Confidence

So I've been working with Reno for the pas de deux. He's starting to figure out that he isn't allowed to lean on my hands, and that when I say slow down, he should slow down or else. Its just a lot of repetition. Its not what I'm used to but in a way its kindof nice. You know what you're going to be doing and you do it, over and over again. Particularly once you find something that you know is or will work, thats almost relaxing to just do the same correction over and over again.


I've been thinking a lot about what to do with Colonel, what his deal is and why various things haven't worked. Robert mentioned two things about confidence that have inspired me in my latest approach. One, he observed that Colonel lacks self confidence. Two, that Star had developed confidence in me and, subsequently, in herself. I also drew inspiration from this post.


Basically, thinking back on what I did with Star in the early days, I remembered spending a whole lot of time just walking around in the field de-spooking her. The occasional in-hand jump. Going over the bridge. Slowly slowly slowly getting her used to all the new objects. When we rode, I wasn't an especially strong rider so I frequently just avoided pissing her off. After any kind of good fight with her, once I'd won, I often had her stop and I caught my breath, then we'd do a little casual walking around. Lots of quiet time. The effect of this seems to be that she seeks the quiet times as a reward, and she seems to have faith that all the excitement and conflict happens for a reason, and will end when I win. She's also seen a lot of scary scary stuff and discovered that she lived through the process of coming up to it one foot at a time, sniffing it, and then eating some grass. She also learned that even when its scary, when I pull on the lead rope, the pressure isn't coming off until she at least does a tiny tiny step forward. I think this taught her that she still has to listen to me, even when there is scary stuff around.

Colonel could use a healthy dose of that. When we're riding, after he's been good and gotten a little tired, we stop, we just sit there. We take lots of time just being quiet. I've been trying to keep my corrections less confrontational, keep him calm so we can get back to a quiet place. I want him to know that there will be calm after he behaves himself. Right now his happy place involves moving forward, the effect of the racing blood in him, no doubt. He doesn't like to be taken out of that happy place by being contained with the reins. When he gets frustrated, even if he's frustrated about being tired, he wants to run to make himself feel better. I want to bring out the lazy in him again. Put a really nice stop on him before doing anything more sophisticated.

I've taken him on two of my field walks like I used to do with Star. The first time we set out, it was like walking a dog. He put his nose to the ground and took big, violent snorts, sniffing everything. He kept up and he kept his head in the correct spot while we were walking along. He stopped when I stopped and just kept sniffing. I led him up to some jumps and he couldn't care less. Finally I found something that scared him that we could work through. The burn pile. I started leading him forward towards it, he stopped sniffing the ground and pawed. He took off at a trot, immediately turning away from the burn pile, it was a sharp turn and he pushed against me with his shoulder. Not perceiving the danger, I stood my ground and was promptly knocked to the ground, face first. I dropped the rope when I hit the ground, and Colonel continued to run off. I felt the rope slide underneath me and without getting up I scrambled to get my hands out from underneath me to grab the rope. When I got it and held, at first it just pulled through my hands. (Gloves are very important for field walks, Star taught me that.) I pulled the rope toward me, my body moved a little, pulled by the rope, but I hung on and Colonel whirled around to face me. He backed and dragged me another couple of centimeters. I pulled on the rope and held it while I got off the ground and dug my heels in for another good yank on the rope. That turned out to be sufficient to get him to stop. I led him up to the burn pile, he snorted hard at it, but quickly decided that he could eat grass and snort at the same time. Eventually he relaxed and we moved on.

We crossed the bridge and he became agitated again. I found a nice tree to stand next to, hoping that it would keep him from crowding me and/or knocking me over again. Colonel braved the dead tree branches, snapping them with his shoulders as he pushed his head through towards me. He was totally unfazed by the sticks that poked him in the face. I asked him to back up by shaking the lead line and telling him "back." He backed up, paused and then immediately came back in under the tree. Eventually he calmed down enough to graze and we got out of there. I let him graze in the field a little, standing behind a driving hazard fence. He trotted around a little bit, trying to get next to me, but again, calmed down and ate. The whole way walking back home he kept wanting to walk ahead of me. Every time he got ahead we stopped, and I calmly asked him to back up. None of my you-did-the-wrong-thing attitude, just corrected the behavior. And continued. There were times when I couldn't take a step without him charging ahead of me. Stop. Back. Continue. Over and over and over again.

With Star a firm correction showed quick results and it would be quite a while before she would re-test any particular rule. Irish ran into me with his shoulder once and I whirled around and made him think he was going to be eaten, never did it again, ever. Colonel just shuts down all thought when treated that way. He panics and does whatever he can to get away. Like I said, his happy place is moving forward. So working with him is a pretty big paradigm shift for me.

I took him out yesterday and led him to the burn pile. Nothing, I led him to the bridge and over it. Some agitation so I found myself a tree. He snorted and tried to trot around a bit but much more quickly this time he calmed down. He found himself an apple on the ground and ate it. We stood there for a while, I ate an apple myself. Could not get that boy out of my face the whole time I was doing it. He makes Reno look altogether disinterested in food compared to his begging face. Still, his begging face is a calm face, so I was pretty happy with that.

We went off in search of an apple tree with yellow apples instead of red apples. Failed on that front, and as we were walking around Colonel became more and more agitated. So we stopped. It was a long time before he nibbled a few bites of grass. So we walked a few steps and again, very agitated. So we stopped and he anxiously checked the horizon in all directions. Snort snort snort!!! He pawed, he paced. I had him practice backing up off of the shaking of the lead rope. Ever so slowly he calmed down and we went over the bridge again. Same routine walking home, he charged ahead of me, we stopped and backed. I added a new requirement for moving forward. His head needed to be lower than mine.

Star always needed to be sacked out to various objects. With Colonel its more like sacking a horse out to life. He doesn't care about trees, or bushes or rainbow tires. He cares about security, he gets tense when we stop moving. I dont know how long it will take to teach him to deal with standing still, to teach him to take control of his own mental state and keep his feet where they belong no matter what. Too bad there's nothing to sit on out beyond the creek, this could take a while.