A blow up, and some desensitising

Well today we had a blow up. Or Darcie had a blow up.

We'd gone to see Wart first as usual. Zante was funny because she didn't understand at first to run alongside the car in the big paddock, while we were driving around looking for Wart. But she got the idea after I drove with the door open a bit, talking to her, then talking to her out the window.

Anyway we had the horses tied up and eating, and I was about to pick out Darcie's feet, and I decided that her chestnuts were kind of overgrown and that I should pick them off smoother. Well I learned something, and that is, horses might pick their feet up when you squeeze their chestnuts, but then if you want to pick the old skin off them, they still think you want to pick the feet up, and they can get antsy. So that is a technique I'll not be using again. Instead I will desensitise her to touching and picking at her chestnuts.

So, she was antsy and I wasn't going to stop handling her chestnuts until she stood still. Then Ellie, right near Darcie and to the rear of her, tripped over something. Darcie spun a bit and her quarters hit into the rail. By this time she was feeling pretty trapped, and she jumped over towards me. I can't have her jump into me so I swatted her butt. She was really blowing up by now, wanting to escape, and I thought for a moment that she was going to leap over the chest rail of the tie stall. Instead she pulled back, and the tie ring did its job - she pulled a length of the lead out of it, but then stopped pulling back and came forwards again. It all took less than a minute.

I took her back into the tie stall but she was too hyped for me to pick out her feet, and so I started a little desensitising there, since she'd blown up there, she needed to be desensitised there, but she was too hyped for that too. So I took her out to where there was more space and did desensitising to the plastic bag on the stick. At first she was very jumpy at it, even though she's met it a few times now, but then she settled. I wasn't being timid with it, I was flapping it past and on her body with some vigour. Sort of flap up, brushing her on the way past, flap down, brushing her on the way past, and so on. Anyway we did that all over her body and legs up to near the top of her neck. By the time we got to her head she just stood there for most of it, but when it got to the top between and blowing over her ears, she started to toss her head, so we kept going with that area, first on one side and then the other, until she stood there calmly.

So then we did tap and slap, and she was as jumpy as anything at that. Xia was not helping here at all. I was firmly patting Darcie behind the wither, with rhythm, and not stopping while she was moving, and she was going around and around in circles, and Xia was wanting to get in on the action, and was doing what she could to keep Darcie moving. I told her to leave it and she basically ignored me, so I told her to leave it and gave her a boot and she ran back for a couple of seconds and then came back in again (yes, her family work cattle as well as sheep, and a bit of a boot from me was nothing to her when she was hyped - ack, hyped horse and dog) and I couldn't stop patting away at Darcie because that would have taught her that moving away gets the patting to stop. So I didn't wait for her to stop for fifteen seconds, I grabbed a momentary stop, and went after Xia, and she ran to the car, and I got her by the scruff and basically shook her a bit and yelled in her face. After which she was my good little doggie (I's your good doggie) and stayed in the car. Also later when I wanted her to lie down she dropped like a stone and stayed down. Not timidly, oh no, but she was doing what I wanted without the "what's in it for me?" look that she gets. Kelpies. They will push you sometimes. I am just so not used to being tough with a dog - you would NEVER do anything like that with one of the Vizslas. But they would not be as driven and disobedient either.

Ack. Anyway.

So after the Kelpie stopped zooming at Darcie's legs and circling her incessantly, I was able to focus on the horse more, and we were able to get her standing and relaxing for the tap and slap, but it took a while, and when I changed sides, she was just as jumpy as she'd started on the first side. This was in contrast to the first time I did it, when she was much quieter on the second side.

I wanted to do some backing up but I also wanted to take the plastic bag off the stick before we did that, so before I removed it I took her into the stall she'd blown up in (the one that she's photographed in, a few posts back), and did some desensitising with the plastic bag in the stall, both sides. Then I took the bag off.

So then we did backup. Again I had the carrots, and this time I had apple too, all chopped up. I wanted to click and reward her for the backup. I wanted to look for the head to drop but it didn't at all so I clicked and rewarded for a good straight active backup, and I rubbed her head with the stick while she ate the reward. We were doing the "tap the air (etc.)" backup. I found the online TV show clip with the dressage dude useful because CA comes in and the dressage guy's horse is backing up without enough activity, so CA shows him how to get the activity. We went for the activity. Darcie does know the exercise. So I gave her the easy choice, and then if she didn't respond, I went to the hard choice. Basically tap the air, then go straight to a swat of the clip. She's not going back on the tap the air enough - she needs to move back more promptly. Something I can see is that we need to do much, much more backing up. (She is actually better with the other methods, probably coz I use them more, but we could be doing them better.) So it's a time for going back over the foundation moves and getting them all right. Including all the backup methods.

After that we did lateral flexing, and again, I was using a click and reward to tell her, yes that is what I want. She was wanting to look at Orion instead - he was grazing - so she got a couple of bumps with the halter when she was leaning on it. She's not as light as she could be. Sometimes she's light and sometimes she wants to look somewhere else. So I bump her for two eyes when she does that. I should probably do something more, like a back up, give her a reason to keep her attention on me. Yes, that's what I'll do. As soon as she looks away instead of a mild bump, for a bit I'll get her to hustle in a back up or something like that.

Then after the flexing I took her back into the stall and did some more desensitising. Some tap and slap, rubbed her body, rubbed her head, picked up each leg and handled it and rubbed it. Basically took her back to what we were doing when the blow up happened. Then did some more head rubbing for a bit, and then we let them go. I would like to be able to use a "learning tree" (or equivalent) but it's a bit hard to manage on these days when I'm training in the afternoon - or any days really - I can't just stay there for an hour or two after a lesson. And I can't tie her up and leave her and come back later, either. So. I'll have to think about it.

The rope halter was a bit tight in the knot after the pull back but didn't take too much effort to loosen the knot. The reef knot tying the tie ring to the rail needed some more effort to loosen but it came apart OK. There are benefits to tying proper knots. :)