up and pour feed into the feed goal. The horse would see this and would then be immediately released. Over 40 trials the horses soon learned that when they saw food being poured, that's where the food would be, so they would go to the correct feed bin. But as soon as we separated the pouring of the feed and the release of the horse by ten seconds, the horse's success rate plummeted to 50% - in other words it became random. They couldn't remember where the food was actually being poured after ten seconds. While individual horses occasionally seemed as if they could manage the ten seconds, again their results would drop. Statistical analysis showed that horses collectively or individually could not recall the correct goal in a two choice situation where each goal was equally rewarded. Interesting things happened to when the horse's discovered they had failed. A couple of ponies and warmbloods would lay their ears back and make a bee-line for the correct goal, while some thoroughbreds decided to give up altogether and leave. To account for the results, some researchers suggested that the amount of food (100 grams oats) for each trial was insufficient to motivate the horse horses. However this can easily be discounted because the same amount of food powerfully motivated the horses in the immediate release trials.
What was interesting in those trials, was that over time, the horse’s success rate with the 10 second trials improved. Why? What the horse learned to do was to maintain their vision on the salient feed goal and keep looking until released. So by trial and error (operant conditioning) they learned a strategy. Other researchers found similar effects. So what is now needed are trials where the horse’s vision is occluded as have done with dog versions of this same experiment (dogs do quite well in this because they need planning to out-wit prey). We have begun trials and results again suggest less capacity for holding a vision in their frontal lobes._



SueC said:


> I'm also assuming the horse is allowed to observe which bucket the treat was put in before it was put upside down? Are the buckets different colours? That would be helpful, over and above having identical buckets, unless you are trying to see if the horses can accurately observe and remember _location_ or _order_ from sight. Horses' vision up close isn't that great, and they often need training to be able to follow that you are manipulating objects in subtle (to them) ways. Figuring out you have a carrot in your hand is one thing, and following that hand. .


I'm sure you're right about the difficulty for them to follow small hand movements. After all, we humans learn from an early age that hand movements are vitally important to observe and understand, as they can communicate intent. Whereas horses have no such evolutionary need. It must be like listening to an unknown language (for us) that belongs to a completely different linguistic group to our own native language(s)- apart from not being able to understand a word, you can't even differentiate between many of the sounds.


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## SueC

Bondre, I was just reading about someone who was ponying their young horse behind a four wheeler, for fitness, to get them used to vehicles etc. Maybe that could help make trail bikes less scary for your mare? Especially as you'd be sitting on the four wheeler etc. Off-track trotters are some of the best horses around cars and even tractors and trucks - since they have all learnt from a young age to run behind a mobile barrier (and we start them by letting them sniff a farm ute, then getting on its back and leading horses off the ute, then getting them to trot along behind the ute on the track with us still in the back of the ute with the lead rope), and to work on a trotting track at the same time as a watering truck and tractor when warming up for trials - as the track is dragged and watered between trials.

Again, the psychology of the horses running behind the mobile barrier works in their favour - the car is "running away from them" - they are in pursuit. Sort of like Sunsmart and his hobby of playing chasey with the cattle. I think working on the ground with a four wheeler that you sit on and lead your horse off would be a great preliminary to sharing a space with an independently ridden four wheeler while you are riding your horse (and perhaps encouraging it to chase the four wheeler, which is being obligingly driven away from the horse by its rider).

Trail bikes, especially without mufflers, are scarier of course, due to the noise issue we've talked about before. But a four wheeler is sort of halfway there!


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## SueC

bsms said:


> Harry Chamberlin and VS Littauer both strongly believed that many horses were ruined by an emphasis on dressage training in an arena when what most horses and most riders are capable of doing well is covering ground.


Yeah, I have to say, although I like dressage, in our family we always thought of the arena as a schoolroom, and of the trails as the natural world that we, like our horses, wanted to spend quality time in... and we felt sorry, in Germany, for all the boarding horses at the high-end competitive barn we had our horses agisted at just before we left for Australia who would be in the arena day-in, day-out and only go on a trail once a week, on a weekend, if they were lucky. Combined with being stabled most of the time...horse hell, I think... We generally left the arena after an hour, and finished with at least a small trail ride, and next time we'd just go on a long trail and forget about the arena.




> But a ranch horse is taught primarily by simply riding lots of miles. My friend's favorite horse was a stallion who, he said, didn't calm down until the first 20 miles were behind them. When they have a young, spooky horse, they figure the first 10-20 miles are to get the boogers out of the brain. The real training in calmness comes during the next 20-30 miles.


This is very like training for endurance riding - and it's funny how Arabians are nice and calm if they get to do lots of trail exercise that gets their hearts pumping and their legs swinging, as part of their programme, and how they tend to become "difficult" when people keep them primarily as pets and exercise them minimally, perhaps predominantly in arenas, and at a comparatively slow pace. Horses are made to move - especially those sorts of horses - and I think it's detrimental to both the physical and mental health of a horse to be cooped up and never or rarely get to move properly for any significant amount of time - as is the case with most leisure horses these days, unfortunately.

Standardbreds also get to move and get sweaty during their race training, and the first couple of laps around the sand track generally gets rid of any bees they might have in their bonnets.

My father used to look at some of the leisure riders and how little their horses got to move, and say, "These people should have rocking horses instead!"




> The problem with the NH/DVD types is they divorce the miles from the method (and the other horses).


I think that's true, and more widespread than NH/DVD even.




> The NH people say, "When your horse trusts you, you will be able to ride through hell". Ranch work says, "After you ride through hell, the horse will trust you".


That's an interesting contrast!  On reflection, I think we were somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, rather than at either extreme end. In terms of _hours_, we built our relationships with our horses mostly while on the move - hand walking, long reining, driving, riding. Of course, we also thought it was important to have a good relationship with the horse to begin with - and the comparatively small amount of time you have at the tie rails or in a paddock with a horse is still important in terms of treating your horse right - having good etiquette, encouraging mutual affection, showing your horse the gear you were going to put on it, that kind of thing. Involving the horse, rather than treating it like an employee.




> It takes more time. But it doesn't require a large herd, or open country, or riding 30+ miles a day...
> They complain that they have had their horse for 4 days and haven't bonded. I want to reply, "_No $%#@, GI - how many close friends do you develop in 4 days?!!!!_"


:rofl:

Hmmm, instant soup, just add water. Instant coffee, fast food. Everything on tap. Icons of our modern age. It has to affect the tribal mentality... I am actually glad of my comparatively stone-age beginnings, and having lived as a child in the tail end of the time when it wasn't so. I think of that as the real world. I'd hate to have been born smack into the zenith of "instant". At least by now, there is a countermovement: Slow food, reducing consumption, valuing real berries over artificial flavours that imitate but don't have the actual benefits of what they imitate, etc.

We were taught that if you wanted to be good at something, you had to put in the time. No short-cuts.




> In the military, we used to joke that bonding came from shared misery. That isn't entirely a joke. My wife and I are close in part because we've been together for 28 years, with a fair bit of shared misery along the way. You don't build a relationship like that in 4 days...but the NH clinicians promise you can.
> 
> < / rant >


:rofl: 

Yes, I don't think a relationship that hasn't been tested is anything like one that has, and has survived the storms. Quality is important, but I don't think it's quality versus quantity - I think quality includes quantity. I don't think anything can be quality until a fair amount of time and effort has been invested. And I think all relationships need to continue to be worked on, no matter how long you've had them, whether that's humans or horses. You don't ever actually "arrive", I think - it's a continued journey. It's when people think they've "arrived" that they can get in real trouble.




> Society wants a quality pizza you can cook in a microwave in 30 seconds.


:rofl:

Yet here's the funny thing: Apart from the ridiculousness of that, there's also that we don't enjoy things nearly as much if we haven't had to struggle for them. The pizza you've sweated over and had to build a wood fire for and had to wait while delicious aromas started emanating from the oven while you were beginning to feel faint with hunger tastes out of this world when you finally eat it.

One of the best things that ever happened to me was living way below the poverty line as a university student. I used to walk past the dried apricots and nice cheeses and juices thinking, "After I graduate, I'll buy myself dried apricots!" and that was one of the lights at the end of the tunnel. I don't think I would have appreciated my food, or nice accommodation, or not having to get on my bicycle when it is raining, or lots of other things like that if I'd never gone through any hardships in my life. Nor would I have valued what I value... Many people are so unhappy because they don't know how to appreciate what they have, and because they don't know how to knuckle down and work on something they want to get better at.

/end tangent ;-)


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## bsms

"...it's funny how Arabians are nice and calm if they get to do lots of trail exercise that gets their hearts pumping and their legs swinging, as part of their programme, and how they tend to become "difficult" when people keep them primarily as pets and exercise them minimally, perhaps predominantly in arenas, and at a comparatively slow pace. Horses are made to move - especially those sorts of horses - and I think it's detrimental to both the physical and mental health of a horse to be cooped up and never or rarely get to move properly for any significant amount of time - as is the case with most leisure horses these days, unfortunately."

This was the bottom line why I swapped Mia for Bandit. She NEEDED to live in a place where she could move and where the people who rode did so for serious distances. My back and the lack of water around here meant she would almost never get that. I think I had her as calm as I could get her, and that wasn't calm enough. Not my fault, and not hers either. Bandit is a more phlegmatic horse. That is important. My set-up and hot horses do not mix well. A man has to know his limitations, Dirty Harry said...


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## SueC

> _We have begun trials and results again suggest less capacity for holding a vision in their frontal lobes._


Yet horses do create sophisticated mental maps of terrain and what food grows where when free ranging, away from these kinds of abstract, contrived experimental situations (which are interesting and valuable, but still necessarily abstract and contrived). And, those maps are lastingly impressed on them.

Maybe vision isn't that overwhelmingly necessary to how horses naturally "map" that kind of thing - our blind donkey has surprised us with its ability to navigate quite confidently through 52ha of terrain and rarely get lost. This is a donkey who wasn't born blind, but who was blind by the time we acquired her, so she's never "seen" where she lives now. If course, she may also be piggybacking off the maps of her herdmates a lot of the time. Still, she knows when she's near internal gates, and carefully approaches them with little sideways movements, reminiscent of a blind person with a cane probing for a doorway.

The ability of the horse to "map"/use some kind of internal GPS comes in very handy when you are doing trails in new areas. If you yourself get lost - just ask your horse how to get home. And amazingly, horses don't just do this by backtracking - they seem to know how to take a shortcut home along a route they've never travelled before.


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> I'd argue "horseman' is both using the "man" as the generic human, and also a historical artifact.....
> 
> < / rant >


Excellent rant, bsms! I agree all the way along. 

:thumbsup:
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> Yeah, I have to say, although I like dressage, in our family we always thought of the arena as a schoolroom, and of the trails as the natural world that we, like our horses, wanted to spend quality time in...


I did a fair amount of schooling in the arena in my teens, but an equal amount of hacking out. The schooling IS important because, as you so rightly say further down, 

"We were taught that if you wanted to be good at something, you had to put in the time. No short-cuts."

But if arena work seems boring, imagine those poor horses who are tormented with groundwork in a round pen week in, week out. The impression I have gained on the forum is that some NH owners don't even aim to ride their horse.... just endless groundwork to get 'respect'.... no wonder the horses go nuts.



SueC said:


> My father used to look at some of the leisure riders and how little their horses got to move, and say, "These people should have rocking horses instead!"


The big problem with so many horse owners is their eyes are bigger than their stomach, so as go speak. They buy themselves a warmblood when what they need is a calm, native pony.... or indeed, even a rocking horse!



SueC said:


> Yet here's the funny thing: Apart from the ridiculousness of that, there's also that we don't enjoy things nearly as much if we haven't had to struggle for them. The pizza you've sweated over and had to build a wood fire for and had to wait while delicious aromas started emanating from the oven while you were beginning to feel faint with hunger tastes out of this world when you finally eat it.
> 
> One of the best things that ever happened to me was living way below the poverty line as a university student. I used to walk past the dried apricots and nice cheeses and juices thinking, "After I graduate, I'll buy myself dried apricots!" and that was one of the lights at the end of the tunnel. I don't think I would have appreciated my food, or nice accommodation, or not having to get on my bicycle when it is raining, or lots of other things like that if I'd never gone through any hardships in my life. Nor would I have valued what I value... Many people are so unhappy because they don't know how to appreciate what they have, and because they don't know how to knuckle down and work on something they want to get better at.
> 
> /end tangent ;-)


You're so right about this. I think everyone should experience a period of relative poverty in their lives - preferably in their youth - and see what it's like living outside the consumerist world that surrounds us. It can cut both ways though. I was brought up in a comfortable middle-class existence (though absolutely NOT spendthrift) and subsequently experienced relative poverty after leaving university. In contrast, my husband was brought up in humble circumstances, as were the vast majority of Spaniards in Franco's time (there was no middle class - you we're either rich, or you weren't), and now we have an economically stable situation and aren't pinching and scraping, he is more open-handed about money than I am. And most Spaniards of his generation are real spenders, much more than he is - no notion of saving. If you've got money, you spend it.... but of course, this evolves into If you haven't got money, you take out a bank loan and you spend it anyway...

In any case, I think it's well-established that people who live prey to consumerism aren't generally very happy individuals. 

This is all pretty much what I was expressing in my post on page 7 about adapting my bridle to make it into a sidepull. And yes, it's turned out great - much better than if I'd ordered one from a catalogue!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

SueC said:


> Bondre, I was just reading about someone who was ponying their young horse behind a four wheeler, for fitness, to get them used to vehicles etc. Maybe that could help make trail bikes less scary for your mare?


Yes, I read that post too, though I hadn't thought of trying it with Macarena. We don't have a four-wheeler, but I could ride pillion behind my son. It sounds like a good thing to work towards, though it could take some time. We can start with the 49cc dirt bike, which is quiet and inoffensive, and also the best bike to go slow on. If she gets good at being led from that one, I can try with the 125cc, which is a noisy beast. 

Yesterday I took her out to handgraze, and there was a very noisy quad racing around in the distance. This thing sounded like an aeroplane taking off - all the time. It made me nervous, even though we were close to home and she was on the lead. However, Macarena was not too alarmed - merely alert. What a relief it didn't come past us, though. I was so pleased that I decided not to ride her out yesterday. 



Before the grazing, I did some work with her crossing the irrigation ditches. The landscape here is criss-crossed with irrigation channels; some are big, raised concrete structures, others are buried pipes, and the most humble ones are concrete-lined ditches. 

Macarena has had a thing about all these structures since I first got her, and she's not good about crossing the ditches. This is ridiculous seeing as she can cross them comfortably with a single stride - it's not like she has to jump. So yesterday I decided that , seeing as we're having some problems with nervousness, it would be a good thing to solve this once and for all, instead of skirting round the issue which is what I've been doing up to now. 

This is pretty embarrassing. To think I've been avoiding the issue for two years....  

Anyway, I had her on the lead and we approached the ditch which borders the fields next to the yard. It also separates the fields from the road, so I always have to decide fields or road before reaching the ditch seeing as she can't cross it (more red faces here). She baulked and her head came up when she realised I wanted her to cross it. 

I went back to her head and backed her one step, and one step forward again. The idea of the manoeuvre was to put her brain back into neutral. I stepped across the ditch again and invited her to follow. I wasn't pulling on the lead rope, just inviting her. And she put her ears forward, stretched her neck out to calculate, and she crossed it with no further ado. 

I could have hugged her (and smacked myself for being so stupid for so long!), but I thought that a wither scratch would be more pleasing to her, so did that and let her graze. Then we went back over, and then did it again in a different spot. 

At first, she was notably clumsy crossing. She would put one foot in mid air in the middle of the ditch, as if she was stepping on something, and then jump the other forefoot across quick before the floating hoof hit the ground. Not a great method. Which makes me think that she never wanted to cross the things because SHE DIDN'T KNOW HOW. And didn't want to risk making a mistake with the added weight of a rider. After four repetitions, she realised she could cross the thing with a normal stride, without needing to do any floating (she doesn't float well lol).

My son brought Flamenca out to graze too, and they advanced along the irrigation ditch, one on each side. The lower section of the ditch is stone-lined, and the stones make a raised barrier on each side so not easy to cross. But I found a narrow wide section without stones by the sluice gates, asked her to cross there, and she did without batting an eyelid. Previously the proximity to sluice gates and the narrowness of the landing space would have made crossing there an impossibility. 

Astrid watching Flamenca across the irrigation channel - you can see the stone-lined section here: 



So I was very pleased with her, and have finally realized that skirting round issues, apart from not solving them, actually makes them worse. She thinks 'mum never wants me to cross those things I don't like, so it must be true that they're pretty dangerous'. And we go from sideways glances to sideways movement, from sideways movement to baulking, from baulking to rearing.... (she wasn't that bad yet, but was getting noticeably worse). 

End of humble confession.

Back home, the last watermelons of the season:



_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> Macarena has had a thing about all these structures since I first got her, and she's not good about crossing the ditches. This is ridiculous seeing as she can cross them comfortably with a single stride - it's not like she has to jump. So yesterday I decided that , seeing as we're having some problems with nervousness, it would be a good thing to solve this once and for all, instead of skirting round the issue which is what I've been doing up to now...
> 
> I went back to her head and backed her one step, and one step forward again. The idea of the manoeuvre was to put her brain back into neutral. I stepped across the ditch again and invited her to follow. I wasn't pulling on the lead rope, just inviting her. And she put her ears forward, stretched her neck out to calculate, and she crossed it with no further ado.
> 
> I could have hugged her (and smacked myself for being so stupid for so long!), but I thought that a wither scratch would be more pleasing to her, so did that and let her graze. Then we went back over, and then did it again in a different spot....
> 
> So I was very pleased with her, and have finally realized that skirting round issues, apart from not solving them, actually makes them worse. She thinks 'mum never wants me to cross those things I don't like, so it must be true that they're pretty dangerous'. And we go from sideways glances to sideways movement, from sideways movement to baulking, from baulking to rearing.... (she wasn't that bad yet, but was getting noticeably worse).
> 
> _Posted via Mobile Device_



I am so happy for you both! :thumbsup:

Later today I am supposed to go help someone out with a spooky horse they have. While my daughter is out doing some trails with the group, I'm going to take this gal on a little walk together. Will see how things go and if perhaps we can begin to mediate things a little bit.


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## egrogan

bsms said:


> Think of how many threads on HF start with "How do I get my horse to trust me?" My answer is "Act trustworthy". But that isn't what they want. They want a gimmick. No work trust.
> 
> They complain that they have had their horse for 4 days and haven't bonded. I want to reply, "_No $%#@, GI - how many close friends do you develop in 4 days?!!!!_" In the military, we used to joke that bonding came from shared misery. That isn't entirely a joke. My wife and I are close in part because we've been together for 28 years, with a fair bit of shared misery along the way. You don't build a relationship like that in 4 days...but the NH clinicians promise you can.


I am truly perplexed by the "systems" the NH trainers are selling but am also sympathetic to the middle aged women who finally find themselves with the disposable income to own a horse and no real idea who to trust or where to start. 

I think you're right that some people are in a hurry and looking for a gimmick. But I am again sympathetic to the fact that some people just simply can't spend 5, 6, 7 hours in a saddle every day to learn feel and timing. Even personally, I work a 50-hour-a-week job staring at a computer, and have to travel on top of that. Luckily I don't have kids and have a sympathetic husband who doesn't mind that I spend half my weekends and most of my days off putzing around the barn. Until I "retire," I'll sadly remain a weekend warrior when it comes to horses and I know I can only progress so much without being able to ride for hours a day. And I am **** jealous of those who do!!

I also think that people are _extremely _literal when they get into horses as adults and read forums like this or watch the YouTube videos. Since you don't have that feel and timing, and we are generally a society of rule followers (a different topic for a different day :wink people seem to feel so much anxiety about "doing it right." On another thread I read recently about training and respect, a life long horseperson offered the advice to "ride the horse and get her sweating so she appreciates having a break to stand still politely." The person asking for advice honed in on "get her sweating" and seemed to believe that there was a literal, causal link between sweating and training the horse to stand. Of course, the advice-giver meant give that horse a job, engage her mind and body, etc. But the OP came back asking "can I make her walk hard enough in 15 minutes to make her sweat"- obviously missing the real point because of being blinded by the literal.

I believe (probably more than most people on the Horse Forum) that you can learn a ton from reading books, reading the forum, etc. I guess that's because I didn't have a lifetime of being around horses to muddle through and make mistakes on my own before learning about theories and approaches by reading about them. But you've also got to get out there and try things your own way without being paralyzed by using "so and so's" method with absolute rigidity.


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## bsms

I'm a backyard rider of backyard horses who started at 50. I fully understand time limits and not knowing what to do next. Buying an Arabian mare from racing lines, possibly not trained to ride, and putting her in a corral and then trying to learn how to ride on her was not in any way a good idea.

But heck! I did ride her. I didn't spend a year doing ground work in a round pen to "teach her respect" - which is a good thing, because it would have only taught her contempt.

I think we both liked each other almost immediately. We had a bond. Tons of bond. No control, but lots of "bond"!

What we lacked was training for both of us. When things got bad enough and dangerous enough, she spent 8 months as a corral pet while I took 4 months of lessons and rode Trooper to try to get better. She then had a trainer work with her - one who concluded Mia had never been broken to ride. Two months of 4 days a week, followed by 2 more months of 2 days a week.

At the 2 month mark, I got on her back - the first time anyone had been on her back in 10 months. Then I did the riding part of the training while the trainer taught us both for the next 2 months. I'm very grateful to the lady. I think a LOT of trainers would have totally missed what was going on.

However, I think even she missed just how reactive Mia was. Even with a lot more experience, I'm not sure I had the riding environment needed to make Mia better. Not while she lived in a corral and in a place where a horse cannot safely run for much more than 1/4 mile.

But the NH stuff I"ve read and watched would have been worthless. It says "Build a bond, then your horse will obey!" Doesn't work that way. I know because Mia and I had a great bond, yet were dangerous together. It claims to teach "respect" in a round pen, although it looks to me a lot more like "How can I make this guy leave me alone?" And even if it DID teach respect in the round pen, that wouldn't carry over to being in the open.

Moates went to clinics with some of the top people - Parelli, Buck - even Ray Hunt. He wrote articles for a national horse magazine. And he eventually rode his horse. But what he probably REALLY needed is what I probably REALLY needed - a year or two of lessons, or at least riding a well trained, confident horse. Cowboy and Bandit are teaching me things I never learned with Mia - things that would have helped me with Mia. I've made more progress in the last three months than in the previous couple of years.

I think NH makes promises it does not keep. It says, "You can do it!" - but sometimes, you cannot. Not without learning how to ride and work with horses the old fashioned way - by DOING IT. I had Mia for 7 years because no one else wanted her and I couldn't let her go to auction. But when someone came along who wanted her, who had experience, who was in his 20s and rode horses 30+ miles for fun, my duty was clear. Let her go.

And now maybe I can really start to learn...


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## bsms

BTW - Moates wrote a book I read yesterday about natural horsemanship. He wrote about taking up riding at 35, and using "natural horsemanship" - the importance of groundwork, how he does 20 minutes of groundwork before riding, etc. He wrote about the problems he had after he bought a horse to learn to ride on, of playing the 7 games with the horse and going to lots of clinics and doing many hours of round pen work.""Essentially all respected clinicians agree not only on the fact that groundwork is the key to safely training a horse, but that some combination of these exercises should be done every time you ride. If it is your horse you are about to ride, groundwork tunes up the minds of both horse and rider and reestablishes the relationship you have..."​I know a lady in her 60s who is happy doing just ground stuff with her horse. Her horse seems OK with it, and I understand. If they both are happy, I'm happy for them.

But I think Moates would have made more progress and stressed his horse less if he had learned "unnatural horsemanship" taking lessons on riding, using horses who knew about being ridden.

Bondre did what I consider realistic natural horsemanship when she took her horse out and did some hand grazing. Horses 'understand' eating while someone is keeping an eye out for them.

And this: "_I went back to her head and backed her one step, and one step forward again. The idea of the manoeuvre was to put her brain back into neutral. I stepped across the ditch again and invited her to follow. I wasn't pulling on the lead rope, just inviting her. And she put her ears forward, stretched her neck out to calculate, and she crossed it with no further ado._"

I think that is beautiful. That is encouraging a horse and developing real trust based on the real world - a distinction I think horses recognize.

" _but I thought that a wither scratch would be more pleasing to her, so did that and let her graze. Then we went back over, and then did it again in a different spot_."

Another good example. Working according to the horse's understanding. Keeping it short. Not repeating ad nauseum until the horse is burnt out.

I think I got more out of that one post than I did out of the book I bought & paid for & spent a few hours reading yesterday. I can learn from her example - don't push Bandit too fast, but don't ignore problem areas. Think about it from Bandit's perspective. Don't be afraid to "fail", reset, then try again.

In some ways, I think these journals can be the best teaching devices on HF. Instead of "I did X and Y resulted", you see the thinking that went into things before someone tried X, and that it didn't turn to Y right away. Bondre is recording a journey. Seeing others en route on a journey reminds me that I won't be "arriving" any time soon. Nor do I need to.


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## Bondre

egrogan said:


> But I am again sympathetic to the fact that some people just simply can't spend 5, 6, 7 hours in a saddle every day to learn feel and timing.... Until I "retire," I'll sadly remain a weekend warrior when it comes to horses and I know I can only progress so much without being able to ride for hours a day. And I am **** jealous of those who do!!


I doubt I've ever spent so many hours in the saddle in one day, unless maybe as a teenager on show days in summertime, when I would ride to the show, do my classes and ride home again (no trailer). Those were long days, but they were few and far between. In school term I was limited to weekend riding in winter and a quick session after school when the days were longer. And then thirty horseless years passed, and now I find myself struggling to spend the time I would like with my two. If I could ride Macarena every day I'm sure I'd have sorted out most of her kinks long ago! But some weeks I can ride only once, and a really good week would be four rides a week, so I don't count myself amongst the hard core lol.

I think feel and timing comes down to how well you relate to animals in general. Experience with herbivorous livestock is more useful in dealing with horses than experience with dogs, and it's obvious many more people have a relationship with a dog than with cows or goats. And a whole lot more people know nothing about animals, and I can sympathize with them entirely. It must be very hard wanting to experience the sort of relationship that humans and horses can achieve, but not knowing how on earth to go about it.



egrogan said:


> I also think that people are _extremely _literal when they get into horses as adults and read forums like this or watch the YouTube videos. Since you don't have that feel and timing...
> 
> I guess that's because I didn't have a lifetime of being around horses to muddle through and make mistakes on my own before learning about theories and approaches by reading about them. But you've also got to get out there and try things your own way without being paralyzed by using "so and so's" method with absolute rigidity.


I guess at their worst, forums can even make beginners too scared to try things for themselves. Some of the people on the training threads can be a bit intimidating, and I can see it would be very hard for an inexperienced person to pick their way through the sometimes conflicting advice. In the end, the oft-repeated 'get yourself a trainer' is the best advice possible.

Obviously the less someone knows, the harder and faster rules they need to follow, so that is where all the DVDs and training clinics come in. When I was young, in order to learn one took lessons, which were at least personalized, but nowadays people believe they can teach themselves with help from their gurus. And I guess that's the problem. A small percentage have the natural ability and the feeling for animals to pull that off successfully, but so many more people just can't. If only the natural horsemanship gurus would turn things around and teach their clients how to relate to their horses in a positive manner, instead of always harping on about respect and giving the impression that horsemanship is all about a fight to be the boss.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> BTW - Moates wrote a book I read yesterday about natural horsemanship. He wrote about taking up riding at 35, and using "natural horsemanship" - the importance of groundwork, how he does 20 minutes of groundwork before riding, etc.....
> But I think Moates would have made more progress and stressed his horse less if he had learned "unnatural horsemanship" taking lessons on riding, using horses who knew about being ridden.


I read your post about this book in your journal with incredulity. 20 minutes on the ground before riding? Every time?? : shock: 

He is right about the value of spending non-riding time with your horse, of course, but I suspect those 20 minutes were for yet more boring groundwork rather than merely hanging out together. And just hanging out together can be time very well spent.



bsms said:


> Bondre did what I consider realistic natural horsemanship when she took her horse out and did some hand grazing. Horses 'understand' eating while someone is keeping an eye out for them.


This is such a simple and basic thing to do - especially for me, as I don't own a fenced field so any and all grazing has to be accompanied - that I don't think twice about it. But yes, you're right that accompanied grazing is really good for forging bonds with your horse. And like Sue said in an earlier post, I instinctively put myself between them and any worrying stimuli, which I hadn't really thought through before but obviously is another great way to get your horse's trust. 



bsms said:


> I think I got more out of that one post than I did out of the book I bought & paid for & spent a few hours reading yesterday. I can learn from her example - don't push Bandit too fast, but don't ignore problem areas. Think about it from Bandit's perspective. Don't be afraid to "fail", reset, then try again.


Thank you so much for your kind words, bsms. I'm pleased that my musings have been helpful. I do agree with you that all these journals are fascinating. So often there is a treasure hidden in someone else's comments, perhaps the key to a problem you're trying to work through, or the germ of an idea to try with your own horse. Someone else's casual comment can turn your own perspective around and make you see something in a new light. 



bsms said:


> In some ways, I think these journals can be the best teaching devices on HF. Instead of "I did X and Y resulted", you see the thinking that went into things before someone tried X, and that it didn't turn to Y right away. Bondre is recording a journey. Seeing others en route on a journey reminds me that I won't be "arriving" any time soon. Nor do I need to.


Hear hear. :cheers:
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Bsms, that "all respected clinicians agree" phrase is so much like a phrase translated in the "How to read a scientific report" parody that went around the labs when I was a university student:

http://www.astro.rug.nl/~terlouw/glossary.html

So, "all respected clinician agree" probably means "a few people I like agree, and the rest are just wrong". :rofl:


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

bsms said:


> Cowboy and Bandit are teaching me things I never learned with Mia - things that would have helped me with Mia. I've made more progress in the last three months than in the previous couple of years....



I think the major flaw of NH is that it takes out the intuition of working with horses. All too often we get so caught up in step 1, step 2, step 3 or if they do this, then you do that, until we are doing all the talking and no listening. 

Gracie, my first mare, taught me that hard lesson (human, you talk too much).

Ghost taught me that horses really aren’t trying to make your life difficult; that beyond even going along to get along, some of them will actually try to make your life easier.

Caspian taught me that all work and no play makes for a dull girl and a bored horse.

Cowboy taught me that there is a difference between creating willingness and obtaining obedience.

Oliver taught me that there is more to horsemanship than round pens and space bubbles. “Respect” needs to be mutual and that both horse and rider must retain their dignity every step of the way. 

There are other lessons each has taught, but if I had only stuck to "the training manual", I would have missed all of that completely. I would imagine, it is a lot like flying a fighter jet, memorizing the manual does not necessarily make a fighter pilot, a good one.


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## bsms

That link references back to before I was born. Guess not much has changed. My favorite advice on writing is that "It should be clear, concise and euphonious - in that order." A lot of insight into good factual writing in one short sentence. It came from an Australian study of animal mimicry written, I believe, in the 60s. Apparently the author was tired of reading bad writing in scientific journals. I was a student and spending a lot of time reading The Journal of Mammalogy and other such exciting tomes, and I knew exactly how he felt.

In Moates' defense, he is an honest writer. He writes about his experiences. He started horses by playing the Parelli games, and then started going to NH clinics around the country. I'm sure most of them DID emphasize groundwork and round pens as essential. After all, why bother learning everything in a round pen if round pens are optional? And how do you hold a clinic riding thru the woods?

Near the end of his first book, he discusses working with someone with cutting horses. He noticed they never did ground work before mounting, and admitted their horses seemed fine. But in his second book, he mentions putting his horse in the round pen to do what they had done "a million times" before. The horse wasn't very receptive. Oh golly - wonder why!

My youngest daughter could read before she started school. She read The Lord of the Rings in second grade. About a month after starting first grade, a friend of ours asked her how she liked school.

"_We're working on "A"s and "B's, and sometimes "C"s. I know "Z". I just want to read_!"

I bought a lot of bits for Mia. She was quite patient about testing them. I'd bring out a new one, and you could hear her say, "_Oh! I'm testing a bit today. Better limber up my tongue to get ready. Hmmm...looks like it has a copper thingy in the middle. Let's see..._" But if I took the same bit out every day and worked on basic responses to the bit every day, she'd have thought I had lost my mind. "_We're working on "A"s and "B's, and sometimes "C"s. I know "Z". I just want to read_!"

:hide:​
The NH market seems geared toward people who want relationships with their horse. But the horses I've met seem to be like guys - they bond by doing things together. Things they both are interested in doing. If you want to bond with a guy (or a horse), go do something together that both of you enjoy.

When my wife's friends come over, they talk about their feelings and their relationships - and I get out of the house and go ride. In that sense, my youngest daughter is more like a 'guy'...or a horse. Just DO something together! Something that makes sense! She flees the house with me.

Natural Horsemanship wants a person to talk to their horse until they are bonded, and claims this will make it safe to ride. I think real horses would rather go do something fun with their human, then let their human go post about it on a journal on HF while they eat hay...:wave:


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## Bondre

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> I think the major flaw of NH is that it takes out the intuition of working with horses. All too often we get so caught up in step 1, step 2, step 3 or if they do this, then you do that, until we are doing all the talking and no listening.


I guess steps 1, 2, 3 etc. are there to make training idiot-proof for novices, and to make horse training seem much easier than it actually is. As if anyone can take a horse and train it, rather like learning to knit or do simple DIY. As you say, in order to develop a real relationship with our horse we need to listen more than we talk. I think that often, deep inside, we know how to address a problem with our horse, as long as we don't start worrying about respect or whether we are really in charge; we need to forget the steps, and follow our own instincts. 



Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> Gracie, my first mare, taught me that hard lesson (human, you talk too much).
> 
> Ghost taught me that horses really aren’t trying to make your life difficult; that beyond even going along to get along, some of them will actually try to make your life easier.
> 
> Caspian taught me that all work and no play makes for a dull girl and a bored horse.
> 
> Cowboy taught me that there is a difference between creating willingness and obtaining obedience.
> 
> Oliver taught me that there is more to horsemanship than round pens and space bubbles. “Respect” needs to be mutual and that both horse and rider must retain their dignity every step of the way.
> 
> There are other lessons each has taught, but if I had only stuck to "the training manual", I would have missed all of that completely. I would imagine, it is a lot like flying a fighter jet, memorizing the manual does not necessarily make a fighter pilot, a good one.


I wonder what Macarena is teaching me? I think she is needing me to be patient with her nervous spells at present and listen.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> I wonder what Macarena is teaching me? I think she is needing me to be patient with her nervous spells at present and listen.


 
Confucius say...the oxen are slow, but the earth is patient.:lol:


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## Bondre

Oh my. Time to take a big step back and consider things. 

We had a truly awful ride two days ago, if you can call it a ride because I had to lead Macarena for half of it. She was in a nervous state almost the whole ride; on the way out she baulked and refused to go forward three times, and on the way back she just wanted to get home in a rush. She was acting as if she is either - suddenly - very herd bound, or very scared to be out and about. 

Ever since the dirtbike incident she has been nervy, but yesterday was just over the top. We are unable to do something as simple as going out for a short ride without getting in a state. In hindsight, I suspect that much of the problem was it was too late to go out (in her opinion). She seems more nervous at dusk, perhaps because her right eye has less than perfect vision and the vet says that she sees poorly in that eye at low light intensities. But then again, I have always been an afternoon or evening rider with her, so she is accustomed to coming home at dusk and this shouldn't be a problem.

And this is what I am finding hard to understand. Why she is getting stressed about simply going out and doing the same things that two months ago were absolutely no problem? Why was the dirtbike incident such a big deal? Yes, she was pretty frightenend, but nothing went badly wrong. She tried to take off bucking, I circled her and brought her back to me, she felt trapped and reared, and then we went home, first jogging and finally at walk on a loose rein. The next time she was scared when she heard the bike, (but didn't see it), she was losing her head and I dismounted. Nothing went wrong then either. We walked, she pulled and tried a few aerial movements beside me, and gradually she calmed down. 

Well, I suspect I should have heeded her baulking the other evening, turned her round and done something else, but stubbornly I insisted on continuing (so as not to let her win? All this dominance psychology dies hard.) I paid for my bad decision - nothing awful happened, but she darn nearly pulled my arm off leading her home. It was like leading an excited stallion but without the stallion chain. And whenever there was something genuinely scary (irrigation sluices, roosting pigeons crashing around in the trees) she jumped sideways and once tried rearing and plunging.

I kept talking to her and occasionally she relaxed for a moment but then her head would be up again and pulling like a train. Not helped by the fact that she's used to walking home on a loose rein, using seat and leg cues to keep her at a walk if she tries to speed up; taking contact on the reins is the cue for trot. But on the lead, there are no leg or seat cues, so all I could do was use brute force to hold her back, while she tried to acclerate in response to the rein pressure. I kept thinking that if I let go she would race back in the near darkness, almost certainly hurting herself and anyone she met en route. So I was massively relieved when we got back to the yard in one piece. As soon as home was in sight, she relaxed. No more pulling. A happy and relieved horse. The forest devils hadn't eaten her, despite her stupid human trying to dawdle through the forest instead of mountingn up and getting the **** out of that dark place.

So what have I learnt?

She is scared of leaving home in the evening.

Don't push her to do something she is manifestly nervous about - even if she could do that same thing perfectly two months ago.

I need to teach her ways of relaxing, both under saddle and on the lead. The head down cue would be useful on the lead. I hope disengagement will work under saddle.

She needs a lot more work, which is a problem at present as time is in short supply. She needs riding or working with daily. I'm sure some of the problem is because she's feeling too full of herself and nothing to do with all that energy too. If she had to work a few hours a day, I'm sure most of her nervousness would disappear.


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## Bondre

Yesterday I lunged her, to make a change and not wanting an immediate repeat of the other evening. I haven't lunged her for ages - maybe a year - as I don't see the point in doing it routinely just because. She has mostly forgotten the voice aids, and at first when I asked her to go out into the circle she didn't understand. And once she realized what I wanted, she wasn't best pleased. 

She was giving me a fair bit of attitude, complying with the general idea of going in a circle, but embellishing the circle with unasked-for movements:

Here she's saying "I don't want to canter...."



".... but if I MUST canter, I'll do it MY way."











After the excitement, she settled and did some nice floaty trot. Here she's still giving me a bit of attitude with her head towards me. 



Unfortunately my son didn't take any more pictures of her trotting because (in his words), she looks more spectacular when she's misbehaving. But she did manage a decent couple of circles, and I called it a day before she got annoyed.

And finally, a calm horse waiting for a reward.



So what do you guys see in these photos (apart from the obvious of a misbehaving horse)? Is she just fresh and having a ball? Is she being *disrespectful*? Is she telling me where to go? I personally think the former, but perhaps I'm being too indulgent.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> I kept talking to her and occasionally she relaxed for a moment but then her head would be up again and pulling like a train. Not helped by the fact that she's used to walking home on a loose rein, using seat and leg cues to keep her at a walk if she tries to speed up; taking contact on the reins is the cue for trot. But on the lead, there are no leg or seat cues, *so all I could do was use brute force to hold her back, while she tried to acclerate in response to the rein pressure.* I kept thinking that if I let go she would race back in the near darkness, almost certainly hurting herself and anyone she met en route. So I was massively relieved when we got back to the yard in one piece. As soon as home was in sight, she relaxed. No more pulling. A happy and relieved horse.


 Can I ask what you think might have happened if instead of letting her drag you along if you had circled her energy around, asked her to stop and back up? Would that have pushed her over the edge?


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## Bondre

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> Can I ask what you think might have happened if instead of letting her drag you along if you had circled her energy around, asked her to stop and back up? Would that have pushed her over the edge?


I tried backing her a few times but she would not. She was too hyped up, too focussed on getting back home asap.

I had to dismount twice to get her forward when she baulked, and was planning on mounting up at the irrigation sluices and riding the last section. But I couldn't get her settled enough to mount. She doesn't have any withers as such, so I need a high spot to mount from or the saddle slips sideways, and in her nervous state she wouldn't line up beside the edge of the concrete pipes I wanted to stand on. I tried backing her up and disengaging her, but no good. She didn't take one single step backwards.

In the end I did mount up, but to my dismay we were on the wrong side of the irrigation channel which meant backtracking five metres to the crossing point, and she blatantly refused. Of course, she didn't know I only wanted to backtrack a little. Maybe she thought I wanted to head off for another hour through the forest, and she said NO WAY.

So I had to dismount again and that's why I ended up leading her home.  And yes, I did circle her a few times on the way, when she was getting too strong, and it did help. We also stopped and contemplated the scary irrigation sluices, which I thought was pretty good, but then when we walked forward she did a massive spook.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

It sounds like you were a bit frightened yourself! I figured you had a reason for not trying it. 

Sometimes on the ground, taking their forward movement (their idea) and getting them to do a round about you (your idea), then asking them to stop and then back up(making your idea their idea) works. Try doing this a few times randomly on lead when she is _not_ in a mood and wait for her to relax, give a nice scratch, kind word and then move on again. 

You may find that she will transfer that behavior pattern (habit) into times when she is a bit anxious and you need to repeat the maneuver. Old Ghost's eyesight isn't so good anymore either and he gets very anxious walking through the woods at dusk or at night so you may be onto something there.


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## Bondre

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> It sounds like you were a bit frightened yourself! I figured you had a reason for not trying it.


I wasn't exactly relaxed! But I tried very hard to keep calm, although I had to be quite forceful on occasions. But yes, I find I get a nasty anxious feel in the pit of my stomach when she is scared and tense. I don't let this affect my riding, but perhaps she can pick up on it anyway. I don't believe I can control this - that's the worst about anxiety. So I need to prevent her bouts of nervousness rather than trying to work through them, in case my own anxiety when she gets explosive is aggravating the situation.



Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> Sometimes on the ground, taking their forward movement (their idea) and getting them to do a round about you (your idea), then asking them to stop and then back up(making your idea their idea) works. Try doing this a few times randomly on lead when she is _not_ in a mood and wait for her to relax, give a nice scratch, kind word and then move on again.
> 
> You may find that she will transfer that behavior pattern (habit) into times when she is a bit anxious and you need to repeat the maneuver.


I'll try that. I like the idea of teaching her several relaxing movements like this and getting them habitual.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## egrogan

Bondre, not sure if this applies to where you live, but I have noticed that the light is changing pretty dramatically here as the season changes. So even though you've always ridden her at dusk, is the dusk light actually making the shadows play differently? Not that it's an excuse to be so amped up, but I wonder if things look scary in a new way?

I only ask because I've been riding in the late afternoon myself, and this week Isabel has been snorting at ghosts in the woods like she had never been there before, even though we ride that same route at about the same time of day all the time. The late day light is really different now than it was a month ago, so I assume that's got something to do with her reaction.


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## Bondre

You're right that the evening light is changing fast. Also the night falls extremely fast here around the equinoxes - (is this a real effect of the sun's position over the equator, or an illusion?). Once the sun gets near the horizon, it disappears and night falls on next to no time. 

I was caught out by this the other evening, and it got dark much faster than I had anticipated. Probably the horses are more tuned in to these seasonal changes than us humans, as we live surrounded by electricity and daylight changes don't make such a huge impact on us.

The goats are also noticing the change of season. For the past two weeks, they have been coming violently into season. This is in fact the first time I've ever noticed this equinoctial heat, as up to this year we have bred them in late summer to kid in the new year, so normally they were placidly pregnant at this time of year.

But no so this year. We aren't planning on putting the billies in with them until Christmas, to kid in May, so the goats are having to be patient. You can tell who is on heat because they all line up at the gate which is closest to the billies' pen, bleating and wiggling their tails. And the smell and noise of the billies adds fuel to the goats' fire, (they snort and pee into their beards, which seems irresistible for a goat :shock: )

So if you've ever wondered WHY male goats smell so bad, that's why - they perfume themselves with their specially scented ****. It's got to be a winner with the ladies :rofl:
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SueC

Bondre said:


> So if you've ever wondered WHY male goats smell so bad, that's why - they perfume themselves with their specially scented ****. It's got to be a winner with the ladies :rofl:
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


At least it doesn't contain any phthalates! ;-)


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## Bondre

It's been a while since I updated this and a LOT has happened....

It turns out that Macarena has fallen through the holes I left in her early training and all of a sudden I have a horse that doesn't do all sorts of things we could do with NO problem one month ago.

She doesn't like to go out on her own.

She is frequently tense, even when she is in company of Flamenca.

When she is tense, she gets explosive and probably bucks or rears. 

So instead of a horse who I could take all around with few problems, I now have a horse in need of an attitude adjustment. The positive thing about this (it's important to look for the positive things even in times of adversity) is that I am learning some useful stuff about how to train using positive reinforcement... and I've found out that her bucks aren't as scary as I feared 

Once all this s*** hit the fan, the first attitude adjustment needed was for me. I couldn't believe that things could go awry SO fast with a horse. Honestly, it happened over the course of three rides. One scare after another because I didn't realise the depth of her nervousness at first, and threw her into situations that she could no longer handle thus worsening her nerviness. I realised that dusk was a bad time for her, almost certainly aggravated by her right eye problem (the vet told me that her iris is "stuck" in one position so doesn't compensate for low light conditions). So I took her out at 5pm, no vision problems at that time, yet she threw a wobbly 30m from the yard and I realised that things were worse than I had thought. 

Part of the problem is that in the past six weeks, I have had very little time for riding or groundwork. If I could ride her every day and give her a job, I am sure we would work through her nervy problems in a hurry. But only having an hour or so to spend on training two or three times a week isn't great for fixing a barnsour horse.

I started her on groundwork again. She has always been antsy about staying put in one plaqce, so I decided we would work on that. And went for positive reinforcement using small pieces of dry bread. What a success! She honestly tries her heart out to not move her feet! Except she's such a fidgety sort that it's blatantly very hard for her. I could not believe how hard she tries just because she knows that if she doesn't shift, she'll get a small crust of baguette.  

I drop her leadrope on the ground and tell her QUIETA. Raise my hand in a stop signal. And walk slowly backwards. Her head stretches towards me. She shifts one foreleg. I put it back in its place. And we try again,. When she has been still for long enough, and I can tell she can't take it much longer, I relent and give her the piece of bread. The amazing thing is that such an apparently SIMPLE lesson is proving instrumental in helping her to relax under saddle. 

I have ridden her twice in the last 8 days, both times accompanied by Flamenca plus rider. The first time she did great, hardly any stress except when there was a large puddle to be negotiated. But the funny thing was that she has already learnt the sound of the bumbag (read fanny pack lol) I use to keep the bits of bread AKA treats. When we trotted the bumbag bounced and made a small noise, and she put her ears right back and was listening to see if I was opening the zip and getting something out. 

Amazing. The power of positive reinforcement. 

I've only used the bumbag for training on 3 occasions and she already knows the sound it makes. Even when we're trotting across an open field with a friend and she might well be excited and thinking more about getting in front than about imperceptible bumbag noises. And later on when we had a very exciting canter and both of them were snorting like dragons, a piece of bread was enough to bring her right down off her emotion high and help her relax.

Today was even more incredible. We set out later than I had wanted to, only one hour to dusk so bordering on danger time, and my DH arrived on DS's 49cc dirtbike just as we were mounting up. Seeing as the dirtbikes were the original trigger that caused all this nervousness, I wondered if we'd be Ok, but the 49cc isn't noisy like the bigger bikes so I reckoned she could cope fine.

Well, we were only 150m from home and Flamenca was being bolshy and Macarena bunching up ready to throw a few bucks. DH was coming up behind on the dirtbike, and Macarena decided that it was JUST the excuse she needed to do some acrobatics. This was pure high spirits from lack of exercise, no genuine fear involved, so I corrected her and gestured to DH to stay back as things were looking dicey, and said to my son (who was on Flamenca) that we were going to trot until further notice.

We trotted. And trotted. Macarena tried a few more bucks along the way, and got corrected. She relaxed and started to sweat. Flamenca sweated and thought of walking. And we trotted some more. 

When we got to the point that I decided to head for home, of course the horses knew immediately and tried to up the pace, and the antics. Time to walk. We established a walk on a loose rein, after a few corrections, and as a reward I opened the bread bag and gave Macarena her first crust. When we continued her head was lower and she was more relaxed. There were two crossroads on the way home, potentially causes of nervous tension as she is aware it's a place where we make choices about the route, and at each one I asked for a halt and then gave her a piece of bread. Each time her relaxation was visible. 

If anyone has read through this novel, my conclusion is:

We have a long way to go. Our relationship, and her confidence in me, is improving again thanks to the bumbag and the bread crusts. Positive reinforcement using food is a VERY strong motivation for Macarena. She is not getting pushy or rude as a result. (In fact, she was more pushy before, but that was my fault because I thought it was a minor issue and didn't affect our work under saddle.)

And very importantly:

A treat as a distraction, rather than "making her move her feet" is just as valid a way to get us both through a nervous situation and achieve relaxation. 

And at the end of the day, if we find our way forward thanks to the bumbag and the bread, I don't think I need to apologise to anyone for this :hide: (Shades of the recent thread on positive reinforcement coming through here)  :thumbsup:


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## Bondre

I'm glad to say that I've been managing to spend a bit more time with the girls recently and the routine work is helping Macarena. I have given her several lunging sessions, working on acceptance and relaxation. 

We do walk and trot circles, stop and rest, ground tie, reward when she stands still, and repeat on the other rein. She has been giving me some attitude on the lunge, with repeated explosions of bucking. At best, she gives the snaky head swing at one point on the circle, which is a mild form of defiance. After asking for advice here on the training section, I got firm with her yesterday over the bucking. Up until now I have just given her a fierce tug on the lunge line when she plays up, but this hasn't seemed to discourage her much, so yesterday I upped the negative energy when she started with the bucking. I didn't actually make contact with the lunge whip because it's not long enough for the circle size at the canter, but the intention was there, and she knew it. We had a lot of defiant canter, less bucking towards the end, and ended on a few circles of relaxed trot without a single snaky head swing. Then more ground tying and relaxation together. I think the session was a success. 

Today I took them out to our small piece of land for hand grazing. There's new autumn grass now thanks to the rain, growing between the piles of giant bales of fodder and the plastic-wrapped mini-silos of alfalfa that look like a bunch of gigantic white eggs. Plenty of stuff to look at! I put her headcollar on and saddled her, to ride her up there and see how she did. It's maybe 500m away from the yard, and the last time I rode her in this direction she stalled out three times in those 500m because of her extreme barn-sourness. My son had Flamenca on the lead rope, but he kept behind us, so Macarena knew that her friend was there for support but that she had to go first. 

I'm pleased to say that we didn't have a single problem. She was relaxed and forward. I was anticipating a major stall-out at some point, trying to turn for home and threatening to rear if I didn't allow her. And was planning to get off her, make her do circles around me at the double, and then get back on again and try again. Fortunately I didn't have to put my plan to the test as she behaved fine.

She was much more relaxed while hand-grazing too. The last time I took them to the field, just a week ago, she was really looky and kept frightening herself over trifles. Today she was much more settled and actually made the most of the opportunity for stuffing in some greens. She had a minor fright over the rustly plastic that covers the giant bales and that was all. 

She's been helping me in the afternoons to fix an old wooden door that separates off the back part of the their yard. They had managed to pull the entire door frame out of the wall :shock: (all that bum-scratching) and the door was hanging at a drunken angle. (The yard where the horses live isn't ours, and I must say much of the building is old and rather worn, and not all of it is resistant to large animals with itchy bums lol). I had shut them out of that part of the yard, but it needed fixing, so I took a sack of plaster and the necessary tools and set to work yesterday. 

Macarena had a great time helping me on the job. She is such a curious soul and I think she was pleased to see me around the place, doing something that wasn't directly involving her. ALthough she got involved right from the start! She stuck her nose in my bucket of water, in the sack of dry plaster (white muzzle), and then tried licking the wet plaster. That was a definite no-no, as it's fast-setting and wouldn't be at all good in her stomach, so I washed her nose off and told her the bucket was MINE. But she still kept close track of the operation like a good overseer.

In the end the door is back in its place and the horses have been entertained, so it was a job well done


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre, in the end, I have found all of the advice in the world is only as good as it works for your horse. If it works for you then use it. If it doesn’t work, file it away for later use with a different horse or a different situation, as it may be perfectly good advice that simply didn’t work in this specific situation.

Stay mentally flexible and innovate where needed, get hard when necessary and soft when you can. It will all work out eventually!:wink:


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## Bondre

RCD, I think your above statement is a very profound truth that we should all ponder at intervals.

If you were referring obliquely to the varying advice I received on my lunging thread, well, in fact the advice to toughen up was what worked. Combined of course with our positive reinforcement "programme" which continues to pay off good dividends. 

I lunged her once and corrected the attitude - the snaky head stuff - and the bucking. She did a lot of antsy cantering. Got rid off plenty of excess energy. And after the cantering and the protests, she started to listen and trotted nicely. When she is relaxed on the lunge, she stretches her neck right down and does brief stretches of trot with her nose close to the ground. My son took some videos so I'll see if I can get a screenshot of this. I am thinking this is good, but am I right on this?

Anyway, since the lunging session I think I have ridden her out three times together with Flamenca. Each time I notice her more relaxed. If she gets nervous about something, I ask for self-control first, and once we have achieved that, I cue her to a faster gait (trot) which is a great way to get her concentrating. But first we must control our nervous reaction, so the trot ISN'T an escape from the scary stimulus in any way.

We have done this successfully with a moped coming up behind her on two occasions. She really doesn't like noises behind her - could this be in part because of her defective vision? - but if the source of the noise passes her, she relaxes immediately. If I stop her and tun her to see the noisy object, it helps a lot. 

Two days ago we went hill-climbing together. They both did great. It was an easy and relaxed ride at a slow pace - just walk and trot - and Macarena didn't put a foot wrong. Today we went on a faster route. We did a good long trot on the outward leg of the ride, and some canter. No problems at all - no snaky heads, no bucking. We relaxed after the canter and they grazed. Then another canter, this time rather faster, ..... and Flamenca flipped. She gets like this occasionally, she doesn't want to stop and gives my son a pretty hard time. 

So today it was - again - Macarena who was calm and relaxed after the canter, and Flamenca who was jogging with her head in the air. We tried halting and relaxing. We tried circles and serpentines. We tried deep seat and loose hips. We tried contact and lack of contact. (Read here "I suggested and my son tried"). But Flamenca kept up with the irritating jogging and head-chucking. In the meantime, Macarena was halting when asked, walking freely on a loose rein, and generally behaving like a star 

In the end we both dismounted and walked for a while. When my son mounted up again, Flamenca had relaxed and walked happily on a loose rein. I continued to lead Macarena home setting as she's fine (normally) being ridden home but needs practise leading on a loose rein. She was fine anyway. No jogging or dancing or freaking (as in that memorable occasion in the pine forest) - despite the fact that it was advanced dusk by that time and supposedly her "scared" time. 

My son asked me how I taught Macarena not to pull and rush on the way home. And I can't even remember! It just happened. I remember one day she was pulling really hard and my arms were worn out when we got home. And another day I did circles with her, and the going home on a loose rein just seemed to happen spontaneously :shock:

So now I need to recreate the same miraculous learning with Flamenca. I am going to have to take her out on her own and teach her not to fuss on the home leg. The problem is that if she's on her own, she doesn't get fired up in the same way as she does when the two of them canter together. So I can't work effectively on calming her down when she doesn't get hot in the first place. 

I wish I had taken the camera with me! Flamenca is a beautiful horse, even (especially?) when she's fussing. And this is her at 19..... after having foundered and still suffering from thin soles (though she wears boots of course )..... I wonder what she was like in her prime?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

I am so glad to hear of your progress! Someone once said "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result". If something isn't working at all or things are getting worse, it is time to shift gears. 

My old boy Ghost, arthritis and all, is special to me...I also wonder what he was like in his prime and wish I could have known him then, I bet he was a sight to behold!


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## Bondre

We went for a peaceful hand-grazing walk down the grass verges this evening. Here are some moonlit dusk shots of the girls. 






_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## egrogan

Bondre, love those photos of the moonlight grazing. We've had big, bright "supermoons" here this week and I've been dreaming of going out on a moonlight trail ride- something I _will _do at some point in my life but not something I've experienced yet. Hard to do when you have a horse at a boarding barn, not at home...

How are the girls doing?


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## bsms

"_If she gets nervous about something, I ask for self-control first, and once we have achieved that, I cue her to a faster gait (trot) which is a great way to get her concentrating. But first we must control our nervous reaction, so the trot ISN'T an escape from the scary stimulus in any way._"​I've tried this with Bandit a few times lately, and been pleased with the results. If he is a little nervous and tries to trot without being asked, I slow him, we do a circle, then we move forward and I ask him for a trot.

I think of it as threat rings, probably because I used to be an electronic warfare officer dealing with surface to air missile sites. There is a threat ring around a surface to air missile. It isn't a perfect circle because it is easier to shoot someone coming straight at you than someone on the side, and a target moving away from you has to be run down - which is tough.

I think horses instinctively know that. They obviously don't want to go straight at a predator. If they are going past one, then having a little speed will make any escape easier. And it is obviously tough for a cougar to run down a horse from behind.

I don't think a trash can is likely to EVER run down a horse, but Bandit seems to understand the trade-off between distance and speed: At a walk, he wants more distance between him and a threat. At a trot, he'll cut it closer since he's already moving faster. But I want to be the one telling him to do it.

This nailed it: _

"*I ask for self-control first, and once we have achieved that*, I cue [him] to a faster gait (trot) which is a great way to get [him] concentrating..._"


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## Bondre

egrogan said:


> I've been dreaming of going out on a moonlight trail ride- something I _will _do at some point in my life but not something I've experienced yet. Hard to do when you have a horse at a boarding barn, not at home...


Hope you get to go on that ride sometime 



egrogan said:


> How are the girls doing?


They're fine thanks :thumbsup: . My problem is lack of time now the clocks have changed - but we're all suffering from that one - but I suspect they don't mind too much if they don't get ridden. I'm very busy right now with goats and so on, and the poor horses are getting the short end of the stick. I wish I had a big field for them so they could be a bit more active in their free time. 

Mind you, this afternoon when I went to take them out hand-grazing, they were obviously bored and were playing together, despite the relatively reduced dimensions of their yard. Even Flamenca was bucking - so I reckon her front hooves must feel pretty OK if she does that. After we left the yard they took a while to settle and concentrate on eating; we had a few fake frights "just for fun" and I would have loved to let Macarena loose to work some energy out of her system. But there was a bunch of broccoli-pickers, tractors and a huge container lorry down the road, and a loose horse wouldn't have combined well with them.
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## Bondre

The last week has been one of those weeks when everything goes awry, so I'll warn anyone who's thinking of reading this that it still be a bit of a grump.

First and foremost, we have goat problems. We bought a handful of young females one month ago. Kept them in quarantine for three weeks just in case. They had some recurring diarrhoea which we treated, and one of them came with a bit of conjunctivitis. This is called agalaxia and is caused by mycoplasms; we have it at a low level in our own herd and we vaccinate every six months; occasionally we get a goat with a sore eye, we treat her and re-vaccinate, and no problem. So we weren't too bothered by the conjunctivitis, we vaccinated all the new arrivals and the sore eyes cleared up.

BUT (isn't there always a but?) last week we saw a case of conjunctivitis in our goats, still separate from the new arrivals. And then another case and another. And in next to no time, it has spread like wildfire through the herd  . We vaccinated them for agalaxia last month so they should be covered, but whatever, they are all catching it, some just mildly and others very severely. The vet has taken tear samples for analysis to see if this is a different strain of agalaxia, and in the meantime we have re-vaccinated and are giving hundreds of antibiotic eyedrops every day. We are gradually seeing an improvement, but it is an uphill struggle. The affected goats constantly rub their sore eyes on the walls, gates, mangers, other goats.... so they continually reinfect each other. Systemic antibiotics would be a solution, but then we would have to throw the milk away for ten days until there were no residues in the milk.... so we're doing our best with the topical treatment and see if we can beat the bacterial ******s! 

In the midst of all this, we have also had a couple of cases of diarrhea. One very severe, with the goat on question bellowing in pain for almost two days. She was on penicillin and anti-spasmodic pills, plus electrolytes and a big blanket to keep her warm. She pulled through, against all prognostics, but today there was another case. Slimy diarrhea with convulsions and intense pain. The new patient is in the quarantine pen tonight (with the first patient, now convalescing) and she is going to have a rough night. 

We don't know if this virulent diarrhea has also come from the new arrivals, but it seems highly likely. These are the first animals we have introduced into our herd for years, because even with apparently healthy animals there is always the danger of introducing different strains of bacteria which can run through a herd like a dose of salts. 

And now, to make matters worse, the horses are off colour too. This actually has me more worried than the goats, as we know quite a lot more about veterinary treatments for goats than for horses. First was Flamenca who was off her feed three days back. She didn't eat much for a day and had symptoms of mild colic, but by yesterday she was back to normal. horses And yesterday Macarena followed suit. But today SHE has watery diarrhea, which Flamenca didn't have, and which is far more worrying for me. She has eaten a little, grazed half-heartedly this evening, and is drinking plenty, so I will see how she looks tomorrow and decide whether we need the vet. 

Of course the internet is full of "call the vet immediately for acute diarrhea" advice, and I lack experience of horses' digestive complaints to know if she is a vet case or not. I DO realise that they are delicate creatures, gut-wise. And I would very much like to know whether this is caused by the same bacteria as in the goats, that maybe I have unwittingly carried down to the horses on my clothes. That would be too awful :-( At least Macarena doesn't seem too bad, she's just apathetic but definitely not in pain or with a temperature. She's extra sweet and loving too, hangs around looking for scratches and hugs, so she's getting lots of love.

Almost forgot to mention that the car key broke in the ignition this week too. We bought this car second-hand this summer, didn't have another key for it, so we had to change the ignition and the locks.... sigh. 

Definitely one of those weeks.
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## egrogan

Sorry to hear that Bondre. I don't know anything about goats, but I know the kind of problem you describe is often a fear of bringing new chickens into a generally closed flock. It sounds too coincidental to _not _be related to the new goats though. Sorry you're dealing with it. The diarrhea sounds positively awful for everyone!

Again, knowing nothing about goats, maybe it's worth a call to the vet to ask if the types of bacteria/protozoa that cause goat digestive upset can jump to horses? 

Conversely, is there something unusual blooming/growing now that they all have access to that would give everyone those symptoms? Or a common water source that should be tested?

And as you said, seeing that kind of diarrhea in any of my animals, I probably would be the person getting a vet out, as it can just pull an animal down so fast.

Wish I could be more helpful! But I am sending you good thoughts for the entire herd.


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## Bondre

Thanks for the good thoughts, egrogan. They have helped with the horses, because to my enormous relief Macarena is noticeably better today. She is still off her food - except grass and alfalfa hay, so that's what she's eaten today, in small quantities. Her stools are better than yesterday, though still loose, and she has more energy for life today.

There are various bacteria that cause diarrhea in both goats and horses, though I would of course need to send a sample, and the laboratory is terribly slow which is discouraging. If it was a matter of life or death, the results just wouldn't arrive in time. 

We took the tear samples from the goats last Tuesday, apparently they didn't get to the lab until Friday, and we won't receive the first results until next week. I say the first results because if it IS mycoplasms, as I suspect, they take a week to culture, so we won't know for sure until the weekend.... If we were waiting on the lab results to start treatment, the goats would all be blind by then. So we have to treat them blind if we want to save their sight. Haha. Bad joke.
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## knightrider

This thread is fascinating! I can't tell you how much I loved reading it. I could have clicked "like" on every single post and clogged everybody's mailbox.

All the information about the amigdala and the horse brain really has me thinking about my own formerly psycho mare. Why is she still so reactive in the trailer when she loads so easily?

I really really enjoyed all the intelligent responses.

I am so sorry about the goat problems and hope they are now resolved. I am looking forward to the next installment, and I am confident that you will overcome Macarena and Flamenca's idiosyncrasies.

I am beginning to see that the journal part of Horse Forum is the place to go!


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## Bondre

^^^^ I'm pleased you've enjoyed the thread, knightrider. You're right, there have been some really good interchanges here on the subject of fear and how to work through it and give your horse confidence. I'm looking forward to reading more of Isabeau's journal to hear just how psychotic she was, and how you worked through it together. 

I'm afraid I've had little riding time recently, and that, combined with our livestock sanitary hiccup, means that the mares are having a lazy time. I am ITCHING to ride but there are SO many things to do and so little time.... :-( Anyway, although I'm not riding much I'm taking them hand-grazing almost daily, which is a nice routine for us too. Both of them really appreciate the time we spend verge-crawling! Even when they both had iffy digestive systems they enjoyed going out and wandering, even if they didn't actually eat much. 

Macarena is very relaxed again, and I'm hoping that when I have time to take her out on her own, she will comply without problems. Recently, I've always ridden her in company with Flamenca, so I don't know if she's forgotten about being barn sour or not. 

The goat situation is improving, thanks. I think we are into the final throes of the epidemic. Two formerly blind goats have recovered their sight, and there's only been one serious new case. And fortunately the diarrhea business isn't as highly contagious as the eye problems.
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## Bondre

Here's a video of us working in our "schooling" fields in the summer, before the dirtbike blip. How do we look?

......

No, the video link to photobucket didn't work. Shame. Is YouTube the only way to share videos?
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## egrogan

Glad the goats are on the upswing!
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## Bondre

Grazing photos from yesterday. 

"If I were a blade of grass...."






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## Bondre

This afternoon I had my first solo ride on Macarena in ages.... since she started her nervous hiccup back in September. Since then I have taken her out with Flamenca but not alone, so it was a bit of a trial to see whether she's forgotten her nerves... or not.

She did pretty well, and considering I've barely ridden her in the past month and not at all in two weeks, I think she was very good. The dogs came too, both very pleased to be accompanying us on our ride. 

A side note on the dogs: only one of them is actually mine. That's Astrid, the pyrenean mastiff cross. The other dog is an aging German Shepherd who first appeared round here last year. He came and went whenever there was a ***** on heat (frequent, as there are five bitches resident here). Two months ago he came when Astrid was on heat, and this time he didn't leave. I like him and I gave him a name (Germán), affection and food. While he wasn't very skinny, I don't think he's used to receiving affection because he went overboard with a few strokes and now he absolutely dotes on me. And shows no interest in returning to wherever he lived previously. He now lives down at the stables - though he's free to come and go as he wishes. DH doesn't trust him around our livestock, which is fair enough as he licks his lips when he sees the chickens or goat kids... but a horse is obviously too large for him to consider as food lol! 



Anyway, back to our ride. The first km Macarena was a bit sticky; she was clearly thinking of turning for home, but decided to go with me for the time being. We came across some coloured plastic tapes that were signing the route of an atb race this morning. She stepped over one tape but further on there were two strips just ahead of a turning which led back home. The previously harmless blue plastic was a sufficient motive in her books to turn for home. 

We had a brief discussion which involved various lateral and backwards movements. But no upwards movements which was good. Suddenly she gave in, and we continued with no further comments on the blue plastic strips. 

On the way home she felt more nervous and reactive, but maybe it's just because is much more forward. She seems to be waiting for the merest hint from my legs to leap into action. However, she controlled herself and we walked home (mostly) on a loose rein, which was very good. She survived the unexpected braying of two nearby donkeys, a lot of noisy magpies going to their roost, and Astrid's excited yelping when she almost caught a rabbit. Germán always follows at heel, but he ran off to join Astrid when he heard that, and of course Macarena didn't want to be left behind with me lol. I had to convince her that we aren't really prepared for rabbit hunting between the pine trees, and it was better to continue walking down the track.

Anyway, all in all a good ride though pretty tame. I hope we can gradually work back to re-expanding our horizons now we seem to be reestablishing ourselves as a team.
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## Bondre

We went out on Sunday after a week without a single ride. How I hate short winter days! We started out fine, with Germán, the stray Alsatian in close attendance.



I headed across the dreaded fields where she got scared with the noisy dirtbikes, with my son in attendance on his nice quiet bmx ;-) Macarena was thinking of turning back every twenty strides, and Flamenca didn't help things by neighing constantly back in the yard. She made her stand at the far end of the fields, near the dark line of tall cypress trees that she's always disliked. She was going home, end of story.

We had a five minute discussion up and down the road - more down than up, ie: she was winning - until suddenly she gave in. I urged her forwards into a trot, but we hadn't gone far when she baulked again, this time at some large cement irrigation wells on either side of the road. I had to dismount and lead her past. Remounted and she baulked again at some plastic crates. Any excuse was good! It was clear that when she first said that she wasn't OK with going out in this direction, she meant it.

So I led her further on and let her hand graze for ten minutes, hoping to establish good mental connections with being out and about.



Then we headed home, with me on foot. She's pretty good about walking home on a loose rein when I'm riding, but I've had less success leading her home when she's nervous so I wanted to correct this problem. And I had a new idea up my sleeve, thanks to a thread here on this subject.

When she started pulling, arching her neck and prancing impatiently, I turned her around and made her back up. Towards home. I have never done large distances in reverse with her before, and she had to really work getting those hind legs moving. She did really well, all I had to do was tap her knees lightly with the crop to keep her going. We had to back up twice, after the second stretch in reverse she decided out was better to walk out calmly beside me.



When we got home, I lunged her. She was good on the lunge too, especially at the trot. She gave me some beautiful collected trot. And then some farty bucking canter lol, until she settled and cantered properly.



And at the end we got to open the treat bag ;-)



I'm sure that with some consistent work she would forget this barnsour business, but unfortunately consistent work just isn't possible at present. So I'll just carry on doing what we can until days get longer and our work timetable gets easier to combine with riding.
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## egrogan

Bondre said:


>


She certainly has good looks on her side. This picture looks like it should be on the cover of a training manual or something like that. Really nice photo.

I can completely sympathize about the difficulty of creating a consistent work routine during these short days. Wish I had better suggestions. I'm also dealing with an amped up horse the days I do make it out to ride. She's not as committed to the fight as it sounds like your girl is though. When I get Isabel in the clear and let her have a good long canter, she is usually ready to call it quits pretty quickly, so I push her on just a little further and then she gets her head back and is ready for a walk again. I'm already dreaming about warm summer evening! Just six more months, right?!


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## Bondre

egrogan said:


> She certainly has good looks on her side. This picture looks like it should be on the cover of a training manual or something like that. Really nice photo.


Thanks!  She was actually checking to see if I was getting a treat out for her. Judicious treat-giving when riding is giving good results, and has got us through some nervous moments. I'm considering trying her with clicker training, which will be new for me too. It's easier to click than to treat as a reward for forward movement, which is becoming our biggest stumbling block right now. 

I can cope better with a horse that wants to go too fast than one that doesn't want to go. She was always on the hot side, and we've worked through that fine and developed good brakes, but now it's the gas pedal that's failing. I find it very hard to ride her through a serious baulk, and I'm always aware that doing it wrong could make her rear. I hope that a more consistent riding routine will get her through this, and I think that positive reinforcement with a clicker could be a useful tool for us. 



egrogan said:


> I can completely sympathize about the difficulty of creating a consistent work routine during these short days. Wish I had better suggestions. I'm also dealing with an amped up horse the days I do make it out to ride. She's not as committed to the fight as it sounds like your girl is though. When I get Isabel in the clear and let her have a good long canter, she is usually ready to call it quits pretty quickly, so I push her on just a little further and then she gets her head back and is ready for a walk again. I'm already dreaming about warm summer evening! Just six more months, right?!


Sounds like you've got the key to keeping Isabel relaxed and happy with intermittent riding. I like your idea of being committed to the fight! Unfortunately her new fight is to not work at all, or at least not on her own, rather than the fight being about finding a balance between speed and relaxation as you do with Isabel.

I suspect Macarena is quite happy to idle her days away. But I think she could be a stunning horse if I had the time, facilities and knowledge to train her well, and it bugs me to fail her on this one. She has such gorgeous movement, naturally, that in the hands of a good dressage rider I'm sure she could shine. Unfortunately I never much liked dressage as a teenager and only did fairly basic stuff, so I can't teach her much.
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## Bondre

**** lovebird interlude ****

http://www.horseforum.com/other-pets/lovebirds-story-lots-cute-pics-643833/

I've started a whole new thread for Boum, Bam and their offspring so as not to overload this one with birdy business. Check it out if you like birds, or just for a good story ;-)
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## Bondre

Goat news!! 

The new addition to the goat housing is now officially OPEN.
:cheers:

We have been working on this in our free time for the past month, but since free time is a scarce commodity, we have been advancing painfully slowly. But at last, the barn (formerly the tractor housing) is empty of vehicles and general accumulated junk, and full of goats. 

This expansion has a greater significance than a mere increase of square metres of roofed yard. We now have two separate, but interlinked barns, so we can separate the goats into two lots. Very useful for two reasons. 

One advantage is that we can separate the high milk producers and give them better, and more copious, feed. The high producers respond to a more generous diet with more litres, whereas the poor producers just get fat if you feed them more.

The second advantage is that we can separate improve our selective breeding. Up until now we have always kept the female kids from the best mothers, but there was no way of controlling who the father might be. And since some of the male goats are superior, it would be preferable that they cover the better females and thus father the next generation of milkers. So now we can separate off the best goats and pair them up with the best males, to maximise our chances of getting good quality offspring. 

And that's what the goats are up to now :wink: We wanted to get the males in with them by early December, so we just finished the new housing on time. Here they are with their handsome spotty boyfriends.



Not much news on the horse front. They are both fat and lazy, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather and the continuing supply of grass, which hasn't died off yet with the frosts.

Here's a pic of Macarena looking very elegant and Andalusian. She has such a lot of mane! And the most gorgeous silky forelock.



This afternoon a couple of teenage girls came to "ride", daughters of a friend of DH. I asked if they knew how to ride. 

"Oh yes," the older one assured me. "I asked my father for a horse when I was six, and he bought me a mare and foal.

(Big red flags waving mentally.)

"We lost the foal because someone poisoned it, and then I used to ride the mare. But I got scared because one day my mother was leading her and she let her go, and the mare rolled in the mud and squashed my leg.

(Goodness, I hope none of this is actually true :icon_rolleyes: )

"So we had to give her back to the man who sold her to us."

At least the mare escaped from that madhouse, but poor foal :sad:

I brought Flamenca out, groomed her and tacked her up. The first girl mounted, but didn't actually want to move. She was more interested in her sister taking tons of photos while she posed seductively with her long hair. Then the younger one got on. She was scared from the start and when Flamenca turned her head enquiringly, like "are we gonna do something or are we just hanging out?" she panicked and wanted out of the saddle in a hurry.

In the end I did manage to get the older sister in motion. I showed her how to hold the reins and that you use them to turn, and she enjoyed it. But I really doubt she's ever sat on a horse before. What a relief that the awful story about the poisoned foal was probably all her invention.

We took the horses up to the field to graze, and there were two guys shooting pigeons, stationed not 30 metres away from our fence. They stand on the edge of the forest, and when the pigeons come in to roost, BOOM! Dead pigeons... and scared horses. 

I was annoyed and shouted at the guys to move further off, saying that they were scaring the horses and they were far to close to human habitation. They took no notice. And after the fourth or fifth shot, the horses realised that it was just a loud noise and took no further notice, so I decided not to have it out with the hunters. They are actually in a registered pigeon-shooting zone, and paying for the privilege of hunting here, so it's debatable about whether they're within their rights shooting so close to our property. Rather than talking to the hunters, we need to talk to whoever's responsable for deciding the boundaries of the "coto", and ask them to shift it further away from the group of houses. I'm sure there are regulations about minimum distances to human habitation that they ought to respect. Though they'll probably keep doing their own thing until / unless anyone complains.


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## Bondre

Thanks to the pigeon shooters, now Flamenca is having a nervous episode. Last weekend the two of them were grazing peacefully when the gunfire started again. they startled a couple of times before deciding that the noise isn't a big deal, and they went back to their grass. Until suddenly Flamenca startled and headed for the gate at a brisk canter with Macarena behind. Luck would have it that my DH had left the gate ajar while he was loading a barrow with fodder for the goats ("I'll only be a moment and the horses are grazing quietly"), so the now-not-grazing-quietly horses shot through the gate and headed for the stables. 

Not a big deal fortunately as the stables are close by and there are no roads where they could come to any harm; I discovered them grazing on the verge not far away. But since then, Flamenca is very nervous about our field and the pine forest beyond. I wonder if the lead shot showered down on them? The hunters shoot into the air, and sometimes we hear the shot raining down on the corrugated iron roof of the tractor barn, so it's not at all impossible that Flamenca might have been spooked by falling lead shot.

Whatever, yesterday when I took them out to the field I had to tie Flamenca to a tree in order to get her to calm down. While she was loose she wouldn't graze and her constant pacing and startling meant that Macarena didn't relax either. I tied her up short and left her to get on with it. There were no hunters yesterday (weekday) so no danger of another scare while she was tied. When I returned to untie Flamenca she was much calmer, and Macarena was totally relaxed and had been grazing during the interim.

On Sunday I rode Macarena out, and took Flamenca with me on the lead rein for some exercise. We weren't going far and I thought it would work ok. Mistake!! Flamenca was spooky because of the incident in the field the previous day, and quickly figured that I couldn't control her 100% from the saddle. When we passed the entrance to our field and continued towards the pine forest, she pulled the lead out of my hand and cantered up the track. She wasn't trying to escape, just being independent and looking after herself.

Like "my stupid human doesn't realise that stones fall out of the sky round here and STING! I'm out of here FAST."

And no, I hadn't realised at that stage just how nervous she was feeling about the pine forest there. 

Macarena was SO good. She is young and pretty green still, and recently not keen on facing the world on her own with just me for assistance, so I had a momentary image of her bolting up the track after Flamenca. But no, she was a bit tense about her friend disappearing over the horizon, but not out of her mind scared. We soon caught up with our escapee, who as I thought wasn't trying to escape from US, and the next bit of the ride went as planned. 

We passed the neighbours who were harvesting their olives and stopped for a chat. But shortly after this, now on the homeward leg, Flamenca decided to repeat her trick of pulling the lead out of my hand. She can manage to do this because I take her on a lunge line, as she doesn't walk as fast as Macarena so I need a long rein to give and take as necessary. She is lagging behind us on a long line, when suddenly she trots forward and then gets into a canter, and the sudden impetus is too great to stop her so I decided the best thing to do is to release the line and let her do her worst. I won't be trying ponying her again - her manners aren't up to it lol. The first time she escaped it was out of genuine nerves, but the second time she just did it because she knew she could.

Macarena was again a star. Her friend was heading across a fallow field towards home, and dusk was falling. She had put up with a load of unfair rein tugging and such while I was trying to control Flamenca on the lead and hadn't complained. There was a nice verge of her favourite grass on hand so I decided the best option was to stop for some grazing. 

Flamenca was so funny. She was torn between going home on her own and turning back to graze with Macarena, which would be an embarrassing loss of face. She hang out in the middle of the fallow field, nosing at the bare earth as if she was eating delicious invisible grass, and slowly worked her way back towards us. It took her ten minutes to get over her pride and join Macarena for some real delicious grass. 

This afternoon I rode Flamenca. She's getting a bit cocky and it's high time she had a one-to-one session with a confident rider, instead of my son who, while he rides her quite well, is still very much a novice. We had the usual stalling out stuff at the start, and trying to edge sideways off the track, and then a couple of attempted spins when we were riding beside the irrigation channels. This did freak me out a bit because when she starts spinning and hopping on her hind legs she is not really concentrating on her surroundings, and I didn't want her to crush my knee against the concrete edge of the channels (conveniently at knee height). I growled at her and she packed it in. 

Further on we arrived at the scary zone. She was genuinely scared here, not just being barnsour and misbehaving, so I dismounted and made her disengage her hindquarters and back up until she relaxed a bit. No further problems until we were nearly home, when she tried her favourite jogging and head-chucking stuff that she does with my son. I was pleased to find that small jerks and rapid release was enough to stop that annoying trick.

In summary, a useful session with Flamenca, but they both need more work than I have time to give them at present.


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## Bondre

We've had a couple of good rides recently with both the girls together, which is how they work best. My son says Flamenca says is behaving better since I rode her last week, and chucking her head about less when she's in disagreement with him. So he enjoyed riding more as his horse was being more amenable and less opinionated. Macarena went very nicely on both rides.

The first ride we went to check out a local prominent hill that my son wants to climb on horseback. I've never explored that area as you have to go on the road, but we discovered a cross country route that only involved crossing one irrigation ditch and the road. We explored the lower slopes of the hill, but both horses are unfit and I explained to my son that we couldn't expect them to reach the top on our first visit. Macarena's shoulder muscles were quivering violently when we turned downhill, though more from nerves at the unknown location than from physical stress I think. 

So now my son has something to work towards, which is always a good motivation to ride.

As a result, yesterday was hill training. 





^^^views at the summit.





^^^ work on slopes in an old gypsum "quarry"



^^^ time to head home.

Both horses were enthusiastic, and quite hot on the way back. Macarena does a huge trot when she wants to cover ground fast, and Flamenca just can't keep up with her. My attempts to hold her back didn't go down well, but eventually she worked the angst out and settled into a rhythmic gait (instead of going sideways, doing mini bucks, crow hops and the dreaded snaky head shake, and generally protesting lol).

I had an interesting reminder on our arrival back of their incapacity to generalize about life. We recently had some new white plastic-wrapped alfalfa silage delivered for the goats. Macarena checked them out three days ago and gave them the OK. Yesterday on the way out she hardly bothered to look at them: "oh, it's those stupid white balls that don't do anything, no worries". But on the way home, approaching the giant eggs from a different direction, she was more like "WTH?!" No reason to suppose that the weird round white things might be the very same inoffensive round white things we had passed one hour previously with not a sideways glance.
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## knightrider

Macarena and Flamenca are beautiful! What nice pictures!


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## aimeeleigh

Love reading your updates! Keep em coming! 
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## Bondre

My last ride of 2015 was another schooling ride for Macarena. I decided to take her out to the big fields where I used to school her - in the absence of an arena - until the second and definitive fright with the dirt bike. Since then she's been very iffy about leaving home in that direction on her own. 

We headed out and she wasn't thrilled about it, but she complied, although she was continually trying me out to see if she could turn tail. As always, Flamenca started neighing like crazy which doesn't help concentration. I started some trot circles to get her mind focused, and she was pretty good. However, two things combined to mess us up. First, I made the mistake of stopping her with the idea of lengthening my stirrups. Second, in the adjoining orchard, someone started a bonfire in a huge mound of dry weeds, and the prevailing wind blew dense clouds of smoke in our direction. Result, when I asked Macarena to turn away from home and continue our trot circles, she bluntly refused. 

We had a bit of a battle of wills which she was winning at first, then I convinced her to go my way, but not for long. She progressively lost her head and was becoming dangerously heedless of our surroundings in her intent to return home at all costs, so I cut my losses and dismounted. Unbuckled one end of the reins converting them into a 2m lead, and lunged her in a tiny circle around me until she stopped being stupid. Then I led her home, was pleased that she led nicely, and lunged her at home with the full length lunge line. I did some shoulder and hindquarter yields at the gate. She is just learning turns on the haunches and finds them more difficult than turns on the forehand. 

Then I mounted up again and walked her up the road in the opposite direction. I was only planning on going maybe 100m, though of course she didn't know that. She wasn't pleased to be heading away from home again, and tried on the habitual baulking, threatening to rear, etc. But I won this one!  I think she stalls out worse in the fields because she's genuinely afraid of going too far in that direction, whereas her baulk on the road was more half-hearted. When I insisted, she didn't get blind silly about going for home or else like she had done earlier; she gave in politely and we continued up the road in a relaxed fashion. So that was a big success! I walked on a little further then halted her and dismounted, loosened her girth and let her meander her way home, grazing. 

Yesterday afternoon was so warm I decided it was time for a very overdue hair wash. I washed manes and tails, so they started the new year with clean, silky hair instead of yellow-stained ratstails. Macarena's tail is tricolor: mostly black and white, but she also has chestnut hairs which spoil the clean salt-and-pepper look and make her tail appear dirty yellow-brown even when it's squeaky clean.

This morning (New Year's Day) I went out to take a photo to send as a virtual greeting to friends and family.



Nice sky but it needs something in the foreground.... 



Perfect! Bichita appeared out of the forest, ands obligingly posed on a fence post.



_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## egrogan

Good morning pretty kitty!! 

Happy New Year to you and yours.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

Our first ride of 2016 was more of the same barnsour stuff. I took her up into the pine forest where normally she is OK. I've ridden her there on her own in the past month with only a bit of tension, but this time she put her foot down just half a mile from home. There's a junction in the track where I said straight ahead but she had other ideas. We had the usual tussle while she did her habitual stalling-out manoeuvres - backing up and sidling. But we were in a pine forest, and she backed herself in between the pine trees so I thought "good, now you'll have to go forward". The trees are low and scrubby with branches below wither height so she was getting poked in her butt. And she did go forward, but then did the exact same in a different tree. And **** her for being so smart! This tree had higher branches that she fit underneath perfectly - but not her rider. She worked her way backwards under that tree while I was trying to get her to go forwards. Stopped and looked at me, crouched forward with the branches hard against my back. "Oh, you're still there? Need to go a bit further", and that she did,* thus demonstrating her perfect control of the situation, and my total helplessness.

I dismounted fast and gave her a hard whack on the butt with my crop, which got her out of the tree in a hurry, but it was an empty victory. I guess it would have been hilarious if it wasn't my horse being a smartass. She knows that if she goes backwards on me, around 50% of the time she ends up in charge and I have to dismount, which is very bad news.

Anyway, I led her another half a mile up the track, and she behaved perfectly in hand. Grazed for fifteen minutes. There was a hunter's car parked so I didn't want to hang around for long in case they started shooting over our heads just when she was relaxing. So I mounted up and rode her back. We did a triangular ride and trotted along the far side of our triangle. She was hot but OK. Tried the evil head shake once and got reprimanded. When we turned for home I insisted on walking. Which she accepted, on the whole, so all was not bad. 

Back home I pushed my luck too far and asked her for some trot circles on the open land next to the yard. Again she got very ****y about the idea of more work, and again I had to jump off, convert my reins to a short lunge line, and lunge her. She accepted the lunging fine, we did walk and trot in both directions and called it quits. 

What I don't know is whether lunging her like this when she misbehaves actually serves for anything, except for maybe deluding me that I haven't just lost hands down. Because if I ask her to do something from the saddle, but then am incapable of carrying that request through when she questions it, then lunging her instead seems pretty pointless. Right?

So I feel as if I'm not getting things right with her at present, seeing as she seems to be worsening rather than improving. I think she is learning that yes, she can get her own way if she's determined enough about it. And when she is determined about baulking, I often can't make her go forward. Someone on the ground behind me with a lunge whip would be a BIG help at those crucial moments.

As I have often read here, if you need to repeat a lesson more than twice with your horse, your teaching method isn't working. Clearly my approach isn't working, so I am considering what to try next. I need to have a very clear idea of a training plan in my mind to guide me, try to make every session count, and avoid losing battles like the plague. I received a book on clicker training for Christmas, and am planning on trying this with her I've tread and assimilated it all, seeing as she is very receptive to learning with positive reinforcement. I'm hoping that this will be the breakthrough that we desperately need.

Any suggestions are very welcome!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## bsms

"_Because if I ask her to do something from the saddle, but then am incapable of carrying that request through when she questions it, then lunging her instead seems pretty pointless. Right?...And when she is determined about baulking, I often can't make her go forward_."

I don't think lunging teaches obedience if it first requires a dismount. It isn't much of a punishment, and it follows after too long a gap to be effective as punishment for a behavior anyways.

The US Cavalry and some of the older books I've read on training consider a horse learning to go backwards a serious fault. Mia would do it even if I walloped her very hard on the rump with a thick leather whip. Never tried using spurs in that situation, but I doubt it would have gone well. That is why I get frustrated sometimes when people talk about 'body control'. If the horse realizes it has 4 feet on the ground and the rider has 0, it can be tough.

About all I could do with Mia in that situation (backing) was turn her hard. As in whip her head to the left (her more balanced turning direction) like I was trying to tear her head off. Then we'd do an in-place 180. If need be, I could do it again, or even a number of times in a row. Backing came to mean "Tear your head off"...or as close as I could get. She largely stopped backing, but she never forgot that it was an option.

If turning the head doesn't get a turn, then pain on the outside shoulder might. A crop to the shoulder might get a sharp turn.

There might be other options, but Mia was known to sometimes back us toward drop offs or cholla cactus, and I couldn't afford to let her run backwards into this:








​ 
I cannot make a horse go forward. I can make backing up very hard and unpleasant. Where I live, backing up out of my control is a very dangerous habit, every bit as dangerous as bolting. It is just as bad if we are riding on pavement, since the horse could back in front of a car and kill us both.

I don't like using pain or harsh use of a crop or bit to get results, but I'm willing to do it for a dangerous habit.

If I cannot control the horse's forward/back motion (bolting/uncontrolled backing), then I'll try to convert it into a turn. If that takes being ugly about it, that is the horse's choice. It is never going to be my FIRST response, but horses can reach a point of either learning or being too dangerous to ride.

It is similar to leading a horse on a lead line. If a horse panics and leaps forward, I cannot stop them by pulling backwards. But if I hit the end of the lead rope going 90 degree out from their motion, they will spin at the impact. At least, that is how it has always worked with me, even when the horse is scared and not listening. Sideways pressure trumps their forward/back strength...judo, in a sense.

That may not be the best option, but it the closest thing I've experienced that got me any results. I'll be interested to see if anyone has a GOOD way of handling it.


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## Bondre

Thanks BSMS! I totally agree that uncontrolled backing is a potentially very dangerous habit. I certainly wouldn't want to get backed into one of those cacti either. They make our pine trees look like child's play! But jokes aside, unsolicited backing scares the wits out of me, and I deal with it just as you have explained - applying lateral pressure so the back up becomes a turn on the forehand. However, Macarena knows all my tactics and says "OK, if you want to turn, we'll turn", and becomes like an eel under me. She'll go sideways or backwards fine, anywhere but forwards. After a minute of this stuff, she won't even go forward towards home, which is where she wants to go. She seems to block out any idea of forward movement in whichever direction. And when we reach that level of strop, my best bet is to dismount. 

I'm a bit lost for an adequate way to discourage this and reward any attempt at forwards using pressure and release. Goes without saying that I'm not using two reins AT ALL when she does this. I really don't want the backing habit to develop into a rearing habit. This is why I'm considering clicker training, as it offers a very precise way of rewarding the behaviour I want (forwards) and also discouraging (through the omission of a reward) any backwards movement. I'll copy an interesting paragraph from the book later as it really brought home (for me) the potential of clicker training.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

This is just a thought, but worth a try. You are asking her to go forward, she is responding by going backward. What if you ask her to meet you half way and just stand still, will she comply? 

This has worked with Oliver one time when we got into a battle, he wanted to go right, I wanted to go left and around and around we went (literally) until I asked him to just stand still for a minute or so. 

Then when I asked again to go left he easily complied. It might have been that his brain was stuck in a loop and the challenge of standing still made him forget what he had been thinking. Or it could have been something entirely different, linked to a battle of wills, which once it was replaced with a separate task, removed the need to battle. I didn't need to "win", I just needed to go left. :wink:

We have not had a repeat of the incident since. 

Nothing to lose in trying!


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## bsms

"_After a minute of this stuff, she won't even go forward towards home, which is where she wants to go. She seems to block out any idea of forward movement in whichever direction. And when we reach that level of strop, my best bet is to dismount._"

I don't think your best bet is to dismount. Wait it out. She isn't going to want to stay there for an hour or two. The advice below matches what I saw with Mia. When we were doing repeated 180 turns, we were fighting. But darn it, we were NOT going to go backwards. That is the "This will profit you not" approach Tom Roberts liked. We could turn as often as needed, but that part of the fight I was going to win. Going backwards without being asked was not going to get her anything.

But she also wasn't going to be happy just standing still forever. So when she DID move forward...well, that was acceptable. That was the "Quiet persistence" part Tom Roberts preached. And standing still and waiting did seem to remove the competition between us, and allow a compromise that was acceptable to us both.

"_It might have been that his brain was stuck in a loop and the challenge of standing still made him forget what he had been thinking. Or it could have been something entirely different, linked to a battle of wills, which once it was replaced with a separate task, removed the need to battle._"

I've tried a similar thing with Bandit when he didn't want to ride past something. If turning around and going away isn't an option, and we're just standing there...hmmm...

After 2-5 minutes - and 5 minutes feels like 5 hours! - he'll start forward. Quiet persistence. I wish I had tried that more with Mia, although she would usually decide to start moving again much faster. Her balks were normally genuine fear, unlike Bandit who will balk sometimes because he just doesn't want to go. Although Bandit is also less combative and competitive than Mia, so he also doesn't tend to turn things into a fight. Good luck!


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## Bondre

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> This is just a thought, but worth a try. You are asking her to go forward, she is responding by going backward. What if you ask her to meet you half way and just stand still, will she comply?


Yes, she will stand still at first, but if I keep insisting on my way she gets more uptight and starts to go sideways. She does seem to stress out a lot if we have differences of opinion, and her own nervousness makes her fix on wanting to go to the safety of home at all costs. 



bsms said:


> I don't think your best bet is to dismount. Wait it out. She isn't going to want to stay there for an hour or two. The advice below matches what I saw with Mia. When we were doing repeated 180 turns, we were fighting. But darn it, we were NOT going to go backwards. That is the "This will profit you not" approach Tom Roberts liked. We could turn as often as needed, but that part of the fight I was going to win. Going backwards without being asked was not going to get her anything.
> 
> But she also wasn't going to be happy just standing still forever. So when she DID move forward...well, that was acceptable. That was the "Quiet persistence" part Tom Roberts preached. And standing still and waiting did seem to remove the competition between us, and allow a compromise that was acceptable to us both.


I will try and do this next time. Ask her to stop and leave it at that. Not try to turn her back or fight her, just try and wait her out. Maybe she will stay calmer like that and won't start going sideways or hopping about... or searching for a suitable tree lol.

This afternoon we had another incident. We were in an open area with some insignificant almond trees to one side. She spun round, I stopped her and made having spun disagreeable, she got taut and nervous and started to go sideways straight for the almond trees. I swear she did it deliberately. When she was so close that another side step would have me in the branches, I dismounted, turned her away from home and we continued. 

One thing that strikes me about this is that once she has me on the ground instead of in the saddle, she relaxes totally and is neither bad-mannered nor tries to spin for home. So why bother with all this spinning and stropping when she knows it doesn't actually get her home any faster? It seems to me that she trusts me more as a leader on the ground than on top, and once she's got me on the ground she's happier about life. 

Darn it all! I got a horse to ride with on the trails, not to take out on country walks like a dog lol.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> Yes, she will stand still at first, but if I keep insisting on my way she gets more uptight and starts to go sideways. She does seem to stress out a lot if we have differences of opinion, and her own nervousness makes her fix on wanting to go to the safety of home at all costs.


One of the exercises my trainer had me working with Oliver on in the very first days under saddle was standing still. 

Seems kind of silly at first (I'm paying for this?) but there was a method to his madness. He was building a foundation of control. In the arena is where we started it. He had to just stand. If he took one step forward, I had to back him up one step to his original position. If he took one step back, I had him take one step forward. Step to the side, put him back and stand some more. 

At first this was a short time and then got progressively longer. Then we did it out of saddle to teach him to ground tie. Then at the mounting block. We then progressed to doing it with other distractions in the arena such as dogs, people or other horses. Then we did it out on the trails. Rewards given for good behavior!

Such a very simple request. Stand still (weight shifts were allowed) until I tell you otherwise and yet it can be so difficult! I've been to several supposed intermediate -advanced clinics where people could not keep their horses standing still while listening to the clinician.

As his training progressed, this exercise then became cuing for the front left foot to take one step forward and freeze. Square up. One step with the front left to the side, freeze and go back. One step with the right back to the side, freeze, return. 

This eventually became the foundation for his side pass, opening gates without dismounting, half pass and picking up correct leads. His ability to stand still or move only one specific foot on cue has actually become part of our warm up before we go out on rides. The bonus is it also allowed me as a rider, some practice on providing clear cues, refining feel and providing timely release!


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## Bondre

The weather has been very cold and windy so no riding for a couple of days. Here's a video of us in our schooling fields back in August, before the dirt bike scare. How does she look? I think she was going quite nicely, though she does throw in a snaky head shake at 0:50m.

https://youtu.be/jHP0_qrXFJA
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Skyseternalangel

Hello Bondre! I just found your journal, and I hope there are no ill feelings about my critique on your riding video thread. I am honestly only trying to help, but sometimes I come across a little funny.

I hope you also don't mind me liking 10+ posts of yours from this very thread, but they made me smile. I especially love your lovebirds... I used to have two myself until we had to move (from England) to the states. I still miss them. They were named Tweety (the sweety) and Squawky (flying death). I named them when I was 9. Mine was Tweety and was very sweet and was beginning to understand cues I taught him... whereas Squawky was evil and would attack us and try and herd Tweety away from me when they were loose in our conservatory. But I loved them both... they are such beautiful creatures.



Bondre said:


> Our first ride of 2016 was more of the same _*barnsour*_ stuff. I took her up into the pine forest where normally she is OK. I've ridden her there on her own in the past month with only a bit of tension, but this time _*she put her foot down just half a mile from home*_. There's a junction in the track where I said straight ahead but she had other ideas. We had the usual tussle while she did her habitual stalling-out manoeuvres - _*backing up and sidling*_. But we were in a pine forest, and she backed herself in between the pine trees so I thought "good, now you'll have to go forward". The trees are low and scrubby with branches below wither height so she was getting poked in her butt. And she did go forward, but then did the exact same in a different tree. And **** her for being so smart! This tree had higher branches that she fit underneath perfectly - but not her rider. She worked her way backwards under that tree while I was trying to get her to go forwards. Stopped and looked at me, crouched forward with the branches hard against my back. "Oh, you're still there? Need to go a bit further", and that she did,* thus demonstrating her perfect control of the situation, and my total helplessness.
> 
> _*I dismounted fast and gave her a hard whack on the butt with my crop*_, which got her out of the tree in a hurry, but it was an empty victory. I guess it would have been hilarious if it wasn't my horse being a smartass. _*She knows that if she goes backwards on me, around 50% of the time she ends up in charge and I have to dismount, which is very bad news.*_
> 
> Anyway, I led her another half a mile up the track, and she behaved perfectly in hand. _*Grazed for fifteen minutes.*_ There was a hunter's car parked so I didn't want to hang around for long in case they started shooting over our heads just when she was relaxing. So I mounted up and rode her back. We did a triangular ride and trotted along the far side of our triangle. She was hot but OK. _*Tried the evil head shake once and got reprimanded. *_When we turned for home I insisted on walking. Which she accepted, on the whole, so all was not bad.
> 
> Back home I pushed my luck too far and asked her for *some trot circles on the open land next to the yard. Again she got very ****y about the idea of more work, and again I had to jump off, convert my reins to a short lunge line, and lunge her. *She accepted the lunging fine, we did walk and trot in both directions and called it quits.
> 
> What I don't know is whether lunging her like this when she misbehaves actually serves for anything, except for maybe deluding me that I haven't just lost hands down. Because if I ask her to do something from the saddle, but then _*am incapable of carrying that request through when she questions it, then lunging her instead seems pretty pointless. Right?*_
> 
> So I feel as if I'm not getting things right with her at present, seeing as she seems to be worsening rather than improving. _*I think she is learning that yes, she can get her own way if she's determined enough about it. And when she is determined about baulking, I often can't make her go forward.*_ Someone on the ground behind me with a lunge whip would be a BIG help at those crucial moments.
> 
> As I have often read here, if you need to repeat a lesson more than twice with your horse, your teaching method isn't working. Clearly my approach isn't working, so I am considering what to try next. I need to have a very clear idea of a training plan in my mind to guide me, try to make every session count, and _*avoid losing battles*_ like the plague. I received a book on clicker training for Christmas, and am planning on trying this with her I've tread and assimilated it all, seeing as she is very receptive to learning with positive reinforcement. I'm hoping that this will be the breakthrough that we desperately need.
> 
> Any suggestions are very welcome!
> _Posted via Mobile Device_





Bondre said:


> Thanks BSMS! I totally agree that uncontrolled backing is a potentially very dangerous habit. I certainly wouldn't want to get backed into one of those cacti either. They make our pine trees look like child's play! But jokes aside, _*unsolicited backing scares the wits out of me*_, and I deal with it just as you have explained - applying lateral pressure so the back up becomes a turn on the forehand. However, Macarena knows all my tactics and says "OK, if you want to turn, we'll turn", and becomes like an eel under me. She'll go sideways or backwards fine, anywhere but forwards. After a minute of this stuff, she won't even go forward towards home, which is where she wants to go. She seems to block out any idea of forward movement in whichever direction. And when we reach that level of strop, my best bet is to dismount.
> 
> I'm a bit lost for _*an adequate way to discourage this and reward any attempt at forwards using pressure and release.*_ Goes without saying that I'm not using two reins AT ALL when she does this. _*I really don't want the backing habit to develop into a rearing habit.*_ This is why I'm considering clicker training, as it offers a very precise way of rewarding the behaviour I want (forwards) and also discouraging (through the omission of a reward) any backwards movement. I'll copy an interesting paragraph from the book later as it really brought home (for me) the potential of clicker training.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Oh Bondre... Sky tries this crap with me too and it's really not fun and especially hard to break.

She has your number, she knows exactly what to do to give her what she wants (you off her back, and out of following cues) and your attempt to lunge her on the spot is just a little too slow of a correction between the time of the offense and the time it takes for you to dismount and get into lunging position.

But I definitely agree that two reins at anything is not going to work at all.

I noticed earlier in your thread you talked about one rein stop. The idea behind that is disengaging the hind end. You also talked about turn on the forehand, which again is disengaging the hind end.

Does she know how to do this on the ground, and does she understand open rein?

Sometimes when horses balk, the best thing you can do is get them to move any way (preferably not backwards, and the key to backwards is you release pressure once they are taking the step back, and put it back on as needed to continue backing up whether that is with your leg, hands, seat, etc.)

If she understands open rein, leg yield her into it! If she doesn't, you must teach her sooner rather than later.

I don't really like how she is when you lunge her. Yes, you should let her get all her sillies out... but she needs to work. And she needs to work nicely. 

Do you do any in-hand work with her? She might benefit from this. Also could you describe your interactions? What I mean is, do you tie her when you groom her, how does she behave at dinner, how does she react when you correct her, HOW do you correct x y z behavior on the ground, etc.

Knowing these things can help me understand your relationship a little better, and then I might be able to provide some advice. Sky has presented me with a lot of challenges both in riding and in ownership.. and being able to move past them and work with him has been a huge learning experience. He has given me quite the handful at times, and I came up with ways to approach each of his problems. Not saying he is perfect, because he will never be due to his personality and because he is a horse.. but what I'm trying to say is one horse owner to another I might be able to help


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## Bondre

Hi there Sky! I was replying to your helpful post on my critique thread while you were here lol. Thanks for visiting here, I'll reply in more detail later on as I have to go feed the animals now. 

The lovebirds are the sweetest, aren't they (when they're not being aggressive lol)? I realise I haven't posted any photos of them here recently, as I started a different thread just for them, but here are a couple of the recent chicks, who are now out of the nest.





^^^ the youngest baby, still not fully fledged, with mum and dad behind her. Mum is not to be trusted - she is giving the chick the stink eye - but dad is a sweety with them. 
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

Skyseternalangel said:


> I noticed earlier in your thread you talked about one rein stop. The idea behind that is disengaging the hind end. You also talked about turn on the forehand, which again is disengaging the hind end.
> 
> Does she know how to do this on the ground, and does she understand open rein?
> 
> Sometimes when horses balk, the best thing you can do is get them to move any way (preferably not backwards, and the key to backwards is you release pressure once they are taking the step back, and put it back on as needed to continue backing up whether that is with your leg, hands, seat, etc.)
> 
> If she understands open rein, leg yield her into it! If she doesn't, you must teach her sooner rather than later.


She knows how to disengage hindquarters under saddle - but she also knows that I use that as a primary response when she balks, and has started to resist. Although she disengages perfectly in a non-stress situation, when she balks and I try to disengage her she conveniently 'forgets' what she knows, the head comes up and she start threatening to rear. Then she moves sideways, heading for cover if there is any, completely disregarding whatever I am doing with my legs and reins. 

She has done this on two occasions. I think if she does it again, which she surely will, she needs a CTJ meeting, because being patient with her is getting me nowhere. 



Skyseternalangel said:


> I don't really like how she is when you lunge her. Yes, you should let her get all her sillies out... but she needs to work. And she needs to work nicely.


Her lunging is improving recently, seeing as that is one thing we can do usefully together. When she started all the attitude and I first put her on the lunge, it was the first time in over a year. While she was fine under saddle I never lunged her as I don't much see the point of lunging just because. So it was understandable that she was very rusty and yes, she gave me a ton of attitude. But I got fierce with her on that one, and now she lunges reasonably well at walk and trot. 



Skyseternalangel said:


> Do you do any in-hand work with her? She might benefit from this.


I have started doing groundwork with her in the past two months. When I started her under saddle I had never heard of groundwork - in England when I was young, you lunged horses or you rode them - so I never taught her to yield to pressure. I guess she picked it up along the way. Kind of like learning a foreign language by immersion instead of taking classes. It works, but there are holes in your learning that maybe you don't discover for a few months or years (like verb tenses in Spanish - you can't learn all of those by immersion, you just have to memorize them). So now I am reaping the rewards of those holes I left by immersing her in being ridden instead of teaching her basic concepts at the start. There is also the age factor. Dante wrote recently in her journal that, in her experience, young horses often start testing the boundaries when they're five or six, after a couple of years of exemplary behaviour at three and four. Macarena was so easy to start under saddle I could hardly believe it at the time (I was totally inexperienced starting young horses too, so I was very lucky there ), but the downside is that we get to work through these young horse issues later on. Which is where we are at the moment.

I wasn't intending to write such a novel here, but I hope it helps you understand. So yes, we are doing groundwork and she enjoys it. I use positive reinforcement and she is very motivated by it and really tries. I am currently researching clicker training and I am going to start her on this very soon (as soon as my clicker arrives - the pet shops here don't sell them). This is not a cop-out on my part, but a 'let's stand back from the problem and try a different approach' idea. Conventional pressure and release (negative reinforcement) isn't working at the moment. I might not be doing it well, in the heat of the moment it's hard to keep your timing precise. But I think we need to break down this bad behaviour into small pieces. There is a whole lot of stuff in her head which has been accumulating and recently it has boiled over. I suspect her balking issue is just the most visible symptom of a complex problem. So beating her through the balking might get me a victory one day, but the next day I'll have to beat her again, and so on, because the underlying issues remain. I'm hoping that by clicker training her on apparently unrelated issues we will turn the situation around. 

But I could well be wrong. We will see. 



Skyseternalangel said:


> Also could you describe your interactions? What I mean is, do you tie her when you groom her, how does she behave at dinner, how does she react when you correct her, HOW do you correct x y z behavior on the ground, etc.


I don't tie her up much. Mostly I groom when they are loose. I tie her up for washing and hoof care, and sometimes for no reason other than to get her used to being tied. She used to pull back when I first got her, not surprising because her previous owner wasn't an understanding sort ( he washed her by force in a wash 'cage'). She is head-up alert and interested when tied, and takes quite a while to relax and get bored. I have never tried the patience tree with her but maybe she would benefit greatly. 

At dinner she is submissive to her friend. I open the gate and leave the wheelbarrow or bucket just inside while I close behind me. Macarena comes and sticks her head in while her friend heads for the manger. She knows she is allowed to do this - it's a perk for being the underdog. Then I take the bucket or barrow and walk across the dry lot to the manger with her beside/behind me. She is polite, not pushy. Happy with interaction while she eats. 

When I correct her for something she tends to throw her head up a bit and looks nervous and offended. This is a habit from her former life when I suspect she got smacked in the face when she did things wrong. She used to be quite mouthy and a bit headshy, but she is so much more relaxed about life now. 

When she needs correction I either growl at her, push into her with my elbow if she crowds me, poke her nose if she noses me for treats, whatever seems appropriate but mostly quite low key. She gets nervous easily so I try to avoid that. When she is tense I scratch along the crest of her neck and that seems to help her relax. 



Skyseternalangel said:


> Knowing these things can help me understand your relationship a little better, and then I might be able to provide some advice. Sky has presented me with a lot of challenges both in riding and in ownership.. and being able to move past them and work with him has been a huge learning experience. He has given me quite the handful at times, and I came up with ways to approach each of his problems. Not saying he is perfect, because he will never be due to his personality and because he is a horse.. but what I'm trying to say is one horse owner to another I might be able to help


I've given you plenty to chew over lol! Comments and input from one horse owner to another are always great. We all learn unimaginable amounts from our horses, so it's quite likely that Sky has already taught you things that I have yet to learn from Macarena, and which could be very useful for us both.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Zexious

Best of luck with Macarena--I know how frustrating it can be to feel like you're not making any progress.

I'm not sure whether this has been touched on (I skim x.x /confession), but have you considered contacting some outside help? It may be worth it to get some training rides in, just to correct some things so you can have a bit more of a 'clean slate.'

Aaaaand I LOVE your love birds!! They are so beautiful. I wish Boyfriend would let me get one


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## knightrider

Many of the things you are describing with Macarena are things that Isabeau did with me when I first started riding her. It was terribly frustrating and scary because she would spin out of control, back up, and slam me into trees. Asking her to turn when she balked was asking her to rear and come over with me sideways. I tried just getting her to stop and stand still, and at first, that seemed to work, but after a few rides, it didn't work any more. I'd let her stand until I could feel her relax, and as soon as I urged her forward again, she'd start backing and spinning again. Hitting her with anything just made her mad and she'd rear or spin even worse. I am certain that a true experienced horse trainer could have whipped her and leaped off of her as she reared and went over. But I wasn't up to that. Also, like Macarena, my Isabeau didn't care if she was headed for home or not--when she was ready to lose her mind, she just LOST IT.

What worked perfectly for me . . . and ultimately got me the fabulous riding horse she is now . . . is getting someone to pony her with a leadrope. If your son is a strong enough rider, and if Flamenca will do it, you can try limiting your rides to going with Flamenca. Keep the leadrope on Macarena, and the moment you can feel her start to tense up and get ready to spin, toss the leadrope to whoever is riding Flamenca and just keep on going. At first we had to do that on every ride--being led for about 10 minutes, sometimes twice. And then it was about once a week, and then about once a month, and then once every 3 months. It took about a year and a half for Isabeau to ride out perfectly without any balking, but I think we are there now. 

Also--and this is interesting--it didn't take a particularly well trained horse or rider to get her to move on. The first time we tried it, the lead horse was a barely broken 3 year old, but we persevered and she went. And a little later, my daughter used to lead her, and my daughter was NOT a confident rider . . . not only that, her pony is the alpha in the herd and Isabeau is afraid of him. But we got it done. It worked.

I am wishing you so much good luck. Riding a spinning backing horse is unlike anything else. If you haven't done it, you just can't imagine how it is, to be on a horse that isn't listening to a thing you do, knowing at any moment you might be under her instead of on top of her.


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## Bondre

Thank you so much, Knightrider! I find knowing you've been through similar problems with Isabeau very encouraging. It's made my evening reading your post  It must be the hot Spanish blood in these mares that makes them like this. 

And yes, I have started out a couple of times thinking that today I'm going to sit through whatever she hands out... but then she starts going backwards or sideways into the trees, and there's no way! All my tough intentions go out of the window and self-preservation kicks in. I don't want to be dragged backwards through dead pine branches, and I certainly don't want to make her feel so cornered she goes up because she thinks there's nowhere else to go. So I end up being understanding with her because I don't believe it's purely bad attitude that makes her like this, and punishing her won't help with the deepset fears that are plaguing her. 

So funny you suggest to try ponying her. My first rides after the big dirt bike scare (that set all this off) were escorted by my son, either on Flamenca or on his bike, and his presence saw us through a few dicey moments. Macarena knows perfectly well that it's no use balking when there's a lead rope on her... and she knows equally well that I can't control her from the saddle when she decides she doesn't want to listen. If my son accompanies us on Flamenca, there are no problems. She is a little tense at times, but doing plenty of trot soon gets the silliness out of them and they do fine. No need for ponying with a lead, the mere presence of Flamenca is sufficient. And fortunately my son is a capable enough rider to cope with a bit of the unexpected and to straighten Flamenca out when she gets a bit headstrong. 

Thsee recent balking episodes have been when I've tried riding her alone, which we have managed in the past month or two, but she's quite clearly putting her foot down on this one at present. I can ride her or do groundwork in the small area next to the yard, and that seems to be it. So I think I'll stick with that for the moment, try stretching her boundaries VERY gradually, and only ride her further away in company.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

My clicker arrived in the post! So I started them both off on my new project of clicker training (separately of course). They are both interested and have enjoyed the few sessions we have done so far. The beginning is really just getting them used to the idea that the clicker is a prelude to a reward, and marks a desired behaviour. I taught them both to stand with their heads straight ahead in order to receive a reward, which prevents them mugging the trainer for rewards from the very beginning. 

Flamenca picked it up very fast, as she is old and patient; Macarena has a tendency to be mouthy with things (though not people - she knows better than that) so she took a little longer to get the idea that nosing at the nice-smelling reward bag doesn't give results. Tomorrow we can start with targeting, and once they get the basics down then we can try some more interesting stuff. I must admit I am quite excited about this! It's a stimulating exercise (for them) that I can fit into a spare half hour (unlike riding), which fits my busy weekday schedule really well. So although I sadly still don't have much time for in the saddle work, at least I can keep their minds occupied in the meantime and they'll learn some new ideas too. 


_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

Several sessions of clicker training later, I am seeing some positive advances, and both the girls appear to be enjoying it. I have taught them both to target, which Macarena does well and Flamenca does grudgingly. By the end of three short sessions, Macarena will reach out, step back or move forwards to touch the target for the treat.

Flamenca is less enthusiastic, and I only did two sessions with her before moving onto something else. I am using a green mop on a halflength handle as a target, and she clearly believes it's pointless to be nosing at this green monstrosity. I hold out the mop for her to target, and she stares at it and looks me in the eye. "What, AGAIN??" When no treat appears she pushes at the mop with manifest impatience and disgust, and then stares at me again. "OK, I've played your silly game, now WHERE'S MY TREAT??" No need for words when actions and looks are so expressive lol. 

Seeing as Flamenca isn't very interested in targeting I decided to move on and work on her fear of needles. She is a total panicker over injections and veterinary treatments in general. Even fly spray makes her lose it. When she sees something suspicious in my hand, her head flies up, she shows the whites of her eyes, and if I try to restrain her she pulls back, shakes her head violently up and down, whatever possible to prevent me touch her with the suspicious object. And seeing as they are both due for their annual flu jabs, I thought it would be good to work on this. 

In our first session I used a syringe without a needle, and after an exhibition of all her varied evasive tricks she calmed down enough for me to touch her lightly on the neck and reward her for not shaking her head. She rapidly got the idea that the treat was only available if she kept her head down and relaxed, and by the end she accepted me touching her at random spots on her neck with the syringe. The next session I added firm pressure with the blunt nozzle of the syringe, and the third session I combined the presence of the syringe with a toothpick with which I gave her not very painful ******. She wasn't great about the toothpick but she submitted in the name of behavioural science lol. And today I took the real thing with me. We started out with the empty syringe and the toothpick, and once she was cool about that I changed the syringe for the real thing. She was outraged about the real jab in the neck, but as I know that the jab is only a momentary pain when the needle penetrates the skin, I was happy to leave the syringe sticking into her neck, waited for her to relax and rewarded her, knowing that once it's in the muscle she can barely feel it. Then we gradually worked up to actually injecting the vaccine. She coped very well considering, and I think the whole affair was way less stressful for her than last year when I vaccinated her through a combination of trickery and wearing down her evasive reactions. 

I haven't vaccinated Macarena yet, but she is not panicky about syringes so it shouldn't be a big deal. 

I've been working on leading with her in our last two sessions, teaching her to follow my movements without using a lead rope. She leads ok, but isn't prompt about mirroring me if I stop, for example, so I started on that. This evening I had her following me when I walk forward ("vamos" as a verbal cue), stopping when I stop ("sooa", the Spanish version of whoa), and backing up when I turn to face her and walk towards her with my arm in front of her chest ("atras" as a verbal cue). I don't need to touch her. Now I am starting to teach her to turn away from me if I veer to the right. This is another weak point of hers on the lead rope: I have to stick my elbow into her shoulder to get her to turn away at times. So I want to teach her to do this without exerting pressure or using any physical contact, just an arm out to the right as if I was signalling to turn right on a bike. 

Next step will be to try this from her back, but before that I want to teach her to stand nicely parallel to suitable structures for me to mount. I can't mount from the ground unless someone holds the opposite stirrup, as her saddle slips sideways (no withers to speak of), so I always use landscape features for mounting. And she knows this, and has learnt the annoying habit of swinging her butt away from my chosen spot so her body is at right angles instead of parallel with my position. This makes mounting out on the trails quite a challenge if for any reason I have to dismount. So I think that is going to be the next class for her.

Whoever thought that groundwork could be such fun?!?


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## Bondre

I continue to be amazed about just how KEEN Macarena is to learn with clicker training. Sure, I know it's because of the treats, but it's great to see her enthusiasm whatever the reason. 

Around two months ago I did some work on standing still, using treats as a reward, and now I am repeating that exercise with the clicker. As I said before, Macarena is such a fidget that standing still is quite a challenge for her. However, thanks to the R+ training methods she really tries HARD to not move a single foot in order to earn her treat. She doesn't relax - she is too intent on the "game" for that - but follows all my movements until I come and give her the reward. She has now learnt to stand still if I walk away from and around her at a distance, and if I move around her close up with a hand on her body. 

I have taken her out of the yard on our last two sessions, and combined the groundwork with work from on top. I did it bareback with a halter, as it all seems much more informal without tack, less like "we are going to RIDE this afternoon" which could provoke a rejection on her part. Seeing as the last few times I have ridden her alone she has stalled out, each time closer to home, I really want to reverse that trend and gradually ease her further away from home without her realising it and putting up a fuss. I reckon by doing it without tack and using the clicker and treats, it will all be different enough to our usual riding that she may go along happily with me.

Anyway, we have worked on standing still for mounting and dismounting, leading, and moving forward properly with me on her back. All good so far. Once I'm on board we have to do short stretches of walking interspersed with halts and standing still, which is when she gets her treat. Means we can't cover much distance, but I'm ok about that. I'm not trying to "ride" as such, just to get her complying, and relaxed about life.


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## Bondre

I'm a happy horseperson today  I've done two horseback clicker sessions with Macarena and she is responding very well. I worked up to this by doing work on leading and standing still, and then a session of mounting, short walks and dismounting. The kind of stuff I never bothered to teach her as a youngster, I just did it and expected her to catch on. Which she did, more or less, but with lots of imperfections as a result of not having been taught properly. 

Yesterday we did a session on moving forward. She has been getting worryingly baulky and all my disorganised attempts up to now to fix this have failed. The last time I rode her alone, over a month ago, she stalled out and backed into some almond trees to get me off her. She won that round hands down, and I haven't wanted to ride her solo since for two reasons. 1) I'm a bit cowardly about having a showdown with her ("you MUST go forward OR ELSE") because I'm not even 70% certain of winning this. 2) Seeing as she was getting worse every solo ride I didn't want to lose any more rounds; every lost round makes it harder for us to get back to functioning as a team.

However, I believed that after the clicker work on leading she was ready to be ridden again. I knew that a lot was hanging on our first mounted session. I needed to succeed and make her move forward as and when I requested. Of course, I wasn't going to ask her for anything difficult. Just walking around in the area next to the yard, asking for bends, serpentines, halts, backing up, moving forward again , etc. Easy peasy stuff. 

I put her bridle on but no saddle. Out of laziness (not wanting to carry the saddle down for 20 minutes on her back) I have decided on continuing bareback. Mounted, verbal cue (_vamos_), she moved off and a click as a reward. Asked for a turn away from home. She responded correctly, another click. Then a halt and a treat. And we continued like this. Whenever I was asking her for something that she wasn't happy about, like turning away from home or walking beyond her perceived 'safety distance' from home, I would reward with a click if she was acting correctly (giving a nice turn, or walking straight and relaxed). Then I would halt her and reward her before she reached her perceived limit. 

She baulked twice in our first session, turned and started backing up. I was careful to ALWAYS turn her back in the opposite direction that she had turned, to correct her movement, and managed to halt the backing up. She wasn't panicky like on the former occasions when she backed into trees. She was just experimenting. "Let's see what happens if I say no?" Fortunately there isn't a tree in sight on the piece of land where I was doing this work ;-) I asked her for forward, and on both occasions, after some hesitation, she complied, immediately received her click and after continuing forward, received her reward. 

I felt a huge difference in her attitude, compared to our struggles prior to starting the clicker training. She baulks, I ask her for forward, and she makes a considered decision. She decides to move forward because she knows that she will get a reward if she does. She is relaxed at all times. At no point did I feel she was losing her mind, she was thinking and decided to cooperate. Compare this with our two baulking episodes in the forest, when she got increasingly nervous about the situation and stopped responding to anything I asked her, so the only safe thing to do was dismount. 

Today we did a repeat session, but after the initial serpentines and turning away from home I asked her to go a little further away. She did really well, though she stalled out on me several times when I asked her to ride away along the road. But again, she was halting in an experimental fashion. "Can we stop this now, mum? No, not yet? And how about now??" Not scared or tense. And when I asked her to move forward, she responded, not always immediately, but I didn't have to wait her out for long. And she didn't try backing up crazily, which was an improvement. 

We had an "oh, ****" moment (or at least I did) when we were near our furthest point on the ride (only about 200m from home, we're talking SMALL SCALE here lol). She was walking forwards after a minor stall-out, all relaxed, when suddenly WOOOMPH, she leapt forwards into a canter for a couple of strides. I suffered a wobble as I was bareback, but luckily as she was relaxed she quickly got over the scare and we halted while I re-arranged myself. Looked back to see what the big deal had been and saw my dog enthusiastically lolloping towards us through the newly planted broccoli field. Darn dogs!! She has a knack of appearing at just the wrong moment. Just as well the Broccoli King didn't see her ;-) Playful Pyrenean mastiffs and tiny broccoli plants don't generally combine well.

After the embarrassing spook, Macarena behaved really well until we reached our goal (our furthest point from home) where I dismounted and we 'found' her carrot treat waiting on a flat rock. Then I led her back with 10 minutes of grazing en route. 

She can't complain that I'm not trying my darnedst to make our excursions enjoyable.


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## egrogan

That sounds amazing Bondre! Congrats on such a successful session.

I never knew of clicker training before reading about it on the Horse Forum. My guess is that I'm probably not patient or consistent enough to use it successfully. But I love reading about how useful some of these alternative techniques can be.


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## Skyseternalangel

Progress is a wonderful feeling! Keep building, it'll only get better


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## Bondre

egrogan said:


> That sounds amazing Bondre! Congrats on such a successful session.
> 
> I never knew of clicker training before reading about it on the Horse Forum. My guess is that I'm probably not patient or consistent enough to use it successfully. But I love reading about how useful some of these alternative techniques can be.


Thanks Egrogan! I'm very pleased with how we're doing. I know we still have such a long way to go to get her through this barn sour hiccup, but the important thing is that we're pointed in the right direction and advancing gradually.

I had never heard of clicker training either, and when I first came across it I was a bit doubtful. Thought it sounded very complicated and cumbersome, having to charge the clicker and carry it around with you. I guess I started to read more about it out of desperation. Everything was sliding backwards with my horse, seemingly irreversibly, and I just didn't have the knowledge or ability to correct the slide. As I said in my last post, I had this sinking feeling that if it came to it, and I had to have a face-to-face with Macarena, she might well win, and then I WOULD be in a dark place without a guiding light. So I decided to try something different, see if we could work around the problem instead of charging into a confrontation and probably losing. 

I really like the possibilities clicker training offers because basically it greatly refines greatly the human-to-horse communication. It enables you to communicate a very precise message. And in the precision lies its beauty. It obliges the human to clean up their act and give a clear message. It eliminates the fuzzy thinking which is at the root of all training problems.

Before I started, my thoughts were along thy lines of, "We are having big problems. She is scared. She isn't listening to me. I need to go back to basics. Just what ARE the basics??"  

I am not a horse trainer. I don't have a wealth of experience to fall back on. I don't know all the steps that a young horse should learn in order to become a model citizen. However, the inherent precision of clicker training forced me to think things out a bit before starting. I had a powerful tool in my hand which would help me to communicate, saying "click" _that is good_, or "silence" _that's not what I want_. But exactly what did I want Macarena to learn? 

I decided I wanted her to stop and start reliably, so we did that on the lead. She learnt it in about three minutes. Then I wanted her to stand still. And then do it all from her back instead of beside her. And the groundwork translated into results on horseback, thanks to the clear incentive that the clicker provides: "keep doing it, treat coming". This has been the downfall of other methods I tried, as she knows perfectly well that, while I CAN force her to move forward on the lead, I CAN'T force her to move forward from her back. She has the winning hand because she has four feet on the ground, whereas I have none (thanks to bsms for this interesting and very valid point), so she has to decide to move forward because she wants to.
And the clicker plus treats seem to be a sufficient incentive. 

On the basis of my admittedly limited experience, I would encourage anyone and everyone to try. *Both my horses enjoy our sessions. **They learn fast. ***I learn fast too ;-) :rofl: ****It is actually quite simple once you understand the basic concept (which is both simple and solid). *****You don't need to be serious about doing a"programme", once the horse has got the idea you can do occasional sessions and they won't forget.

Now some pics to complete a long post:



Flamenca showing off her new trick.



Macarena learning to stand still.

See those happy, interested expressions? 

_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

I've done another two ridden sessions since my last post, and we are progressing favourably  . Each ride I ask her to go a bit further away from home .... and she complies. Yay!!

On Saturday we had two minor stall-outs, today not a single one. The stall-outs are also getting progressively milder and easier to work through. Before the clicker training she was going backwards into trees, going sideways, threatening to rear, basically a scared and uncontrollable mess. At the start of clicker training she was still backing up, but not in panic, and now in her moments of doubt she just stops and maybe tries to turn, but she's not committed to her negation in the same way any more. More like just checking in to see if we REALLY have to continue walking away from home lol.

I took her in the same direction on both rides, past the group of houses (ours and neighbours', tightly grouped together Spanish-style) and towards the pine forest. On Saturday we reached the back gate of our goat yard at the edge of the forest, where I called it a day; today I asked her to go into the forest and we actually managed a circular route (actually a lopsided triangle) instead of just there and back! She was quite sticky about walking forward in the forest, and I had to do lots of clicking and some treating to reassure her that she was doing well, but she didn't actually stage a protest or try spinning for home at any stage. On the return leg she walked out much better, a touch fast but she was relaxed and walking on a loose rein so that was great. Despite being patently delighted at heading for home she didn't try jogging or messing around at all.

And I discovered something new! Since the issue we are working on is forward movement, I click her when she is walking nicely. If she stops, I ask her to walk on and as soon as she gives a step forwards, I click her to say, "yes, that's right!". The problem is that to give the reward, I have to halt her, and I don't want her thinking the reward is for stopping. So up until now I have been asking for a halt in order to give her the treat, to differentiate between a planned halt and an unplanned halt (ie: her stalling out), but this is a bit cumbersome and I think it's confusing.

In my clicker training book, it states that you give the click (the bridge) to mark a desired behaviour, and the horse should continue to offer this behaviour until you give the terminal bridge, which is reaching for the treat. In our situation, this means I click her for moving forward, and she should still be moving forward when I reach for the treat, but she can halt to receive it. You might think that hand movement as a terminal bridge (marks the end of the desired behaviour) is impractical when you're on the horse's back, as how can the horse tell when you're getting a treat out of the bum bag? Answer... they can tell just fine! Macarena is extremely aware of the presence of the bum bag when we are clicker training, and her ears go back in concentration at the least hint of my taking the reins in one hand to get the treat with the other.

So I tried this, she sensed my hand movement and halted, took the treat, and then continued walking WITHOUT being asked to go forward. Problem solved, and proves that she understands considerably more than I had imagined. She knows that the desired behaviour is forward movement, and voluntarily continues that behaviour after the treat.

:loveshower: :loveshower:

Which brought home another passage from the clicker training book. The author says that clicker trained horses learn to think and solve problems.... which sounds great but can present more of a challenge in certain circumstances. So he warns that if you prefer an obedient "yes, ma'am, no ma'am" horse, it's better not to clicker train lol!.

I for one am greatly enjoying our journey towards having a thinking partner who sometimes seems to understand the situation better then I do.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## egrogan

This is so exciting to read! I'm so glad you're having such success.

re: them being able to tell when you're reaching for the bag...in the summer, I often ride with a little bag around my waist to hold my phone and keys. Since I like taking pictures when I ride, I do reach into the bag often, and Isabel absolutely knows when I do that. She will stop and stare off pensively into the distance, giving me her best "I'm beautiful" pose to photograph. And she also knows when the phone is put away and walks right on. Since mine has a zipper, I think it's the zipper sound that has become the signal to her.


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## Bondre

I haven't updated for a while, but things are busy and I often don't have enough hours in the day. Horsewise, I am pleased with Macarena's progress. I have been teaching her to sidepass in our groundwork sessions, and have continued riding her out in the immediate vicinity of the barn. She is so much more amenable about going away from home now, all the fight and "make me!" has gone. If we have a disagreement it is relatively easy to resolve it with patience and good humour. No need for a fight.



I find the whole business of convincing a horse to stay with you mentally quite fascinating. As Tinyliny has written in various threads, you want to bring their thought back to you when it wavers or strays. When we were in our bad patch, our thought processes were diametrically opposed. I was "we are going out" and she was "we are going home", and the result was stress and potentially dangerous situations. I am learning how to convince her "we are BOTH going out". And how to bring her back to me when she suddenly remembers "I want home!" 

Interestingly, the very manouevres that she used against me to turn for home when she got nervous (backing up and sidepassing uncontrollably) are now the key to making her relax and bringing her thought back to me. When we reach our furthest point on the ride, we stop and do some manouevres. Back up. Disengage hindquarters. This helps keep her with me and distracts her from the idea of "time to go home", which is when she would have started backing up off her own bat. But seeing as I am asking her to back up, and then disnegaging her 180' and backing her up again, she is too busy to think of evading me... or too confused to know how to try and evade me? 

Today I included side pass on the menu AND SHE GAVE ME A COUPLE OF STEPS!! Yay :loveshower: It was the first time I asked for it under saddle, out in the open with not a wall in sight to impede forward movement, and I felt her front legs crossing under her. 

She also gave me her best back-up yet under saddle. So proud of her! And kicking myself for not taking the time to teach her this basic stuff before.

I rode her part of the way home today. This was another advance, as previously I have dismounted at our furthest point and led her home. But of course, as we go further afield, this would mean a lot of walking in hand. She was actually confused and resistant about turning for home. I suspect she was looking for the carrot (really). But I insisted quietly, rewarded even a step in the right direction with the clicker and a treat, and after a couple of moments of indecision we were heading for home together. 

The carrot was waiting on a rock about half way home. Darned evasive vegetable! You never know where it will be.

She knows we will graze on the way home, and she was so excited when she saw a patch of grass coming up that she jumped forward into a happy trot. Disrespectful... yes. But also a spontaneous expression of emotion that I am loath to suppress, let alone punish. I quickened my pace and we arrived at the tasty greenstuff together.

I believe that a good leader knows when to stand back and let someone else take the lead.


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## Bondre

I don't believe it. I had just finished an enormously long post about our recent rides when the screen suddenly went blank... and that was the end of my post. _Tears hair out_. I guess it was just all TOO boring and the computer decided to censor it for me. 

Well, maybe tomorrow I'll feel like rewriting it. Or not.


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## knightrider

Oh no no. NOT boring. We want the long post, we WANTS it!


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## Bondre

knightrider said:


> Oh no no. NOT boring. We want the long post, we WANTS it!


hahaha Knightrider, I wanted the long post too but my wretched laptop thought otherwise. It took me over half an hour and a can of beer to write, and the unusual luxury of an empty house (no distractions) as DH and the boys were out. But the nasty antihippic electronic device decided to throw a wobbly literally as I was finishing my last sentence.

"Oh, SO sorry, I've caught a nasty virus and I go all dizzy and black out. Hope I haven't lost anything important?? Ah, just horse stuff, not important then."

AAARGH

Here are some pics of the girls while I rewrite.





And the photo of her learning to sidepass which mysteriously disappeared from my earlier post:


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## Bondre

Our rides recently have been short but I think productive. My riding philosophy has changed greatly over the past months. In my first two years with Macarena, I thought that if we didn’t hit the trails for at least one hour or if she didn’t work up a sweat schooling in the fields, then we hadn’t achieved anything much. And yet, a lot of our trail riding was empty time, kilometres under the belt, fun and relaxing but a bit mindless.

Since she got nervous about going out and started balking about going away from home, I have had to change my approach radically. And have discovered that there are lots of useful and fun things we can do together in the immediate vicinity of the barn, without having to break a sweat doing endless trot and canter circles either. I also suspect that Macarena is a reasonably smart horse who likes to see a reason for what we are doing, and going round in circles doesn’t make much sense to her.

I am working on expanding her horizons ever so gradually, asking her to go a little further in a given direction every time we go out. I continue to use positive reinforcement techniques to encourage her, and lots of patience. I don’t use the clicker any more to reward forward movement as that is just too awkward to keep doing. When she reaches a perceived limit of her safe area and wants to turn for home, I use bsms’s “this will profit you not” philosophy and keep turning her back to face where I want to go. I don’t ask her to go forward, but I don’t allow her to go backwards either. Eventually she decides that dithering around is pointless and moves forwards away from home. And gets a big fuss made of her for being brave. I always dismount at some point on the route, miraculously find the carrot and allow her to graze for a while. Then I mount up again and we return home.

Last time out she was a bit hot and nervous on the way back. She had the wind in her tail which didn’t help, and kept breaking into a trot. I did half halts, heavy seat, all that, and she would walk a few strides and then trot again. A tractor approached from behind us. I circled her (she was trotting) and turned her to face it so she could see what the noise was. We did some disengaging hindquarters and a rein back which occupied her mind while it passed, and then continued behind it. Amazing how effective it is to ask them to move their feet at moments of tension. Of course, this technique only works if you have previously taught the horse how to do these varied movements, in which case I think they find it reassuring to have something familiar to latch on to. 

Why worry about the tractor, which actually isn’t rattling or banging or carrying any weird and threatening agricultural implements, when your rider is asking you to shift your bum sideways and you know you’ll get a reward when you do it right? You shift your bum and you back up or go sideways, whatever, eat your reward and forget about being scared.

I find it interesting to consider the total failure I had at first when my approach to her balking was to bully her into submission. I have read this I don’t know how many times on the forum – if your horse refuses to go forwards you must get after it, wrap the long end of your reins round its backside, even make it wish it hadn’t been born…. (yes, seriously :shock: ). This was what I tried at first. She balked, I hit her backside with the whip. She balked harder and got more tense, I hit her again, and she went sideways and threatened to rear. Fortunately my brain kicked in at this point and I realized that the whip wasn’t the answer, despite all the assertions you’ll hear to the contrary. Maybe I just wasn’t big enough and tough enough. Perhaps someone else could have won the day through force and dominance. 

I just know that I wasn’t capable of that, and in any case I wouldn’t want to be the sort of horseperson that “wins” over their horse in that way. Nor do I believe that Macarena is the sort of horse that admits that kind of bullying. She was scared about going far from home and needed reassurance, yet I offered her dominance and stress. Not surprising that getting after her didn't work. When you're scared about something, to whom will you respond better: the person who encourages you and coaxes you into trying, or the one who threatens you with violence if you fail or cop out? Hmmm. Not so hard to understand her really, is it? I would have reacted just the same if I was her. 

To sum up, we are making progress with patience and fair treatment, and we are becoming a better team in the process, so I think that is a good foundation for the future.

In conclusion, here are some photos of our most recent session. They are screenshots from a video so I’m afraid they’re not great quality. But anyway…

I decided to work on walking over irrigation ditches, as these are quite common round here and it’s awkward when she refuses to cross them. Which she always does. I wonder if her not great eyesight in her right eye doesn’t help much. Horses can’t see what is directly in front of them even with normal eyesight, and I have read that when they jump they are actually jumping “a memory” as they can no longer see the obstacle clearly when they are close enough to take off, so I guess Macarena has the same problem with these ditches. 



There’s a ditch really close to the barn, so no need to go far for this lesson. We started off on the lead.





Then I mounted and we tried again. She had a good look at the ditch; "Do I HAVE to cross it??"

Then she had a go and did it perfectly.



We also did some side-passing to vary things a bit.



"I'm getting good at this trick mum!"



And then the carrot to finish off the session.


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## bsms

I'll admit, I'd NEVER have the patience to try what follows, from Horse Control Reminiscences by Tom RobertsThis horse was a confirmed jibber. He would not move when ridden alone. He just stood.

We were all eyes - and ears! How would the Captain fare with THIS horse?

[The next day] Promptly at 9 am, the Captain mounted and began to talk, as was usual. He was a most interesting lecturer, and he went on, and on. He made no attempt to move the horse, which was what we students were all waiting to see.

He talked and he talked. It was not until about 11:30 am again, that he suddenly seemed to realize the time. Again, the Captain drew his watch from his fob pocket and appeared to be most surprised to find it was so late.

"I'm sorry Gentlemen", he said , "I had no idea I had been speaking so long. Now what was the matter with this horse?" 

"Try and get him to move", yelled several voices simultaneously.

To our utter astonishment and confusion, the horse cantered straight off down the School.

After a few minutes work, the Captain returned smiling..."Gentlemen, I have deceived you...Yesterday, when I mounted this horse, I immediately recognized I had to deal with a jibber [horse who would not go out alone]. I could feel he was determined not to move. The hour was late, and I knew I would need time. ALWAYS ALLOW YOURSELF TIME. Never fail to allow yourself plenty of time when about to start on a difficult horse - whatever the difficulties he presents.

"This morning at 9 o'clock, I mounted this horse with several hours ahead of me. The horse was determined not to be ridden forward. But I, too, was determined not to move.

At half-past 9, we were both still determined not to move. 10 o'clock came, and he was still determined not to move. So was I.

At 10:30, I could feel he was starting to become a little restive - but I was still determined not to move.

Now, at 11;30, we are BOTH ready to move."

[....Years later, in Australia]:

It is all in the distant past now, and I am unable to say exactly how long he stood and I sat, motionless. It was one of the very few occasions in my life when I wished I smoked, just for something to do. The horse just stood - and stood still - and I just sat - and sat still.

Eventually he began to show signs of wanting to go back to camp, but I kept him standing still and facing forward just where he had stopped....I saw not a soul through the evening and night.

It was not until several hours more had passed (it seemed longer to me) that the horse reluctantly stepped over the so faint track. I made no attempt to drive him forward when he became restless: he knew what was wanted of him and eventually he decided to move forward without any driving...

[The next night, Tom Roberts took the horse out again. He stopped in the same spot...for 45 minutes. Then went on. The night after that, it took 15 minutes. On the fourth night, he paused for seconds. After that, he never paused again...]

*"Don't hurry, it takes longer."* - Danny Fitzgerald's advice, repeated by Tom Roberts.​I could never do it, but I've never had to try sitting still for more than a few minutes. I have tried whipping Mia hard enough to make her go forward...and she proved she could go backwards very rapidly!

I have no idea if it is a useful story. It does show that some excellent riders prized patience over force.


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## Bondre

I love those stories! Thank you for typing all that out to share. What a relief that Macarena, like Mia, requires minutes rather than hours for getting over her balks.

Interesting that your experiences using a whip with Mia were equally negative. On the rare occasions when I've used a whip on Macarena, all I've accomplished is to up the tension and augment our disharmony. Which is extremely counterproductive in moments of tension, when you need a technique for calming your horse rather than stressing it further. It's not that I've ever hurt her with it as I've not used it hard enough to cause more than discomfort, and she's certainly not scared of it, but she seems to understand that the intent of the whip is dominance rather than partnership and responds to my perceived bad attitude towards her with equal attitude towards me. 

A debatable topic. Why do some horses apparently respond better to forceful riders, whereas others (like Macarena and Mia) meet their riders' attempts at dominance head-on? And would this same horse allow itself to be dominated by a different rider? I can't say for Macarena as very few people have ridden her apart from myself, and they have been passenger riders. Do you know if Mia has had a forcefully dominant rider on her, and if so, how that turned out? 

I'm curious to hear of others' experiences with horses that don't take kindly to the use of unreasonable dominance. Is it the horse's character? The rider? Or is it just the much-vaunted (dreadful) "holes in their training"? 

Perhaps it's all the same thing? And training is just a way of teaching the horse to accept our dominance gracefully.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## gottatrot

Great posts about "the horse that will not move."
Amore was a fearful one to go out alone. I also tried the pressure/whipping technique with no success. I've never tried waiting it out, because after ten minutes I got bored when the horse showed no sign of wanting to move. 

How I cured Amore of it is probably an odd solution. We had a couple years of her not wanting to go out alone, and I had no lasting solution until the one I found. I'm a runner, so we'd head out riding and when Amore would freeze up I'd give her about five seconds of standing still, then I'd ask her to go forward. If she didn't _immediately_ start walking, I'd leap off and start running, fast. I'd make her trot alongside me.

So basically she had a choice: either keep walking and I'll keep riding you, and you'll have plenty of time to look at what is bothering you. Or else I'll hop off and you're going to have to trot by this thing and not have any time to think about it. 

After a few minutes of trotting, I'd hop back on and see if she was ready to go. If she wasn't, I'd jump off again and start running. At first I had to hop off a few times to get through a ride. This quickly improved until I only had to get off once, then only every ride or two, and then not at all. After awhile she was like, "No, don't get off! I'm going, I'm going!" She didn't care to do that much trotting away from home when she could do more walking under saddle. 

One benefit was that she got really good at picking up a trot and jogging next to me. Another was that she got more sensitive to my forward cues under saddle. Nowadays Amore has a "fine" walk, trot and canter heading away from home. However, her speed going the other way is more satisfactory. You probably wouldn't realize she was holding back until you felt her true, free walk going the other direction, which is about double the speed. That's OK with me. 

I've never seen anyone be able to beat a horse into a trailer when the horse was afraid either. I don't think any horses respond well to forceful riders, but I think some horses know what they are supposed to do and consciously say "no," and those horses can have someone apply a little incentive which makes them behave. But we have to understand the horse's motivation: if the horse is trying to see if he can get away with going to eat his dinner right now, a crop may help. If the horse is afraid of getting eaten by bears, it probably won't.


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## bsms

Mia's new owner takes a more dominant approach. For Bandit, he told me to just "make him" go past things. He liked Mia's willingness to fight back (and admitted Bandit sometimes did). We haven't talked in some time. After seeing how Bandit's shoeing had affected his movement, I didn't want to have him work as a farrier for us and I suspect there was no way to not hire him without giving some offense. The last time I talked to him, he seemed a bit disappointed at Mia's "softness" and that she could be ridden by young kids. In the open country where she now lives, I doubt she would spook often, other than an occasional sideways jump.








​ 
As long as he urges her, she would do fine. If he tried bullying her, he'd provoke a reaction. If he was tough enough to win, she'd probably respect that and be a fairly willing horse for him. When they took her out and raced her against "racing fit" horses, she held the lead for 2 miles out of willpower, and ran for 4 before admitting she couldn't win. Even if I had the skill, I didn't have 4 miles of anywhere to work her hard. In my 50s, the truth was that if push came to shove, she'd win. I couldn't win by dominating her. I wasn't strong enough. A guy in his 20s who weighs 220 in his socks could simply push her harder and farther in a fight than I could.

OTOH, because I did not have the strength to win by force, I had to find another way. A person CAN load a horse into a trailer by brute force, if the halter is strong enough and they use a come-along or a winch (I've seen it done). And if you did it daily, I think the horse WOULD learn that the trailer was safe and to just go inside. The French Cavalry proverb (copied by the US) that "*The horse should think God is on his back and the Devil is at his belly*" undoubtedly worked for most horses, IF the rider could and would enforce it.

If the goal is a totally obedient horse, and if the rider is young enough, strong enough and skilled enough to force the issue, it ought to work. But to be honest, I do *NOT* want my horse to be *WILLING* to do this:








​ 
Or worse, this:








​ 

I'd rather have a horse who would say, "*Oh HELLLLLL NO! We'll go around!*"


:iagree:​
The last thing I need is a horse who might interpret my farting as a command to jump into cholla cactus, and obey...:lol: I value judgment over obedience. And of course, that would not work for the cavalry. One couldn't have the horses going, "_Charge a bunch of cannons shooting us in the face? I don't think so!_" - but that is what I want from a horse.


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## bsms

A couple of additions. One is a picture of Tom Roberts riding alongside "The Captain" of the previous story...seems they remained friends thru the decades. Someday, I need to put on a suit and bolo tie (the official state neckwear of Arizona) and go for a ride. Would I ride any better for it?








​
This is a quote from George Morris's book "The American Jumping Style". I don't entirely agree with him, though. Apart from the fact that many Europeans ride hot horses, I think most horses will perform better, over the long run, if their rider uses "The Back Door Approach":










I've met pretty laid back quarter horses who seem to appreciate a less "in your face" approach to riding. James Fillis was French, and he argued that "equine tact" was a critical skill in teaching a horse. Cowboy the BLM mustang is hardly a fiery thoroughbred, but he behaves much better with an understanding rider than a dominant one. It was an Austrian Cavalry officer in the mid-1800s who wrote:The French say, when speaking of a horse that shows restiveness, "il se defend" - he defends himself...There is much truth in this expression, and it is one that riders should constantly bear in mind, for insubordination is most commonly the result of something having been demanded from the horse that it either did not know how to do or was unable to perform...

...There is another thing to be considered with regard to the horse's character - it loves to exercise its powers, and it possesses a great spirit of emulation; it likes variety of scene and amusement ; and under a rider that understands how to indulge it in all this without overtaxing its powers, will work willingly to the last gasp,which is what entitles it to the name of a noble and generous animal...

On Seats and Saddles (1868), Francis Dwyer, Major of Hussars (light cavalry)​Some horses tolerate a dominant approach. Some might even flourish under it. But it seems any rider ought be be ready to try the back door...and a great many Europeans PREFER the back door, while there are plenty of folks in my own Arizona who don't know a back door exists, let alone why someone might want to use it!​


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## tinyliny

I like this remark from Bondre:

"I just know that I wasn’t capable of that, and in any case I wouldn’t want to be the sort of horseperson that “wins” over their horse in that way. Nor do I believe that Macarena is the sort of horse that admits that kind of bullying. *She was scared about going far from home and needed reassurance, yet I offered her dominance and stress.* Not surprising that getting after her didn't work. When you're scared about something, to whom will you respond better: the person who encourages you and coaxes you into trying, or the one who threatens you with violence if you fail or cop out? Hmmm. Not so hard to understand her really, is it? I would have reacted just the same if I was her. "

this is very astute. when the horse is really feeling bad, really anxious, really scared, really worried, and they are about at the place where they can't handle any more, then adding more bad feelings won't help. the horse might go forward, but they may feel even worse, and the next time, may go up.

I think that much of the time that experienced trainers on the forum were advocating using intense pressure, fast and hard, were talking about dealing with a stubborn, spoiled horse, not one that is really anxious/scared. at least, that's my take.

I rememeber watching a great trainer working with an anxious horse in the round pen. the horse is put in, and immediately starts running like a mad man around. the man just sort of walks a small circle, doing nothing else. 

earlier, in working with a different horse, he had used techniques to stop the horse, and turn the horse, and draw it to him. this time, he jsut moved nuetrally 'with' the horse. if the horse sped up, he sped up slightly, if it slowed down, he slowed down. he "matched" the horse, but did not ADD any energy.

when I asked him why he let the horse go around and around and did not do something stronger than that horse's outward fixation to 'make' it come to him, mentally. he said. "she's out there feeling real bad inside. why would I ADD to her anxiety and put more bad feelings in there? I'm just gonna stay "with" her for a bit until she starts hunting up a better place to be". 

when I asked why don't you just stand in the middle and do nothing ? he said. "I could, but I want to stay 'with her' (by matching her energy) so that she'll see me, and know that I am there and I am not upset with her for being scared. that, she is 'not in trouble" and I can "get" with her first, before I ask her to "get" with me.


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## Skyseternalangel

Bondre said:


> I find it interesting to consider the total failure I had at first when my approach to her balking was to bully her into submission. *I have read this I don’t know how many times on the forum – if your horse refuses to go forwards you must get after it, wrap the long end of your reins round its backside, even make it wish it hadn’t been born…. (yes, seriously :shock: ). This was what I tried at first.* She balked, I hit her backside with the whip. She balked harder and got more tense, I hit her again, and she went sideways and threatened to rear. Fortunately my brain kicked in at this point and I realized that the whip wasn’t the answer, despite all the assertions you’ll hear to the contrary. Maybe I just wasn’t big enough and tough enough. Perhaps someone else could have won the day through force and dominance.
> 
> *I just know that I wasn’t capable of that, and in any case I wouldn’t want to be the sort of horseperson that “wins” over their horse in that way.* Nor do I believe that Macarena is the sort of horse *that admits that kind of bullying.* She was scared about going far from home and needed reassurance, yet I offered her dominance and stress. Not surprising that getting after her didn't work. When you're scared about something, to whom will you respond better: the person who encourages you and coaxes you into trying, or the one who threatens you with violence if you fail or cop out? Hmmm. Not so hard to understand her really, is it? I would have reacted just the same if I was her.
> 
> *To sum up, we are making progress with patience and fair treatment, and we are becoming a better team in the process, so I think that is a good foundation for the future.*


You know Bondre I have began to change my views as well. The other week I was actually called abusive or a bully when I was "grumpy" riding Sky (what would happen is he'd refuse to do something, then I'd escalate and even curse... and he'd start bucking or rearing and I'd escalate more to show him that is NOT okay) and it hurt me. It hurt me because I remembered when I was blissfully ignorant of everything except that I had to post the trot. I remember every ride was so much fun and Sky was so happy and everything when in reality he was probably crooked, flying all over the arena, and otherwise out of control. But we were happy.

Then I compared that feeling of happiness to those rides where he would escalate. And I became unhappy.

One ride with my new instructor (also is my BO) and we were happy again... and he listened.

Sometimes we push our horses too far and we listen to the wrong advice and it ends up making things way worse. And then we end up being those angry pushy disrespectful riders instead of being respectful to the horse and being a guide instead of a bully.

Sometimes, though, they need firmness. It's hard to tell when that time if you are inexperienced, which I believe despite 16+ years with horses, I still am. It's easy to never learn to do things the right way when you don't have teachers/instructors/mentors doing things the right way in the first place. 

Now I know better.


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## DanteDressageNerd

Bondre said:


> I love those stories! Thank you for typing all that out to share. What a relief that Macarena, like Mia, requires minutes rather than hours for getting over her balks.
> 
> Interesting that your experiences using a whip with Mia were equally negative. On the rare occasions when I've used a whip on Macarena, all I've accomplished is to up the tension and augment or disharmony. Which is extremely counterproductive in moments of tension, when you need a technique for calming your horse rather than stressing it further. It's not that I've ever hurt her with it as I've not used it hard enough to cause more than discomfort, and she's certainly not scared of it, but she seems to understand that the intent of the whip is dominance rather than partnership and responds to my perceived bad attitude towards her with equal attitude towards me.
> 
> A debatable topic. Why do some horses apparently respond better to forceful riders, whereas others (like Macarena and Mia) meet their riders' attempts at dominance head-on? And would this same horse allow itself to be dominated by a different rider? I can't say for Macarena as very few people have ridden her apart from myself, and they have been passenger riders. Do you know if Mia has had a forcefully dominant rider on her, and if so, how that turned out?
> 
> I'm curious to hear of others' experiences with horses that don't take kindly to the use of unreasonable dominance. Is it the horse's character? The rider? Or is it just the much-vaunted (dreadful) "holes in their training"?
> 
> Perhaps it's all the same thing? And training is just a way of teaching the horse to accept our dominance gracefully.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I think there's often a very fine line in riding between what is a mechanical explanation and what is art. And a lot of it is a judgment call and a lot of techniques are dependent on the riders skill/experience/awareness. What may work for some, wont work for others. There are horses that need someone to take charge. There are also horses who need someone who is a supporter and offers guidance. It's not about dominating or overbearing but providing basic communication and understanding the horse the rider is on.

I don't think you can really "make" a horse do anything, I think you can influence and suggest but if a horse doesn't want to do something, getting into a fight is only going to be counter productive. For example I've told people if you feel yourself getting angry or tense or upset with the horse halt or go back to walk on a loose rein, take deep breaths, calm down and try again. Anger or emotions get in the way of good judgment and being objective. I think it's important not to take horse's personally and take a step back. I've had days where I knew I wasn't going to accomplish anything by riding and was getting frustrated, so I just went back to walk and made easily achievable goals and got off and said tomorrow is a new day. We don't have to get this today.

You're not going to win muscling a horse or fighting it. I'll let a horse fight itself and I'll reinforce my expectation but I don't "punish" them. For example if Dante bucks or throws a tantrum I don't get after him. I don't spank him or beat him but I do direct his energy towards an immediate, achievable goal to redirect his energy. If he's scared or nervous I don't get after him but I do go into laterals or ask for him to focus and listen, maybe do multiple transitions just to get his focus. If he tries to pull me out of the saddle or pull from side to side I'll just set myself and let him fight himself because to me it's a two way street. I'm respectful, he needs to be respectful too. I think the other thing is knowing our limits as riders, some techniques work very well for certain horse/rider combinations because of the horse's personality and the rider's skill level that won't work for others. A lot of it is a judgment call on the individuals part and knowing what will work for them and their horse and whether or not they have the skill to do something like that.

I think a lot of horses who are opinionated or nervous or introverted immediately go into fight, shut off or scared mode when the rider has an attitude of "I'm going to make you do it." My horse is no different. You're not going to bully him or fight him into it, he would rear, buck and never work with you or trust you. But if you give him something easy to achieve and give him a clear direction he's much more confident in what is being asked and willing to work. Willingness and wanting to work with the rider IMO is more important than how technically correct or right something is because you can always work on the mechanics but it can be difficult to maintain the trust and willingness.

Some horses can be bullied, some horses can be gotten after and they respond better to it because like people horses have different personalities and different ways they ride or like to be lead. The problem is when someone approaches riding or horses as a one size fits all approach. And some horses are simply more tolerant than others. Some are incredibly sensitive to their riders mood. For example my old tb had anxiety

For example I rode a pony who had been beaten and whipped and gotten after (children's hunter) but how you described how people respond to refusals by beating or "making" the horse do it, he'd shut down and become non responsive. If he felt my mood change to any kind of frustration but the moment I relaxed and just said here is my expectation and still demonstrated I was competent and knew what I was doing to be respectful of my aids but having a positive attitude towards him made all the difference in the world. He was genuinely a joy to ride but as a rider it was more important for me to be mindful of my attitude and how I approached him over the mechanics of how I rode because that made the biggest difference in his willingness to work with me. It is a partnership and needs to be treated as such.

The other thing and I think this IS important for riders to ask themselves are they happy? There was a German dressage trainer, I forgot who but in a clinic this lady was riding. She was kicking and cranking on her horses mouth and was just tense and getting after the horse, had a frustrated/angry expression and the trainer asked her if she was happy and I guess she looked at him funny and he said why are you riding if you're not happy? Why are you doing this if you're not happy? You're not happy, your horse is not happy. Riding is too expensive a sport to be doing if it doesn't make you happy. I was told this story, I didn't see it myself but apparently after that the rider's attitude softened and she had a much better ride because instead of focusing on accomplishing A,B,C her focus was on her attitude about riding and how she rode her horse.

People don't talk about it enough but our mental projections and how we approach our horses mentally HAS a HUGE effect on them. They know when we think they're being a jerk or we're mad or frustrated. They're aware and they do get defensive and some will tolerate it and then blow up because they dont understand or some will just get nervous or shut down or have negative reactions. Some need you to get mad at them to understand that you're serious. It just depends but as riders we have to wise enough to know the kind of horse we're sitting on how to best earn that horses trust and partnership. You're not going to get anywhere, no matter your discipline if you have a horse who doesn't trust you.


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## knightrider

Bondre, here is one answer to your question about whether there are horses who will not tolerate dominance. When I was 14, we moved, and when we got settled, my parents let me get another horse. By then, I had already started and trained 2 colts, so I wasn't an inexperienced newbie. My parents knew nothing about horses, so I picked out my horse by myself. We had no money, so my budget was extremely slim.

I picked out a green broke 4 year old pinto trucked in from Wyoming. I named him Apache, adored him and rode him everywhere. He tossed me off a lot, but I mostly rode him bareback and galloped and jumped him all the time. I didn't worry much about coming off in those days. I didn't think much of it one way or another. 

Apache was a VERY quirky horse who did little defiant things like take the wrong lead both ways in the ring. If I asked for the wrong lead, then I'd get it. He knew which lead I wanted, so he'd always take the wrong one. There was no winning with that horse--literally. But I foxhunted him, showed him, and rode him for hours.

As I got older, I discovered that you could never "tell" Apache to do anything. You had to "ask". I stopped getting tossed off so much when I figured that out. In those very long days ago, all the adults and instructors were big on "making" the horse do things. I could never "make" Apache do anything.

When I was 15, I got the job as "horse girl" at a snooty riding camp, and I brought Apache to use at the camp. That's when I figured Apache out. He was fantastic for beginners. He threw every experienced rider (including me, regularly) who ever got on him. Beginners "ask". Experienced riders "demand." I discovered at that camp that I could ride him bareback over jumps in a figure 8 with my hands out. There was no "telling" him with no bridle on his head. He was fantastic.

When I went to college, I sold him to that camp, and went to visit him every chance I got. About half the time, he tossed me off when I would go to ride him at the camp. I would forget to "ask" because I was riding other people's horses and had lost the finesse needed to ride him. He had more personality than any horse I ever owned. I bought him back when he was no longer sound and kept him until he died. He was a horse in a million.


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## bsms

^^ Wonderful story! And an interesting thought, too...


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## gottatrot

Recently I watched a documentary that included some information on Seattle Slew. The manager at the farm where Slew lived many years said:


> "If there's one characteristic that all good horses have it's that they're smart.
> Seattle Slew is the smartest horse I've ever seen. You can look in the horse's eye and see the intelligence. He's fiercely competitive, and he has a good sense of who he is. *He is a very willing and generous horse as long as you ask him. But you can't tell him.*"


He was known for doing "war dances" on the way to a race, seen in this video at the 4:38 mark. Apparently no one insisted "he walk calmly," choosing to value the horse rather than fight battles with him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ffa23d52SA


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## Bondre

I've really enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts on this subject, thanks all for posting. It's fascinating to see how a bunch of very diverse riders think about their relationship with their horses, and I feel that, beneath all the differences, we all think the same way where it counts.



gottatrot said:


> * I don't think any horses respond well to forceful riders, but I think some horses know what they are supposed to do and consciously say "no," and those horses can have someone apply a little incentive which makes them behave.* But we have to understand the horse's motivation: if the horse is trying to see if he can get away with going to eat his dinner right now, a crop may help.* If the horse is afraid of getting eaten by bears, it probably won't.


.

and



tinyliny said:


> when the horse is really feeling bad, really anxious, really scared, really worried,* and they are about at the place where they can't handle any more, then adding more bad feelings won't help.* the horse might go forward, but they may feel even worse, and the next time, may go up.
> 
> I think that much of the time that experienced trainers on the forum were advocating using intense pressure, fast and hard, were talking about dealing with a stubborn, spoiled horse, not one that is really anxious/scared.* at least, that's my take....
> 
> .....I can "get" with her first, before I ask her to "get" with me.


Yes, this is an important lesson that I have learned. To try and put myself in the horse's place and understand their motivations. When I started doing this with Macarena her general attitude improved so much that I realise that I was part of the problem. I was making her balking issue worse by expecting her to "get with me" rather than attempting to "get with her" first. Her emotional state was 80% scared and 20% stubborn. The finesse comes in distinguishing between the two.



Skyseternalangel said:


> Sometimes we push our horses too far and we listen to the wrong advice and it ends up making things way worse. And then we end up being those angry pushy disrespectful riders instead of being respectful to the horse and being a guide instead of a bully.
> 
> Sometimes, though, they need firmness. It's hard to tell when that time if you are inexperienced, which I believe despite 16+ years with horses, I still am. It's easy to never learn to do things the right way when you don't have teachers/instructors/mentors doing things the right way in the first place.


Absolutely. In my teens I was a much more impatient and demanding rider. Now I am in my late forties, I am much calmer and I hope more understanding. Technically I am certainly a worse rider now than I used to be, as I don't have so much time to dedicate to it nor do I have an instructor; but I believe I am a better rider in other ways, as I have a much wider understanding of the art of horsemanship.

The forum is a fantastic resource for widening horizons.... and very useful for those of us who don't have access to good instruction.

Dante, that was a great post! I want to repeat this paragraph in particular because I feel this is where I'm at with Macarena.



DanteDressageNerd said:


> I think a lot of horses who are opinionated or nervous or introverted immediately go into fight, shut off or scared mode when the rider has an attitude of "I'm going to make you do it." My horse is no different. You're not going to bully him or fight him into it, he would rear, buck and never work with you or trust you. [N]But if you give him something easy to achieve and give him a clear direction he's much more confident in what is being asked and willing to work.[/N] Willingness and wanting to work with the rider IMO is more important than how technically correct or right something is [N]because you can always work on the mechanics but it can be difficult to maintain the trust and willingness.[/N]


:iagree:
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

^^^^ oops, I wanted to bold those sentences of Dante's but I crossed my wires and used [N] (negrillo as in Spanish) instead of *. 
Posted via Mobile Device*


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## Bondre

Knightrider, I read your story about Apache and I thought something about him sounded familiar. But Macarena is not quite like that, nor is Flamenca, so I was puzzled as to which animal Apache reminded me of. Until it struck me - he reminds me of ME! 

I'm the sort of person who hates being told to do things that I both know HOW to do and that I know NEED doing. And if I'm about to do something and DH (or someone else, but nearly always DH) comes and reminds me to do it, my contrary reaction is either to not do whatever it was, or to do it differently. Just to prove that I'm doing it because I thought of it first, not because he suggested it. 

Just like your horse lol. 

My thoughts go along the lines of "sure, I know just what I'm doing, I've got it all thought out and don't need assistance, thanks". I guess I'm like this because I know that I'm capable and efficient on the whole, and "helpful" suggestions make me feel my capacities are in doubt. As if the other person thinks I must be a fool if I need reminding of such self-evident things. (The ironic thing is that in these circumstances DH is actually trying to be genuinely helpful and isn't implying I'm stupid, so I try to remember this instead of getting irritated.)

Not saying that horses go through all these twisted human thought processes, but is it possible that a horse can get irritated with its rider because it feels like it's being treated like an idiot? Along the lines of "yes, I know EXACTLY what you're asking me to do, we've done it countless times together, so I think I'll do it differently instead". And the same horse will be careful and "obedient" with a beginner, because it knows that it knows more then the beginner and there's no doubt in it's head about who's in charge? 

It sounds to me as if Apache was like that. A horse after my own heart! Though I probably would have had terrible arguments with him about just WHO knew better if he'd been mine :rofl: :rofl:
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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Oliver will not be dominated or threatened, but he is very willing to cooperate and work with you.

People always point out how horses are non confrontational and will run from conflict if that is an option. Oliver missed that memo as I have seen him on a couple of occasions not only fail to move away from a small feral pack of dogs that roam the hills near our home, but preemptively attack them if they dare step foot in his pasture. He has drawn his line at the fences and does not wait for the dogs to actually approach the horses before taking action. 

He is the same in training. Cross his line and disrespect him and he will confront you with everything he has.

Attribute it to spirit, pride, self preservation, intelligence, self confidence or having spent years as a stallion, but it is an important part of what makes him, who he is.

You can either try to overpower it (many have tried and failed) *or* work with it to your benefit by simply asking for his cooperation which, when done with fairness, an attitude of teaching him, respect and consistency, he is perfectly willing to give you anything you ask for. 

Once you remove your ego/need to win from the equation, he is a very different horse.


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## knightrider

Bondre, you pegged Apache perfectly. I only won one ribbon with him in a flat class, and that was a pair class, a 4th place out of 7 pairs because we were side by side together perfectly. But, as usual, he took the wrong lead--both ways of the ring. Didn't matter how I'd cue him, he always took the wrong lead. He won lots of ribbons jumping, trail class, fitting and showing, anything that didn't have cantering in a circle. In those old days, there were no walk/trot classes.

He was a wonderful foxhunting horse because he never put a foot wrong and jumped any jump ahead of him, went through any ditch or water at any pace.

Everything had to be his idea, like you said, and once I figured it out, I stopped coming off of him (much). And, could he toss people! He had a sneaky way of dropping a shoulder and tipping his body. I don't think he ever bucked, reared, or bolted in his life. He'd just "bloop" and the rider was OFF. When he'd throw me, he'd gallop away happily. I'd pick myself up, give him my special whistle and call "A-paaaaa-cheee" and he'd come galloping back. Always. Shaking his big ol' ugly head and laughing at me.


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## Bondre

gottatrot said:


> He was known for doing "war dances" on the way to a race, seen in this video at the 4:38 mark. Apparently no one insisted "he walk calmly," choosing to value the horse rather than fight battles with him.


I remember Seattle Slew from when I was a kid. I googled him and saw his Triple Crown win was in 1977, so I'd have been a horse-crazy 10 year old with my hair in pony-tails back then. Nice video, and what a gorgeous horse he was.

Macarena gave me quite a "war dance" last night. We were coming home through the pine forest in late evening, and she clearly thought it was time to be back in the yard with Flamenca rather than fooling around in wolf territory (no wolves here but try convincing her of that). My son was accompanying on his bmx and managed to catch at least half of the dance on video:

https://youtu.be/wPtW2uEyqbg

Have to admit I was a bit disappointed when I saw the video. It felt worse than it looked lol! I thought she was doing a lot of bouncing with four feet off the ground, but I can't see any of that in the video. Perhaps it was when he stopped to pick up the sweatshirt I was carrying over the pommel and that fell off in the excitement?

Our ride started off very well. I asked her to go over the irrigation ditch straight after mounting up, which she did with only the slightest hesitation. She felt quite forward, so I asked for a couple of trot figure-eights outside the yard, which she did fine on a loose rein, very light and nice. Then we headed go the road still at the trot, and all perfect, no balking or hesitation.

We took a track through the forest that follows an unused irrigation channel. Macarena doesn't care much for these large concrete structures - you never know what might be hiding in the bottom. Yesterday my son decided he would ride his bmx along the irrigation channel, which actually made a really good cycle lane, and instead of freaking out at seeing a bike in a weird place, Macarena was totally blasé about it.



In fact she was more relaxed and curious about the irrigation channel than ever before. She actually stuck her nose into it instead of giving it shifty sideways glances. As if she was thinking "so THAT'S what those ugly concrete things are for!" And it stands to reason that if it's a cycle lane, there aren't going to be any wolves hiding in it. Logical 



The problems started when we reached the main track. Turn right for home, left into the forest. I wanted left. Guess who preferred right?



(Don't be taken in by that cute pony-face)

We had a discussion that involved standing still, disengaging and backing up, and some intimate contact with the lower branches of pine trees. In the end my son had to lead her out of the trees. But as soon as we were committed to going left and the decision was made, she was fine about it. No trying to turn for home or anything. She walked nicely on a loose rein. I didn't ask her to go far, just as far as the rock where the carrot appeared. ;-)

The war dance started on the return leg. She started jog-trotting, and after getting her to walk properly I risked asking her for a trot. And she DID trot, in between the dance steps.

After the end of the video, I did actually get her to trot almost normally, without pulling or bouncing, and was pleased to call it a day at that.

I think she was getting me back for insisting on turning left into the forest.

"You want to have it your way? OK, I'll do what you want now. But later, we'll do what I want lol."

A couple of nice, baroque-horse screen shots from the video: 







After the storm, the calm:


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## egrogan

Hehe, sounds like we had similar rides home yesterday. While I was explaining my "unplanned dismount" to my husband when I got home from the barn yesterday, I was wishing for a video so I could have seen what actually happened! But I imagine that it went something like what you showed in your video, albeit at speed, and instead of maintaining a nice deep seat like you, my guess is that I tensed up and my body said "run" while my hands/voice said "woah."


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## bsms

Ok...I think that qualifies as a "rounded back":










Not sure what it is called, but kind of fun to watch...sitting in front of my computer...:winetime:


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## gottatrot

I definitely saw all four feet off the ground at least once. Also would say you have achieved collection. :wink:
Nice handling. I call that the conflict of the little devil and the little angel...one wants to run home, the other wants to obey the rider and go slow.








Oh, by the way, I've been told collection is the way to gain the utmost control over a horse. My experience has been that horses often get more collected as they get more "hot" and often less manageable. Sometimes they collect so much they explode straight up into the air. Not entirely fun to ride when it comes with no warning.


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## knightrider

I think she was showing you what Andalusians can really do.

Gottatrot, Paso Finos do that too. When they get really wound up, they get really collected. And Bondre, my gray Paso gave me those kinds of moves when his PTSD kicked in. Not real fun to ride--but you did a fine job handling Macarena.


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## bsms

I gather the goal of instructed collection is to collect without the tension. I'm certain some riders and some horses achieve it. I just doubt that I'm a rider who needs it...or who has the skill to achieve it.

But thinking about it, I've ridden a collected horse often enough. It is kind of their "I'm nervous about what lies ahead" reaction. If thought of as a lifting of the withers and a tucking under of the rear, then Bandit does it pretty frequently still - if nervous. He doesn't have the build or muscling to sustain it very long...maybe a minute, tops. Then it becomes too much work.

Unlike Mia, who would sometimes spin up...and then keep winding herself tighter, Bandit will get nervous...and then WE resolve the issue and he relaxes. Calming a horse down under saddle is something I had started to learn with Mia, but I think I had too many bad memories of bolts in the past to allow ME to calm down enough - and the rider needs to lead the calming by being (or at least acting) imperturbable! I simply didn't have it in me to ride Mia the way she really needed to be ridden.

Strange as it sounds, the sheepskin lining for my saddle has made a huge difference. It is FAR easier to stay still, stay calm and stay in place on this:









Than this:










Now that I've used one, I'll never go back. Some people have told me it is a "band-aid" to cover my imperfection as a rider. Well...OK. I AM an imperfect rider. And besides, the people who have told me that are people who don't OWN a slick-fork, slick-seat saddle, nor do they ride on pavement and in the desert most of the time. I tried a version that only covers part of the seat, and switched back to the full version for the next ride.

I'm seriously considering getting Bandit an English saddle (anyone know of one with a wide channel?) If so, I'll also buy the English version of the sheepskin. It may replace the curb bit as my number one favorite piece of tack. After all, I'm still using a Billy Allen snaffle with Bandit, but I don't plan to ride again without the sheepskin!

Don't mean to divert a journal thread, but it is an item recommended to me on my journal thread and I love the result! 

It makes it much easier to stick on when the horse is getting..collected? :rofl:


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## knightrider

I never heard those seat pads called "band aides" before. I have one in every saddle I ride in because they keep me from getting sore. I am such an imperfect rider that I wouldn't even know how seat pads make you imperfect. But they sure are nice when you trail ride for several hours.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

I ride with a memory foam smooth leather seat. Keeps the tush happy on long rides! 

I don't think a seat cover is any more of a Band-Aid than ordering a rough out seat, one with a deeper cantle, bucking roles or screwing yourself in tight by downsizing the seat by a half inch or even using looped reins, stirrups or even "cheating" by using a saddle in the first place! That dog don't hunt, unless someone wants to start spitting hairs as to what degree of "Band-Aid" is acceptable.


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## egrogan

Oh yes, I trail ride in a dressage saddle because I constantly feel like I'm going to catapult over the horse's head when riding in an all purpose English saddle. I need something that makes me sit down and deep because my natural tendency is to want to "perch."
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## Bondre

gottatrot said:


> I call that the conflict of the little devil and the little angel...one wants to run home, the other wants to obey the rider and go slow.


This reminded me of the book I'm reading at present, "The Horse's Mind" by Lucy Rees. The chapter is on mental adaptation, and on the subject of conflict she writes:

"What happens when an animal has good reasons to do two incompatible things at the same time?..... Unable to make up its mind, the horse tends to become agitated and bounce up and down on the only comfortable spot"

YES!! This is just what Macarena does when she feels uncomfortable in her surroundings and wants to go home FAST. The conflict between her desire to run and her desire to obey makes her BOUNCE. The other evening she wasn't bouncing on the spot since I was requesting forward movement, which she was happy to comply with, but she bounced anyway because there was still a conflict about speed, although not about direction. 



gottatrot said:


> Oh, by the way, I've been told collection is the way to gain the utmost control over a horse. My experience has been that horses often get more collected as they get more "hot" and often less manageable. Sometimes they collect so much they explode straight up into the air. Not entirely fun to ride when it comes with no warning.


Well, I definitely agree here. There must be different varieties of collection, because all of Macarena's most highly "collected" moments are quite difficult to manage, and it would be hard to slot them into the structure of a dressage test ;-) Maybe we should differentiate between 'spontaneous collection' and .... hmmm, can't quite think of the right word.... I suppose 'servile collection' would be reasonably accurate but not very flattering?

EDIT: just re-read bsms's post and see he beat me to it with this idea of classifying collection. I'll go with his concept of 'instructed collection'.
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## Bondre

Re: saddles. I can definitely see the attraction of a sheepskin seat. The Spanish saddles all have them, either natural or synthetic depending on your price range, and they are comfortable to sit on. (So maybe all Spanish riders are to be sneered at for riding with band aids? What nonsense to suggest that using a comfortable saddle cover equates to an inferior rider.) 



However, I dislike what the Spanish saddles do to my leg position, so I'm sticking with my slick English saddle, old and worn but much polished by hours of butt contact. 

I won't embarrass myself by posting a photo of my customary saddle. Cost me 80€ second hand, and is now complete with a bite mark on the pommel (Macarena's work when she was younger and mouthy), but for some reason I like the saddle, it fits me and her, and I can see myself riding in it until it falls to bits on me. 

I remember using a sheepskin cover for the seat for winter riding in England, but the idea was more to keep your butt warm on long hacks. Which it did very nicely.
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## Bondre

With all the recent discussion on collection, contact, hollowness and so on, and after the somewhat explosive ride that my son caught on video, I started wondering about conflict behaviour in horses. My rather simplistic idea was that, since horses often spontaneously "collect" when in a conflictive situation, that perhaps instructed collection is also a response to a conflict created by the rider. My theory seemed to be supported by the fact that in English riding, many people train horses for collection using a combination of legs and rein, which obviously are conflicting signals. So my brilliant hypothesis was that when you train collection in a horse, you are actually training him to deal with conflict without going into meltdown. 

I googled conflict behaviour to see if anything supported my ideas, but it seems that I have gone off on a limb. However, I found some very interesting definitions of equestrian terms on the webpage of the Australian Equine Behaviour Centre. They confirm that trying to force a horse into collection using excessive aids will probably produce conflict behavior, whereas true collection is a different business and doesn’t rely on riding with excessive contact. 
AEBC - Definitions:

_Collection: The progressive development of increased carrying power in the hindquarters of the horse. The resultant transfer of weight from the forequarters to the hindquarters allows the poll and withers to be carried higher, the hindquarters to drop slightly and the hind feet to step further forward and to carry more bodyweight with higher and shorter steps. This confers more power to the hindquarters, enabling the horse to perform more collected movements. In classical equitation, collection develops from repeated gait and stride length transitions that occur in three beats of the rhythm. The combined effect of the transitions and the inertia of the animal result over time in changes in the horse’s physique. The propulsion of the body is then in a more upward and forward direction giving greater cadence to the strides and increased lightness of the forehand.

False collection: Forcing a horse into an apparently collected outline through the simultaneous actions of the rein and leg or with the use of gadgets and pulleys rather than the progressive development of collection over time through training. False collection frequently results in conflict behaviour because concurrent stop and go signals cause confusion and pain.

Conflict behaviour: A set of responses of varying duration that are usually characterised by hyper-reactivity and arise largely through confusion. In equitation, confusions that result in conflict behaviours may be caused by application of simultaneous opposing signals (such as go and stop/slow/stepback) such that the horse is unable to offer any learned responses sufficiently and is forced to endure discomfort from relentless rein and leg pressures. Attempts to flee the aversive situation result in hyper-reactivity. In addition, the desired response to one or both aids diminishes. Conflict behaviours may also result from one signal eliciting two or more responses independently, such as using the reins to achieve vertical flexion independently of the stop/slow/step-back response, or using a single rein to bend the neck of the horse independently of its previously conditioned turn response. Similarly, conflict behaviour may result from incorrect negative reinforcement, such as the reinforcement of inconsistent responses, incorrect responses, no removal of pressure or no shaping of responses. Often referred to as evasions and resistances._

On the subject of contact: 

_Contact: The connection of the rider’s hands to the horse’s mouth, of the legs to the horse’s sides and of the seat to the horse’s back via the saddle. The topic of contact with both hand and leg generates considerable confusion related to the pressure that the horse should endure if the contact is deemed to be correct. In classical equitation, contact to the rein and rider’s leg involves a light pressure (approximately 200 g) to the horse’s lips/tongue and body, respectively. Although a light contact is the aim, there are brief moments, (seconds or parts of a second), when contact may need to be stronger, particularly at the start of training, or in re-training, to overcome resistances from the horse. Many contemporary horse trainers insist that the contact should be much heavier than a light connection. This view may cause progressive habituation leading to learned helplessness to the rein and leg signals as a result of incorrect negative reinforcement and/or simultaneous application of the aids. Contact may therefore need to be the focus of discussion and debate._

Yes, indeed. I find it very interesting that the tendency is towards riding with more contact, according to the authors of this paper, which seems to be a clear backwards step in communication between rider and horse.

The entries on hollowness and associated behaviours are exceedingly interesting to me:

_Hollow: Undesirable contraction of the vertebral column, so that the head comes up and the neck and back become slightly concave. The strides of the horse generally become faster and shorter (‘choppy’). Habitual hollowness is usually a result of incorrect negative reinforcement and is frequently associated with conflict behaviours. Because of its reported association with activation of the HPA axis, hollowness should be further researched.

HPA axis (Hypothalamic–Pituitary–Adrenal axis): The physiological response to arousal, involving the limbic system, which stimulates the hypothalamus to produce corticotrophin releasing factor, which in turn stimulates the anterior pituitary gland to produce adrenocorticotrophic hormone, which then stimulates the adrenal cortex to secrete glucocorticoids.

Hyper-reactive behaviour: Behaviours characteristic of an activated HPA axis and associated with various levels of arousal. Such behaviours typically involve the horse having a hollow posture and leg movements with increased activity and tempo, yet shorter strides. Hyper-reactive behaviours are quickly learned and resistant to extinction because of their adaptiveness in the equid ethogram. Behavioural evidence of hyper-reactivity ranges from postural tonus to responses such as shying, bolting, bucking and rearing._

So the alert, head-up position of the horse is actually associated with physiological changes that prepare the horse for reactive behaviour. And this sort of reactive behaviour is quickly learned and hard to extinguish. 

This is absolutely what I have been experiencing with Macarena over the last months. Her hyper-reactive behaviour appeared seemingly from nowhere, and to my human eyes seemed an entirely disproportionate to a scary stimulus. But whereas the behaviour appeared very rapidly, months later I am still working on extinguishing it. 

One more quote from the AEBC, which I find is the single most important concept for me when working with Macarena at present.

_Shaping: The successive approximation of a behaviour toward a targeted desirable behaviour through the consecutive training of one single quality of a response followed by the next. In horse training, a shaping program is known as a Training scale. Not paying due attention to shaping in horse training has been associated with conflict behaviours._

I went into training Macarena with no very clear ideas about how to go about it, and I think that her first learning was by immersion rather than anything more specific. I rode her and cued her to do things, and she gradually figured out what I meant and learnt to respond correctly to my cues. I didn’t attempt to shape her behaviour gradually but rather focused on the end result and tried to get there all at once. I am only now starting to realise how confusing my approach has been for her; I think it speaks wonders for her powers of understanding that she learnt as much as she did! Now I am trying to shape her behaviour gradually, with reasonable success I think, and I am glimpsing the enormous potential of training using shaping if you get it right.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> _Shaping: The successive approximation of a behaviour toward a targeted desirable behaviour through the consecutive training of one single quality of a response followed by the next. In horse training, a shaping program is known as a Training scale. Not paying due attention to shaping in horse training has been associated with conflict behaviours._
> 
> I went into training Macarena with no very clear ideas about how to go about it, and I think that her first learning was by immersion rather than anything more specific. I rode her and cued her to do things, and she gradually figured out what I meant and learnt to respond correctly to my cues. I didn’t attempt to shape her behaviour gradually but rather focused on the end result and tried to get there all at once. I am only now starting to realise how confusing my approach has been for her; I think it speaks wonders for her powers of understanding that she learnt as much as she did! Now I am trying to shape her behaviour gradually, with reasonable success I think, and I am glimpsing the enormous potential of training using shaping if you get it right.


Yes! ^^^This! 

When people speak of holes in training (at least for myself) this is what comes to mind. So many people tend to skip over the building blocks and necessary mental foundations that the horse needs to build upon to more advanced behaviors. Things like how to yield to pressure are foundationally important. Baby steps!


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## Bondre

After all that theory, time for the story 

I have ridden in the area of the barn three times in the last week, and yesterday (my 49th birthday) my son finally dusted off Flamenca's saddle and we headed out for a great ride together. What better way to celebrate my birthday?

The horses were excited because they haven't been out together for a long time. Flamenca is horribly unfit but surprisingly hot for her age and condition - my son managed her very well considering how little he rides. I am hoping that with the longer days and more agreeable weather, he will get back into riding more often.

We headed out into the pine forest, did some trot on the way out and they both got very hot and excited. Flamenca was sweating buckets and throwing her head around. I was rather worried that Macarena might do some serious hyper-reactive stuff, seeing as her recent tendency has been to bounce and buck when excited, but in the end she behaved reasonably well and only tried two or three small bucks in the whole ride. After the trot we had our work cut out to calm them down again, and even after they were both walking instead of jogging they were still tense and looking for action.

We headed up a rocky hill, and Macarena decided that it was better to trot up the steepest parts. No! Canter was even better than trot! She arrived at the top almost trembling with emotion, with Flamenca not far behind. Fortunately all the clicker training to teach her to stand still and relax is paying off, and she consented to chill out for a few minutes while my son took some photos of the view. It was windy up there and we were glad to get off the top and back down into the forest. We cut through towards the quarry using some faint hunters tracks, and they were both jogging and pulling again, perhaps sensing that when we reached the main track we would be turning towards home, or perhaps reacting to the humming noise of stone-cutting machinary coming from the quarry.

We turned away from home and the horses relaxed again. A large flat-bed quarry truck appeared along the track, carrying an empty container that rattled and banged as the truck went over the stones. We beat a strategic retreat into the almond trees alongside the track, and watched the truck go past from the relatively safe distance of 10 yards. Macarena's eyes were just about popping out but she didn't bounce or otherwise explode, so I gave her a ton of praise for bravery.

We continued and I raised the idea of cantering. I was very uncertain about the wisdom of this, considering how excitable they were, and internally decided against it. But my son liked the idea of the challenge, and we ended up cantering anyway. To hell with caution! I did take the precaution of heading uphill and away from home across the field that we chose for our exploit. 

At first, Macarena didn't want to accelerate. I asked her to trot and she replied "trot AWAY from home?? You've got to be kidding!" Then I think she saw Flamenca cantering away off to the side, and suddenly she changed her mind and leaped forwards. I haven't cantered on her properly for months. We are still at the baby-step stages of going away from home; now that she has accepted walking away, we are starting to trot, but cantering is still a way in the future. So I wondered just what might be in store as we sped up the hill. But all went well. She raced as if she was possessed but the motion was all forwards and not upwards, and I'm fine with forward motion. We came to a halt at the top of the field, Flamenca caught up shortly afterwards, and then the real work began of calming down two reactive horses.

Does anyone else have this problem? You let them run for a moment and then you need ten times longer to calm them back down again. We did circles if our horse broke gait; we halted independently or together; we stroked and soothed; I reminded my son of the importance of release (Flamenca has a tendency to throw her head when excited as an evasion of the contact). After five minutes of hard, patient work we got some relaxation. Ten minutes after the canter, they were both walking calmly on a loose rein.

When Macarena is excited like this, she absolutely will not tolerate contact of any sort. The more pressure you exert, the more worried and reactive she becomes. She has been a good teacher for me, as the only way she will relax and walk on a loose rein is if I sit deep, relax my hips and give her the reins. If she breaks gait I give her a brief nudge on the reins and lower my hands to her withers, wich normally does the trick. Yesterday I tried experimenting with just how minimal a contact was effective for this. 

I found I could use much less contact than I habitually use and she would respond. In fact, all she needs is the merest touch on the reins together with the voice command and the heavy seat to get her to walk. So that was an interesting discovery. In general, I am working on reducing still further my use of contact, as I still tend to overdo it at faster gaits. I am having success with trot on a loose rein if she is relaxed, but have yet to discover how to keep her at a working trot (instead of a racing trot lol) without excessive contact when she is excited. 

We are very much a work in progress, but we are heading in the right direction and enjoying ourselves.

Just want to quote bsms and gottatrot to conclude:



bsms said:


> Horses like Halla and Mia, and even more relaxed horses like Bandit (and even level-headed little Cowboy), need to be approached and understood as individuals. The key to horsemanship is what you are doing with Halla: working with her, learning about her, and finding compromises and solutions that work when the two of you are together....
> 
> The shared experiences of other riders gives me things I can try, and keep or discard depending on how they work. But there are no rules, other than accepting it is always me and my horse, that day, trying to figure out how two very different creatures can become one in purpose and movement.





gottatrot said:


> Yes! We will never "arrive," we will always need to experiment to see what works for us as individuals with our individual horses. For one thing, our horses change physically and mentally over the years. We do too, so we need to be willing to adapt rather than being stuck in a set of rules for riding.


:iagree:


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## egrogan

Bondre said:


> Does anyone else have this problem? You let them run for a moment and then you need ten times longer to calm them back down again. We did circles if our horse broke gait; we halted independently or together; we stroked and soothed; I reminded my son of the importance of release (Flamenca has a tendency to throw her head when excited as an evasion of the contact). After five minutes of hard, patient work we got some relaxation. Ten minutes after the canter, they were both walking calmly on a loose rein.


I do. I have learned (or Izzy has conditioned me?? :wink to pick my canter spots strategically. There is one particular part of my regular ride that is perfect for a long, exciting canter- we get to the first big corn field, and it's a nice oval shape, almost like a track and field style track. It's about 20 minutes into the ride, so she's feeling a little warmed up, ready to do something a little more exciting. I usually ask her to trot first in this particular spot, heading into a straightaway, but sometimes it's a rough "choppy" trot, almost like she's just quivering with excitement to go, so it's one of the few places where I wouldn't "discipline" her if she chooses to canter on her own. After doing this enough times, she clearly knows it's her spot to let that energy out if she wants. She also knows where the "finish line" is (as we pass the end of the first long stretch and come around the first turn in the oval), and I have to just sit down, shift my weight back a bit, and she'll pull herself up to a walk. If I _don't _do that though, and let her keep going past our usual spot, that's when she can turn from excited to hot. It's almost like she levels out, extends her stride, and accelerates through the turn to sprint down the next long stretch. So I have to be careful with that- some days I'm up for that exhilaration of her pretending to be a racehorse, but other days, I just want to blow out the excess energy and then have a more relaxing ride.

Generally speaking, I don't canter heading towards home as I don't want to plant any ideas of bolting home. My goal is always to walk home the last 15-20 minutes on a loose rein, regardless of how much trotting or cantering we did up until then. Since we're just starting to go back out on our regular route with the warmer weather, I wouldn't say we're there yet. But after a few rides to re-establish our routine, I'm confident we'll be doing that again.


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## gottatrot

Interesting information about the posture, conflict and all that. 

It's interesting that the AEBC's term "hollow" relates to the head being up, and also states that this may stimulate stress hormones. Yet we also see the head up with collection, and see that often when horses collect on their own it is related to conflict and stress. Even positive stress sometimes, when they are excited by a new horse, etc.

What about horses that teach themselves to raise the head, to become excited by certain stimuli? Trying to lower the head may result in conflict, either because pressure is applied, or because a pre-learned cue is applied such as pressure on the base of the neck or poll, and the horse feels too excited to comply...conflict. At least that's what I've run into. 

It's great your stop and relax practice is working. That has worked for a friend of mine also with her horse. Both of my horses are of a different persuasion. If we stop and think, the pressure builds inside and may lead to an explosion. Better not to think and keep moving, even if it is a slow pacing around. 

The reason I don't always agree with the idea of "holes" in the training is because even if you begin with a step by step process of learning simple cues, even if you engrain these into a horse over years, you can easily teach new cues that unlearn the old ones. Such as my horse learning very reliably to follow her head with a nice bend through the body. Then after teaching herself to leg yield rapidly down the beach as an avoidance, to unlearn that follow through when I attempted to turn her head back in the direction I wished to travel. When her body did not follow (because her mind did not want to), she learned that her neck can move independently and this gives her many options. 
I've decided I must re-teach that the body always follows the head, even if this means we travel places I do not wish to go. I have to reconnect the two. 

I agree that making the cues simple and having them not mean more than one thing is important. I'd like to make this a guideline for myself, to have a different cue for each thing rather than having the horse figure out my meaning based on context. Which horses can often do, but it makes things much less clear. 

Your ride reminds me of one I had several years ago. I was way back in the hills on Halla, probably 5 miles off the main road and did not realize there was a rock quarry back there. Until they blew off dynamite suddenly, and that was very startling but it scared me way more than it frightened Halla! She bolted forward but stopped after about ten feet, blew a couple snorts and then was fine. On the other hand, I was shaken up and it took awhile to calm down.

As far as hotbloods taking awhile to calm down after running, yes. But I've noticed many times that if we make a habit of running on one section, as egrogan said, that can make things much calmer. They will anticipate the end and a walk after, and calm down quickly. I make sure at least every 4th or 5th time we do a trot or walk at that spot instead of running, so the horse knows we may not run there sometimes. Amore has a much more difficult time calming down after running and won't want to walk sometimes. Halla will be calm if she walks, but if we try trotting it won't work. Also, if we do a challenging gallop that's a good way to have a calm horse right after. My friends have a mountain trail that goes up very steeply for about a mile. By 3/4 of a mile, the horses are beginning to really back off on their striding and by the top they are very happy to stop. 
Right now I don't trust Halla to gallop her flat out (I don't know if it's possible to gallop crooked, but she might try), but I know if I can get her straight it will make all the difference in the world. After a good gallop she's a different horse.


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## Bondre

gottatrot said:


> It's interesting that the AEBC's term "hollow" relates to the head being up, and also states that this may stimulate stress hormones. Yet we also see the head up with collection, and see that often when horses collect on their own it is related to conflict and stress. Even positive stress sometimes, when they are excited by a new horse, etc.


What you say about horses collecting in response to stress is what started this train of thought, as one of Macarena's conflict behaviour is spontaneous collection. However, one horse is a very small sample size for a theory ;-) You admit to having ridden many and varied horses over the years, so I hope you can give a better perspective.

Obviously the idea that head up and stress are intimately related is nothing new, although I didn't previously realise that they are biochemically connected too. I guess that's why WP places such importance on the low headset, for promoting relaxation and slowness.



gottatrot said:


> What about horses that teach themselves to raise the head, to become excited by certain stimuli? Trying to lower the head may result in conflict, either because pressure is applied, or because a pre-learned cue is applied such as pressure on the base of the neck or poll, and the horse feels too excited to comply...conflict. At least that's what I've run into.


I think you're right that a head-down cue will only work if the horse is already coming down off its emotional high. But no doubt others would differ.... just like with bsms's anecdote about stopping Mia from a bolt, which provoked such unexpectedly strong reactions. If you can stop her with a whisper, she wasn't REALLY bolting, and so on... and the point was JUST THAT anyway, that if she stopped bolting it was because, mentally, she had already stopped although her legs were still running (except seemingly no one understood that). Likewise, if your horse responds to a head-down cue, maybe it's not thanks to excellent training but because he's already relaxed himself sufficiently to respond. And if he doesn't respond, maybe it's not a hole in the training but because his stress-released biochemicals prevent him from doing so.



gottatrot said:


> It's great your stop and relax practice is working.... If we stop and think, the pressure builds inside and may lead to an explosion. Better not to think and keep moving, even if it is a slow pacing around.


I think it depends on the situation. If Macarena is with Flamenca she will stop and relax OK, but if we are on our own, the stop and relax only works if she's already half-way to relaxed anyway. Otherwise the key is slow movement as you say. Keeping her legs still in that situation is asking just too much.



gottatrot said:


> I agree that making the cues simple and having them not mean more than one thing is important. I'd like to make this a guideline for myself, to have a different cue for each thing rather than having the horse figure out my meaning based on context. Which horses can often do, but it makes things much less clear.


Until recently, I had the idea that cues were a kind of universal language that horses could understand miraculously. Weird idea I know, but as a teenager I was taught all these cues for different movements and never questioned WHY, for example, you put the inside leg on the girth and the outside leg behind the girth to ask for a bend. And if you look on dressage sites you can find lists of cues for different movements, as if they were recipes for making a cake. Outside rein, inside leg, open your seatbones, all this stuff that you were referring to when you discussed micro-managing horses. 

In my early days with Macarena I tried some of this stuff and wondered why she didn't understand  Stupid me! But I genuinely thought that the horses understood the cues because of the inherent nature of the cues, rather then because they've been taught to do so. Since I came to realise that ANYTHING can be a cue if you teach it to your horse, I feel so much happier about the idea of training. There's no need to worry that I might teach her the wrong cues, as there's no such thing as a wrong cue. As long as we both understand, everything will work fine. 

So now, instead of feeling mystified and confused about cuing for lateral movements (how on earth will I remember to shift my weight onto my outside seatbone at the same time as I open my inside rein and use my outside leg?? or whatever), I feel like a kid that's opened a box of chocolates and can't decide which to choose. There are so many possibilities! So much potential for communication. So much shared language in our combined bodies. 



gottatrot said:


> As far as hotbloods taking awhile to calm down after running, yes. But I've noticed many times that if we make a habit of running on one section, as egrogan said, that can make things much calmer. They will anticipate the end and a walk after, and calm down quickly. I make sure at least every 4th or 5th time we do a trot or walk at that spot instead of running, so the horse knows we may not run there sometimes.


I pretty much do the same: we have our places for running, and Macarena knows where we often canter/gallop and where we're going to walk and comes back down off the high reasonably well. Like Halls, she will walk calmly after a canter but trotting is asking for renewed excitement. It's actually Flamenca who is more of a problem here. Like Amore, she doesn't know how to relax well and maintains the tension much longer than Macarena, and ends up stirring up Macarena too. This takes a certain amount of the fun out of cantering for my son, because he knows that after the canter comes the hard work (for him) of calming his stroppy horse. So we're like "Shall we canter? Is it worth it?"



gottatrot said:


> Also, if we do a challenging gallop that's a good way to have a calm horse right after. My friends have a mountain trail that goes up very steeply for about a mile. By 3/4 of a mile, the horses are beginning to really back off on their striding and by the top they are very happy to stop.


That's how I taught Macarena to cope with fast work, by giving her enough space to gallop that she was compliant about stopping. I haven't tried with this Flamenca on her own, but in company with Macarena (who is much fitter) Flamenca will gallop until it seems she might burst from the effort and still be but hot and bothered afterwards.

My current problem with Macarena is that she is still very sour about going out on her own and I don't entirely trust her to canter without throwing in a ton of bucking. With Flamenca she did fine. I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and try her on her own, but the big question is where. I took her into our former schooling fields twice last week, which she now hates as it was the scene of both dirt bike scares, and I could barely get a trot out of her. If I walked her up to the far end she would certainly canter back home, but that would be the worst possible idea. So I need a neutral place to canter her, without scary associations that would make her inclined to go reactive, and there's not much to choose from close on hand. The field needs to be big enough that I can push her forward if she thinks of bucking, without needing to be worrying about the brakes. Of course, the big fields are further away, and her relaxation is inversely proportional to our distance from home so the probability of her bucking increases the further away we go.

Sigh. I think a good canter would be very beneficial for her, but the fast gaits are when the excitement can build very suddenly and express itself in undesired forms. I guess I just need to bite the bullet and do it, but I do want to prepare her mentally and get her feeling relaxed about the chosen spot before asking her to accelerate there.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> Until recently, I had the idea that cues were a kind of universal language that horses could understand miraculously........ I genuinely thought that the horses understood the cues because of the inherent nature of the cues, rather then because they've been taught to do so. Since I came to realise that *ANYTHING can be a cue if you teach it to your horse*, I feel so much happier about the idea of training. There's no need to worry that I might teach her the wrong cues, as there's no such thing as a wrong cue. As long as we both understand, everything will work fine.
> 
> _Posted via Mobile Device_



Yesterday, I had this concept driven home once again. I have been working on our Cowboy, a 1350# foundation bred QH, he was bred, born and worked on the largest ranch in the US, sold and then competed in AQHA ranching events. He is by far my most spooky horse. 

I have been riding him for the last few weeks and he has done well for me and is actually a pretty easy ride in the arena. Yesterday we had our trainer come to work with my youngest daughter (12 yo) and our boarder and her two horses. He brought along his most advanced student who is interning to become a trainer herself. I put her on Cowboy to see how she would evaluate him and she had him spinning among other things....anyway after she rode him, I rode him and then my daughter, who has always wanted Cowboy as her move up horse, asked to ride. 

I said sure. After all, this was a horse with a decent handle on him that may not be the most relaxed horse, but is obedient to a fault (this is one of those times where obedience training overriding thinking is a bad thing). My daughter is what I would categorize as an advanced beginner, not because she doesn't know how to ride more advanced cues, but because she lacks some of the mental maturity, consistent seat control, awareness of the horse (feel) and timing (including reaction time) I would expect of an intermediate rider. 

Well, all was fine for the first 15 minutes as the two of them plodded about so I got on the boarder's horse (one I am considering purchasing), to see what she knows, while my trainer kept an eye on my daughter. 

As my back is turned I hear excitement going on and turn to see my daughter and Cowboy first galloping and then cantering around the end of the arena. My daughter is freaking out and is obviously panicking, completely out of control and frozen into inaction. I yell to her to hold on and ride it out. The horse would get tired eventually and slow down (quarter horses will do that). 

As they go around the other end of the arena, the horse loses his footing and goes down, with my daughter still on his back! Heart attack moment. 

She is fine, only a bruised ankle and a few scrapes, horse is fine...

I ask my trainer what happened, did the horse spook or what?
No. My daughter cued him to trot by lifting the reins, pushing them slightly forward (giving the horse his head), bumping with both legs and *leaning forward in the saddle*. I don't ride for cows, just not something that ever piqued my interest, apparently this is how they cue a horse to come at full gallop out of the chute in roping events!

In all the time I had been riding Cowboy, I never thought to test to see how he would respond to off balances in the seat, I always just did my thing the way they were "supposed" to be, apparently so did the young intern. This horse had a button installed by previous riders, that I had never pushed, but apparently my daughter found it, and triggered it, and how!

So a few lessons learned here: Horses will learn what we teach them to learn good or bad. Obedience is wonderful if you know how the horse has been cued to do things and can control your own actions, not so much when there are unexpected buttons installed so if you want the horse to be generally ridable by beginners, you need to ride him like a beginner, including to ignore some inadvertent cues.

A third lesson, as much as he enjoys my daughter and she loves him, Cowboy is not a babysitter horse. He was trained to be "blindly obedient" and needs a rider who does not need common sense help from the horse.


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## gottatrot

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> This horse had a button installed by previous riders, that I had never pushed, but apparently my daughter found it, and triggered it, and how!
> 
> So a few lessons learned here: Horses will learn what we teach them to learn good or bad. Obedience is wonderful if you know how the horse has been cued to do things and can control your own actions, not so much when there are unexpected buttons installed so if you want the horse to be generally ridable by beginners, you need to ride him like a beginner, including to ignore some inadvertent cues.
> 
> A third lesson, as much as he enjoys my daughter and she loves him, Cowboy is not a babysitter horse. He was trained to be "blindly obedient" and needs a rider who does not need common sense help from the horse.


And I've known several horses that absolutely could make the best decisions for each rider versus being blindly obedient to cues. Some horses are so kind, they will "split the difference" and disobey while still being considerate. Such as one horse I know who "bolted" for home at dinnertime but only slowly trotted due to the insecure and frightened rider on his back. He did not wish to go out with someone so incompetent, knew she couldn't stop him from going home to dinner, and yet did not canter or gallop (which he could have) because he still was a kind horse. Could we punish him? No, we fed him his dinner. And he didn't do this again, although he thought about it the next ride but it was a fleeting thought that disappeared when discouraged by a better rider. 

Another horse I know named Beau will only perform the tasks that are asked if the rider is capable of handling them. A green rider can ask him to trot or canter but if he doesn't think they are secure enough, he won't do it. You can put any level of rider on him and he will perform to how he thinks they can ride. If I get on him, he will move out and trot, canter or gallop with huge strides. If you put an intermediate rider on him, he'll jog and lope. But beginner riders can beg him to go faster but he will not until they've had a few rides, at which point he will feel they are safe to try jogging. Once I was on him bareback and asked him to trot and he just jogged really slowly. I said, "Oh sheesh, Beau, I'm not going to fall off," at which point he began trotting out. 

He's been seen to move back underneath an old man who was sliding off to one side. He also once spooked hugely at an unexpected massive tidepool that showed up under his nose when galloping on the beach, and literally kept his front legs walking and his hind end sliding until the rider made her way back down off his neck and into the saddle. A very smart, very kind horse.

His owners value his independent thinking skills, and have always encouraged them.


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## Bondre

I took Macarena out today on her own and she was a spooky mess. It's very wearing when she's nervous like this. I don't understand what the problem is that is making her so hyper-reactive, but I am starting to doubt my ability to get her through this.

Some examples of what I mean:

Two days ago I took her out to our old schooling fields; she has always been a bit nervous of the pine trees at the far end, and her nervousness has grown considerably. I rode her down the road in that direction as far as she would go, then dismounted and led her into the fields towards the corner she dislikes. There was a neighbour working there, piling up some cut branches, and we talked while Macarena looked attentively at everything and I reassured her that all was fine. She was quite relaxed. Then we turned back for home, with me leading her, and we hadn't gone far when the man shifted anther branch behind us and she was suddenly leaping in alarm beside me. I calmed her again, and led her forward. Then my dog came running up and rustled in some dead grass, which was cause for another fright.

This afternoon I rode out in the same direction, but instead of going along the road past the scary corner and the scary concrete irrigation things, I turned left up through the peach orchard. We haven't been up this way in a long time but she is familiar with the route. She was pleased at first that we weren't going past the scary place and was walking out very nicely. I asked for a trot and she tried balking, but trotted when I insisted. I kept the trot brief and she went well on a loose rein.

At the top of the orchard there is a small shed that houses the irrigation pump, and the high earth walls of the plastic-lined earth dam. My dog raced up the side of the dam looking for rabbits (there are big warrens in the earth mounds). Macarena came to an abrupt halt, staring at the dog, and when I convinced her to continue forwards she shied at some plastic pipes outside the irrigation shed. Nothing awful but I could tell her stress levels were starting to climb.


^^^ starting to get nervous

I dismounted when we reached the earth dam and she searched for some grass but there wasn't much to eat. She was getting nervous and so I decided to continue on foot and led her out of the plantation into the pine forest and onto the track that runs alongside the old irrigation channels. She kept spooking away from the channels, so I let her take a good look at them and rubbed her neck frequently to calm her, but after another few metres she would spook again. Sometimes at my dog who was running through the pine trees and making noises, sometimes at pigeons fluttering noisily in the tree canopy, and sometimes at who knows what.

I guess she wasn't too bad, but she certainly wasn't relaxed either. When we reached the main track, which is close to home, she got more excited and I made her back up part of the way. Whenever she arched her neck and tried to jump forwards, I would turn her round and make her back up in the direction of home. After three stretches walking backwards, she didn't try pulling any more and walked besides me on a loose lead. 

When I describe our ride - or walk - it doesn't actually sound that bad but it was quite stressful. We saw NOTHING remotely scary in the whole ride, and yet she was nervous and on edge ever since we went past the irrigation shed. I also hate leading a spooky horse, that might explode beside you without warning at the least provocation.

When we got back, I decided to lunge her briefly. That started off well too, and she gave me several circles of nice trot without any attitude.



I stopped her and praised her, and then asked her to go out again. This was when everything fell apart. She started galloping wildly and bucking. She made the saddle slip right over with so much bucking. Then she would stop cantering and face me and rear up (at a safe distance, but still MUCH too much of a challenge for my liking). It took five minutes of really bad attitude before she was ready to give me another decent trot. I stopped her while things were going OK and praised her again.


^^^ high alert after lunging 

She was extremely agitated and nervous by this time. I must say that although I had to be stern with her and use powerful body language and keep her out of my space with the lunge whip, I didn't shout, make contact with the whip or even crack it in the air, or do anything else to scare her. So why the extreme agitation? There was nothing alarming in sight. Only the dog stretched out in the middle of the road. No vehicles, no passers-by, nothing. Does she get scared because of our difference of opinion? Because that's the impression I had. And if lunging her is actually stressful for her than I don't think I'm going to achieve anything useful by doing it.


_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## gottatrot

Macarena is still so young...it is exhausting to deal with, I know but the progress comes slowly.

Amore was 12 when I started her and couldn't go out calmly alone until she was about 17, and even now at 25 she has her days. But I thought after riding her several years she would never be calm, and she is very steady now 95% of the time. 
Your horses are so beautiful. 

Do you ever pony the horses? When I pony I just walk or jog them. But it's been very helpful at times to take them both out together that way, and it can be done when your second rider is not available or willing to go out with you. I worried I'd have two hot horses on my hands, but they are always calmer together. You have to find out which horse is best to ride, and sometimes it's not the one you think. Both of mine do better if I ride Amore and lead Halla. To be honest, it made me quite nervous to pony at first, but it really helps the more insecure one gain confidence out and around in the world, having their best buddy so close at their flank or just in front of them.
Not sure if your environment is safe, if I lost a horse they'd be a long distance from a busy road so I could gather them back up or find them at home. They don't seem to want to leave when the other is near though.


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## Bondre

You're right, she is still young. Mostly what is fazing me is that she used to be calm going out alone and now she is so nervy. The least noise behind her makes her startle, and seeing as my dog loves accompanying us there are always noises in the forest as Astrid runs around following scent trails. I wonder if her defective vision in her right eye doesn't help. I don't knew how clearly she can see with that eye; the vet says she has normal vision in the eye except at low light intensities, but the cornea is slightly cloudy so I think that must affect her. 

The ponying idea is worth trying, thanks. I have tried ponying Flamenca from Macarena and it didn't work well. Macarena has a faster walk and Flamenca would get left behind, so I'd have to let out several metres of line (I used the lunge line), then she would accelerate to catch up and I wouldn't be able to collect up the line fast enough and she would put a leg over it. The last time I tried she did this three times, and she knows that if she gets a front leg over the line she is unstoppable.... she used this knowledge to her full advantage and I had to let go of her twice. 

The environment is safe, no large roads, only forest and agricultural access tracks, so at least no danger of meeting fast vehicles. And in any case when she got loose she stayed around, although the second time I had to dismount from Macarena and stand with her grazing for five minutes until Flamenca would come close enough to be caught. That sweet-looking old lady has more to her than meets the eye lol. 

So I decided no more ponying Flamenca. However, I can try them the other way round. It's quite possible that Macarena would pony nicely, and as you say,  if I have to let go, she isn't going to go anywhere. Interestingly, on the few occasions that I ponied Flamenca, Macarena behaved very well despite her friend's antics. Even when Flamenca was disappearing up the track at the canter, Macarena was listening to me and taking it all calmly. It seemed like SHE was the 20-year old and Flamenca was the youngster.

_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

I had a great ride with my son yesterday. The horses were noticeably calmer together than when we took them out last week. Not really surprising that Flamenca was so hyped up that day, because it was the first time in AGES that she had been ridden out.

My son wanted to take them up to the top of a local hill, so we headed in that direction, although I had my private doubts about the feasibility of his plan. The hills here are very rough and rocky, not at all suitable for horses, unless there's a path.

Our route took us round some fields that haven't been sown (it has barely rained all winter here, so not many farmers have sown cereals this year). The ground was heavy because it rained hard last weekend, and I thought it would be a good place for them to canter and relax their itchy feet.

The first canter had them puffing and blowing, and they were both happy to pull up when we crossed the field. It must be hard work cantering in soft earth. I was dismayed but not very surprised when we realised that Flamenca had last both her boots in the process. We turned back to go over our tracks and quickly found one, but the second boot was extremely elusive. We walked to and fro with the horses searching, hoping it was stuck in the bottom of a deep hoofprint, but no luck. So I put just the one boot back on Flamenca. She can cope with soft or smooth ground fine barefoot, but I was worried how she'd do once we reached the hillside.

By this time, the horses had calmed down very well and we gave them another canter all round the edge of the field. They were nicely destressed after this, and behaved much better for the rest of the ride.



There is a small irrigation ditch that we have to cross on the way to the hill. I have been working with Macarena crossing the ditch near home, and she now does it with barely a second thought. Of course, the ditch we had to cross on our ride looks completely different - lots of long grass on both sides for a start - so she wasn't having any of it for a while. Never mind that Flamenca was already on the far side.

This ditch was entirely different to the one she has learned to cross, and as far as she is concerned, they have nothing to do with each other. It's all very well me thinking "well, they're BOTH irrigation ditches so if she crosses one, she'll cross the other". NO! She couldn't give a toss if I oddly decide to use the same name for two clearly different things in different locations. That's my affair, but her decision was that the new ditch is not to be trusted.

It's interesting when a horse innocently approaches a conflictive spot. They are thinking ahead in a relaxed fashion, and suddenly you can feel their thought waver and centre on this unknown thing that they have spotted before them. For a moment, while their thought is wavering, it may be possible to convince them to go past, or over, the scary thing BEFORE they have a chance to really focus on it. But once they bring their thought back to the scary object, then you know it will take a while to send their thought forward again.

Macarena shifted to and fro, looking at the ditch, and suggesting alternatives. "How about turning round? No? Well, lets go along a bit and see if it looks any better over there. Oh no, it's even worse here! How about some grass to take my mind off the nasty thing?"

After five minutes of sidling, shifting and not being allowed to eat, I felt her thought suddenly cross the ditch to join Flamenca, and a moment later she was in action. One step and she was over. Such a fuss about so little! (But what if there had been an anaconda lurking in the bottom of the ditch?? You never know for sure what's in those things).

The hillside proved to be every bit as rocky and difficult as I had imagined. We advanced upwards at an angle until I decided we had gone far enough. Macarena's front legs were wobbling when we stopped, not sure whether from tiredness or emotion. After the photo call, we headed cautiously downwards and reached easy, level ground again with no mishaps.




^^^ Macarena thought I was getting another carrot out of my pocket and kept looking back over her shoulder to see what I had in my hand. Or maybe she was showing off her new hackamore? 

It was a good ride and they coped well with an unknown situation and obeyed perfectly on the hillside where obedience was at a premium, so I was pleased with both my girls.



:loveshower:

A lesson in ear language on the way home:


^^^ Danger, boss mare blocking the road ahead!


^^^ All clear! We're going home! It's just off to the right, out of the photo, where my ear is pointing.


^^^ Danger again! Deviant wolf spotted straight ahead.

Macarena really doesn't like my poor dog.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## bsms

"_It's interesting when a horse innocently approaches a conflictive spot. They are thinking ahead in a relaxed fashion, and suddenly you can feel their thought waver and centre on this unknown thing that they have spotted before them. For a moment, while their thought is wavering, it may be possible to convince them to go past, or over, the scary thing BEFORE they have a chance to really focus on it. But once they bring their thought back to the scary object, then you know it will take a while to send their thought forward again._

_ Macarena shifted to and fro, looking at the ditch, and suggesting alternatives. "How about turning round? No? Well, lets go along a bit and see if it looks any better over there. Oh no, it's even worse here! How about some grass to take my mind off the nasty thing?"_

_ After five minutes of sidling, shifting and not being allowed to eat, I felt her thought suddenly cross the ditch to join Flamenca, and a moment later she was in action. One step and she was over. Such a fuss about so little_!"​The first time I read Tom Moates' book, quoting Harry Whitney (spelling?) about "between two reins is a thought", and directing a thought, or getting it back to you, I poo-pooed it. Too "zen" for my engineering mind.

But with time, I've come to really like it as a way of thinking and working with horses. When the horse's thought is at the withers, between your hands, it is easy to direct. And as a mental picture...in the initial hesitation, when the horse hasn't settled on something, one can sometimes get their mind to 'jump the ditch'...sometimes. I guess a really good horseman might be able to do it most of the time.

Me? I often end up with Macarena, so to speak...my horse puzzling and trying, and me trying to get his thought back with me and settled. What made Mia so tough a ride was once her mind started to float, it might not come back to either of us for some time! I don't think it was just me. SHE had problems, emotionally. She wasn't very stable. And when she lost it, she LOST it.

Bandit is about as spooky, in terms of being able to be startled or go "Hey, what is THAT!!!!????" But he is at least 10 times more likely for his thought to stay near him, and once it is with him, then getting it back between my hands is usually fairly simple.

I find myself wondering if some of what I was learning with Mia, and have now tried on Bandit, would have ever worked with her. While some of it was HER, how much of it was ME, fixating on getting her PAST something, rather than getting HER to go by it? If I had thought of working with her as something that might take 2 years of solid laying the foundation FIRST, and getting it solid before trying to build a wall, would the whole structure have collapsed on me (and her) as often?

I've spent close to a year working on the foundation with Bandit, although we haven't been able to do much work for the last 3 months. But I'll have time again soon. If I take it slowly with him, and given his personality - much saner than Mia - I should have a darn good trail horse. But could it have been done with Mia, had I approached things differently?

I'll never know. She was my first horse, and I was learning to ride on her. I bought her as "the perfect horse for a beginner" - at least, that is how she was advertised and I didn't know enough to wonder why they would only let me ride her in a tiny round pen, 35-40 feet across, and wouldn't let me lead her from the ground back to her stall!

It isn't worth beating myself up over it. I didn't know what I didn't know, and what I know now might not be close to being enough to handle her well. Heck, BANDIT and I have a long way to go still!

But I really like how you handled it:_"After five minutes of sidling, shifting and not being allowed to eat, I felt her thought suddenly cross the ditch to join Flamenca, and a moment later she was in action. One step and she was over. Such a fuss about so little_!"​


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## Skyseternalangel

I think your hackamore is too low on her nose.


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## Bondre

Yes, you're right about that Sky. It was the first day I tried it, the headpiece was.on the shortest hole and it was still too low. I need to make some adjustments to the headpiece of the bridle.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Skyseternalangel

Good!

I'm glad they are calmer and happier, they sure look it in photos!


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## Bondre

^^^ *they* are calmer and *I* am happier lol!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

Bsms, when I first came across Harry Whitney's ideas (in Tinyliny's thread), my initial reaction was come on, how on earth are you going to direct a thought, and what would be the use of doing it anyway? But it didn't take me long to realise that yes, it makes a lot of sense, and that if you can learn to focus the horse's thought where YOU want, then most all the body control stuff becomes superfluous. 

Sometimes their thought processes are crystal clear, like in the case of the ditch crossing. However, I can't take any credit for sending Macarena's thought across the ditch. All I did was try to limit her options, so once she had explored all her possibilities and we had ruled them out together, the best option was to move forward and be done with. 

Yesterday I took her on a short ride and we had a battle of wills over trotting. I wanted her to trot away from home. She said that walk is a maximum speed when leaving home on her own. And that I should count my blessings that she's not balking, not push my luck asking for too much, and so on.

I asked several times, giving her much stronger leg cues than she needs, and her reaction was the same. She bounced all the energy of the leg cues back at me, throwing her head up and digging her front feet in as if a chasm had suddenly opened before her. Walking was OK, she didn't balk, but trotting - no way. 

We were approaching a part of the road where there are a few objects she doesn't really like, so I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. We walked past the concrete irrigation thingy, the dark cypress hedge and the barking dogs, and once the road opened invitingly before us I asked her again. And again. And again. 

On the third or fourth time, she gave in.

Oh all RIGHT! If it's SO important to you we'll trot. Can't see the reason for the hurry myself, but whatever...

We trotted 100m on a loose rein, walked 10m, halted, dismount and grass. 

OK, NOW I get it! We were hurrying for the grass! My human isn't as stupid as she seems after all. Trotting was a GOOD idea!

Or at least that's what I hope she was thinking.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## gottatrot

Bondre said:


> Oh all RIGHT! If it's SO important to you we'll trot. Can't see the reason for the hurry myself, but whatever...
> 
> We trotted 100m on a loose rein, walked 10m, halted, dismount and grass.
> 
> OK, NOW I get it! We were hurrying for the grass! My human isn't as stupid as she seems after all. Trotting was a GOOD idea!
> 
> Or at least that's what I hope she was thinking.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


That kind of horse psychology has served me well, and I agree it can be very helpful. We're not running away from home, we're running toward food.
I've done serpentines where we start running toward home, then loop back away, then back toward home. So it's a long path but sometimes it heads in the direction the horse wants to go. 
Sometimes I've planned a ride knowing someone else was riding a buddy horse out, and met up with them along the way. When we turn a corner, there's a friend! 
I've ridden the bolder horse out first so they poop along the way and my nervous horse thinks the other horse is either up ahead, or else it is safe because the other horse took this path also. It can help if the horse thinks there might be pleasant surprises out there she doesn't know about. 

I've often caught horses off guard and pushed them through when they were about to hesitate. If you can feel the initial catch in stride or pulling back of the mind while the horse is still deciding what to do, you can often get them through it. But this only works for some horses, and more often it is easier to bluff a gelding than a mare. 

I was on a little Arab gelding named Banner. His frequent rider told me he was afraid to go into the narrow trails through bushes, and would sometimes balk and rear. We turned toward the narrow trail, and I felt him hesitate, then quickly rear. He tried to turn to the side, but I straightened him. As he was coming down, I was ready and immediately when his front legs touched down gave him a stronger leg cue than I normally would. He was so surprised he went right through into the bushes, and then was over it. 

I think sometimes when their mind is still wavering, you can focus their attention on the place they don't want to go, and it's like when someone says, "Don't think, just do it!" They can sometimes get caught off guard and do it. My little sister used to trick me like that all the time when I was young, making me do all kinds of things like run upstairs and get stuff for her. :wink:


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## bsms

There are several things I like about 'directing a horse's thought'. For one thing, it reminds us that horses HAVE thoughts...something that gets missed by too many riders. Second, it emphasizes the idea that we do not have "body control", but influence the horse's mind to use its body in a way we like.

Third, there is this: "_I've often caught horses off guard and pushed them through when they were about to hesitate. If you can feel the initial catch in stride or pulling back of the mind while the horse is still deciding what to do, you can often get them through it. But this only works for some horses, and more often it is easier to bluff a gelding than a mare._" 

I don't know about mares vs geldings, but Mia was a much more decisive horse than Bandit. Sh had no problems making a decision very quickly - a firm decision! And once made, it was tough to change. Where Bandit would hesitate, giving me a chance to influence his thought, Mia would DECIDE. But since Bandit will puzzle over things for a moment, and tell me, "_I'm not sure..._", it is easy to say, "_Well, how about we move the the edge of the pavement and take up a trot. That way we'll be ready if the garbage can has a mountain lion hiding in it!_" That sort of thinking makes sense to him, so it becomes OUR good idea - and his body does it, maybe with just a moment of hesitation, followed by a little pressure by me on one leg and leaning forward a little...and WE act together on OUR plan.

When we get past, he once again has had reason to believe the monkey on his back is both on his side AND worth listening to.

"_However, I can't take any credit for sending Macarena's thought across the ditch. All I did was try to limit her options, so once she had explored all her possibilities and we had ruled them out together, the best option was to move forward and be done with._" 

I wasn't entirely thrilled by the lessons in western riding that I took, but one thing helped a lot. She had tires in the arena, and one person would be told to put their horse's left front (or right front) foot inside the old tire. Horses don't like doing that! But the point of the exercise was to show that the rider cannot MAKE the horse do anything. You can often only limit the options until the HORSE picks the one you want. It was a vivid picture of "Quiet Persistence" - not trying to put the horse's leg into the tire by force (which cannot be done), but by persisting until the horse went "You must REALLY want me to do this" - and did it. 

A few horses learned that putting a foot inside the tire made the exercise end, but most disliked it enough to put up resistance. And the instructor was willing to let a rider take 45 minutes working on it. If the rider became frustrated, she would point out getting upset only made success LESS likely, and that a rider could not control a horse if they could not first control themselves.

Tom Roberts said two rules always stood him in good stead: 

*This profits you. This profits you not.

Quiet Persistence.
*​ 
Ponying off the last two posts, I might add two others:

*Timely suggestions.

My way leads to good things.

*All of which assumes the horse is a thinking, feeling creature who can be taught to follow a human's lead. A partner, not a servant. And those are tough to teach in a round pen or small arena. That is why I am now focused outside the arena. Arenas are good for teaching what a cue means, or working on things like suppleness, good turns, good transitions...but they don't teach a horse that humans are WORTH following. That comes from someone riding like this:








​


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## knightrider

I am really enjoying these journals. It gives me pleasure whenever I see a new entry. I especially like the way people in the journals are open to new ideas and thoughts. People write things like, "That's interesting. I'd like to think about that some more" instead of "You're wrong. You don't know what you are talking about. . ." which seems to appear from time to time in the other open threads.

I had to learn how to sneak things past my Isabeau, as she wrote in the journal she was keeping. In order to teach her to lead rides, I found that she would lead a ride if it was going home, so I'd have her lead going home. Then I would choose a trail that dead ended into a split where neither trail actually was towards home, and tricked her into continuing to lead the ride even when we were not headed home. Another time I tricked her when I was teaching her to ride solo was when I would head her towards her former home, which she would gladly do. Then I would head her back to my home,which she also would gladly do. Then ride for a bit in the pasture solo, which she would do (not quite so gladly), then back to her former home. Back and forth and all around finding things she would do until she finally just said, "You win. I'll ride out solo on the trail. I've done all this other stuff solo. What's another mile or two away from home?" Another way I tricked her was to park the truck in front of the trailer every single day, load her in the trailer. . . and then not go anywhere. She got so used to loading up calmly in the trailer with the truck in front of it, that when it was time for the real thing, she remained (more or less) calm.


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## tinyliny

it pleases me to hear you guys talking about the stuff that Harry Whitney teaches. the whole "where is your horse's thought" approach was totally revolutionary to me, but has totally changed the way I think about riding.

yesterday I went out for my first solo ride in quite some time, since my lease horse has been lame for 6 months, this was my first time riding him again.
anyway, he's very opinionated, but also very soft on the bit. so, I can get him to bend to a very light lift of the rein, but his thought is still going out the other way.
it's really fun to practice watching for his thought to leave where it was, and go where I want, and I try real hard to give a release BEFORE the horse actually complies with my request. I give a release when I see his thought become ready to go where I want it to. the more you allow your horse to complete the request on his own, rather than being 'steered'into it, the better relaltionship you'll have.

But one thing I wanted to say is that you don't always get the horse to put his thought where you want it. when the horse is hard focussed outward, you are really just interrrupting his thought. where he puts it after that is up to him. you just create the opportunity for him to chose again.
if he choses outward, you do just enough to interrupt that, and leave him to chose you if he will. if he won't, you just interrupt it again. I find it very hard to discern the difference between THAT and looking at it as just getting the horse's thought ON me., but that's what HW says.

he'll stand next to a horse and just sort of if it looks off one way, he'll use body language, literally "tapping" at the air, and making a shushing sound, to tip the hrose to looking off the other way. he said we should practice this a lot; get good at interrupting a horse's thought. . . odd.


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## bsms

"_I give a release when I see his thought become ready to go where I want it to._"

I don't think I could do that, although it sounds like a good goal. The nice thing about viewing it this way is you become aware of your horse as a person. You obviously cannot see his "thought", but there are a lot of little cues to let you know what he is thinking. You read your horse carefully. You become more aware of your horse and thus CAN lead him subtly, or "head him off at the pass" and prevent the refusal from happening by redirecting things before the horse has settled on "Not interested".

Or, if your horse doesn't want to go over a ditch, keep her thinking of options (not refusals) until SHE settles on "cross the ditch"...


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## tinyliny

you can kindof tell, when the hrose is about to releas his thought and become available to your direction. there is a softening, an ear will twitch, or there is a momentary increase in the resistence. you just feel him go, "oh, . . ok."

if i release right as i am pretty sure he IS going to say "ok" , or as close to him just having said it, the result is that he almost feels like he did that himself.

out riding that day, I could tell at one point he was thinking about balking. I was able to interrupt that before he really even knew that that was his plan, and able to get him going forward so quickly that there was none of that residual resentment when you've forced a horse to go YOUR way when he wanted to go antoerh. it's so quick and so smooth the hrose does't hardly remember he had a different idea at all.


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## bsms

" I was able to interrupt that before he really even knew that that was his plan..."

The "Timely Suggestion". As you said, if you can give a subtle suggestion while the horse is not really committed, I think you can get him thinking it was his plan all along. Like Ronald Reagan liked to say, you can do a lot if you don't worry about taking credit!

I can sometimes do it with Bandit. He puzzles over things long enough for me to sometimes get a read and make it work. My limits in reading a horse hamper me, but his longer times of uncommitted thought help. Mia would go, "Problem? Solution!" The gap between the question mark and the capital S was so small that guiding her thoughts would be a challenge.

OTOH, looking back,all her hardest spooks were when she was calm. Too calm. Looking back, I suspect her mind was wandering and I was missing it! After all, she was "calm". That is part of why I've changed the "Forward, Calm and Straight" as the basis of good horse movement to "Forward, CONFIDENT and Straight". Calm suckered me into accepting lethargic, which became bored, then a wandering mind, and then BOOM! A bored horse doesn't have its thought between the reins, or near the withers. It is just floating in space, and that got me into trouble.

A confident horse IS engaged, mentally. And that is safer than a horse who is bored. I screwed up, big time.

Hindsight! I sure wish I could see as well in the present as I can when looking back...


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## Bondre

tinyliny said:


> yesterday I went out for my first solo ride in quite some time, since my lease horse has been lame for 6 months, this was my first time riding him again.


Poor you! (and poor him). Six months is a LONG time to go without. Glad he's back in action. 



tinyliny said:


> it's really fun to practice watching for his thought to leave where it was, and go where I want, and I try real hard to give a release BEFORE the horse actually complies with my request. I give a release when I see his thought become ready to go where I want it to. the more you allow your horse to complete the request on his own, rather than being 'steered'into it, the better relaltionship you'll have.


That sounds like a good thing to practice. More fun than practicing acceptance of contact, for example. ;-)

I enjoy trying to make our communication subtle and invisible when possible. Of course, this is only possible when her thought almost coincides with mine, and only small adjustments are necessary. When she wants to go east and I want to go west, she's thinking China and I'm thinking the US, well, there's nothing very subtle in our interchanges then. 

For example, the other day as we left the barn she was happy to be going out but habit made her thought wander back home repeatedly. Flamenca's insistent neighing from home didn't help to keep her thinking forward either. Every time I felt her thought wander back, I gave a tiny nudge with one leg and a touch on the opposite rein, and she would think ahead again. End result, she kept going straight, and to a casual observer she was a horse walking forward smoothly. But her thoughts .... they weren't advancing smoothly, they were jumping to and fro like fleas. 



tinyliny said:


> But one thing I wanted to say is that you don't always get the horse to put his thought where you want it. when the horse is hard focussed outward, you are really just interrrupting his thought. where he puts it after that is up to him. you just create the opportunity for him to chose again.
> if he choses outward, you do just enough to interrupt that, and leave him to chose you if he will. if he won't, you just interrupt it again. I find it very hard to discern the difference between THAT and looking at it as just getting the horse's thought ON me., but that's what HW says.


Interesting details. This is like what I said about when Macarena wants east and I want west. I can no more drag her thought round a 180 turn than I can make her do it physically - not until she's ready. So the best (only) option is to interrupt, with each interruption her thoughts come a little closer to me. Eventually her thoughts are close enough to mine to be able to send them where I want to go. 

Her: I don't like the look of that long grass, could be something hiding in it

Me: look at the other side, Flamenca is waiting there.

Her: no thanks, how about we do an about turn? (turns)

Me: let's look at Flamenca again (turns back)

...Repeat this several times...

Her: look at that grass I'm standing on! Tasty! (drops head to eat)

Me: let's look at Flamenca again (raises head)

Her: yes, but there's something ODD in between us! I'm NOT going over that thing.

Me: let's look at Flamenca from somewhere else (moves several metres to the side)

Her: maybe, not sure, do you think it's OK here?

Me: JOIN FLAMENCA!! (her thought was nearly there)

Her: OK, going NOW 



tinyliny said:


> he'll stand next to a horse and just sort of if it looks off one way, he'll use body language, literally "tapping" at the air, and making a shushing sound, to tip the hrose to looking off the other way. he said we should practice this a lot; get good at interrupting a horse's thought. . . odd.


Can you give any more details about how HW does this? I believe it is VERY important to master this, and it keeps things much safer if you can interrupt their thoughts successfully when the stress levels are rising.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## tinyliny

Harry will say, "Not that". When he interrupts He just says "Not that". And leaves the horse to make a better choice.


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## tinyliny

Bondre said:


> Can you give any more details about how HW does this? I believe it is VERY important to master this, and it keeps things much safer if you can interrupt their thoughts successfully when the stress levels are rising.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_



Well the little exersized I was describing was sone on the ground, standing in front if the horse. Like I said, he would use a bit of a feel on the lead line , like sending a tiny bit of energy down the line with his hand toward the direction he wanted to send the horses thought. Then he'd add some pressure , only if necessary , by tapping toward the horses inside nostril or cheek until the horse moved his head AND looked over in that direction . A lot of times the horse will move its head, but it's mins is still fixated elsewhere and you can tell by where it's looking.
But you wouldn't do this when they are stressed. You'd do it when they are pretty mellow and maybe even bored and distracted


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## egrogan

The piece that bsms wrote about a bored horse suddenly becoming unpredictable is definitely a problem I have. And I KNOW that, but some days I still get sucked in to being a passenger instead of a partner. I have tried not to set myself up to ride, for example, when I've had a really busy day at work and my thoughts are elsewhere, and I try to make sure that even when we're riding a very familiar route, I ask for something a little different (a halt somewhere, a change of speed, a turn in a different spot). But it's those moments when I'm not fully engaged that Isabel will take matters into her own hands, and not for the good- either becoming tense, or trying to run home, or other reactions that totally defeat the purpose of having a quiet, relaxing ride to destress. And it can all very obviously be traced to my mind wandering. 

I guess our horses have pretty effective techniques for redirecting _our _thoughts, so makes sense we should be able to do the same in the other direction. :wink:


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## Bondre

egrogan said:


> The piece that bsms wrote about a bored horse suddenly becoming unpredictable is definitely a problem I have....
> I guess our horses have pretty effective techniques for redirecting _our _thoughts, so makes sense we should be able to do the same in the other direction. :wink:


You're right that all this about directing a horse's thoughts can seem pretty obvious. Just a new name for an old idea, that the rider uses cues to direct the horse. OK, so now we're talking about directing their thoughts instead of their legs, but it's the same thing. Or is it?

I think if the rider is in tune with their horse, it does come down to much the same thing. The rider gives cues and the horse is OK about the requests received, and obeys. 

However, when the horse is not in tune (yet) as in a green or untrained horse, it's useful to realise that our cues have to be okayed by the horse's mind before they get translated into leg movement. If your horse is thinking of something different to you - or if she is bored and her mind is wandering - then the chances are she won't give a correct response to your cues. 

All this reminds me of when I was learning to drive (many years ago!) My instructor told me to look ahead down the road, where I wanted to go, and the steering business would all fall into place. It's the same with a horse - they go towards where their thoughts are. If they are thinking of home, home they will go - unless you find a way of redirecting their thoughts.

So "body control" becomes "mind control". Though I prefer bsms's words:

_Second, it emphasizes the idea that we do not have "body control", but influence the horse's mind to use its body in a way we like._

_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

The horses are enjoying the new grass that has come with the heavy rain of ten days ago, followed by warmth and sunshine.



A horse raised in acres of rolling sward would no doubt sneer at our modest patch, but our two are very happy to spend a couple of hours grazing in the afternoons. (See all the gorgeous pink peach blossom in the background).

They had a surprise visit too. They met a young goat.



Our horses and goats live separately and barely see each other: I often ride Macarena past our goat housing but the wall round their loafing patios is too high for her to see over..... and the goats NEVER go down to the stables ;-) So a goat close-up was quite a novelty. Macarena was VERY keen to check the goat out, but the goat wasn't happy to let such a huge beast approach and kept skipping away. Eventually Macarena got fed up with the flighty visitor, made a face at her to tell her to keep her distance, and returned to more important matters.



While they ate, I spent some time pulling up thistles. A rapidly-expanding patch has appeared in the field and it was time to eradicate them. Fortunately even the thistles have takers, so didn't go to waste - the goats ate the lot. Next on the eradication list are the mallows: not as disagreeable as the thistles, but they are slowly invasive and the horses don't eat them either.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## tinyliny

What's a "mallow"?


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## Bondre

They are behind the goat in the second photo. 

Not my mallows but here you can see more detail:


Mallows are actually a much neglected edible and medicinal plant. I looked them up and was amused to see their Latin name is _Malva neglecta_ lol. Here you can read how amazing they are:

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/mallow.aspx
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bondre

At last we have grass!

Our surroundings have changed from dull dry green-brown to bright spring green thanks to the rain over Easter. This is a temporary phenomenon that I always feel driven to make the most of with the horses, although that means spending hours watching them eating lol. We have grass in our small field too, of course, but I hate seeing all the lush wayside grass going to waste - and Macarena agrees that it's a shame for her not to eat it. So although I haven't been riding much these last two weeks, we've been going out on grazing walks regularly.



On Friday I put a saddle on Macarena and took her out for a real ride. It was a beautiful afternoon and I decided to go a little further afield and give a push to her mental boundaries. We reached the field where we cantered with Flamenca, which is as far as we've gone recently on our solo excursions, and we stopped there for a grass break. When I asked her to continue she was a bit bothered and clearly wanted to turn for home, although she didn't try to.

On the far side of the field we followed the track which goes parallel to home, and she was happy to trot. Like gottatrot said, if you can take a route which goes away from home and then seems to go towards home without actually doing so, they are more eager to trot in those sections. She trotted nicely on a soft contact without pulling or head shaking, so I was very pleased with her growing self- control and relaxation.

At the end of the track we had to decide left (away) or right (towards); of course she wanted right, but I asked her to halt and disengage to calm her down before continuing, as she gets pretty excited and tense at these track junctions. We found a really good, virgin grazing spot close by, so I praised her and dismounted.

She was a bit looky at the relatively unfamiliar surroundings, but she soon settled to grazing and was relaxed. She only gave a little jump when Astrid emerged, dripping and happy, from the irrigation channel. Getting frightened by the dog is all part of the routine, and her dog spooks are less flamboyant now thanks to frequent repetition.

We used to ride through this part of the forest regularly, as there are some sizeable fields set into the pine trees that were unused and great for a canter. But last year the broccoli king bought them and now they are chockablock with broccoli plants, so what with this and Macarena's nervousness, we haven't been this way for a long time.

After the grazing we had to walk through the broccoli fields to return to the road home, and as I had dismounted for her to graze I decided to lead her. She was excited but behaving until the road came into sight, and then she flipped her lid. She started dancing on the lead, bouncing and doing airborne kick-backs. I told her to pack it in and she more or less got a grip until we exited the broccoli fields near the road and she started again, rearing and misbehaving bigtime.

She was fretting so much to race down that road at 60+mph that there was NO WAY she was going to walk calmly on the lead. My solution was to turn her butt towards home and back her up in direction she wanted to go. A horse can't back up at 60mph. It took some firm handling to get her to do it, but once she accepted the idea she did it very well and backed up smartly at about 3mph.

After several yards I tried turning her round and walking normally. She tried to surge forwards in an extremely unrelaxed and unruly fashion. No! We turned butt towards home again and backed several more yards. The second time we turned round, she just gave a token pull before settling down to walking besides me on a loose(ish) lead.

My only explanation for her bout of misbehaviour is that her nervousness and excitement seems to increase as we approach familiar surroundings. Once we're safely on the way home and she is confident I'm not going to branch off elsewhere, she relaxes, but there is an intermediate area where she REALLY wants to go home but doesn't yet know if we're going to do so, which is where she misbehaves out of nervousness and tension.

"Will we? Won't we? (pulls) Will we won't we? (jumps) Willwewon'twe?? (bucks) Willwewon'twewillwewon'twe??? (rears)"

I was pleased that although she played up, she also relaxed again quite well with the backing up. I don't know if there would have been a better way of dealing with her outbreak, but that was what came to mind and fortunately it did the trick. Later I googled training advice for a horse rearing on the lead, and the general consensus is to ignore the antics rather than punish them, NOT pull on them, give them something different to do immediately, and be VERY clear and authoritative about your demands.

I guess that's more or less what I did. I was certainly firm with her. It took a lot of chest pushing and slapping to get her to listen and back up the first time. If a horse is being pushy with you, it's no good being polite with them. When she's screaming "I want home NOW!" it's no good saying quietly, "would you just move over a touch please?" You have to scream back (not verbally of course, I mean scream with your body language) "get your butt round there FAST! " Once she takes notice and stops her strong body language then I'll stop mine too and we'll both mosey home together.

Well, that was Friday. Yesterday I took her out again in the same direction but not so far. Before we left I gave her a refresher of her head-down cue with the clicker. Here she is practising relaxing with her head low (that's low by her standards anyway):



Then I rode her up to the place where she reared yesterday. There are a few landscape features there that she doesn't like a whole load so I thought it would be a good place to practise relaxing with her head down. We stopped at a nice patch of grass just before the broccoli field and she ate. She was quite relaxed as you can see.



Astrid obligingly made Macarena startle by appearing suddenly from the clumps of esparto grass, and gave me a reason to ask for the head down. We wandered towards the broccoli and the old irrigation channels. No nerves at all today. Three choppers went by on the road, and we did the head down again. No worries.

I found a convenient rock for mounting again (bareback today) and we headed home. About halfway I decided to give her a small challenge since she was so chilled out and turned her off the road away from home. She complied, albeit reluctantly. We went round three sides of a rectangle instead of one side (the road) to get home. She only stopped once, in a meditative fashion, as if she was saying "are you REALLY sure about going this way?" I waited politely and a moment later she continued.

Every small success like this is a tiny step towards being able to ride away from home without stress once more. I can see it's going to take us much longer to achieve than I once thought, but it really doesn't matter, as long as we enjoy our modest achievements in the meantime. I've come to understand that miles under your belt aren't the only measure of success with your horse on the trail.


_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## bsms

^^ Would like more than once, if possible!


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## Bondre

When I went to feed the horses last night, I found them in a state of high agitation. Sometimes they are like this, usually when I feed them late, and I suspect they are excited because of the wait - but maybe they are nervous because of something they have seen? I don't know, and that's something I don't much like about the dry lot where I keep them. It's very close to home but not visible from the house, so if anything strange is going on - someone pestering them, for example - I wouldn't necessarily find out about this.

So when I find them inexplicably jumpy and excited, I always wonder if anything untoward has happened. Last night Macarena was acting up like I've never seen her before. She would sprint across their enclosure, put the brakes on and do a slide stop, rear up, spin round and start again. Some of the rears were BIG,* and she did one incredible leap upwards out of a rear - her hind legs must have been 3' off the ground at the cusp of her airborne trajectory. Even staid Flamenca did a few bucks, but probably more to warn Macarena to keep clear than anything else.

I wished I'd had the camera with me to video her.

I waited for her to calm down a bit before I opened the gate to go inside. Although she is careful to keep her antics away from me, I'd still rather not share a space with an overexcited loose horse, just in case. As soon she saw me with the keys in my hand, she was there by the gate, waiting for a reassuring contact. I gave her a scratch on the forehead and she put her head close to me,*as if she was saying "mum, something really scared me!"

However, the good news is that as an upshot of this we are finally preparing our own piece of land for the horses. Up until now the space has been partly taken up by piles of giant bales for the goats, but we can pile these up on the common land next to our field which will free the space for the horses. We are in the process of fencing it now, and then we'll have to build a shelter. We're wanting to get it ready for the summer, which is when the annual rent is due on their present accommodation. So that will be great, having the horses closer at hand and with a larger area for them. Our field is one acre, so certainly not huge, but almost four times as large as the dry lot they have now. 

More space for Macarena to indulge in her antics!


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## Bondre

Peaceful afternoon today for the girls. I took them up to a grassy patch of the pine forest behind our goat yard. I spent a while hanging out with them, them decided to tether Flamenca to a pine tree and leave Macarena loose. I left them for two or three hours, checking in on them while we did the goats' evening feed and a bit of work on the fencing project. Macarena moves a lot while she's grazing, but with Flamenca there she didn't go far away. She would never venture off alone - I guess this is the positive aspect of her herdbound-ness.



I was looking at some early photos of her yesterday and realized just how much she has changed since I got her (in August 2013) as a three year old. She was very slender - read skinny - as a youngster but fortunately an improved diet under my care has meant that she has filled out well. The first time I saw her she was all long hair and not much else - a sort of unkempt equine Rapunzel. Sadly the first photos I took of her got lost when my computer gave up the ghost last year, but I have a few backups of early pics to see the difference.



Wasn't she a cutie?! She still looks such a baby here.



Look at that narrow chest. I wonder if she always wobbled when I cleaned her hooves because she was so narrow back then?



Strutting her stuff in the early days with flamboyant action and super high head carriage.


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## Bondre

This afternoon I decided I was going to ride Macarena or bust! The goats are kidding which doesn't leave much free time, so I've been taking her for grazing walks for several weeks instead of riding. Which is nice too, but I reckon she's quite fat enough and could do with some real exercise for a change. 

Interlude for cute photos.... this is what's taking all my time recently....




It wasn't until I looked at this journal that I saw I haven't ridden her in a month. And considering that, she was very good. We just picked up right where we left off on our last ride. 

The girls had some excitement just before I arrived to ride. I was walking down with the tack when I heard some very excited neighing. Macarena always greets me with an enthusiastic neigh, but this neighing was on a different level. Sure enough, there was a horse and rider going past their corral. And not just any horse - this was the local stallion. He's a gorgeous beast, a cross between Angloarab and PRE (known as tres sangres as it'sa three-way crossbreed). 4 years old, been under saddle for six months. His owner rides him past my corral regularly, using it as a training opportunity. He used to make a huge fuss about going past my mares, and on one occasion I saw him backing up at the trot very niftily, but he's improving and today he was quiet enough for me to have a brief chat with his owner. He was on the way back from a neighbouring village where he had taken his stallion to the local feria. I asked how he was with the people and the bustle, and the chap replies he got a bit nervous when they were setting off the rockets. Lolol. Macarena would have flipped completely in such a situation. This guy is obviously doing a great job training his horse.

Anyway, after that I felt like doing a bit more than just poddling down the road on Macarena like I've been doing recently. So we headed out at the trot (after a brief discussion). She spotted a parked car that looked odd from a distance and she couldn't figure out, stopped dead and got a bit snorty, but nothing bad. We trotted again after the car, until I though we had gone far enough and turned her into some fallow fields that are full of miscellaneous weeds - some edible and tasty. In fact these fields are stunning at the moment with all that colours of the spring flowers. Great sweeps of white, vivid splashes of red poppies, stippling of yellow and a touch of blue. I wished I'd taken the camera. Next time.... 

At this point I dismounted and let her eat. We wandered homewards for half an hour while she grazed. Then I remounted and we headed away from home to return by a slightly longer route. I was pleased that she didn't make the slightest fuss about going away from home. Met one of the neighbours who asked if she was in foal :shock: to which I replied that no, it's a grass belly  The neighbour redeemed herself by saying that Macarena looks stunning  

When we got to the flat land beside the corral I decided to do a bit more work with her. She was anticipating arriving and being untacked and fed, so doing circles at the trot didn't go down really great, but she didn't make a huge fuss either. She did some really lovely trot and two short canters, and she was light and responsive. I was very pleased. 

I still had one last challenge for her. I asked her to walk past the gate, where Flamenca was fussing, and continue down the track. After a small hesitation she complied, and just ten metres further on, where there happened to be some nice, as yet ungrazed grass, I dismounted and took her saddle off. She was pleased to leave her mark on the long grass stems. 

Overall I was very chuffed with our ride today. To start with, she was no worse than when I last rode her one month ago. And when I asked her for a bit of real work, she was happy to oblige. Now I just have to keep finding time in the afternoons before the weather gets too hot for comfort, and we could make some real progress.


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## gottatrot

> Met one of the neighbours who asked if she was in foal to which I replied that no, it's a grass belly The neighbour redeemed herself by saying that Macarena looks stunning.


Hilarious! Wish I could have seen that stallion.
The baby goats are adorable too.


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## Bondre

Our last ride - on Friday - went very well. I asked Macarena for a bit more than the previous occasion and she was fine. I am starting to realise that it is me, not her, that is keeping us from making faster progress on the whole riding out alone issue. I've not been asking her to step out of her comfort zone enough, but on Friday I did. And she did fine. So it seems that the last months of pootling around have actually achieved something (other than Macarena getting fat lol). Maybe I could have got results much faster if I'd pushed her harder - or maybe she'd have regressed under too much pressure.

I took her on a round the block ride through the broccoli fields. It was the same route as the day that she got very sassy on the lead and wanted to tank home - except I did it in reverse. Started out through the broccoli fields and stopped for a snack on route. The broccoli has been harvested and now the sheep are working through the fields, leaving bare earth in their wake,* before ploughing. This field hasn't been razed yet so we made a brief halt for some crunchy stems.

At the end of the field there's a flat area where the broccoli king has an assortment of tractors and weird agricultural implements parked. Macarena barely have them a glance. She's seen plenty of these vehicles over the past three years, as a procession of tractors goes to and fro past their corral when they're harvesting broccoli.

But just beyond the tractors is a scary part of the forest and she wasn't happy about going past it. I really don't know what it is that scares her there. When we first started going on this route, over two years ago, there were some big piles of rocks there which she hated. But the rock piles are no longer, there are just pine trees which look exactly the same as all the other pine trees to me. Or maybe she doesn't like the enclosed nature of the forest in general? You never know what may be hiding between the trees do you?

We worked slowly past the nasty pine trees and stopped briefly for some lush grass on the opposite verge. I thought that a bit of grazing near the trouble spot might help her relax.



The pine trees are to our left; Macarena is looking in the direction we are going to continue, and her ears are expressing her inner conflict. "I want to go along the track as we're heading for home - but I don't want to go along next to those pine trees". We rediscovered a pile of old concrete irrigation pipes between the pine trees - I had forgotten they were there, but maybe Macarena remembered them? - and she looked at them a lot. She really dislikes irrigation pipes. So it was a relief for her when we reached the open land beyond the forest.

These fields have been left fallow this year and are glorious with spring flowers. Unfortunately they were ploughed last autumn and the surface is lumpy and irregular, not great for riding. Plus the excess of vegetation, including a generous scattering of giant thistles, doesn't make for good visibility. I*started trotting her along the track that borders the fields, but about halfway I spotted a possible route through the middle of the field - fairly even ground and not too much flowery stuff - so I turned her into the field. We were pointing directly for home and I wondered what she would do when I asked for speed.

At first she didn't want to go off the track. Has she become so used to never accelerating straight towards home that she actually finds it weird to do so? Then gave a few canter strides before she surged forwards into a great sprint. At that speed the good patch of terrain ended all too soon and we were into the bad lumpy and rocky stuff, and I had to slow her. I turned her away from home and we came to a halt. Macarena threw her head up in her maximum alert pose and gave a sharp snort of high excitement / alarm.

As I wrote in gottatrot's journal, before the canter Macarena was 80% relaxed and 20% nervous. Afterwards she was still 20% nervous but now the 80% was pure excitement. And there was a price to pay for those few seconds of speed. I had to bring her down off the adrenaline high and convert that excitement back into relaxation, preferably without any dangerous antics in the process.

She definitely coped with the excitement better than on previous occasions. She barely bucked (it wouldn't be fair to count two minute*experimental hops that she threw in) and she didn't bounce at all, nor did she think of rearing. She pranced and pulled, and I bent her laterally and gave her pressure and release until she was calm enough to be trusted with a touch of loose rein.

We walked home and then I asked her for some trot and canter circles outside the corral. She was a bit miffed but complied. And then we finished off by cantering away from home along the wide road verge. I had to leg her on a bit but she didn't think of baulking which was a huge improvement.*Compare this with when I tried trotting her away from home a month ago: she refused, and the more I insisted the more violent her refusal.

We cantered until we ran out of field and then cut back up to the road. She did hesitate there; for one thing there was another hated rock pile right where we met the road. I told her we were just going across the road to that nice patch of green grass and then I would dismount and she could eat (no, there was no-one nearby to hear me explaining things out loud to my horse lol); then I tried to make a really strong mental picture of the clump of grass. The mental picture did the trick, or maybe she was just bored of being indecisive; she went straight to the grass clump and waited politely for me to dismount.

So then I waited politely while she ate her fill and we meandered home together.



While she was eating she put her head to my chest several times - very cute, as if she was looking for reassurance. But on reflection, I think she was actually checking whether there were any treats left in the fanny pack I was wearing :rofl: :rofl:



I've been thinking that maybe I've been getting her a bit wrong all this time that she's been nervous about going out alone. I wonder if back last summer, when she got scared over the dirt bikes, maybe she was actually excited about them? (I had raced her behind a bike once so maybe she was really just hoping for another race.) Perhaps she was excited and it was me that was the scared one of the pair lol. Because yes, her instinctive reaction to a high-adrenaline situation was pretty scary. 

She seems to be learning to temper that reaction, which is great as I'm not really up for high-stress riding. I don't mind speed but I don't like being airborne (except when we're jumping and I'm expecting her to take off). I think teaching a horse to deal with adrenaline is a valuable lesson for all youngsters to learn. I didn't know this before - it wasn't in the Pony Club manual I had as a kid, nor is it in any of the NH stuff since you can't teach it from the ground. But I think it's fundamental for the peace of mind of both horse and rider.


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## egrogan

There are so many great journals right now where people are really coming to some interesting realizations about their horses after spending a lot of time riding them in different circumstances- and this is definitely one of those journals. Interesting reflections about the dirt bike incidents. I guess no one can really say for sure what happened then, but I appreciate you sharing your thought process with us. I know that on the scale from "super cautious" to "wild and crazy," I'm far more on the cautious end and I share your lack of interest in "going airborne"


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## Bondre

Flamenca has completely recovered from her abscess after a month off, and on Friday my son and I took the girls out together for the first time in ages. They were very happy to be riding out together.

Macarena was relaxed and in easy mode: as different as night and day compared to Macarena in her worst*barn sour moments. I appreciate gottatrot giving me credit in her journal for having a difficult horse to ride - and Macarena has undoubtedly put me to the test over the past months - but on Friday she was easy as pie. Which was nice for a change, as both relaxation and stress are self-propagating when it comes to horses and riders.

Since I have come to the embarrassing realisation that half our problems have been to my own fear of Macarena'a nervous reactions, it's a relief to feel that we are over the hump of mistrust and are relaxing together again. Nothing worse than hearing an odd noise in the distance and fighting to smother your internal fear of a possible imminent explosion underneath you. And no better way of achieving the said explosion than to expect it....

Anyway, as I said, both the mares were relaxed and everything went smoothly. We went up to our former favourite galloping fields. I haven't taken Macarena there for months. I took my compact camera and had the idea that I wanted to take a photo of my son cantering on Flamenca while I was cantering alongside on Macarena.

We came to the wide open space and urged them forward. Macarena jumped into action and almost immediately executed some excited aerial movements - they weren't bucks so I assume she was doing long jumps - and when I asked her not to do that please she leapt forward into a sprint. We almost immediately overhauled Flamenca and I couldn't take a single decent photo. We stopped at the end of the field, Flamenca puffing and blowing but happy. Both her boots had come off as always. We backtracked to localize the boots and to calm the horses down. 


^^^ Flamenca tired 


^^^ Macarena saying "can we do it again?!"

Once they were both in an acceptable state we went on to the next field and repeated. This time they set out a bit more calmly, and I had time to get two shots of Flamenca before we overtook.



The next time I plan to take photos one-handed at speed, I'll leave my crop behind. I always carry a crop out of habit, but I'm extremely right-sided about it. I wanted my right hand for the camera, so I had to have the reins and crop in my left hand, but with the crop over my right leg.... an awkward handful, not ideal for stopping a horse traveling at speed. And yes, in the process of braking I took several interesting photos of my right leg and the ground lol.

Yesterday I took Macarena out alone, but on a different route (at last). We've been riding essentially the same route for the last two months (?) now, in my efforts to get her forward and relaxed again. Yesterday I decided she was ready for a change of scene and we headed through the pine forest (scene of the bouncing video I posted on our last attempt at this route), past the solar farm and back home. We had several lengthy grazing stops for encouragement.




^^^ look at that mane 

Everything went fine. She was more energetic once she sensed we were in the way home, but I asked her to trot and she didn't try to race any faster. She was a bit nervous of some unidentified noises coming from a peach plantation beside the road, until a tractor (pulling a weird cage-like device) emerged onto the track in front of us, followed by several cars. Once she understood what the noise was, she relaxed. She doesn't like invisible noises but visible ones are ok. (Aren't all noises invisible??)


^^^ listening to Flamenca in the distance

We grazed for so long beside the lettuce fields on the way home that even Macarena got bored, and was happy when I suggested we return to her corral and her neighing white friend.


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## gottatrot

I wish you could see the long jumps from behind, if they are what Nala was doing. The funny part is how the hind legs kick out behind like this:









Great photos, your son is doing a very good job of riding and Flamenca looks beautiful cantering. Macarena has such a lovely mane!


> Nothing worse than hearing an odd noise in the distance and fighting to smother your internal fear of a possible imminent explosion underneath you. And no better way of achieving the said explosion than to expect it....


Very true about stress and nerves perpetuating between horse and rider. Also true that the invisible noises are much more concerning than things horses can see most of the time.


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## Bondre

gottatrot said:


> Great photos, your son is doing a very good job of riding and Flamenca looks beautiful cantering.


Thank you.  I love seeing Flamenca enjoying herself. I struck lucky finding her. Despite the sad state of her hooves when I bought her and her continuing thin soles, despite the fact that she is prone to laminitis every spring and gets subsolar abscesses if I let her graze too much with Macarena, despite all that I wouldn't change her for a younger, sounder horse. She has just the right combination of safe schoolmaster together with speed, excitement and a bit of difficulty when you ask for it. 

My son is learning in the "keep the horse between you and the ground" school of riding. When I think about how I learnt - endless lessons in a safe arena on 110% bombproof horses before I was considered ready to ride in the real world - and how he is learning - you mount up and you ride out - I can't help but be impressed by how well he rides. I have given him two lunge lessons (last summer), which is the sum total of his riding in a safe, controlled situation. Apart from that, all his riding has been out in the unconfined open spaces where I ride. 

Flamenca is as safe as houses at the walk and trot, but ask her for a canter and the years fall away as she metamorphosis into a young, excitable horse again. My son still grabs onto the saddle with one hand at times for stability - as in the photo - but he has the feel for keeping his balance on a horse in motion which is a huge plus. 



I love the look of enjoyment on his face here! Also a query. Does anyone know why the curb bit seems to be in action when his reins are floppy loose? Or maybe a moment before the photo he was using the reins and the bit still hasn't un-rotated.

.


bsms said:


> I also think, on the whole, riding instruction often fails to teach people how to stay on a horse. Most instructors grew up riding, and they do not understand how many important things they do without thinking. So instead of teaching important stuff - keeping the horse between you and the ground - they teach things likes "Toes front", or stress a vertical line from ear to shoulder to hip to heel...... Feeling your horse's center of gravity and staying relaxed would be more helpful, but many experienced riders do that without thinking - so they don't think to orient their lessons toward learning to do it!.... "good riding" has become defined as "what wins in shows with well trained horses and experienced riders" instead of what many new riders need - how to stay on a horse while defusing tense situations.


A great quote from bsms in gottatrot's journal. It's always helpful to hear other points of view about what is important in learning to ride - especially when I learnt so long ago that I can't even really remember the nuts and bolts of my learning process. 

What is it about "heels down!" that is seen as being so important and is so oft-repeated to novices? I think that heels down is a great way of keeping your centre of gravity low and stable, but it isn't the position of the heels in themselves that is so important as keeping yourself solid and stable in the saddle. And the same with toes front, elbows in, head up, shoulders square, and all the rest of it. These are all things that you need to do if you want you ride well, but perhaps concentrating on these separate details is distracting for a learner rider who really needs to be working on his balance as a whole.


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## egrogan

Maybe because I've never ridden at "show barns" as an adult, I'm actually fortunate that I never had the kind of instructional experience that @*bsms* described. I've taken sporadic lessons over the past 10 years, but all of them seemed to be with people who believed in the "centered riding" approach. While some used Sally Swift's visualization approach more than others, I did spend a lot of time riding stirrupless, or with eyes closed to better tune in to the horse's motion and my body alignment. (To be fair, ear-shoulder-hip-heel alignment is a big part of centered riding, so I guess I did experience that. It generally makes sense to me when I'm riding in the arena, and feels comfortable and balanced. Not sure I'd say the same thing when Izzy is flying across the fields and then I'm standing in some sort of half-seat/jockey crouch to stay with her  I can't imagine trying to properly sit her canter in that situation...) 

When I started teaching beginner kids, I guess I adopted those techniques without really thinking about it. The instructor training I had deeply emphasized giving a "why" to instructions, so you don't end up like a drill sargent directing traffic from the middle of the ring. So I guess I've been lucky in that way.

Where I agree with you and bsms is wishing I had experienced riding outside of the arena much earlier on. It's great your son has the experience to learn like this! It was many months into owning Isabel before I was "brave" enough to even ride her up and down the barn's driveway. I had ridden on trails before, and even went on a fairly intense 3-day horse trekking trip over varied terrain in Ireland, but I think I had a mental block to riding out _and _riding on my own. And I didn't know Izzy well enough at that point to really trust her. In the arena, she was very forward and I sometimes felt like she was running away with me. So that worried me. Looking back, the first couple of rides out on our own, I'm sure I had a death grip on her mouth "just in case." Thankfully she's very forgiving! 

I do wonder why there aren't more proper lessons with instructors riding out hacking or on more difficult trails one-on-one with students to help them process what's happening and how to react. Is that common anywhere? I can't think of any barns I know that offer that.


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## bsms

The Army taught riding by having a 5-10 minute talk by the instructor. Then everyone rode out behind the instructor, and he led them where he thought they would be challenged but not overwhelmed...although it they were, they were in the Army so tough!

Many rules come from competition, which means the artificiality of competitions then create an unnatural way of riding. The shoulder-hip-heel rule is designed for the up/down motion of a collected horse, and it is a good rule - for dressage. Once one gets used to it, it works OK on the trail too...but better than something else?

I find that once I'm used to something, it becomes "right" for me. I got used to riding with my stirrups long enough that, when sitting stretched out in the saddle in my socks (on a saddle stand), the floor of the stirrup barely touches my heel. That came about because bracing against my stirrups had become my big problem, and lengthening my stirrups until bracing was impossible fixed that problem.

But I've been trying to shorten them because A) everyone says the stirrups should be shorter, and B) I do believe an inch or so shorter (about 2 holes of adjustment) would make it easier to balance. But I've gotten so used to my current position that I find it hard to change without it feeling "wrong". In fact, I tend to go back to bracing and straining my knees. Part of me thinks I should ride with them shorter until my mind and body gets used to it. Another part of me wonders why I worry about it. My weight is always mostly in my thighs, so I'm not sitting back with my weight on his loins. And lots of folks have ridden without stirrups, and many recommend practicing that way...so why is a very long stirrup "wrong"?

I believe this painting goes back to 1810. The guy who made it was an experienced rider. The toes are down because (I think) they rode with slick metal stirrups and slick leather soled boots, and toes down kept the stirrups from coming off.








​
Another one:








​
Other than riding deep with a long leg, that is pretty much the forward seat 80 years before Caprilli. And this one was a Rembrandt done in 1655:








​
I hate the way folks back then docked the tails, but...the position he is using could be found on a polo field today. And from the western side, these are a couple of stunt doubles on the old TV show Bonanza, racing their horses:








​
I don't know the answer. I know I get stuck in a rut, but I don't know if doing something different would improve my riding or not. I'd like to take some lessons in jumping, but I have no idea where I would find decent lessons around where I live. That would certainly shake up my riding, but does it matter to the horse? Was VS Littauer right, and the only real test of a position be that it allows you to move "in fluid balance" with your horse (and be able to cue your horse the way you desire)?

I wish I were trying to figure this out at 20 instead of at 58, though...:icon_rolleyes:

It looks like your son, though, is figuring it out - what he needs to do to feel right, as taught by the horse!

Curb bits rotating: A curb bit will rotate very freely in the mouth until the curb strap tightens and the rotation stops. The weight of slack reins is plenty of pressure to rotate the curb bit. If the curb bit has straight shanks, and the horse's head is not vertical, then the weight of the reins will pull the end of the shank under the mouthpiece of the bit, rotating it. This is a picture of Mia where that happened:








​
That is why I switched to curb bits with a bend in the shank. That way, the weight of the reins will balance the bit prior to rotation. I was using it as a snaffle in the picture below, but notice how the end of the shank is under the mouthpiece when Bandit's head is at its resting position:










In that position, I can pull back on the reins and rotate the bit 45 degrees without any pressure in the mouth. That gives the horse warning, or what western riders call 'signal' - "I'm asking politely, but I'll demand in a moment". If the horse obeys the signal, the cue is given without any real pressure in the mouth. If the horse ignores the signal, then the cue become stronger.

However, the bit rotates so easily that it WILL rotate before I get all the slack out. In the picture below, the weight of the rein sliding was enough to rotate the bit in her mouth until the curb strap tightened:








​


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## Zexious

Bondre, I love the photos of your son riding.

It's rather embarrassing to admit, but I had my first "open riding" experience for the first time in my life two years ago. Prior to that it had all been confined to an arena, or the occasional, single file (regardless of pace), trail ride. There was something very freeing about the experience, and I wish I were in a place to have the again. 

Your horses are absolutely stunning, and looking through the pics you have taken brings me more joy than I can say.


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## Bondre

Life is busy and I'm sorry I haven't had the time to reply to everyone's comments. Please be assured that I enjoy reading all the contributions here!

Egrogan, so true what you say about new riders needing help to get out of the arena. Riding outside is a while different skill set, and yet I suppose most novices learn only in the arena. Then it's your problem how to transfer your knowledge of horse-riding to keep safe in a completely different situation. 

I learnt so long ago that I can't remember many details of my lessons. I have a faint memory of being taken round the fields in early lessons, but still not quite the same as trail riding, and in any case the ponies were 110% bombproof and the fields were safe and familiar. When my parents bought me a horse I started hacking out under supervision, in company of the BO, but I don't know if that would have been a possibility on a lesson horse. I can imagine your first time out on Izzy - as a thinking, worrying adult - was quite nerve-wracking. It's so much easier to do these things as kids when you neither think much nor worry. Good on you for working through the fear and getting out into the countryside! 

I had a great ride on Macarena the other evening. I'm delighted to say that we are now over the hump of her barn sourness, and although she still tries things on a bit, she's not committed to her protests. She does it more out of habit and to see if I'll give in and let her have her way. But when I say no, we're doing it my way, she doesn't get dangerous like she was doing several months ago. No running backwards, sidling under trees to get me off, or threatening to rear. What a relief! I hated all that business. 

We went on a figure of eight route which took us out into the pine forest, round the block and back to the solar farm. There's a crossroads in the track here with one track leading straight home, which of course was her choice, and another track leading off alongside the solar farm and which is another round the block route, which was my choice. We had a brief discussion and I just had time to think "I've got to win this argument whatever" when she gave in. Just a few steps from the crossroads there's a patch of grass that she likes so I let her have five minutes grazing as a reward. Of course she kept trying to nose towards home while she was grazing, doing it casually as if she was merely seeking it the tastiest stems - which always happened to be behind her lol. Every time she tried to swing around and face back to the crossroads I blocked her and suggested equally tasty stems in my direction. So funny how you can see them trying to fool you! 

We did a lot of trotting, mostly away from home but thanks to our figure of eight route I also did some trotting towards home. She tries to speed up and do an enormous trot but I turn her head and leg yield her a step and she slows down for a few paces, then tries it again. I can so understand how Halla learnt to go forwards with her head and neck sideways. It seems instinctive to me to do this to slow within the gait, but I'll have to be careful or I'll end up with Macarena corkscrewing her neck on me too. 

We met a tractor and she stopped politely and waited for it to pass. A dog that followed us barking was a bit more bothersome, but when it got too close and her ears were right back I turned her to face it and we chased it off. She enjoyed seeing the dog turn tail - she's not a dog fan. My mastiff Astrid accompanied us today, so of course the other dog soon came back and they both had a great romp through the lettuce fields. The lettuce has been harvested and the remains of the crop are waiting for the sheep to raze the field, and the dogs thought it was a perfect place to play. We were very close to home at this point and I let Macarena graze in the verge while I watched their antics. Flamenca was in earshot, and was being noisy, but Macarena didn't take much notice which shows me that - finally - she is just as happy in my company as in the company of her boss mare. 

I've taken both of them out to graze in the big fields where I used to school Macarena and where she got freaked by the dirt bikes. Most of the weeds there are inedible but we've found a few acceptable patches, and the good thing about these fields is that they lead right up to the horses' corral, with only an infrequently-transited track between, so I felt confident to leave Macarena loose and hold on to Flamenca. Normally I hold Macarena's lead because I know that Flamenca won't do anything unexpected and I feel confident to leave her loose even when they're grazing beside the track. 

Macarena is a fidgety grazer. She likes to move around a lot looking for the best mouthfuls, not like Flamenca who eats like a lawn-mower. Soon she was far away from us, she gave herself a scare and came bombing back towards us for safety. I was pleased to see her reaction - when in doubt, run to mum and the boss mare, they'll make everything ok. 





On our return journey, she took off a couple of times, cantering for the sheer fun of it (the old lady's so boring and slow lol). Then she waited for us to catch up. The last time she headed off we were close to the corral, she cantered right up to the gate, swung around and headed back our. But instead of coming back into the field she went into the peach plantation that runs alongside the fields. The peach trees are separated by fairly narrow aisles, way too narrow to turn at the canter, and Macarena was going at speed so I wondered what she would do. She either had to calm down enough to stop and turn, or she had to gallop right down to the far end (at least 400m) where she'd be able to turn and come back. Of course, that's what she did. Flamenca and I were arriving at the corral when we heard drumming hooves in the trees and Macarena appeared, still at the gallop, in a different aisle. This time she galloped straight across the track and into the corral where she stopped and gave a tense snort of high excitement and alarm. I was just in time to get Flamenca in and shut the gate before Macarena thought of heading out again for more fun. 

The next time I took them out to graze in those fields, I left Macarena loose again but she didn't so much as break into a trot, not even on the way home when a combine harvester passed on the nearby road. I think that gallop left her very relaxed! I believe that every horse needs to be unrestrained in a large area from time to time, to get the itch out of their heels - and half an hour in those fields is the best I can offer her.


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## Bondre

I have been thinking about the 'ideal' leg and body position, prompted by the discussion in bsms' journal, and decided to post about this here (so as not to clutter up someone else's journal with photos of me lol).

What I wrote in http://www.horseforum.com/member-jo...bsms-muddling-through-together-622121/page27/

About lower leg position, I too have evolved into the 'incorrect' position of a more forward lower leg. As you say, it's a good, secure position for sitting out spooks or silliness. It makes posting harder as your foot isn't under your centre of gravity, so I find myself leaning forward slightly to compensate. So all in all, I wouldn't bring home any prizes nowadays in a show class as my riding has become more functional than elegant. But I stick on the horse and communicate effectively, which is what is more important to me at this juncture in my life than looking stylish. My leaning forward bugs me a bit, but it seems to be the inevitable consequence of keeping my feet forward, which I do positively prefer.

Photos of me with lower leg and upper body forward in a delicate situation and at faster gaits for added security and ease of anticipating unexpected movements on Macarena's part.




.
----------------​
Bsms posted this photo in his post above, to illustrate riders with their toes emphatically down on the hunting field.



The painting also shows them with my preferred leg forward position. None of them have a straight line from their shoulders to hips to ankles. Nor will you see many riders in that 'correct' position if you go on the hunting field today. I hunted occasionally as a teenager, and while I wasn't paying attention to people's position on the horse, I know that anyone in that straight position would have stood out like a sore thumb. 

Another photo from the past: this was me doing cross-country in my teens.



We're not on the flat so obviously the straight line rule doesn't apply, but again see how far forward my lower leg is. It's a fairly safe position if the horse makes a mistake on landing, or clips the jump with the front feet which makes them lurch under you. Those jumps are solid, they don't fall apart if you touch them like in show jumping. 

Note that the forward lower leg is not enough to save you if your horse refuses a jump or swerves violently. It helps, but if all that forward motion suddenly converts into sideways motion nothing will keep you in the saddle except a seat belt ;-) Been there and done that and seen my horse's belly above me. 

So my conclusion is that the concept of the correct position as being the a straight line from shoulder to hip to ankle is only applicable to riding on the flat in an enclosed space on level ground; ie: in an arena. It's a useful guideline for a beginner to use until they find their balance on the horse. But amongst non- novice riders, I doubt you'll see it widely respected outside of the confines of the dressage arena.


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## egrogan

^^Look at you flying over that timber @Bondre! Gorgeous photo.

Funny, I was thinking about @bsms' journal while riding today too  I think I still tend to ride with an "aligned" lower leg (i.e., heel under hip under shoulder) but what I've been noticing about myself lately is that I've almost lost the ability to sit a canter because I always ride it in a half seat on the trails. Isabel can be a little choppy when she's not in a manicured arena, and it just feels much more comfortable to get up off her back instead of getting jostled in the saddle. But I noticed the other day when I was warming up in the arena, when I asked her to canter, it was almost automatic that I came up into a half seat. I tried to make myself sit and it was not a pretty sight. I guess I've created tension in my body somewhere, but when I do it the "wrong" way, I feel perfectly secure and in sync with her movement.

I wish I could arrange for an evening of riding and some post-riding dinner and drinks with all the interesting people on this Forum! There would be so much to discuss


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## gottatrot

I've been thinking a lot about this...why the forward leg position is not incorrect. It isn't, it can't be, because all the excellently balanced riders I know ride this way. 

When I stand, my toe is not under my knee. My foot juts out in front of my leg. When I squat down without holding onto something, my pelvis is behind my heels, not over them. I can only keep my heel underneath my pelvis if I do not have bend in my knee. Since we need some bend in our joints in order to ride balanced and well, as we add bend the leg goes forward, which is anatomically correct.
If you really look at this rider, you can see there isn't any actual balance: If this horse takes off, the upper body is going to go backwards, and the lower leg is going to either swing back or forward to try to compensate.









We're not balanced with our leg back that far. Which is why as people become better riders, I believe they automatically abandon the "proper riding position" alignment. As I've learned all too well, if your lower leg is too far back, when the horse takes off or leaps your lower leg pivots backward. This often throws your upper body off balance. Having your leg in front of you (in proper balance) means you have a stable base of support that compensates for all the horse's movements. Having your leg "underneath you" means having your leg somewhere around this position:








That's regardless of short stirrup, long stirrup, etc. And no need for the heels to be down so low...are you trying to have your foot on the stirrup or behind it?








Otherwise, when your horse does this, your lower leg will swing back instead of allowing you to stand up over your base of support.


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## bsms

I beleive the shoulder-hip-heel thing comes from dressage, where the goal is to ride a very collected horse. A very collected horse doesn't cover much ground, but it has a lot of up/down motion. If you want to ride an up/down motion smoothly, keeping your body up/down helps.

But then, a good dressage horse shouldn't bolt, spin, twist sideways or do ANYTHING that wasn't specifically asked for, let alone totally unexpected. But once you leave the arena, or ride an inexperienced horse...well, horses do that. I'd go further, and suggest the very vertical position of dressage is intended to show their confidence that their horse will never surprise them or do anything unexpected.

This is my attempt to show the base of support, starting with a diagram from the last US Cavalry instruction manual:








​ 
I added a blue line for a dressage seat (which the US Cavalry did not teach), and an orange one for a western seat (which they also did not teach). From what I've seen, western riders TEND to use a straighter leg to the front. Since they do not want to jump, they do not need the folded position with its "hinges" for getting out of the saddle or for absorbing the shock of impact. Instead, one uses a vertical body for slower speeds (staying a little behind the horse's motion), and then simply lean forward to go faster.

These were stunt riders for the old TV show "Bonanza". In particular, the guy in the rear is kind of like what I've seen a lot of western riders do for speed. The guy in front is probably gripping with the knee (IMHO) and might be in for a nasty surprise if his horse suddenly stopped or swerved:










One nice aspect of a forward leg is that it pulls your center of gravity forward without moving your upper body. If the goal is to match your center of gravity to the horse's, and the horse's center of gravity moves forward with speed, then there are two practical ways of adjusting yours - with upper body, or lower. The least disturbance would come by moving both lower and upper, which is why (I think) the rider in the rear has a more vertical body than the guy in front.​


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## Bondre

egrogan said:


> I wish I could arrange for an evening of riding and some post-riding dinner and drinks with all the interesting people on this Forum! There would be so much to discuss


That would be so good! Though I think an evening would fall short. We'd need at least a week to have time for everyone's horses and opinions lol. If only....


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## Bondre

I have finished reading a great book - 'The Horse's Mind' by Lucy Rees. Really thought-provoking material on how horses think, and why they react as they do, very useful when trying to understand your horse's point of view on life.

I want to share a brief case study from the end of the book which really touched me. It is about a Lippizano stallion called Maestoso, a highly-trained dressage horse that went badly sour and became uncontrollable and explosive.

"When he arrived he was driven a huge, airy barn with a grand view, and a donkey jenny and several pigs for company. As he had been shut up in the dark alone for three months this interested and cheered him considerably. He was hand-fed throughout the day until he came to be caught. When ridden at first he had to be mounted in the box, then released to courbette across the hillside; he was always ridden in company, or he went off uncontrollably to look for some. At first everything was arranged in such a way that had he known my plans he would have wanted of his own accord to do what I was asking; this involved hiding my friends on mares at ever-increasing distances from his barn, and constant thought. Yet we made steady progress, and finally he came to believe that whatever I wanted to do must involve something good for him in the end, and he became patient, willing, and extremely interested in my ideas. He was also interested in the countryside, for he seemed to understand nothing about it; perhaps he had always been ridden indoors. He was always extraordinarily intelligent and alert.

"After six months or so I found a place to school him, but when he realised what was happening he went berserk again, which surprised me: he had shown so clearly how well he understood his work that I had not realised his hatred of it. But with gradual rehabilitation minutes odd work built up to half an hour or more at a time, until he was once more what he was trained for, a superb dressage horse.

"Maestoso liked to hack, fast, for at least two hours a day, preferably four. I once rode him a hundred miles in two days, carrying a load of gear, and he was fresh at the end of it: indeed, he insisted on a good ride the next day. Had that energy ever been fully tapped before? Or his intelligence?

"Maestoso's problems stemmed from his immense strength, stamina and energy, coupled with unbending pride. Met by a domineering attitude and relentless overtraining, these made him violent and dangerous, as if he felt he were fighting for his life.... That people with the technical skill and expertise to train him so beautifully should have so little understanding of his psychic needs is a great sadness. Indeed, for him it was nearly a tragedy. It is in an effort to alleviate such sadnesses by directing attention to the science is horse behaviour, which we can expand and deepen as we have done equine veterinary science, that this book is written."

I like everything about this story . The way Lucy Rees went about re-engaging Maestoso's interest until he became "patient, willing and extremely interested in my ideas". This is what I have been doing with Macarena, though to a much lesser extent, and I am pleased to note that she, too, is now interested in what I may have planned when we go out, and is an enthusiastic participant most of the time.

The other day I tried riding Macarena again in our former schooling fields. She has been wary of entering these fields, I supposed because she was scared (or over-excited?) by the dirt bikes there, but I've been taking her and Flamenca there to graze and she is totally relaxed there now. So we did a few big circles at the trot, which went fine, and then a long serpentine at the walk from the far end.

But when we reached the end of that section of the field, she decided she was done. She wanted out of the fields and refused to turn away from home to go back up the field. I tried insisting but she started backing up so I decided to take heed of her opinion. We went out onto the road and there I turned her away from home no problem. Thus proving that she wasn't refusing to go away from home, just refusing to do another boring circle round the field. 

So now I think that her wariness about those fields is wariness about being schooled and going round in circles, which she clearly dislikes, rather than fear over a distant memory of a dirt bike. The part of Maestoso's story when Lucy Rees started to school him and he flipped rang true with me here, albeit again to a much lesser degree in Macarena's case. It seems that if I want to school her in circles I will have to be sneaky about it and do five minutes from time to time. 

In contrast, when I do clicker training with her she is enthusiastic to the point of being funny. She can hardly contain herself while she's waiting for the cue, like a kid who sticks their hand up with the answer before the teacher has even asked the question lol. She's clearly thinking "What's it going to be?? Backwards? Turn on forehand? Turn on haunches?? Side pass???" and is bursting to offer the right answer and get her click and her piece of bread. 

I've got to teach her some new things seeing as she enjoys it so much. I'm not quite sure what to teach her though - I must watch some videos for ideas - or does anyone have suggestions?


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## knightrider

Tricks! Teach her tricks! Many horses seem to enjoy doing tricks and are proud of themselves when they earn their rewards. There are so many different kinds of tricks--ones where they use their mouths, their heads, their feet, and their bodies, like saying "yes" and "no", rolling a ball, bowing, pulling off a blanket, pretending to be lame, mounting a pedestal, Spanish walk. It's very fun. Some horses do not like to do tricks and do them grudgingly. But not too many.


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## bsms

I love this description: "_Maestoso's problems stemmed from his immense strength, stamina and energy, coupled with unbending pride. Met by a domineering attitude and relentless overtraining, these made him violent and dangerous, as if he felt he were fighting for his life._.."

Just ordered it from Amazon. $4 including shipping...


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## gottatrot

^^^^^^^^
The above quote struck a chord with me also. I'm ordering the book as well. Thanks for passing this on, Bondre! Sounds like a great read. 

To understand our horses' minds and motivations seems like the real key to becoming a horseman. The story of the horse with so much energy and pride reminds me of Halla, and other horses I've known and heard of. How can we consider our horse's behavior as "bad" until we know his motivations for doing it? 

An example is the beautiful Nala, my friend's OTTB who happens to be a granddaughter of Seattle Slew. She had a habit of "chucking" her riders off, as my friend puts it, and was not excelling at ring work but with an understanding rider she is in her element (yesterday). The first thing her rider understood was that standing in a stall too much had made one hind leg sore, and she had difficulty doing small circles, which was making her buck. 
Having ridden her myself, I can tell you she has a soft and beautiful mind.


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## Bondre

I hope you both enjoy the book! I'm especially enthusiastic about Lucy Rees because she actually works in Spain. Amazing to have a fine equine ethologist working "locally" (at least in the same country) rather than them all being on the other side of the world. Her website is in Spanish, but I found this link which gives an idea of her project here, for those who are interested:

https://wildequus.org/classes-courses-clinics/fsw-pottokas-introduction-to-ethology-and-horses/

Attending one of her study courses is on my bucket list! 

Beautiful photo of Nala and rider, Gottatrot. It's so good to see a horse being appreciated for her blazingly obvious qualities, rather than being discarded for an inconvenient 'vice' which is actually the horse's natural response to mismanagement or miscomprehension. 

Knightrider, I bought a huge blue ball this afternoon and Macarena was intrigued. She has learnt to nudge it and the next step is to learn how to roll it. The funny thing is that Flamenca was tied up, watching, while Macarena was learning about the ball, and at the end I released her and left them both with the ball to see what they did. Flamenca immediately nudged it with her nose and sent it rolling perfectly. It seems the old lady has a natural talent for tricks - or beginner's luck. Next session I'll take enough treats for them both and see how she does too.

Today I took my younger son and showed him how to use the clicker, and he was very enthusiastic and good at the timing, so he was learning at least as much as Macarena lol. He doesn't much like riding but I see he could become a fan of trick training  

I reckon as long as everyone is enjoying themselves and at least one person/horse is learning, it's got to be worth it.


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## gottatrot

I wonder if your horses would enjoy "horse soccer." My friends have a big ball and we've played at it, some of the horses seem to really enjoy it. My Arabs think it makes no sense, but these other horses think it's fun to chase after the ball and push it around.
































It's fun to teach horses tricks. The only one I regret is teaching the mini, Rocky to shake hands. He likes it so much that he throws his leg up when you're trying to clean his hooves, put a boot on, trim hooves, and tends to knock people in the head with it.


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## knightrider

For some reason, the Paso Fino horse people like to play horse soccer, and I have played it about 4 times. My horses do enjoy it and get rather competitive, like Kipling's story The Maltese Cat. Since one of the tricks I taught Chorro was to roll a ball with his nose, he can push that ball pretty well.

I learned to teach tricks from an old school guy named Johnny Bergeson. He taught that before you ever start teaching tricks, to teach the horse "That will do" and enforce it. Horses who like tricks will do them when you don't want them to. If they learn "That will do", it means Stop NOW. I make sure all my horses understand "That will do." so they don't do their tricks when being trimmed by the farrier, examined by the vet, or worked on by the chiropractor.


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## Bondre

Some photos from our ride this evening. We had fun, the horses behaved well and everyone enjoyed themselves. 

I'm thinking Macarena looks distinctly chubby. Nothing like the fey leggy creature she was when I bought her. We're going to have to cut back on some calories.

We took them up to the same fields as our last ride. It's all so dry now that the place is a dust bowl - but my son likes it that way for atmospheric photos lol. First we did a gallop together. Macarena really went for it and although I had my camera in one hand I couldn't take any photos. After that we took turns: first my son stood with Flamenca while I rode Macarena around him at trot and canter. Then it was our turn to stand and take pics while he headed off across the field with Flamenca. I think I got some good shots - and Macarena cooperated and stood pretty well, which I was very pleased about.


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## knightrider

That looks like so much fun!


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## Bondre

There are some great discussions going on in the journals recently which have roused me from my heat-induced stupor and prompted me to update my own sadly neglected journal. Every morning I check the forum over my first coffee and catch up with the night's activity - usually intense because of time zones - and then while I'm feeding the goats I outline a few posts in my head. Sadly, by the time we have milked the goats the morning is done and I have to make lunch.... and after lunch I fall into the before-mentioned heat-induced stupor. Once I am back in a thinking state again, aided by more coffee, I can type out my morning post - if I can still remember it lol. Which is what I'm doing now, or will do when I stop beating about the bush.

I continue to work on Macarena's buddy sourness. We are making some good advances although some days she regresses a bit. However, even the bad days are better than the bad days used to be, so I guess that's a step in the right direction. In the light of the discussions on dominance v. cooperation, I thought it would be interesting to consider different methods of working through this particular problem.

Lucy Rees - my preferred equine ethologist - tells the potted story of Maestoso in her book, which I like so much I typed out here. He was a dressage horse gone sour. Her method of working him through his sourness was entirely cooperative, as I would expect from her. She staged interesting (for him) events or encounters at strategic points on their routes, thus demonstrating to him that being ridden out and about could be fun and that his human's ideas were worth listening to. She simulated him out of his sourness using positive reinforcement.

Look on YouTube for videos on bam sourness and you'll find that they are all pretty much along the same lines but based on diametrically opposite training principles to what Lucy Rees uses. Problem: your horse doesn't want to leave the barn, or if he leaves, he wants to come home in a hurry. Solution: make the barn unpleasant to him and bingo! he doesn't want to hurry home any more. This is a classic example of aversive training.

Is it just me or is this a weird twisted way of dealing with this particular problem? Mightn't it be better to encourage the horse to WANT to go out with you in the first place?

I checked out several videos and ended up with Clinton Anderson out of curiosity. I have to admit I've never watched any of his stuff and after browsing the thread on him and watching his newest Titan video with shock horror negative comments on middle-aged lady bitless riders (do I fit in that description or what?!) I thought I would give the guy a chance and watch some of his training videos. And I find a guy who hassles his horse around the barn, takes him away and rests him, returns to the barn and hassles him again and so on. It's an effective method I'm sure. As long as your horse doesn't rebel about being mindlessly hassled, cantered and spun all round the barn perimeter.

Would I try this method with Macarena? I think not, or at least not in all it's CA glory. For a start she doesn't know how to do rollbacks, which is what he does all round the fence line to make his horse dislike being there. And I would rather not make her dislike our training sessions, even at the risk of taking longer to work through the barn sour business. I like her greeting me with a ringing neigh, and coming to the gate to sick her head enthusiastically into her bridle. I would hate to be met with a sullen silence and an emphatic butt.

However, I have started to do a watered-down version. We do a short training session outside the barn, and then we head out. At present we are working on yielding the shoulders. She finds this much harder than yielding her hindquarters as she gets her front legs in a knot. Say we're yielding to the left. She crosses her right leg in front of her left, fine, but the next step she tries to cross her left leg in front of her right, whereas the respective placement of her feet demand that she crosses it behind, and then the right leg in front again, and the left behind. So that's our homework for this week, and I'm starting her on neck reining too. As I ride English I've never used this much but I can see the value of it.

Is it true that riding western you use the direct rein to direct the horse's head, whereas the indirect or neck rein is used to direct their shoulder?* This is my interpretation but I could very well be wrong.

Some shots of a lazy bareback walk on a hot evening. We stopped off for windfall peaches on the way home which she just loves. They eat half a bucket of peaches between them every evening.




^^^ alert over approaching tractor


^^^ it's too hot to fuss, just relax

Flamenca has been having a bad month. The subsolar abscess in her left hind flared up again. I assume it didn't completely heal before and some infection stayed in the hoof. She has been very lame again. It burst a week ago and three days ago I trimmed the hoof in question. Her whole frog has come away and there's a neat hole in the centre of where her frog used to be which was a epicentre of the abscess. She is still lame although improving. Her other hind hoof needs trimming desperately but since she is still so unhappy about bearing her weight on the bad hoof we're going to have to wait a bit longer.

I trimmed her front hooves yesterday. The previous trim I left all the laid over bars in place as protection and just trimmed the hoof wall and backed up her toes. This was an experiment seeing as the excess bar production is actually a response to her problem of thin soles - her hooves are attempting to grow more protection and amazing though it seems, the sole material grows forward from the bars, rather than downwards from the sole corium. Anyway, this trim I had to take a ton of bar off but I liked the look of her feet in general. And she's staying sound on them which is the important thing. Although with all the pain caused by the abscess, she is actually anything but sound at present poor thing.*


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

Bondre said:


> Is it true that riding western you use the direct rein to direct the horse's head, whereas the indirect or neck rein is used to direct their shoulder?* This is my interpretation but I could very well be wrong.


I have always used my legs to direct the shoulder, hip or barrel specifically, not the reins, either direct or indirect (neck rein). 

In a lot of western show disciplines, you are penalized for switching between a direct and neck rein so it would be impossible to place with some of the more difficult moves if you were switching between the two. 

If you watch this video you can see him doing a half pass neck reining. To get the shoulder to come over, he is using his legs.






Hope that clears things up! Sorry to hear Flamenca is having a rough time....


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## Bondre

Thanks RCD, I use my legs to direct the shoulder too but I was getting the impression that the indirect rein was the western way of doing it. 

I was struck this evening when I rode by how rapidly Macarena learns to locate interesting places in her surroundings. Last week coming back from a ride (not the above photos) we stopped off for some windfall peaches. Today we went past the same place and she remembered perfectly that it was where we had a food stop. 

Lucy Rees says that remembering where certain things happened is a special learning talent of horses. It's not surprising that they remember the places where something good or bad has occurred, often even years after the event, but she says they also have a remarkable ability for making mental maps of their terrain independently of scares or rewards. 

My horses unfortunately don't have free access to much terrain but others of you who have free-ranging horses may be able to corroborate this. Bsms, you have been exploring new areas of desert with Bandit recently. Have you noticed him recognising places where you have already been? Is he good at learning the terrain? According to Lucy Rees, he should be better at making mental maps than you, or any human.... "which is perhaps why we fail to understand it or to give them credit for it".


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## gottatrot

I do believe horses are amazingly talented at mapping and remembering the details of their terrain. To me it seems like they map a certain area in their head, and then they don't have to pay as much attention to it unless something changes. For example, Halla tenses up when we walk through our usual neighborhood street on a Friday and all the garbage cans are out. But she also tenses up the next time we go through, when all the garbage cans are missing. It's almost like she re-mapped the place and then had to remake her mental map all over again without the garbage cans.

This would seem like a very useful talent, knowing so many predators can camouflage completely in their environment. Perhaps the only way a horse can spot a cougar crouching on top of a ledge is by the change in the shape of the ledge from the previous time going by.

It interests me how every bush and stump seems part of the horse's map, and they notice when things change. When we go around a corner and a flower has suddenly bloomed, the horses notice. They also notice when someone has burned a drift log and it is now black instead of white, and when someone moves a sign or crab pot sitting by the trail.

My friend has a very hotblooded horse, Cassie who seems to take up all her mental energy with mapping, and seems to get bored without it. When you take her on the same trail again and again, she begins doing things that occupy the rider like insisting on trotting, turning side to side, or leaping in the air. But if you take her to a new place, she is an absolute angel. She seems to really enjoy seeing a brand new place, and my friend jokes that if she could only take her to a new place on every ride she'd have the most calm and easy to ride horse there was. 

It's also unusual that she seems so hot and difficult at home, but yet is the easiest to handle when in a strange setting; the opposite of most horses. That does not apply in a new arena, but only to a new outdoor ride. I think Cassie can map an arena in about 60 seconds and then becomes bored again. 
Cassie (in the lead):














_OT: in the photos we had just convinced Cassie's rider in the red jacket that she'd be warmer if she put her hood up...after pointing and winking at each other because we saw she had about a gallon of rainwater collected in the hood. She forgave us. 
Amore is 14.2hh, Booker is an Anglo-Arab about 15.1hh, and Cassie is half Connemara, half Standardbred and 16.2hh. She has the great hooves of a pony, athleticism of both breeds, and did not inherit the calmness of either._


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

I think what makes a horse a natural for trails is a combination of things.

Oliver has not been out riding as much as he had been. He is currently on a round of Dex for his heaves and a week into treatment is feeling pretty good right now. He really is quite bored. (my choice is either to ride in the heat, or ride in the evening/morning bugs, which is part of his allergy/heaves). 

Oliver will take himself on trail rides. It’s not like he is running off. He literally will find one of the trails we have cut into the wooded areas, and follow it, completing the A loop back to the pasture, then take the B loop, back to the pasture, then the C. Last night though he got adventurous.

I was watching the bats circle and eat bugs and Oliver and Caspian were free grazing nearby. Ollie rounded up his trail buddy and walked him into the smaller of the two creeks that run through the property. It is mostly a wet weather creek and since we have had no rain for about two months and 100 degree temps every day, it’s dry as a bone.

They walked in the creek bed until they came to a place where we have a trail that cuts through several neighbor’s properties and to a quiet road we sometimes ride on. Caspian chose to veer off there, but Oliver just kept on walking in the “new” trail he had discovered. Eventually he entered property that I don’t yet have permission to ride on so I grabbed him and we turned around. 

He never sped up or tried to run from me, we were on an Oliver guided trail ride, I believe, for the sheer enjoyment of it! 

Didn’t seem to bother him in the least that it was so dark out that I could barely see him fifteen feet in front of me, that his trail buddy had left him, that, we were in thick forest or he was somewhere he had never been before. He was loving it. 

I know he is good at mental mapping and always seems to know exactly which way is home. We (my trainer and myself) got lost one time on 1,000 acres on uncut trails. Once we found the road again, Oliver knew we had to go left. My trainer said go right. 

They were both right, but Oliver had chosen the more direct route. My trainer however had gotten somewhat distressed when we were lost. I get lost all of the time and figured that if you walk far enough, you’ll eventually hit some hint of civilization so it doesn’t bother me all that much. Some people deal better with not knowing where they are too!

I think Oliver picked up on his distress and when we got to the ATV road, figured that this guy didn’t know where we were going and thus was not leadership material, so heck if he was going to follow him anymore! 

He, Oliver the Great however, did know the quickest way home and therefore we needed to go left. It was one of the few times I ever had to spend time “arguing” with my horse. 

From that point on, anytime we went off trail with my trainer, Oliver wanted to take the lead. I think he not only remembered getting lost, but remembered that my trainer and his horse had gotten us lost in the first place!


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## Bondre

WARNING, RANT COMING!!

The black stallion syndrome hits home :-(

I just need to blow my top a bit with people who understand horses. The problem is that DH has recently started to show more interest in the horses (good) and has made the putative decision to sell a motorbike and buy himself a good horse.

Problem: when I say good, I think well-schooled and safe for a non-expert rider. Unfortunately, DH being how he is, when he says a good horse he means a spectacular horse. He wants pure-bred Spanish and he wants it black. Well, there are nice, well trained black horses around but pure-bred and well-trained is out of the price range. However, pure-bred and untrained is financially doable, so guess what he lights on as his favourite: a 4 yr old black stallion. 

Don't know whether to add rofl or shock-horror emoticons.

The horse is gorgeous. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on him. But this is to be DH's horse, and I know it's just not going to work and I've said so. Quietly and diplomatically. Prior to two weeks ago, he hadn't come to see the horses more than three or four times in the past year. He hasn't ridden Flamenca - who is an easy ride - in over a year. He is not a horseman - not by any stretch of the imagination. But when I try and explain why a 4 yr old stallion isn't suitable he gets p***ed off with me and claims that he's as good a horseman as I am. That the problem is the English saddle which has nothing to hold onto. Of course, my belief is that if you need to hold onto the saddle to keep your balance then you're not ready to ride a green 4 yr old. 

I'm not a competitive sort that always has to be best, but there's a limit to the bs I can take. I'm thinking DH needs a Cowboy or a Trooper and he suggests a Ferrari (yes, honestly, that is the stallion's registered name). 

If I had time for another young horse I'd LOVE to have Ferrari - he is drop down dead gorgeous - but I'm continually short-changing Macarena's training due to time constraints, so there's no way I can take on another youngster. And in any case, DH is not into admitting inability to cope so I suspect it would take a total wreck to get him to ask for assistance. 

All this reminds me very strongly of a comment Gottatrot made in her journal some time ago. I can't find the post but the idea was imagine being married to someone who is a horse person but who's ideas on training and/or keeping them are diametrically opposite to your own. My case is that DH is not a horse person but seems to want to be one, and that sadly he isn't into listening to and/or learning from his wife.... or at least being seen to do so .... I'm gonna have to be very discreet here. 

Now I'm going to post this highly inappropriate rant
before I have second thoughts lol.


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## gottatrot

I don't mean to smile at someone else's troubles but your post makes me laugh in spite of myself! You are absolutely right about the horse being inappropriate for your husband, and you not having time to train another young horse. But I am imagining the temptation I would have if my husband suddenly wanted a young, black spanish stallion and how it would be so difficult for me to not pretend like he'd be fine all the while knowing he'd be my new horse.

It's always nice if a spouse spends time with us and the horses, but so far (it's my 15th wedding anniversary today) I prefer mine to help clean the barn or go for a walk rather than try to ride a Ferrari. :wink:

Seriously, is there a way to talk about the impracticality of the horse care involved? I was thinking with your setup it might be more difficult with a young stallion (not sure if you plan to geld him)? Where would he be kept? Would he even be able to ride together with you on mares? Maybe if it doesn't come down to his ability versus yours, but rather what would work for and be best for the horses and management, it would go over better. You could emphasize what things would have to change or would be more expensive with a stallion versus a gelding or a mare. Perhaps the fencing wouldn't be adequate or other space changes would have to be made.


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## bsms

I'm convinced horse DO map, and I think they use smell at least as much as vision. I think this photo gottatrot posted is actually a good representation of riding a good horse:








​ 
We look and see nothing. *They look with their nose*, and see...trouble! I think that is why Bandit can cruise past 12 garbage cans without a flick of an ear, but get very nervous about can #13. It may LOOK the same, but it may have tossed-out leftovers, including meat rotting under the desert sun. I may not be able to smell it, but he "sees" carnivore-breath! And to his way of thinking, he is totally justified in wanting some extra room.

"_I'm thinking DH needs a Cowboy or a Trooper and he suggests a Ferrari (yes, honestly, that is the stallion's registered name)._"

I generally think men do best with a horse who challenges them. A lot of men would quickly get bored with Trooper, which isn't entirely fair since Trooper can sometimes remind you he is a horse. My daughter had her first fall in 8 years of riding two days ago, when Trooper fell too far behind Bandit and got a bit rowdy trying to catch up. And a girl who like to ride with a LOT of slack and sometimes with feet out of the stirrups did a slow roll off and on to her butt, followed by a face plant that dented the desert! Happily, we were off the trails, so the desert was a bit more yielding than it normally is, but her face is all scrapped up on the right side. BTW - after talking about it, we're thinking Trooper may be losing the vision in his right eye, which may require him to be ridden closer to Bandit than he used to need.

Although earlier in the ride she had cantered Trooper down to the end of this dirt road, and then back - much to Bandit's frustration, but Bandit needs to learn how to let other horses go away and come back:








​ 
Still...Mia got me hooked on riding, and a truly reliable horse may not have done so. But Mia wasn't a 4 year old stallion, either! And the truth, which I do not like to admit, is that 7 years with Mia left me with a lot of unresolved fear. We bolted and spun so much that my wife quit riding for 7 years, and I still get pretty defensive at times when my horse actually is doing nothing wrong. Nor does it sound like your husband would be willing to learn by playing "follow the leader" - even assuming "Ferrari" would go along with the game!

"_Maybe if it doesn't come down to his ability versus yours, but rather what would work for and be best for the horses and management, it would go over better. You could emphasize what things would have to change or would be more expensive with a stallion versus a gelding or a mare._"

Very good advice. Just like with a spirited horse...look for the back door! And good luck! I'd like to give my wife advice, but she takes it about as well as my teen daughter! Just hope there won't be a face plant in her future...


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## Bondre

gottatrot said:


> I don't mean to smile at someone else's troubles but your post makes me laugh in spite of myself!.... But I am imagining the temptation I would have if my husband suddenly wanted a young, black spanish stallion and how it would be so difficult for me to not pretend like he'd be fine all the while knowing he'd be my new horse.


Don't worry, I find it amusing too! Half the wrestling in this one is with myself personally rather than with my husband, as the temptation is very real... and maybe he would be ok, you never know. His owner says how quiet he is. But he is 4....



gottatrot said:


> It's always nice if a spouse spends time with us and the horses, but so far (it's my 15th wedding anniversary today) I prefer mine to help clean the barn or go for a walk rather than try to ride a Ferrari. :wink:


Congratulations on your anniversary! I think that going for walks and cleaning the barn together are more conducive to a long, stable relationship than a Ferrari; most of the people that have them also have divorces :rofl:



gottatrot said:


> Seriously, is there a way to talk about the impracticality of the horse care involved? I was thinking with your setup it might be more difficult with a young stallion (not sure if you plan to geld him)? Where would he be kept? Would he even be able to ride together with you on mares? Maybe if it doesn't come down to his ability versus yours, but rather what would work for and be best for the horses and management, it would go over better. You could emphasize what things would have to change or would be more expensive with a stallion versus a gelding or a mare. Perhaps the fencing wouldn't be adequate or other space changes would have to be made.


You're absolutely right on all this, and gelding him would be imperative. Our tiny stables are in no way suitable for keeping a stallion separate from mares. There would be all sorts of logistical problems in order to keep them separate until he was gelded, which I imagine would have to wait until autumn at least because of the flies and the increased risk of infection with high summer temperatures. 

The stallion thing is cultural. Many people here don't bother to get their horse gelded although they're not specifically wanting him as a reproductive stallion. Most of these stallions are stall-kept so the issue with fencing and keeping them apart from the mares just doesn't exist. In the local village there are 6 or 7 horses and at least two of them are stallions. This just wouldn't happen in the UK, and I imagine not in the US either. Equally, if you have a mare, you breed her. I am weird for having two mares and not breeding either. And there is another potential cause of domestic conflict - DH would love to breed Flamenca, and I am not so keen on the idea. A foal is a huge commitment and he just doesn't realise this.


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> We look and see nothing. *They look with their nose*, and see...trouble! I think that is why Bandit can cruise past 12 garbage cans without a flick of an ear, but get very nervous about can #13. It may LOOK the same, but it may have tossed-out leftovers, including meat rotting under the desert sun. I may not be able to smell it, but he "sees" carnivore-breath! And to his way of thinking, he is totally justified in wanting some extra space.


That's what I'm coming to realise horsemanship is all about: learning to look with a horse's eyes - and nose, and ears - and to spot those invisible dangers, pokemons and whatnot.



bsms said:


> I generally think men do best with a horse who challenges them. A lot of men would quickly get bored with Trooper, which isn't entirely fair since Trooper can sometimes remind you he is a horse. My daughter had her first fall in 8 years of riding two days ago, when Trooper fell too far behind Bandit and got a bit rowdy trying to catch up.


Sorry to hear about your daughter. It sounds like she didn't make it back from the realms of Jupiter quite in time to react to Trooper's burst of speed. 

I'm sure you're right about most men liking a challenge, but I think that DH is better employed looking for his challenge with his remaining motorbike than with a horse. On a bike, he has the necessary expertise to rise to a challenge. I haven't seen this in his riding. He says that as a kid he rode on the mountain trails round the family farm and stuck to the horse like a leech - but that was over 30 years ago and riding on a mule pack saddle which has plenty of straps to hang onto. Plus I know from experience that childhood memories aren't always very reliable. Maybe he thought he was going really fast but actually the horse was trotting. 



bsms said:


> Still...Mia got me hooked on riding, and a truly reliable horse may not have done so. But Mia wasn't a 4 year old stallion, either! And the truth, which I do not like to admit, is that 7 years with Mia left me with a lot of unresolved fear. We bolted and spun so much that my wife quit riding for 7 years, and I still get pretty defensive at times when my horse actually is doing nothing wrong.


It's the old green on green thing. Occasionally it works out well. But even if you survive, as you survived with Mia, you're left with the consequences of learning on a sometimes unpredictable and scary horse. For Ferrari's sake as much as my husband's, I reckon both of them would do better with a different equine/human partner. 



bsms said:


> Very good advice. Just like with a spirited horse...look for the back door! And good luck! I'd like to give my wife advice, but she takes it about as well as my teen daughter! Just hope there won't be a face plant in her future...


Yes, the back door is the right approach. Just that I'm not always very good at finding it! I find it hard to understand why DH can't admit he knows less about horses than I do - I'm not being in the least condemning or belittling about this, it's just self evident. It's as if I tried to claim I was as good on a motorbike as he is - laughable! Don't like two wheels although I have tried. This is just one of these things I recognise we're not good at as a couple. He doesn't like to admit any inferiority, and I am stubborn when roused and meekness and diplomacy go right out of the window. 

Here is the ad for Ferrari just so you can see how gorgeous he is. Although the poor guy has already learnt the typical overbent Spanish head position. 

http://www.milanuncios.com/venta-de-caballos/vendo-potro-pre-*****-139782351.htm


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## gottatrot

You shouldn't have posted pictures...now I'm all for getting him! :wink:


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## bsms

I live pretty close to the Mexico border. We obviously have a strong Spanish influence here. I see ads on Craigslist at times:

"Stallion...knows how to dance...moves well!"​ 
I always think those are supposed to be in the dating section, but then there will be a picture of a horse, usually overbent, with a charro saddle. Then I will realize it IS an ad for a horse and not some guy boasting. 

A good charro saddle sometimes sounds interesting, though. I like having the straps where you can see them, and the horn ought to accommodate a GPS and mp3 player...a good one, though, is out of my price range.










tinyliny suggested on my journal that I consider full seat breeches. That actually sounds like pretty practical advice, but culture affects me too, and I'm about as likely to do something practical like that as some are to ride a gelding...:think:​


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> "Stallion...knows how to dance...moves well!"​
> I always think those are supposed to be in the dating section,


:rofl: :rofl:

I can just imagine his tight satin trousers! And his greasy smile. 



bsms said:


> tinyliny suggested on my journal that I consider full seat breeches. That actually sounds like pretty practical advice, but culture affects me too, and I'm about as likely to do something practical like that as some are to ride a gelding...:think:


Yes indeed, cultural differences always strike us most strongly when it's someone else who's different. Yet it would be me who sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb in the local equine culture. It's not them that are odd.... it's me! The list of differences is endless - it would be much quicker to list the similarities. But that's the same anywhere with horse people, and diversity is healthy, as long as no-one knocks you for being different.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

The husband thing is always an issue. BSMS, you might want to skip this estrogen post!

My trainer actually stopped taking on men as students. I thought it kind of funny seeing as he is a man and all! I asked him why and he said they just won’t listen.

They get it in their heads to do something a certain way and then even when there is proof what they are doing is not working, they think somehow they can make it work usually by applying stronger force. 

The round peg can and will fit into the square hole…….

My husband is starting to take an interest in riding, though it is a bit halfhearted at this point. 

He asked me to give him riding lessons so that is a start. (He took a riding class for a PE credit way back in college, because he wanted to share my love of riding....what a sweetie.) 

The other day he got up bareback on Cowboy when we were down in the pasture after evening feeding.

Out of the corner of my eye I see hands going, legs kicking and the horse is once again (this has happened before) standing like a statue not moving.

“What are you trying to do?”
“Back up” 
“Okay, first off, get your butt square on the horse.”
“It is”
“No actually, you are off balance and that’s why he is refusing to move (again).” 

So I adjusted him

“Now roll your hips onto your tailbone.”
“Now lower your hands so he brings his head in and use your pinkies to put alternating pressure on the reins and hug him with your legs here in front of where the girth would sit.”
“Don’t you have to pull back and tap with your legs?”
“No, not with Cowboy unless you want to have him fly back at the speed of light, which I don’t recommend at this point.”
“Well, they told me to do it the other way.”
“For one, you were riding school horses, not a trained performance horse. Second, you were riding English.”
“But on the DVD….”
“Do you want me to teach you or do you want to teach yourself? Get off a second.”

He gets off and I hop on. I back Cowboy up, roll him back and spin him slowly three times.

“This horse. If you want to learn to ride him, I can teach you to ride him. Not some school horse from thirty years ago.”

I got off and I told him that he needed to make a decision. I was perfectly fine with him teaching himself, but if he asks for my advice and for me to give him lessons, he has to trust that what I am telling him is correct and try…that’s all I ask, is to try it before he questions it. 

I love him to death and I appreciate him wanting to ride with me, but all I can say is teaching DH is often an adventure in patience.


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## Bondre

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> The husband thing is always an issue. BSMS, you might want to skip this estrogen post!
> 
> My trainer actually stopped taking on men as students. I thought it kind of funny seeing as he is a man and all! I asked him why and he said they just won’t listen.
> 
> They get it in their heads to do something a certain way and then even when there is proof what they are doing is not working, they think somehow they can make it work usually by applying stronger force.
> 
> The round peg can and will fit into the square hole…….
> 
> I love him to death and I appreciate him wanting to ride with me, but all I can say is teaching DH is often an adventure in patience.


This^^^! No need to add anything. You've said it all perfectly!


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## bsms

I think most men are best off not taking lessons. *We don't tend to listen anyways, so why pay for advice you are just going to ignore?* Books are better, because then WE are doing research, rather than being TOLD to do something. The problem there is that most modern books are female oriented: visual imagery, bonding, relationships (no guy I've ever known wants to talk about a relationship). And I increasing think they teach riding for the female body.

I was thinking about it today, on a short, very sweaty ride. The video on how women can bend over and pick up a chair, but a guy needs to get his feet forward first. The "heels under hip" thing leaves me feeling very unbalanced. Might be different if I had a totally controlled horse, but I don't and never will. I used two variations today - old west cowboy and then I shortened the stirrups and went pretty close to what VS Littauer wrote. Both felt very secure and comfortable. But both were developed by and for men...

If a guy is interested in riding, I recommend VS Littauer's Common Sense Horsemanship. It is very much a male oriented book, although Littauer taught a lot of women. But it talks about angles, and center of gravity and is very specific (and no mental imagery). No "pretend you are a tree" stuff. Just 'at this gait, be angled forward about 10 degrees with...'

"_So I adjusted him

“Now roll your hips onto your tailbone.”
“Now lower your hands so he brings his head in and use your pinkies to put alternating pressure on the reins and hug him with your legs here in front of where the girth would sit.”
“Don’t you have to pull back and tap with your legs?”
“No, not with Cowboy unless you want to have him fly back at the speed of light, which I don’t recommend at this point.”
“Well, they told me to do it the other way.”
“For one, you were riding school horses, not a trained performance horse._"

I have almost no experience on school horses, but also no desire to ride a trained performance horse. It would take me as long to retrain a trained performance horse as it has taken me to retrain Bandit to listen instead of fight. Pretty much everything I do is at what Littauer called "Elementary Control" - but it is combined with giving my horse experiences of increasing difficulty, so my HORSE can do most things without me.

Today, he got claustrophobic in a narrow wash. One which was also wet from recent rain, although no surface water. Rather than take a chance on him panicking, I rode him up and out of the wash at a spot that looked easy. And it was - to get OUT of the wash. But on top, there was a ton of cactus. So I was using simple stops and turns - very basic cues - but I needed to trust Bandit. He had cactus within inches of him on both sides, but he knew it as well as I did and compensated. So my elementary cues PLUS his brain got us thru some tight spots. We probably did 30 tight turns in 50 yards of progress. But if someone laid out a course in an arena, I doubt we could have done it. I was guiding him, not controlling him. I'll confess I held the horn in a few spots because I wasn't sure he could squeeze thru without hitting cactus and I wanted to be prepared for a rodeo. But HE understood what needed to be done, and like most horses, he is amazingly graceful - all that mass, cactus within inches on either side, and not a touch. He also pushed his way thru some brambles and didn't get upset about them catching at his feet. After all, I let him look first, and then WE moved forward. Why spook at things grabbing your feet if you know in advance it will happen?

But...a 4 year old stallion? No thanks! Of course, just about everyone I met felt that way about Mia, too.

"_they think somehow they can make it work usually by applying stronger force_"

I've had more than one woman tell me what I needed was a bigger whip, or some spurs. But with a guy, it might help to tell him he needs to teach his horse how he likes it done - that the horse was 'trained wrong', so he needs someone to teach the horse to do it 'right'. A male professional clarinetist told me once that when he hit the wrong note, he always blamed his instrument, not his fingers! If you blame the horse, then it is easy to get made at him. But if the horse was trained wrong, and needs help...well, that is hard to get angry about.

At least for me. But I would have been better off learning to ride on Bandit than Mia...she was "A Horse Too Far" for me. And a 4 year old stallion...:eek_color:


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## knightrider

Bondre, if your husband really likes this horse, could he go out and try him about 5 or 10 times before he considers buying him? Then he . . . and you . . . might be able to make a decision.

When I was 12, my parents let me get my first horse. We lived in Ecuador, so not all that different from Spain? I had no one to help me. There were no such things as vet checks. I found a 4 year old mare that I loved and we bought her. She was perfect. She was wonderful. She was made for me and I for her. Everyone on this forum would have screamed that I should not have gotten her. But it worked out great.

When my husband, who was not an experienced rider, decided he needed his own horse, we went looking. Nothing suited him. I was already wildly in love with a gelding that belonged to a friend. The gelding's name was Red Hot Chili Pepper, and he deserved that name. He was hotter than hot. He was crazy. But he was super super fun to ride. Since my husband didn't care for any of the safe gentle horses that we looked at, I suggested we go look at Red Pepper. My husband hated him, refused to even get on him. WAY too much horse, he said. But it was summer vacation for me, I had time on my hands, my friend, the owner, was desperate to get rid of Pepper because he had already bought a horse that was sane. So he gave Pepper to me for the summer, just to mess around with, and hope I could get him to notch down enough for my husband to ride him.

So I brought him home. He didn't notch down at all. Four days after I brought him home, my husband announced that he was going to ride "his" horse. I was aghast. Pep didn't walk, he pranced, he sidled, and flew backwards. But my husband was determined, and he climbed on. Red Pepper became a different horse that day. He walked calmly and quietly. He was smooth, easy, and perfect. On the way home, my husband said, "I guess I've got my horse." He rode that horse everywhere doing everything for years, and Pepper never did a thing wrong. Only with my husband, mind you, not with me . . . or my experienced friends. He was still Red Hot with us.

My point is: Ya never know. Ferrari might be perfect for your husband. Doesn't seem like it, but certainly a 12 year old with 10 riding lessons wouldn't do well with a green 4 year old, and an inexperienced rider shouldn't have done well with a hotter than hot mustang/TN walker cross. But they did. How about some trial rides?


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## Bondre

Thanks for the opinions on Ferrari! I know what you're saying Knightrider, and I'm not one of those people who automatically assume that a green horse and a green rider are going to be a disaster. But, knowing my husband, I am fairly sure that he would enjoy a more mature and knowledgeable horse a whole lot more. And while he would like it to be a nice-looking creature, we are agreed on the impracticality of having a reproductive male, even temporarily, and that good looks don't outweigh the huge inconvenience of a stallion. 

So I think Ferrari has got crossed off the list. We went to see a guy who had a couple of horses for sale fairly locally, just to see, and this helped DH to come to terms with what he's looking for in a horse. And close to the top of the list is that the horse should stand still when required, until asked to move forward again. He doesn't like fidgety horses (like Macarena), and he would prefer a horse that already has the 'stand still button' installed. So that probably rules out young Ferrari. His owner also sent some videos of Ferrari on the lunge, which brought it home a bIt to DH just how much he still needs to learn. He had the uneven gaits of a young horse that's still finding his balance - a bad combination with a rider whose balance could be unsteady too. 

I found interesting to see the two horses that were for sale. I haven't ever looked at anything in this price range - not that we're talking very expensive, but both Macarena (because she was young and still unbacked) and Flamenca (because she was old, skinny and unsound) were bargain buys. Both these horses were supposedly well-trained, sound, suitable for novice to intermediate riders. One was just so unimpressive, scrawny with a ewe neck, that we didn't ask to even see him out of the stable. No way DH was going to spend money on that! 

The second was a 7yo Anglo-Lusitano. Small (around 15hh) and compact, typical Lusitano roman nose but I couldn't see the TB in him anywhere. This poor horse was so tense that his butt muscles were all bunched up the whole time I was looking him over. I commented on this and then it turned out that the guy had brought him from Seville just one week before. So he was a dealer and was moving horses in and out of his stables at speed. He explained that he had to send seven horses to France next week and that if we didn't like the Lusitano he would be going in that load. No wonder the poor horse was tense! Being shipped around like a sack of potatoes and then expected to perform in unfamiliar surroundings with a string of unknown riders. And certainly not the right place to buy the horse DH wants - no way to know if it's a safe and sane individual when it's only been on the premises a few days. I didn't bother to test ride him seeing as we weren't interested, although the dealer did saddle him up and walk him around a field on an over-tight rein (he put a high-ported curb on him). 

Oh yes, and when I checked his hooves, he was really unkeen on lifting his hind feet. When I finally convinced him to do so, the darned horse tried to sit in my lap! I had to get that hoof back in the ground in a hurry. The dealer seemed a bit bemused that I would consider doing such a thing. :shock: The hooves and legs is one of the first things I look at! Not something I would ever skip over now, as I've already got myself a chronic founder case for not recognising the warning signs and thinking that Flamenca'a hooves were 'just' extremely long and deformed.

Next candidate is a really nice registered PRE mare, 9 years old and very experienced in varied surroundings. I am very enthusiastic about this one. The only drawback is the distance - over 2 hours away, but she sounds well worth the trip. 

However, now that we've found a really nice-looking horse in the price range, a new complication cropped up. DH was originally looking for a couple of heifers of the traditional local breed of hardy beef cattle. He loves cows! But around here all you can find are Friesians, and there's no way we want dairy cows! Milking the goats is enough milking for me. So he had kind of put the heifers on hold and had started thinking of horses. But on Friday a friend of his rang to say we could go and meet a farmer friend of his who keeps this breed of cattle in the mountains. Extensive beef cattle are very rare round here, as it's too dry and the landscape is mostly all wrong (too mountainous). So yesterday we went up there, and now DH is fired up about heifers and the horse is on the back burner again. 





All I can say about our trip yesterday is that I would LOVE to spend a few months up in the mountains with the cattle and Macarena. She would come back a whole different horse. These guys move their livestock 300km twice a year from the winter to the summer pastures, and back - just like what bsms experienced and shared in his journal. Taking part in that journey would be one fantastic experience. Maybe our holidays next year....


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## gottatrot

It sounds like you are excellent at horse shopping and look into/notice all the right things. It seems like your husband is in safe hands and will end up with a great horse for him as long as you are helping. Also it sounds like he is a realistic person and listens to logic such as the practicality of having a stallion around. And being an animal person is a good thing, whether you're into horses, heifers, goats or all three.

Looks beautiful there in the mountains.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

I grow a small crop of wheat for fun every year (I know, nerd. I love grinding the wheat and making my own bread), but when I was researching which European varieties would grow well in my area, I was surprised to find that certain areas of Spain and Italy, shared many similar types of flora with parts of Texas. 

Looking at your pictures and then looking at where I live in Texas, I can understand why.











I would say that what will be will be. So many times in my life I have found that just about the time I think I have made up my mind to go one direction, fate pulls me in another and in retrospect it ends up being for the best. 

Cattle - horse, I'd say wait and see what falls into your life out of nowhere and go with it.


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## Bondre

That landscape looks SO like Andalucia. Here in the east we are a bit more arid and the mountains are limestone which make for very abrupt topography and not many broadleaved trees except in valley bottoms. 

Look at this random internet photo of Sierra Morena, the western vertient of the mountains where we were yesterday - and the winter pastures of those cattle. Looks familiar?

If anyone's interested in transhumance in livestock farming, the stock farmer has a Facebook page full of photos and videos of the horses, vaqueros, working dogs, and cattle. Worth a browse! Google Pastores de la Sierra de Segura and it comes up.


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## Bondre

It's been too hot for much riding this week so I've been doing groundwork sessions with Macarena, followed by a short ride, often involving windfall peaches. She is seriously addicted to these.

The neighbour has finishing picking the peaches so everything on the ground is up for grabs, it's just a question of whether Macarena arrives first or the ants and wasps finish them off. But the plantation is huge so there's plenty for everyone.* Taking her to eat windfalls is actually quite good for practising lateral movements and backing up. When she's up to her withers in branches and foliage, and I'm nearly part of the tree too, she has to move sideways or backwards to emerge or I'd be off her back. She's*already good at haunches over, but when you're about to be devoured by a peach tree she needs to move her shoulders so she's getting lots of practise at that.

Today we worked on standing still for mounting. She has a bad habit of shifting her butt away from me when I get on my mounting block, which I solve by placing her next to a wall so she can't shift, but that is just a cheap patch. I placed the block (aka fruit crate) out in the open and sure enough she shifted her butt when I stepped up onto it. So I lunged her round me at the trot for a minute and brought her back in to stand quietly by the fruit crate. She shifted again when I stepped up and we repeated. The idea being that me and the fruit crate are a nice place for standing still, but if you don't stand still there you work a bit. I had to lunge her four times, and the third time she got annoyed and started cantering and bucking and looking tense. But when she realised that the centre with me was a quiet place she was ok again and calmed down. The last time I sent her out to lunge she trotted nicely, and after that she stood still for mounting.

My DH arrived towards the end with peaches in his hands. I swear she spotted the peaches - or smelt them? - from 20m away and lost attention for a while. I had to ask him to hide the peaches or she wouldn't concentrate on me ;-) After the work we went on a round trip which ended up going through her favourite trees. Up until then she had been a bit sticky - I'm sure she was imagining that DH was stuffing Flamenca with peaches in her absence - but when she spotted the trees and the delightful orange-coloured balls on the ground the turbo kicked in. Actually, I think it is the smell she responds to, as once we are in amongst the trees she's not good at locating individual fallen fruits and I often have to point her in the right direction.

I am equally sure that bsms has hit the nail on the head with the idea that it is the smell of garbage bins that can be a scary factor, rather than their appearance.

Some pics of groundwork and stretches to finish with.






^^^ haunches over


^^^ shoulder yield


^^^ waiting for the treat

I love how she always has at least one ear focused on me waiting for the click that tells her she's doing the right thing  - and that there's a treat on the way


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## Bondre

Long time no see - we've been away.... before going away I was busy organising it all.... since coming back we've been catching up on ourselves.... and at last here I am! 

It's always nice to go over to England and see the family. All that lush greenery and no dust blowing anywhere! Lots of beef cows for DH to admire. No need for a siesta (the heat makes it imperative in summertime here). The only bad thing is having to leave all our animals behind, although I admit I'm pleased to see the back of the goats for a week lol! 



Macarena was thrilled to see me back, and is indeed thrilled to see me every day. She greets me with rousing neighs and huge enthusiasm, which is very sweet of her. We've had some good rides, nothing far away but good rides nonetheless. 

I've been working on trotting on a loose rein rather than using contact. I have always found I trend to lean forward at the trot with her, and the other day I finally realised why! (Talk about slow). The stirrups on my saddle are rigged quite far forward, so unless I keep my upper body forward I can't physically rise to the trot without getting left behind. This makes for horrible posture with my butt sticking back, but unless I do it my centre of gravity is behind the stirrups so I can't rise effectively. I must try my other English saddle next ride and see if it's any better in that respect. 

Macarena is getting much better at controlling her nerves and relaxing when we're out and about. She likes open landscape more than the forest or fruit tree plantations, which I can understand from her point of view. But it's not as if our forest trails are even narrow! These are wide vehicle tracks on the whole so we're not pushing between trees and visibility is reasonably good. She needs a vacation in Egrogan's or Gottatrot's forests to have a taste of something different. 

She frequently proves to me that she has a good memory. Three rides ago she had a medium-sized fright over a tractor with some large rattly equipment. On our last ride we went past the same spot and approaching that corner she was quite diffident and cautious. I laughed at her and told her that the tractor wouldn't be there this time - and I was right! 

Sometimes I do some circles with her once we get home so that she never knows if we will finish once we near the barn or not. Last time we had done several circles and figure eights at trot and a couple at canter, when she suddenly said No! And refused to continue. She was happy to trot away from home along the road, but she wasn't doing any more stupid circles! Lol. I think she doesn't see the point any more than I do. Or perhaps she's not very supple and cantering in a circle is hard for her. My 'schooling' area is quite small so some of the turns have to be quite tight or you get onto rocky uneven ground. But I've has the same reaction from her when schooling circles in large fields too, so I think it's the apparent futility of the exercise (we're not going ANYWHERE so why bother??) that irritates her. So we trotted away from home along the road and looked at the sheep that were grazing on the remains of the watermelon plants. (Aside: The broccoli king has finished harvesting the melons, and between them the sheep and the tractors stripped the fields in a few hours and the next day they planted up with broccoli. That's fast work!). Then we did walk-canter-walk transitions home just to prove that we can go fast toward home without getting uncontrollable and excited. So that was all great on her part. 

Yesterday was a big event for the mares (and for me!) as no.3 has arrived. She is theoretically my DH's horse but I expect I will ride her frequently too. I hope she will be as good as she promises. We've been looking at several prospects over the last month, since Ferrari was considered and duly rejected. We narrowed it down to this mare - Duna - and a black gelding. Both PREs with papers, both well schooled and around the same age (she is 10 and he was 11). But the gelding proved to be schooled for dressage and was not very responsive to riding in any other way. I couldn't get him to canter, not was he very responsive to lateral aids despite the fact he would do elegant half passes and a good attempt at canter pirouettes. But only with spurs! He was so accustomed to being ridden with spurs that he couldn't understand simple leg aids. I also wasn't 100% certain that he was sound. He seemed a touch off in his hocks at times. So he was crossed off the list and we settled for Duna. 

I rode her in an olive grove when I tried her out, and I enjoyed it. Even in just 10 minutes I felt like WE were trying things together. I hope I was right on this one and that she'll make a good partnership with DH. I think she has the right character anyway - and she's a mare lol. The geldings just can't quite compete in my opinion. 

She needs some regular work to build up her topline and a good hoof trim, but she's not in bad shape generally. Her sire (Solitario XIX) is a very illustrious stallion from the famous Miura stud, although he is now standing in Mexico. She had a lovely fine face which I think is from the Miura bloodline. 

Macarena was amazing when she arrived. I have often thought she shows some behavioural traits more proper of a stallion, and yesterday was no exception. She came prancing over to the fence with her neck arched, and huffed and sniffed at Duna on the other side. Flamenca looked on in a rather bemused fashion. Even Duna's owner commented on the fact that Macarena was behaving like a stallion. 

Duna is in separate though adjoining accommodation for a few days until she settles in and has her hind shoes removed. I'm planning on giving her a short ride this evening. Doesn't she have a lovely face? (except those horrible scars from using a metal toothed serreta on her :-( ).


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## gottatrot

Duna looks lovely! Congratulations and I look forward to hearing about her progress. Her hooves look nice too, although they are long. Hopefully they will trim up very well.


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## egrogan

Wow, what a looker! Can't wait to hear how she settles in. 

Is your son still riding with you?


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## egrogan

Speaking of goats, a friend shared this on Facebook and I thought of you @Bondre 

VIDEO: Herd of goats released into Berkeley Hills in response to drought | abc13.com


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## Bondre

egrogan said:


> Speaking of goats, a friend shared this on Facebook and I thought of you


That was quite a herd! Not quite correct when they say that goats are natural lawnmowers as in fact they are nibblers and browsers, whereas sheep are grazers. It reminds me of something I read and liked years ago, long before starting to keep goats, which was that goats are a great sustainable 'tool' for converting inedible (for us) shrubs and bushes into edible (for us) meat and milk - and they help prevent wildfires in the process. Bearing in mind that too many goats are much worse than not enough goats, as is evident in large areas of the Sahel. 

When my DH was a boy, his father's goats lived out this function. They browsed in the forest all day and the only cost of producing milk and kids was human labour. Sadly our goats are a very different story. Part of their diet is secondary products such as pelleted orange peel, sunflower seed meal (from the oil industry) and so on, but they also consume primary products like oats, maize and soya which is not particularly sustainable. Of course, not many people want to be out in the forest with their goats all day nowadays.


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## Bondre

Duna has now been integrated into the 'herd' and after a day of tension, everything is settling down. 

The farrier came on Monday and trimmed Macarena and Duna. Duna's long feet have trimmed up very nicely and for the moment she is wearing shoes on the fronts only. We'll see how she goes like that. Flamenca has been very off recently with her feet. After a year and a half managing her successfully barefoot, and using boots for riding, I have come to the limits of my abilities and I think we need to change tack. So the farrier is coming back tomorrow to shoe her front hooves (with pads and infills) and I so much hope that she will feel better like that. She is such a sweet horse but what with two successive abscesses in the same hind hoof that lamed her on and off over two months, and now something wrong in the fronts again, she is having a bad time. 

Egrogan, you asked if my son is still riding - well, in theory he is, but in practice he's not ;-) what with Flamenca being recently unsound and he being otherwise occupied. 

So, back to Duna. Monday afternoon I lunged her and then let her out with the others under supervision. She and Macarena ran around a lot and Flamenca kept out of the way in a corner. After the initial chaos ("where am I where am I who are you???") a pattern of behaviour started to emerge. Macarena was protecting Flamenca; every time Duna approached the old mare, Macarena warned her off with bared teeth. I couldn't believe it at first as Flamenca has always been the bossy one where Macarena is submissive. But not with Duna! Macarena has decided that she is NOT going to be #3 of 3 horses again and has made a convincing case of being #2. In fact, I think that as far as Duna is concerned, Macarena is THE BOSS. Which just goes to prove that horse relationships are often non-lineal, and it's possible for Flamenca to be Macarena's boss, whereas Macarena ranks over Flamenca in Duna'a opinion.



Anyway, after the initial skirmishes Duna went back to her stable and she came out again yesterday (Tuesday). They settled down throughout the day although feeding times are still tense. Duna has acquired a small but deep cut on her nose - not sure if a bite or a kick - but otherwise everyone is in one piece and the barometer is settling. But what I hadn't counted on is that Duna seems to be frantically attached to Macarena now. I hope this is just her initial insecurity showing through, and not a hint of the future, as I would really like NOT to have a madly buddysour horse to deal with again. Especially when the said horse is DH's and honestly he's not prepared for dealing with this sort of stuff. 





Yesterday we took them both out in the forest. Duna behaved very well considering that her eyes were popping out continually at all the new scenery. Of course, she only had to follow Macarena's ample butt so nothing very challenging either. She did get a bit hyper when she spotted the stables and heard Flamenca, and set out at a trot. DH said he couldn't stop her and that she has a hard mouth. I think that the case is more that she evades the bit when she's not interested in listening, as she tends to get very overbent when excited which is obviously a learned evasive response to unsympathetic contact. 

I can see problems looming. She is a nice horse but as always she has some baggage. I would deal with these issues in one way but DH will almost certainly not agree with my approach. For example, my reaction to her bit evasion would be to try her in a snaffle or a sidepull, and gradually encourage her to stretch out and relax rather than tuck back. She is afraid of contact, and not surprising with those scars on her nose. But my husband's reaction is that she may need a stronger bit.

I am sure there is more potential for conflict over how to best work her through her nervousness and sudden buddy sourness. I presume to know more than my husband, especially since I have spent months working on Macarena on this kind of issue. And although she has still a way to go, the comparison with Duna is startling! I hadn't realised just how relaxed and laid back Macarena has become until I could contrast her with her new companion, who is understandably stressed and nervous (despite supposedly being a well-trained horse).

So what should I do when I disagree with my husband on his approach? He doesn't take advice well unless it is very subtly presented, and I'm not always the most patient person over this. I think that if I know more about something then the most sensible thing is for him to listen and learn, and try out what I suggest rather than automatically rejecting it. I would do that if we were dealing with a motorbike, for example, as I know that DH is much more knowledgeable than I am on this subject. So I'm not great at slipping my advice in through the back door, as it were. I don't want Duna's training to be a point of conflict, but neither do I want to have to suffer in silence if I see him making a pig's ear of it lol. But then again, when I started Macarena I knew a whole lot less than I do now, so I probably made numerous pig's ears along the way, and learnt valuable lessons in the process. And if I messed up on something, eventually I realised my mistake and worked back over it to correct it. 

I guess what I'm uncertain of is how much I should be present and offering help and advice, and how much I should stand back and let them figure out things for themselves. I have a recognised controlling streak so going hands-off would be hard, but if it's a conscious decision I can do it. I just don't want to end up loitering on the sidelines, knowing it would be in Duna's best interests for me to intervene but not doing it in order to keep the marital peace. 

Any observations on this rather personal theme are welcome!


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## egrogan

Do you think maybe if you could be her rider for the next month or so out in the forest/open, you could put her through her paces and work out the "I'm new here and the world is scary and going to eat me" kinks? Maybe after she's had the chance to settle in, the evasion and rushing would be a non issue and your husband would have a smoother ride?

PS- if she doesn't work out for your husband, you can just load her right on a plane and send her my way. So gorgeous!


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## knightrider

I'm with Egrogan. I think you should take Duna out yourself, applying all the things you learned with Macarena and see how it goes. If it goes terrible, you can still try your husband riding her and perhaps she will "click" with him perfectly and it will all go fine. That's what happened with my husband. I am hoping for the best for you!


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## bsms

If your husband doesn't mind watching videos or reading books, then you can suggest some that you 'find'. If he isn't likely to go that route, then...experience can teach. I know MY wife and daughter won't listen to what I say. For a while, my daughter took lessons from the lady who worked with Trooper and Mia and Lilly. That lady told me when her own daughter needed lessons, she had to work out an agreement with another instructor - to trade, and teach each others kids!

But since I've had no luck getting either my wife or daughter to listen to a sentence I say about riding...good luck! It may need to come from inside him first. 

"_For example, my reaction to her bit evasion would be to try her in a snaffle or a sidepull, and gradually encourage her to stretch out and relax rather than tuck back. She is afraid of contact, and not surprising with those scars on her nose. But my husband's reaction is that she may need a stronger bit._"

One of the things I had to learn from Mia, by digging the hole first and then filling it in later, was that I couldn't not hold her speed down with the bit. I eventually switched over to the more western approach of using the bit to set boundaries, within which she could make decisions. So if she decided we WERE going to fast trot, I'd turn her around (something we were good at) and go back, then turn around again and go forward, etc. What usually happened if I said, "We can walk the way you want to go or trot the way you do not want to go" was that she would decide to walk the way SHE wanted to go.

Or we could stop - as in a full stop - then start again. And then stop, full stop, then start again. But either I didn't have the hands or she didn't have the mouth for me to fine tune her speed via the bit. The bit, at least in MY hands, was like cutting paper with an axe.

Mia seemed to find the curb bit preferable to the snaffle. I think that was in part because her favorite bit evasion - sticking her nose out so the snaffle would pull against her molars - didn't work. The rotating shanks would apply pressure to the bars and to the tongue regardless of head position, provided I could keep rotating the shanks. It wasn't leverage that made the curb work with her, but the fact that I and I alone got to decide when the pressure would be released.

With Bandit, I've realized I can still do some of that in a snaffle using small side to side motions to irritate and annoy until he gives the right response, and then release. But when I tried that with Mia, she would start swerving very hard side to side at a full gallop, with cactus on either side...so what has worked with Bandit just didn't work with Mia.

Bandit tends to overflex his neck when he is a bit irritated or annoyed or upset. It isn't past training. I've seen pictures of his sire acting that way, and Bandit will do the "snake neck" thing sometimes passing something he doesn't like. My solution to that was to annoy - not punish, but annoy - him with the bit, side to side or bumping it repeatedly until he moved his head back to normal. Then total release. Thus over-flexing wouldn't get the desired result - relief from annoyance - but a normal head position would. In that case, at least with Bandit, "pressure" didn't work, but "annoyance" did.

All of which worked well for me using a western approach to using the reins, with contact existing primarily to deliver a message. The longer I ride, the more I am bewildered by the English school of continuous contact. It may serve a useful function for a truly expert rider, but I don't see much value for folks like me who ride a few hours a week.

The curb bit worked well for Mia, but only because it was used western, with as little contact as possible.

I can offer sympathy but not much good advice on helping family members avoid the pits I fell into myself before them. That is a problem for me in a lot more than just riding, too! Spouses and kids...


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> That lady told me when her own daughter needed lessons, she had to work out an agreement with another instructor - to trade, and teach each others kids!
> 
> But since I've had no luck getting either my wife or daughter to listen to a sentence I say about riding...good luck! It may need to come from inside him first.


Funny about your riding instructor not being able to reach her own daughter! At least I've been lucky here that my son is very teachable and absorbs my gems of wisdom well ;-)

My husband actually takes heed of more than I often give him credit for, though he normally give no sign of having taken my advice or opinion on board. It's only when I see him doing something 'my way' that I realise that I wasn't taking to deaf ears lol. 



bsms said:


> Bandit tends to overflex his neck when he is a bit irritated or annoyed or upset. It isn't past training. I've seen pictures of his sire acting that way, and Bandit will do the "snake neck" thing sometimes passing something he doesn't like. My solution to that was to annoy - not punish, but annoy - him with the bit, side to side or bumping it repeatedly until he moved his head back to normal. Then total release. Thus over-flexing wouldn't get the desired result - relief from annoyance - but a normal head position would. In that case, at least with Bandit, "pressure" didn't work, but "annoyance" did.


That's a good approach - this will profit you not. I don't think that Duna is familiar with that concept yet. Probably rather like Bandit was in the past, she is afraid of being punished and not accustomed to being corrected gently. 

I rode her briefly yesterday on her own. We only went 30m away from the stables, up to the road (a very minor thoroughfare not really deserving of such a title). We came and went from stable to road three times; at the road we stopped and tried to relax, and at the stables we trotted to and fro along the fence line and did hindquarter yields at the gate. She would tuck her head down to her chest when we trotted to evade the contact, although I was barely using the reins, which did oblige me to use them to encourage her to lift her head. After Macarena's quite high head carriage, I don't feel very safe with a horse who's head disappears down like that. It would just take a sudden buck to shoot me out of the saddle like a stone out of a slingshot. 

By the third time to the road she was completely drenched in sweat, not from the heat as it wasn't excessive, nor from the work which was negligible, but from the sheer stress and nerves of it all. I took the saddle off on the roadside and then allowed her to take a mouthful of grass. Not very appetizing stuff
and I don't like horses eating with a bit, but I thought it would help her relax. She was actually much more relaxed when I led her back to the yard than when I was riding her. 

My general impression of Duna is that she is lacking in confidence but is eager to please. I think she's another underdog - just like Macarena was when I got her. (Macarena now resembles a tank more than anything - hard to overlook her lol!)


^^^ the tank guarding the old lady from the upstart 



bsms said:


> The longer I ride, the more I am bewildered by the English school of continuous contact. It may serve a useful function for a truly expert rider, but I don't see much value for folks like me who ride a few hours a week.


I'm not sure where the useful function of contact is any longer. I've mentioned several times that iwas taught to ride with contact, and thinking about it, the worst part of this was that no-one mentioned that importance of release. We were taught to use contact but not ever told that horses learn from the release of contact rather than the contact itself. When I first came across this fundamental information it was a revelation. I always thought that the contact was the message, whereas in fact the contact is the grey area in between the moments of communication and learning. 

The only point to using contact seems to be in order to do dressage, and to a certain extent jumping (but I've seen videos of jumping and even cross country without a bridle, so I'm sure it's possible to do with minimal contact using conventional headgear). And if dressage folks say horses need to understand contact, but in reality the only need for contact is in the dressage ring, then they've just talked themselves into a blind alley. The rest of us can get on happily using occasional contact as needed, and both us and our horses will be much better for it. 

To round up, Flamenca has some news! She has been increasingly unsound over the past months; first was a recurring abscess in her left hind, and once that resolved she started getting ouchy in her front hooves. Up until now she has been sound barefoot, using boots for when we go out, although her hooves haven't improved in all this time. She still had a very stretched toe and thin sole; presumably her bony column (P3) was affected when she foundered in the past so we're dealing with a pathological hoof that can't ever return to normal function. 

So anyway, she clearly needs 24/7 protection for her soles which the boots can't give, so I decided it was time to have her shod. The farrier shod her with back-to-front shoes with leather insoles (I haven't googled it to see the correct English term, but in Spanish they're called Napoleonic shoes as Napoleon supposedly shod his cavalry this way to deceive the enemy as to his army's movements). A snip at 30€ for the job. I honestly expected him to charge twice that. 



Now it's a question of time, and for her sore soles to recover now that they are not being banged on stony surfaces daily. I took her up to our house for the shoeing job (no electricity in the stable) and on the return journey she started to stride out really nicely.I haven't seen her moving so freely for a long time. So I hope that these shoes are what she needs.


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## gottatrot

Bondre said:


> So anyway, she clearly needs 24/7 protection for her soles which the boots can't give, so I decided it was time to have her shod. The farrier shod her with back-to-front shoes with leather insoles (I haven't googled it to see the correct English term, but in Spanish they're called Napoleonic shoes as Napoleon supposedly shod his cavalry this way to deceive the enemy as to his army's movements).


My mom is a brilliant pianist and she tried to teach my siblings and myself how to play. We all play a little bit, but none of us excelled because we didn't take our instruction to heart or practice much. Not sure why but it seems a natural reaction to resist teaching from people very close to us. You are lucky to have at least one good student in your son.

I like your insights on contact.

Great photo of Macarena guarding Flamenca. It makes me laugh, I can just see her attitude coming through. Halla stresses herself guarding Amore from every horse that wants to look at her, just like that and Amore couldn't care less. 

Glad to hear about Flamenca's hooves. I believe the sole coverage you are referring to is what we call "pads" over here. It looks like the farrier is trying to give her a good breakover that lines up with the bony column. Hopefully it will help even her joints and back feel better to have everything lined up. 
Something I've seen with some horses is that their hooves feel better for a couple days after a corrective shoeing or trim, they move out well, and then they get some body soreness from moving differently that lasts anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks while their body gets used to using different muscles.


----------



## Bondre

gottatrot said:


> My mom is a brilliant pianist and she tried to teach my siblings and myself how to play. We all play a little bit, but none of us excelled because we didn't take our instruction to heart or practice much.


Snap! My mother is also an excellent keyboard player - harpsichord rather than piano - and neither I nor my brother learnt well. I hated doing piano practice as a kid. I guess playing music was never really my thing, but it seems such a waste when kids wilfully resist their parents' valiant attempts to share and pass on their skills. 



gottatrot said:


> Great photo of Macarena guarding Flamenca. It makes me laugh, I can just see her attitude coming through. Halla stresses herself guarding Amore from every horse that wants to look at her, just like that and Amore couldn't care less.


This is a new side of Macarena'a character for me. It's rather endearing, although it means the invisible vectors operating in the herd are more complicated. At least now she is less aggressive in the call of her self-imposed guard duty. And Flamenca, like Amore, couldn't care less and tries to escape the vigilance to hang out with Duna.





gottatrot said:


> Glad to hear about Flamenca's hooves. I believe the sole coverage you are referring to is what we call "pads" over here.


Yes, I got that, Iwas wondering what the back to front shoe technique is called? If it has a special name? 



gottatrot said:


> It looks like the farrier is trying to give her a good breakover that lines up with the bony column. Hopefully it will help even her joints and back feel better to have everything lined up.


I wasn't sure if the forward tips of the shoes don't come too far forward. I personally would have taken 1cm off the tips and bevelled another 1cm to align this with breakover. But then again, I'm not a farrier and he is; I haven't managed to significantly improve her feet after 18 months of barefoot trimming her, and recently she has deteriorated while doing the same basic trim so I don't feel as if I'm very indicated for judging his work. 

I have always been battling with her heels to keep them low, and it was after my most recent trim when I finally left the heels where I wanted them that she really seemed uncomfortable. So I learnt the hard way (hard for her, not me) that actually her bony column requires rather high heels. And this farrier always leaves more heels than I felt was desirable. As you can see in the side view of her hooves, he has left her almost standing on tiptoe, whereas I was always trying to achieve the opposite so as not to throw her weight forward onto her vulnerable P3. Yet when I really lowered her heels, I noticed she was standing in a rather forced manner with her pasterns very upright, so it seems that she is not comfortable 'relaxing' back onto her heels.


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## Zexious

Really hoping for some positive news on Flamenca's hooves after these changes! <3

Your horses are so beautiful, and reading about them brings me so much happiness <3<3 Thank you for posting!


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## gottatrot

Bondre said:


> Yes, I got that, I was wondering what the back to front shoe technique is called? If it has a special name?


Ahh, sorry, was being dense. You weren't asking about the pads. I think it's called an eggbar with rocker toe. The eggbar is sometimes a completely round shoe, but if they use a regular shoe backward then I think it provides more of a rocker for the toe.

Perhaps the farrier is hoping to bring the breakover back more if he can get the hoof capsule to grow down steeper after a trim or two. The heels do look high, but they probably need to be that high since the toe angle is far forward. I think you are right, that he could have taken more heel and then brought the breakover back more. But hopefully he will continue to change things after several trims. 

I think it is good to put shoes on some of these older horses with poor hooves since it becomes too difficult to make them comfortable without artificial means. With the shoes you can provide both sole protection and better angles for her legs. If she feels better, then I think you are doing the right thing.


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## Bondre

Macarena is ouchy on her front hooves after the trim. :-( The farrier trimmed her shorter than ever before, and it seems he exceeded himself a bit. When he came back to do Flamenca'a shoes on Thursday I mentioned that he had sored her but he didn't even seem dismayed. :evil: I took her out on a walk yesterday (and we discovered some stray melons ;-) ) but she's not up to riding yet. I'm so peeved about this. She hasn't taken a lame step in her life until now (or at least she hasn't with me).

So in the meantime I am keeping them well supplied with fruit - figs, watermelons and melons - and working with Duna. There is a fig tree in their yard and every morning when Macarena gets up she checks out the tree to see if any figs have fallen overnight. And when I arrive with their breakfast, it's generally understood that I should pick all that figs that have ripened since the previous day and share them out. 


^^^ where are our figs?!

Macarena and Flamenca are very civilised about this and stand together waiting their turns; only their eager expressions betray the intense emotion. Fortunately Duna doesn't like figs and so she doesn't join in the queue. I say fortunately because, while herd dynamics have relaxed a little, she is still very much the outsider and when she joins the other two a ruckus always ensues. She is a nervous sort and I think that her hesitancy and clinginess bother the other two. 

Duna has developed an annoying trick of being hard to catch; both Macarena and Flamenca practically halter and bridle themselves so I'm spoilt for compliant horses. Duna hides behind Flamenca so if she's really determined to avoid me I have to halter the others and tie them up, and then make Duna circulate until she lets me catch her. I hope this won't continue for too many days. She doesn't know about treats and doesn't like to take food from the hand - in fact she wouldn't even eat pieces of carrot out of a bucket :shock: - so it's hard to reward her. 

I have been riding her every day for 20 minutes or less, doing very easy stuff with her to encourage her to relax with me. She is much better than the first day when she sweated right up, and now knows to stand still and relax with me at a random position on the road, to walk back on a loose rein, and to stretch her neck out and relax when leaving the yard. This is a modest improvement! 

She is very green on anything resembling arena work: her circles are awful, not even remotely like a square. But this evening we progressed a little further on the road and reached a patch of open land on one side, and she enthusiastically turned into this area with the evident intention of exploring further. However after three strides Macarena neighed from the yard, and she seemed to remember herself and get tense again. We went a bit further but the spontaneity had gone and her mind was back on the others. Still, it was a furthest yet! And all reasonably relaxed. I think when she manages to wean herself off Macarena she will be a great horse for riding out and about, but for the moment we have to work through the nervousness and the strangeness until she's ready to give more of herself.


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## gottatrot

I love your approach with Duna, it sounds well reasoned out and I think she will improve quickly. 
Is there any way you can trim Macarena instead of having the farrier do it? I don't think there is any excuse for soring a horse with trimming. It is very unnecessary, and on such hard ground can lead to inflammatory issues.


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## Zexious

Is it maybe time to get a new farrier? ):


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## Bondre

gottatrot said:


> Is there any way you can trim Macarena instead of having the farrier do it? I don't think there is any excuse for soring a horse with trimming. It is very unnecessary, and on such hard ground can lead to inflammatory issues.


Technically I could do it, as her trim is easy. It's the practicalities that complicate things. Her hooves are really hard, so I'd need some better tools or I'd waste a lot of time. And her hoof manners need improving, particularly with her hind hooves. I've always rather copped out and thought that the farrier can deal with her, which he does - one benefit of living in macho Spain lol! From what I have read on the forum, some farriers refuse to trim a horse that doesn't hold its legs politely, but this guy just gets on with it. He sweats buckets. 

However, I can see the benefits of continuing to work on her hind hoof manners, as the trimming business would be less stressful for her too. This time she got pretty worried as I went to catch Duna while he started trimming Macarena. Macarena was not at all ok about being left on her own with the farrier and tried pulling back on him twice, hard. It's ages since she's set back on the lead rope. When I came to reassure her, she was tense as hell and her neck muscles were hard and bunched. And he hadn't even started on her hind hooves....

I've been doing occasional clicker training sessions on holding hooves up and we've made progress. She will now lift her front hooves happily for a reasonable length of time, and we've got as far as lifting her hind hooves, holding them without getting worried, and putting them back down again in a relaxed fashion. Now it's a question of prolonging the behaviour little by little, and the clicker is great for teaching this. Plus she enjoys clicker training so her relaxed 'this is fun!' reaction to the clicker helps offset her nervous 'I don't like you holding one of my legs' reaction to the hoof work. 

And she is still not sound. Of course the hard rocky ground doesn't do her any favours either. If I had a sand school or a grassy field to work her in I'm sure she wouldn't be noticeably off.


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## Bondre

Help, I haven't updated this for ages and now I've got a ton to write. Pleased to say the three ladies have settled down nicely together, and that Flamenca is back firmly on top of the hierarchy, thanks to her front shoes. She no longer picks her way carefully across the softest parts of the yard to get to the manger, which is what she had been doing for the past month. Now she is confident on all surfaces and rules the roost, as befits the senior mare. 

Since Macarena has been a bit off since the trim she's been idling and I've been working with Duna, who needs the work anyway. I've given her a short outing most days, just in the vicinity of the yard to get her relaxing and increase her confidence, and I've also been trying out various headgear on her. I started out with a Portuguese unjointed curb, the one I use for Flamenca, but she was scared of that bit and was evading it. So next I tried the zilco flower on her. 

This was a revelation! I've never before done a first bitless ride on a horse that has always worn a bit. We just walked around, and she soon realised that she could stretch out and wouldn't get any tugs on her mouth, and she did just that! Instead of her chin almost touching her chest at times, she lowered her head and kept blowing through her nose out of pure pleasure. She just couldn't believe that she was so comfortable! As I wrote in Egrogan's journal, she was "Wow, this is comfortable #snort# I can move my head #snort# I can stretch my neck #snort# this is SO nice! #snort#"

The down side was that the zilco was so mild that she was quite unresponsive at the trot. We typically go out for a walk away from the yard, hang out a little, walk back and then do some trot circles next to the yard. In the zilco, the trot circles were very hard work. She would bulge out and run far too fast so I'd have to be quite unsubtle with the reins to get her attention. 

I tried her with the zilco two days, and then decide to try a thin jointed snaffle. I'm quite sure there's NO WAY I'm going to convince DH that she's safe to ride bitless - even if I put in the work and get her responsive like that. So I hoped that she would like the snaffle, as that would be a good option all round, and YES she did! She was responsive, but not scared and protecting her mouth like with the curb bit. So since then I've been riding her in the snaffle and we are making progress. 

We've had some windy days and she's has to deal with some common stuff here that it seems she's not used to. One is swalllows flying low overhead in the afternoons. Another is shreds of waste agricultural plastic :-( which the broccoli king uses for the melons and tomatoes, and then 'ploughs in' at the end of the season. (How can you plough in plastic?? As if it was manure). Result is shreds of plastic all over the place, and when it's windy they billow like little banners. Duna and I were doing a trot circle which took us past a long shred on the ground, and suddenly she jumped sideways. So then we walked past the offending thing until she was brave enough not to sidle and bug-eye it. 

Another funny thing was trotting along a very dusty track alongside the broccoli field with the wind behind us. Her hooves raised a lot of dust which blew along at ground level creating a very odd effect as if the ground was moving forwards. A bit like walking downstream in a fast, murky, shallow stream and not being able to see the stream bed very well. I looked at the moving ground and thought 'weird, never seen that before', Duna looked at the moving ground twice - and then tried jumping over it. Which was fair enough, after all, how many times have you tried trotting on a flying carpet made of a thin layer of dust? 

Two evenings ago I took her out further afield with my son accompanying on Flamenca. Duna was bug-eyed for the whole ride, taking in the unfamiliar scenery. She relaxed once, which was interestingly when we reached the solar farm; we passed there on her very first outing, but from a different direction, and it seems that she recognised the huge metallic structures. Of course, after passing the solar farm we were on the homeward leg, so relaxation went right out of the window. But I'm pleased to say that although it was a nervous ride, she behaved very well and didn't try trotting home, so all the work I've done with her on walking home is paying off.



^^^ not a great photo but mobile phones on horseback aren't always the best idea lol.


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## Bondre

I haven't posted many photos recently so here are a bunch of our foraging walk yesterday. I took Macarena out to look for the sparse edible patches of grass in the nearby peach-tree plantation. Most of the surroundings are totally dry now but there's a bit of grass to be found under the trees. I decided to take off her lead rope and let her wander freely since it's a safe area.



Macarena knows I have a good eye for tasty mouthfuls, so she keeps an eye on me in case I point anything out to her.* Most of the plants are inedible so she has to search for the good stuff by smell,* whereas I can spot the tasty plants from afar with my human binocular vision.



We worked our way gradually to the edge of the trees, and then she started dithering. I suggested crossing the track to the other, much larger, half of the peach plantation, whereas Flamenca and Duna were neighing periodically to remind her that she should go back home.


^^^ _Dithering: do I follow my left ear (mum) or my right ear (friends)?_

She decided to join me.



But she didn't stay for long. She wandered to the other side of the track (where she found some dried-out watermelon rind yum!) and thought some more about what to do.



She hung around nibbling watermelon, and I suggested we return to the grass under the peach trees. But the grass clearly wasn't THAT tasty to be worth going back to, and she decided it was time to go home.



The other two came rushing to the fence for an ecstatic reunion. "You smell good! What've you been eating??"



Macarena had decided to turn in early, so I decided it was Duna's turn to go out and eat. First she played a bit of silly ******* about being caught.


^^^ _I'm gonna RUN _

But she only ran twice round the yard before giving in and waiting sheepishly. 


^^^ _I'm ready to be caught now mum_

Duna is a hungry sort. She eats voraciously (no more waste hay left on the ground since she arrived) and if she finds a plant she likes (couch grass or wild alfalfa) she'll even eat the roots, dusty earth and all. She wasn't very happy about going into the peach plantation - her friends and home territory was out of sight, and that still makes her nervous - so we hung around on the edges. She stuffed in a load of inferior green matter that Macarena hasn't even contemplated eating. 



There is a summer grass here that produces horrible seed heads, all covered with tiny hooks that grab onto your clothes and that you can only remove by picking them out one by one. Understandably the nasty seed heads aren't very palatable, and Macarena only eats it if I strip the seed heads off first. Talk about fussy! :rofl: :rofl: Of course, Duna ate the lot and only left the bare stalks.



I led her further in amongst the trees, and while she was a bit edgy, she made the most of the opportunity to eat. Her ears pointed to home at all times like an infallible compass. 



I hope that she is gradually realising that going out of the yard alone with me isn't so bad after all.


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## Bondre

I gave Duna a short lunging session this evening. It was very pleasing to see how quickly she learnt. 

She started out by just racing around in circles, trot and canter, legs everywhere and snorting hard. My first goal was to get her to walk around in a relaxed fashion, which we achieved after a couple of minutes of crazy horse, and once I left the lunge whip on the ground. Then we tried the other direction. She started off fast again, slowed to a walk rather sooner, and then tried cutting back and changing direction several times. I corrected her gently a couple of times as I didn't want to hype her up again once she had relaxed, but the gentle corrections didn't work and she repeated her trick. So next time she spun and headed off in the wrong direction at the canter, she got reeled in and stopped fast, then sent out in the right direction in no uncertain terms. I didn't use the whip - no need to and certainly not a good idea with her as she's hypersensitive about it - just upped my energy a bit to match her silly ****** mood. She behaved very nicely after that. Walked with her neck stretched out and relaxed, halted for a scratch and a moment of relaxation, then out again to see if she had understood. 

She managed to walk and trot correctly on cue - trot rather than run - in both directions without getting nervous. This was a huge change to how she started the brief session, so I was very chuffed that she had figured out what I wanted so fast. 

And yesterday we had another good session, also brief. I tried ponying her off Macarena. It was a 90% success which is pretty good for the first attempt. They have matching strides so no problems about having to tug on the lead like with Flamenca. Macarena is very level-headed about ponying another horse and behaved almost perfectly. I have to say she was much more enthusiastic about going out with her friend than when I take her out alone. Duna tried to get ahead on the way back, but after crossing in front of Macarena once she quickly got the idea that I didn't want that, and kept alongside. We came and went in the vicinity of the yard a few times practising turns and it all went very smoothly. So it looks like there's a future for taking them both out together, even when no-one offers to ride with me


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## bsms

That sounds wonderful! I rode Bandit today, but it was probably one of those rides were we went backwards instead of forwards. No riding time tomorrow, so hopefully Friday will be better.


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> I rode Bandit today, but it was probably one of those rides where we went backwards instead of forwards.


Sorry to hear about that! We all have those rides when we go backwards or sideways - sometimes literally lol. As you say in your journal, it's all very well trying to see things from the horse's point of view, but if we let them take ALL the decisions we wouldn't do much more than watch them grazing and sleeping. And while I don't mind watching Macarena graze sometimes, I don't want to do that every time we interact. 

On the whole I think I'm a pushover for her as I include grazing time in many of our rides. She undoubtedly has me well trained as an owner! 

More thoughts later on this - time to start the day, take boys to resistive educational establishments, feed goats and horses, milk goats, etcetc


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## Bondre

So back to the all important question of how to motivate your horse. I think it's relatively easy to keep a horse enthusiastic about going out on the trails in company, but when they often have to go out alone it's harder to keep them keen. Or at least in my experience. 

Macarena has developed the somewhat annoying habit of stopping at key junctures to question whether we're REALLY going to carry on, ie: go further from home, or whether it might be better to turn back now. My response is generally to wait a little, then encourage her to move forwards, and normally she does so. Sometimes I get impatient with her need for these pauses and I ask her to move on not very tactfully. 

Two days ago was one of those days. We were at the entrance to a trail that follows the irrigation channels through the pine forest. A very familiar spot, where we've had the odd disagreement in the past because she's not terribly fond of the irrigation channels (might there be a monster hiding in them??). She stopped at the turnoff into the forest and stood quietly. I waited a bit and asked her, no response. Then I got impatient: I always carry a crop out of habit (but I very rarely use it) and I gave her a medium slap across the butt. Her reaction was more of offended surprise than anything else. As if I had broken the rules of her game. She didn't respond by moving forward however; she went backwards and sideways. We went round in circles. We sidled and pivoted. After she had made her disapproval clear by misbehaving and going everywhere but the place she was meant to go, we finally got back to where we had been before I hit her (both physically and mentally). Then, and only then, did she go forwards along the track in question. 

After reading Reiningcatsanddogs post in bsms' journal, about the possibility of communicating with your horse through your own thoughts at these junctures, I wonder if Macarena is trying to read my thoughts and intentions when she makes these unplanned stops. She is clearly questioning our proposed route. Her proposal is of course always to take the shortest route home. Which brings me back to the question of how to motivate them? How do you make your idea into their idea, so your horse thinks "great, we're going to turn away from home here and leave my boring friends behind in the stable!"? 

The only way I've achieved this so far is to make sure there's something in the outing for her, too. We stop and she eats somewhere away from home. If it could be at the furthest point on our route that would be ideal, but suitable picnic stops are few and far between in summertime so we have to make do with the grass where we find it. 



Here's a photo of her 'stealing' a neighbour's windfall figs during one of these pit-stops. There was an uninviting little path off the track, over a grassy irrigation ditch, which I wanted her to cross. I had to dismount or she would have flatly refused. And fortunately just 10m after crossing the ditch , there was her reward! - a forgotten fig tree with half a bucket of windfalls scattered at its feet. 

I strategically placed a few of the drier and less sticky windfalls in my pocket for later use. Sure enough, when we returned over the ditch to the main track and I mounted, her idea was that we were done for the day and it was time to go home. My idea was to continue further. We had a little think and when she agreed with my idea I gave her a handful of figs. 


^^^_ Contemplating the irrigation sump - is there anyone there?? Beyond are the plum tomato fields recently harvested, littered with green tomatoes and shreds of ploughed-in plastic._ 

We continued further, past the tomato and broccoli fields to a big uncultivated field. The owner has thoughtfully ground up all the stones that formerly covered it (with an enormous gas-guzzling stone grinder) and has left a smooth earth surface absolutely perfect for fast work. We had a great canter - my reward lol, and I think she enjoyed it too - and back home. I'm going to have to make the most of those fields before they plant them all up with broccoli. The surface is almost race track quality which is way superior to the typical stony earth here. 

Of course, when we go out with Flamenca, or Duna, everything is so much easier. No need for motivational pit-stops. But curiously, I find that our true relationship is being forged in our solo rides. Riding with someone else is easier and is fun, but there's not quite the same communication happening. Perhaps because neither of us is quite so centred on the other. I am often talking with my companion, and Macarena is concentrating on not getting too close to Flamenca. 

Perhaps with Duna things will be different as they get on better, and in fact Macarena has maintained her number two position in the hierarchy so no worries that Duna might suddenly bite her. Flamenca would never show her aggression when being ridden either, but Macarena is always on her guard just in case. So far we've only ridden Macarena and Duna once together since Macarena has been sore-hoofed, but now she is improving and I'm using Flamenca's boots for riding her, so maybe today we'll get them out together.


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## bsms

Bondre said:


> So back to the all important question of how to motivate your horse. I think it's relatively easy to keep a horse enthusiastic about going out on the trails in company, but when they often have to go out alone it's harder to keep them keen. Or at least in my experience...
> 
> ...Of course, when we go out with Flamenca, or Duna, everything is so much easier. No need for motivational pit-stops. But curiously, I find that our true relationship is being forged in our solo rides. Riding with someone else is easier and is fun, but there's not quite the same communication happening...


I find the same thing. Going out in company, motivation is much easier. Bandit seems to believe it is his job to bring the herd through safely, and I help him do his job. My input, as he learns to trust me, makes his job easier. Motivation.

Solo...he lacks the motivation of keeping the others safe, so I think he then questions why we are out there at all.

I put this now on my journal because I want to be able to find it, but I wrote it while thinking about this thread and the Clinton Anderson thread:



bsms said:


> Ray Hunt quotes
> 
> "Your horse learns he can do anything you want him to do and he's glad to do it; he's ready to do it. You've set it up for him. You've never discouraged him, you've never belittled him, you've really bragged on him and his good qualities. When he did something wrong, you didn't make a big thing of it. You went along with him there, too, and showed him that wasn't too good a thing to do - yet you didn't criticize him or hammer on him. So, as time goes on from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year, I'll grant you that you can build a friendship and something that is unbelievable." - page 38
> 
> "But this other way, there's never a doubt; when you ask him to do something, it's not a kidding sort or joking sort of thing. You ask him to do something, he knows you mean it and that there is a reason why you ask him. So he does it because he is your friend and you're his friend and you have taught him this....You have let him learn it because you've gone with him when he was discouraged, disappointed, worried, and bothered. You've accepted it and you've shown him a softer way." - page 39
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I put it differently, borrowing heavily from Tom Roberts and the exchanges on the forum with SueC, gottatrot, Bondre, and others.
> 
> I think it is both simpler and more accurate to say you want to teach a horse to use good judgment, and good judgment cannot be learned unless bad judgment sometimes happens. So you give the horse choices - real choices - in settings where bad judgment won't do too much harm, and let the experience teach him better judgment.
> 
> *You also teach the horse trust by being trustworthy*. When the horse doubts your judgment, you take the time to show him you were right, until the horse starts to think, "_He's been right 273 out of 275 times, so why not trust what he says on situation #276?_"
> 
> But it is NOT "because he is your friend and you're his friend". That is bonding nonsense. I say that because Mia REALLY liked me, but that didn't mean she trusted my judgment and it didn't mean she understood the cues I used or why I used them. A horse will be more confident under a dominant but fair and trustworthy person than under a friend they like but don't understand or do not trust. Training - creating a habit of obedience - will create a more reliable horse than being wonderful friends. And when the reliable horse sees that humans consistently ask him to do things he CAN do, and do safely, then he will learn to trust humans. Not just "Rider A".
> 
> I think Harry Whitney said something to the effect that sometimes a horse needs to do something in order to learn he CAN so something. That is why a strong & dominant rider can often get better results than an understanding rider who doesn't ask much - because the more dominant rider pushes the horse into situations that the horse doesn't believe he can do. And then he does it. Successfully. And then the dominant rider is proven correct, and the horse learns confidence in himself and trust in the rider.
> 
> That doesn't mean friendship is wrong, but the best way to get a horse's friendship is to demonstrate to the horse that you are worth having as a friend. And that is done, not in the round pen, but outside. Riding. And sometimes pushing the horse, and sometimes getting off the horse and demonstrating, and sometimes - in the case of a horse who has learned to dominate humans - by showing the horse that a human can be one tough hombre who cannot be ignored.
> 
> It is like being a parent. Sometimes it takes toughness and taking charge to raise a child until the child is ready to handle more difficult things. And sometimes it takes understanding. But if a parent focuses on being his child's friend, his child is screwed. The child can have friends, and love the parents, but the parents cannot FOCUS on being friends. That isn't enough to raise a child - or to train a horse!
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------
> 
> "How do you get a horse to go away from the barn?
> 
> You wouldn't try to take him away from the barn; you'd just make it difficult for him to hang around there. You would make it difficult by not letting his feet stop - just keep his feet moving...You've made the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy." - page 52
> 
> This is just pressure and release. The rider isn't hitting the horse with a whip, but he is applying pressure by making the horse work harder. He is giving the horse, ultimately, a 3 way choice: 1) go where I want, 2) work hard, 3) be punished for not moving. I consider that nagging. The equivalent of saying, "_If you don't move when I make a kiss sound, I'll squeeze lightly. If that doesn't work, I'll nudge you with my heel, and if that doesn't work, I'll keep nudging you with my heel until you ignore me totally!_"
> 
> I would prefer a sharper correction. If the horse is NOT AFRAID and understands what is being asked, but doesn't feel like it, then one softens the horse to a cue by going from kissing sound to light squeeze to sharp smack - because DARN IT! You KNOW what is being asked!
> 
> A horse cannot learn confidence in himself and in his rider's judgment unless he goes places that tests both horse and rider - and most horses will be reluctant to try that test. The rider needs judgment and not ask too much of the horse too soon - which was a problem I often had with Mia. Her fears were deeper than I understood. But a horse who never has to handle a challenge will never learn to handle it.
> 
> In an ideal situation, you do NOT "make the wrong thing harder". If the horse exercises bad judgment, then the result of the bad judgment should be the "harder". Ideally, you've supplied a learning exercise where failing creates its own punishment. Then you just help the horse move on.
> 
> But ideal doesn't describe the world where I live. So yes, sometimes I have to be the one who provides the negative result. But what Ray Hunt is describing is just another form of negative result, and I think a horse will learn better if the negative result is both sharper (more memorable) and more immediate. In this example, Ray Hunt IS punishing the horse. But he is doing it in a mushy way that the horse may not connect with the undesirable behavior.
> 
> Of course, Ray Hunt is famous and spent decades with hundreds of horses, and I've got 8 years mostly riding 2. And his book arrived yesterday and I haven't read it all, and I may be misunderstanding him.


That doesn't mean whipping a horse forward. Not normally. Maybe sometimes. If I used a whip on Mia's rump, she would fly backwards. And get upset. In fact:

"_Her reaction was more of offended surprise than anything else. As if I had broken the rules of her game. She didn't respond by moving forward however; she went backwards and sideways. We went round in circles. We sidled and pivoted. After she had made her disapproval clear by misbehaving and going everywhere but the place she was meant to go, we finally got back to where we had been before I hit her (both physically and mentally)._"

However, if I hit MY LEG with a whip, she'd wake up and work harder at going forward.

If I smack Cowboy with a whip, he'll buck. Done it. If I hit MY LEG with a whip, he'll give a hop and then pay attention.

I haven't tried a whip or crop with Bandit. My guess is he'd buck and fight, and then I'm not getting anything useful out of my action. My horses are followers of Tom Roberts: "This will profit you. This will profit you not." If I smacked Bandit hard, he might become a follower of Clinton Anderson instead - "_Act like you are on crack! Act like you want to KILL!_"

*I think gotttrot compared it to a science experiment - we try things, and observe what happens, then modify our theory based on the results we get with that horse in that situation.*

On the whole, I think my horses are sufficiently my friends (except Trooper) that if I push too hard and they react badly, I can back down and they will just go, "_Good judgment, Bob. Now that you have stopped being stupid, what next?_" Backing down, when I am in the wrong, is the right thing. It doesn't make the horse dominant over me. Even Harry Chamberlin, who used a VERY dominate approach, wrote that a good rider who pushes his horse too far needs to use the good judgment to back down! (Although, and being retired military I appreciate this, he said it was "_Bad for discipline_"...)

Then, when "_we finally [get] back to where we had been before I hit her (both physically and mentally)_", we try something different.

I had a toenail removed yesterday, and may or may not ride Bandit today. If I do, it will be solo. And if I do...maybe I'll use good judgment with him. Or maybe not. But the friendship and trust I've built up will prevent any bad judgment I show today from ruining either of us.


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## knightrider

Bondre, I really liked your description: 

Then I got impatient: I always carry a crop out of habit (but I very rarely use it) and I gave her a medium slap across the butt. Her reaction was more of offended surprise than anything else. As if I had broken the rules of her game. She didn't respond by moving forward however; she went backwards and sideways. We went round in circles. We sidled and pivoted. After she had made her disapproval clear by misbehaving and going everywhere but the place she was meant to go, we finally got back to where we had been before I hit her (both physically and mentally). Then, and only then, did she go forwards along the track in question. 

My Paso Fino mare Isabeau plays this game too. She sometimes does not respond by moving forward (sometimes she gives up and does just fine). She goes backwards, sideways, and circles. If I "move her feet" by asking her to continue circling, she just gets more and more agitated, starts rearing, and if I persist with the circles, she rears up and falls over with me. Of course, I don't want that. She appears to lose her mind, not know what she is doing, she is just so upset. I found, with her, the secret is dismounting and leading her a little way. I only have to do this about once every 5 solo rides, but at times I do have to. Perhaps if I persisted with the circles, rearing, and falling, I'd get her trained faster, but I REALLY don't like her falling on me. Most of the solo rides, when she stops and wants to take a trail towards home, I holler at her, bang her sides, smack her if I have something to smack her with, and she goes along just fine. As Gottatrot says, each horse is different, and what works for one horse might not work at all for another horse. Not only do different things work for different horses, but different things work differently for the SAME horse on different rides! She is SO right!


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## Bondre

Here are some photos of Duna from our last ride, when my husband cane and took pics. Unfortunately she was quite hyped up (I hadn't ridden her for a few days and it was late) so although it was fun for me, it didn't help convince him that she's beginner-safe yet.

We started with some fairly level-headed trot:


She's starting to get the idea of the zilco flower hackamore and is moving quite nicely. Or nicely in my books. Most people round here prefer the arched neck evading the contact look and would say that she went better in the curb bit. 


Then disaster struck! I unthinkingly asked her to trot over a large strip of agricultural plastic lying innocently on the ground. Fortunately for our safety, Duna spotted it just in time and slammed the emergency brakes on. That was close! It would have grabbed her legs with its evil tentacles for sure:


After that we went for a canter along the edge of the broccoli field. She spotted some more ground-dwelling monsters which she obligingly jumped over at the start. 


And finally she settled into her stride:


Walking back home was a hard task for her but she almost did it nicely. See her happy face 'didn't I do well mum?! Let's do it again!' and my blurry face making soothing 'let's walk' noises. 


Don't you just love her enthusiastic face!


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## PoptartShop

Whew! Glad you stayed on & rode that one out LOL!
She is so cute! Looks like a powerful lady!


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## egrogan

What a fabulous set of pictures @Bondre. 

I_ love _the slamming-on-the-brakes photo- great timing on your husband's part. 

This horse is just so amazingly gorgeous. Glad her personality seems to be matching her good looks.

Do you think she will get to the point where you want your husband on her?


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## Bondre

Thanks @egrogan! 

The emergency stop photo is so funny - I love how she's dropped her head so she can keep her steely gaze fixed on the offending item. My husband was videoing us, luckily, or I doubt he'd have got such a shot with just a smartphone. 

The question is more whether he will want to get back on her again. He tried her again two weeks ago but she picks up on his own tension and plays up for him. She just wouldn't walk home and kept jigging, and of course if he tries to hold her back too firmly then she gets more nervous and things go pear-shaped. She needs a quiet and confident rider which my husband isn't, and he needs a quiet and confident horse which Duna isn't. 

She is indeed a lovely horse, and I feel very lucky to have the use of her meantime. Although the down side is I have less time for Macarena. I've tried ponying them together again and they go very nicely, so at least like that I can exercise them both together. Duna matches Macarena'a pace perfectly at walk and trot, although she crowds Macarena a bit at times out of nervousness. Here's a photo of them greeting Flamenca on our return that day. 



We've decided to put Duna up for sale. She's far too nice a horse to be sitting around doing nothing, and I'm sure that with time and effort (which I don't have) she could be a great endurance or even low-level event horse. I'm going to advertise her in the UK too as I hope there might be more interest - or interest from better buyers - than over here. At least we're in no hurry to sell so we can hold out for a good place for her.


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## bsms

Been there, done that! Of course, I cheated and had an Australian saddle to help keep me from sliding off the front!

From a western perspective - not sure it would work with English style saddles - that is why the old cowboys rode like this:










If the horse hits a hole, or (I suppose) if they had found a plastic something out in 1885 Texas, then the stop would just drive the cowboy deeper into the saddle and deeper into the stirrups.

I learned to ride by riding a horse who did that sort of thing all the time, but I had help from my Australian saddle in staying on. When Bandit gets nervous, I still often take hold of the horn with one hand. That makes it much easier to keep my shoulders over the horse's back, and allows me to push back to keep from slamming forward, or pull to keep from being slammed back.

I'd swear my horses are willing to cut cattle even when there are no cattle within miles...:shrug:...and I'll be darned if I know how y'all with English saddles stay one when they do!










Y'all need to do something about those plastic cows! :rofl:


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## Bondre

Slow-motion spook:

_Possible hazard spotted in near proximity: _


_Confirmed dangerous object _


_Evasive action taken_


_Continuing evasive action _


_Manoeuvre approaching completion _


_Success! What was all the fuss about anyway?_


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## carshon

Those pics are amazing! Loved the commentary!


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## gottatrot

So funny and great riding! I like all the expressions and the commentary. 

It sounds like you are doing the right thing to pass on Duna. She will make someone a great horse, and probably would make you a great horse if you didn't already have Macarena. But I doubt she will make a great horse for your husband anytime soon, if ever.

What a beautiful horse Duna is, and I love to see her being ridden by such a good and understanding rider. I personally think she looks much better using her body the way you ride her rather than having someone trying to crank her neck over and putting her on the forehand. However she turns out in the future, I can see her body would have developed very nicely and she would have become a strong and accomplished and confident horse with you riding her over a period of time.

My favorite picture is the one with her jumping over the monster. I imagine she landed very stiffly and also lurched you forward with a lot of force on some of those spooks and stops. As BSMS pointed out, this horse at this stage is not one you'd want to ride with your lower leg too far back, unless you wanted to flip forward and break your nose on the horse's neck or shoot off over the horse's head.


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## bsms

I may have learned riding on a horse who shares some of Duna's personality, but even 17 months with Bandit haven't erased some of the defensive bad habits I built. It is an interesting question: Would I be a better rider, or worse, if I had learned on another horse? My guess is worse. Not in terms of position or balance. I think I would have been so comfortable with the "Just do it!" training approach used locally and taught in many books that I would have never considered the horse as anything other than a servant.

On a different thread, a poster said their horse had the entire day to eat and be lazy, but when this person came to ride, '_This is MY time, and doing what I want is the horse's JOB!'_ - not an exact quote, but close. And I've heard it many times on HF. I now consider it to be an incredibly sad statement on human nature and how we treat horses - but I shared it!

I have a ton of books, and so many of them share that approach.

The YouTube flip side seems to be the Parelli-ish 'Your horse will do what you want if you are just nice and play games with her' - and that didn't work either! Without a horse like Mia, I would never have learned how to approach Bandit. And I'll trade the bad habits I acquired in exchange for discovering '_We will ride together or not at all_'...

Of course, I didn't have anyone else in the area to let me know it was possible to ride any differently. So it is something of a false dilemma, based on where I live and where I grew up. And the beauty of HF - when it happens - is meeting people who also believe in "Let us ride together" versus "I will ride you"!


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## Bondre

Thanks gottatrot! I do hope I manage to increase her confidence. So far I've been using 'traditional' R- methods to achieve this ie: make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard, but after an initial improvement we seem to have hit a hard place. So I decided to change tack, and have started using R+ ie: make the right thing desirable and the wrong thing neutral. 

I've done a couple of clicker sessions to introduce her to the concept and she learnt how to target and follow. She puts her head on one side very cutely while waiting for the treat to appear:


Yesterday I took her outside the yard and tried her following at liberty. She started off fine and after a few tos and fros she realised she was free to go where she wanted. So she climbed on the manure heap and had a good sniff.


Then she rejoined me (after a bit of instigation) and we did some more. Even managed a trot following me at liberty. The trot got Macarena and Flamenca stirred up on the other side of the fence, so then Duna rushed over to see what they were doing. I've they had all settled down and the other two were back in the 'spectators' corner' then she relaxed again and came back to me. 

So it seems for the moment, me plus treats is preferable to friends _as long as _ the friends are visible and watching quietly. Invisible or excited friends rate way over treats in her order of priorities.


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> Would I be a better rider, or worse, if I had learned on another horse? My guess is worse. Not in terms of position or balance. I think I would have been so comfortable with the "Just do it!" training approach used locally and taught in many books that I would have never considered the horse as anything other than a servant.


It's very true that the more challenging horses are the ones that make us really learn. If you had bought an obedient (and rather boring!) first horse, then you wouldn't have needed to advance beyond the 'just do it' school of belief. You might well have done anyway, but not out of necessity. 

My first two years with Macarena were relatively uneventful, especially considering that she was an unbacked youngster when I bought her and I was totally inexperienced with young horses. But we did well together despite my 'just do it' attitude (I have to admit it, that's more or less how I thought, because that's how I was taught.) Until we reached the point when she started to question 'WHY', and 'because I say so' wasn't a good enough answer. It never is a good enough answer is it? - not for horses or children or any living being, and yet so many people resort to that in their ignorance and arrogance.

I personally am delighted and relieved that Macarena began to question me, as it obliged me to change my ideas, embrace a much more horse-centred way of doing things, and work towards doing things together with her. 

This is standing me in good stead now with Duna, who I believe has a similar outlook to Bandit in some ways. She is used to submitting, though I doubt she liked that way of doing things; she hasn't exploded on me (yet) probably because I'm not forcing her to do so. I wonder if some of her nervousness is due to the lack of 'just do it' on my part. I suspect she is accustomed to a strong rider and being bossed around, and maybe now she misses the security of not having to think. But at the same time I believe she's highly intelligent, not the sort of horse who knuckles down easily, so I really wonder just what sort of a relation she had with her previous owner. 



bsms said:


> Of course, I didn't have anyone else in the area to let me know it was possible to ride any differently. So it is something of a false dilemma, based on where I live and where I grew up. And the beauty of HF - when it happens - is meeting people who also believe in "Let us ride together" versus "I will ride you"!


I have to give you your due, bsms, for sticking with Mia. You must be really pig-headed (in the best way) for not giving up on riding when you had such a challenging first horse and such a complete lack of backup. And when such a lot of the expert advice you received was totally inadequate for your situation and your horse. 

Here's to everyone who believes in riding together with their horse rather than merely on top.

:cheers:


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## Bondre

There is a great on-going discussion in Hondo's "aversive reflex" thread. I like dropping in there to see what everyone's taking about, although I haven't contributed much. It's like a favourite café, where you know you'll always find someone interesting to talk to. 

The subject got onto barn sour horses, which I always find interesting, maybe since I've had so many! Duna is turning out to be quite green and unsure about the world outside her safe area, so I've got more of a job on my hands than I had expected getting her confident. 

Smilie made some good observations about her on the other thread which I'm going to repost here, as I'm sure she hit the nail on the head. 


Smilie said:


> Also, if he only rode her (Duna) on that acreage (her previous farm), it also could have become a 'comfort zone'.
> Another example would be, a green show horse, riding great in the home arena, even around that property, but being very nervous taken to those first shows, until that horse becomes ;show seasoned'
> I guess, without having actually tried to ride her off that property, before buying her, and by herself, you never really had a true indication as to how de sensitized' she was, to riding with confidence in unfamiliar surroundings
> She truly might be fairly green, far as being relaxed, riding out anywhere, trusting her rider. Good luck in getting her there!


Thanks to the discussion I thought some more about ways of going about unsouring her. I already started clicker training with her two weeks ago, which she is enthusiastic about, and she has learnt to follow, still and turn at liberty. Then we worked on going forward under saddle, and turning and flexing. It's amazing how resistant she was to turning with a direct rein. I think she has acquired the habit of resisting the bit and largely ignoring rein cues (which would be why she was ridden in a curb plus serreta). Now that she's bitless and I'm riding with minimal contact, she's having to rethink all those bad habits as there's not much to resist. Shame on me, I've only just realised that maybe she doesn't really understand simple stuff like direct reining, and have hastened to teach her with the clicker. 

As usual, I was presenting her with too-big challenges, thinking that apparently simple stuff like riding 200m away from the stables at the trot and returning at the walk would be easy for her. Not so. So I stepped progressively backwards with her, figuratively, and I think that now I'm on her same level and that we can start to make progress. 

Yesterday we did easy peasy circles and figure-eights at the walk right outside the yard gate. Lots of positive reinforcement. I didn't ask her to do much, but I wanted her to do it WELL - no spontaneous shoulder-ins trying to cut towards the gate, or shoulder-outs on the homeward side of the circle either. No abrupt stops when we pass the gate, nor any uncalled-for speeding up on the opposite side. After a few nice circles, which I progressively bulged away from the gate until she started to get bug-eyed nervous, we did a lap around the corral (and found some really scary stuff piled up behind ;-) ) and then because she had been so good I called it a day. 

Keeping sessions short and sweet is my new philosophy. Typical aversive training methods for barn sour horses centre around making the barn area disagreeable for them so they won't want to hurry home. A bizarre practice when you stop to consider it. It's clear that any horse's safe area where he/she wants to be is their home territory, be it a stable, dry lot, pasture, 100 acre field.... And surely we want them to feel comfortable there. So why go to such lengths to make them feel uncomfortable just outside their safe area, like Clinton Anderson doing rollbacks all along the yard fence? And in any case our aim shouldn't be to make home unpleasant enough for them to prefer working than to be hanging out and enjoying free time. I find that frankly sinister - "you VILL enjoy VORKING!!" :rofl: :rofl: At best, we will make them confused - inside is good, but outside is bad. 

In any case I've been thinking about how best to reward Duna's efforts, (rather than punishing or trying to suffocate her natural desire to be home) and I realised that the best reward for a barn sour horse is stopping and being put away. No matter how delicious the treats, nothing can compete with that desire to be in her safe place with her friends. So I decided - ask for little, and when she does it well, STOP! Don't ask for repetitions ad infinitum. Don't fall into the trap of perfecting an exercise that she's already done well - a horse doesn't understand that. If she's done it well, give her the reward that she understands, which is to finish work. And gradually, ever so gradually, ask a tiny bit more each time. 

And if that's me trying to trick her into being willing, well, so be it. At least I'm not trying to browbeat her - I prefer willing to submissive, and if compliance is limited to 10 minutes or 20 yards for the moment, I'll start within those limits.


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## bsms

"_As usual, I was presenting her with too-big challenges, thinking that apparently simple stuff like riding 200m away from the stables at the trot and returning at the walk would be easy for her. Not so. So I stepped progressively backwards with her, figuratively, and I think that now I'm on her same level and that we can start to make progress_." - @*Bondre* 

That is something I still struggle with riding Bandit. He's getting very good riding out with another horse - far better than he used to, even a few months ago. _I want to push him to go out alone more_. But maybe I ought to focus more on getting him very solid with other horses, so riding with humans is just something pleasant and relaxing, rather than tensing him up on days when my wife is not available to ride. A small bite, then chew well before trying more...

"_Also, if he only rode her (Duna) on that acreage (her previous farm), it also could have become a 'comfort zone'. Another example would be, a green show horse, riding great in the home arena, even around that property, but being very nervous taken to those first shows, until that horse becomes ;show seasoned'

I guess, without having actually tried to ride her off that property, before buying her, and by herself, you never really had a true indication as to how de sensitized' she was, to riding with confidence in unfamiliar surroundings. *She truly might be fairly green, far as being relaxed, riding out anywhere, trusting her rider*. Good luck in getting her there!_" - @*Smilie* , boldface added by me.

That is an excellent point. Most of Bandit's riding comes in the human neighborhood between us and the desert just west of us. That desert is just a section of land, 1/2 mile by a mile, with lots of vegetation, cactus, 3 horse-sized washes, lots of steep (but not high) slopes, very uneven footing, etc. It is where we ride the large majority of time because it is close and there is a LOT one can do in an hour. There is more desert adjoining it, going on for 50 miles and including a 9,000' mountain - but no water, and I wouldn't enjoy riding for 12 hours anyways, even on a horse who was good at it. 

There are still places too tough for me to trust Bandit climbing out of the wash or going into it. There are places where any horse would have trouble with footing. There is a lot of cactus to pick our way between, including a lot of places where it becomes unpassable and the only answer is to back up and try again elsewhere. Yet in a way, it IS an arena...a 300+ acre arena:








​ 
















​ 
I think I'm very lucky, to have a place 5 minutes of riding from me where Bandit can be seriously challenged with his footing and balance, and where both of us can focus on trusting each other as we zig-zag between cactus. But I need to remember it is a 300 acre "arena", and Bandit does find it challenging to go outside that familiar area.

"_So I decided - ask for little, and when she does it well, STOP! Don't ask for repetitions ad infinitum. Don't fall into the trap of perfecting an exercise that she's already done well.._." - @*Bondre* 

This is from Tom Roberts. I think you might appreciate it (emphasis mine):

---------------------------------------------------------------

End of Lesson

End of Lesson is the best, most effective and most convenient of all rewards and encouragements.

What End of Lesson means:

When teaching a horse almost anything at all – no matter what it is, “End of Lesson” means a pause, a break, a rest for a while – or even, on some occasions, completely finishing the work for the day at the moment the horse has made or is making progress in a lesson.

*At the very instant of the action that constitutes progress, the teacher ends the lesson – for a while, at least.*

Ending a lesson constitutes a reward, an encouragement, an incentive to the horse to try to follow and understand what is being taught to him...

...Because it is easy for the horse to understand, it keeps him calm and so leads to the greatest progress. When the horse is calm, the most permanent impressions are made on his mind.

End-of-Lesson is of equal value to the trainer. It keeps him looking for and recognizing progress as the horse tries first one thing and then another. *He looks for progress to encourage – rather than “stupidity” to punish.*" - Tom Roberts, "Horse Control - The Young Horse"


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## egrogan

Nice to hear your Duna update. Any interested buyers materializing?

I like your plan of slow and steady, with increasing challenge. This is my gameplan for Izzy once we get to our new barn. I have learned over the years that she will convince herself she's scared the first time she sees something new, but the next time she sees it, it's "been there, done that, not worried." I expect to start exploring a little bit at a time- mixing in time in the arenas with strolling around the farm. Depending on her comfort level with that, we'll head out to ramble the roads. I have to admit, I'm going to have to keep my enthusiasm in check- I discovered yesterday that there are dedicated horse trails in the largest state park in the state connecting up to the back roads near my new barn. I am itching to get out there- but am going to be reasonable, because to be honest, I'm not a brave enough rider to move too fast if Izzy is getting worked up.


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> End of Lesson is the best, most effective and most convenient of all rewards and encouragements.
> 
> What End of Lesson means:
> 
> When teaching a horse almost anything at all – no matter what it is, “End of Lesson” means a pause, a break, a rest for a while – or even, on some occasions, completely finishing the work for the day at the moment the horse has made or is making progress in a lesson.
> 
> *At the very instant of the action that constitutes progress, the teacher ends the lesson – for a while, at least.*


YES!! Thank you for that quote. This is exactly what I've just come to realise. It seems so obvious that I don't know why it hasn't clicked before, but well, better late than never I guess. 

I've read loads of times about ending the lesson on a good note, but hadn't quite appreciated that this means that if you achieve that good note after only five or ten minutes, then you only ride for five or ten minutes. You don't think, "oh, can't stop yet, lessons last 45 minutes (like at school) so now we will go on to the next subject to fill in time". 

So for the moment it looks like I need to have repeated brief sessions with Duna in order to progress. At last she's starting to enjoy our activities. When I arrive all three come rushing to the gate and jostle for attention. I hate having to leave two of them behind! 

Here are some photos of the pretty girl herself. She has a very expressive face. And @Egrogan ; no interested buyers yet. But you couldn't say that I'm advertising her aggressively ;-) as she still needs a fair amount of work for me to feel comfortable sending her off anywhere. 





And some of Macarena from our last ride. She has come on amazingly in the past month and is back to being a mostly unflappable companion on the trails. She too responds very well to positive reinforcement, and it's a very useful incentive at delicate moments to give her the confidence and reassurance to carry on. I have also discovered that the click sound is a very good zero rein stop :rofl: One day I asked her to cross one of the ground-level concrete irrigation channels. Not a big deal as it only takes a normal stride and you're over, but she's not fond of them in the least. She has crossed and then we had to sidestep top avoid some low-hanging pine branches, and she was just thinking of getting nervous and ratty when I clicked her for having crossed the channel so well. Instant attentive listening motionless horse - except for her head which was already turning to me looking for the treat. 

Here we are hanging out near the hated irrigation sluices. They don't look very awful but they've always been a personal bugbear of hers. But.... the leakage promotes grass growth, and right now grass is still at a premium, so she persuaded herself to get closer and closer. 


In fact she was positively reinforcing herself with every step she took.


And one of our route home through the lettuce fields just because I love that view - the way the green of the lettuces is bordered by the dark pine forest - and because Macarena wants you all to see her new hair style.


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## gottatrot

I agree that great progress comes from well timed rewards and ending the lesson. I've seen great progress come from a five minute lesson where the horse clearly did what I wanted and I gave an immediate reward. 

The subject of being "barn sour" or reluctant to leave on their own is an interesting one for me too. I've seen horses that run the gamut. With one horse, you take them out alone and they don't die, and this is enough for them to be confident heading out with a rider just about anywhere forever after. 

Another horse needs to learn the environment is safe with another horse present. Some horses learn one environment very well but can't translate it to anywhere else. Each new place they go must be learned again. 

It reminds me of a group of horses we rode for awhile. We took them to a couple of horse shows, trailered them to a few different trail areas, the beach, took them on organized rides in various parts of the state. Woods, jumping, open areas, roads, traffic. Then we took them to a small, dark covered arena near our barn one day and all of them were terrified, spooky and it was all we could do to ride them around in there. Silly as it was, this was the most challenging environment for the horses.


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## Bondre

This week I've had a couple of nice relaxing rides on Macarena and some not-so-relaxing but I hope useful rides on Duna. I just love Macarena now she is back to her unflappable self. Yesterday I took her when I went for the evening sack of horse lettuces. We mosied up the road bareback in a halter, she ate lettuce remains while I filled the sack, and then we took the sack back for her to share it with the others. She was funny when I got on her with the sack in my hand - she knows it's the lettuce sack and she kept trying to back up to see into it, and then every time it rustled she stopped and looked round in case any food was on offer. 

Duna continues to be very nervy. I am rather losing hope for reaching her to relax in the near future. I don't see any real improvement in her attitude yet. 

This afternoon I ponied her with Macarena. We did a short circular route through the forest. Macarena scored 10/10 for exemplary behaviour, Duna merely 5/10. She was nervous ALL the way, despite having her friend by her side. As we advance her nerves worsened. She doesn't do anything awful, and is in fact quite easy to pony, but she's just so nervous all the time. As she got more worried she started to crowd Macarena, and this earned her repeated ears back and mock bites warning her to keep a bit of distance. 
At our furthest point we passed an artificial irrigation lake where some ducks were hanging out, and a cormorant took flight noisily. This did alarm Macarena slightly, and we had a good look at the primitive creature in flight, every inch a pterodactyl. Duna went completely bug-eyed with shock and remained like that all the way home. 
I don't know if ponying her is worth the hassle. Macarena puts up with her well, but undoubtedly prefers going out without a nervous presence on the end of a rope. Me too! And yet I don't know what other tactics to try with her. If she's on her own she gets so tense even 100m from the stables that she is no longer listening and feels borderline uncontrollable. The truth is that she doesn't appear to have any bad vices, so at least I don't have to worry about her bucking or rearing - but I don't much like riding a horse that gets so absorbed in her own fear that she almost forgets about her rider.


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## bsms

You might start with simple leading her 100 yards, pausing a while, then coming back. I had to do that with Mia. When I first led her out, she melted down - quivering and sweating - in 100 yards. But of course, I had her for 7 years, and it took months to work up to long walks of a few miles. Only then did we start work on riding.


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## gottatrot

bsms said:


> You might start with simple leading her 100 yards, pausing a while, then coming back. I had to do that with Mia. When I first led her out, she melted down - quivering and sweating - in 100 yards. But of course, I had her for 7 years, and it took months to work up to long walks of a few miles. Only then did we start work on riding.


Amore was the same. Just leading out would blow her mind completely for the first several months I had her. We didn't even get 100 yards, more like 30 feet before she was sproinging around and stepping all over me. Sometimes I thought her eyes would literally pop out of her head and we'd get people coming out to see what that sound was since you could hear her snorts a quarter mile away. 

So it sounds like you're making good progress to me. It's really difficult though if you don't want to keep the horse, it requires so much time and effort that it is a major investment.


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## Bondre

It's good to hear that Duna isn't the only horse that finds the outside world so challenging! I wonder if this is related to how they are brought up? I don't know how Duna has been kept all her life but since turnout is rare in southern Spain I imaging that always stabled with a small (or very small) yard. It sounds a similar situation in Arizona so maybe Mia wasn't very accustomed to open spaces? But from the look of your photos, Gottatrot, horses in your area live in fields so that explanation wouldn't hold true with Amore. 

You're right that it's hard to feel enthusiastic about making a huge investment of time and effort just to get her relaxed enough to be safely rideable. Especially now that the evenings are getting short and horse time is at a premium. But the fact is that if I don't do it, I can't offer her for sale except as a cheap project or a brood mare. And purebred PRE mares are cheap here. So unless we're willing to take a considerable loss on her, I've got to invest the time in her training. She has a good level of basic training, it's just she forgets it all and ignores her rider out of pure nerves. So it's not as if I have to teach her a huge amount apart from relaxation. But that is proving to be quite a challenge in itself.


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## Bondre

I've been taking Duna out for daily walks in hand for over a week now, and I'm pleased to say I can see some definite progress at last. The last three days I rode her rather than leading her. She is more confident when on the lead; when I sat on her she persistently refused to go anywhere at first and it took some patience and persuasion to get her moving. There's a bit of grass around now so that helps to motivate her, as I ride her to somewhere with food, dismount, and let her eat before leading her home. Just like what I went through with Macarena in fact. 



The big success is that when I ride her away from home she is noticeably more relaxed now. Her nostrils aren't flaring, her head is lower, and she's not constantly trying to whip around for home. She likes to stop and take a good look every time she spots anything unusual, or maybe just to take stock of how far we've come (not very far lol). The important thing is to not go so far that she starts getting scared and losing her head, so we are advancing very gradually. 


^^^ very alert Duna ears

Once I dismount she is fine and very relaxed. When something scares her she puts her head close to my chest or touches me with her nose as if she's making sure there's no need to panic. Very sweet! One day she managed to stand on the lead rope and frighten herself, and suddenly was flying backwards. But she quickly stopped and came to me, so I scratched her forehead and told her she's daft. Another day I was leading her home alongside the cabbage field when she suddenly spooked, did a 180 spin around me on the end of the lead, and then ran backwards. But she came to a stop after a couple of steps and lowered her head to my chest in apology. The cause of the massive spook? My dog who emerged from between the cabbages behind us without warning. I don't knew how many times Astrid has made Macarena spook like this, and now Duna too! She admittedly does have a rather wolfish appearance. 


^^^ Macarena finding motivation in the lettuce fields (all these are reject lettuces)

Macarena is being a star, and we are going over bits of trail that she put on a blacklist back when she got balky. There are a few sections where she got scared (for whatever reason) that I have been avoiding until I was confident we could transit them without an argument, so it's pleasing to be accessing these tracks and including them in our habitual itineraries again. 


^^^ relaxed Macarena ears

In yard news, Duna has upset the established pecking order. Now each of the three has a different boss, so we effectively have three bosses depending on who you're talking to. Flamenca remains Macarena's boss, Macarena is Duna's boss and Duna is Flamenca's boss. They are a complicated threesome! Macarena and Duna have made good friends and will share food without much problem. Poor Flamenca is getting a bit left out now - her fault for being so bossy. 


^^^ sharing a bucket while I close the gate behind me

There is absolutely zero interest in Duna - no responses to the ads. I posted about her nervous problems in a UK PRE group on Facebook, and apart from abundant good advice, I received some feedback on her bloodlines. Apparently she is quite well-bred with old traditional Jerez bloodlines, despite her lightweight non-cresty physique. I wouldn't mind keeping her if we can't sell her! Especially if/once we manage to work through her nervousness. She is quite attached to me by now and always comes running to the gate with Macarena when I arrive. I just have to help her find her confidence and she'll be great.


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## egrogan

So much good news in your update @Bondre! Maybe you will be a three horse family after all 

I am following the same exact gradual approach with Izzy as we explore our new home. I think it works really well for horses who are inherently level headed but need some confident support for interacting with unfamiliar territory.


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## bsms

"She likes to stop and take a good look every time she spots anything unusual, or maybe just to take stock of how far we've come (not very far lol). The important thing is to _not go so far that she starts getting scared and losing her head, so we are advancing very gradually_." - @*Bondre* 

Are you sure she doesn't share Bandit's sire?








​ 
Sure sounds like a sister of Bandit's! I was making progress with Bandit, but we've regressed from lack of practice. Slowwwww progress. We've been getting March winds in November. I need to at least WALK Bandit out, even if the winds are 30+ mph.

BTW - your horses are *GORGEOUS!*

"_inherently level headed but need some confident support for interacting with unfamiliar territory_" - @egrogan

Bandit might be related to Izzy, too! Maybe his sire got around more than anyone knew...:rofl:


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## gottatrot

Bondre said:


> Now each of the three has a different boss, so we effectively have three bosses depending on who you're talking to. Flamenca remains Macarena's boss, Macarena is Duna's boss and Duna is Flamenca's boss. They are a complicated threesome!


This makes me laugh! It sounds like you are making good progress with Duna and Macarena both. Nothing wrong with having two riding horses. It can make life interesting to go out for different type rides on different horses.


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## Bondre

bsms said:


> Are you sure she doesn't share Bandit's sire? Sure sounds like a sister of Bandit's!..... Maybe his sire got around more than anyone knew...


I certainly wouldn't mind if any of them were Bandit's half-sisters - that grey Arab is a real stunner! I sure hope he doesn't turn up round here though, or I might be tempted to put one of them in foal to him - and I need a fourth horse like a hole in the head. 



bsms said:


> I was making progress with Bandit, but we've regressed from lack of practice. Slowwwww progress. We've been getting March winds in November. I need to at least WALK Bandit out, even if the winds are 30+ mph.


It really sucks when you have made good progress and then things conspire against you riding regularly and your horse seems to forget it all. Sorry to hear that you haven't been able to ride much, and that your wife's taking a break from the saddle. 

My best results with Duna have been when I take her on daily walks. If we have a day or two off she is more nervous again the first day back. I'm really starting to wonder just where she's left her brain? There were two days when she definitely brought it with her on our ride..... but there have been many more when her brain has been conspicuous by its absence. 



bsms said:


> BTW - your horses are *GORGEOUS!*


Thank you!! You know just how to make a fellow horse owner happy! (Bear in mind I don't post the ugly photos of them though).

After reading gottatrot's interesting post on fear and confidence in her journal, I started thinking that the same is true of horses. Just as humans can be confident in a given situation, even if they're in danger, just because they don't perceive that danger, I believe horses can feel the same. And once they perceive that danger, well, we all know what happens then. 

When I bought Macarena she was three and a half, hadn't been backed or trained much, and certainly wasn't accustomed to being led out and about. And yet within two months I was riding her out on trails and she gave me virtually no problems at all. The first time I went into the forest with her I just did it, I knew she could handle it, and she did. We walked, trotted and even had a little canter (yes, I was cantering my not yet 4yo - I didn't know much about horse biomechanics then). And while this may - or may not - be a testament to her trust in me, I think above all it's because she was a fairly blank slate. She hadn't suffered any nasty scares 'out there' so she perceived her surroundings as largely harmless and she was confident and relaxed. 

In comparison Duna has seen plenty of the wide world. Bandit too. He must have seen a LOT of world if he did endurance races. Both horses haven't liked all of what they've seen and experienced. But their riders taught them to shut up and get on with it, which they presumably did manage to do - up to a point. 

But now they have both changed homes and find themselves with a different sort of rider. Their rider listens to them and offers alternatives rather than saying 'you MUST!' So their first heady and delighted reaction is to express all their bottled-up angst. To refuse to do things. To make themselves heard. This is where Duna is at now. 

Once they understand that the rules are different here - but there ARE still rules - then they start to respond as a team member rather than a repressed servant. 

Bandit is much further along this learning curve than Duna. I hope I get her through the heady 'I'm free and I'm gonna do as I want!' phase. Some days we achieve it but other days she forgets it all. I'm pleased to read Bandit's ongoing story and see it can be done, given time and understanding. 

I am sure that the end result is an amazing horse.


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## Bondre

I've been very lazy about updating my journal recently. I haven't been keeping up here so it was nice to check in today and catch up with gottatrot's and bsms' journals, both chock-full of interesting posts. I haven't had time to catch up on egrogan's yet, which is another favourite place to visit. 

We had a long spell of bad weather from mid-November on, with unprecedented amounts of rain which turned the horses' yard into a morass. This strongly reminded me of winter horse-keeping in England. Most of my free time was spent trying to keep both goats and horses reasonably decent and comfortable, so I barely rode in over a month. 

By mid-December things picked up and we saw the sun again. The broccoli was harvested in the field adjoining the horses' yard so I could start taking them out to graze on broccoli plants in the afternoons. Macarena and Flamenca knew the routine and I can turn them out without halters and they won't cause problems. Duna is nervous as ever, and if I take her out I keep her on the lead. I don't trust her at liberty with the other two yet. 

Photos of Macarena 'helping' me to pick broccoli plants. One she had turned the barrow over she melted discreetly away to graze. 





And this one enjoying the last evening sunshine on the winter solstice. 



I hope you all had a good Christmas! Here is Duna dressed up like a Christmas tree and looking like a Spanish princess - or a Spanish tart ;-) 



She was very good about me fussing around and putting stars in her mane. As long as she's close to the other two she'll put up with anything. Flamenca manage to open the gate with her insistent nosing while we were taking photos of Duna (I was bribing her to look alert with broccoli leaves and the sight of food outside the yard was too much for Flamenca). Suddenly Flamenca and Macarena were outside and heading briskly for the broccoli field. Duna was no longer compliant about being a model so we had to call things to a sudden halt and join the others. 

And to finish for now, here's a video of my Boxing Day with Macarena. The video should have been longer but I got confused with the phone screen (not very visible in bright Sun) and had the camera in pause when I thought it was filming and vice versa. So ended up with over a minute of the inside of my bum-bag on film....






The end of the video is when Astrid (dog) spots something suspicious amongst the pine trees. Macarena went on high alert and literally trembled with nerves while she waited for Astrid to give the all-clear. I realise she takes a lot of cues from my dog about the safety of the surroundings. Astrid went to investigate and I heard an exclamation of surprise or irritation, birds flying out of trees, and dog returned. I presume she discovered a hunter and maybe startled the pigeons he was hoping to pick off. Knowing he was in the forest I didn't want to continue on, so we backtracked and Macarena was very keen to get off that hilltop in a hurry. If she had seen the hunter she'd have been ok but an invisible presence really makes her nervous. We trotted down that rough track at a far higher speed than I would have preferred, with me imagining broken knees and worse, but my barefoot rock-cruncher cruised over all the broken stone in style and we got down safely. 

It was a fun ride but I hope she doesn't remember the hunter next time we go up there and have bad associations on that hilltop in the future.


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## Bondre

After a month of doing virtually nothing with Duna owing to lack of time, I have started up with her again and have even got my older son enthusiastic about riding her! ('Come on, it's time you tried riding a proper horse, you can cope' sort of approach.) He likes a challenge and in any case he's starting on the lunge, where she is fairly well-behaved. I'm hoping that with repeated sessions in our schooling area she'll expand her horizons and learn to relax there. 

So far so good. We have done two short lunge sessions. The first time she started humping up preparatory to bucking when he cantered, so we just did walk and trot. Today we worked more on walk-trot transitions, and they did a short canter on both reins with success. Duna got excited but not scared - she didn't do the high-tailed snort which is a sign of intense emotion - and she didn't buck. 



She did start humping up at the trot though, when a neighbour was walking past with her dogs, and only at the point in the circle nearest the walking dog-lady. And two days ago I was riding her in the same area and she humped up with me and bounced when a car crawled past. So it seems maybe this is a reaction to something out of the ordinary? I commented to my son that Duna needs to live in a plain white stable without a view in order to stay calm! 

I have been taking her on walks at liberty too. We don't go very far as she stops at every patch of green, but the point isn't to cover distance. I take a bag of small pieces dry crunchy bread and the clicker. When I ask her to walk with me and she does it, she gets a treat. When she wants to graze I wait until she initiates forward movement and then I reward her. 

The point of this? I have come to believe that she's probably never had much of a choice when it comes to her activities with humans. Do this, do that, if you don't like it shut up and just get on with it. And so she's never learnt to manage her fear, she has merely learnt to suppress it and obey. Now that she has more freedom and that she doesn't have to worry about her nose and mouth hurting with the rein action, she is expressing her tumultuous emotions. 

So my idea is, take her for walks and let her come if she wants or go back home if she wants. If she comes with me she gets treats. If she returns home there are no negative consequences. We've only done two liberty walks so far, and the first one was very close to home. Today we ventured further and crossed our schooling area to the road verge where there's some worthwhile grass. She was tucking in happily there when I spotted a rattly tractor approaching. I cursed my bad luck and took her back across the road into our schooling area for safety. She's not ready for a noisy vehicle to pass close by at liberty yet. When the tractor passed she literally high-tailed it back to the yard gate, snorting like a dragon, and waited for me to catch up with her there. 

We will see whether this approach helps her to overcome her fears. She gets to make the decisions and perhaps if she's free to run, but eventually doesn't, she will realise that not everything is trying to attack her. Whereas if she is restrained by the lead rope I think that she just submits and stops thinking, so she never gets any braver that way. 

I really believe there's a wonderful horse in there if I can just find the way to let her out of her fearful shell.


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## gottatrot

Your son looks great on Duna. Good position.

I like your approach, letting Duna makes choices and learn how to cope. I think you are right, that horses without many experiences don't learn any coping mechanisms, so they over react. They have to learn how to get excited and then get calm again. They have to learn how to be afraid, how to deal with that fear, and how to get over it.


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## egrogan

Really enjoyed hearing the update on all the mares! I love that you have enough open space to allow you to go out walking with them, and it sounds like it will be really productive for Duna to explore the world a bit.


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## Bondre

I had a nice afternoon ride yesterday with my son on Flamenca. She's been off for a couple of weeks because she got a nasty case of thrush with all the rain we had last month, combined with the fact she was wearing pads in the shoes which eventually got gunky inside. At her last shoeing we left the pads off her, and she was quite sore for a few days until her frogs started to recover. 

So she was pleased to be doing something, although she's quite unfit but still as game as ever. She is such a tough little horse. My son enjoyed riding his old companion again, especially after having ridden Duna several times and having had a taste of what it's like to ride a difficult horse. With Flamenca he can relax more, plus they can canter safely which he loves.



We varied our route a bit, and at a place where we habitually turn right towards home for a long canter through fallow fields we turned left. This caused some consternation. 'But we go RIGHT here! What's happened??' 

When Macarena is confused, nervous and thinking of going the other way I give her a treat. This is obviously the sort of thing I'd be hung, drawn and quartered for if I admitted it on the open forum, but the fact is that it helps to get her attention on me and to convince her that I haven't gone mad and that yes, it's safe and ok to go where I'm asking. Contrary to expectations, she doesn't see it as a reward for being 'disobedient' (horrible word but I can't think of a different one). But, also obviously, this isn't the kind of thing I'd recommend anyone to do without knowing their horse first, nor would I necessarily do it with a different horse. In fact my son pulled me up on it (aren't you rewarding her for misbehaving?) so I had to try and explain why it's ok for her in this situation but maybe not ok for another horse. 

After a brief discussion about which way to turn, Macarena flung herself forward into an enthusiastic canter, with Flamenca close behind. But to make her lingering displeasure clear she threw in a couple of bouts of bucking too, which she rarely does when ridden, and fortunately for me never bucks as big as when she playing in the corral ;-)

After the canter and a calm-down period we did a long trot along the track that goes around the solar farm. Macarena was trotting really nicely, stretching out long and low with her head and neck, very relaxed. Often after a canter she'll be hyper trotting with her neck arched and tense, trying to race, so this was a very positive difference. Hard to see but she was doing this in the second half of this short video:






Not great definition I know, I did a rapid upload so I lost on quality. 

Duna was sweat-soaked when we returned home. I think she had worked even harder than the other two. She did an odd thing when I turned Macarena back out with her, any ideas on why? She got up behind her and was pushing Macarena quite hard with her head and chest, and following as Macarena moved, still pushing. It was as if she was trying to herd her to someplace. Is this boss mare behaviour, trying to reunite the herd after a period of separation? Duna is the undoubted boss now, after her successful takeover around two months ago. Macarena was quite annoyed about being pushed around as all she wanted to do was have a good roll! 

I sometimes wonder if Duna is one of these horses that doesn't know how to socialise 'properly' because she's been kept on her own for too long. So I wonder if anyone had observed similar behaviour in correctly socialised or conversely in anti-social horses?


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## Bondre

I had a nice afternoon ride yesterday with my son on Flamenca. She's been off for a couple of weeks because she got a nasty case of thrush with all the rain we had last month, combined with the fact she was wearing pads in the shoes which eventually got gunky inside. At her last shoeing we left the pads off her, and she was quite sore for a few days until her frogs started to recover. 

So she was pleased to be doing something, although she's quite unfit but still as game as ever. She is such a tough little horse. My son enjoyed riding his old companion again, especially after having ridden Duna several times and having had a taste of what it's like to ride a difficult horse. With Flamenca he can relax more, plus they can canter safely which he loves.



We varied our route a bit, and at a place where we habitually turn right towards home for a long canter through fallow fields we turned left. This caused some consternation. 'But we go RIGHT here! What's happened??' 

When Macarena is confused, nervous and thinking of going the other way I give her a treat. This is obviously the sort of thing I'd be hung, drawn and quartered for if I admitted it on the open forum, but the fact is that it helps to get her attention on me and to convince her that I haven't gone mad and that yes, it's safe and ok to go where I'm asking. Contrary to expectations, she doesn't see it as a reward for being 'disobedient' (horrible word but I can't think of a different one). But, also obviously, this isn't the kind of thing I'd recommend anyone to do without knowing their horse first, nor would I necessarily do it with a different horse. In fact my son pulled me up on it (aren't you rewarding her for misbehaving?) so I has to try and explain why it's ok for her in this situation but maybe not ok for another horse. 

After a brief discussion about which way to turn, Macarena flung herself forward into an enthusiastic canter, with Flamenca close behind. But to make her lingering displeasure clear she threw in a couple of bouts of bucking too, which she rarely does when ridden, and fortunately for me never bucks as big as when she playing in the corral ;-)

After the canter and a calm-down period we did a long trot along the track that goes around the solar farm. Macarena was trotting really nicely, stretching out long and low with her head and neck, very relaxed. Often after a canter she'll be hyper trotting with her neck arched and tense, trying to race, so this was a very positive difference. Hard to see but she was doing this in the second half of this short video:






Not great definition I know, I did a rapid upload so last on quality. 

Duna was sweat-soaked when we returned home. I think she had worked even harder than the other two. She did an odd thing when I turned Macarena back out with her, any ideas on why? She got up behind her and was pushing Macarena quite hard with her head and chest, and following as Macarena moved, still pushing. It was as if she was trying to herd her to someplace. Is this boss mare behaviour, trying to reunite the herd after a period of separation? Duna is the undoubted boss now, after her successful takeover around two months ago. Macarena was quite annoyed about being pushed around as all she wanted to do was have a good roll! 

I sometimes wonder if Duna is one of these horses that doesn't know how to socialise 'properly' because she's been kept on her own for too long. So I wonder if anyone had observed similar behaviour in correctly socialised or conversely in anti-social horses?


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## bsms

Bondre said:


> ...When Macarena is confused, nervous and thinking of going the other way I give her a treat. This is obviously the sort of thing I'd be hung, drawn and quartered for if I admitted it on the open forum, but the fact is that it helps to get her attention on me and to convince her that I haven't gone mad and that yes, it's safe and ok to go where I'm asking...


I need to think about this for Bandit. If I could use treats to distract him from something he has become fixated on, that would beat getting in his mouth and arguing for him to get back with me. Maybe kind of like, "_Remember me? Nom, nom, nom...I've got an idea. Want to hear it?_" versus "_Awww....HECK no!_"

:think:​


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## knightrider

This is really something to think about. It might work with Isabeau too. You might be on to something! I'm glad you felt like you could share this idea.


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## Bondre

The fact it works to get Macarena'a attention is certainly linked to all the clicker training I did with her last year to get her going forward again. Whenever she balked - which was regularly, back then, sometimes every couple of steps - I would encourage her to go forward with our verbal cue and when she responded I would click and then treat her after a few steps. Gradually she got 'unstuck' and need less reinforcement, so I stopped using the clicker for moving forward but continued to carry treats for rewarding her at key junctures. I discovered that the treats normally had a calming effect on her - and also that a click is more effective and faster for stopping than the one rein stop lol. 

I've tried using treats to calm Duna, however, and it doesn't work with her. I have started her with clicker training but we haven't got nearly the amount of joint experience under our belts as I do with Macarena, nor have I used the clicker and treats in the same way with her (as she needs to slow down and relax rather than get unstuck). If I give Duna a treat when she's scared she lunges round for it hastily with her teeth bared, gobbles it distractedly and clearly doesn't stop stressing over whatever is bothering her at the time. 

While we're on the subject of Duna, I posted about her intimidating way of taking treats when scared on an R+ group on fb, and the advice was to not try combining R- with R+ when riding, as the R- cues quite possibly have stressful associations for her (poisoned cues). So now the idea is to retrain her with only R+. I feel quite out of my depth here but I'll try. Riding with pressure and release (R-) is very deeply ingrained in my muscle memory. But it's always good to try new things I guess, and if it works to help calm my basket-case horse it'll be worthwhile. 



^^^ a photo from our clicker session this afternoon. I was teaching her to target on my whip - you can see from her interested face that she's enjoying the activity. This was a screen shot from a video I took by propping the mobile phone against the wall - sadly a lot of the action was out of the frame, but I liked this scene although you can't actually see what I've got in my hands. 

Well, that was a brief aside from my thoughts on the potential for using treats on the trail for nervous or distracted horses. If either of you try it out, knightrider and bsms, I'd be interested to hear about the results.


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## gottatrot

Bondre said:


> Duna was sweat-soaked when we returned home. I think she had worked even harder than the other two. She did an odd thing when I turned Macarena back out with her, any ideas on why? She got up behind her and was pushing Macarena quite hard with her head and chest, and following as Macarena moved, still pushing. It was as if she was trying to herd her to someplace. Is this boss mare behaviour, trying to reunite the herd after a period of separation?


I can't remember ever seeing that behavior. Usually when I've seen horses just moving other horses they only use body language and then follow up with teeth/hooves if necessary. I've not seen horses pushing each other with their bodies. I've seen horses affectionately leaning on each other, but that seems unusual to me.

Amore is very food oriented and treats make her calm. Even when very upset, if I can get her nose down to some grass it makes her instantly calmer. Halla is different and won't even take a treat if she is worked up.


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## bsms

Bondre said:


> ...I've tried using treats to calm Duna, however, and it doesn't work with her....If I give Duna a treat when she's scared she lunges round for it hastily with her teeth bared, gobbles it distractedly and clearly doesn't stop stressing over whatever is bothering her at the time...


Thinking more about it, Bandit might be like Duna. I've watched him leave his food bucket a minute after getting food. He then crossed the corral, and spent the next 30+ minutes staring at whatever it was that bothered him while the others continued eating.

I may ask my wife if she wants to try it with Cowboy. Cowboy is very food-motivated. She sometimes doesn't want the bother of cleaning, tacking, riding, untacking, cleaning, etc - but she might enjoy taking Cowboy out for 20 minutes of "Can I teach you something?" I also might try it with Bandit anyways, just to get a feel for it. Just because X works doesn't mean Y might not work better, or better with some horses.


*MOD NOTE
This journal has been closed due to prolonged lack of participation by the author. Journals that have no active participation by the author for a period of time greater than 18 months will be considered abandoned and will be closed until the author asks for them to be reopened.*


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