Gia - session 888 - ground work with Danielle

 Whoops I did it again.... with Danielle (by Danielle Bryant)

Gia was supposed to have the day off today, so I did not expect to be writing this blog today. However, consistency is key when working with horses and sometimes a behavior arises that dictates the need for an intervention. For whatever reason, Gia is having a bit of a moody teenager week. There are many possible reasons for a young horse to test their boundaries, and it is not unexpected, especially with a mare with feelings as big as Gia's. As Heather noted in her blog, Gia was in a bit of a mood about getting on the trailer yesterday. Her grumpiness continued at home with a student who was in the field to get another horse. Initially, I suspected she was just having one of those days. However, this morning, when I was in the field with a new student, Gia became upset with me for walking away from her. She turned her butt towards me and essentially threatened to kick me. This is never, ever acceptable behavior from any horse. I have been on the receiving end of many kicks in my time working with horses and none of them have been enjoyable. If a horse feels they can threaten you, they will eventually take it a step further, and actually kick you. I would have liked to have been able to immediately pull Gia aside and work with her (just like a parent taking their naughty kid into the bathroom for a talk!). Unfortunately, at that time, I was teaching lessons so that was not a possibility. I simply chased her away and went on my way. However, as we came back through the field I had to move Gia away from her fieldmate and she chose to threaten me yet again. This time she included a little pop up with her leg. Basically, her behavior was escalating. Now, we have been down this road with Gia many times. She gets quite full of herself and pushes her boundaries. Part of her being an alpha mare and full of sassiness includes these types of actions. The key to handling this is for her to be reminded that she is not the head mare when I'm in the field (or any other human regardless of their size!).

 

I did not have a break in lessons until about 4 pm. This is dinner time and when I went out into the field, Gia thought I was there to feed her. She was not happy about the fact she had to come in to work. As we were walking in, she tried to push me to go past. Again, this is inappropriate behavior for a horse and signals disrespect. So....Gia's work began there. Every time she either got too close to me, walked too quickly, or pinned her ears behind my back (she hasn't figured out I watch the shadow of her head on the ground) she had to back up and out of my space. This is a way to make a horse respect your space. We did this quite a few times on our way to the round pen where we were going to work.

In the roundpen, we worked on our free lunging and natural horsemanship techniques. As expected, Gia was quite full of herself and did not want to show me signs of submission today, easily. While this is out of the norm for Gia, it is not when she is needing a behavior reminder. Essentially, Gia has to keep moving her feet at a trot or canter and at a respectable distance away from me until she showed me signs of submission. Because she had been such a handful, I required her to display multiple submissive qualities today. Before I would allow her to have a break, she needed to show me in her actions that she was submissive and humble to me. I looked for loose and floppy ears, a soft eye, a low head, and her licking and chewing. Our first try today took quite a while. As soon as I was shown submission, I allowed Gia to stop moving and I moved around the roundpen with the expectation that Gia would move with me. She is not allowed to touch me and her attention has to be solely on me. Also, as I move around Gia, she needs to move her feet so as I am never close to her backend. The first time we did this, she did not back up when I approached her. Therefore, I sent her back out to work. Almost immediately, Gia showed me signs of submission and was ready to try again. This time, she was much more responsive, but became distracted by another horse. I sent her back to work once more. Again she submitted immediately, and in her final attempt, she was perfect. 

After we were done working, I rewarded Gia with a nice bath as she had gotten quite sweaty on this warm day. When I led Gia back out to the field and while I was feeding tonight, she was very well behaved. Hopefully, today's session will help correct her behavior...at least for a while! One thing is always certain with Gia...her attitude will be back. But, (un)luckily for her, Heather and I will always be here with just as much tenacity to remind her of her place, and then we will be here to remind her how much we love her.