Here you will find my musings as I (and my students) pursue better relationships with our horses through dressage, horsemanship and clicker training. If you are interested in joining me on this journey consider subscribing to my blog and you will get daily updates in your e-mailbox. See the Subscribe box right there on the right…. >>>
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This week we lost our beloved Shepherd, Roxi, at age 12. I wrote this for her.
I go through my day tripping over the impressions you left in my routine. Like a photograph negative I see the outline of you. But it is not you. At the door. Under the coffee table. At my feet under my desk. I get out of bed – late because you didn’t make me get up. I wander aimlessly in the morning thinking there is something I’m supposed to be doing. You would have told me. You knew our every move. Time to go out. Time to eat. Time for pop tart. We were so predictable. So trainable. I know with time the tide will wash over your footprints. Soon the movement of the Universe will fill in those holes. Too soon routines without you will feel normal. But I’m not ready to let you go. I leave your dish with three bits of kibble from that Tuesday morning where you left it. I leave your nose prints on the windows unwashed. The dog hair un-vacuumed. We want you back home. But not like this, in a metal box with the inscription “Until we meet again at the Rainbow Bridge”. by Sharon Foley  Libby I bought Libby for my non-rider husband and she came to me as a 25 year old with some age-related issues: arthritis, sore hocks, and lameness in her left spavin. Yet she impressed me by making a ten hour trailer ride from northern Ohio and trusting me enough to follow a stranger (me) off that trailer (in the dark) and into her new stall. In the glaring light of day I could see she needed the attention of a good farrier before I could even consider riding her, so all I asked of her in the beginning was to stand still for grooming. She stood well enough for grooming, but resisted picking up her feet. I persisted, and was twice bitten on the calf when I tried to pick up her right fore. A more experienced horsewoman would have known that Libby was saying “OUCH!” but it took me a bit longer to figure it all out. Over our next four years together Libby grew to love grooming and scratching but was always, no matter what, difficult when it came to lifting her front feet. We went through several farriers (the ones that bullied her and used a twitch were never called again) and by now I had figured out that she was in pain but even a dose or two of anti-inflammatory prior to the farrier visit wasn’t enough to allow her to easily hold those feet up for trimming. We also weren’t able to ride her because of her physical limitations so she became a companion horse. One day she slipped and fell in a wet pasture and the ensuing shoulder injury combined with the inefficacy of an anti-inflammatory forced me to seek alternative methods of relieving Libby’s pain. Through wonderful luck I found Heather Davis, a body worker whose diligent, patient work allowed Libby to relax and regain long-lost flexion. After several months of body work, Libby could flex much more easily, but then we realized that some of her resistance was seemingly out of habit; a learned behavior of resistance that had, apparently, served her at one time and had now become a roadblock. This is when we called Sharon to help us open Libby up to the possibility of maybe not resisting quite so much. I mentioned to Sharon that my main goal for Libby was to get her to stand quietly in cross-ties for the farrier. Sharon was working with Libby on the lead line, trying to get her to accept and follow, and clicking and treating for her attempts. Libby soon used all of Sharon’s available rewards, so we moved to scratching as a reward, as Lib loves scratches. The light bulb moment hit: reward this little mare for lifting her feet so that she no longer associates it with pain but with a reward. Seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it? And let me tell you the results were immediate and, thus far, permanent. I continued daily to lift Libby’s feet and reward each effort with a generous scratch in her favorite places, and taught my husband to do the same. A couple of weeks later our barefoot trimmer Rocky arrived and we were in position for the acid test. I told Rocky how we had been rewarding Libby so that she could do the same and reinforce the behavior in the same way. Libby was wonderful; quiet and compliant and Rocky was gushing about how much easier it was to work with her. Lifting Libby’s feet had become a prelude to a scratch rather than a resistance to pain. Her behavior changed because we were able to offer her a reward for each little try, and trusting that we would follow through and reward her every time, she responded positively to us. I’m so proud of my little mare for teaching us all a very important lesson. Editor’s Note: For more on Libby’s amazing story, read the post I was inspired to write after our first meeting. –Sharon I wrote this article several years ago. It had gotten lost in the shuffle of updating my website. Unfortunately the video that had gone along with it is among the missing. But, here is the article anyway. –Sharon Here in New England one of the things I really miss in the winter is the ability to ride outside on grass. Or, as we like to call it, the ‘Carpet of Motivation’. The reason it has earned that name is because of all the food rewards we’ve offered—and we’ve used just about every possible treat under the sun—none have the reinforcing impact of grazing. I started the practice a few years ago and have since introduced several horses to it with excellent results. The rule is let the horses tell us what they find reinforcing. The horses tell us grazing is good! Getting Started The first thing you have to do is explain to your horse how the Grazing Game works. Before starting your horse should already be familiar with the clicker, targeting, head lowering, and backing. Begin on the ground with the horse in a halter and lead rope and let him lower his head to take a few bites of grass, then ask him to raise his head by following your feel. Click for any response, even a momentary hesitation in chewing. Then let him graze again. Just a few bites, then ask him to lift his head. Click for reply then let him graze. If your horse doesn’t respond to your request to lift his head don’t jerk it up. There are there several ways to illicit the behavior without force. An easy way is to simply turn into your horse and walk straight through his line of grazing. Your attitude should be one of “I’m going this way. You coming? Oh were you grazing right there?” This nearly always results in the horse picking his head up to get out of the way and follow you. Click that and let him graze again. Provide a little warning you are about to start walking away and he’ll soon be with you as you walk off. This should be practiced each and every time you are hand grazing your horse. Consider the following if when you hand graze your horse just dives down for the grass and drags you around. This is really just a variation on the mugging problem. Just as your horse has learned that he can’t just dive into your pocket for treats he can learn that he can’t just dive for the grass at will either. This isn’t a difficult point to get across. Like other mugging behaviors the solution is 100% consistency on your part. The number one reason why horses learn to ignore their human on grass is their human taught them to do it. Consider this, when you take your horse out to hand graze what do you do? If you are like most of us, you stand out there chatting with friends or just mosey along daydreaming as your horse eats. Then, you look at your watch, say it’s time to go, then proceed to drag your horse back to the barn. Meanwhile the horse knows this is the last bite so he’d better make hay while the sun shines and keeps pushing for ‘just one more.’ So the very first step toward leveraging the most powerful motivator on earth is to change that dynamic. Set it up so that the horse doesn’t believe that this is the last bite of grass he’ll ever have. The way to do that is to keep asking him to pick up his head followed by letting him eat again. Your better leading and backing skills will go a long way here, and will improve dramatically if you practice like this on grass. With consistency your horse will learn—quite quickly in fact—that when you ask him to come with you it doesn’t mean that that is the end of the grazing. He needs to know that before you can effectively use the grass as a motivator for performance. You will also want to have a cue that lets the horse know that he should return his attention to you. I use the horse’s name. So, before I ask the horse to do anything else I’ll say his name then immediately carry on with purpose. When they get accustomed to this routine they will soon stop eating in anticipation of some change. More halter-work As your horse improves in his willingness to let you control his access to the grass when up close you can start to integrate grazing as a reward for distance work like longeing. If you have been clicking and treating for longeing there is no difference except that you are standing on the treats. Just let him put his head down for a few bites. Then say his name and ask him to do something, such as Trot on. You know your horse is with you when he will continue in walk, trot or canter nose brushing the grass but not grabbing for it until you click. A most valuable side benefit of this is the gymnastic value of up and down transitions with the nose brushing the tips of the grass. The most beneficial exercises are the ones the horse does without forceful coercion. Here he stretches his own neck, and prepares his own balance to be ready to come to a quick halt. What may start out as choppy eventually evens out as the horse practices a maneuver he’s highly motivated to perform. Due to the nature and accessibility of the grass you must be ever diligent about consistency. If you allow any loopholes (such as being too slow to provide the horse with something worth paying attention to) the horse will surely find them by deciding the grass is more interesting than you. Under Saddle Once in hand and distance work on the halter is going well you can introduce grazing under saddle. A common concern is that of letting the horse graze with a bit in his mouth. I can only say that we’ve been doing this for quite a few years now and it has never been a problem. Other than a really slimy green bit to clean. But the horses are happy. Your major concern, and again this is resolved through absolute consistency, is ensuring that the horse wait for your signal that he may graze. Pulling the reins out of your hands is just the same as mugging. Allow it to happen once and the horse will believe it is an option. Therefore, right from the beginning, after you click, ask the horse for some thing like rock back half a step then present the reward. Presenting the reward in this case is the signal he can lower his head to graze. I touch the withers in a special way. OR you may hand feed another reward. It is wise to mix up the rewards, sometimes feeding something from your hand, sometimes letting him graze. Since grazing is such a superior motivator it makes an excellent jackpot.  Sweet Libby This week I worked with Libby, a 30 year old Quarter Horse mare, for the first time. Libby and her owner, Kirsten, were referred to me by Libby’s massage therapist, Heather Davis. Libby suffers from some lameness due to injury and hard use (before Kirsten). Not surprisingly as a result she holds her body very tightly. The massage therapy has helped Libby but Heather believed that if Libby could become more mentally relaxed that it would help her body to relax as well. This is where I come in. Kirsten had started a little bit of target training with Libby before I arrived. I was curious to see how Libby responded to this. Did she ‘get’ it? Was she willing to work for food? How hard? With all of Libby’s prior history I had a feeling that this sort of free shaping work might be too big a leap for her. So I decided to go into the stall with her and work on some basic lessons in feel…. look at me, follow me, turn… on the lead rope. As always my first objective is to capture the horse’s interest and cooperation. With some experimentation I discovered that Libby loved…LOVED…scritchies. Particularly in the udder area. This was, for her, way better than food. So, I began to click and scritch rather than click and feed. Historically, Libby would only put up with any kind of handling (like for trimming) for only a short time. Then she would begin to fuss and struggle making the whole procedure unpleasant for everyone involved. I saw this happen when we opened the stall door and Libby tried to bowl me over to get out. This, I learned, was a regular occurrence. Libby is so very focused on what she thinks needs to happen next that all thought of the human goes right out the window. I decided to make it my mission to show her another way. We worked for a while in front of the open door as I asked her to continue to back up, look at me, follow me and turn. For every tiny change I would release stop and scritch deeply for a moment. (I eventually eliminated the click as it was unnecessary.) Did this take some time? Yes, it did. But it was time spent scratching itchy spots (or being scratched from Libby’s point of view) which was, for all involved, way better than having a fight. Soon, I was walking her out of the stall on a long loose lead and she was exiting calmly. We went in and out several times. As Libby began to let go of thoughts of leaving she did relax in her body just as Heather had predicted. The lameness was still there but overall she was walking much more freely and relaxed. It was a nice change that I was very happy to be a part of. Editor’s Note: Laurie Grann is a dear friend and a most excellent horse woman. She recently participated in a week long clinic with Mark Rashid. She wrote up her thoughts about how she is working his ideas into her every day riding. The result is what follows. Perhaps if we are all very nice to her she will contribute again!  Laurie and Dulcie Today, my sister and I went on a 14 mile ride–2 loops of about 7 miles each. The first loop was mostly flat and good footing and took us 1 hour and 20 minutes. The second loop was climbing and lots of rock and ledge. Quite challenging so there was lots of walking. That loop took 2 hours. So plenty of saddle time to think about all the concepts and doors Mark Rashid showed me. I guess I can sum it up to 2 major areas: Starting with softness and Breathing. On starting with softness, I need to start with a thought and offer that as my first cue and remain soft inside and outside. Mark would say, from your inside to the horse’s inside. I just never thought to start that far down the scale. I could get work on just a thought before but always with a lot of preparation that involved aiding and sometimes quite strongly. My mare, Dulcie, had a real strong desire to go forward on this ride so I had to monitor my thoughts carefully! If I said to myself, “well maybe we should trot now,” hup, there we were trotting along. Very neat. Also getting into the canter was pretty easy with all the long straight lines on dirt trails, roads and fields. Just think 1,2,3 & exhale. We would flow so nicely into the canter. And, it was mostly a smooth canter with good relaxation which was amazing considering the level of tension she used to carry–all balled up and tight. Several times in the ride as we were trotting along, I felt Dulcie take a Real Deep Breath. I could feel it in my seat and leg. She can be pretty tight so this was a good sign, and not something I usually notice her doing. And that ties into: The second Big concept. Breathing differently. (For me and my horse.) I tried to concentrate on breathing deep and rhythmically but also to stay soft even if/when she got tight. I find that if she tightens then I tighten, especially my back and shoulders and then low and behold she tightens more. So keeping that soften in me is crucial. I thought of the image for our energy the Mark gave us. He says, if the horse’s energy level spiked to 8 I had to breath deep and try to lower my energy to a 2. It had amazing effect! After a few moment she would relax. At first I thought I just got lucky but I had plenty of opportunities to try it over and over and for the most part it was wonderful. She could not always respond immediately (what with other horses cantering up behind her and such) but within a few minutes if I stayed soft, relaxed and focused she came back to me. Sometimes her thought s would fly way ahead and I felt like I was being dragged down the trail. I just kept offering for her to come back to me and tried really hard not to get tight and tense in my back and shoulders, breathing slow and fully. Even if I had to get a little strong for a stride or two, after maybe 6-8 -10 strides she would come back. She had some of the nicest relaxed, head low and swinging trot work that we have managed on the trail. She is very alert and usually feels she has to look out for the monsters. Head high, tight in the body and trucking along . I just kept trying to offer softness and would say to her in my mind, “stay with me I will take care of you.” It wasn’t perfect but we had many moments where she let it go. Kind of makes me teary.
A great aspect is that All the work we did at the clinic is easy to layer over what I have already been working on. I love that. Dulcie and I have a pretty good relationship. I am feeling here that it can continue to grow and become something really special. Maybe Extra Special. I am excited to continue this journey and see how far we can take it.
This is not a book about training horses in the sense of providing “how-to’s”. This book is about enlightenment and perspective. It comes from her lifetime with horses which started with an attitude of “show him who’s boss” and evolved into one of harmony and unity. To quote her introduction:
Like me, Ann, does not subscribe to the typical “dominance model” of horsemanship so often seen in the world. Throughout the book she encourages us to see things from the horse’s point of view and challenges us to work with the horse’s nature for a better outcome for all. If you like Mark Rashid’s books, you’ll enjoy Ann Bradley’s, “Of Life and Horses: The Nature of the Horse” as well. If you would like to read it, you’ll find it under Horsemanship in my Book Store. On a recent visit my client, Nell, told me about an interview she listened to with Dr. David Bresler. FYI, David E. Bresler, PhD, LAc is a neuroscientist, board certified acupuncturist and health psychologist, author, and educator best known for his pioneering work with people in chronic pain. Anyway, during the interview much of the conversation was about strategies for changing habits that are really hard to break, like smoking or addictive eating. Call me “not surprised” to hear him talk about the best way to change behavior is to 1) set yourself up for success and 2) be rewarded for the new behavior. He gave the example of a rat in a maze. The rat knows the way to the reward very well as a result of many repetitions and rewards. Let’s say one day that you decide to train the rat to take a different route. You have a few options. You could block the old way (more of a management solution, not really training) or you could rig it so that the rat would get a shock when ever he tried to go the usual way. This part was interesting. You would think that after getting shocked for turning left enough times that the rat would choose to go right. But, that isn’t what happens. What happens is that the rat will still try to keep to the old program because that is what he is in the habit of doing. He’ll keep doing the old thing but instead of doing it happily he will be stressed about it. Turns out, the very best way to get the rat to go right instead of left is to put a food reward to the right. This reminds me of a story Leslie Desmond told about Bill Dorrance at one of her clinics I attended. She said that he used to talk about how other fellas would say stuff like, “make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy”. But, that he would say, “why not just make the right thing — OBVIOUS.” The other thing this speaks to is the power of a well established habit. And it is another reason why the old horsemen would say, “so they are started, so they go”. The most important thing we do with a horse is put that good solid start on them. Those habits started early, repeated and heavily reinforced can last a lifetime and be pretty hard to ruin once installed. When dealing with a horse who has habits that need changing, the smartest thing to do is to break it down into the smallest achievable steps and reward, reward, reward until there has been enough repetition has occurred to call it a new and better habit. “They” say that 5,000 repetitions are needed in order install a new habit. That means, it won’t happen tomorrow. You just have to have some faith in the process and accept that it will take the time it takes. One of the members of the Clickryder group responded to an inquiry about retraining Thoroughbreds off of the track by referring her to a website (www.helpfortbs.org) created to answer this very question. Out of curiosity I followed the link and found the e-book, free to download, that was mentioned. The book is titled “A Guide to Understanding and Retraining Your Off Track Thoroughbred.” It is over 80 pages and packed full of detailed information about what an OTTB experienced as a race horse and his life on the track. It also provides a lot of sensible suggestions for what to look for when selecting an OTTB, how to transition him to ‘civilian’ life and tips for retraining. All in all it struck me as a most useful and thorough reference for someone considering giving one of these worthy horses a new life after racing. The site is the online face for “Thoroughbred Placement and Rescue, Inc.” a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Thoroughbreds find new careers after racing. Go here to check out the site and get the free ebook: http://www.helpfortbs.org/retrainingIntro.htm … & Leg Yielding Under Saddle.
The long title pretty well sums up the content which is aimed at providing an introductory look at learning and developing beginning lateral steps. Mr. Grelo demonstrates a basic turn on the forehand in-hand and then shows how he develops that into a “leg yield” in-hand toward a wall. He also shows leg yield in-hand in “head to the wall” position, along a wall. This is followed by demonstrating the same under saddle. What struck me as unique about this program was the fact that some of the demonstrations are done by a variety of skill levels and abilities in both horses and riders. So, viewers don’t always see just a finished product where it appears the rider is doing nothing and the horse dances along under mind control. It is helpful to see how some horses will not find the work easy to begin with and how the presentation may need to be adjusted for each horse. The film also shows riders, on the ground and under saddle, making those little mistakes that get made by novices and how they can be corrected. So, lots of “regular” horses and riders are in the video. It seems like the participants are probably some of his own students at his training facility. Mr. Grelo points out that riding a “simple” straight line is actually the result of numerous fine control adjustments and doesn’t happen by magic. Throughout the program he makes an effort to map the beginning work to those fine controls that come later. I enjoyed watching this DVD and I think it could be helpful for folks who are just learning these skills On his blog Tom Widdecombe brought up the point about how important it is to get the little things right. It is important because it is those little things that add up down the road to mean a nice ride or a less than nice (or worse!) ride. In his article, which you can read here, he specifically mentions a problem his horse was having turning his head to the right without tipping. He’d spent quite a bit of time perfecting his request so that it was light yet clear. Still his horse tipped instead of turned. Was it that his horse really didn’t understand? Was he just being stubborn? Not at all. Tom had his chiropractor come and take a look. Turns out his horse was blocked at the C1 joint and COULDN’T turn his head. If you aren’t certain about what I mean by tipping vs. turning then definitely check out Tom’s article, here, because he’s got some nice photos showing the difference. Anyway, the moral the story here is if you are pretty certain you know what you want and that your presentation is fitting to the horse and he isn’t offering what you think he should… then you need to consider that he simply can’t comfortably do it. This is just another way of saying what I’ve always said, which is, “If your horse knew what you wanted and believed he could do it, well, he’d be doing it.” If you aren’t certain if your presentation is fitting and you are having problems, then do get someone who’s judgment you trust to take a look at it. Could be that a small adjustment on your part is all that is needed. |
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