Satori Center

The start of a conversation     

It seems to me that Mia Morning Glory is still banking on the fearful card to duck out of things, so, today being drizzly, I decided it would be a good time for round pen work.  (although, I now have a square pen ....) 

You may remember me mentioning before, the first order of business with Mia was to get her OFF of me.  This was an important but missing part in her concept of horse-human relations.  Today I decided to see if we could get a little better about what OFF means.  It doesn't mean the other side of the field.  Not really.

To give her some leeway, my life has been crazy and I've not done much with her except feed her and let her figure out how to fit in with the rest of the crew in a natural setting.   And for the most part, this is plenty.  But there are times where I'd like to have a more subtle conversation.   Like when I open the stall door and wave my fingers for her to go in, I'd appreciate her going in -- rather than wheeling and running off to pester a different horse.  When I wave my fingers a certain way, the rest of the crew understand I really do mean, 'that way is open.'   If I back up, I really do mean, 'advance this way.'  If I put up my hand, it really does mean 'this way is closed.'

These are very basic communications.  Go.  Stop.  Turn.

Of the ways of approaching horses, I've found that working with a horse loose inside a pen is very useful for clarifying this commands.

One of the benefits - there's no equipment!  It's me and the horse and maybe a lunge whip or a lead line to twirl.  Another benefit, there is an added nuance to these communications when the horse is loose but contained which is not accessible when the horse is on the lead line, lunge line, or long reins.  Some folks talk about how the horse is more free to cooperate.  With a line, there is that last little bit of power-over that prevents establishing the herd dynamics in the horse's mind.   With a line, perhaps they are always thinking, 'just take that line off and we'll see what happens....'

OK - so I don't know why, but it does seem to be a thing.  If you can control them without touching them, they seem to be a bit more impressed.

So into the pen we go.  

Then what?

Usually you start with 'go.'  'I made you move.' 

With Mia, some of her actions I interpret as 'Someone else tried this one and I convinced them it was a bad idea by behaving stupidly.'  

This looks a lot like a horse bolting away from a cougar about to spring.  And it's pretty impressive.  Except Mia also has some feet things going on, so her flinging herself around a muddy pen isn't a really good idea.   And you know it's an act because she stops just outside of where she thinks I can reach, puts her head down, and pretends to eat.   

Which is 'the wrong response' and can only ever be countered with me saying 'GO.'  So there's that. 

Only we're starting out with this (somewhat common) pattern of there are only two gears: 'run like a bat of hell'  and 'stop, grow roots to China' complicated by 'run like a bat of hell' is probably a really bad idea for her feet.

When a horse wants to go too fast, there are two options.  

One option is to say, 'OK, faster' coupled with 'I said Go, you can't stop' (timed to make sure they don't manage the stop) with a little bit of 'you can go slower (if you're smart enough to interact with me.)'  But the downside of that is they might go really fast.

The other, the option I chose, was to make her 'GO' but then immediately 'change my mind' and say 'STOP.'  The idea is that I tell her to STOP right away.  Now, if she stops, she's actually complying with my wishes for her to stop.  AND she never really picks up too much steam. 

When she goes I can coo 'gooooddd gggiirrrrrrl' and then very quickly ask for the stop and coo again when she's stopped.   

This is a very (very) simple form of green light/red light, and it's not very sophisticated.  And it was also pretty quickly covered.    

The next step is usually to play with fast/faster/slow/slower/almost stop go/etc.  The horse keeps moving in one direction and my proximity and intention are used to move her along -- similar to how other horses would move a horse along.   I get close and big and solid and it's time to move.  I move away, become nebulous and wispy and it's ok to slow down.  This works quite well when there's no worry about what happens if the horse gets too fast.  

But because of her feet, I kind of went gingerly to avoid any miscommunications and her doing the 'bat out of hell' thing and moved right into the 'turn inward' concept.

This is accomplished by stopping the horse, stepping back to pull her in towards me, and then (energetically) stepping into the wedge between the horse and the pen to push it away and in the other direction.   To begin with, there's a bit of arm waving, sometimes the use of the lead line twirling for emphasis, and a bit of walking to get into the correct places so that Mia understood 'Yeah, I mean it.'  Eventually, this all calmed down a lot.

Can I wave my fingers and she'll walk where I've asked?  no.  not yet.  We did cover 'go,' 'stop,' 'turn in,' and 'reverse direction.'   And she came up to me when I asked her to.  That's plenty for the day.  We got a lot of ground covered that leads up to the subtle finger wave.  It's the start.