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.