Feb 1
Today was Shiloh’s second day lunging. I sent him to the right on the line and he figured it out well right from the start. He wants to pull out on the circle pretty hard, but he only tried to pull away a couple of times and gave it up quickly when he met resistance from the mannering halter. This is the time I teach green horses the command words that I am going to use when I drive. I started this actually when they first learned to lead and have continued as I work with them. I use a word command like “walk on” “trot” and “whoa” to start with. Keeping with the idea of the KISS system (keep it simple, stupid) so that there is only a single concept to grasp. I include the sounds such as click and kiss and trill to elaborate on the command. To get the horse to make a transition down, I will accompany the repeated command with a tug on the line for every time I repeat the command. Eventually, they will decrease their movement until they make a transition down. Repeating this each time will train them to respond with the transition more readily each time until they will do it on the voice command. Consistency is the key to this.
Shiloh was a little better with his back feet today. I still had to use the cotton rope, but he did pick them each up when I used my hand after I did it with the rope a few times. It will take time, but he will eventually trust me enough and give in enough to do it when I ask.
Sam lunged very well today and this time I put a lead rope around his rump just above the hocks so he can get used to something rubbing him. He bucked a couple of times and tried to run away from it for a short time and then ignored it. I was pleased with his response. I would rather a training horse act out at the beginning so we can move on from that rather than hold it in to explode later. Once they accept the feel, they usually don’t worry about it any more.
No comments:
Post a Comment