Outward Bound: Day 3
Today I noticed a great improvement in all the animals. No one really objected to the bridge or got nervous about big trucks. They all were quite eager to see where the destination was. I rode Tobiah and Cracker Joe the last hundred yards, and I put my foot in the stirrup on Jemez Dancing.
Chester was the first one to go and we tried working on an oil well pad in a little dead end canyon. It was a fantastic place, but three peregrin falcons flew in and registered their disapproval.... well, yes, that would be their nest on the cliff above us, so we left and I didn't take anyone back to that spot.
One of the things that has everyone leading very nicely is that I have this exercise for them where we are walking along and I say "ready" then on the next step, I bend my knees just a little and say "Whoa" as I stop (Check Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling about the body language). If they stop immediately and take one step back, they get a reward. My animals follow on a very soft feel and stop the instant I say "whoa". We practice this A LOT. I want that whoa/stop so deeply in their brains, that it will be totally automatic if we ever really need it in a bad situation.
posted by Patricia Barlow-Irick @ 9:54 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Just out of curiosity, what do you reward your horses with when the stop after whoa? I'm always interested in thoughts on what rewards people use.
I typically use some kind of horse cookie. I cut them up into small pieces with a bandsaw, or if it is winter and they can use the extra calories, I use grain... I keep it in a tin can in the leg pocket of my military style pants and give them little handfuls. I like to use raisins, especially for things I might want to do 100 times a day. The best thing is to carry a selection of treats so that you can give a so-so treat for a so-so effort.
I don't use petting, etc. because some of my animals don't really see that as a reward. The ones that like petting get lots of that too.
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