h poles that are laid on the ground in an L-shape, as pictured. The exercise is supposed to help her learn focus, attentiveness to surroundings and careful foot placement. It should also help her start to bend her sides a little.I have been avoiding it for 2 reasons: 1) It seemed like it would be hard, 2) I would have to bring Matilda up to the ring or lug 4 poles down to her paddock in order to try it.
I thought that today would be a good day to bring her up to the ring, since we have been stuck in a bit of a rut down in the paddock. The ring offers new challenges for us, even with no one there, the main one being grass. Grass grows just inside the rails all the way around the riding ring. Good to find out if Matilda can work with distractions.
I put the halter and lead on Matilda and we walked around the paddock, practicing walking together while attached, before we walked out the gate and onto the grassy path up to the ring. I kept a short, tight hold on the lead so that if she reached down to eat grass, her head would sort of bounce up. She tried to reach down for grass twice, as soon as we left her paddock. Then she took one step with me: Click! Two more steps with me: Click! And we were able to move along nicely together, just like we practiced, clicking and rewarding along the way for not pulling me around the barn.
We got to the ring and I could tell that Matilda was a little distracted by the new surroundings. I had originally planned to attach her to the longe line, but why bother? We didn't need to do any real distance work today. I left the regular lead on her and asked her to "back", her favorite and most comfortable behavior, to get her into a familiar, working frame of mind. She walked forward, past me. I got in front of her and asked her to "back" again. She looked at me, looked around her and walked forward, past me. Huh. At least she thought about it the second time.
We went through that pattern a few times before she finally took that little, teeny, tiny step back and once she heard that first Click! in the ring, she was with me, 100%. We went through several backs and overs, which she did wonderfully, to get her used to the idea that the same sort of stuff is required of her here, too. We spent some time walking together and I made sure that she stopped when I stopped and backed with me if I did. It was wonderful, so we got to work on the L.
We started with the poles quite wide, a little wider than what you see in this picture, and I guided her through the L, with me walking backwards and her forwards, so that she could get a sense of the shape (and because that is what the book told me to do). I clicked every time she walked through the poles without hitting one. By the third time through, she was trying to walk through the L ahead of or
without me, so it was time to start working on backing through them.We worked in little chunks as I took her to the beginning and walked her forward a few steps, then told her to "back" as she backed up, I clicked and treated. We did that a few times, moving closer and closer to the corner. We worked forwards and backwards through the corner, using a series of "come", "over" and "back" (see how useful all that work is becoming?!) to maneuver her large body through it and then walked forwards and stopped at the end.
I looked at her and asked, "Do we need to do that again, or are you ready to try and back through the whole thing?" She didn't bite me, so I assumed she was ready to try and back through the whole thing. And that's what she did. I told her "back", "whoa", "over", "whoa", "back" (just one step) "whoa", "over" and "back" and she was through. She never touched a pole. She never moved without my asking. I never had to physically move her or hold her, the lead was always loose between us.
We did it a second time. Same thing. I moved the poles in, to challenge her, so that she only had about 6 inches on either side of her if she stood dead center. She still backed through without touching a pole. We did it one more time before we took a break. That last time, she started backing up before I asked her. I was starting to become dead weight on the line.
I walked her over to the side of the ring and stopped about two feet away from the grass. She stopped just behind me and waited until I turned to her and said "Go ahead and eat" before moving forward to graze a little. Amazing.
Back to work. Up until now, we had been going through the L-Shape so that she was always turning to the left, it was time to try the other direction. This was not as successful. Of course, I started with the poles in the narrower position and didn't work her through it the way I did on the other side, but she should have instinctively known what to do, right?
After a few unsuccessful tries (she kept stepping on the poles and walking outside the L) I widened the L to where they are in the reference photo above. I still didn't take the time to do the detail work that we needed (I was running out of carrots), so it stayed pretty rough.
One time, she was really lagging in doing the "overs" that I was asking her to do and I got a little frustrated at her "stall tactics". It wasn't until she had made the full 90 degree turn that I realized I had put her in the wrong direction! She was aimed to exit the L going forward, not backward. I apologized profusely but it's nice to know that she will listen to me and do as I ask even when she knows it is wrong.
When we got the right back turn close enough (she was only stepping on or outside of the poles 2-3 times), we decided that there were only enough carrots to get us back to the paddock safely, so we stopped for the day. I realized that I had left my camera in my car and wanted to take my lovely reference shots before we went back down to the paddock, so I unclipped the lead and let Matilda graze in the far corner of the ring while I went to get the camera.
When I returned to the ring, I began to worry that I had done a bad thing. I envisioned myself walking up to Matilda in order to snap on the lead only to have her run off and have to chase her down. My concern was such (she has broken out of this ring before, you know) that there was only one thing to do: stand in the middle of the ring, stare at the L-Shape and ignore the potential problem while deciding where to stand for my artistic reference photo.
I stood there pondering, with the lead hanging over my shoulder, for a moment. When I looked over, to see if Matilda was still munching away in the corner, I was shocked to see her slowly coming towards me. I just looked at her and said, "Are you KIDDING ME?!" She stopped about a foot away from me: CLICK! and I clipped the lead on and asked her if she wanted to go ahead and try the L to the right one more time, if I agreed to help her more. Once again, she didn't bite me so I assume that means "yes."
We did it one last time, this time I held her head a little to help keep her "back" straight (it tends to go on a diagonal). We went very slowly and carefully, we must have both realized during our break that we had been a little sloppy in our previous attempts, and made it through the entire L without hitting or stepping outside of poles. Actually, she clipped one with her front hoof as she took her last step out of the L.
We walked back down to the paddock with one big pull and one stubborn stop when she wanted to go left up a hill instead of right down to the paddock, but we got through that stand off without injury and she didn't try anything after that.
I was so delighted and impressed with Matilda today. I was prepared to struggle through this new exercise, prepared to be patient and determined not to get frustrated. Matilda just breezed through it. Next quiet day, you know we will be back in that ring. We'll work through backing to the right slowly and properly and it will be as good as backing to the left. This is the last thing in our first chapter of exercises in Kelly Marks' book (except for standing still, which we will just have to chip away at over time). I have to look at the next chapter to see what we will need to accomplish. I have a sneaking suspicion that we may have incidentally touched on some of the next to do list already. I'll look at it over the weekend and see what is to come!
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