Too cool, I love my super smart horse….xoxoxox…..I got home, chatted with my husband, referee’d an argument between him and my son about home work and puppy poo, and then jetted outside for a quick few minutes with Rose. She nickered at me at me in the low guttural ‘mommy’ kind of way, came to the gate, saw the halter and left. So, reverse psychology….I stood there and gave Cha’cote some much appreciated attention. Rose watched from a distance, and then the jealousy kicked in and she meandered over for her fair share. I thanked her for her gracing me with her presence and we headed out to the front to play with leg lifts again.
I have been following the advice of Riz, and doing the leg lifts in the same geographical place in the yard. I set her up, and then asked and on her second attempt, she gave me a great leg lift with in seconds, and held it for a bit too…..so I asked the other leg…..same results……The whole thing was no more than 1-2 minutes in total. I wanted to reward her effort straight away, but I am out of cookies at the moment, so we headed straight out to the street to graze on fresh green grass on the side of the road. We stood there for a minute and repeated this 3 more times. Each of the subsequent times I asked for 2 lifts w each leg, and then retreated to the grass. The final time we walked down the road a bit to find some good grass, but it was short lived as the sun was setting at a lighting fast pace. I think the whole session was no more than 10 minutes, 15 tops.
I thought some more this morning on my commute to work, at the level of understanding, strength, balance, and coordination….a horse needs to have in order to do this. Even in the first leg lift, it requires great thought and effort on the part of the horse. I just thought I would mention that because we tend to see them as so big and strong. But they don’t do this kind of work on their own, so to make sure I am clear here, while my journey through this, I may have been able to skip the time frame of the pre-requisites, it is because they were already established via my parelli schooling, prior to this experiment. So I assume I have the luxury of knocking off a week to a month off the average time frame, simply because something was already learned. Also, my horse and I already have a pretty extensive vocabulary, and this type of work, the leg lifts anyways, are the type of tasks we did in parelli too….I just never did them on her leg like this, in this way……but the concept is nothing new to either of us. Plus, Rose is a very fast learner, she has very few if any confidence issues, and as long as I don’t offend her, she is quite agreeable to learn new and interesting things….even if they are challenging.
I just don’t want anyone to get the impression that because 3 days into this experiment I am already getting some good leg lifts, that it will go as quickly for you too. For all I know, I am some how screwing it up. I don’t think so…but…having never done it before, I don’t know. Anyways, just keep in mind that despite a horses willingness and aptitude…..that does not mean we should take advantage and keep asking for more….just because they can and will. They need time to slowly build the strength to do more repetitions or a higher degree of difficulty. If we push them too hard too fast, we will surely destroy their mind and body and good nature because we are selfish, greedy or ignorant. For this reason, tonight I will only ask for one great lift on each leg and call it a night. Even if it means the whole session is only 1-2 minutes long. If I don’t retreat and reward, what motivation will she have to put more effort into it? What will there be in it for her?
Savvy ON
Michelle
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