Some photos from Saturday

Here are the photos I talked about in the last post.

I only got one of Wart coz it started raining. If you look you can see his paddock mates under the trees behind him. This is a wide angle view so that I could get him and also the horses under the trees.



I took a few of Orion. Here are a couple.





And a couple of Darcie.

Making progress, forging bonds

It has been raining for a few days. But we had a break in it today and went up. Searched for Wart for a while and eventually found him and Banjo tucked into a section of the paddock that is little traversed by people. He followed for a time but halted at the main group of horses, came a bit further, and that was enough for him. So not to the gate. I just fed him there.

I'd taken the camera up and got one photo of him and one of the main group under the trees, but it started to rain so that was all the photos I took at that time. There were some lovely teeny native iris peeking their heads up from the grass and I would like to get photos of them next time.

Then we went up to get Darcie and Orion. By this time the rain has stopped - it was only a shower. I'd planned to take some photos of them coming up. Had to move a bit fast there since they saw the car and came up before we called them. Got a few. No side-on ones of Darcie since she came straight to me.

Orion and Wart were in the habit of being let out the gate and they would walk themselves over to where they are fed. We did that with Darcie for the first time today. She did a bit of a dog leg but Ellie showed her the food and she went to it.

She was much better about having her feet cleaned out today. A bit wavy with the one I hadn't put the rope on last time, but that was about it. The one that had been the problem last time was fine.

Ellie saddled up Orion and rode him while I trained Darcie. She did lots of trotting and cantering, and reported that she is getting much more confident about cantering.

With Darcie, we did some LFR 1. A bloke went past on a spooky grey while we were doing that. It reminded me I don't want to ride horses that think the world is freaky. The horse is not totally at fault there as they ride it kind of cranked in, in a way that is more suitable IMO for an arena than out on what should be a relaxed ride.

Anyway she is getting really good at LFR 1. Still needs a bit less pressure on the halter at times, but coming along, and the yielding hindquarters and halting is going great guns. She's reading just my body much more now.

At the end of that we did desensitising to rubbing and waving stick. I want her to learn the different between the stick moving while I'm pointing with my arm, and clucking, and when I have a neutral position. It seems to make it easiest for her if I rub with the stick a little before starting with the waving, as it signals a change in what we are doing, from "sensitising" to "desensitising". I think as we do more, she will more clearly read the differences in my body that indicate when the stick is driving and when it's to be ignored.

Then we worked properly at the sending exercise. I didn't really have a suitable fence so I used the side of my car. Started at a distance from it at first. As we'd just done LFR 1, she was easy to get yielding her quarters when asked, so that was a good head start. At first she needed a little tapping or waving behind the drive line as well as the point of the arm, and she also needed a couple of times to be pushed away in the front before going through the gap. I also made sure we did LOTS of rubbing her face with the stick between each try. I wanted to keep it quite low key. There is no issue with her responding!

She progressed really well and we moved closer to the car. She started to do nice arcs towards the car and then through the gap, with a good hindquarter yield at the end, on each side. I was particularly pleased with the way she was giving me that hula hoop space, arcing away and then across instead of just coming into my space as she passed. Also, she was picking up well to move just on the point of the arm. Towards the end of that session the stick really only came into it when I was yielding her quarters, and as an indication, not as a correction - it didn't go anywhere near touching her.

We could have done a bit more, but hubby had to go to work and we had to go home, since Connor (eight years old) was at home.

We took horses and a carrot each into the paddock. I flexed Darcie a few times on each side before taking off the halter. It was effective and I reckon I'll make that a habit. I need to get into the habit of doing more of those.

So that was the progress. Forging bonds means that I am definitely feeling like Darcie and I are forming a working partnership. She is comfortable with me and I am learning to trust her more as I work more with her, reduce her reactiveness, learn her responses, and so on.

And I managed a few more shots with the camera before we left. I hope some turned out OK. I'm about to have a look and I'll upload a few decent ones later on.

Learning new stuff. Horse and me.

Today I learned some things.

1. It's best to teach things before you need them.
2. The rope halter helps with this stuff.
3. It really is worth it to not quit too soon.

And the story.

It's been a few days since doing horse stuff. I've been trying to get some of my work done and also having a few little health issues. Today though I went to visit a friend I'd not seen for a while. And got home and had a rest and thought about working and said stuff it, let's go up see the horses.

So Ellie and I went up.

First we drove into the big paddock and looked for Wart. Xia and Cedar ran with the car. They had a good run because we drove around a fair bit. Eventually we saw Wart and Banjo the Clydie coming down through the trees towards the dam.

I called Wart and he saw the car and started following it. Trotted then cantered. Funny boy. We beat him to the gate and parked the car in the laneway, then slung his feed bin from the fence as usual. He enjoyed eating and the attention, and I gave him a bit of a groom and checked his feet.

I think he's maybe not quite so fat which is good. Probably he's moving around more.

Then we went up to the other paddock for Orion and Darcie. Ellie stood on my car and spotted them (they were a little over the hill). I called them and they came up fast! So did all the other horses. Our two REALLY WANTED to come out. They were trying to get past the others to get to the gate. So we put their headcollars on and took them out.

While Wart's weight is heading in the right direction, Orion's is going the opposite way. We need to think about what to do about that. Maybe we need to find him a diet paddock for a little while.

Darcie was fighting for her back legs a bit when I was cleaning her feet out. The near hind most of all. So I put the rope around it and just held it up - if she put pressure on it I kept the pressure up - sometimes she was able to get it down (horses are stronger than people) but I kept up the pressure and would get it up again. After a bit she stopped pulling at it and I let her put her foot down. So we played with that for a bit until I could get her foot up with the rope and just hold it up with her holding it there gently. Then I cleaned her foot out.

After the horses ate, Ellie popped onto Orion bareback with his headcollar and a leadrope as reins. I rode a lot like that when I was her age. :)

We went for a little walk down the laneway. Darcie didn't want to walk in a patch of wet ground. I started to do a little work with her and it ended up being a training session in the sending exercise. Except I didn't have the stick and string with me, so I used a loop of lead rope instead of it. And the area was not very large. So it was a bit too much pressure too soon. Hence me learning lesson one. Teach a thing before you need it. And don't use it under higher pressure situations until it's taught. It got her confused and a bit hyped but nothing we can't overcome and there won't be any lasting problems from it.

Anyway we kept up our walk. She was wanting to walk too close to me a bit too much rather than walk over things she didn't want to walk over, so I can see we need to keep going with these exercises to keep her out of my space.

When we finished walking I thought we'd train the sending exercise properly, but she was still a bit confused and amped over it, so we did lunging for respect stage 1 for a bit and got that working OK. Then we moved on to stage two. It was not going great. And I learned my lesson 2. After I switched from the nylon to the rope halter, she was responding much more easily to my bumps on the lead rope to stop her running forwards instead of turning.

My lesson 3 was a part of that too. I was really puffed because I was working as well as Darcie. And Darcie was getting sweaty and blowing. I did some desensitising with the rope and was thinking about stopping because things were coming along OK although not as good as I would have liked. And then I remembered "if they have the energy to get it wrong, they have the energy to get it right". And "don't give up too soon".

So I switched Darcie to the rope halter and we went back to it. And she responded better. And I was getting my body movement right and she was watching me more and starting to understand what my different movements meant. One type of movement for stage two - put weight back onto the quarters and turn the shoulders across, and another type of movement for stage one - turn the hindquarters out and stop with the head facing in. Once we got some nice consistent responses we stopped there. At first she had been coming in too close to me on the turn, but she did start to get some nice roll-back movement at the end.

So even though we didn't keep going all that much longer, we had kept going long enough to get some of the right sort of responses for the exercise. And finish feeling like some stuff was achieved.

Although we were not quite done. I finished on some desensitising. We did plastic bag on stick. She was pretty good except she didn't want it touching her front legs at first, but soon got over that. I did neck, body, legs. Then we did "follow the plastic bag while it goes from side to side, then bounces around in front of you, then whizzes around and around overhead". I walked backwards and she followed - walking towards the retreating plastic bag helps her to feel more brave about it. You could see her feeling more comfortable and getting closer to it.

After that the plastic bag on the stick was rubbed all over her body, including up near her ears, and around her head. She didn't like it under her jaw at first but then was OK.

While I was moving it around her head I found she didn't like it moving past her eye. So I whizzed it up and down past her eye and she backed up from it a bit, and I kept up the rhythm, and she stopped, and I kept it going up and down, and after some time she dropped her head and I stopped the bag. So we did a bit more of that on that side, and moved to the other side, again looking for signs of relaxation - a sigh, the head dropping a little. She didn't run backwards from it this time.

Well we were done then. Darcie was very sweaty. I spent some time just rubbing around her head, which she enjoyed.

I took her into the paddock. She tossed her head around a bit when I was starting to undo her halter. I'm not sure if she was trying to get it off, or if she was rubbing her head on my hands. Could have been either. But we need to have a "taking halter off" behaviour, so I asked her to tip her head around to me with her neck flexed while I did it. I'll see if that's a good one.

Another thing I learned was to have treats in my pocket when letting go. I like when they hang out for a bit after being let go. Usually we go over to the car, get something for them, and then go back and give it to them. But Orion had already been let go and was further down the paddock, and Darcie left to go to him after I went out of the paddock. If I'd had something with me I would have been able to give it to her before she left.

So. Horse learned things. I learned things. All good.

Monday, rainy Monday

Raining yesterday, Monday. No work. We just caught them out and fed them.

They didn't come up when called - there were people next to the fence further down, and all the horses were hanging about there. Ours thought about coming up but it seemed they preferred to try their chances where they were - lazy sods.

When we got down to them, Ellie caught Orion, and I talked to the people for a bit. Then I turned to catch Darcie and ALL the horses (apart from Orion who was walking with Ellie to the gate) caught stupidity and ran around snorting for a bit. I thought Darcie was going to be hard to catch for about the third time since she arrived with me.

The first time was when she'd just arrived and had found a place to get out, and was spooky and weirded out in a new place. That time I just eased up on her and kept her calm and caught her. The next time, I had been too blase about putting a headcollar on her. She was normally so quiet and cooperative that I forgot she wasn't all that handled. A bit, but not heaps. So she pulled back and silly me tried to hold her with the lead rope around her neck, when she'd not been trained to it. So that time I got her over it by just catching, rewarding, and releasing her. It didn't take her long.

So this time I was walking towards her and she was heading off all snorty and head in the air, and showing a better trot than she normally has. (Her trot is functional but would NOT attract the attention of a dressage trainer.) But it turns out she was just playing, because then she circled around and came back up to me, stopping at the distance I prefer her to stop (not running into my space) and just stood there, still a bit head-up, while I went up and rubbed her head and put her headcollar on. Then she just led up to and out of the gate as quiet as you would want.

Another good thing happened while they were eating. They have hard plastic feeders that hook onto the fence. Orion sometimes scoops his with his nose when he's done, and it flies off the rail. It did on this day, and it flew over and landed very close to Darcie's hind feet. Just forward of them and to the side a little. She didn't even flinch. She just looked over at it and then put her head back into her bin and kept eating.

Wart is getting more comfortable in the big paddock. He was still quite near the gate, but he and Banjo, who seems to be his new paddock buddy, were away from it a little more than last time, and in the trees.

Banjo is brought out by his owners for food most days and he likes to hang near the gate, but gradually was found further away from it, with horses. I think he was looking for company which was why he was often with the herd that has Trigger, Scotch, Nigel, Chalky and the others in that group. And Darcie when she was in there. I preferred that herd as they are in the main older and quiet and sensible horses. The other herd runs about a bit more, and the horses in it don't have as much done with them.

So if Wart and Banjo both like to hang near the gate, they might like being near-the-gate paddock buddies.

In some ways, I like having Wart near the gate, as it makes finding him easier than if he could be anywhere in the 150 acres. But on the other hand, I put him in there partly so that he would get used to the area, which he won't do if he just hangs out near the gate. I guess I'll see what he does as time goes on.

Some new stuff, and getting some old stuff right

Well yesterday, Sunday, we didn't do anything. I was not well.

But today (Monday) we went up and did some training. I started doing the progression like the other days, but as we began the yielding the hindquarters, I decided that we were not getting it as good as I wanted. I thought she was walking forwards too much and wanted her to pivot more on the front end. She was stepping around with the hind end but I wanted her to pivot and not do a small circle with the front end.

Also when she was getting closer to a pivot, her head would get in too close to me, or even in front of me. Part of it was me working out my position relative to her, and part was just bringing her head in too close to me, or at times bringing her shoulder over in towards me.

So we worked on that. When she walked forwards I backed her up. If she was backing up without being asked (instead of pivoting) I reached back and tapped her forwards. I was doing a better job of putting my hand up and making a wall of it that she could not go past, in towards me. A couple of times I had to tap her shoulder away from me.

I was putting quite a bit of pressure on her, to the point before where she "blew up", but making her really work and move. And as soon as she got what I wanted (step across with the hind foot, with the close hind foot in front of the far hind foot, and pivoting and not stepping forwards with the front feet), she was rubbed to a stop.

I was looking for a very precise movement.

We did get a nice step or two in each direction. It's not consistent yet but we will work on it. Another good thing is that she is really getting the difference between "move" and "stand still". Each time I'd rub her to a stop, I'd then rub her over with the stick. Instead of standing there being nervous, she was really good at just relaxing and dropping her head and chewing. So even though she was highly motivated to move away from the stick, she was able to switch quickly into relax mode. I thought that was really good and useful.

From there we went straight into LFR - 1. She was getting that pretty good an it seemed natural to move to LFR - 2, where I swap hands with the lead and stick, step into her path, and she rocks back onto her haunches and changes direction. A couple of times she did a nice rollback type of turn. At other times she was not so good. A couple of times I had to move her away from me as she was cutting in too close after the turn. And a couple of times I had to keep asking for the turn as she didn't get it at first.

I'm pretty sure I was clear with what I was asking. We need to get our communication worked out, with her understanding what I am asking. And we need to be consistent about her not cutting in close to me after the turn. But I am confident we will get it. I'll review the DVD section on it after I finish writing this. I was actually planning to do the sending exercise today but LFR - 2 just seemed to flow on from what we were doing and so I went with that.

We mixed it up a bit once she was twigging onto what I wanted. Sometimes I'd ask for a turn, sometimes for her to turn into me and stop (LFR - 1). Sometimes after she stopped I'd ask for a new direction, and sometimes the same direction. Sometimes I'd rub her, and sometimes just stand her for a little bit and then get her to move. Basically I want to get our cues clear, and I want her to be really attentive and watching me, not trying to predict, but just to respond to what I ask.

Not perfect yet but we'll keep working on it.

After we were done with that we did a longer session of desensitising. We'd been doing shorter sessions while we were doing the other stuff. Just to let her go into calm and relaxed mode, to keep her at the optimum learning level. Responsive but not too hyped. Looking for the difference between asking her to move and asking her to stay still. We are working out our "language".

Anyway so we did the stick and string, throwing it over her, slapping the ground, whirling it over her head, etc., and then I put the plastic bag on it and we did the same stuff. It was only the third time she's seen the bag and it's been a while but she accustomed to it really quickly and even let me rub it over her head before we were done.

Also I got Connor to run around her while I was doing the other stuff with her. He's eight and it's good for her to get used to a child running around her. She was getting used to a dog running around her because Xia, my Kelpie, feels she just HAS to run around her in circles when we do stuff, for much of the time.

So, pretty pleased with what we did today. I am pleased by the way she can switch from "active" to "relaxed". Before we do more stuff, I have to review what I am doing so that I can be sure I'm doing it the right way, and helping her.

While Darcie and I were working, Ellie rode Orion. She took him down to the arena and was practicing his circles. He's better on one side than on the other. She was working on getting him good on both sides, also on getting him to do even circles, not to fall in towards the gate and fall out when coming away from the gate. After that, she gave Connor a lead on him, which he enjoyed.

Oh, and Wart was not at the gate of the big paddock today. He was closer down towards the dam near the gate, and there were other horses there as well. He was thrilled to come up for his feed and did follow me up to the gate, along with Banjo, who seems to be his buddy now. He seems to be settling into his new paddock, although he is largely staying close to the gate area for now.

Early stages, but already benefits all around

I've been noticing overall benefits in general handling of Darcie.

For example, I can get her to shift her hindquarter over when I'm behind her and want to come up beside her, in the place where we tie them up to feed and groom them, which is something like a tie stall with a rail at the front and one on each side. She has been known to kick dogs and other horses at times, and needs more work on her legs for me to think she's reliable about not kicking at unexpected things, so I don't want to come up behind her. I can just stand off to one side and behind a little, and cluck, and over goes that hind quarter.

Also, things like going through gates. We have to get through a gate that swings and which I need to hold at all stages of going through it, including putting a foot on it to hold it in place while I use both hands to do it up. It's a horrible gate. Anyway, now I can point and get her where I want to be more easily (still needing work), and also easily get her to move her quarters over when I want her to pivot, by leaning and looking towards her quarter, or doing the lean and look and shaking a finger at her.

Backing up when I want her to back up has more options now, also. Including getting her out of my space when I want to. Although I find she's not behaving pushy at all.

Just when you think you can't ... you do, and it's good. :)

Well after a busy (and enjoyable) day, I thought we were too tired to do horse work as well. But then, being up there, being with them, all of a sudden the tiredness goes away. It was so peaceful up at the agistment, in the late afternoon, after a showery day but no rain at the time, and nobody around but us and a bunch of horses. Oh and two dogs (Xia and Pickle: Kelpie and Border Collie, respectively).

The first thing was to see Wart and how he was. Happily, he is settling down. He was with Banjo the Clydesdale, both near the gate, but there were no more hoof track marks along the fence, so that means that Wart was not pacing any more. He looked more relaxed overall and happily ate his food.

We then went to the paddock that has Orion and Darcie in it. They were together and both came cantering up to us when we called them. Darcie is starting to look like a tame horse, with regular brushing, and her thick mane and tail looking nice.

So the horses were out and had eaten and were groomed and I asked Ellie, do you want to do more or will we put them back? She decided she would ride bareback with the headcollar for a bit and so I did some training with Darcie.

We are getting better at all the things. Not perfect yet. But we are starting to work together more smoothly. We added flexing the head and neck. We've done that before but not for a while, and we need to get better at that.

We also did some more of the putting head down exercise. She's starting to get that.

Overall everything is getting more relaxed, but she's responsive. As we work out our cues and understand each other even better, it can only get better. It's like we are developing our communication, and our relationship. I like the relaxed way that things are going. Calm and responsive. It's nice to stand there rubbing her over the head, stroking her forelock, rubbing around her eyes and forehead, while she stands there with her head down at about the level of my chest, just all relaxed and enjoying it.

Oh, I did find a "don't touch me there" spot. I was rubbing her over with the stick, up between the hind legs and everything, around her head, and when I got to her ears she tossed her head up. I can handle her ears totally with my hand, but she didn't like the stick there. So we worked with that for a bit. She's not completely relaxed with it yet, but she's not tossing her head any more.

When we took them back out to the paddock, because we have been getting better at Darcie's head dropping on cue, I was able to ask Darcie to drop her head to take the halter off. So that was a good thing.

It was a good day. :D

Day 2 - a short but worthwhile training session

Firstly, before I get to the training, WART IS NOT HAPPY about being in the big paddock. He was near the gate and when he saw us, he whinnied and came straight over. The ground next to the fence around the gate has lots of hoof marks and is chopped up a bit, from him walking up and down next to it. He also had some minor sweat marks, although it was a hot day so I don't think he was exercising TOO excessively.

He tucked into a feed of chaff with a few pellets in it. I need to get him a fly sheet and mask as they are hassling him.

I feel like a horrible "mother" as you can see he WANTS TO GET BACK TO HIS PROPER PADDOCK, and ORION. But I can't really do that. I think he will adapt but it might take a few days. Eventually it will be good as he will get used to that big paddock, and feel safe there, and that will make it better to ride there.

Anyway ...

So, training. We didn't have a lot of time as we had to go out to dinner. Ellie was with me and she rode Orion bareback with a headcollar and leadrope, practising bareback trotting, although we need to get her a bra that holds everything more stable as she was having some discomfort.

Because of time limits I didn't go to any of the working areas, which are a bit of a walk away. I just trained Darcie in the area near the paddock gate. There is a bit of open area there, not much, just enough to do some lungeing for respect (LFR), and there is also a moderately wide laneway area. It was a challenge because I had to make sure we didn't run into anything, so space was a bit restricted, but we managed.

We ran through the same things as yesterday. I'd reviewed some more DVD between yesterday and today, looking at the yield the forehand exercise, and realised I'd not been paying enough attention in yield the forequarters to how the front legs were stepping - the close one needs to step across and IN FRONT of the far one. I think, by the feel, that yesterday it was stepping behind.

The first thing we did was some desensitising and initially she moved a bit, and acted a bit nervous! Which she generally doesn't do. However this time it was a new place, and also I had not round penned her before so she was fresh. But she soon figured out I wanted her to stand still and was calm. We also did a bit of desensitising between the different exercises, and at the end, as the previous day.

So then we practised yield the hindquarter, and I checked where the feet went, and was pleased to see that she was stepping across and in front with the hind foot, which she had been taught to do originally. I hadn't checked that yesterday. We did the four back up methods, plus another new one, that CA does with Scooter in the download clip of the TV show, where the handler doesn't move with the horse but the horse backs up along the line, and then comes forward again when asked. Darcie picked that up really well.

Yielding the forehand was quite difficult with the added criterion of where the leg was stepping, but we were able to quit with a decent step in each direction. She had been doing a bit of going forwards (at the end of the sidestep) or backwards (when asked to side step) so we did some backup for the going forwards and using the stick a little further back to tap for the going backwards. My arms got quite sore during yield the forequarter, holding them up and tapping the air and rubbing the horse and so on. So I was happy to quit when we did, too. I will get fitter doing all this!

Lastly we did the LFR stage 1. She is getting much better about starting with energy, in the correct direction, on the point and cluck. She is also getting much easier to stop and turn into me - she is starting to do it just on me leaning towards her hindquarter, and a step in that direction, with just a hint of taking in the leadrope towards me. However she is starting to anticipate the stop, which means that a couple of times I had to start her off again, by driving her front end back out on the circle.

This was where she had some confusion, and I can see that we need to keep the cues very distinct. When I was doing that, twirling the stick and the string towards her neck, I could see at one or two times that she was getting confused, thinking that it was "stand still while I slap the string on the ground". I was pointing and clucking while twirling, as well as facing up to her, so I figure that the face up, point and cluck will be the difference for her between "go" and "stand still". When I slap the ground in desensitising, I don't face up square to her, and I don't point and I don't cluck. CA talks about the difference in body language between wanting the horse to move, and not move. This is a place where I can see that one needs to be very very clear, so that the horse can tell, oh this is sensitising, and oh this is desensitising.

I need to review LFR stage 1 to make sure I am doing it right. I can see that we are getting better but I want to make sure that I'm doing it all correctly.

My aims, and we know more than I thought.

After thinking about yesterday, I realised we know more than I thought. It's just that she hadn't had any more handling than being fed out in the paddock, for a while. Darcie knows everything on the first CA DVD set of ground training, although not perfectly, except for the sending exercise. Also she knows round penning. And she's done some despooking, having her feet done, going on a horse float, and stuff.

I've decided to go through the groundwork stuff before the saddle training because:

1. A lot of it is required anyway if I do the CA progression,

2. It can only help with having her calm and prepared for each step, and

3. As I've not done much with her for a while, we don't have a working relationship as such. I don't feel I know all her ins and outs (and she mine). I want to develop the understanding and trust that I have developed with the boys. Some regular training and spending time with her will do that.

Darcie's training begins

Well today was the first day of training proper for Darcie. She is a 3yo Australian Stock Horse filly. Black. I've loved black horses before but they have generally been horses I've trained and worked for other people. This time I got one for myself. The colour wasn't really the main issue but since this might be my last horse (depending on how the body holds up) I thought I may as well get everything I wanted. I bought her as a yearling.

This is a photo of Darcie a few months ago when she was getting some despook training - she is becoming accustomed to a flag as you can see. (You can click on these photos to see them bigger.)



I have done training with Darcie before, but the difference is that THIS time, there is a clear goal of having her under saddle over summer.

Previous training has been a bit here and a bit there, and she's been in the big spelling paddock.

Today I swapped Darcie and Wart. Wart (19yo Arabian gelding whom I've had since he was a yearling) went into the big paddock. Darcie, after training, went into a closer paddock, with Orion (19yo Paint gelding with a TB mother, bred by me) and some other horses.

These are Wart and Orion on the same despooking day. Wart is being ridden by my daughter and Orion by her friend. I was the ground person. Orion is now my daughter's horse, but on this day she was riding mine. Her friend is not as good a rider and Orion is a wonderful horse for all kinds of riders. Wart, on the other hand, prefers to have someone that knows how to ride on him.



I took Wart for a walk through the 150 acre paddock looking for the herd, so I could release him with other horses so he could settle. Well he said hello but then he took off back to the gate. He's not happy about the change. He doesn't like change much. But he'll cope. In the meantime he's hanging out by the gate wanting to be taken out and back to his PROPER paddock.

Darcie I led out of the 150 acre paddock and took into the smaller training arena/pen with the five foot high sides.

She's been a bit feral so we just went over the stuff she knows.

I've been working through the Clinton Anderson training progression with her. I like it because it's step by step, very detailed, and it's sensible and practical. It doesn't have any weird spiritual stuff, or energy projecting by me (I would not know how to "project energy") or things like that. And as he's Australian, it's very much along the lines of what I already know, with some US variations.

I used to be a ride anything person when younger but now I break more easily so I like the idea of doing something that's very thorough. And there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Here's a training progression already worked out, and thoroughly tested. I can modify as needed. I imagine that I will add some more positive reinforcement to it. It is traditional horse training in a lot of ways in that it contains a lot of negative reinforcement. But there are clear ways in which one can add positive reinforcement.

ANYWAY.

What I'm about to describe has some CA terminology but since this is primarily a private blog that's OK.

So we revised round pen work. We'd done it in the smaller one before. She knows it pretty well but being a smaller area she doesn't get to move out as much as I would like. It transferred really well into the bigger area with squarer corners. Since she knew what was expected she didn't find the square corners or bigger area confusing.

She was doing her inside turns quite well and hooked on really well at the end.

Then we reviewed some desensitising. First with throwing the lead rope all over her including around her legs (but not actually ON her head), then the stick and string. Also slapping the string on the ground next to her, and also waving it around her head, and we also introduced the helicopter string exercise, spinning it over her, which she'd not done before. She was really good with all of this. Having been just worked previously I'm sure helped, as she was ready to just stand and have a rest, although she was a long way from exhausted! We've done a fair bit of this stuff before and she's pretty good with it anyway.

So then we reviewed yielding the hindquarters, and did some more desensitising. Actually we did desensitising between all the active (sensitising) exercises, so take that as a given.

Then we did all the four ways of backing up. Tap the air, waggle wave, marching, and yielding hindquarters into clip jiggling. These are probably not quite the right names but for anyone familiar with this, they will know what I'm referring to. Not perfect at those yet, and the fourth one was only introduced today, but she's picking it up pretty nicely.

After that we reviewed yielding the forequarters. To the left was pretty good but to the right was not so easy, she tended to back up and also go forwards a bit. At the end of that section she was doing some nice circling with her forehand in both directions.

The next thing was "lungeing for respect stage 1". We've only done that once before but she remembered it pretty well. She was going well, beginning to pick the direction and start with energy. We need to get better at yielding the hindquarters to a halt.

Then we did some more desensitising (along with all the rest of the desensitising that I didn't mention as I went) and I decided we were done. It had been a good session. We need to get the LFR-1 going better before we can start the sending exercise, as she needs to understand yielding the hindquarters in it better.

We have done yielding head and neck quite a lot previously, and if I'd remembered to do it we would have, but I forgot.

I took her out of the yard and hooked her up to the tie ring. I wanted to trim her feet, even just a rough job with the nippers, as they were a little long. However she wasn't leaving her front foot between my knees so I could clip the hoof. She's pretty good with her legs (now, after some training) but she was pulling the feet away from me when I had them in between my knees. Before when trimming her, I'd had someone to hold her which provided extra control, but this time I was on my own.

So I decided that since she's going to be hobble trained anyway, now was as good a time as any to start with the single leg strap. As I've never done hobble training before I had bought the CA DVD on it and it's a nice clear and safe progression. Admittedly I'd not looked at it for a while but I had a pretty good idea of what was in it. I used a stirrup leather as a leg strap, put on as per John O'Leary (horseproblems Australia) which worked well, but doing the CA training session, of putting it on, moving her around (actually we ended up doing a spot of LFR with it as she understood that well and we were both safe doing it) and then waiting for her to basically submit and relax and drop her head, and letting her just be there with it for a few minutes. Once she did that on the first leg I took it off, gave her a break and walked her around, then did the same thing on the other leg.

Then I took her out and put her foot between my leg to trim again, and she held her foot there so nice and light, it was magic. I thought I'd try her back legs too and although they'd had nothing more that day than the lead rope and the string looped around them in the desensitising sessions, they were good too. I have used a rope all up and down them, and pulled them and held them different ways with the rope, as well as the normal leg picking up stuff, and trimming holding stuff. At some point I will tie each one up with a proper restraint just so that it's been done.

Walking her up to her new paddock I saw a horse that a while back had degloved one of its back legs. It's only just gone to no bandage after months of bandaging, and it's not pretty. It reminded me that training leg restraints can help to protect from that kind of injury.

Well Darcie settled into her new paddock pretty quickly. Wart will take longer but he'll be OK and it will be good for him. He's a horse who likes the familiar, so if that big paddock becomes a home for him, it will make him more confident about being ridden in there - it's a good place for doing some "trail riding".

Day one done. A good start.