SCARY TREES AND USING THE CARROT STICK

I thought I would teach Lutallic to lunge in big circles in the round yard using a real lunge rein instead of the 22' rope today. As usual, I changed my plan, but this is OK.

As we walked up the arena paddock, Tallic grew a few hands and got rather 'excited'. I thought he was staring at the paddock lice across the road, but it turns out I had forgotten all about the freshly trimmed trees at the fenceline near the road. Powercore send a mob out to cut the trees back from under the powerlines every so many years, and they were here the other day, but as yet have not returned with the branch muncher.

Tal did do one little take off and turn, but I rubbed his whither region and talked to him, and we walked up to the arena. He tends to put his head up high, stop and stare, and then rush forward to see what he's worried about. He listened and kept pace with me quite well considering; much better than he would have done 2 weeks ago.

We did some walking/leading exercises for a little while, progressed to trot, and only had one little 'shy' at the nutty dogs next door. (They have recently acquired another dog and the crazy thing grabs the fence with its teeth and pulls violently at the wire. God help us if it ever gets out, I can imagine what it would do with a limb.) Anyway, off to the round yard we go.

I grabbed the carrot stick and string which I'd already placed on the peanut gallery and proceeded to rub it along and over his body, allowing the string to dangle and tickle etc. He's not overly keen on it being on his ears, but he put up with it. I did do this sort of work with him very early on, I think when I was preparing him to wear a rug (2 days after getting him!!) I probably used the lead rope though (I think) as I can remember winding it around his legs and all over.

We then progressed to walking along with the carrot stick on his back and rump, string trailing. This was going well, so we moved on to trotting, using the stick with a 'tap tap' motion to ask for the next pace. If he dropped his head to eat (he is WB) I used the stick as an aid to go forward. Same if he backed-off for any other reason.

Lutallic figured all these things out quickly as always, so when Nicole arrived with the kids, I decided to take the halter and lead off and leave him in the round yard loose for a while. Well, off he went! Tal managed to do quite a few laps of the round yard, quite fast, and I managed not to panic! Yay for me!

I watched him for about a minute and decided it was safe to leave him galloping around. He eventually slowed to a trot (I watched him from inside). Although he was only on his own for a few minutes, he managed to work up quite a sweat and was still huffing and puffing minutes later when tied-up in the corral again. What a goose.

I decided today was the perfect day to give him a hose down. He was hot and sweaty, and, it was still hot enough for him to dry before nightfall (we're getting a few warm days now). Hosing him was no problem, he acted just like a grown-up! Afterall, we have done it maybe 2 or 3 times before. What a champ!!

It seemed a good idea to leave him tied-up to dry, so I checked that my tie-up knots were safe (no loops for him to stick feet in if he pulled-back) and left him in Boo's capable care. I kept an eye on him, and visited and brushed him, before finally returning and releasing him.

Overall, another successful adventure.

Lunging - oooh

On Monday (today is Wednesday) I took Tal into the round yard for a bit of a go at lunging. He actually did quite well. I took the 22' lead instead of a proper lunge lead, so that meant that I had to do a lot of walking to allow him the full use of the RY. I tried not to let him do too many circles without asking for a change of some sort, and he did seem to stay fairly focussed. Quite frankly, I've seen broken-in horses do a much much worse job. Hopefully that means I'm doing something right with him?
Only down-side was when he launches himself into the canter. He still tends to stick his rear end in towards me and look like he's going to buck. I then have to turn his head toward me to disengage it, and then he returns to the trot. Maybe if I use the lunge lead and have him further away from me it might work better, because I am going to have to let him canter! I might also just let him go loose in there and see what he wants to do.
He got a fright again with his back boot slipping down, and the dear soul came to me. I didn't fix it though, just rubbed him and talked to him, and sent him on his way again. He got over it.

Tallic has been a bit of a grumpy bum yesterday and today, and I think he's hungry. He's in the lock-up with Boo, and they're being fed chaff and speedi-beet, and Tal gets to go into the grassy paddock for a while, but I still think he's hungry. I put out some hay again, as I think that's what is different to last week, but he really is quite the tubster.

LESSON NUMBER 3

Well, it has been over a week since our last 'training' session, but I think if anything, the time has allowed what has been learned to sink in.

When I led Lutallic up to the arena today, I had the 22' lead with me as well (I didn't really have much of a plan in mind!), so I wanted to drop that at the round yard entrance for use after walking on the arena. Tallic spotted the short-arses in the paddock across the road at this moment, and he got a little excited, quite tall and started to trot - BUT instead of being strong and dragging me along etc like he did previously, a very light correction worked, and he walked up to the arena like a grown-up! (oh yeah, and he 'tacked-up' like a grown up too!!)
It's so exciting to discover that he has taken-in what we worked on last week and he's really bonding and looking to me for the leadership. So much better than a few months ago when I was working him in the round yard and he spotted the 'oxygen thieves' and I had so much trouble getting his attention and getting him to respond. He was so storng that day, and wouldn't stop unless he was facing what he was interested in (the ponies), much like when I was trying to walk him up to the arena last Monday. (He had preciously been inclinded to run to the end of the lead and need to be pulled around so he didn't run off.)

We started today where we left off from last week's lessons. We walked on the arena changing direction and pace regularly (to stop him from getting bored and losing focus,; they're basically transisitions) and moved on to including some trotting soon after begininning (I yet again had a very small time frame in which to work, so it was great to be able to get on with it all so quickly). I think I only had one scary moment when trotting where he moved his rear end in toward me, but he yeilded away quite well, much lighter aids than required on previous occassions.

Did have one or two scares from the noisey dogs next door where Tallic jumped and did a little run off, but he faced-up readily and I just soothed him and continued. At one point his protective boot slipped a bit and he was kicking out and trying to escape it, but I was really pleased to find that a soothing rub and re-assurance got his mind off it and we could keep going.

At some times I ran a little with Lutallic (for some trot work), and other times I had him circle me. He came back to a walk with voice command and a lift of the hand, and same to halt (I've been saying 'whoa'). He really is a very clever little horse and is looking for recognition. I think at first he thought he was going to get carrot treats (like he did at the end of the other arena session), but he certainly seemed happy with his rubs and kind words.

I am absolutely rapt with how he went today. The only problem is, I think I'm falling in love with the little fellow! Damn it!! That wasn't supposed to happen. He's great. He's smart, he tries and he remembers. Wow. And it doesn't hurt that he happens to be so pretty!!

I'm going shopping tomorrow, so we won't do anything for a couple of days, but I suppose I'll just keep going slow and steady with his training. It's working so far.

And, I've got to say, I'm really glad that my good friends Louise and Christine have managed to give me the tiny shoves necessary to get me out there playing with Tal. Thank you both! You were both right, I am loving it.

More Leading Training

GOAL: Follow-up on yesterday's leading lesson. KISS, just re-cap on the basics of yesterday.

HOW DID IT GO? Believe it or not, as planned! I decided to take Lutallic into PJ's paddock in front of the house (as PJ was in the round yard doing some munching), and I thought it would be a good idea to test out what we learnt yesterday in a different environment, with new stressors.

I really didn't have a lot of time, maybe 1/2 an hour including catching and grooming, so it was never meant to be a long session, and it wasn't. I popped his protective boots on (just in case), I'd alread shut the front gate (just in case) and I'd locked Boo out of the corral so that I could lead Tallic out without fear of Boo busting thru (just in case!!)

He actually walked very politely from the corral (although I was awfully fussy and made him back up a tad when he didn't wait for the gate to completely open, I don't want him learning to rush through) and he did this nice and softly so we proceded to the next gateway which he manouvered through well using prompts I would use on an older, more experienced horse (like Cruiser). It's making me realise that the ground work that I have previously done with Tallic is paying off, he's tuning in well when not stressed.

Walked quietly up the driveway to PJ's paddock, even though Boo was calling out and he spotted PJ in the round yard. Had to walk past Tony (the painter's) car to get into the paddock, and although he got taller as we went on, he managed to only need a couple of corrections around most of the paddock. (Boo was still calling out I might add.) Tallic was a little worried about the corner where the stable is, there's also some firewood and manure piled up, and he could see into the neighbour's place, but he didn't jump into or lean on me like I was expecting him to do, so I was very pleased.

It started to rain, and I was very pleased that we basically took up where we'd left off yesterday, so we walked back again.

Overall, a short and sweet session - we had far less stress and more focus, pretty much from the start. Yippee.

First day of 'official' training -

The first day of the rest of our lives...
GOAL: Lunge session in the round yard, keep it short, keep control, don't get hurt. Got to get some Spring weight off him and make sure he doesn't founder like Boo has begun to (whoops)

ACTUALITY: Started by walking Tallic up the arena paddock. Thought this would be a good place to start, as his attention was back on Boo who was in the dam paddock. The 3 dogs next door were going spare, barking and running up and down, Boo called out a few times, so, quite a few distractions.

• tried to keep his pace with mine by checking him back, but he tended to just pull against me. Asked him to bend his nose around to a halt, but noticed that he would only stop when facing Boo's paddock. Kept going until we got to the arena.
• on the arena, he was still un-focussed and tending to pull and barge thru the checks on the lead and even responded with a small rear when firmly checked. Decided that was a good time to have him back up a few paces. This resulted in him actually focussing on me - yay.
• kept walking about on the arena asking for him not to pull etc. Got some nice changes of direction (away) by yielding his face with the rope in my hand as well as slight finger pressure into the neck.
• asked him to keep pace with me, just by slowing down and speeding up my walk - yay, it worked, he must be paying attention now!
• asked him to halt by putting less and less pressure on the rein, to the point of just lifting it up and hoping he'd noticed (like with the slowing down and speeding up) -also worked
• thought I'd best keep it short, seeing as he was doing such a lovely job, and started to walk back down the paddock (the RY work could wait until another day!) Just before finishing the session, I decided to reward his soft responses with a little piece of carrot instead of just the rub he'd been getting. Not sure if I will continue with this sort of reward training, but I was careful to make sure it was not every time we did a transition. (Louise and I talked about possible pitfalls of this type of training in our 'postmortem', and I agree it could be a dodgey method)
• walked back down the paddock towards Boo, and although he lost his concentration a few times, it was brought back much more softly than the trip up to the arena
• went into the paddock with Boo to do a little bit more leading training (with a distraction) and was very pleased with him

End of session 1!

I must add that I was very pleased with how well Lutallic picked up all 4 feet (I must remember not to stand so close in with the back feet and give him some room!), and I even put some hoof goo on them before putting his booties on.

What a champ. Let's see what tomorrow brings hey