Meditation on the Riddles of Equine Training

At my last posting, I was quite optimistic about progress with the critters. All my equine buddies were going out and about into the vast wilderness with out a bit of worry and the bridge was just an interesting landmark.

Then on Friday, the situation deteriorated with a visit from the farrier, a man you have met before on my blog, Billy Hibbler. Billy is a really good guy, but he drinks a lot of Mountain Dew so he's wired up about 20 notches higher than me. He was the former owner of Cracker Joe and the recent trainer for Jemez Dancing. The animals hate him. All of the animals!!!! So suddenly Billy arrives and no one can be caught. They fidget, kick, balk, shy and generally act cranky. My pride in them gets scratched and dented. Then Cisco bolts out of hand and runs around the corral in such a frenzy that we think he is going through a pipe fence. Now, understand, Billy never speaks mean to them or threatens them, he just is a fast moving cowboy. He thinks that I never train my animals.

Animals can sense peoples energy, I am quite sure of it, then they all sense each others energy. Jemez Dancing was probably the one who first really responded to the smell of wired-up-cowboy and as herd leader it infected all the others. Danger was in the air; run for your lives!!!

Okay, I consoled myself, it's just a Billy thing, when he is gone and forgotten they will be back to being good. On Sunday John, my hubby, came home and we took the mules out for a ride. The perception of the bridge as mere landmark was gone and the trolls living under it must have been back. John and Chester, his mule, are totally bonded. Chester loves John. There is no fear there. Chester and Cracker were real dips about the bridge, but failure wasn't an option, so eventually we had a nice ride beyond it and up Ice Canyon until we reached the semi-permafrost zone and decided to turn around. I was really sad to see that the memory of all of our walks across the bridge last week had made no impression.

Today I started a new project with my animals that involved recording their physical dimensions. It meant tape measures on their bodies. Hmmm....

Over the weekend, Clay West, also known as America's Most Lonesome Cowboy, returned to work on his cowboy novels, so I now have some expert horse-wrangler help at hand. Clay grew up on a ranch where the horsetraining was progressive enough to include Ray Hunt clinics. He has been speaking Natural Horsemanship since the day he was born, but his heart is into being a novelist, so we provide him a place to work and he gives me a couple hours of help everyday. We stepped out this morning, clipboards, pens, tape measure and paste wormer in hand for my new project. Eight equines to work through; one by one they were brought to the work area and convinced that tape measures are harmless tools used by humans to pet equines.

The donkeys were passive, the mules were interested, and the horses were most likely to be shy. Anticipating real trouble from Cisco, the new mustang, we saved him until last and took a coffee break before we caught him up. It was with some feelings of trepidation that I set down my cup and headed back to the corral. Tape measures are yellow and make funny noises. They move in a springy erratic manner. They may or may not eat horseflesh for breakfast, no one knows.

I started out with a training session. We targeted the tape measure. Touch with your nose, touch with your jaw, touch with your ears, touch with you shoulder. Then I started just randomly holding it across his body parts and rewarding him for standing still. After five minutes of training, we started the process. Eighteen measurements... we worked from the head back. Around his nose, across his brow, along his face, around his neck, down his mane, around his barrel, across his shoulder, along the length of his body, from hip to hip, along his back. I didn't think we could do the final measurement.... flank to flank around the rump for britchen length. I fully expected him to take flight at the first touch of the tape to his rump, but I rubbed the brown rump with my hand then the tape, then Clay read the measurement as I pulled it into place at the other flank... no fireworks at all, he just looked at me to see if he had earned a cookie.

We were also recording the equine behavior as we went. Cisco was more in the passive behavioral profile exhibited by donkeys than in the wiggly horse category. He always hides his dynamite when I am expecting a big explosion.

So what did I learn from all this? Hmmm, it's really kind of a zen question that will require some kind of long meditation. The most obvious lesson though, is if you think you are doing well, you are probably about to have everyone blow up, and if you are waiting for them to explode, they are going to fall asleep unless you give them a horse cookie.

Each in its own time

I have to admit that I actually know how I sabotage my equine training. I am way too erratic and proceed far too often without a plan. Being without a plan when you have one or two animals is one thing. Being without a plan when you have more than six in training is just suicidal. Horses like familiar patterns of activity. Everyday I surprise my critters with some spur of the moment training agenda. This is regrettable. In fact, everyday I think about committing my plan to paper, and some days I actually do it. It takes a lot of time to have it all thought out. Every one of my animals has a weak spot and generally that is what I focus on, barring some group wide training experiment in process. I am going to spend some time getting organized to be a better planner next week when I have to be running the restaurant at Navajo City.

I rarely halter or tie the animals, but I know that I need to force myself to halter them everyday and tie them for at least a minute or two. Well, they actually catch me all day long... any equine that is roaming the yard is likely to follow me around and if I go into the paddock it is only moments before I have an entourage. Normally I clean their hooves at liberty, but when they are all crowded around, it is really quite dangerous to be lifting hind legs, etc. You have to get them one at a time, or at most two. Okay, you can probably do three donkeys if you take turns doing all the right fronts, left fronts, right hinds, and left hinds so no one ever feels too neglected for more than a moment. But now I am trying to force myself to find the halters, put them all on, then work my way though the lineup, grooming and cleaning hooves, then removing halters to signify that they have been processed. Nine halters is a tall order. I hate the buckle on Solomans halter.... I wonder if it can be fixed by bending the catch?

I couldn't get Rita to let me halter her, but we broke it down to smaller chunks. I first just wanted her to touch her halter, then I wanted to touch the halter to her neck, then rub the halter on her neck, then lay the halter on her crest, then dangle the halter over her neck. We got that far without too much stress and quit on that for the day.

Later I went in and wanted to just pet her withers. She wanted no part of that plan. She is funny in that she is hyper dominant and she shies and bolts, but she shows no signs of submission normally. I have tried getting her to join up with round penning, but I never got any signs of submission until today. Today, she was not changing direction when I asked but rather just looking at me like I had a lot of nerve. So I stepped right in front of her, square to her face, my shoulders high and I stomped on the ground. She yeilded the space immediately but didn't freak out in a panic. We had to do that twice before she decided not to mess with me and just follow orders, then she joined up and came in with a humble attitude. Petting withers was okay, and infact it must have felt pretty nice judging by the soft look in her eyes. I am trying to interact with her at least four times a day and she is really starting to come around. Hopefully I will be able to get some antibiotic on that nasty cut on her leg.

The surcingle was too small for anyone so I found another cinch and buckled it onto JD. I hooked the driving lines to his halter and ran them though the surcingle rings and asked him to "walk on". I have seen this animal bolt away too many times, so I am totally shocked to watch him just walk around the lot like a big old draft horse. Actually I couldn't be totally shocked, but I just forget about all the afternoons we spent getting to this state. He was super good and responded to my request for gee and haw quite well. Someday I will feel brave enough to ride him out of the lot. It would help to have someone to ride with. Actually I would like to have someone who rides vaquera doma ride him because he is super light and totally responsive.

Cisco is doing well with his longeing and whoa at the longe-trot. His problem is sideways bolting in a panic, so this is teaching him to face up in response to a pull on his lead rope and the command whoa. He is rather proud of himself. You can see it in the way he comes in for his reward and then prances off in the new direction since we alternate directions after every stop. He has a noble attitude. He is going to be the most awesome horse to ride if he ever gets beyond auto-panic. Hey, if JD overcame auto-panic, Cisco should have no problem. JD was actually abused by humans, where as Cisco has had only the kindest methods of training since his capture from wildness. Except probably he was traumatized by the BLM cowboys since he kind of freaks out about anyone wearing a black cowboy hat. Well, they had to geld him after all. Sorry, Cisco, well get into the funny hat box later in the winter.

Paisley has reached a very exciting plateau in her ground work. She will now dance with you. She will follow your hand around the corral and keep in synch with you whether you are walking fast or running. She will slam on the breaks and rocket backwards if you stop and back swiftly. Paul Dufresne challenged me to get the horses to dance and ride them from the ground without contact. Paisley is well on her way to doing it. I was pretty proud of her when I realized that dancing was what we were doing out in the big paddock running around having fun with each other.

Paisley and Chester wanted a horse treat when I was working with Cracker Joe. They looked so pitiful so I went to the fence and asked them to stretch out. I thought they wouldn't do it for me across the fence and then I could just ignore them as the penalty for non-performance, but sure enough, there they were competing with each other to see who could stretch the farthest. I had to give them rewards. Chester doesn't really get a fair shake, since he is not my mule, I always have reasons not to mess around with him. This, naturally, breaks his poor little mulish heart. He loves to be the trainee and he will do anything for you. He got to get his feet cleaned and I brushed out his short mule coat so he was happy.

The donkeys are mastering the response to "back!" Soloman will take five steps, Tobiah only two. I don't expect Zekey to perform at his age, he just gets the treat anyway. The donkeys all do well with giving me their feet for cleaning. It took months for them to realize that they had to perform for their treats, but now they are open to the concept and we could probably move on to new areas.

It was one of those days when everyone is doing good. The light snow falling was actually heavenly because it provided a sense of intimacy with each animal having its turn.

My advertisement for an assistant is coming out in the Caretakers Gazette. I am hoping that someone who wants to work with equines will land here as a volunteer for at least a couple of months. It's not a traditional horse kind of job, but I dare say that whoever goes along for the ride, will come away knowing something very useful in the rehabilitation of troubled equines. If you know anyone that might be interested have them contact me 1-505-568-9131 leave a message if I am out.

Yrs,
Patricia