Wiggly Day

Yesterday was a very wiggly day for Matilda. It was difficult to see any clear movement, which makes it difficult to click and reward. I was not able to complete the comfort touching exercise that went so well the day before because she just kept walking away.

We started off by taking a stroll around the paddock. Like Tuesday, she rushed and cut me off a couple of times but did fall into a nice placement with her shoulder just behind me. We were actually able to work on a few specifics, such as not having her nose attached to my hand - clicking whenever she would move her head away.

She did really nice work with this as long as I walked along the fence line, but as soon as I tried to move into the interior of the paddock, in a little more challenging pattern than a series of straight lines, she got really pushy and we quickly moved on.

I brought one of the lighter jump poles into the paddock to check on her lateral work. The idea is that you move her along the pole sideways, keeping her front feet on one side of the pole and her back feet on the other. It was clearly to soon. The pole just made it more evident that every time I ask her to move sideways or "over", she moves in almost any direction but to the side. We quickly moved on. (Am I repeating myself?)

It wasn't too long after that when we got to the point where Matilda just started trying stuff. I couldn't lift a hand or speak a word before she would start offering anything and everything. Little pieces of every behavior we have worked on, but all at the same time. She ended up just circling around and around me in something that looked like a series of awkward and sloppy turns on the forehand (turning around her front feet) and turns on the haunches (turning around, you guessed it, her back feet). (We don't even GET to those until Chapter 2!) Not necessarily bad stuff, but not even close to what I wanted. In lateral movement, I really want her to move AWAY from me, not AROUND me. Especially when she is not giving me a chance to ask for anything and my nose is 3 inches from her side... It really must have looked quite silly, come to think of it.

When I didn't click, she became frustrated and started nipping at me. I gave her 2 chances to stop and settle and then had to leave her. There was no focus and we were going into a behavioral death spiral.

Now, I have to tell you in Matilda's defense that Wednesday was a very different day. Typically I work with Matilda sometime between 9:30 and 11:30, just after she finishes her morning meal. Due to happenings with my own horse, I did not start with Matilda until about an hour and a half before her evening meal. We certainly have not worked together long enough for her to focus through heavy distractions such as an impending meal time. The important thing about the day: work was done and time was spent together. We'll do better. I know it.