Friday 21 April 2017

Getting back on the horse

So yesterday I was quite deflated. I haven't been able to keep up with M''s email schedule and realistically I can't catch up. I have been trying to race through mod 1.4 but in my hurry I am not really taking it in. Problem better to stop rushing, I can make the best progress I can.

In an attempt to re-ignight my interest I tried out some horse training stuff with soft today. I was mainly focusing on paying attention to her signals and rewarding the slightest try and asking quietly and releasing/praising as soon as she delivered. I also wanted to investigate asympathy.  I have found this difficult to figure out without moving her about. For example since doing the forward down I have discovered that my first report is wrong. She is a left bent horse.

Anyway, I take her up, but could tell she was uncomfortably windy from the new grass so vowed to just stick to walk. When I lead her to the mounting block in the school I sensed her get agitated. She parked, nunged with her nose and started a whiney.  Warning signs for rearing. If I asked again she was going to rear. So I stopped, let her calm down, asked her what was wrong, then moved the mounting block to her and she was fine.

So progress in that I saw her early signals so she didn't need to "shout" by rearing... but I am stistill not sure what triggers her to get like that.

So once on board I let her amble round the ring. I did a lap seeing how subtley I could ask her to turn. We were able to weave the cones on the buckle with reign yield which was nice to find out.

I then took up contact as lightly as possible and found sof was very soft and responsive in return. Cool. We then did some walk manuovers, and so was being super responsive to my subtle aids. She was really trying and responds well to asking just once quietly. Super cool.

In the past sof has gotten stress about reign back, she doesn't go backwards evenly and gets upset when I continue to ask and starts to pour the ground. Today I asked very very quietly. Almost just thinking it, and she did a step back and I instantly released.  We managed several steps back this way without sof bring upset. Breakthrough, I need to be quite!

We also tried turn on the forhand as I wanted to assess which of softies back legs she favours. She did not want to turn to the left (left leg on did nothing) she was happy to turn to the right. So I think she has a problem stepping under with her left hind, but probably need to do more investigation to be sure. I suspect she has an arthritic hock.

So all in all feeling happier and more motivated today

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