Post-Holiday Happenings

Cisco, Chaco, and Sparky are on the fast track for driving lessons. As a prerequisite, I wanted to be able to pull them around their back legs (circle away on a long lead rope) before we really drove them. The benefit of that is that they have to be able to respond to their halter cues even when it means going away from the human and it gives them an idea about what to do when the rope comes down along their hindquarters. Sparky and Chaco did fine with this exercise, both of them immediately being able to respond in a sane and rational manner. Cisco, however, had to overcome his fear of rope enough to not panic.

Unlike the others, Cisco has been working on this activity for two years. We broke it down into training blocks and worked on the parts. I have spent more than a year working with getting him to tolerate ropes. He has learned to bite them rather than run from them. He has had the rope flipped all over his body and learned to stand quietly when it was done, but that didn't translate to having the rope moving on him while he was moving himself. For a horse, it's a whole different circumstance.

We started last week teaching him that if we pressed the rope into his haunches, he was to move his hind legs away from the pressure. At first we made the mistake of putting the rope too high on his hip, then once it became apparent that the rope would never be touching him there in driving, then we redid it with the rope lower on his haunches. After he was responding well with that, we tied a rope in a figure eight around his neck and rump, crossing over his back. Then I stood beside him and pulled on the rope going along his haunches to put pressure on the opposite side. He learned to step toward me in response to rope pressure on his haunches. Yesterday I finally hooked the long lead rope to his halter and ran the rope around the far side of the mustang. A little pull on the rope and he came spinning around. As we practiced this dance over and over, he slowed his response down from panic to calmness. He expressed his agitation and excitement by biting the rope between circles. I think he was proud of himself in the end.

This didn't come easy. A year ago I had tried to just put the rope on him and do it without breaking it down. I couldn't get Cisco to stand still to get the rope on, so I had John help me. Suddenly John went flying across the pen and landed half way through the pipe fence, dangling through the rails at his waist. We were very very lucky that he didn't get hurt. This time it was nice to know that I didn't have to put anyone besides myself in jeopardy with an agitated mustang. Besides, he wasn't that agitated after all the other training.

We used to think that perhaps Cisco had been beaten with a rope, but my pet hypothesis now is that he was kept in an area with electric braid rope fencing. This fear permeates almost everything I do with him and slows things way down. For a long time I just kept training him at liberty so we didn't have to mess with ropes, but now that I want to ride him, we have to find a way to cope with the problem. It really seems to help to give him specific responses, like biting it or moving when it touches haunches. When I can ride him and drag a rope calmly, we will have achieved monumental perception modification.

I had my group watch Marv Walker's bonder video then do some round-penning exercises in the morning. Jerri overcame her own fear of lifting Chaco's back legs. Laura gently snapped Jemez Dancing with a rag despite his initial protestations and her fear of "making" him do something. Shawn tried to get Cracker to let him touch his ears, but somehow round-penning a hinny isn't very effective, and after he had tried to convince the long-eared one to submit to him for over 40 minutes, I put a horse cookie in my pocket and called Cracker Joe to come put his ear in my hand.

Next week, we are hoping to have the kids back. Back to summer horse camp... but the Schultz kids now have motorcycles, so I think the motivation to learn to ride horses is going to be very fragile. As long as they are ambivalent about the horses, I doubt that they will find the confidence they need to become horsepeople. It's hard enough with motivated adults.