Wednesday the 8th was a so-so sort of day. All of the behaviors that we had worked on were there, but they seemed to fade in and out. She would back and stop on cue many times and then I would ask her to back and she would walk away or roll a rock across the ground. The "over" that we have worked so hard on was seen more frequently, but not with any kind of reliability.
I tried to play a mirroring game with her, where she would move with me (she had been doing this a couple of days before when I was trying to do something else, of course) but she just couldn't quite get the hang of it.
I brought out the longe whip. To my delight, she did not run from it. I even wiggled it around her face and she would not budge. You can see from the photo here that she even tolerated my wrapping the lash around her head... clicking and rewarding the entire time, of course.She was doing so well that I tickled her hind end with the tip of the lash to see if she would move away from it. Nothing. Then I tapped her gently with the end of the stick, still no movement. I swished it past her closest rear hoof, she stood her ground. Hmmm... This was the end of my day and I realized I had created another problem for myself.
She is now so desensitized to the longe whip that I cannot send her forward, away from me. This is, after all, what the whip is supposed to do. It is supposed to be a communication tool between us that conveys, "I want you to move, please." or "Move faster, please." Instead I get NO response at all. It would be nice to find a happy medium.
The next day, the 11th, none of our usual stuff was working. She did a few capable "overs" before she simply shut down on me, so this day became all about sending her forward.
As part of the process of building up to actually longing Matilda, I brought in another piece of longing equipment: the longe line. The longe line is basically a 30 foot leash. This day I had the longe line and whip together. I was in no way attached to Matilda, but I wanted to see if she would have any reaction to it. She had none. I let her smell it and touched her all over with it, lay the end across her back and let her hear the snap of the clip close to her head, where it would be if I were actually attaching it to her. Nothing phased her.
So, standing on her right side, I put the coiled longe line and the clicker in my right hand and the whip in my left. Again this is loosely emulating what I would be doing and what she would be seeing if I were actually lunging her. I stood just behind and to the right of her haunch, looked her in the eye, squared my shoulders (that's the body language the book tells you to use for sending a horse away) and tapped her with the end of the stick part of the whip. She looked back at me. That's all. Just looked at me.
I re-set my body position. This time I tried to get a little glaring, stink eye going as I swooshed the whip behind her leg. Not touching her mind you, just trying to get her to feel the breeze of movement behind her. Nada. (As an aside, I have to say that I was really pleased at how well I had desensitized her to the longe whip at this point.)
So I re-set a third time, standing a little further back, lifted the whip high in the air and brought it down to the ground with a satisfying CRACK! about 4 feet directly behind her rear. Don't you know, she still didn't move?? Brave girl. I moved the whip a little closer and closer and closer until it was about 6 inches away. When I cracked it at that point, she flinched but did not move. I did it a few more time before she took a step forward. A nice walking step forward. Boy was she surprised when she heard "click!" She immediately turned in to me and got her reward.
From there on out it was fairly smooth sailing. I continued to have to combine the strong body language with a strong crack of the whip to send her, but she did it every time. I should say she walked away every time, never in a panic. A far cry from that first day when I lifted the longe whip 10-20 feet away from her and she ran around the paddock at full speed.
She would walk out several paces and stop to look at me when I clicked, then wait for me to lower the longe and collapse my body, rounding up my shoulders (the signal that I am asking her to come into me) before coming for her reward. We did that over and over again, until my little carrot pail was empty.
I should also mention the fact that during our break times, while she is eating hay, I have begun to work on picking up her feet. She is comfortable enough with lifting her feet that, on some days, I can simply tap on her ankle and she will lift her foot with little help from me. I really want to bring the clicker into this to see if I can get her to hold her foot up on her own for longer periods of time but, for reasons that I am sure you understand, I am reluctant to put myself in a position where I am right next to Matilda, with my back to her and a carrot pail attached to my hip. I would like to be able to at least envision this going well (aka not ending with my butt being bit) before attempting it.
Despite all the lack of regular exercise work (back, over, etc) this seemed to be two good days, overall. As always, in writing this, I can see where I could have done things better, made things easier for Matilda, but it is what it is and she will forgive my clumsiness (eventually) and be better and more tolerant because of it. I hope.
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