Horseman's Arts » Journeys

It is Not About the Food

sharon — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:11:33 +0000

The lovely Danke

I thought I would follow up with my own observations of the experience with Danke and the massage therapist.

As you may recall (and if you missed it you can read about it here) Danke was not OK with having Heather standing on the hay bale while she worked on her croup area. This was the first time she had attempted to work with her like this. In the past if Danke needed to move Heather would just stay with her till she settled. But, since Danke is so tall (17+hands) it was necessary for Heather to stand on the hay bale to get a better look and feel of this particular area. As such it was necessary that Danke stand still. HA!

Initially I simply blocked Danke’s efforts to leave. However, when Heather invited me to join her on the hay bale to look at/feel a particular knotty area the problem escalated when there was no one up front to keep Danke still! So the first problem we solved with clicker training was just getting Danke to stand still long enough so that I could see what Heather wanted me to see. Then it was time for Heather to get to work. It was quickly becoming clear that just telling Danke not to leave was not helping her feel good about the process.

That’s when I said, “Well, you know, we could click her for standing here while you work. Do you think that would be too distracting?” As you know Heather believed it would be. But, I felt that it was worth a try because we weren’t going to get anything done at the rate we were going! So, we proceeded.

The part that I wanted to add to Heather’s story was how initially one might have questioned the sensibility of the plan. At first Danke tossed her head and stomped her feet. An inexperienced person might have said, “this isn’t working,” and quit.
But I kept the click/treats coming at a fairly high rate. Click for positiong her rump near Heather, click while Heather had her hand on her rump, click for stillness, click for relaxing the neck and so on. It really only took 5 extra minutes to start to see that Danke was ‘getting’ the idea that the clicks were coming when she let Heather ‘in’ and worked with her to release the area.

Heather’s surprise that the food would end up not being a distraction comes from one of the most common myths about clicker training. It is hard to wrap your head around it if you haven’t seen it time and again.

When the horse is really clicker savvy it isn’t about the food. It is about the process and the understanding.

Getting a Horse to Work WITH her Massage Therapist

heather — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:26:16 +0000

The author, Heather Davis, with Cheyenne

By Heather Davis

I am a certified equine “massage” therapist, applying principles of touch to encourage horses to release old neuromuscular strain patterns and relearn how to exist without previously held pain and resistance. Much of my work is informed by the work of Ida Rolf (known as “Rolfing” or Structural Integration), osteopathy, shiatsu, and myofascial release. Many horses, when asked to “let go” of old tension and memory stored within the body’s vastly intelligent network of innervated structural soft tissue, will take some time to relax into the willingness to release. I am asking horses to tune into parts of their body that may be uncomfortable. These are areas where, often, the horse has spent a great deal of time and energy avoiding. So, it is not surprising to see horses feeling fidgety or anxious about my request for their attention to be brought back into these areas.

Usually, when confronted with this “fidgety” response from a horse, I take it as a message to readjust my approach. It can take a bit of time initially to figure out how to get the horse willing to be with me and make releases. When I began working with Danke, Sharon’s tall and lovely chestnut warmblood mare, we had a little difficulty getting her to settle in and relax into the release process. Even the simple presence of my hand on or near some of her troubled areas would find Danke tossing her head, pinning her ears, and moving her body to avoid the touch. Since my work’s goal is to inspire release, it certainly wasn’t helpful to be battling Danke into demanding that she stand still and be

Danke

present with us. Sometimes those demands would lead to more resistance in her body and it would be the two-step-forward, three-step-back approach.

Sharon asked me how I felt about us clicking Danke for the behavior (namely the relaxed and willing behavior) we were looking for. Would it be distracting? I thought it would. I felt like shifting Danke’s attention “outward” onto the click and reward process with Sharon might take Danke’s attention away from me and my hands and from going “internal” with her attention. But, we decided to give it a shot.

I stood on a hay bale (Danke is a tall drink of water!) over Danke’s right hip area. Sharon stood at Danke’s head and we broke the whole process down into little pieces. First piece: asking Danke to stand next to the hay bale without moving while we briefly place a hand on the area of trouble. When Danke is still for even a moment in this, Sharon clicks and offers a reward. (This step actually consisted of a set of sub-steps.) Second piece: lengthen the time Danke is standing still next to the hay bale and remaining still (and relaxed) for a hand on her hip. Third piece: I wait for the “feeling” in my hands that Danke has shifted her attention to her hip and sacrum area. As soon as I feel this, I click, and Sharon is waiting at Danke’s head to offer the reward. Little by little, we are shaping Danke’s attention by rewarding her when she makes the decision to soften into my touch. It is working! And Sharon and I are so excited about what we have found! Teamwork! Danke is willingly deciding to bring her awareness into her troubled areas and offer release.

As it turns out, the use of “clicker training” was NOT distracting for Danke’s task of focusing inward. Not only was it not distracting, it was actually helpful! It allowed us to prevent instilling yet more resistance in her mind and body with continued requests for her to be still. Once she understood what we were asking (soften into my touch), the physical release process actually seemed much easier for her. The mental brace against the release of her hip was much more of a hurdle than the actual release of the hip itself. That is, once we opened the door with clicker training for Danke to let go of the mental guarding of her hip, the actual hands-on release work for that same area came relatively easily.

What a discovery!! I look forward to continuing this exciting work with Danke.

[Sharon's Note: Heather Davis is an Equine Massage Therapist. You can reach her via email at hdavis1234 @ yahoo.com.]

Building a Change One Tiny Step at a Time

sharon — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:22:18 +0000

Recently my husband and I decided it was time to get rid of the burn pile. We have a small excavation project coming up that requires we finally burn the darn thing. The burn pile consisted mainly of small cherry trees we had to remove when we decided to bring the horses home. With all the rain we’ve had the pile of tree limbs, branches, and leaves were quite wet. But the task needed to be taken care of, so one sunny morning we got out there.

The whole pile burning experience was really quite a revelation. And, since I can relate pretty much everything in life to something horse training related it should come as no surprise that I found myself thinking about what an amazing metaphor for ‘taking the time it takes’ the experience was.

I mentioned that the pile of stuff was really wet. So, that meant it was not at all inclined to ignite. Even pouring on lighter fluid only results in a quick flash of flames but was no real resolution to the problem. With some lighter fluid and some bits of paper I got a tiny little fire going. I found that if I walked away at all the tenuous little flame would fade out. The only way to keep it going was to stand there and feed it little teeny twigs continuously. Not too many or it would be overwhelmed, not to few or it would burn out.

We had this HUGE pile and I honestly was having trouble imagining it burning that day at all. But, having nothing else to do that day any way, I just stood there and kept feeding. My husband and I speculated about how long this would take. Would it even burn at all or would it just be days of this one twig at a time business? A couple hours into it I’d managed to burn a small dent into the pile but there was still So MUCH remaining. Come ON! You’re kidding, right? We decided that since we had all day we’d just keep chipping away.

I don’t even know when it happened. I’d resigned myself to being there for days. But, miraculously somehow the larger branches started to burn and after that it was a nice steady fire. By the end of the day what had been a giant pile of brush and branches was a small pile of ash. How amazing was that! In fact, two days later, even with some more rain the ash was still hot and when I moved it around a bit a piece of wood that still remaining ignited.

Heather and Pippen

I guess it shouldn’t be too hard to see where I’m going with this? I’m often asked how it is I can be so patient. But, in reality there isn’t any patience involved. Harry Whitney says it is about Faith. Faith that if you keep at it, putting one foot in front of the other, chipping away, you will make it.

I’m surrounded by these little miracles of ignition. The story that comes immediately to mind is that of Heather and Pippen. Heather started with me a year or so ago as a person who’d ridden a bit 20 years prior but was now 40-something and starting a young horse. When I joined the scene she’d gotten on Pippen but wasn’t really riding him. And there was quite a bit of anxiety about the fact that when Pippen became anxious it became dangerous for her. So we did a lot of ground work with Pippen and for Heather lots of developing of mechanical skills for rope work and riding.

Last week all the ‘twig work’ we’d been doing ignited. Due to weather constraints Heather had not worked much with Pippen the days prior to our lesson. When she got on him she started to feel tension build in him. It was clear that soon he was going to have a melt down. In the past, Heather might have ‘seized up’ due to anxiety about the impending melt-down. On this day, everything changed because instead of seizing up, she kept riding. She lead him out of his anxiety, deflected the tension, and then in a matter of a minute went from near explosion to completely relaxed and focused.

You GO Heather! Houston We Have Ignition!

Transformations

sharon — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:09:56 +0000

A few weeks ago I wrote about a mare I’ve been working with. I’d only had a handful of sessions with her at that time. We’ve since had a few more sessions together. Each time the mare has improved dramatically. I just love seeing these kinds of transformations. When we first started the mare, Cheyenne, was very distant. Mentally, her thoughts were so back with her buddies. As you may recall, the first time with her in the round pen was spent mainly with her wanting to hang out in one part of the pen closest to where she might be able to see her friends. The entire focus of that visit was about convincing her that looking at me might actually work out pretty good for her.

Since that day, things have steadily improved each visit. By improved, I mean instead of her resisting looking at me and telling me in no uncertain terms that really she had no use for me, she has become soft and attentive. During the last visit I was able to even ask her for a little bit of trot on the line. In the past, she would be rushing, crooked and always looking to the outside of the circle. Not so, today! She kept an ear on me and when I asked her to pick up a bit of speed to go to trot it was nice and soft and with me. It is easy to see how gymnastically valuable a circle can be when the horse is choosing to relax into the circle work

Her owner could not be more pleased. She has said that in the past, she would have to spend 45 minutes at trot to get her to walk the way she starting out now. This is so huge and it is news that warms my heart, for sure. The key has been keeping the focus on relaxed attention and making those objectives the easy and obvious choices. The best part is we have only just begun. This will only continue to get better.

Developing a Soft Feel with Clicker Training

sharon — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:12:29 +0000

I’ve been working with a new horse recently. It has been so interesting because it has given me a chance to really think about what I click for in the beginning, especially when the horse isn’t “with me”. I wanted to write it down while it was still fresh.

This mare is 10 years old, and pretty set in her ways of bracing and leaving when she is uncertain.

The first session I spent just getting to know her in the stall and turning her on to c/t. She got it pretty quick.

Next session in the round pen she was so far gone (mentally back at the paddock with her herd mates) that food wasn’t even on the radar. I spent the whole time just patting the ground with the longe whip to get her attention. Starting with an ear. She’s flighty, so you blow on her and she was cantering around. Not what I wanted but it was where she was at. I waited. I wanted her to stop and check in with me when I tapped the ground with the whip. Owner asked, won’t this be expecting too much if the whip has always meant go? I just shrugged and smiled…Oh ye of little faith. (to tell the truth, I wasn’t even all that sure if it would be possible that day) I persisted. Eventually the mare did stop and looked at me, a little cock to her head. What??? I said, to the mare, nothing, just that. Thanks! The owner was surprised! So, slowly, she started to let thoughts of the other horses who she was fretting about not being able to see go. When she finally walked over she was calm and a little more ready to let me in. We quit for the day. The owner, being a quick study, followed up with the mare a couple times and told me that things went quite smoothly.

I wanted to see how the mare felt on the lead rope so the next time I worked with her (a couple weeks later) we did some rope work. I introduced following a feel left, right and down because she harbors a lot of tension in her neck. The idea is to show her that my feel through the lead rope to the halter (eventually reins to the bit) can be a Comfort and she can relax. I c/t this a lot. I take note that she loses her ability to stay with me if she gets going too fast. So, I take trotting off the table. I concentrate just on c/t for following that feel down and little inside flexions. When I lose her mentally I notice she refuses the food. When she is starting to offer some stretching down and is a little more relaxed, I quit.

The next visit was a week or so later. Back in the round pen on the lead rope. To start she is a lot more OK which was pretty cool right there. I continue with following a feel down (nose to the ground) and lateral flexions. It needs to be softly offered. I am clicking a lot but I’m also very conscious of how it feels in my hand. If it is pushy or hard I wait, keep asking for soft, click for soft–staying with me. I don’t feed if she looks off into the distance after the click. I click for behavior and feed for position. In this context that means that after I click I ask her to turn her face to me, really look at me (typically I’m standing at her shoulder), in order to get the food. Everything between the click and the actual delivery counts.

People often ask if they should perfect one behavior before moving on. I don’t. To me it isn’t the individual specific behaviors like turning or head down or whatever that a the most crucial thing. How it feels is what is crucial. So, in performing these various moves I have numerous opportunities to clarify my intent vis a vis the FEEL of it. So, with the mare I move between the ‘head down’ work (follow a feel down) and little turns on the rope. Some times, I see if she can follow a feel through an inside turn, click for walking, click for tipping her head in the right direction, click for stepping the shoulder through, this gets pretty good. Sometimes, I see if she can follow a feel through an outside turn, that one she has to follow the feel away from me and ‘unwind’. She finds this really difficult to the left, the side she really protects. I stay there a little bit and work on just the softening aspects and then continue. I go back and forth, checking on the little pieces, integrating, seeing how things have softened up how much more willing she is.

We were at this quite a while. The owner notes that after 1.5hrs the mare is still very present and significantly more relaxed. In the past, the mare would have long since lost her patience and her willingness. In fact, she might have become more braced, rather than less. We both view this as a very good sign indeed.

My newly acquired massage experience is factoring in too, which is so cool. In previous posts I’ve mentioned how Jim Masterson’s method depends on getting feedback from the horse. A lot of ‘eye blinking’ and ‘lip twitching’ tells us that the horse is aware of our presence on a spot they are concerned about. Time spent on this area with gentle touching/massage eventually leads to lip licking/releasing, sometimes yawning. SO interesting to see this mare processing like this when I’m in ‘waiting for a change” through a feel on the rope, I gently stay with it (sending the tiniest of gentle massages through the line) and just like with the massage, she softens and releases with lips licking. I notice that this is pretty much the same thing Phillipe Karl does with his flexions with the bridle.

I will continue in this manner each time I work with the horse testing to see if I can go a little further or deeper until I can have that same soft feel in all gaits on the ground and under saddle.

The mare’s owner and I were talking later about how HARD this process is to articulate. Which is why step by step written instructions are so inadequate. It is NOT a linear process! It is all about how it feels. You present a thought, you wait for a reply, and then you respond. You go back and forth like this until there is clarity between you. What I’ve described here is about a given horse on a set of given days at the beginning of our journey together. Your horse’s situation might have me doing much the same or I might need to adapt my approach to accommodate some unique challenge the horse presents for whatever reason. Hopefully, even with that in mind this story might be useful to read!

It’s like a miracle!

sharon — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:04:17 +0000

Remember Pamela the, 6 year old gaited, mare I started working with several months ago? The quick recap, you can read earlier blog entries for more details, is she was very worried and tense which caused her to want to run back to the barn as soon as her beginner owner got on.

Michele riding Pamela bareback.

I actually had two simultaneous objectives. One was to help Pamela get more OK with being ridden so that she could offer a safe and pleasurable ride for her owner. The other was to help her owner, Michele, become more confident and relaxed while riding so that she could offer a better ride to her horse!

Michele has been hard at work developing her own skills riding my school horse, Tulsa. And she’s come a long, long, LONG way, going from fearfully wondering how she would stay on without a horn to hang on to–to riding bareback with confidence!

I took this picture with my phone today during her lesson. Don’t they look like two relaxed and happy campers? Just the way I like it.

It is NEVER too late!

sharon — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:55:32 +0000

Never too late to start!

The last time she did any real riding was some 55 years ago! But Michele is truly an inspiration to me and anyone who meets her. She is proof that if you want something bad enough you will put the effort needed into it and you will be successful.

When she started taking lessons with me this year she thought that at her age she’d better ride western because she couldn’t imagine how she’d stay on without a horn! Over the last month or so she has learned how to post, to canter and today she got her first taste of Really Riding. By that I mean that blissful place where the horse is on the bit and floating over the ground. After her lesson, I said, “So, perhaps now you can see a little bit how people might call dressage ‘dancing’ with your horse?”

She replied, “I can see that now. And, it seems that most people just never experience dancing with their horses!”

What a wise and poignant observation. And it is sadly true. So few really do learn to dance but it is never too late to start.

Danke’s story: solving a perplexing problem

sharon — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:30:07 +0000

Danke, a tall and beautiful sensitive chestnut mare, came to me for training with quite a bit of emotional baggage as a result of some unsettling prior experiences in her life. One positive was, though, she arrived quite clicker-savvy because her owner used clicker training to teach her some tricks during several months of recuperation for an injury.

Danke is one of the most sensitive horses I’ve ever met. She has a strong sense of self-preservation. I discovered early on I could not pressure her do anything. Either she bought in or it was ‘no deal.’ If she was feeling vulnerable and other horses were nearby she might just stop and start kicking the unsuspecting victim. I had to be very careful who was riding nearby.

Clicker training was instrumental to her recovery. There were quite a few holes in Danke’s training, so quite a bit of time was spent doing groundwork, longeing, and noodling under saddle in order to get all the little bits and pieces that worried her straightened out. But straighten out they did and now she is such a lovely horse to ride.

One of the most interesting parts of her story had to do with how I resolved a problem she had with cantering, especially to the left. Whenever Danke was asked for canter to the left, she immediately threw her whole body, stiff as a board, to the left. No matter how well things appeared to be going prior to asking for the canter left, as soon as she THOUGHT that we were going to canter she did the same thing.

During longeing, I had discovered that she was quite responsive to a “kiss” signal to canter. I decided that to resolve the problem under saddle I would do “nothing” to ask for canter in any “normal” way (with legs and seat); instead, I would sit upright with a very relaxed seat and just “kiss” for the canter. Before it could go bad, I would click the instant she thought about cantering. I could feel her start to take the first step with the outside hind. Of course she stopped mid-stride when I clicked. I fed her a lump of sugar and then set her up to canter again in the same way as before. Again I’d kiss and again I’d click the instant she thought about cantering. I repeated the procedure, again and again. Each time, though, I let her canter a little longer before I clicked. Again and again, I’d click, stop, and treat for “thinking of cantering,” “a step of canter,” “two steps of canter,” “a quarter of a circle of canter,” “half a circle of canter,” and finally “a whole circle of canter.” I continued in this manner day after day.

Of course, every day I was also clicking her for accepting my leg for forward movement, clicking for slow down, clicking for accepting turning aids. Little by little, when it came time to canter, I would begin to notice that she would accept my leg aid to request that she continue to canter, and I’d click that. Then I started to integrate some downward transitions, and I’d click those. Then upward transitions back to canter using my leg and seat in a normal manner. Of course, I’d click those, too.

I continued like this for no less than three months. Yes to the casual on-looker it appeared that I wasn’t ‘doing’ anything. And I seem to spend a lot of time stopping to feed treats. I was often asked, can’t you just canter that horse yet? I’d just smile and say, nope not yet. Every day, if she said she couldn’t do it, I would return to clicking for one stride. But bit by bit, it got better and better, until one day the problem was simply gone. Today she has a beautiful canter and is happy to pick it up when asked from trot or walk. This is just one example of rewarding the behavior you want and taking the time it takes. And having more than just a “little” faith in the process!

New life for a gaited show horse

sharon — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:06:32 +0000

This is an update on Pamela, a horse I talked about back in February. Just to remind you, Pamela is a 6 year old Tennessee Walker who had been used as a ’show horse’ prior to being acquired by my client, Michele Williams. In the previous installment of her saga I had managed to reduce the catching/haltering process from 30 minutes to 5 minutes and I had gotten on briefly. The picture to the right is from that day. Not a pretty sight!

It is now 3 months later. Progress is slow but I generally only work with Pamela once a week although recently while her owners were away they asked me to spend extra time with her which allowed me to move the process along a bit.

According to the previous owner, an ‘old-timey’ Tennessee horseman, Pamela was bred to be a show horse and thusly was just ‘high strung’. This was to explain why she would just take off running when Michele got on.

This was also the reason given as to why we would never be able to ride her in a snaffle. She had to be ridden in a long shanked curb bit.

Oh Ye of Little Faith.

Of course, Michele just ignored the man’s ravings confident in my certainty that Pamela really didn’t want to run off like that it was just that she didn’t know any other way to be.

And so here we are. Baby steps baby steps. The real problem, that the old owner just can’t see, is the deep worry in Pamela. As soon as you get on her first thought is to get back to the barn ASAP! So, our rides are all about making 1) being away from the barn a good thing, and 2) any and all efforts to relax and bring her attention to me is a Really Good Thing. She is trying SO hard! She really wants to let it all go but as yet still doesn’t fully trust that those old days are really dead and gone. But she is getting there. Last ride ended with a good half a minute of totally relaxed, neck out and down, regular horse walk. I’m so proud of her!

Hard to Catch

sharon — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:32:00 +0000

I have been working for the last couple/few months with a 6 yr old gaited mare named Pamela. The mare is owned by a lovely, but mostly inexperienced, older couple who are so tickled with the change in their horse. When we started this mare was so not OK. The slightest sudden move would have her leaving just as quick. Even though this mare had been ridden before (in fact had been a ‘show horse’) it was full of tension and worry. As soon as the rider mounted the mare was… outta there. The previous owner apparently thought this was normal and ‘just the way show horses should be’. Huh? OK not my world. But the fact is, the horse is now in my world and I say, it just doesn’t need to be like that!

So I decided to work with the mare as if she’d never been ridden before. I’ve been visiting with Pamela once a week and working on haltering, leading, ground work, and preparations to ride. My goal has been to ride this girl bareback wearing just a halter and lead rope.

Initially it took a good 30 minutes to get her to agree to let me put a halter on her! She lives with her son in a good sized paddock so I spent a lot of time convincing her that she should even let me approach her and touch her. In the beginning as soon as I touched her back she was gone–to the other side of the paddock! Now the process is down to 5 minutes.

I’ve also been doing a lot of ground work in preparation for riding. It’s all been about getting her relaxed, focused, and softly following my feel. Clicker training has played a crucial role in getting her to believe that maybe she’s left that other world for good. I’ve been very happy with her progress. And yesterday I achieved my first goal which was to ride her bareback! I even managed to get it on video.

There are three videos. The first one is the haltering process. The second one is the ten minutes or so I spent prepping to getting on. The third one is getting on and walking a little ways. It may not seem like much. I guess you’d have to have seen how uptight this mare was before to appreciate just how sweet, calm, and OK she is in these videos. A great start to a new life. (read about more progress here)