The Wet Hinny Experience

The professor has an assignment for you:

1. Read the Equitation Science Symposium proceedings and write an essay on how these results will affect the way you train horses.

Of course, that is all good news, but let me introject a little cold hard reality here. I was up on Cracker Joe, just intending to do some stopping and turning, when he got agitated by my request to walk-on. He wanted to just do neck bending, I suppose. Well, it was wet and his back was wet. I hadn't put a saddle on him and I just had a halter with slobber straps on the side-rings. He took a notion to duck out, hump up his back, and run across the paddock. We were in the little paddock with tight corners and very high IRON PIPE RAILS. I knew he was going to duck out from under me and I didn't want it to result in my face impacting the iron rails, so I reached over and grabbed the fence. You can stick to a wet hinny better than just about any equine in the world, so my legs kept traveling with Cracker until my back had stretched to its limit and I snapped back to the ground with a thump. I collapsed to the ground and laid on the muddy paddock dirt until my habitual physical inventory told me that no serious damage had been incurred. Then I got up and was just a little hot under the collar.

I went to the tack shed and got a lunging rope and a lunging whip. Cracker got to learn to do half circles up against the rail. No mercy. No horse cookies. It was pure negative reinforcement and intentionally more negative than usual. He got release for good behavior, but he had knocked all the "nice guy" stuff out of me. I gave him all the commands I groundwork into my horses.... then I notice that just across the paddock fence Paisley is intently carrying out every one of my commands. Back, forward, gee, haw.... she is just working herself into a frenzy in hopes of getting a reward. Of course I had to start bridging her and rewarding her. She is such an awesome horse; I can't wait until she is old enough to ride.

Cracker Joe has dumped me a few too many times. I keep thinking that because I am training with positive reinforcement, he will maintain a more level head, but he gets really excited and is borderline disrespectful in his enthusiasm. One of the papers presented at that symposium showed that counter conditioning to a scary object (targeting the object) was less effective for desensitization than systematic approach/retreat. That is so to the point of what I am working on.... where will positive reinforcement give you a good result and where will it set you up for failure??? I think to maintain control over a hinny one needs to insist on absolute subordination.

Before I let Cracker go to his stall for dinner he had to let me handle his ears. Normally he is okay with that, but I knew that because he was mad at me, there would be resistance. I just stood by the gate and told him he had to put his ear into my hand. He knew what I wanted and finally made a tiny attempt to comply. I bridged him and opened the gate. There was two more gates he needed me to open, so by the time he got to eat dinner, he really didn't care if I touched his ears or not. He just wanted some alfalfa.

I have made a vow that from now on, I will wear my helmet and use a saddle. My shoulders and lower back are really going to be stiff tomorrow.

Yrs,
Patricia

Did someone steal the dynamite?

This morning I haltered the beasts while they were still in their stalls eating breakfast, when they were done they didn't get just turned out into the paddock, but they got offered water and put back. One by one, they came out to the highline again. Same routine, no fireworks from any of the domestics.

The Cisco Kid drank a couple of gallons out of the bucket then allowed himself to be lead to the tree and was promptly secured to the highline. I went over and started messing around with Cracker Joe, just ignoring the mustang except for every once in a while I would go by with a treat. He just stood playing with the rope again. After 10 minutes of fun with Cracker, I decided it was time to raise the heat on the Kid. I took off my long red scarf and started waving it around. I was about 10 feet away to start with and he watched for a while, then started looking sleepy. I moved directly in front of him, waving it from side to side to stimulate both sides of his brain. Pretty soon he was licking and chewing. I held the scarf up to his nose, then started rubbing his face with it. Nothing. I started flipping it around on his back. No big deal. No buck-snorting, no panic, nothing. He looked quite casual. Damn!!! I need a bull whip to start cracking around here!!! What happened to that wacko mustang? Who put this fake mustang in his place??? Well, finally after 20 uneventful minutes on the highline, I unclipped the lead. As if to prove he was no impostor, he spun around on his haunches and lept away. I am looking forward to learning how to ride that spin! It's pretty.

So the fun with Cracker? Well, I tied a couple of slobber straps onto the ends of a lead rope and hooked them to the side rings of his web halter. I sat on his back and asked him to give me his nose around by my knee. The goal was to get the lateral flex from just the raising of the slobber strap. We have a ways to go for that one, but Cracker is a very willing trainee so we had fun.

Billy called from the back of Jemez Dancing - such is the wonder of a cell phone! He said the Wiley Mustang had pulled out all the stops and tried every-which way to get rid of his rider including rubbing him off on the fence. Billy was just sitting on him in the roundpen and not pulling on his head at all. Let'em buck, duck, or bolt, Billy can ride! He used to ride saddle broncs so JD is just a wannabe to him. They rode in the round pen for an hour or so and the report is that JD is coming around. I couldn't tell if that was Billy's pun or not. I requested that he focus on training the Ex-Wiley Mustang to be a pony horse and he said he would start him out ponying the broke horses over at his place before he latches onto any of the broncs.

He also said that Rita was doing well. He was stopping by her corral everytime he passed by and rubbing on her. He tied her up and put a saddle blanket on her. I did notice that he didn't take her halter off.

I have to go to my waitress job tomorrow so they get a day off in the home corral.