What I've Learned From Matilda

Reading is bad. Learning is bad... Well, it can be, anyway. I've been reading and learning so much about horse behavior and the horse/human relationship this past month. It's been amazing but sometimes when you learn lots of knew cool stuff, you get excited and want to use it all at once or it makes you feel like everything you've been doing has been somehow wrong.

Last month, I had some really great rides with longer periods of trot including more schooling figures, ie circles and figure eights. But then I threw out most of what I had been doing a couple of weeks ago and tried to do something else. Frustration ensued on both sides. I had slipped into a mind set of trying to force her to do what I wanted, using traditional pressure and release - pressure telling her what I want her to do and release being the only reward for doing it.

I realized this week that Matilda has expectations of me and of how things are going to go between us. She expects to have a certain amount of freedom of movement and to be able to make choices and figure things out and be lavishly rewarded for doing so. I have expectations of Matilda and how quickly she can learn. I took a lot of this away and, while I may have been able to muscle through doing things in a different way (and I do mean muscle), it wasn't achieving one of my primary goals for Matilda. Namely creating in her a willing partner.

This week I went back to what we do. I loaded up my little carrot pail and went through all that we know and she did really well with our ground work, including lunging. Still no breakaways. I don't think she's really trying anymore. Under saddle work was not so good. She was all bendy. I couldn't get her to go in a straight line and she was dragging me all over the place. Frustration. I'd find myself practically scraping against the rail one minute then in the middle of the ring the next. She was cutting corners and going in tiny circles - that was at the walk. What little trotting we accomplished was no better, with the addition of random stops without warning. I arrived home from the barn complaining about the tension and soreness from elbow to elbow, across the backs of my arms and between my shoulders, from trying to steer my beastie.

Today was shaping up to be the same. There were people in the ring, as had been the case all week, which makes me nervous. I worry that Matilda will take off, I won't be able to control her and we will go careening into small children. (Notice the words: nervous, worry, tension?) She was still bendy, but not quite as bad as she had been. I started to think about the fact that, in my fear for others, I had really been holding onto those reins, holding her head up and trying to keep her in frame, in position, with my hands. No freedom of movement. Restricting her choices. Click! for me, not her. As we picked up the trot, I started to let the reins slide through my fingers with great conscious effort. Almost as soon as the reins loosened, Matilda's head dropped and she straightened out. With my hands out of the way, my legs were able to do their job and she listened to them beautifully. We trotted through straight lines, circles and changes of direction. No sudden stops this time.

We finished up with our first few steps of requested canter together. That was a little crazy but very, very cool.

So what has Matilda been trying to teach me for the last few weeks?
Relax and trust the work we've been doing.
Relax and trust the relationship we've been building.

Who are we? We're the ones trotting circles around you!

It was a weird and wonderful week last week. Heat was on the rise and I spent most of the week not wanting to do anything. Sort of staring at the sky. I managed some work in the cross ties and some ground work (ups and overs) on Tuesday and Thursday but it was Friday that was total gold.

Since I hadn't worked with her but 45 minutes all week, I went in on Friday planning to touch lightly on everything. A little bit in cross ties, ground work, on the longe line and under saddle. She was very quiet in the cross ties (as she usually is while tacking up) and I am happy to say that when I tap on her shoulder or hip followed by her fetlock (ankle) she lifts her foot on her own so that I can slip my hand underneath and clean her hooves. Not perfectly, mind you, she pulls a little with her right rear foot and once or twice she has refused. It is becoming more consistent each time we do it.

When we worked the ground work, she was very attentive. I let her eat grass a couple of weeks ago and since then she has been a little more eager to pull when walking with me, my mistake. Once I brought her to the center of the ring, however, and started to ask for specific behaviors she appeared to be working hard at figuring out my cues and giving me the requested actions. Although nothing is perfect and she is still easily distracted by cars pulling into the parking lot and people coming down the hill, you can tell when she is trying to pay attention and respond appropriately.

In my effort to keep things light and simple, I was just going to ask her for walks and whoas on the longe line. Since I hadn't asked her to burn any energy all week I didn't want to push my luck by actually asking her to move faster than a walk. Her walk was fast, she was definitely ready and willing to move, but she never broke into a trot on her own and ultimately I did ask for a few steps of trot on the right rein. She's still not stopping upon first request, she goes anywhere from two steps to two circles around me while I say "whoa" over and over. She responds more quickly over the course of each session and I have the distinct impression that ifI were more consistent in my efforts, she would have it. We'll get it. It's just taking us longer, my fault I know.

Can you tell I'm rushing to get to the under saddle work? I am.

My primary goal is still teaching Matilda the vocal commands - right now focusing on "walk on" and "whoa". The same readiness to move that I saw on the lunge line worked in my favor as we worked under saddle. We made real progress with "walk on". Many, many times on Friday, I sat limp in the saddle, said "walk on" and she moved forward. She moved more definitively than the last time we tried it, too... almost with purpose, I would say. Of course, with that willingness to move she also moved forward without me asking and it took me 3-4 tries before I could mount her without her trying to walk away, whatever....

And, of course, she doesn't stop on vocal command alone. I have to use the rein aids. As with everything else in this experience, I probably need to think through this a little more specifically and be a little more methodical with how we work. I need to spend one day just mounting over and over. One day just clicking for "walk on" and then another for "whoa", working through each command separately instead of squishing them all in one day. You know, boring but necessary work-type stuff... maybe next week:)

After we had done walk ons and whoas, it was time to have some fun. I was having another bold and sassy day, the ring was empty and I was anxious to do something. Last time we tried the trot (a rising/posting trot, I should say), we did a few steps on and a few steps off. Mostly straight lines, maybe one corner. Friday was to be the same. We walked around the ring and as we came out of the corner and into the straightaway I asked for the trot (with both vocal and leg aids, as before). As we came down the straight we started to pass a jump and I decided to see if we could circle it - how would she do as I asked for some bend with rein and leg aids, but no bit in her mouth. She circled it beautifully and we finished back on the rail and dropped into an easy walk before we got to the next corner.

We changed direction and I asked for another trot in the same place. She picked up an easy trot, with less prompting than before (as with "whoa", the more often you ask the more responsive and ready she gets), and we trotted all the way down the straightaway at a nicely paced even trot. It was going so nicely that I decided to keep going. I didn't go all the way into the corner, I didn't want to risk making a last minute mistake and getting stuck, but asked for her to start turning about 4 feet before we got there. Piece of cake, so we kept going. We went around the ring twice at that nice, easy pace. Every once in a while, she would start to slow down and I would add a little leg or make a little kissing sound and she would immediately pick back up into our easy going trot.

At some point, the three year old in me realized that no one was seeing this, so I yelled across her head and the ring into the barn, "HEY YOU GUYS ARE MISSING THIS!!!" Even my ill-timed bellowing couldn't phase her and we were able to complete a couple more turns around the ring, taking one brake to trot a small circle around a jump while people watched. As we came trotting towards the gate and the barn (you horse people know what a draw those things can be), I squeezed with my hands and said "walk" - she immediately dropped into the walk and stopped. I rode her for a nice cool down and back to the barn for our un-tacking madness. (Although she is also getting much better at standing still for that process too)

This does no justice to the feeling I had in this experience. It was relaxing. Free. Almost effortless. And then we just kept going....

I was giddy but left wondering what was so exceptional about this. I mean, Matilda is not green. She was taught to walk, trot, canter, jump, proper flexion and so forth. So why is this such a big deal? I had to look back to my first experiences with Matilda-two or three years ago, long before I started this project. My first ride with Matilda, she ran off with me constantly. The second, I don't remember what she was doing, I remember that I was frustrated to the point of tears. The third was the same as the second, but I had a sense of humor about it. This past Friday was so easy, what's the difference?

I mean think about it - I have only been on Matilda 3-6 times. There hasn't been any aggressive saddle work. Not only that, but over the last 2 years, the vast majority of my work with horses has been ground work. Even so, am I a better rider than I was 2 years ago? Absolutely. Is Matilda a more willing partner? Most definitely.

Of those 2 years of ground work, 8 months (less all those days and weeks that I said to myself, "I don't want to this" and therefore didn't) has been with Matilda, in part if not in entirety. We have spent time together building a foundation of trust and reward. I have been attempting to shape her into a horse that understands that there are benefits to doing the things I ask her to do and I think, I hope, that work is what is paying off now. We let her be her and me be me and met each other each day with a plan that we had to be willing to leave behind. I have lost my temper, she has refused to work but there was no severe punishment involved (I don't think-although I have not always behaved well), I tried to just walk away from those days or do as little as possible. On the days when we were both present and willing the rewards were frequent and good. She knows what to expect from me and a little of what I expect of her. Eight months of relationship building and we did something, with very little effort, that I would not have dreamed of being able to do with her two years ago. Something I didn't dare dream about eight months ago.

Riding without an agenda. Horsemanship without a timeline. Building a relationship as it comes to you and letting it unfold. The waiting and patience is so hard but if you can do it, it makes everything that comes after so much easier.

None of this is new but sometimes experience makes old thoughts and ideas become new wisdom.

Make no mistake, I don't pretend that everything will be smooth sailing from here on out. Even writing this makes me feel nervous. Like I sound cocky. People pay for cockiness. I am well aware of who I am dealing with and that there are (attempted?) break aways coming down the road and who knows what else. I may be screaming about the she-beast tomorrow.

But Friday was gold. We were together, for awhile, in every way.

Matilda Under Saddle

Yes, under saddle:) Although I have griped about the busy barn and full ring, I have been back on Matilda a few times in the last three weeks. Thanks to my dear Kaitlyn, I have lots of pictures from our very best day.... so far.

I have her in the bridle that belonged to my own horse, Bella, but have rigged it to work without a bit. Keeping things pleasant, you know, and nicer for taking carrots.

Ah, carrots. It is harder than anticipated to get carrots from the saddle to Matilda's mouth. The more we do it the better our coordination gets but the first couple of days there was a lot of maneuvering to pick up dropped carrots and a lot of thumb and finger biting. Unintentional.... I think.... I hope.

On Thursday, the 11th, our coordination was so poor that it was impossible to actually work on any goals. Trying to get her to "walk on" requires a certain rhythm of words and movement that cannot be achieved when one has to constantly stop to rub one's fingers or pause to back the horse while pointing to the ground and saying, "It's your fault, you dropped it.... Can't you see, it's right there!! Just put your head down!!" She has gotten better at retrieving the dropped carrots, I am proud to state.... any achievement, no matter how small, right?

I was also feeling bold and sassy that Thursday, so without being able to work on our actual goals, we just played and tried stuff out. Using plain old leg and rein adds (words too) we walked and stopped a lot, attempting to reward for good behavior along the way.

She was so quiet and easy while I was up there that I couldn't stand it and asked her to trot! She did beautifully. I used the same three step process, along with light leg aids, asking first, "Matilda, are you ready?" Then, "Matilda, Trot!" and lastly "Up, Up!" She came up to the trot at the exact same point that she would have, had I asked on the longe line. We only trotted a few steps before I squeezed back with the reins and asked her to "walk"; she fell into the walk immediately, to my tremendous joy and pleasure. We did that several times around the ring, alternating between walking and stopping or walking, trotting, walking and stopping, as I happily clicked and dropped carrots all over the ring.

It popped into my head to see if some of the ground work was translating (this was before I started working with the whip for over) so we went to the center of the ring and stopped. I pressed my left leg into her side and said "over". It was amazing to feel that big body shift under me as she moved laterally, away from my leg. I hollered out, "Kim! Kim! Watch me!!" like a three year old doing penny drops and repeated the movement. She confirmed that what I thought was happening actually was happening. Matilda was moving her whole body sideways, stepping out and crossing her front then her hind legs under her. Very cool. Wonderful day. We finished it out by giving Kaitlyn a "pony ride" on Matilda, with me leading them around the ring, as a thank you for all the pictures and just because we could:)

This past week, I was up on Matilda one more time. This time we were able to work on the voice commands. It will be a slow process, but I know she can get it. I started it the same way that I did on the ground, saying "walk on" as I squeezed with my legs and clicking when she took a step. Unlike when I was on the ground, when I said "walk on" without squeezing, she did not move right away. She would eventually, but I had to sit on her awhile and wait it out. The walk is much slower and lazier if it starts from just a verbal command too. That may just be because she is unsure and I don't really mind a slow, lazy walk at this point.

We also spent some time on mounting and dismounting. The first time I got on her, she stood rock still, but in later days she was moving forward as I tried to mount. At the end of our session this past week, I got off and on her three times before she stood still while I mounted. When she did, I clicked, rewarded and called it quits. I didn't ask for a repeat, maybe I should have, but why press your luck? There's always next week.

Matilda on the Lunge Line

I'm not really sure how much there is to say about our longe work of late. There have been days wherein the barn was so busy, we couldn't carve out a nitch to work on it.

Over the last week, the weather has cooled off and she has been more difficult to manage. She has been more apt to rush or try to break out, but thus far I have been able to hold on to her and bring her down. I have also been asking her to walk longer without reward which I suspect precipitates some of the break away moments.

One day, a couple of weeks ago, she broke out into a full on canter, the first one I've seen in quite a while. I was very proud of myself for hanging on through a full circle around me and then bringing her in and down. She didn't stop moving until she was about 3 feet away from me, but she did stop. I don't reward her for stopping at that point. Don't worry.

I spent some time last week really challenging her with the longe whip, swinging it and moving it erratically, while expecting her to either stand still or continue walking. That was an interesting day. There was a lot of dropping the whip as she took off and bringing her in to me to stop her. A real challenge to my physical and her mental strengths. Ultimately she did very well and by the end of the day she was able to maintain a calm(ish) walk as I picked the whip off the ground, swung it over my head and brought the whip tip to the ground quickly.

Why would I do this, you may ask? I want Matilda to be as "bomb proof" as possible. I won't always be the one dealing with her and people are weird. I really don't expect her to be able to keep her cool if someone comes up behind her cracking a whip, but I'd like to know she is capable of trusting me not to touch her harshly with it. If she can trust me, she can trust others. This exercise was asking a lot, I knew that, but I was sort of looking to see where we were.

That's about all I can say. She still walks, trots and whoas at the end of the lunge line. Well, until she doesn't. There have been days that she just wasn't listening. I would get her walking and then ask her to stop and she would walk 3 circles around me before turning towards me and walking all the way into my space as if to say, "Did you say something? Was that good enough?" She still rushes and pulls and the cooler nights have made these moments more frequent than I would like it to be but it has all been manageable. That's vital. I am always able to bring her down somehow. I am always able to get some sort of decent upward and downward transitions out of her. (well, except for that one day, but the food cart went by right as we were getting started...) She is getting fewer food rewards for her work on the longe, although there are plenty, and my arm muscles are getting stronger. 'Nuff said.

Matilda on the Ground

We had to spend a lot of time working from the ground the last few weeks. Once I had gotten up on Matilda, I wanted to keep getting on her every day and came to the barn with that expectation every day. After a few consecutive days of disappointment and frustration, I sort of gave up the idea and committed myself to just working from the ground until school started again.

We've kept up with the "back" and "up" (for lifting the feet) but I've mostly worked on fine tuning the "over"s. She has gotten really good at moving just her front feet again, when I touch her shoulder, and doing a full body lateral shift when I touch her at the girth. Her hind end has been the problem. She almost always has to step forward, then a tiny step away from me with her front feet before taking a huge step away with her rear feet followed by a step backwards. We went through this dance step many, many times over the last weeks before I finally started giving her some help by holding her head.

I really want her to do this movement all by herself, without me giving any physical help in adjusting her body. For now, however, I have to bend her head a little bit towards me and hold it back while asking her to move the hind legs alone. When I do all that she performs the movement beautifully. The second I give her her head, we go back to the dance step. We'll keep plugging away at it until she understands.

I have also added a dressage (long) whip into the mix. I figure that it will be both impractical and unsafe for me to keep my balance while I ask for her to move her front legs around her rear - or vice versa - by swinging my leg up to her shoulder or all the back to her hip, pressing in, and saying "over". It would be much easier if I could do the same thing with a light tap of the whip, don't you think? The larger, full lateral move can easily be done with pressure from my leg so no worries there.... If it will work in transition to the saddle at all.

So, we have been going through the same exercise from the ground with me standing either in front or beside her, tapping her lightly with the whip and asking for "over". She quickly understood what I was asking for when I tapped her shoulder, tougher with the rear end. She doesn't even like the whip going back there. If I am holding the whip while I move to stand beside her, she cranes her neck around as if to say, "And where do you think you are going with that?" I have to tap lightly with the whip, then press with my finger in order for her to move. She has begun to respond to the taps occasionally, but only just. There's a little ways to go with that one.

I hoped to start on teaching her to "walk on" by voice command only. I had, in my head at least, worked out a system that I thought would work from the saddle, but was not sure I could translate it to the ground. My short time in the saddle made it clear that she either did not understand or did not know to listen for the voice commands. I thought she had been listening at least some of the time during our longe work, but I was evidently sending more signals through body language than I thought.

It came to me an instant, however, and we started to try it. Standing next to Matilda, I would say "walk on" as I walked forward. She of course would walk with me and I would immediately click and reward. We did that 3-5 times, back-to-back in rapid succession. Then, just as quickly, I said "walk on" and didn't move - she did! HA! Click!

We went back and forth, sometimes I would walk with her and others I would stand still, but she always walked forward. We have only gotten a few shuffling steps in a tight circle around me (she'll never go far from that reward) but it has been a start.

On Friday (the 26th) we began working "whoa" the same way. I stopped beside her and said "whoa" as she stopped. After several times, I said "whoa" and kept moving forward very slowly. This proved more difficult for her to grasp, but she showed small signs that the synapses were starting to fire on this one too.

As soon as I gave myself over to a couple weeks of ground work only, I really enjoyed it. One day, we even had the time to work in her paddock like we did in the very beginning, no halters or leads. Absolutely her choice to hang out with me or go off on her own. I felt like she really enjoyed that and I will try to make room for "play days". That being said, she can no longer stay there but must continue working to join the rest of the world. Despite my own failings and confusion, I will continue to try to make it as pleasant as possible for sweet Matilda.

Matilda Around the Barn

I am planning a series of posts this weekend, to catch you up on the last few weeks. For these posts, I am going to summarize the four focus points of our work rather than trying to provide a blow-by-blow of days worked.

I have tried to have Matilda around the barn more and more over the last few weeks, making sure she spends time in the cross ties being groomed and even giving breaks during our work outs by putting her in a stall or bringing her up to the barn at feeding time so that she can eat in a stall. I don't know that there is any good reason to do some of these things, other than my desire that she be more and more a part of barn life. Getting used to seeing people and being seen by people.

She is very quiet in the stall. No big deal, although she will try to steal your food if you eat in a chair that she can reach. Matilda doesn't mind being stared at or petted by random passers by and it's nice to see people walk by, pet her nose and ask "Is that Matilda?" every once in a while and express an interest in riding her.

She is also quiet in the cross ties... for pre-work grooming. If you remember my last post (and I didn't, I had to go re-read it before starting this one. Sheesh.) you will recall that I complained about Matilda being annoying while I tried to groom her after some work. I attributed this to the feed cart going by. Not so. She is always annoying in the cross ties during the untacking and grooming process before going back out to her paddock.

This makes no sense to me. She should be quieter, by my reasoning, after a little bit of a work out but instead wiggles and moves back and forth. People walk by and ask, "Is Matilda going to break out of the cross ties?" (At this point no one expresses an interest in riding her.) She also punches me in the arm as I walk back and forth in front of her. In fact, one day I spent more time than I wanted walking back and forth close in front of her nose simply clicking when she left me alone. She's a little better about that now.

This tends to be a dangerous time for me. I am apt to lose my temper as I try to go through what should be a relaxing process. I lost my temper a little bit today, jerking at her halter as I tried to keep her still. Shortly after, I stepped back and took a deep, sighing breath as I put my hand on her back. As soon as my hand touched her back she took a deep, sighing breath too. I realized that she was just as frustrated and confused as me. As much as I was gritting my teeth by her not getting it, she was pinning her ears back because she couldn't figure out what I was after. That was enough to calm me down. I hugged her neck for a second and went back to work.

After a lot of trial and error, I found that if I just froze the brush wherever it was when she started moving, waiting until she stopped moving before resuming the brush stroke and clicking while said brush stroke was in progress (sheesh again) - THAT she started to understand. I was, by the end able to brush her face (which she abhors, by the way) and one side of her body while she stood quietly and got a click and reward at the end.

And her feet... I used to pick up each foot and click and reward the moment it was in my hand, immediately releasing it. Now I can pick up a foot and click and reward with every other foot that I clean, her hoof resting fairly gently in my hand for as long as it takes. When tacking up, that is. When untacking, I have to click for each hoof. Clicking while I am actually brushing or picking out the hoof but only if she is not trying to pull it away. (If that isn't a neat trick.... wiggly hoof, hoof pick and clicker in hand, where does that third hand come from??) It's getting better. She really only tries to pull her rear hooves out of my hand and, in all honesty, I haven't spent a whole lot of time on it. I'm usually out of carrots by the time I get to her feet. I am trying to be more conscious of my carrot rations these days.

So, we are hard at it! Who knew a simple brushing would be so much work?!? Next time (tomorrow, I hope) Matilda on the Ground...

Riding Matilda Part 2, My Turn

I went to the barn with an agenda on Friday. Never a good thing; fortunately I got away with it. I wanted to get on Matilda so badly after seeing Loryn up there the day before. The barn was crowded, as it always is these days. With camp every morning almost all the lessons have to happen after one o'clock and there is rarely, if ever, a time that the ring is empty. If I am lucky, I can find a time when there is only one lesson or one practice ride going on. I know that it's good for us to work with all those distractions but I was admittedly out of sorts on Friday for unknown reasons, feeling hurried and impatient. Wanting time to myself. Snarky...

I try to be as unobtrusive as possible when I work with Matilda, working around lessons and other riders. This wasn't possible on Friday. I had to ask to take over one end of the riding ring, pushing four other riders to share the other side. Like I said, the barn was crowded on Friday.

It was just me and Matilda. We started with some review and I noticed that her "over" was really imprecise. A couple of weeks ago, I put my finger on her shoulder and asked her to "over" and she stepped over with just her front feet. This afternoon the same action got a full body lateral shift with a step back at the end. We did it several times before she even came close to doing it correctly. I was not impressed. We worked on it a little while, going up and down her sides and asking her to step over. I asked just until she gave me something that (if I squinted my eyes and tilted my head to the left and with the sun behind her) looked a little bit like what I wanted. Did I mention I was not impressed? Next time I am at the barn I will most likely spend all of our time reworking those ground commands. As much as I want to work on new stuff, I guess I have to set aside days to reenforce those things.

After I hurried through our review I put her on the longe line. I shouldn't have been surprised to find her quick and unfocused. A perfect reflection of my own attitude.

She walked when I asked, but I had to ask her to "whoa" at least a half dozen times before she stopped. I clicked for stopping and tried again. Same thing. I could tell she just wasn't listening and I could see the possibilities of me getting on Matilda's back fading into the ether.

As we struggled through our workout, I stumbled across another take off trigger, too. At the end of one of our circles, I dropped the longe whip on the ground and went to her to give her a reward for half decent behavior. I asked her to "walk on", which she did nicely, but when I bent over to pick up the whip she tried to take off! Huh, I thought, that's weird. Then it struck me that all of my desensitizing exercises with dropping and picking up the whip had been done while she stood still. This was the first time I had tried to pick up the whip while she was already in motion. All plans had to go on the back burner in order to fix this.

I asked her to "walk on" and bent down to the whip, she picked up that quick trot and I had to stand up quickly and use both hands to bring her back to the walk. I let her walk for a while then bent my knees to about the half way point, she picked up the quick trot with a head toss. Sigh. Up again to bring her down to the walk. OK, third time's the charm. I barely bent my knees, she sped up the walk but this time I was able to click before she trotted. It's pretty much a given (as much as these things can be) that when she hears the "click" she stops (thank You, Lord). She did so in this instance and I rewarded.

I asked her to walk again and after a few circles did another knee bend - click. Again, with a slightly deeper knee bend. We probably did this 10-12 times, with me getting a little closer to the ground each time, before I could pick up the whip while she continued to walk. The whole time I could feel my mental fingers drumming away on a mental table top with impatience.

Of course we had to do the same thing on the other side. Fortunately it took less time, as she was already familiar with the exercise.... I guess.

Now for the moment of truth. Did I dare?? The four riders had left the ring, but two more had come in for lessons. One little girl on a pony (I think it was a little girl on a pony, I was only half paying attention... you know, like Matilda) and one teenager on a young horse still in training. Not the ideal situation. Especially since Matilda was not listening to me on the ground.

But how could I not?! So, on went the helmet and Matilda and I walked to the mounting block. I clicked for lining up almost perfectly with the mounting block. I clicked for standing perfectly still while I hoisted myself up.

I wanted to see if she would respond to simple voice commands so I said "walk on" without giving any indication with my body of what I wanted (This is harder than it sounds. It's sort of auto-pilot-motion memory to squeeze with your legs as you ask for the walk.) and she just stood there. I said, "Matilda, walk on." and she stood there. I said, "Matilda, waaaalk ooooon." And she moved forward! No, just kidding, she still stood there. Finally I gave her a little squeeze with my ankles while asking her to walk on and she did (click!)

Then I asked her to "whoa" and she kept walking. So I squeezed back with the reins and asked her to "whoa" and she did (click!)

We spent about 10-15 minutes in just this way: walking, stopping, dismounting and re-mounting. All with relaxed loose reins and as little physical encouragement as possible. (Remember, one of our new goals is for her to respond to voice commands only from the saddle.) We now know that Matilda and I have to work on our coordination in getting carrots to her from the saddle. It's a little awkward but every time she stretches that head around to get a carrot from my hand, she is stretching her neck, loosening up and learning to bend. Bonus!

I wish I could end on this positive note, but as I finished my last dismount (click!) the food cart went past... Whatever little bit of good Matilda there was immediately vanished. I tried to hose her down but she would not stop moving and punching me. I finally just took her out to her paddock and turned her loose. We'll save working through feed time for another day. I was so frustrated by the time I took her out to the pasture that I did not realize until I was on my home how easy it was to lead her out. I know she was focused on getting to the food, but she never got ahead of me or punched me to try and get me to move faster. It would be quite simple (and some horses do) for her to try and rush and pull me along, but the whole way back to the paddock her head was near my shoulder... of course there was no time wasted either:)

On a second sad note, I have lost some of my contact with Loryn. Stupid school is already getting in motion and preparations intrude. We will try to figure out how to get together at least once a week but I am sad. I feel like the three of us were just hitting our stride together. stupid school. I am grateful for how she has motivated me to pick things up through this summer. I wouldn't be where I am without her involvement. We'll find a way to continue working together in some fashion. In this I am confident.

A new week begins. I see a lot of "walk on" and "whoa" in my near future. At least I will be in the saddle for some of it and that's where I want to be.


P.S. School is important. School is good. If you are in school, stay in school. Blah blah blah ;)

On Top of Matilda (to be sung) aka A New Thing

FYI - We are leaving Kelly Marks' book behind. It has served its purpose and we are taking all the things that we have learned and running with it! I'll talk more about that later in this post.

We went to the barn on Tuesday but only so that my 6 year old niece could have a lesson. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw Matilda in the upper ring with a saddle on! Loryn was working with Matilda, not just going over "over" (hee hee) and moving away from pressure, but teaching Matilda to move away from small, gentle taps of the whip with the saddle on. Loryn informed me that she was not at all distracted by the saddle. Kismet -

Loryn was reading my mind. I had written in my last post that I was thinking of putting the saddle on Matilda for the lunge work and there she was, with a saddle on her back!

So today Matilda worked with a saddle. Loryn briefly showed me what she had been doing and then we put Matilda on the longe line. (I had indicated my hopes for the day to Loryn and I think she was as anxious as I was to press on!)

There was another horse in the ring and we had a slow start. I asked her to walk and then whoa. She kept walking for a long time after I asked her to stop, but I clicked as soon as she stopped and then I had her. She gave me everything I asked for within moments of my asking.

Now that she is doing so well with her walk, trot and whoa transitions, I am trying to focus on and reward some specific aspect of her lunge work. Right now it is softness on the line. Matilda likes to use the longe line to help her balance, just like we might balance by pressing against a wall, I believe she presses to the end of the longe line as a way of trying to balance herself. This means that I have to use my body weight to hold her head in, in an attempt to keep her from that spiraling out of control business. So, my goal now is to only click if the longe line is soft (or relaxed) and she is maintaining the circle on her own. Right now I can only get a few steps before she presses to the outside but a few steps is better than no steps at all.

Now we get to the fun stuff:

As long as Matilda had a saddle on her back and there were two of us there, somebody had to get up on her, right?! This was what Loryn and I had talked about and why we were so eager to get through our basics. We had talked about just clicking for Matilda standing still while Loryn simply mounted and dismounted, yeah right.

Our barn uses a mounting block and it is very difficult to dismount on top of a mounting block so we had to ask her to move forward a little too, right?? right??

This was Loryn's first time on Matilda and Matilda's first time with a rider in 2+ years. I think we were both really excited. I had the lead for Matilda's halter and Loryn was on her back. I wish I had pictures but, well... I had the lead rope and I am super paranoid and not getting distracted for a photo op.

OK, I am going to digress from the narrative to explain our new ideas and direction now so that you understand what we were doing....

One of the things Kim and I have talked about (in a vague sort of way) is the possibility of Matilda becoming a therapy horse. As I thought about how to transition Matilda from longe work to under saddle work, it hit me. If Matilda is to be a truly phenomenal and unique therapy horse, she needs to be able to listen, understand and obey basic directions from the saddle- whether by voice, leg, hands or any combination of the three.

I mean, what if someone who had no leg strength wanted to ride? Wouldn't it be great if they could be confident in rein or vocal aids while building leg strength? Or someone who had poor motor skills - they could rely on the vocal aids while figuring out how to move and control their limbs independently. The possibilities are infinite if we can figure out how to make this work.

So, I asked Loryn (and I will be also) to brain storm how to proceed to teach Matilda to stop (whoa), walk, trot and turn left or right by voice, leg and/or rein aid. I am really excited about this new idea. We'll still be working on "regular" riding so that she will be a good horse for Loryn to ride in lessons and such but this will be an entirely new dimension for us to work towards. We need to come up with long term and short term goals to meet each week. So cool.

(You can tell how excited I am by the poor sentence structure:))

Back to the narrative:

Loryn was up on Matilda, I had the lead. Our goal? to see how Matilda listened and responded to the vocal commands (NOT trot but walk and whoa) with minimal leg aids.

The difficulty? being next to her with the lead in my hand and not telegraphing "walk on" and "whoa".

Loryn would ask Matilda to "walk on" with minimal pressure from her heels then to "whoa". She had nothing to pull back on to support the vocal command. I did my best to walk next to them only after Matilda started walking and to slow to a stop only after Matilda did. Every few starts and stops Loryn would dismount, walk Matilda back to the mounting block and re-mount. I would click and reward when she stood absolutely still for mounting and for stopping on command. (stop is always the most important command for a 1600 lb. horse)

It was all brilliant. She was absolutely calm and quiet with everything we threw at her. I really believe that we are starting a new chapter in this journey. Now I am thinking about how to teach Matilda the difference between left and right. I think it will all start with the vocal commands and we will be able to build the other aids from there. Using the heat as our ally and the clicker as our enforcer, we press on to see just how far we can go, how much she can learn. The sky is truly the limit.

Giving Matilda Room to Move

The extreme heat has narrowed down the time that we have to work with Matilda. I must say that, forced to make a choice, I want to spend my time working on the longing-type work.

Last week I made it to the barn on Tuesday and Friday. I not only focused on the lunging work (yes, I do keep intentionally changing the spelling of that word), I put Matilda on the 25 foot longe line. More freedom, less control... but very hot weather was once again on my side.

Both days, I started close, with her only 2-3 feet away, and worked her out to about 20 feet away with mostly walk/stop transitions. I began asking for walk/trot transitions when she was about 15 feet away but continued to feed the line out to 20 feet. I continued the process of clicking randomly for upward and downward transitions, for trotting a few steps or walking without any kind of tension on the line... or any combination of those things.

Tuesday we had one near take off. This one was due to the madness of other horses coming in from the pasture and it was relatively easy to bring her down. By that I mean throwing down the longe whip and using two hands and all my body weight to drag her head into me while giving her an extremely firm "Matilda, Whoa" seemed to do the trick.

Matilda is so quiet in the work and from the heat that I am becoming more and more comfortable in my handling of her. We had a horse being brought in for a lesson and I wanted to get her to the paddock before the trailer came down the hill, past the ring. I actually tried to get Matilda to trot with me by jogging beside then in front of her, outside of the ring, down to the paddock. This is something I never would have attempted one month ago... heat or no. You can see how well it went:

My new favorite picture.... It's sort of like trying to move a brick wall.


Friday was flawless. While working on her left, I was able to get a series of smooth walk/trot transitions (going from the walk to trot to walk to trot, etc.) without stopping. Clicking only after I asked for and received a solid stop. Throughout all these transitions I was able to flick the whip however and wherever I needed to keep her moving. She never flinched at it.

If you looked at the videos a couple of posts ago, you'll recall that it took me a couple of minutes to get her to trot in one of them. This has all but stopped. She picks up the trot within a few steps of my asking for it almost every time. I credit the upward transition clicking for that one. On Friday she was going up and down through her gaits readily.

Sometimes she still tries to walk into me when I tell her to "walk on" but that only occasionally. I do click for walking out into whatever circle we've established when I give the cues. I expect that walking into me behavior to extinguish itself.

We are only working about 30 minutes in the current heat. Enough time for a short review and 15-20 minutes of circle lunge work. Matilda seems really relaxed and willing.

I have guests in town this week, hence the rushed-style post. I won't get to see Matilda until Thursday afternoon. The work last week was fantastic and I am already thinking of adding a saddle to the longe line work, to see how she responds to the stirrups banging against her sides. Could be exciting!

Oh yes, the She-Beast is still there...

"You never had control! That's the illusion!" - Dr. Ellie Sattler, Jurassic Park


Between Thursday and Friday last week, the temperature dropped 30 degrees. It rained all Friday morning. The perfect day to work with Matilda and see what she really knows or will do without the triple digit heat indexes on my side.

I have good news and bad news. Leading up to the ring and working on our basic groundwork exercises went very well. Matilda did everything I asked for up to and including turning around her front legs without walking forward first.

Then I moved into our circle work. Every time I asked her to walk forward, she took one step forward then turned and walked into me. When I would re-adjust and re-adjust to keep her from walking into me and ask her to walk on, she would toss her head or kick out (or both) and trot as she tried to pull away.... Ahhh, just like old times.

Now, it was raining, so her halter was soaked and bunching up funny, the flies were all over and biting her (despite my attempts to beat them off with healthy doses of fly spray) and we were working with another horse in the ring for the first time since we started all this nonsense. Not an easy day for the best of horses.

I felt privileged to get one walking circle around me on either side with no disasters. You know, the ones that take us all the way back to the beginning? Yeah, none of that.

Before I became completely frustrated (which we all know leads to bad things and potential disaster) we called it quits and I led her out to the paddock. The entire way from the ring to the paddock, Matilda nipped and mouthed at my hand and arm. Well, not the entire way. Sometimes she took a break to punch me in the back with her nose. Needless to say I was ticked.

We were both relieved to reach the paddock and say our fare thee wells for the day. That was Friday. Yuck.

Then came Monday. Who likes Mondays? Matilda apparently. (FYI - Monday was sunny, but not quite the heat and humidity that we have been experiencing. The perfect follow up to Friday)

I forgot to tell you that in recent weeks, Matilda has two new paddock mates during the day. I tried to get a picture of them but it is no good. I'll try again later. Forty is her boyfriend:) Bruin is a little, noisy welsh pony that looks like a mini-Matilda. I refer to them as her "family". It's changed the dynamic a little as far as getting Matilda from the paddock.

Like with any family, they fight. I don't want to get in the middle of a horse fight. I can be stupidly reckless but even I have my limits. The problem is that Matilda tends to look to Forty when I call her to come as if asking permission to leave. I'm not going all the way to her to remove her from the mini-herd but she can be a little reluctant to come to me if the other two are with her. Don't get me wrong, she'll do it - I just have to work harder by coming further into the paddock than I really would like. It's just like with dogs: less distance between means better communication. Shoot.

On Monday, there was a double threat. Matilda and Forty were together... eating hay. As I approached the paddock the thought crossed my mind that there was no way I was going to walk up to her and Forty to pull her away. But there was no way she was coming to me. I started formulating a complicated, "Mission: Impossible" type plan....

Just for laughs, I closed the gate to the paddock behind me and said "Matilda, hey Matilda, come" and she did. You could have knocked me over with a feather. She took her time and stopped along the way but ultimately she came all the way to me.

And that is how our Monday went. Everything was beautiful. We even did her circle work with another rider in the ring and it was like nothing. Amazing.

One major thing (for me) was being done differently. Up until now I have only been clicking for downward transitions, ie trot to walk, walk to stop. Monday I started clicking for any and everything. If I said trot and she started trotting, I would click and follow up with an immediate, rapid fire "walk, whoa" and go in with the reward. I clicked for upward and downward transitions, I clicked for completing a full circle at the trot without pulling on the lead. It was totally random. She might go through 3 transitions without any click and then get a click for all of the next 5. I think we both liked this. It kept us on our toes and I am going to be sure to keep on clicking a little more randomly as we move on with our circle/lunging work.

In light of the nipping and punching of Friday, we also went back to the basics of food and respecting my space. With the clicker as my little helper, we worked until I could place a carrot piece in the flat palm of my hand, holding it close to my body, and she would look away, not taking it until I put it under her nose.... apples too. We'll keep reenforcing this one daily. I don't like being punched in the back.

All in all I consider these two days rather perfect when added together. It's important for me to have reminders that Matilda is an enormous, strong animal with instincts and a will of her own. The idea that I can "control" her with a 10 foot lead and 2 inch clicker is rather ridiculous. However, with each unsuccessful breakaway attempt, I am learning to trust my own handling skills more and more.

With the difference between Friday and Monday I am also reminded that sometimes bad days are just that. Bad days. We all have them. We meet our co-workers and friends with an attitude that sends them reeling and the next day offer them a hug and kind word that is even more baffling.

Matilda and I are still and always a team. I was so encouraged by all that happened I put her on the true 25' longe line today, giving her more space to build momentum and break away or move beautifully and safely.... but I will write about what happened today later.... :D

New and Improved Post * Now with Video (links)

It's really amazing how much Loryn has added to this equation. Just meeting her, talking to her and seeing her interest in Matilda is keeping me motivated and focused. It's also helped me to shift my thinking from the theoretical to the practical, pushing to move on with Matilda's future as a riding horse clearly in focus.

This doesn't mean that we don't have time for some fun. One of our favorites is "up", where we lift a hand, say "up" and Matilda lifts the corresponding hoof. She is doing it so well that we are working on speed and sequences of lifting. We have been wondering if we can get her to the point where she will prance on her front feet, going back and forth. So far we've only got her going from left to right once, very slowly, before clicking but we are building. It makes me laugh to watch it.

I am trying to get it on video, but whenever I pull out the camera she stops. I have half a dozen 10 second videos of Matilda standing and staring blankly at Loryn or the camera while Loryn stands with one hand in the air saying "up" over and over.... that sort of makes me laugh too.

More practically, we continue to focus on Matilda's response to pressure. I think I said this in my last post but I will reiterate (b/c I can't remember and don't want to actually go back and look) that we are looking for Matilda to give appropriate responses in moving away from the smallest amount of pressure so that a child could apply a hand or heel to her side and get a decent response. She really does well with this and it is all about fine tuning (ew) and making sure that we are getting the exact movement we want every time.

Right now I can pretty much count on getting one step to the side when I put one finger on her shoulder. She moves one complete lateral step sideways with her whole body when she feels a finger around where her girth will be more than half of the time. Her hind end is where everything comes to a grinding halt... literally. When I start walking towards her haunch, she often bends her head around to watch me as if to say, "And where do you think you're going??" I apply a finger, then a knuckle, then a fist with my whole weight leaning up against her. I have to lean there for about 5 seconds before she steps forward and then, finally, out to the side with just her hind legs. We'll be focusing on the refinement of that skill until it's one finger to her hip equaling one step out with her hind leg. It's just a matter of good timing and consistency with that wonderful Click!

We continue to work on... ummmm.... encouraging her not to pull for the grass when being led around. Work sessions frequently start with a trip around the ring, stopping every few steps and clicking and rewarding if she can keep that giant head up and not reach for the delectable fringe of grass that tempts her just inside the fence. Yesterday she really started to get it. I noted several times with both Loryn and myself that she backed up and turned her head into us and away from the grass when we stopped walking.

I've started giving her those farewell pieces of apple on the trip from the ring to the paddock, since that used to be where the worst pulling occurs... Funny, she's not so interested in the grass once she knows there might be apples....

On Tuesday this week, Matilda was very rushy. I only asked for walk and stop and worked on her standing still while I picked up the whip then moved into and away from her. She tried to take off once or twice but either she responded to my request for a walk or I was able to pull her nose into me to bring her down. I don't know if I should say that I never lost control of her or she never lost control of herself. Probably both. We are a team after all.

This is video from Wednesday, towards the end of our session in extremely hot weather. I wish that I had before and after video, to show you what it was like when we first started. You'll just have to go back and read earlier posts and trust my descriptions and your imagination. I am no fool and know that the heat is giving me an enormous amount of help. In one of the videos I had to work really hard to get anything approaching a trot. (my husband has informed me that it is not a true Matilda trot - more of an upbeat walk :p) I think it is wonderful. When watching them back, I am still surprised at how I can flick the whip behind her heels. I was so proud of the way she listened to me for those downward transitions.

Sorry these are just links, I wanted to embed the video into the blog, but I am not that skilled.

http://youtu.be/aEYAHgeaKGE

http://youtu.be/ofawE_tuHxw

We are still working on the 10' lead. This really is not enough space for her to move comfortably but I believe that we will be starting to push out on the 25' longe line soon. Especially if we have more days like this.

Yes, I am still working with Matilda.

I wonder how many of my posts begin with an apology for not writing enough....

I am just going to summarize where we are now and what we are doing, so that I can move forward with you this week.

1) Groundwork:

Matilda continues to excel with all of her basics. I believe we have finished all the exercises in Chapter 2 of our book, including one in which I had to attach a lunge line to one side of her harness, take it down one side of her body, behind her legs and pull to see if she would follow the pressure without knowing where it was coming from. This was an exercise I was wary of doing but Matilda had no problems with it.

Right now we are focusing on just how Matilda responds to pressure. (She should move away from it, fyi.) We are building her response level, using all the voice and visual commands she has learned to help, so that if I put a finger on any part of her body, she will move away from it. We are doing this with the idea that even a small child should be able to move Matilda around with the smallest amount of pressure from their leg. She is better in some places than in others. For instance, she is more likely to give a speedy and appropriate response from her left shoulder than her right. We are working on this all the way from the top of her head down to her haunches: applying varying degrees of pressure and waiting for her to move where and how we want her to, then click and reward!

We are also starting to click for her ears turning forward. As long as I have known Matilda, she has preferred to have her ears pointed back, not pinned back but not far off it. This one is going to take some time. Matilda is such a wiggle worm, I anticipate weeks before she narrows in on what exactly she is doing to earn the click.

2) Longe work:

The lunge work is going really well. I am keeping Matilda on the 10' lead for the time being but have, on several occasions, been able to ask for the trot, drive her through it for 1 or 2 full circles and then ask for and immediately receive the walk and stop. I am not ignorant of the fact that the heat is working in my favor. Ninety + degrees, bright sunshine and high humidity keeps all of us a little quieter in spirit.

I think I can say that I did learn from the last break away. We start every longing session with about 5-10 minutes of me dropping and picking up the whip, making sure that she can stand still while I move around her holding the whip out towards her. There have been many days when I haven't asked for anything from Matilda, as far as longing goes, because the timing or something didn't feel right.

The closest I have come to a break away happened last week (while my mom was visiting, incidentally - she really enjoyed seeing Matilda do the things she has been reading about). I was just working on walk/stops with Matilda and the ATV went by to deliver dinner to the paddocks. Of course Matilda knew exactly what that ATV meant and she gave a buck and trot, I immediately dropped the whip and pulled her nose in while I yelled "WHOA!" She responded and it was over. Just like that. Nice to be able to maintain control every once in a while.

I am hoping for one more solid week of good, short walk/trot/halt work before I move her onto the 25' longe line and give her more space to move. Maybe next week!

3) An introduction:

I want to introduce you to Loryn. Loryn loves Matilda and hopes to ride and/or lease her someday (soon?). Kim hooked us up and she is now working with Matilda, too. Loryn has a lot of experience with horses and riding and I am grateful to be able to share this experience with her. It is also good to know that there is someone else looking out for Matilda on the days I can't be there.

In addition to all the other stuff that we are working on, I think Loryn is going to start working with Matilda on "squaring up" on command and (hopefully) whenever she stops. Squaring up means that when she is standing still her front legs and back legs are lined up, nice and even.


SO that is where we are. If all goes according to plan, I will be at the barn a good amount this week and would love to have some interesting stories for you, more pictures, maybe even a video! Things are cruising along nicely, though. Sometimes it's hard to believe!

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

Last night I dreamt that I was dealing with a large black and white horse. The horse was difficult to deal with on the ground, pushy and constantly in motion, and hard to contain under saddle, unwilling to stay at a nicely paced walk or trot. Clearly an amalgamation of the horses in my life, the dream, along with the mirror incident from last week, got me thinking about how horses (and pets in general) perceive and/or reflect us.

I know a lot of horses bolt and like to try to run away but I like to wonder if these two horses that came into my life do it in part because of what they see when they look at me, on some cosmic level. I mean, do these animals pick up on and reflect back the underlying reasons for my getting in the car as a teenager and driving for hours 15 mph over the speed limit (b/c ten over was normal in VA) just because I needed to be moving? Do they see that same longing that was there when I watched my dad race his Trans Am, then RX-7, then Corvette? (Happy Belated Father's Day!)

On some level is there an understanding of that slightly stubborn and rebellious nature that has always been there. ("Slightly?!" I hear my mom say with a laugh, "Do you see these grey hairs??") You know, the one... old memories and stories are unnecessary in order to extrapolate because we all have them. Does it come down the longe line to Matilda or get communicated through body language in ways that I don't understand?

Or is it just that I am aware of these tendencies in myself and they are, therefore, put onto the living things around me, whether they are there in reality or not? I don't really want to know.

But I choose to think that when Matilda looks at me (oh, those rare occasions of actual eye contact), she sees past the thinly veiled disguise of maturity and adulthood and reads the question that has been pushed to the back of my mind... and possibly just there to the left.

"Are we going to canter today, Miss Kim?"

Slow and Boring.... No, STEADY, really, I meant Steady

So, since my last post (you know the debacle of break aways and run offs) we have been taking things very slowly. If you recall, I had to back up to the very beginning and that is where we have remained. Every day, I go through a routine of reviewing all her yielding behaviors and building her stretching routine (stretching the neck by taking her head all the way down to the ground then from side to side) followed by work with the longe whip. I have yet to put her back on the actual 25 foot longe line. I keep her on the 10' lead and let her walk around me at the end of that.

When I say I am at the beginning, I actually mean that I backed up to where I should have begun. A couple of days after the debacle, I had Matilda on the lead and bent down to pick up the whip, she immediately began to walk away at a quick pace. Something clicked in my mind at that point, realizing that picking up the longe whip was a trigger point for her. Over the last two weeks, "we" have spent a lot of time simply dropping the whip on the ground and picking it up.... picking it up slowly, picking it up quickly with a snap. Dropping it in front of her, beside her, or just behind her. Doing this on the left and the right. Clicking and rewarding her for standing still as I do all of this. It's exciting stuff, this asking the horse to stand still whilst I drop and pick up the whip ad nauseam.

Then I move on to the really exciting stuff. I move into her then away from her, holding the whip, still asking her to stand still. whee.

Sarcasm aside, I understand this is important stuff. Even when Matilda is at her best, she starts anticipating what I am going to ask of her. When we work on longing and she successfully stops on command, I move in to give her the reward and as I step back, she starts walking before I have set myself and asked her to "walk on". This is fine when she is at her best, but when she is at her worst it spells disaster. So, we work on her standing still as I drop and pick up the longe whip, I snap it and touch her with it, all the while clicking and rewarding while she just stands there. Then I back up to the end of the lead, get in position, wiggle the whip behind her rear hooves and say "walk on" she usually does and it always surprises me.

This is pretty much all we have done for the last two weeks. She is walking and stopping for me on command reasonably well. Like all of us there are good days and bad days, but the controls that I have on her now seem to be preventing colossally horrid days.

I did buy a halter that fits her and a new longe line, so that when the time comes I have one that is new and un-weathered, hopefully without any weak spots. I put a leather strap across the nose of the halter that I can attach the lead to so that when I pull, it tightens across the top of her nose, adding pressure like the chain would but gentler.

I figure that every day that she doesn't get away from me, I am closer to a world where she doesn't try. How much longer we will have to stay here, I don't know. I am going to try to come up with something new to add into the mix to keep us in a learning frame of mind; I can tell that we are both getting bored with this routine. It's a routine we have to stick to in part, but there is no reason why we can't keep adding to the repertoire. I have to go back to the book and see what else I am missing from our to-do list.

I will tell one funny story. We usually work in the jump ring, since the dressage (aka upstairs) ring doesn't have any kind of fencing. With the summer here, there are days when there are no gaps in the lesson schedule for me to bring Matilda in and we have to work very gently in the dressage ring. I do not do any simulated longing there. Last week while we were working in the dressage ring, she seemed to catch sight of herself in one on the large mirrors that sits at the far end of the ring. It took me awhile to figure out why she was standing stock still and staring. When I realized it must be the mirror, I thought I would simply walk her up to the mirror and let her check it out. As we approached the "other horse" I noticed that Matilda was getting more and more agitated, more bouncy in her movement, breathing harder, tense. I got half way across the ring before the thought occurred to me that perhaps she was challenging that other horse and, of course, that horse in the mirror was challenging right back.

I don't know if Matilda could see or discern that two dimensional image, but having the thought was enough for me. I wasn't prepared to face whatever might have come next from my already agitated horse and we turned around and left the ring. She did continually check behind her the whole way down the hill. I can only assume that she was making sure the other horse didn't follow.

Who stole my horse and replaced her with this she-beast?!

To be perfectly honest, I swore more today than I have since high school. Maybe college. I vaguely remember writing, in the early days of this blog, about not pushing Matilda when she was unfocused and not with me. Apparently, I have yet to learn this lesson. I still feel like that would be giving up or quitting. The truth: it is just smart.

I could tell Matilda was not with me from the start. I don't know how one knows these things. I mean, as we started the review, she was doing what I asked but there was a vagueness about it all. It's just something you know sometimes, I guess.

I was, however, still blinded by the afterglow of last week's triumph and pushed on in the name of progress. Big, bold me, thought surely I could push Matilda through... whatever... and make some progress. Surely... not.

Matilda was on auto-pilot. She started walking and wouldn't stop. I had no part of her. I still started pushing the lunge whip through my hand in order to get it fully extended behind her, like on Wednesday. I got the whip about 1/2 way to the end when everything fell apart. She picked up the crazy trot and was on her way to crazy canter when the lunge line broke close to her halter.

At least I didn't have to worry about her stepping on the line as I watched her canter away, clearing a 2'6" - 3' jump in the process. It was truly amazing watching her take that jump at full speed.

I got a different lunge line and reattached her, but that first break away was enough to remind her of her own potential. The moment we got back in our circle and I leaned over to pick up the lunge whip, she took off and I hadn't a chance. I went after her, detached the lunge line and, for some reason that is still unknown to me, picked up the lunge whip to "gently" approach her with it.

Dumb. She took off again at a full gallop and broke out of the ring through the gate (don't worry, it is only braided baling twine, as far as damage goes). There is nothing like the sound of "LOOSE HORSE" ringing through the quiet Monday barn. Once she was free, she simply ran around the back of the barn, where two people who had heard my cry were able to grab her and hold her until I came with her lead to collect the mad beast.

Tempted as I was, I could not leave things there. Instead, we went all the way back to the beginning. Chain across the nose, clicking for letting me touch the whip, clicking for letting me touch her with the lunge whip, clicking for walking only 3 feet away from me with the whip behind her.... Then we finished with me forcing backs and overs on her. She knows this stuff, for crying out loud, but when I asked, her feet were glued to the ground. I was getting nothing.

I left the barn angry at the universe and extremely frustrated. I will be back tomorrow, not nearly as enthusiastic. I am going to have to slow way down and be very careful. She's gotten away from me twice this week, there cannot be a third time. I have to start retraining that brain all over again. sigh. I have got to be more patient and aware and willing to walk away. Double sigh.

I am left wondering if this was just today? or is it going to be like this every Monday unless I find some other time to get to the barn between Wednesday afternoon and Monday morning? Is that just too long a break? I don't know the answers to these questions yet. It was an exciting day and I wish I had some video of Matilda running wild. It is beautiful to behold.... I hope I never see it again. Not like that anyways.

A Triumphant End (aka Almost a Spa Day)

Tuesday was much like Monday. There was review, there was stretching. I had taken a moment to look at the book that I am supposed to be following to see what else I am supposed to be doing and remembered that two of the yielding exercises in the current chapter are turning around the hind legs and turning around the forelegs. I decided that turning around the hind legs should be an easy one to add into the mix, but I wasn't sure about the other. It had been a long time since I had tried to get Matilda to step out with her hind legs and I seemed to remember that it was not an easy task.

First I stood in front of Matilda and asked her to "over" as I stepped around her in a circle. Piece of cake, she stepped out with her right front leg, crossed over with the left front and we did that until we completed a half circle. We did the same in the other direction. I don't even have to touch her for that one.

Then to check how the hind end moves. I walked back towards her rear end, turned into her hip and put one finger in the middle of that substantial haunch as I said "over." She took a step with her right hind leg and crossed over with her left. I was able to do the exact same thing on the other side.... not bad, so I stopped there. No point in pushing perfection.

The longe work on Tuesday was exactly the same as on Monday, but with less trotting. She was starting to give in to the work, I could feel it! We went through the exact same process of clicking while she walked, then saying "whoa" as she was in the process of stopping. I had to continue holding the longe whip close to the lash, as she was watching me all the time. If I started pushing the whip closer to her, she would immediately try to pick up that crazy trot and I would have to drop the whip and pull her into me to stop her.

At one point I realized she was picking up the pattern too well and she had figured out that if she started to trot I would let her stop (my mind was interpreting what I was doing as "make her stop"). I came to this understanding when she picked up the crazy trot, trotted three steps and stopped, turning into look at me before I could even drop the whip. Not cool. What did that mean? It meant the next time she picked up crazy trot, I had to drive her through it, using the whip to keep her moving forward while my teeny arm held her nose down and in at the end of 10 feet of rope, until she came down to the walk. After that, I had to continue to use light motions from my shortened whip to keep her from stopping and turning in to me. Once we got through all of that, I got a few good steps of walk and Click!

In any event, the system that was used on Monday worked on Tuesday. I saw more walking and a little less trotting and hope springs eternal.... I noticed, however, on the way back to the paddock, that Matilda was pulling this way and that, trying to get to the grass. She rarely pulls on the way to the ring, but going back is a problem. I made a mental note to be sure and reserve some carrots for the trip back next time. I usually don't, so we haven't worked our way down before now.

I couldn't get to the barn until late in the morning on Wednesday and I figured that the ring would be full and I wouldn't really be able to work Matilda. I thought maybe we would have a spa day for Matilda. I've been meaning to attack that mane and it is certainly hot enough here (mid to high 90s) to justify a bath... with actual soap.

Much to my surprise and joy, I arrived at the barn to find a big one hour gap in the lessons! Cancel the spa day, back to work!

I followed the same plan as Tuesday, starting with stretches, backs and overs. We did a full circle around her hind legs in both directions (still don't have to touch her for that) and half circles around her forelegs (index finger alone moves that bulk around!). I must confess that I am now finding the longe work so rewarding that I am rushing through our yielding/ground work exercises because I want to see how she is going to progress on the longe line.

Her longe work on Wednesday was AMAZING! I worked her out about half way down the line, letting her get a little further away from me, and I was able to get the longe whip all the way out. We went from holding the stick two inches from the lash to about 5 feet! Just like you are meant to hold it. I was even able to wiggle it behind her and lay it across her haunch while she continued to walk. Now it was about 98 degrees, but I am not above using the heat to achieve a goal. (Don't worry we weren't out there that long)

With this incredible burst forward, we started working on her walk/stop transitions. Instead of clicking while she was walking, I started saying "whoa" first and then clicking when she stopped. We achieved the ultimate goal, she stopped when I said "whoa" and walked (walked, I tell you!) when I said "walk on" with a wiggle of the whip behind her. Brilliant. No more turning into me when I told her to stop, she stopped with her head pointed in the direction she had been walking. Perfect.

I was so impressed, I had to call poor Kim away from her work to watch. I was showing off with the whip, when I pushed a little too far and she picked up the trot. BUT when I said "walk" she took about 4 more trot steps, then came down to the walk. With the longe whip still wiggling behind her. I told Kim, "I know she's too keyed up to do this now, but she's even been stopping when I say 'whoa.'" And Matilda stopped while we watched. I know my mouth was hanging open.

With all of this excitement, I had to give Matilda a mini-spa day. I attacked the mane. Here is a sort of before and after shot... and I am not done yet. I think it still needs some work, but I am practicing my straightening skills as we go.



We did click and treat every two steps from the stable to the paddock on Wednesday. With that frequency of click and reward, there was no pulling, no trying for the grass. She walked when I walked and stopped when I stopped, but that was 4 days ago now. I'm not really worried about it, since Matilda has already proved that she has a good memory.

One of my next projects is to find a halter that actually fits Matilda. I apologize for the sideways picture (I am still getting used to a new phone), but I think you can see that this halter is being kept on by strategically placed bailing twine in two places. I have tried all the halters at the barn on Matilda and this is the closest fit. As she behaves better and is seen more... well, we all have our pride, don't we?

I go back to the barn tomorrow and I can hardly wait to get into the ring with Matilda and see what the day holds. There's a part of me that is itching to hop on her back and see what happens, but I promise I will not (Mom and Husband). I have a plan in mind and I will see it through to the end... But I'm starting to see what the end looks like. It is good.

Discoveries, Failures and Successes

It's been almost a month since my last post and the reasons are simple. I just haven't had much time for Matilda this month. I've checked in with her weekly, but only 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there to make sure she hasn't lost too much in the time apart. But now it is the end of May. My car is fixed, a job that I was studying up for has begun and summer is here. Time for me to get back to the project at hand: Matilda.

After the last post and before I checked out for the month, my sister had asked if I knew what had happened to Matilda to make her so scared of the longe whip. When I went to answer her I was surprised to realize that I had no real idea. There were a lot of scenarios that ran through my mind, but all were based on assumptions with no real knowledge. (You know what they say about when you assume??) So I went to Kim and asked her why Matilda was so difficult to handle. The answer sort of knocked me for a loop.

Kim basically said that she thought there had been some inconsistencies in how Matilda had been handled and that Matilda had learned over the course of a couple of years that there were people she could get away from and so she always tried and so she often did.

I was a little bit floored by this revelation. All my visions of Matilda accidentally being popped by whips until she simply feared them and tried to escape them flew out the window. Most of my sympathy went with them. I felt so... used.

This is such a good thing because too much sympathy does an animal no favors. Too much sympathy leads to coddling, coddling to affirmation of fear and bad behavior and affirmation leads to an animal that either won't leave it's comfort zone or knows it can get away with bloody murder and does so.

Does this mean I am changing my plan of positive reinforcement with the clicker training? Absolutely not. Does it change anything? Absolutely. From here on out, at least in my mind, there are two separate things going on with Matilda and I:

First, continuing to work on ground manners. This will go on exactly as before, using Kelly Marks' book to help Matilda go forward learning to give people space, yield to pressure, etc.

Second, longe work or Matilda's cardio workout. I will still use the clicker and positive reinforcement, but I have given myself permission to be much more assertive with things in order to push Matilda into work a little faster. She will have to give me A LOT more of what I want at the end of the longe line in order to earn that click and reward!

Last week I decided to check on this longe work to see where we stand. Admittedly not my best idea, seeing as how I had barely seen Matilda for over two weeks, but by now we all know about the slightly reckless side to my nature.

I started her out going to the right and she did surprisingly well. She was not really in control, neither was I, but we looked like we were doing what we meant to do. Matilda picked up the "I want to run away" trot as soon as I had the longe line in one hand and the whip in the other. (It's funny how putting the pieces together - line and whip in the ring - made it seem like we had done almost no work at all prior to this. But there again, two plus weeks with no time together did us no favors.) I managed to keep her where I wanted in relation to my personage, despite her throwing her considerable weight to the outside, pulling away from me. After much asking and waiting and hanging on, she finally slowed to a walk and I was able to use the whip to keep her at a walk for a couple of trips around the circle - until I asked her to stop. (Her instinct, when she realizes that she is not succeeding at pulling away from me, is to stop and turn into me. Getting her to simply walk, not trot or stop, is a tricky thing as it turns out.)

Then I put her on the left... supposedly her good side. Not pretty. We immediately started what I thought was the same process, with her picking up a fast trot and pressing to the outside. This time, however, I could feel a difference. There may have been little to no control on the right, but on the left there was a distinct feeling of being totally out of control. The more I tried to gain control, the worse it got... let me explain. With most horses that have been longed, if you put a little pressure on the line (and therefore on their nose) they slow or stop or turn into you. The longer you hold the pressure, the more they should slow down. With Matilda, the more I held, the faster she went until she was in a full on canter. The faster she went, of course, the more momentum she had to move away from me until she was all the way at the end of the line. It's a little scary, that feeling of no control, especially as you get dizzy after being spun in circles with no end in sight.

Ultimately, I had to let her go and watch her run happily across the ring, dragging the 30 foot longe line behind her as I said a quick prayer that she wouldn't step on it or get it caught on something. I had lost that battle... one I should not have engaged in to begin with.

I couldn't let it end there. I took her lead and walked up to where she was happily munching some grass. Her lead has a 6' chain on the end (called a stallion chain) and I attached the lead to her halter with the chain going across the top of her nose. This is a practice frequently used to help control an unruly horse and one that I never intended to use on Matilda. However I had to win before we parted for the day and I was short on time, tools and energy.

I walked her back to where she had escaped and picked up the longe whip. She immediately started trotting, but with the chain across her nose and the short distance between us, she simply could not pick up the speed and momentum that she had before. With this configuration, I was able to get her to walk around me, while I held the longe whip, until I asked her to stop. Thus ended the day.

Today I went in fully realizing what I was facing, which is always helpful. I brought Matilda up into the ring and we went through a nice long review together. I wasn't sure things were going to go well, as she was super distracted by people being around. She is going to have to get used to it, as summer is here and there won't be lonely barn days for about 3 months:)

All her old moves were there, albeit rusty, and we have started working on some stretches. She stretches her neck by lowering her head all the way to the ground and then bending the neck from side to side. We have just started this, but I am hoping that there will come a day when she and I can do some morning stretches together.

Then came time to start the fabled longe work. I knew that I needed some sort of help with control, but didn't want to use a chain across the nose. After talking to Kim, I decided to hook her up to the longe line so that the line, which is just like a wide flat cotton leash, went across her nose. I hooked it up so that when I pulled on the line it would add pressure across the top of her nose, encouraging her to bring her nose down and in, rather than just pulling her head to the side as is the case when I just attach the line to the side of the halter.

I also kept her closer to me. No more than 10-15 feet of line. The smaller circle makes it harder and more uncomfortable to speed up.

This combination worked for us today. We still went through the same exciting process of Matilda trying to get away, but she was not able to do so. Through some trial and error, I also found that if I picked up the longe whip close to where the stick meets the lash, so that the whip was further away from her, I could work her down to a walk. She still tried to escape from it as soon as I would pick it up but she would give up, not so if I pick the whip up by the handle. When I pick up the whip by the end and hold it out in front of me, she runs and presses until I drop it because I need both hands to hang onto her... then she stops and turns into me, knowing that I can't encourage her on.

After a lot of work, I was able to get her to walk around me on both sides, while I held the longe whip an inch below the lash. I was able to use the whip, in that position, to encourage her to walk on without her running off into that super chaotic trot thing she does. She was only rewarded if she walked until I asked her to stop.

Since I wanted her to understand that the walk was what I was rewarding her for, I would wait until she settled into a nicely paced walk, made a couple of trips around me at that pace, then I would have to click, say "whoa!" and step into her with her carrot at the same time. I think I got the timing right on that one. It's all about multi-tasking.

So, that is where we are. It was a small success on the day, walking on the longe line while I held the whip in my hand, but a success it was. It's a starting point for this next phase and that was all I needed to get my foot in the door. It will probably be quite a while before I actually ask Matilda to trot on the longe line. I think I will work on building the walk until she can walk at the end of the line (maybe 30 feet out) with the longe whip doing it's full job before I even look for the trot.... I'm sure I'll be seeing it in any event.

Longing Matilda

I know, two weeks. I have seen Matilda in the last two weeks, but the visits have been a hodgepodge of stuff. Mostly she had to punish me a little, because I left her alone for a week, by being a stubborn cheese head last week and I didn't want to write about it. I think the only accomplishment from last week that I care to mention is that neither of us were injured during the course of our "working" together.

BUT it is a new day in a new week and we approached it with enthusiasm and purpose!

I am really bad at these self-portrait things, but I tried to get a photo of myself with Matilda. At least in this one you can get a better idea of how huge she really is. With her head like this, on my shoulder, her nose is down around my waist.... Makes me feel brave to see it:)

Oh, I remember one thing that came out of last week: Matilda and I decided that we should spend as much time working in the riding ring as possible. The added distractions of just being in a different place are important and we both need to learn to focus, even if cars are pulling in and horses are being led past. Plus it gives us time to practice being led politely to and from the barn. We will work there when ever the ring seems to be free from riding lessons.

Since the barn is closed on Monday's, we worked in the ring today!

It's hard for me to keep in mind the many tasks that Matilda and I are supposed to be accomplishing at the same time. Lately, the exercises in Kelly Marks' book have been taking the foreground, but again with all of our recent accomplishments and the (sort of) closing out of a chapter, I thought we might revisit the idea and dream of safely and reasonably longing Matilda.

If you look back at previous posts, you will remember that I had desensitized Matilda to the longe line and overly desensitized her to the longe whip - to the point that I can no longer send her forward or move her using the whip. However, I had yet to attach her to the line and yet to show her the whip while being attached to her in any way. I, also, had not done anything with either of those tools in the ring, where any previous bad experience may have occurred. Today was the day.

I put the longe line and whip on the ground in the middle of the ring before I even brought Matilda up, so that she could see them non-threateningly right away. We did our usual review in the ring before I led her over to where they were laying. She nosed them and didn't seem to be bothered with them, so I picked up the clip of the longe line and tried to clip it to her halter. She balked a little, pulling up her head, but she may have just been trying to mouth it.

Once she was attached, I had to get her moving but was not ready to pick up the whip just to "see how it would go". I started walking with her, encouraging her towards the grass, hoping that with the forward momentum I could stop, hold the longe line and turn her head to get a few steps of a circle. But with Matilda, sometimes forward momentum is forward momentum. When she hit the end of the line, her head did not turn in and she did not slow or stop. She just kept moving with me dragging along behind and I had to let go of the rope as if I meant to do just that.

I didn't let go of the rope lightly. When a horse walks away, dragging a 30 foot line behind them, bad things can happen. If she were to step on it and panic, she could really do damage to herself, but I thought it was the best thing I could do in that moment.

Fortunately my phone started ringing at this point and I had some other business to take care of, so I unclipped the line and let her munch for a while. It gave me a chance to regroup. She didn't come back to me, like on previous days. She just kept watching me and eating. With the lack of recent work I really can't expect much though, can I? Since we haven't been working together so much and we were doing new things, I thought she might be a little on edge and didn't want to walk up to her and try to clip the longe line to her halter while she was happily munching. I remembered that balk and didn't want to risk her running away. I took her regular lead and the target stick and used the target stick, along with the "touch" command to get her to lift her head and move away from the grass where I felt I could safely attach the lead.

A new decision to make. With the longe line, I could get more distance between us and be a little safer if Matilda lashed out, but thought maybe I should just use the lead (about 8 feet long) as a short longe line so that she couldn't work up so much momentum and I would have better control. I decided to keep her on the lead. But none of this solved the problem of how to get her to move in a circle around me. Matilda and I have been working on leading and walking together so long that she just sort of sticks with me and refuses to move away. I had to try the whip.

I backed Matilda up all the way to the end of the lead and positioned her so that I was facing her shoulder before I very carefully bent over to pick up the whip. I kept my eyes glued on her, since this very simple action has caused her to lash out and run off in the past. I was able to get the whip and stand up straight without incident.

We worked hard. Part of the time I ended up walking around her while she spun around her center (who is longing who here?) as I tried to get her moving around me. Then she would put her head down and buck or kick before taking off in a run, all the while trying to pull away from me. The whip obviously made her nervous as she alternated between running and stopping and turning to face it, trying to keep it away from her back side.

But then we hit a few sweet moments. She would break out of the run and fall into a nice steady trot. She would circle me just enough times to start making me dizzy before stopping and turning in to face me and the whip. I could pick up the rhythm of it after watching her do it several times and found my place to click and reward. Very tricky stuff. I had to click while she was moving at a steady pace, after she had gone more than a step or two in the trot but before she stopped or exploded back into the run. Then I had to step in and give her the treat as she stopped, before she could turn and look at me.

She never did settle into a walk. She never lost that nervous look in her eye that told me she was very uncomfortable and on the verge of panic. That's ok. I gave her as much freedom as I could, to do what she needed in order to cope, but kept an eye out for those moments when I could let her know she was close to doing what I wanted her to do.

We didn't do this for too long. It was incredibly stressful and trotting on a small circle like that isn't all that good for her, just a few times to get us started and then back to the classics.

We finished up with back and over (she was able to move laterally along a pole today) and grazed a path back to the paddock. It was an exciting day. Another small step to our ultimate goal. We'll keep chipping away at it until she is more comfortable and at ease with this whole whip and moving around me thing. I was very proud of her today. She didn't freak out when I picked up the whip or touched her with it, and I did get some circles out of her. I'd love to see quiet in her eyes, but I can wait. It'll come.