Back to the Basics

Good news: I took tons of pictures today to make up for yesterday's giant wall of text! And I even have videos for you, too! Hooray!!

So, I start off the day being escorted in by Jeff, who keeps barking at me until I follow him towards the barn. Silly dog.

Then, I find that my lovely mare is already at the corner of her paddock, ears pricked, looking eager!

Adorable. This is starting off very well. She even walks off with me towards the gate after snuggles... sans lead rope or halter! Just walks - and even stops when I stop! Clicks and treats for that, most definitely. Progress! :D

But then... comes the mediocrity. I can't really complain; I did boring things with her today, anyway. We went into the barn, and I tied her, and she stood perfectly still 98% of the time. So much so that I barely had to reinforce for it at all. Yay variable reinforcement schedules! Really though, she was fantastic. It made me very happy.

My poor, thin horse! :( The amount of hair she's losing

to shedding isn't helping the "thin" case, either. lol!

The part that didn't make me happy: we didn't really make much progress on what I set out to do today - that is, head lowering and targeting!

She really doesn't seem to understand the "bump the cone, get a treat" concept... which is very silly, because she's proven that she's really smart and catches on really fast to everything else... but not this, a baby concept? Besides, she targets on things all the time - whenever I ask her to touch something she's scared of, that's targeting! Whenever she follows me on a loose lead, she's targeting on me! So why won't she target on my cute little plastic cone? No clue. She didn't really put two and two together, though, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

D'aww, look at that face! :D

Hmm. I guess I'll just keep trying. She understands the targeting concept when applied to other things, like I said - ie, me, and chairs, and generally most things that make her snort and roll her eyes like a silly horse. But a regular old cone that I want her to touch and play with? Clueless.

What am I supposed to do with that weird-looking orange thing?

She also wasn't entirely sure about the head lowering thing. Well, I mean, she totally understood the concept, as you'll be able to see later. And I was switching off between two cues - poll pressure (just laying my hand on top of her head... not easy when you're 5' with a horse who's 17hh+!), and pressure from the lead rope. I want to be able to ask her to lower her head with a hand cue eventually, as well as under saddle due to rein pressure. So... this was where I'd start.

I don't think we've done it enough for her to truly understand the concept, but she was getting very good at dropping her head when I asked from the lead. She just wouldn't drop it very far at all. But that's okay; we were just starting! I can get picky later.

Here are some videos, narrated by yours truly!, of most of what we did together today:

So! We didn't do all that much; and I'll admit that I'm a bit disappointed in our lack of progress with cone targeting and such. Hum. I'll keep trying though and let you know how it goes!

This is Rei, listening to the door instead of me!

Still listening to the door... 

As you can see, the door makes lots of very loud squeaky/groany noises and this disturbs Rei. There were also horses goofing off outside part of the time. I think the combination of these distractions made her less able to learn properly. I expected more, but I suppose she's really not all that comfortable inside the barn yet!

She is awfully cute, though.

I called it a day after about an hour of goofing around and swapping between targeting, head lowering, playing, and brushing her. Her hair is coming off in smallish clumps with just a hard brush... I forget how ridiculous shedding season can be!

Hopefully, Chi will be better tomorrow and we'll get to trail ride. Either way, Rei is in for a trimming! Hooray!