Gia - sessions 1206-1209 Changes and progress!

This has been an eventful week here in Knightdale! We are currently in the middle of an ugly winter storm that has brought little snow and lots of ice. This week the farm was a buzz with storm preparations. Some of those even involved Gia…

Monday January 19th - On Monday, I worked with Gia at a “new” location. Primarily, Gia has been working in our main crosstie area. However, I would love for her to be able to be groomed in multiple locations. Due to her very large size, we are limited to only a few grooming spots, though. We have a tree with a tie that can be used for large horses to be groomed. I have groomed Gia here many times in the past, but of late, it does seem to be a bit triggering. I opted to try and work with her at the tree and take it very slowly. As it turned out, this was a good plan. For whatever reason, Gia was very anxious standing at the tree. As an added challenge, I cannot easily use the carrot ball at the tree. As soon as I started working with Gia, she was obviously quite anxious and upset. I worked with her on basic focus work at the tree. This is a part of the natural horsemanship technique I have described previously. I wanted Gia to show me a sign of submission, and focus her behavior solely on me. Once I was able to get her to do so consistently, we had a better time with grooming. This will definitely be an exercise we continue to work on in the future!

Tuesday January 20th - I had hoped to work with Gia and Marianna on Tuesday. However, a popular phrase can be reworded: If you want to make a HORSE laugh, tell her your plans. Marianna brought Gia in for work and put her in the main crossties. I told her my plan (within earshot of Gia-first mistake): I was going to talk her through the process of grooming and see how they worked together. Well, for one reason or another, we couldn’t get the timing right. By the time I was ready to work with Gia, she had been standing for over 30 minutes. Marianna was still a bit away from being ready, so I started solo. Gia was not in a super cooperative mood to start out. She was probably cranky about the fact she had to stand for a while. She also had made a very questionable decision to go into the pond that morning and, for that reason, her blanket was drying on the fence. As soon as I began grooming Gia, she was picking up her trigger foot….interestingly, when Gia is irritated she tends to pick up her left hind or paw with her right front. Things can change, but it is consistent enough we can watch for those signs. Almost immediately, Gia was picking up her foot and I opted to work on review of the “put it down” command. Whenever Gia picks up her foot, I tell her to “put it down.” If she does not, I then tap her leg with a whip. The tap is simply to reinforce the cue and does not hurt her at all. It would neither be wise nor productive to hit a horse’s leg that they already have primed to kick. When I ask her to put her leg down, I want to see an immediate response from her. This has been something I have been working on for awhile and one I have had the feeders doing consistently. It does seem to be helping with her blanketing and un-blanketing. This ended up being our focus for the day. We will have plenty of opportunities to work with Marianna in the future. Next time, I will be more careful, so Gia doesn’t hear my plans and humble me!

Wednesday January 21st - On the farm, the horses are grouped first by nutritional needs and secondly by their behavioral tendencies. Just like people, certain horses mesh better with others. A lot of this has to do with their natural tendencies and mimic a herd in the wild. Throughout the past few months, we have moved horses around according to these ideals. Initially, Gia’s field had 5 mares in a combined large field. However, we moved one horse due to personality conflicts (she was too nice!) and another mare had reached a point in pregnancy where she needed to be moved off of fescue grass. After these changes, we realized we had ended up with 3 horses in a single, small field and 3 in the larger field. With a storm coming, we wanted to make sure the fields were balanced and there was plenty of hay and shelter for all the horses. In the larger field, the shelter is larger and can accommodate more horses. In the smaller field, the shelter is large enough for 2 horses to stand comfortably. To accommodate these circumstances, we opted to move Gia and her very best friend, Annie, to the smaller field. The horses that were in the smaller field were, in turn, moved to the larger field with another field mate…temporarily, because horses like to laugh at us. (Also, the horses moved to the larger field with larger shelter have spent the entire storm out in the open and haven’t gone in the shelter at all…..2 of them are my personal horses…sigh). I moved Gia over to the new field by herself first. Gia has spent a lot of time in this field in the past, as it is the field set up for babies with 4 boards. However, it has been quite some time since she has been in that field. Knowing the feeders would have to work with Gia in the new field that afternoon, I wanted to work with her in the “new” space first. I worked on our natural horsemanship and seeking Gia’s full attention and submission in a very distracting environment. This involves a lot of moving on her part. As there were many distractions, it did take Gia a little while to focus on me. Once I had her attention, I tested her by walking around her body in a half circle. Ideally, Gia will never allow her backend to face me. If I get to that point, she should turn her face to be closer to me. Then, I will turn and go the other way. If Gia became focused on something else or didn’t respond immediately to my body cues, I would make her trot off. When she gave me a sign of submission such as a lick or chew and/or head down, we would try again. After a few tries, I was able to get Gia’s full attention and maintained it as we walked through the field. Gia and Annie have done great in their new field and seem quite content to be by themselves. Gia has also been very well behaved with the feeders in this field. Change often is hard, but this is a positive change for Gia.

January 23rd - On Friday, the timing did work out for Gia to work with Chloe. As she has been able to work with Chloe for the past two weeks, we have upped the difficulty a bit this week. Gia’s belly has always been a sensitive spot for her. Ironically, she actually LOVES having her belly groomed. However, she tends to be quite sensitive and nervous about it since she had bad bug bites and fungus. I have made great progress with her while I have been grooming, and she is almost back to normal when I am brushing her belly. I decided to allow Chloe to try and use the curry comb on Gia’s belly this week. I was very close by to step in, if necessary, but that wasn’t even needed! When Chloe first started with the curry comb on Gia’s belly, she picked up her foot. Chloe reinforced the put it down command while brushing the same area. When Gia did so, she was praised and told she was a good girl, but the brush was not taken off her. Gia was given a minute to process and the grooming resumed. It didn’t take her long at all to realize that Chloe could brush her belly well and she settled in and enjoyed her grooming. This was fantastic progress! I am proud of her and Chloe for their work and patience.