25th June 2010

The horses have been walking through the labyrinth and over raised poles during the past few days and they have also learnt to walk between two bales of straw and over wood. The youngsters need to feel confident about walking on wood as they will have to walk over a large wooden bridge that crosses a fast flowing river when they move closer to the ranch house where the five year old horses are worked. They will need to come into the corral in front of the main building to have their feet trimmed and will also be brought into this area when they are part of the trail riding group when older so it is a highly necessary part of their education. We actually teach all horses to walk over a variety of surfaces as I have written before. It helps to reduce spooking and also gives confidence to horses that are worried about travelling in a horse box or trailer and the key is to keep it simple so that they can learn in easy stages. They have to become used to the noise, and the feeling of walking over different surfaces.

There is also the visual stimulus to consider as well. It is accepted that humans have four working memory ’slots’ although it was originally thought to be seven. Working memory is a more active version of short term memory and scientists now believe the same is true of the horse. Once new steps in any exercise are successfully processed and pieced together that sequence can take up one slot, regardless of how many pieces there are in that sequence, enabling the horse to take on board more information provided they aren’t overloaded. If they are given too much information the brain becomes flooded as there aren’t enough empty ’slots’ and the horse either shuts down or panics. He certainly won’t remember every piece of the exercises the following day or develop in confidence so again the key is to work slowly with each step. This will actually save time in the long run as the exercise becomes truly embedded.

Once the horses were happy to walk between bales of straw we asked participants to stand on the bales and progressed to teaching the horses to walk next to raised wands and/or pool noodles and then under them. The sliding saddle pad exercise was also taught to the four year olds and all the horses were driven with chest lines. There are several steps to this process starting with someone walking up behind the horse and saying whoah and offering the horse some grass or hay. We start by walking up slowly and calmly, then progress to walking up a little more quickly and even slowly running up behind the horse. This naturally needs to be done from both sides and the handlers can give a signal to stop in the beginning so that the horse learns to quietly halt and turn his head if he sees or hears anyone approaching him from behind.

As well as being an excellent exercise for the horse in terms of teaching him to listen to a signal behind him as opposed to up by his head, it also helps him to overcome concerns of movement behind and can be extremely useful if he ever escapes from his stable or field without a head collar. It is also a great exercise to teach horses that walk off when you want to catch them from the field.

The group are tired but thoroughly enjoyed the trail ride yesterday afternoon. It is a tradition to take one afternoon off to ride up into the mountains and the views are truly outstanding. Robyn, Mandy, Barbara and I stayed behind to work with the five year old horses under saddle and continue with helping a young horse named Knick Knack who has real issues about having his feet trimmed. He is so unbalanced that he has found it really hard to stand on three legs and after a two hour unsuccessful stint with the farrier he was left untrimmed for many months. His hooves are really flared and he has a large crack on the left fore and Mel is desperately concerned.

Using the clicker, the wand and some body work Mandy and Robyn have been able to teach Knick Knack to pick up each foot without panicking and to circle each leg in preparation for him having his feet trimmed. Working in short sessions on and off for the last five days has certainly paid off. This afternoon Knick Knack fell asleep in the corral whilst we were working with the five year old horses. He was in such a relaxed state that Robyn and Mandy were able to continue with their work whilst he was lying down! Mandy was even able to start trimming his hooves with the nippers and all the time Knick Knack snoozed away.

This is obviously potentially a very dangerous situation to put yourself in but as Knick Knack had grown in confidence throughout the week and certainly trusted Mandy and Robyn he remained totally calm

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