Reincarnation of a Perfect Mustang

Today is a moment to remember: Cisco got his back right foot cleaned for the first time since he arrived last fall. Clay was doing the cleaning. I was giving him intermediate bridge cues and scratching his withers. Somehow the mustang let us do it. FINALLY!

Cisco has been rather mad at me for the last few days though because I've been putting on the mustang rebirthing kit to hold on his starter saddle. The mustang rebirthing kit, my long time readers will recall, is three ace bandages, one wrapped around his girth, one as a breastcollar and the other as a britchen. They are all snuggly and stretchy so they can't possibly be uncomfortable. The term rebirthing refers to that thing people were doing at the end of the '90's where they wrapped them selves up really snugly and then simulated the birth process, being born into a better world. Flaky, perhaps, but the mustang has needed a little rebirthing. In the latest sessions I have been putting a fleece English saddle pad on, then cinching it down with the rebirthing kit. All snuggles... but he isn't too happy about it.

I started by asking him to target the pad with his nose, then his shoulder, then his hip, and then, introducing a new body part, target with the withers. He would scoot himself under the pad just fine.... we also did the english saddle, which he moved to contact with his withers, but we didn't leave it on for long.... I wanted him to have special yard-wandering privileges for saddle pad wearing. So we just got it on and let him free.

I've been working almost totally at liberty with him. He rarely needs a rope and if he jumps away he almost always comes right back. So this saddling was done with out restraint. It was getting to be almost dusk and I needed to unsaddle him and feed. He was standing on the patio and it was a bit breezy. I untied the britchen bandage and it dangled in the wind.

THAT WAS IT.... HE WAS OUT OF THERE!!! He ran around, craning his neck to look at the bandage end, and snorting loudly. He ran across my arena space, around the laundry garden, up the hill, down the trail, around the building, and back again. He got near and I asked him to target my fingers... he did. I picked up the bandage end and asked him to target it. He did. He touched it several times with his nose, and then I tried to move into position to untie the other bandages. THAT WAS IT... He ran off again. This time moving away any time I got near.

It was getting dark, so I fed the other critters and put some hay in a stall Cisco could access. I found myself a bucket, turned it upside down near the stall door and sat down to wait. It is the dark of the moon, so it was getting hard to see until I turned on the barn lights. I just sat their waiting. Pretty soon Mr. Blaze-faced Mustang wandered in out of the dark. He let himself be unsaddled then turned to the feeder for dinner.

DAY TWO OF MUSTANG REBIRTHING UNDER SADDLE PAD
Yesterday I penned him up to feed him breakfast and went out early to put back on his gear. The pad has two loops on each side for the girth and girth straps, so it really works well when you just run your bandages through the loops. He got it on, still willing to put his withers to the pad, in exchange for a horse cookie, then I let him free in the yard again. There is about 2 acres in the yard, so they can graze, stand in a forest, climb a hill, run down a trail through the sage brush, etc. They love to be out, but yesterday you could see him standing with his head down, lethargic and depressed by the saddle pad. I kept things in my pockets, so I could go out and tell him how great he looks in a pad, rewarding him with carrots, cookies, grain, and raisins for his participation in the rebirthing activity.

Then it started to rain, so I brought him back into the pen for unsaddling and let him return to the herd. I didn't want to take a chance unsaddling at large again because I didn't want to be sitting on a bucket by a gate in the rain.

Today I expected him to be stand-offish. It was too wet to have him wear the pad. We only wanted to clean his hooves. He came up to be caught when I held the rope out and called his name. He let us clean his panic-prone hoof. He's such a good mustang!

Vacuuming the Mustangs in Largo Canyon

Well, Clay said he was mighty impressed by me getting ol' Cisco to stand still for a little shop-vac action. First I got Cisco to stand near the vac, which I had sitting in a chair near the paddock. Cisco was at liberty in our two acre yard and I told him he could run away any time he got scared of what we were doing. Then we started targeting the vacuum hose to different parts of his body. I held the hose and he pressed his body parts into it.... nose, shoulder, hips. He was controlling the contact, not me, so he never got scared. Then Clay came out and I asked him to operate the vacuum switch while we went and stood 50 feet away. Little by little we moved closer and closer to the humming vacuum. He never seemed to be too worried about it. Then we went back to targeting the now-sucking hose line. No problem. The mustang was vacuumed and even seemed to enjoy the sensation of the air flowing through his fur.

I don't think Mr. Cowboy Way is going to switch over to training with a bag of horse treats, though.

He did pretty good himself. He saddled and rode Jemez Dancing. They cut a fine western figure out there in the big paddock. Jemez Dancing is short backed and moves in a very elegant and collected manner. Clay wore his big black Texas cowboy hat. He had to work a little bit, but Clay goes easy on them so there was no traumatic moments. Later, though, when I was trying to vacuum JD, Clay walked up and JD jumped away and stood snorting at Clay until Clay hunkered down and I asked JD to target Clay. I held my fingers in a v-sign right behind Clays head while he was looking at JD. JD must have thought it was funny, as he relaxed and came in to eat the dried cranberries Clay was offering him.

In the afternoon, Clay snuck out while I was busy and saddled Ms. Paisley. He stepped up on her and she gave every indication of being ready and willing to just change status from bronc to saddle horse. He didn't move her much, just unsaddled her. Tomorrow we will start moving her around, but I want her on a leadrope and one person on the ground.... Clay could ride her out if she decided to buck (he is a former bronc-rider) but I think keeping her from ever considering the possibility is the best approach.

In the late afternoon, I took Cracker Joe back out to the big paddock. Clay and Paisley had thrown my white sewer-pipe jump out of the square-round pen, so instead of pulling it back in, Cracker and I worked in the big paddock. There was a corner where the square round pen was, so we targeted this corner from a new perspective... namely the outside of the pen. Then we turned and walked to another corner of the paddock..... somewhere we had never worked. I got about six feet from the corner post, pointed to it and told Cracker to "target corner". He walked right in and put his nose on the corner post. Why do I find this amazing?... Cracker had to understand the geometrical concept of a corner to do it. "Corner" means something to the little hinny.

Speaking of Hinnys, I launched a new website The Hinny Whisperer. It will have a blog, the bookstore, and a forum on it. It is all up and running although the forum is not in its final state of formatting. The blog will be a review of stuff I want to talk about (critique) from the web. The forum is all about training equids. If Experiments in Equine Training is of interest to you, I think you will enjoy the forum. Be sure to check out todays blog posting about the Zebra Whisperer, Nancy Nunke. She is holding a zebra training clinic in May that promises to be an incredible learning experience. I am hoping to find the money to go.

Soloman Elvis's Turn

Yesterday was one of those days where the sun is almost shining and the wind is blowing the snow sidewards into drifts. I am so glad that the groundhog saw its shadow, though I doubt that it will have any effect. So, with the horrid weather, I thought I would bring Soloman Elvis into the building and try some target training.

I have been neglecting the burros, because burros are so stubborn about not doing stuff if they don't want to. My plan has been to give them one chance and then NOT GIVE THEM TREATS when they don't at least try to please me. At this point, they are pretty well tuned into the fact that they better keep trying if they want a treat. Soloman is especially keen on it. His preferred command is "back-up", which sends him shuffling backwards even as his neck stretches out to get the treat.

I put a tin can with 3 cups of sweetfeed in my pocket and called Soloman out of the paddock. He will try to kill dogs, so I could only pray that the puppies stayed over with their mom in the dog pen, luckily, the puppies seem to know what evil lurks in the heart of the burro.

Now Soloman has been in the house several times. Long-time readers will remember how I tried to take him in to carry my saddle out without ever considering the fact that he had never worn a saddle. The living room is not a recommended location for a first saddling!!! He didn't buck, he just ran out the front door (on the other side of the building) braying, with me following along with the saddle calling "Come back, Soloman, come back!". Last year, I had a definite program to get the equines in the house calmly in case of severely cold weather (like -30°F) because their shelter had no walls at that time.

We got to the porch door, and Soloman wasn't sure about it.... it smelled like a puppy den, as the puppy room is the first door to the right. I am sure all his anti-coyote instincts went into first gear. Still, brave donkey he is, he put his front feet in and sniffed around before stepping in. I could see it was a bit overwhelming to him, so we stepped back onto the porch. The porch is pretty much out of the wind, so we moved to it's sunniest side and started our targeting project.

I was using a wooden back-scratcher as the target. "Target nose" took five trials to be pretty consistent. "Target ears" didn't take long to elicit the response, though it was given quite tentatively. "Target knee" was surprisingly easy considering Soloman and I had never discussed knees at all. Then since there was still a cup of grain, we decided to try "Target shoulder"... that's a bit harder since it involves some degree of lateral movement with the front legs, so first we accepted stepping forward as a try, then it had to involve some degree of lateral shift, then finally it was just turn on the haunches. He knows Nose, Knee, Ears, and Shoulder and he had a good time.

Total time to teach a stubborn little burro to target four places on his body: 20 minutes. Will he remember much of it today??? Does he understand the words as much as he understands what part of him the back-scratcher is pointing to? We'll test him today after lunch.

I personally believe that ANY POSITIVE personal interaction you have with an equine builds the relationship. You could be doing anything with them and if you get them to want to obey you, you've got them thinking about the relationship in a very positive way. It's all good.

Targeting

With all the snow and ice everywhere, I've opted for more sedentary training this week. We've been studying the names of body parts. The speed the animals learn this is just amazing.

First I have to provide a target. My fingers held in a victory sign (or peace sign) are the target. I start teaching a body part by touching it firmly and saying it's name. I do that three times. Then I hold my finger-target near and say "Target ______" where the body part goes in the blank. For example today I was teaching chin, so the cue was "target chin". At first my fingers are so close that almost any movement will bring them into contact with the body part, then gradually I increase the distance that the animal has to move to get contact. It's not long before the animal gets it.

Paisley is most consistent about chin, but she's adding to shoulder, hip, ribs, hoof, knee, nose, jaw, and ear. Using shoulder and hip in quick succession we have gotten a sidepass. She can sidepass away too.... I find it bidirectional control quite remarkable!

Cisco is a real targeting enthusiast. He loves it so much that he has stopped acting like a wild mustang, but comes running when I call. He knows nose, ear, jaw, shoulder, knee, hoof, hip, and chin (a little). His specialty is shoulder, but the speed he turns his hip suggests he may have some interesting possibilities.

Cracker Joe is my most advanced targeter. He will extend his hoof to a target held infront of him (spanish walk soon). He will target his jaw when we are walking around the arena, replacing any need for a lead line. He does nose, ear, jaw, shoulder, knee, and hoof. He is ever so delicate about his ears, just barely tipping them to gently brush my fingers.

Chester will play dumb at first, as if he can't remember anything. Then you just have to let him think you are giving up and going away and suddenly he is an anatomical genius. The only thing about Chester is that he sometimes let you know he would be willing to "target penis". Yikes!!!

Hopefully the weather will change. JD will get his last four rides and get to come home so he can learn some targeting too.

Breakthroughs with Photography

Kayce Cover called me up to ask if I had any photos of doing Bridge & Target with Cisco. You may remember that she came out a few months ago and helped me with him. She took a lot of videos, but she's working on an article for Planet Cheval, and didn't have any thing she could use.

Hmmmm. Of course I never take photos of me working my animals since it is always inconvenient to handle a camera and I have been quite fuzzy about the whole B&T thing, though I use the Bridge part all the time. I just never quite grokked why have a target.

Well.... let me tell you the lightbulb came on when she told me how to proceed with Cracker's Kneeling Act. "Quit pulling his leg!" Hmmm. She said I needed to establish some basic targeting for his body parts. He needs to know what I mean by the words "nose", "knee", "hoof", "ground", and "up". I need to be able to verbally tell him to lift your hoof and put your nose and knee to the ground. I started thinking it would take years, but since I was going to try to photographically capture Cisco doing B&T, I might as well warm up on Cracker. The little hinny had a momentary confusion between lips and nose, then he was putting nose to my "Peace Symbol" target quite consistently. I started pointing to his knees with the target and it only took a moment to get the knee to reach for the target. I opened up the camera to try to capture it, but I couldn't hold up the target for anytime before there was a body part stuck to it (usually nose). We targeted hoof for a few minutes then I gave up for a fresh animal.

Chester volunteered. He must have already known nose, and maybe somewhere in his history someone already taught him knee. You can't photograph it fast enough with a digital camera to get the target finger anywhere but on the mule. We'll work on other body parts later, but I suspect that his anatomical training has been rather extensive, so I put him away.

It was clear I would have to NOT tell Cisco what we were actually doing to start out with if I wanted a photo of fingers and horse reaching for each other. I held my fingers out in target gesture and focused the camera on them. Then I waited for a curious mustang to sniff them. Click!!! Then I spent five minutes teaching him that "target nose" was an easy thing to do. We shifted gears and I pointed the target at his back (problematic) hoof. "Target hoof" He trialed the front foot and finally cocked his back ankle just a tiny bit. Yes! Soon he was fishing that ankle up and swishing it around trying to contact the target. I needed duration to get the photo though, so I started giving him intermediate bridge signals (like saying "almost, almost!") until he was holding it up in contact with my fingers for several seconds. I got out the camera and started shooting each attempt, but with the digital delay most of the shots didn't work. Finally he just cranked up his leg and got a look on his face like "I know you won't be satisfied until you get that photo, so JUST TAKE IT!!!" It was time for a jackpot reward for the boy.

Ah, yes, I am finally figuring out Bridge and Target! It's about time! How much utility is in it is yet to be seen, but the animals love the training. Ms. Paisley knows "target shoulder gee" from "target shoulder haw" as well as nose and knee. She also just about has "nose to ribs" figured out.

Here is Kayce's website address: Synalia.com incase you see how useful this might end up being.

It's the giving season!

The wind and snow was too discouraging for me. Except for feeding, I stayed indoors until evening came around, then I went out with a curry comb to make sure their coats were not matted down. They appreciated the grooming. I've got Cracker targeting his ear to my outstretched hand. He seems to think it's funny. Hinnys have a dry sense of humor.

I volunteered to do foster care for a horse rescue group. Perhaps, I need more hinky horses to make me feel whole? If you haven't done anything for your local horse rescue group, the holidays are the perfect time to take them a bag of grain or a few bales of hay. Or mayby you have time to volunteer? It will make you feel good all over.

Yrs,
Patricia