Matilda and her ball. She still doesn't know what to do with it, but I kick it to her and around her... someday she will kick it back to me on her own. At least it gives me something to do while we are not actively working on, well, work.Yesterday was a change up day, while I am figuring out the stand still thing. (Thank you, those of you who gave suggestions. It is much appreciated.) It's hard to find a healthy balance that avoids monotony while preventing Matilda from becoming a "jack of all trades and master of none." You know, you get bored with task one and move on to task two before she really masters and understands task one.
I really want her to have a good understanding of all the things she is doing, but I didn't think I can face more "come", "back", "touch" and "stay". Fortunately, Kelly Marks' book breaks things down into groups with a sort of checklist of accomplishments. There are 5-6 things in each group and I feel comfortable working on those things in tandem. The tasks in the current group include all those things I've been working on: come, standing still, backing and (today's focus) lateral movement, aka moving side to side.
In addition to starting work on lateral movement, I also re-introduced the dressage whip.
Here is a picture of the three types of whip/crop that are typically used. The short one is a crop, used largely for hunt/jump riders. In the middle is the dressage whip and the big one with the cord is the lunge whip.
I decided to bring in the dressage whip since she is familiar and comfortable with it. I really just wanted to see how she would react to it since she hasn't seen it in a while. It was no problem. She walked right up nosed it and tried to eat it.
The interesting part came when I started touching her with it. She was fine on the left (now known as "the good side"). I could touch her from neck to haunch and down to her knees without event. I could even run the tip of the whip down her back.
When I moved to her right, I could see her skin crawl the moment I touched her. She could stand still as long as I did not let the whip lay against her for any length of time. The challenge was to be able to run it along her back, just as on the left side. I ended up laying the entire whip across her side and following her as she moved forward and back and circled around and around. The second she stopped moving: click! And we moved on from there.
I was, at the end, able to put the whip pretty much anywhere without her moving too much. I even lay it down her face, between her eyes and down to her nose. I tried not to leave it there for too long, lest we take a step backwards, just a second or two. I consider that a triumph.
Onto the lateral work. This is important stuff. It is good for working in close quarter with a horse, as in a stall or trailer. The ultimate goal is to be able to tell the horse "over" with maybe a finger on her side and have her move away. It's also useful when a horse steps on your foot. :)
It was one of those rare days when I was super focused on work and Matilda was not. Let me extrapolate. You may not believe me, but there are actually days when Matilda is thinking and focusing on what I am asking and what she is doing. Her movements are very deliberate and there are more pauses between the motion, not what I would call stillness just pauses.
There are also days when Matilda is just focused on the carrot. Sloppy days of constant motion with no real purpose. The neck and head wrapping around me in various configurations with eyes always on the pail, rarely on me. That was yesterday. That was the day we tried something new and relatively unfamiliar for the first time in several days.
I did not think it was going to be quite so difficult to convey to Matilda what I wanted. On another day it probably would not have been. I won't go through all the details of everything I tried just say that I tapped, pressed and prodded. She moved backwards, forwards and I am pretty sure that there was some more spinning around and around again, as she tried to reach the carrots and I tried to keep them away. I became the pivot point around which she moved and spun, working so close to her body that there was no way to see the big picture of what kind of movement was actually happening. (Fortunately, I am a blonde, so spinning and dizziness don't effect me the way it would a brunette or red head. It is closer to my natural state.)
I could feel the frustration rising up in me so I took the carrot pail and tossed it over the fence. I thought I would see how she did using some basic pressure and release tactics without the distraction of the carrots. This was when we reached a serious impasse. Roots grew out of Matilda's hooves and dug deep into the ground. If I had been working on "Stay" it would have been perfect.
I have tried over the last couple of years to adjust my thinking about my relationships with the animals around me. Tried to start viewing us as working in cooperation with each other, as partners, rather than seeing it as them vs. me, which is my natural leaning. I have done very well with this adjustment, but this was CLEARLY a her or me moment. A battle I had to win.
Again, I tapped, pressed and prodded alternating between the dressage whip and target stick, ultimately leaning against her with my hands/shoulder/body. At one point I looked like that "Far Side" Midvale School for the Gifted comic. The one where the kid is leaning against the door that says pull. She would not budge. She wouldn't even back up!
We reached a dangerous point. I was losing it and she was very close to finding out that she's stronger than me. I needed a moment and some space. The dilemma? She refused to move and I couldn't let her think that she was pushing me around. The solution? I told her to "Stay" and walked away, a little reverse psychology. Whether it was for her or for me, I know not.
She followed me, of course, but by that time I had a little distance. And I still had the dressage whip. Don't worry, I didn't whack her with it, I just waved it under her nose with that nice "whoosh" sound that good whips make and told her to "go". Go she did. She took off to the other side of the paddock at a trot and the battle was won. I had re-affirmed to both her and myself that I had the power to move her where I wanted her to go. I also had the space and time I needed to think about how to break this down for her.
And that's what happened. We broke it down. I had been asking her to move her entire body laterally, taking sidesteps with both her front and back legs. What if I just focused on a sidestep with the back legs for today? Neither of us have paid any attention to her hind quarters yet; when she backs up I am always looking for movement in her front legs. It's time to start giving some attention to engaging those back legs too.
I invited her to come to me. She did but very cautiously (happy dance), and we started in on that right side. I used the target stick to apply pressure to the rear hip and just watched those feet... Back, forward, again and again. Then nothing. I switched to the good side and kept that pressure on. My arms were hurting a little by now, but never fear, she did it. She took one small step to the side with her far leg. Hoorah! As soon as she stepped out, I clicked and released the pressure from her hip.
For some reason, I had it in my head that I really wanted her to take the near leg and cross it in front of the far leg. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I like the look of flexibility or it will be helpful in the future if we ever get to more advanced movement. I realized on the way home that that really had nothing to do with the exercise at hand but it's what I wanted so it's what I pushed for.
And I had to push for it, quite literally. She figured out almost immediately that I was looking for sidestepping, but she was giving me step-touches (stepping out with the far leg and bringing the near leg in next to it) when I was looking for a grapevine (that's a shout out to all of my old show choir/theater geek friends). Once she got the hang of the stepping out, I stopped clicking for that particular movement and kept pressure on the hip. Her sidesteps got bigger and bigger until there was nothing she could do but cross that near leg in front of the far one in order to keep herself lined up and in balance. Click! The connection for her was instant. Within three clicks I could tap her gently on the hip and say "over" and she performed the cross step I was looking for. On the left.
Back to the right. At least this time she got the sidestep a little faster, but not that cross step. We worked it for so long without success that I had to switch back to the left side just to prove to myself (and to her?) that she had actually done it. I hadn't dreamed it. Sure enough, on the left, it's an all too simple tap-cross step, tap-cross step. We did it 3-6 times without fail.
Back to the right. Step, together, step, together, step, together, over and over again. I was not physically capable of putting anymore pressure on that side. Step, together, step, together, step..... CROSS! "Hallelujah, thank You, Lord! Here's your apple. See you next week!" I've never left the paddock so fast.
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