7 day program in line-driving - video every day, I hope

[studiowvw]

Small Stars - as you are walking back home, if she pulls on you, just turn around and walk away from home until you are getting better behaviour. Then turn for home again. Each time she pulls, just turn and walk the other way again. She doesn't get to go homeward unless she is walking politely.

Also, best to start making your walks short at first. Need to develop her confidence in you. Right now she has more confidence at home than out with you.

...just another thing you can try.

 

[Small_Stars]

Thank you. I was just thinking about her on the way home and trying to really narrow down what exactly it is that I expect out of her and how I can make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy. I will try what you suggest and let you know how it goes. She's been allowed to do this, I suspect, since she was very young and now it's entrenched. It'll take awhile to convince her of another way.

 

[studiowvw]

Hello again Small Stars - sounds like you are thinking about the right approach.

You will find as your timing and awareness improves, it will not take as long to change a habit as it might have before

 

[K.C. Lunde]

Your videos look very professional.

You go girl!

 

[studiowvw]

Thank you KC - I wasn't sure how it would all turn out.

To look back over Diesel's 7 day program, I ask myself:

What did Diesel do right?

Everything - he is a horse and reacted to me and his surroundings.

What did Diesel do wrong?

Nothing - he is a horse and reacted to me and his surroundings

What did I do right?

I didn't influence him to feel trapped, wrong, scared or that he had to move his feet to get away from me.

I created/maintained a confident learner.

I influenced him to learn that:

Leaving the herd and barnyard/pasture with me can be fun and he might get treats.

I might lead him from the front, the side, his hip pocket, or behind him, also from either side (being in either eye).

I might send him forward by pointing, leading (steady pressure on lead), a shove with my fingers, tapping, clucking or saying "walk on".

We might go forward straight, might go in a circle, or might turn.

I might influence him to stop with me, might have him turn and come to me, might rub his hip to tell him he can stop, or might have him stop straight when I'm behind him.

He might feel pressure from the front, the side, or from both sides.

We might go for a walk down the road and it isn't scary. (The first day I took him too far and he became unconfident, so I decided not to take him that far again until he's developed more confidence.)

He found out I had treats in my pocket (but he didn't really learn to be polite about that). I might figure out a better way to reward him with a treat in future.

He got used to wearing the surcingle.

What did I do wrong?

Several mistakes but what the heck!!

One thing I can do better is use my focus - i.e. look where I want him to go instead of at him. I can still be aware of what he's doing without looking directly at him.

Next I think I'll do a 7 day program with Mustang, Diesel's half brother, same age. He is a little less pushy than Diesel, possibly a little more reactive.

Then after that I hope to do another 7 day program with Diesel, advancing the circle towards "lunging" or circling, and advancing line driving and the whoa. Probably introducing more of the harness and maybe the bit.

----------------------

PS if anyone is interested in some great ideas, I recommend:

Carolyn Resnick's blog (google it) for ideas on liberty training - building a relationship with horse at liberty which makes training easier.

Nate Bowers' new driving video (google Nate Bowers) - I just received it yesterday and watched the first DVD. A step by step system to introduce a horse to the concepts and feel of driving before actually hitching. I attended his clinic last year and was very impressed.

Parelli natural horse training - Parelli Connect - a vast resource of progressive ideas, techniques and horsemanship from basics through to performance

Bill Dorrance, Tom Dorrance, Ray Hunt, Chris Irwin, Buck Brannaman, etc., all the rest of them who developed ideas on the true nature of horses.

Many horses can learn and accept how to dumb down to human level -- my aim is to learn how to sensitize myself up towards horse level.

 

[Blue Birdie]

Have enjoyed watching your progress with Desiel ... I have a sibling of his a little filly who is turning 3 this spring so have been trying some of your techniques. I remember seeing your two boys very nice eye catching fellows. Best wishes with your training.

 

[studiowvw]

Yes, they are beauties

I got a stick for Christmas and measured them - Diesel is actually 35 inches, and Mustang is pretty close to 38. He's got withers

I had no intention of gettting these boys - I had enquired about Lacey's full sister from 2012, but ended up falling in love with the boys.

The kicker was that the truck was passing about half an hour away so it was not hard to go out with my old truck and trailer to meet them.

I also sure did not need two, but now that I have them, I'm going to enjoy them! (How do these things happen???)

Is Lyla a full sister to Diesel? If she is like him, you will enjoy her as he has good innate confidence.

Lacey has a super mind - Mary Ann says the Bobby babies have great minds and these boys seem the same.

I would love to see a picture of her if you had one.

W

 

[Blue Birdie]

I have to say that is a familiar sounding story I went to Mary Ann's to look at Blue's sister and she was smaller than I wanted. Saw this dun that I kind of liked, funny I quess there is such a thing as love at first sight, anyway against my better judgement I now have two and am really enjoying Birdie. Haven't got a clue what I am doing but funny thing Birdie doesn't know either LOL at least that is what I am hoping.

Birdie is a Bobby foal and her dam is Bonnets Little Ponytail and Blue's dam has the same sire Boone's Little Andy so they are closely related. Blue's temperment is second to none so hoping Birdie has a bit of her common sense!!! Bobby is a wonderful temperment Mary Ann took him out of pasture previous fall, hooked him up, a brief warmup and he drove like a charm.... that's when I thought I want one of his offspring. First picture is Birdie this past august and next is of Birdie and Blue in September

 

[studiowvw]

Very nice! I am sure you will love having two

Yes, it is funny, how do these things happen???

Everyone loves these two boys - They are cheerful and cute and they are all over anyone who comes near them.

I have far too many horses (6 plus a weanling coming) and In the spring I will be looking to sell a couple. I need to quit rescuing and/or buying horses.

I never intended to have this many horses, but I do love the herd dynamics, and the opportunity to learn more about training and horse behaviour, as each one is different. Truly, the greatest fun is training at liberty around the barnyard and pasture. It becomes communication more than anything else, and it is amazing how they go from knowing nothing to figuring things out.

PS Happy New Year!

 

[Blue Birdie]

Happy new year to you and your family as well ... Looking forward to see your progress reports with Diesel and Mustang

 

[studiowvw]

Lots of snow here - more than a foot.

I took Lacey out to see where we're at with line driving these days (haven't done anything with her for a couple of months) and we did bending (lateral flexion) while standing still, also bending on the circle at walk and trot (she has a tendency to stick her jaw out and her nose in the "wrong" direction, so her left bend is more like a series of zig zags), also stretching down on the circle at the trot.

My reining feel and her responsiveness with 2 reins was less than impressive

although eventually I could get a leg yield and figure 8s. My friend video'd it so I could see it.

Then yesterday I went to take Lacey out again, but Diesel volunteered instead, so I said OK.

He had had a walk down the road the day before with no lesson time, so this time I offered him something more challenging - I one-reined him down the road and back, with me in his hip pocket. There was a lot of stopping, a lot of slow stuff as he was not confident about this at all. Coming back was a little better as then he had the draw toward home.

I'm thinking I will go right into another 7-day program with him advancing the one-reining, the circle and the two-reining, just to solidify what we did last week.

He's such a cute little cookie, I just love him

I'm thinking I will need to set up a place to tie up Lacey, Mustang and Diesel next to the road - that way it takes less time to give each horse a few minutes. I need to start with Mustang, or he's going to go bitter on me if I keep ignoring his volunteering.

I noted that Diesel's first lessons went from 5 minutes to approx 11 or 12 minutes each day, pretty much all you need to spend in teaching, along with 15-30 mins of cool down/hang-out/go down the road time.

 

[Silver City Heritage Farmstead]

I just wanted to pop in and give you another THANK YOU for being so detailed in your sharing with us. I find your thought processes the most helpful as it increases my own awareness.

One thing I have been mulling over, as I noticed you having more reactivity in your video on the day you weren't feeling well. It was very similar to what I have with Casper on my bad days, where he tends to be more focused on what's going on around us than with his lessons. After thinking about the "why?" of it, my conclusion is that it goes back to the prey animal instinct. He might feel he needs to be more vigilant when I'm not well, as I then become the target for the predator (predator chooses the weakest member of a group).

What I'm finding works better for me on those days is to work a little farther away from Casper and include many more transitions and serpentines/changes of direction. I have much more success by not working in his hip pocket on these days.

Perhaps this will improve as he develops more trust in me (still slow going there), in the meantime I make an honest effort to turn his natural reactions into the most effective training opportunities that I can.

I'll be looking forward to seeing how your other horses come along and how you modify your techniques for each individual...Julie

 

[studiowvw]

Interesting! I'm glad you found the videos helpful - I actually found them helpful myself, as it clarified each day what we had done.

Yes, we are dealing with prey animals and their herd dynamics! So fascinating!

I know there are plenty of horses that are forgiving and will "fill in" for us. Others need more active leadership.

Also active leadership may be as simple as thinking great thoughts about your horse and how perfect he is, and visualizing what you want him to do. (Instead of how frustrated you feel, how spooky he is, or what he did yesterday and last week, or what you would really like to say to your boss tomorrow. Or in my case, how cold I was, how I had so many things to do, etc., etc. and did not have as much awareness towards Diesel that day.)

AWARENESS seems to be acknowledged as the top leadership trait.

Clarity of intent, or lack of it, I think is the second most important thing that horses can "feel" or see in a human.

Our own intent also affects our muscles and our projection of energy. This can be as simple as:

1. if you look where you want to go - use your focus - it will be easier to get your horse to go there, or:

2. if your focus is all over the place, you may find it much harder to "steer" your horse in the direction you expected to go.

Horses see those subtle things and react as to how safe they feel. As in, if we are feeling off or distracted, they will not feel as safe with us.

My QH mare and I had many great times and rides alone, also with some people I feel comfortable riding with. If I did not feel comfortable or there were too many other people around, she would feel she could not count on me, and get stressed out. Eventually this became a pattern and I found those episodes frightening.

Finally I was able to solve this one day last year. Nothing I did would make her calm down, till finally I decided to saddle her and hope she would calm down. It is very hard to groom and saddle up a horse who won't stand still! (I don't tie up to saddle - it is her job to stand there.)

I made her keep her feet in one place. Each time she moved a foot, I made her put it back. If her head turned to look somewhere else (not at me - basically I meant nothing to her in those circumstances) I would softly get her to turn her head back to me. In a few minutes, she began to calm down.

It didn't take force, or treats, or activity (e.g. circling/lunging to "wear her down"), forceful equipment, or all those other wacko things people tell you to do (like "put her in crossties, saddle her up and show her who's boss!!")

It was simply my awareness and consistently reminding her to pay attention to me (clarifying my intent to something she could comprehend).

Then she was able to stop looking around in fear, and start breathing. Then she became tuned in to me and ridable.

That was a big lesson for me to learn!!! You can learn things, but you don't get them till you get them

EDIT TO ADD

Now my challenge will be to use this technique with Lacey when I am driving her and she becomes unconfident about a vehicle. Yikes!

 

[misty'smom]

Fantastic video, I am going to watch all the way through the rest of the training! I have a couple of questions.......I have a 7 month old filly that I have worked with on a lead line. Nothing too strenuous just leading around the field, turning, stopping and walking on. You said your babies are yearlings, is that the age I could start this training and what should I be doing until then?? I also have a 8 month old dwarf and she can do the same on a lead line! Thanks for these videos they are exactly what I need and you are so great handling your yearlings!

 

[studiowvw]

You could probably go on now - but only short and non-strenuous sessions. They are babies - no need to stress their minds or bodies or make them sour.

If they can lead, they can also start to "lead" with you in their hip pocket, or behind them - why not

I find 5 or 10 minutes of actual training is plenty. Could even be less if you want - if you did 5 minutes a day for 7 days, that would be way better than doing 35 minutes on one day.

You can also have a place to tie them next to where you are training. That way while you are teaching one, the other can learn patience by standing. But they would have to know how to tie already. If they don't tie, you would have to teach them that first, how to stand where you leave them.

You should probably mix it up with teaching other things too, also so you don't sour them by doing the same thing all the time.

My friend is teaching her mini (3 yo) to line drive with the aid of paths through the snow - the snow is about a foot deep or more, so the mini prefers to walk on the path - making it much easier for her to understand steering.

You can be on the look out for things you can do - that's the fun and creative side of training.

 

[studiowvw]

A rainy/snowy day with slush and ice, but it was mild, so here are a couple of videos.

Mustang Day 1 "learning to learn" to line drive! He may appear calm, but is very unconfident, so I decided to teach him to move his feet. Maybe should have gone slower, but I guess I'll find that out next time

I actually introduced more things to him than I did with Diesel on Day 1, but Diesel is totally different and knew how to learn right away.

Mustang is in total fear, but being introverted, he looks calm. Towards the end I got a much better feeling from him.

Diesel is becoming more familiar with line driving and steers pretty well, stops better (ok, he stopped when I thought it, which I accepted

even though I actually said it after he stopped).

Can't do much when the road is icy. Oh well. They say you can accomplish a lot at the walk.

Mustang Day 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOflH3g1Shg

Diesel advancing line driving - it is actually Day 3 advancing, but I think it says Day 4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYu1soQZahU

 

[studiowvw]

I was mulling over yesterday -

Diesel had plenty of "forward" a couple of days before, on Day 2 advancing. I had started down the road and he stepped right out, so I let him go quite a ways down the road - might as well take what he offers! In the video the road was icy, so we were just doing some steering and wobbly circles, which he didn't have much interest in. Next time I will offer him to go down the road again, just doing serpentines or something.

I was a little surprised by how stressed out Mustang was. He is the first one all over people when they visit. He's also not an introvert when he is free with the other horses - quite the opposite, he is always running around.

Then I remembered that on Friday the blacksmith had come to trim the minis plus Eddie (horse).

Diesel was feisty and actually took a kick at the trimmer

besides being a bit of a handful all round. (haha, he is cute)

Mustang on the other hand did the introvert thing and stiffened right up, but was easy to trim. His eyes, however, were popping out of his head and I kept waiting for an explosion that didn't happen.

So I wonder if Mustang found the hoof-trimming to be stressful, and that carried over into the next time I took him out, which was Day 1 of his line driving training yesterday.

Oh, well, who knows - that's my story and I'll probably stick to it

I hope to have time over the next few days to keep at it with the two of them. Also Lacey - working on bending, bending on the circle, relaxation and stretching down, plus leg yield and shoulder in, plus figure 8s. The snowbanks sort of work like an arena wall. However, can't really do circles at the trot, due to the ice on the road.

 

[studiowvw]

OK - last set of videos - I promise!

This has been a very interesting project and I found it to be very motivating --- also a great learning experience for myself. However, editing and uploading videos is time consuming and I have been skimping on some other work. So - back to work!!!

Thank you to you who have posted that they liked the videos and the training. I hope you will have fun with your little guys too.

Here is Mustang Day 2 and doing a lot better. No being introverted, although he does crowd me sometimes, so I shove him off.

My timing was a bit off, so I'm doing some nagging, oh well. Should have separated me asking him to do things with quicker and longer releases. I will be more mindful of that on Day 3.

Also Diesel and Mustang - the team (haha!). (Part 2 of Mustang Day 2, and Diesel Day 4 of advancing line driving). To get more forward out of Mustang without nagging him, I let Diesel help him go forward. Diesel is moving up into the contact more and really stepping out as we go down the road. I think Diesel is starting to look pretty solid sometimes - remember they are yearlings, just babies and I am not looking for precision. The main thing is to maintain their learning confidence.

We have a minor disaster in the middle. Mustang cuts across the lines heading for home, and Diesel panics. Then he remembers that he can come to me, I'm glad to have built that in. All worked out in the end.

Also I added a video of Lacey doing some long lining exercises (this is me advancing - you will see her being very patient.) We are isolating FQ and HQ, going sideways, also circles and figure 8s. This is Day 4 after not doing anything since October. We are improving the bend, improving circles and changes of direction, and I'm trying to improve steady and even contact on the lines (although she is still in the halter here - we're not using the bit right now, until my feel improves). There would be more precision with the bit, but I want to do some other isolations to improve her acceptance of contact when I bring the bit back into the picture (later).

Mustang Day 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh0HZlizUAg

The "team" (part 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbC5LuMZ-Iw

Lacey 2-reining

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuHbLxWUlkU

 

[paintponylvr]

Just wanted to say thank you! Great videos.

so you set the vid camera up on a chair or tripod while you were working? Could you PM me and give me some tips on editing the videos? I love what you've done - not just with the training but with the video footage itself.

In viewing someone else schooling babies, I'm learning that I still have "big movements" and am quite possibly too agressive (still - have had lots of instructors correct me on this, LOL). It's nice to see how others do it with "less". It's so funny - I could get it when I rode and was told I often had extremely "lite" riding horses both western and huntseat/jumping and dressage- but even as a youth i had a hard time with "less is more" on the groundwork aspect of training and having fun with your equine. I've learned lots since then - especially with the ground work and driving my minis/shetlands - but your videos show that I still have a ways to go myself in my learning.

Ah - it's so fun discovering yourself as your train your own equine. Your vids are eye opening and throught provoking!

 

[lucky seven]

I started lesson 1 with seven today. I kept tapping his hip asking him to move and he just stood there, would turn to see what I was doing and acted a little bored. He did move eventually so I really praised him. He has a habit of turning to see what I'm doing all of the time. It takes awhile to stand at his side. I'm going to do the first lesson again tomorrow and hope that he understands what I'm asking better. This is really exciting and feel like I'm doing something constructive with him. Many thanks again.