dancing horses

dancing horses

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Working on the Foundation

I've been spending my free time (time not spent working or ice chipping) spending time with Carmen and working on the foundation of our partnership. I know that this is something that is built on our daily interactions and needs to be built carefully and without shortcuts. One aspect I've been doing is working on her leading. She leads pretty good but she's not solidly following my lead and I need her to understand about personal space, pace, direction etc at a level that is without question.

Weanieeventer introduced me to Warwick Schiller videos. I've heard of him and seen some videos before but right now they are resonating with me. He doesn't do special gear or act like he's a magician. He simply applies simple common sense. He reminds me a lot of Royce (the one who helped me back Steele).  He has some lovely short videos on leading. it's very similar to what is done with dogs as well. The idea is that the horse is to stay behind you and follow wherever you go. They cannot drag you or pass you or act like a kite on the end of a string. What he does is walk around with  a loose line and whenever the horse is distracted or is trying to lead he changes directions. After a while the horse begins to really tune into him because they don't know where he's going next. And once they do that they stop worrying about what else is going around. He also says that as a horse begins to trust your leadership the separation anxiety will fade. 

I've been applying his techniques as I lead Carmen out in the morning and back in. Initially she was quite anxious as Irish goes out first and in last. But now I walk around with her until she's listening to me and not focussed on where Irish is. And it's working. She waits in her stall for me to lead us out  and does not try to drag us back to the barn. She is quite smart and quick to figure out what I want. 

Last night we went out and walked up and down the driveway by all sorts of things and, while she was a bit worried, as we worked she forgot about the house, flapping flag pole, garbage can, snow etc and focussed on me. I could walk and she followed behind. When I stopped she stopped and stood there. As soon as I moved she moved with me. I brought her in and gave her a nice groom. She stood well with no pawing. I took Irish out and she stayed calm and, rather than stand at her door looking anxious, she simply ate her hay.  

Today when I came home from work I changed to go out and do my barn chores. As soon as I came out she lifted her head, looked at me and gave a whinny.  It warmed my heart in way I haven't felt for a while. When I brought her in she was not panicked about where Irish was at all. She was a bit worried but she's moving in the right direction. 

I have a horse who is both smart and beautiful. 


11 comments:

  1. Sounds like a wonderful beginning to your relationship! You DO have a horse who is smart and beautiful!

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  2. Love how clearly Carmen's whiskers show up in this photo.

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    1. I love horse whiskers. I won't trim them which sometimes gets me criticized at shows- by some riders never by the judge. :)

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  3. I love Warwick's videos, helped me prepare my mare for deworming back when she was still feral. Took her wormer with no fuss after I was told by many she'd freak out. I love that you don't have to buy very expensive training dvd's to access some of his knowledge.

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  4. Leading is so important! Yes she is definitely a smart and beautiful girl :)

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  5. My mother in law told me about Warwick a few months ago and I've yet to look him up but want to! I noticed while boarding my gelding a few months ago that when I led him around the stable, he always wanted to kind of calmly step in line behind me, not follow alongside me. I love that this shows he's letting me lead (not like he's fearful, his head is down and he's relaxed) but I also always get nervous about having a horse more behind me than next to me! It's that weird feeling that if they spooked I'm going to get ran over. It might have something to do with me being kind of short and small- if relationally I just feel that way. But regardless I saw another commenter mentioned deworming and my gelding is awful at that, so I need to look up his videos. Glad you are making such good progress!

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  6. When Royce talked to me about this last year with Steele I had the same worry as you about being behind me. He pointed out that a horse that ran you over was going to step on you. if they are not tuned in then you are at risk. What I took from that is that I wanted Steele to stay where we started with leading. Sometimes that was behind, others it was beside (like with reins). What I did notice that was by setting the expectation he rarely spooked because he was tuned in to me. When he did spook he never came against me or the line.

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  7. Very smart and very beautiful!!!!! I'm using the Warwick method of leading when I take Chrome out on the road to get him to stop being so worried about other horses. Well I was before I got so busy. It works great!! I hate having horses behind me because I got run over once, but the method still works with Chrome out beside me on a loose lead. :-)

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  8. I love the warwick videos. I used then a lot when I first got Dickie under saddle.

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