Gia - session 16 - mostly more of the same
So, my main goal when I started this blog was to help folks understand what all really goes into training a horse. And one of the biggest things I want people to understand is all the time, and most importantly, all the REPETITION that has to be done when training a horse. Horses are no different than any other creature or human, and they require a lot of repetition to figure something out. Some things that we ask the horse to do require more repetition than others. Some horses, and humans, require more repetition than others. Unfortunately, there are no short cuts. One thing that one of my trainers used to say a lot is that we need to "go slow in order to go fast". Meaning, if you take the appropriate amount of time to do something correctly, then you will actually get to your goal quicker in the long run. If you try to hurry and rush things with a horse, or yourself, you will inevitably have to take a step or two backwards at some point to be able to go forwards again. So, today's session with Gia was much of the same stuff we have been doing for the past several sessions. There were a few things to note though.
The tailgate of my truck was down today. Gia has to pass the truck on her way out of the field everyday, and the tailgate is usually up. But today, it was down, and that caught her off guard. She startled at it, at first, but then took a step towards it to check it out. That action is a pretty big deal for most horses, but especially for Gia! She is starting to figure out that just because something appears scary at first does not mean she should run from it, and it might even be ok to check it out. Each time she touched it and walked past it, I allowed her to have some grass. Eventually, she was acting like it was no big deal. That just means that for the next scary thing that she comes across (and she WILL come across plenty more scary things) she will be that much braver about approaching it.
As we approached the barn, she remembered her incident from a couple of sessions ago when she broke, and she hesitated to go into the barn again today. I have learned, with Gia, that she likes to automatically be upset about something, but if you give her a minute to think about it, she usually changes her mind. If you get after her right away, it just confirms for her that she was right to be upset in the first place. So, I gave her a minute to change her mind, and she did, fairly quickly. I'm not a big fan of giving horses lots of treats, especially in the barn, but Gia needs to re-associate the barn with good things right now, so as soon as she stepped into the barn, I gave her a treat. We went back out of the barn, and then back in again, with no hesitation, and she received another treat.
She very much enjoyed her grooming. She was quite still for the flyspray today, and quite still in general considering the wind was really going at it today, and blowing all sorts of debris around her! I worked with her on brushing her forelock. When I started to brush it, and she started to put her head up, I paused, asked her to put her head down (which took a few minutes), and then resumed brushing when she dropped her head. When I paused, I did not remove the brush from her forelock, but left it mid-brushing, where it was when she got upset. I only had to repeat this twice before she was leaving her head dropped, and relaxing into the brushing. Again, I'm not sure why this bothers her, but it is what it is. She did stand perfectly still for the saddle pad, the saddle, and even for the initial tightening of the girth! I did the final tightening in grass again, but I think she would have been fine if I hadn't done it that way.
Once in the round pen, I repeated all the same things with the boat bumpers. She was quite full of herself when I asked her to canter with the bumpers near her flank. She put in several good bucks before she gave up. Her bucks were definitely more intense than last time, but she gave up on them quicker than last time too. So, I guess we are even. However, this does mean I will be repeating this exercise, yet again, next time.
She wasn't sweaty enough for a bath today, and I didn't have any time for clipping today, so we ended things on that. Gia is gradually improving, though slowly. These are the moments when a lot of folks would tend to get frustrated because things aren't going as quickly as they would like. But what keeps me motivated is that I have seen this dozens of times before, and it always works out in the end. With some horses, it just takes longer than with others.
The tailgate of my truck was down today. Gia has to pass the truck on her way out of the field everyday, and the tailgate is usually up. But today, it was down, and that caught her off guard. She startled at it, at first, but then took a step towards it to check it out. That action is a pretty big deal for most horses, but especially for Gia! She is starting to figure out that just because something appears scary at first does not mean she should run from it, and it might even be ok to check it out. Each time she touched it and walked past it, I allowed her to have some grass. Eventually, she was acting like it was no big deal. That just means that for the next scary thing that she comes across (and she WILL come across plenty more scary things) she will be that much braver about approaching it.
As we approached the barn, she remembered her incident from a couple of sessions ago when she broke, and she hesitated to go into the barn again today. I have learned, with Gia, that she likes to automatically be upset about something, but if you give her a minute to think about it, she usually changes her mind. If you get after her right away, it just confirms for her that she was right to be upset in the first place. So, I gave her a minute to change her mind, and she did, fairly quickly. I'm not a big fan of giving horses lots of treats, especially in the barn, but Gia needs to re-associate the barn with good things right now, so as soon as she stepped into the barn, I gave her a treat. We went back out of the barn, and then back in again, with no hesitation, and she received another treat.
She very much enjoyed her grooming. She was quite still for the flyspray today, and quite still in general considering the wind was really going at it today, and blowing all sorts of debris around her! I worked with her on brushing her forelock. When I started to brush it, and she started to put her head up, I paused, asked her to put her head down (which took a few minutes), and then resumed brushing when she dropped her head. When I paused, I did not remove the brush from her forelock, but left it mid-brushing, where it was when she got upset. I only had to repeat this twice before she was leaving her head dropped, and relaxing into the brushing. Again, I'm not sure why this bothers her, but it is what it is. She did stand perfectly still for the saddle pad, the saddle, and even for the initial tightening of the girth! I did the final tightening in grass again, but I think she would have been fine if I hadn't done it that way.
Once in the round pen, I repeated all the same things with the boat bumpers. She was quite full of herself when I asked her to canter with the bumpers near her flank. She put in several good bucks before she gave up. Her bucks were definitely more intense than last time, but she gave up on them quicker than last time too. So, I guess we are even. However, this does mean I will be repeating this exercise, yet again, next time.
She wasn't sweaty enough for a bath today, and I didn't have any time for clipping today, so we ended things on that. Gia is gradually improving, though slowly. These are the moments when a lot of folks would tend to get frustrated because things aren't going as quickly as they would like. But what keeps me motivated is that I have seen this dozens of times before, and it always works out in the end. With some horses, it just takes longer than with others.
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