Sparky

 
Sparky wore his first cinch today. We threw a saddle pad on him and put the surcingle on. You never know when they will buck on the first saddling, so we decided to ditch the lead-rope and see what happened. He just wanted to follow us around, so we took him for a walk around the property and he acted like wearing something was the most normal thing that could possibly happen. The plan is to have him ready for his first riding when the girls are out of school next month.

Cisco is coming along too. I've been getting on and off him. He shows no more worry about me up there, than Sparky had for his blanket. But there was another lurking worry that we have to patch up before I really try to ride Mr. Mustang. Cisco spent at least a year in the BLM holding pens out in Nevada. BLM mustangs are moved around by cowboys on horseback and the mustangs frequently come to fear humans on horseback. I suspect that is why Cisco put his last trainer in the hospital - she didn't suspect he would go ballistic over another horse and rider. So, after lunch, Yvonne and I saddled the mares and went to ride in the round pen with Cisco. He scrambled around dodging us and looking at times like he might try to jump the 5ft panel fence. After 10 minutes of this scramle, Yvonne took Lightening Bug out of the corral, leaving Cisco with his favorite mare, Paisley. He loves Paisley, but he didn't seem to recognize her as long as I was on her. When I would dismount he would run up to us, as if he had finally found a safe haven. We started moving him really slowly and each time that he would turn and look at us, I would get off and give him a horse cookie. It took a while, but before long, he was more apt to look than to bolt away. Yvonne came back with his leadrope. She clipped it to him and asked him to go with her. Paisley and I rode around the pen, Yvonne and Cisco followed, slowly narrowing the distance between them and us. I would stop Paisley every so often and turn half way around toward Cisco, then Yvonne would give him a cookie. Pretty soon Cisco was taking cookies from me on Paisley's back. He isn't totally over it, but he is on his way.

Perception Modification

The equines really seem to like targetting the flagging. We took the mules for a trail ride on Sunday and I tried Cracker Joe out on targetting oil-field flagging from the saddle. He had no problem. Then we targetted some other odd items, some pipeline location signs and a noisy part of a gas well. Actually, the noisy part of the EVIL GAS WELL. It's the ticking and hissing sound that a certain injection apparatus makes that gives it an "evilness" apparent to all mules and mares. (My geldings don't seem to mind.) But targetting the thing seemed to make it more acceptable. That's what Kayce Cover calls "perception modification" ... changing something suspect into something interesting to the animal mind.

I used the bit of flagging to ask Sparky to jump in the horse trailer. He hopped right in like an old broke saddle horse. I was impressed. This was the first time he had been in the trailer since he was delivered and he was totally wild at that point. It's all about trust, isn't it?

I worry about Sparky and Lightening Bug. Some day when the grass turns green, the owners will want to put them back on pasture. I hope the owners realize that they can ruin all my training by trying to bully the animals with pure coercion. That would be changing something interesting to something suspect. Not what you want to do with equines.

Hide-and-Seek Flagging

I had guests throughout the end of the winter. Sure, we played with the ponies and made some youtube videos, but I could never find the time to sit down and attend to my blog.

WELL, I AM ALONE AT LAST!!!

Today I started a new training module that has a lot of promise. In a nutshell, you train them to target strands of flagging, which you can put anywhere and turn your equine outing to a game of hide-and-seek, which they seem to enjoy. You can do it with animals at any level of training, so I did mustangs, mules, and horses all with good result today.

The equipment is several clothespins and some 18 inch strands of flagging. Tie a strand to each clothespin. Put an extra strand in your pocket with no clothespin. Go around the yard and pin up the flagging in random spots that will be easy to stand near and have your horse see. Not on anything scary at first.

Get your horse/mule/donkey on a leadrope and take the extra bit of flagging out of your pocket. Show it to them and tell them to "target flag", when they touch it reward them. If they have been taught to target things in general, this will take only a few seconds. Hold the flagging farther away so they have to step to reach it. When they step to touch it consistently, then you are ready to visit the pinned flags.

At each pinned flag, ask them to target the flag. At first you will have to touch the flagging, but they will soon figure it out and reach for the flag by them selves. When they touch it, reward them, back them up a bit, and move to their other side. At each pinned flag, have them target while you stand on both sides. You can do more than two sets, but be sure to do each side.

By the third pinned flag, they will be pretty at ease with the idea. Mine were very enthusiastic about this simple game. We did 7 pinned flags for the first day. Chester, the mule, got overly stimulated and tried to get me to do something else, which earned him a quick return to the paddock (not what he wanted) which is why I don't want to be doing this at liberty. Everyone else seemed to be relishing the opportunity to earn treats.

Tomorrow the flagging will be much farther apart and start to be in hard to find spots. The flagging will migrate further afield in the days to come and soon be scattered in the rabbit brush along our country road, or pinned in the sagebrush flats where its like being in a giant labyrinth. They will have a positive reason to go where I ask.

What I like about this exercise is it gets the animals to really think about what I want them to do. They are reinforced for going with me, for paying attention to where I point, and for ignoring any scary things the flags might be pinned to.

Also since I live in a wild area where there is oil and gas production, flagging is common. Almost every intersection has a piece of flagging tied to a bush. I expect this to be useful when we are out trailriding and they get nervous. We will have a good game to play.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Today Donna and I worked with the young mustangs and then set up "grooming clinic" in an empty stall. The young mustangs have to allow themselves to be haltered and led to a different pen for each meal or they could go hungry. This is the second day and already they are a lot more interested in having their halters put on. They lead better than most broke horses, following on a slack lead, matching their pace to mine. On the trip back to the Ox Pen after lunch, we stopped on the patio to work on hoof handling. I asked for hooves and Donna handed out rewards. Chaco Bay knows the drill of offering up his hooves and is happy to comply, but Sparky did something very interesting in terms of how he reacts to life.

A few days ago we let Sparky out to kibitz with the big mustangs since he was being a little bit cheeky with us. He weighs about 750lbs and each of them weighs about 1250lbs. We expected him to have some arrogance kicked out of him, but instead he and Jemez Dancing were soon playing stallion games rearing and biting at each others forelegs, then rocking back to a kneeling stance to protect their own forelegs. Pretty soon they were both wandering around together like old friends. On the other hand, Chaco high-tailed it to the forest where he hid behind the compost pile.

So what Sparky did today was respond to me as if I was playing the leg-biting game. He nipped me on my backside and kneeled down in that playful/aggressive gesture. Of the two of the little mustangs, Sparky is the most clear about humans being dominant as a result of a small session of roundpenning when he tried to kick me off his feed bucket one day. Since then he has been totally respectful, waiting until I give him permission to eat. Today I responded to his challenge by shortening my hold on the lead rope and putting a rope around his foot so I didn't have to bend down. He quit his game and tried harder to please me.

I have this theory that training with positive reinforcement totally messes up the equine innate sense of social relationships. They believe that I wouldn't be giving out treats if I was a dominant animal, would I?? I believe it takes a long time of interaction to build a new sense of social relationship that allows for food gifting from the dominant animal.

Sparky responds better to pressure/release training than to positive reinforcement just because his cheeky personality. Chaco Bay, on the other hand, is naturally a very shy animal (though he is the only fully functional male on the property and the mares are quite enamored of him). He is easiest to train using positive reinforcement. I can get him to do most anything with little trouble if he thinks I will reward him. He has learned the meaning of the bridge signal (me saying "X!") and I can use it to tell him he is doing right even when I don't have a treat.

Is this just personalities at work?? Or does it have something to do with me starting Chaco with positive reinforcement and starting Sparky with pressure/release? What is really clear to me is that training them both using the same methods would be the least efficient choice I could make.

We finished our training session by currying and cleaning the feet of the other 9 animals. They crowded around the gate for their turns in the grooming parlor. I pay them for holding their hooves up for me. Then we gave each one a dollop of molasses from a worming syringe, and an alfalfa cube as an unhaltering gift. Lightening Bug, the visiting gray mare, is the only one that showed any confusion (pinning her ears) about the significance of human benevolence. In time, I am sure she will sort it out.

Sparks Fly for New Years.

Last day of the year finds me starting yet another horse project. This one another mustang from the Tres Piedras herd, which are more purely Iberian. He belongs to a ranching family, nominally the property of a 12 year old girl, who has had him for a year and has yet to name him. I am calling him The Spark Keeper, or Sparky for short.

I've been documenting Chaco Bay's progress on YouTube. He follows me around the yard, comes when I call and lets me pick up and examine his hooves. I haven't put a rope on him yet, but I've trained him to come touch the rope with his neck. I can touch him anywhere with my hands and most anywhere with a pole. Sometimes I forget that he is still wild, but when strangers come in the yard, his wildness shows itself again.

I wasn't going to start Sparky out the same way. I thought I should use something more traditional, but then when I looked into his eyes, I couldn't think of a reason to try to make him less afraid by doing things that would scare him. I've been out this morning feeding him his breakfast, a handful at a time, through the fence. My toes are now frozen as a result.

Sparky's owner and her sister are coming to spend a week training horses with me. A pair of 12 year old girls is going to be so much fun!!! We will be sure to take lots of video clips for the parents, but you might want to check them out too.

Link to My YouTube channel

I am also trying to get people training with positive reinforcement to share videos through a YouTube group. You might like to check them out if not post your own. If you want to share a training video using other techniques, that would be great too. The main thing is to show something about training. Link to Equine Training Group on YouTube

Moving toward Positive Reinforcement

Yesterday I had no tools to work with Chaco using positive reinforcement. He won't take food from me, he barely understands hay as a food-source. He isn't panic stricken but he has never let a human touch him willingly.

Well, you have to use the tools you have, so I used proximity to me as a pressure to teach him to come to me. I started by sidling up to just the point where he started to look uncomfortable. If his nose turned to me, I stepped away. He quickly learned he could control my proximity by turning his head to me. Meanwhile the gap between us was closing. Each time I came closer when I returned. He grew less anxious because he could control me.

Then I required him to turn his whole body to send me away. I wanted him to face up. He learned it quickly but then we came to an impasse because I was just getting closer anyway even after he sent me away. He trialed some other strategies, how about turning his rump toward me?? I started making noises and darting around with my hands flailing. Clearly facing me head on was more effective.

Next I wanted him to step toward me, but that was too much to ask for at once. It had to be broken down. First ask the head to stretch forward, then the body to shift forward, then the feet have to follow. My goal was to have him touch me of his own free will at liberty in a 30x100ft paddock. We got it done. Twice. Enough for day one.

Now it's day two and I've already had one training session this morning. My goal was to get him to eat out of my hand. He's a smart boy, he remembered how to stretch his nose out to me. But when he did it I put a handful of hay on the ground and moved away.

Now this is where you see the innate behaviors of the wild horse come out. Horses give up their food to the dominant animal, therefor I must not be dominant if I was giving up my food to him. They never give food willingly to each other. So after he realized there was food involved and I had it, he wanted to try pushing me off of it and taking it for himself. He could push, but the food disappeared too. He trialed two small aggressive moves, but they didn't work like he hoped so he quickly came back to reaching his nose out to me in a polite gesture. He took his from the ground for about 10 minutes, one handful at a time, then I held out the hay in my hand and he took it from my hand. One handful was enough for me. I left his breakfast on the ground and went off to a cup of tea.

I have a good thing happening with the hay right now. I have some grass hay at the back of my haystack. My horses mostly get alfalfa, which horses love. It's too rich to feed to Chaco... he's just coming off the of brown dead browse of the Colorado Plateau, so he gets my brownest grass for now. But if I feed alfafa from my hand and grass from the ground, he is going to think the human is a very interesting phenomenon. So the plan is to enter the pen with two kinds of hay for now.

Suddenly I have the requisites to train with positive reinforcement.
Yes!

New Corral Resident: Chaco Bay

I wasn't really wanting to adopt another equine, but stuff happens.

Billy Hibbler has been gathering excess horses off the Navajo Nation, just north of Chaco Canyon. The local residents decided they would rather have the cows and sheep have grass than the wild horses. Billy has enlisted a bunch of people with saddle horses and ATVs to gather these animals.

Last Saturday, the wranglers were all out there when the weather got pretty nasty, blowing like crazy and sleeting. It got dark and Billy wasn't back to the rendezvous point. He was last seen chasing the herd on his little yellow saddle horse. They waited until ten at night and gave up hope he would be coming in the dark. Everyone had livestock to feed back home, so they left him a truck and horse-trailer and went home to worry in warmness.

I had stayed at Navajo City because the roads were too bad to drive. Billy's significant other, Vicky, had come by to get gas on her way back to wait for him or call Search and Rescue. She suspected he was dead. I suspected it too, but John said Billy was too tough to die just yet. We decided to detour from a beeline home out to Chaco to see if we could help.

The Navajos have this thing about horses. They really like owning a few but they just let them run at large. Bands of horses form and herds grow. People loose track of their horses, never catching them. Here at the end of 2007, there are about 300 horses in that area. The Tribe recently sent out letters telling people that they had to reduce the herds, so these people told Billy he could round up as many as he could catch. They also said that in the past, when cowboys had come to round up horses, suddenly all the relatives would show up and claim the horses out of the corrals, so the cowboys did all the work and ended up empty handed. They told Billy that wouldn't happen to him because the horses HAD to go.

We drove up to the rendezvous point about the same exact time that Billy rode in, his little yellow horse looking more like a gray from the Chaco mud. He had gotten caught by nightfall and found himself in the dark on a high ledge, the sleet making safe footing impossible. He squeezed himself up against a cliff to block the wind and pulled his saddle over him to keep the sleet off. It was a bad night. He pulled bits off his t-shirt and burned them inside his coat to keep warm. He survived. John was right.

I looked at the group of young horses in the corral. There stood a bright bay pinto that captured my heart. Little stud horse, only 2 years old. I didn't think there was much chance they would let me have him as he was about the prettiest horse on the planet, but the next day, I found out he was coming my way. I gave Billy an old mobile home John had salvaged in exchange.

I named my horse Chaco Bay. He arrived in his new home mid-morning and learned to eat hay (he thinks its totally yummy compared to dead brown Navajo Nation grass). He hasn't figured out that there is water in the trough and has been trying to drink from the puddles, so I put water in lower wider containers for him to find. He has such a pure mind. No baggage. Not really spooky either. I can stand about 3 feet away from him. I've been stepping back when ever he turns his head to look at me, so now Chaco stands facing me. We are going to have fun.



I'll be keeping notes about his development here. I wanted to challenge myself and see what I could get done with a mustang in 30 days. He will be eligible to be registered as an American Indian Horse. Wouldn't he look fancy in some ceremonial war-pony gear?