Are you as consistant with your horse as you think you are? I used to think I was pretty consistant, but when I really concentrate on my ques, I am not. This was made evident when I was working Whisper thru her sticky feet issues. I really have to concentrate on asking her to go forward with a squeeze of my calves, no response, I kiss, no response, I ask with my spurs. Now before I get blasted for using spurs, let me say they are blunt English style spurs and my girth is a neoprene packers type girth, so the spurs hit the girth. If she ignores the spur, I bump, bump, bump with the spurs untill she shifts her weight forward. Then I praise. I had pretty much got her responding to just a squeeze and a kiss lately, but on our ride the other day, she slammed on her brakes with her head up and nostrils flaring. Now I am in coyote country, so I figure she smelled something, so I let her look for a bit, then asked for forward movement. I was happy with only a step at a time, at which time, I would stroke her neck, let her process and then ask again. But then I found myself asking the next time by going straight to my spur - inconsistancy on my part. I didn't give her the benefit of the doubt by asking nicely to start with. Luckily, I realized what I was doing, and went back to calves, kiss, then spur. But it was my unthinking reaction to just go to the spur. I also realize that I was nagging my horse later down the trail while I was working on gait. As Whisper would slow a bit, I would ask her to speed up again, but what I needed to do was allow her to come down to the walk, then make my request again. Also in this way, I was re-enforcing my go forward que and got to practise it more. I was listening to Chris Cox on Rick Lamb's show and he was talking about groundwork. It was very interesting, and if you want to listen to it, it was aired on 6-24-06. Chris was talking about consistancy and how important it is to the horse. This is something I really need to work on. His other point was what he called "sit and soak time" or allowing the horse to process when he has done something right. At least I did that right by allowing Whisper to rest after moving only one foot at a time. She did what I had asked: she moved forward. Doesn't matter that it was only a step, she responded and was praised and was allowed to process, even if most of the processing was about what she could smell that I could not. At least I asknowledged her fears instead of trying to make her ignore them. So she trusted me and we eventually got past that point. Susan in NV
Happy High Desert Trails Susan in NV Nevermore Ranch http://users.oasisol.com/nevermore/ --------------------------------- Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business.
