This 4th month was... a lot of learning for me.
As you might already know, we were progressing, fast. I was routinely putting the saddle on him, I started teaching him long-lining and we practiced standing at the mounting block.
But the weather was hard on us and it was difficult to remain consistant. As he is my first wild guy, I also made some mistakes.
At some point, Enzo let me know that I wasn't listening him enough. I was too focused on my goal (prepare him to ride so I can sell him). I was pushing him too fast without having the skills to do so. He showed me the reflection of myself and my mistakes thru fear and flight reactions. He didn't have fun training anymore, he was tense.
So I decided to take a little step back. I decided to focus more on the present than the future. To really take the time to have solid foundations before moving on. I decided to take the time to make him comfortable with things he wasn't.
I decided to learn from every experience, every session I have with him. And most and foremost, I decided to listen to him. Listen to how he feels and what he is telling me.
I decided to try new things and work at liberty.
When you work at liberty, the horse can walk away anytime they feel stressed. And this is what he did. When he was stressed, he would just walk off, decompress a few seconds and walk back. This made big flight reactions avoidable, because I wasn't forcing him to stay until he couldn't take it anymore.
We worked on our relationship, on mutual respect, and he learned to appreciate his training sessions, to have fun. His ears started perking up when he saw me arrive and he let out this very cute little whinny.
During this month, at total liberty, with no halter, ropes or force, in a big open space, and with hay as the only treat, this is what we have worked on :
- Touch target with various body parts. This made us able to do very cool turns on the hind-end, forehand and sidepasses towards me at liberty.
- Stay at stationary target. This is the equivalent of ground-tying and made it possible for me to run around him and do all sorts of weird things as he stays still.
- Passive leardership, follow me without food.
- Back-up, shoulder and hind-quarter yeilds.
- Lower head with very, very, light pressure from my hand on his poll.
- Groom and pick up feet at liberty. First time rasping feet.
- Putting surcingle and girthing up at liberty.
- Pad (extreme) desensitization. We made the pad become a very fun object!
- Saddle desensitization, consent, and sidepassing towards the saddle. He now literally goes under the saddle himself, at liberty.
Horses are in my opinion, master teachers. They teach us so much about ourselves and everything else, but to see it, you have to listen.
The most important lesson he taught me this month was how to listen.
Add comment
Comments