Note: Sorry, this post is a little jumbled, but I don't feel like editing it right now. Just try to follow along as best you can.
Starting from the beginning: I went outside to play today after watching the July SC DVD called Riding with Balance (I think). It's an excellent DVD, I have lots to say about it, but that's another post. Anyways, I had riding on the brain, or more specifically, the Pushing Passenger Lesson (PPL). So, I wandered outside to play with the pony thinking about saddling him up and possibly riding with the saddle (which would be my 1st time ever riding him a saddle - not counting when I tried him out).
So, I'm direct-line. . got the saddle out. . . and blanket and grooming kit and shim . . . and a pad. So, I'm missing a horse. I grab the halter and 12'. Moose was in the stall, but wandered out once I let him sniff me. Nothing unusual there, very typical Moose. I walked over to him and Bella and let them sniff me. I pet Moose for a second, then put my arm over his neck to grab the halter. His head flung up. I tried again, same response. Note: I should add that this is a very typical response to haltering, but today he also had a very UNtypical Erica (although untypical is so not a word :) ). Being UNtypical, like I just said, I decided to actually try to fix this. It's been going on for maybe 3 months now, at a guess. I've always just said "Oh, I'll fix it next time. . . " Yeah, right! Moral of the story: I was direct-line about putting the halter on.
And today, I finally consciously acknowledged it. So, I tried backing him up when he threw his head up. No response, so I thought maybe he was out in La-La Land. I waited for him. Funnily enough, Bella came off adrenaline, while Moose just kept looking around. I started to mirror him. Maybe 5 minutes later, he licked his lips. I just kept mirroring him. Eventually, he licked his lips another 2 times and blew once. I was really happy with that, so now to progress to the next step. Touching him. I pretended to rub him, so just rubbed the air around him. Guess what happened? Head flung up. Woah! "How interesting!" I just learned something about Moose. He's really bracey! He flung his head up there because he thought I was playing Driving Game. Well, I wasn't, but that still tells me that his first response to pressure is to fling his head up. Huge BFO!! Whenever you ask him to do something, he braces. Now I have another puzzle piece to add to the puzzle. When backing, Moose always flings his head up before he backs. And when you get more particular about his responses on things, his confidence leaves and he turns RBI (he's usually a RBI learner anyways). Well, if he's bracing to begin with, no wonder! I blew through a threshold.
Back to our Moose scene, I decided to test my theory by purposely going past a boundary, (although Moose was Left Brain at this point because I waited for him). I put my hand on the crest of his withers, and kept it there for all activities following, to keep a connection with him and just to see if I could. His first reaction? Throw his head up, followed by: backing 2 steps, and swishing his tail. I waited for him: more tail swishing, backing, he stomped his foot 5x, and kind of half wrung his head. Then, he licked a few times. And this whole time, I'm keeping in mind that this is still his mostly left-brain response. I haltered up and went this whole few months with a RBI because I didn't take the time it takes for him to lick his lips, meaning I've been blowing through this threshold for a long time!
It was a huge realization for me, because if I was direct-line the whole time, that means that my horse never 'wanted' to be with me. I didn't care about his opinion. It was always "you're going to" instead of "hey, would you like to?" So, now I am creating a haltering program for the next few days until we get it solved.
