Fantabulous Day

Well, yesterday was just incredible. I have to gloat for a second. I bought the new Parelli Levels, and they are just INCREDIBLE! I love the way Pat explains things. They are REALLY REALLY good. I highly recommend you take a look at them if you've got the chance. I've just finished the Level 1 and 2 On Line DVDs so far, and am really liking the way this is set up.

SO>>> About my fantabulous day. Well, thanks to these wonderful DVDs, I have been re-naturalized, so to speak, because I remembered to reward the slightest try. I did it before, so that never stopped, but I hadn't been happy about it. Well, for the past 2 days, I've really been satisfied with whatever Moose has offered, and as a result he has been a confident learner. It is just WONDERFUL! These past 2 days were the first times EVER I was able to teach him with him staying engaged. Before he would either be dominant or unconfident. Whenever his confidence would rise up, so would his dominance, so I couldn't juggle that, and would accidentally knock the confidence out of him every time, so he turned unconfident again. No fun, I'll tell ya. But oh, I think these DVDs have been the missing key.

I went out with Moose yesterday, and he was in a pretty good mood to begin with. I probably was too, actually. So, I took Moose outside to play with him, since his pasture is all snowed in. I wanted to play with our Circling Game. Well, about halfway through our play-time, I decided I wanted to teach him to stop when the CS is in front of Zone 1, since we have no downward transitions on line, only upwards ones, I thought "what the heck? Let's give it a shot."

Specifically, his issue with downward transitions is that he thinks that when I put the carrot stick in front of him, that means stop, then turn and face. The stop part is great, but I don't want him to face me. (Oops, guess our HQ driving game is a bit TOO good). So, I kept repeating that to him: whenever he'd stop, if he moved his forehand over to me, I would move it back over so that he was somewhat perpendicular to me. The first few times, I was on the brink of losing his confidence, but this time he realized I was just communicating with him and saying "no, that's not what I want" because I released right away when he did what I asked. So, I re-explained to him what I wanted and made it easy for him. Then, I tried it at a little longer distance, like a 6' circle, then we worked it up to 12'.

Okay, now for the incredible part. I sent Moose out on a circle to the right, and stood in neutral like normal. Moose was at about 1 o'clock on the circle. I thought to myself "when he gets to 10 o'clock, I'm going to ask him to stop." My hand had just grasped the handle of the carrot stick. Moose is now at 12 o'clock. He stopped, PERFECTLY!!!! I was so excited, guess he read my mind :). So, I immediately brought him in and gave him a treat and was just excited about having fun. I can't wait until I have the savvy to cause every day to feel like this one. But the absolutely incredible thing about this is that there was NOOO way Moose this happened by chance. Moose read my body language and responded, and that just makes me so happy. I love my pony!

The Power of Persistence/ Phase 3 X 3 Vs. Phase 4

Moosey and I had an incredible day a few days ago, along with my mom and Bella, too.

I experimented a lot with Phase 3 with rhythm instead of Phase 4. I don't really know what to call it, but it's the difference between Phase 4 and just a hard (in this case) Phase 3.

Because I realized today that when I do Phase 4 with Moose, he usually gets unconfident. So, that means my timing is off and that he was unsure when I got firm on him, not goofing around. So, what I did today was just do a Phase with rhythm, instead of the next phase. For example, Moose has a pretty good Yo-yo game. I do Phase 1 and he backs, but not with a lot of speed or a "Yes, sir!" attitude. So, I got a little more particular and upped to Phase 3 and asked told him to back, and then just kept repeating Phase 3 (which in this case was lightly doing that big move that's taught for yo-yo game in the Levels packs). This way I knew he was being dominant, but didn't take a chance with making him be unconfident either. I just matched his unwillingness to move, and didn't go into Phase 4 "Ka-pow", I just kept doing Phase 3 like I was until he made a change. Basically, I'm still looking for that middle ground of confident, but responsive. It seems to me like he's either unconfident or confident and unresponsive. So, I'm looking for a confident responsive horse! But I need to remember that in Moose's case, confidence comes before responsiveness.

And I've mentioned Bella's issue with trotting before. Yeah, I've been through some really bad days with her before, and came to the conclusion that we're just going to need to take one step at a time, and out-persist her. (That's going to be our biggest arrow here. I say 'our' because I'm trying to help my mom out with Bella.) So, we were first getting established in the walk. Our goal was to get 2 laps at the walk without her stopping. It took maybe 15 minutes, at a guess, but eventually she did it. So, that's great progress for Bella! I was so happy, because normally I can only get her to do 1 lap.

And I had another interesting thought (which I'll elaborate on in the next post): Moose has a Z3 issue. Remember that whole bareback pad incident? If not, it's here. Well, it turns out he doesn't have an issue only with the girth, he doesn't like things in Z3 touching him period.

I got creative today and tried to play with Moose using a broken hula-hoop -so it's like a hula-line now- and I set up a test for him. Once I had rubbed it all over him and done some Porcupine and Driving with it, I set it on his back and jogged off to play Stick To Me. He didn't go until I had used the whole 22' line, so I knew he was unconfident, but then he trotted off and kind of jolted forward and made a wierd sound and looked like he was going to kick. I stopped right away and took the hula-hoop off. Well, test failed, so I've found out a little bit more about him. Now I just have to figure out how to solve that. . . hmm. . .

The only downer about that day was that I pulled a nail back! Oops! My whole life I've had short nails, with an objection to long ones, so this summer I decided to grow them long just to see if I could. Well, I can, and now cutting them back to normal length (on the fingernail that got bent back) feels very awkward. Strange how my comfort zone has changed. But it was my fault anyways that the nail got pulled back: Moose and I were playing Stick To Me with the 22' and we turned, so he stepped on the excess 22' behind me, and I must've been holding it funny, because it bent my middle finger's nail back.

Progression? I wish. . .

Well, the first 2 days I got Moose I was ecstatic! And boy, do I mean ecstatic!! Oh, man, you should've heard me talking, my mom listened to me blab for about 2 hours on Saturday just saying how brilliant he was and how excited I was to finally have him here. I mean, he followed me back to the stall (without any prompting) after I took his halter off: translation, HE LIKED ME!!!! Oh, I was psyched! After all, Dancer hates me. So, it's nice to feel loved, you know? *

Sunday wasn't as great. Nothing horrible happened or anything, it's just it didn't go as I wanted it to. I got really confused! I mean, I can't tell what his horsenality is and it's driving me nuts! He's a fast learner, smart, mildly mouthy, mildly friendly, and curious (when I saw him in Prairie Du Chien he was non-spooky, and confident, too): LBE traits. But he's also extremely quiet/obedient, a little hesitant, and a little distrustful: RBI traits! So, which one do I treat him as?!?!?! *exasperated sigh* Plus, I was always told that/saw that horses start testing their owners in new environments to see what their limits are. Is it okay if Moose isn't doing that? I know I might be rushing this one, but he seems kind of RBI and not at all dominant! So, that notion is getting me confused, too. But again, I can be patient here: it's only been 4 days, lol!

WELL. . . Monday. . . one word: ugh. Apart from having to go to school, I also managed to ignore my gut feeling. Again. This time it said Moose was unconfident. So, I followed that feeling for a little while and just brushed Moose. Though, that (in my eyes) didn't seem to get anything done. Afterwards, I decided to try some of the games. He won't let me do Friendly (tossing the rope over his back)!!! He was backing up and trying to walk away from me, with a couple of little rears thrown in for emphasis. Of course, as soon as he stopped I stopped. Later, I looked up rearing on the Parelli problems area, and it says horses rear because A) they're being held back or B) they feel trapped or cornered. So, I can conclude that Moose must have felt trapped, RBI, since I wasn't holding him back at all. But if I can't convince him I'm not a threat, then how can I possibly do the rest of the games? And I know his needs are safety, comfort, play, and food. Another little thing I've noticed: when I'm near him on line he won't eat. So does that mean that he's not comfortable, or he's not safe?

And the thing that really got me is that when we went outside later to put some Neosporin on a cut on his back foot, he wouldn't let me :( He started walking away from me!! And it was RB kind of walking away, not like LB dominance. So, "oh boy!"

* Furthermore, I guess I'm just frustrated/sad, because Moose actually liked me for 2 days, and I'm scared of him not liking me! I didn't even realize how much I missed being liked (by horses) until I got him! I mean, Dancer won't let me catch her, and while I won't give up on her it's still extremely disheartening! RBIs seek comfort, remember? So, sorry if I'm rambling. . . Just kind of upset with myself that I don't know how to get the horses to want to be with me. . .