The Dangers of Stoicism

I've written just a little about a horse that Gemma is working with.  Her name is Star and she has been a beginner lesson horse for a very long time (maybe 8+ years).  She was the first horse that Gemma took lessons on and she has been the go-to horse for any beginner rider under the age of 16.  The main reasons are because she has a temperament that can handle the energy of a young child and the speed of molasses in January.  And she handles all the grooming stuff.  She will carefully pick up and hold her feet to be picked out and she stands quietly for bathing, no matter how long the child takes.  She leads well and stands perfectly still at the mounting block.  You could trust her with any child (or adult for that matter).

For all those reasons, I was delighted to be able to get permission for Gemma to ride her after the pony we were leasing had to move to a new barn that was too far away for us to go to on a regular basis.  The caveat was that a few months ago, the lesson program stopped using Star for lessons.  What the instructors told the owner was that Star "didn't feel like being a lesson horse anymore."  When I pushed for specifics, the best information I could get was that when Star was asked to trot, she offered to canter instead, which was considered inappropriate for little kids and beginner lessons.  With Star being the ripe age of 24, the owner figured that she just needed to be retired.

Well, it didn't take me long to figure out that it was more than Star not feeling like being a lesson horse anymore.  I was particularly interested in why she wouldn't trot.  So not that long after Gemma started riding her, I put her in the round pen with Gemma riding and asked her to trot.  It became clear that something was bothering her physically.  And probably not one thing, but a whole bunch of things.  This is the video I took to document the situation.  It was really painful to film, but it needed to be done to establish a baseline, and it turned out to be invaluable a little later.

I talked to Star's owner about the possibility of having a vet come out and do an exam on Star to get some more specific diagnostics and guidance about what options were available.  She readily agreed and felt bad that she hadn't realized Star was in pain and needed help.  

At this point, it is tempting to start laying down some blame in situations like this.  In fact, I certainly did blame the riding instructors who should have recognized Star's pain.  Over the past few weeks, though, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it.  And I've come to the realization that most horse people, even experienced ones, are more likely to attribute a misbehavior or incorrect action to a mental issue, rather than a physical one.  I'm not sure why that is the case, but I'm pretty sure that I used to fall into that category.  I would probably have been more likely to see something like refusing to trot as a training issue instead of a physical issue until the past few years.  It is only because of my continued education, particularly the Science of Motion work, that has improved my eye and my understanding of equine biomechanics that I feel better equipped to assess problems.  The average horse person just doesn't go through that process.

I've also started to wonder if there shouldn't be some kind of education requirement before a person can buy a horse and before a person can teach.  While I don't think formal education is the only way a person can become an expert, I see too many horses that aren't cared for properly or ridden appropriately for my comfort.  Star is one of many victims who are the result of a lack of education rather than an intentional effort to ignore a problem.

Horses are incredibly complex and because of their natural stoicism, they will hide pain and trauma in ways we can't even imagine.  And lesson horses, in particular, can have problems because they are infrequently or maybe even never, ridden by a more advanced, educated rider.  So any lack of balance is likely to be compounded over time and create what has likely happened to Star, which is an entire body that probably hurts to some degree.  And because of her naturally quiet disposition, those problems went unrecognized for far longer than they would have with a horse that has a more, shall we say, reactive personality.

I was and am so thankful that Star's owner trusted me enough to feel comfortable with my assessment that Star had some physical issues that needed to be looked at by a vet.  Unfortunately, that vet visit ended up being delayed by several weeks because of the attack on Star by one of her field mates a few weeks ago.  The vet did come out right after the attack to check on her, but she advised that the diagnostic exam for her pre-existing physical issues should wait for at least two weeks to allow her body to heal from the injuries from the attack.

So about two weeks after the attack, the vet came back out.  She initially pronounced Star in good shape, given her age and the attack.  However, I knew from having worked with her several times a week for many weeks that she seemed fully recovered from the attack and what the vet was seeing existed before the attack.  Luckily, I had the video I had taken of Gemma riding her from before the attack, and as soon as the vet saw about 20 seconds of that, she agreed that Star likely had multiple issues going on and she did some further examination and watched her trot out.

She prescribed Equioxx and Cosequin to provide pain relief and potential joint relief and she recommended that Star see a chiropractor.  Since that is pretty much exactly what I wanted to happen, I was so relieved.  The owner agreed to the treatment plan and got her started on the Equioxx and Cosequin almost immediately.  Then she asked if I would handle scheduling with the chiropractor because she felt like it was more important that I be there to explain what I was seeing.

While we were waiting for the chiropractor appointment, Gemma and I continued to do ground work with Star, because the vet had recommended continuing the hand-walking we had started doing after her attack as much as possible to keep her moving.  I think because of the pain she was in, Star tended to stay pretty still and mostly just eat in one place, which was probably compounding the issues.

I also decided to do a little experimenting.  (Because I really can't help myself.)  I had purchased some ground pole exercises to do with Donut, but I hadn't really used them much.  I have found I can only do one thing at a time with her, and my current issue has to do with managing her reactivity.  Plus, I found her flexibility to already be quite impressive and didn't figure I needed to do anything to improve it at the current time:)

But Star could use some improvement.  After using the Masterson Method Bladder Meridian Technique on her a couple of times, I could tell her body was stiff as a board and that she was protecting everything.  The second time went a little better than the first, but it was clear that getting her to release tension was going to be like peeling the layers of an onion.

The first layer was the Equioxx, I think.  I noticed an immediate improvement in her way of moving after she'd been on it only one or two days.  And I thought movement might be more important than the bodywork at first.  Star had gotten herself so locked up because of the discomfort she was in that I wanted to help her realize she could move.

I picked the first exercise from the ground pole exercises as a starting point.  It sounded so simple.  All you have to do is walk the horse next to a ground pole, so the horse's body is parallel to the pole, and ask the horse to first place one front foot on the other side of the pole and then one hind foot on the other side of the pole.  The end result is that the horse is straddling the pole.  Yeah, well, it took me four days to teach Star how to do it. Her brain was so resistant to the idea of moving a foot sideways over the pole that I had to do quite a bit of little movements and work with her to convince her that she was physically and mentally capable of moving her feet sideways.

The process was fascinating, though.  When I first started, I would have Star put one front foot over the pole and then just wait and watch her.  Her eyes were blinking and her lips were twitching like crazy.  I would wait to move her away from the pole until the blinking and twitching either stopped or Star started licking and chewing.

Then as I led her around the arena, she threw up her head and yawned over and over.  It was absolutely incredible because she did it every single day I did the ground pole exercise with her.

I also threw in a little bit of the technique I had initially tried on Donut from the TRT Method.  After leading Star for a few minutes, I asked her to stop, back a few steps, and then move her hindquarters with the inside hind leg stepping in front of the outside hind leg.  It was almost impossible for Star to do at first.  She understood moving her hind end over, but she couldn't move her inside hind leg in front of her outside hind leg at first.  Again, I worked with her on it for a few minutes each day and over time, she began to understand.  After the exercise, I let her stand, and I could see her brain processing and there would be more blinking and twitching and licking and chewing.

I got some pictures and a video from last Thursday to give you an idea of what I was seeing.  This picture is of Star straddling the pole after I finally convinced her to move her feet the way I needed her to for the exercise.

Stars ears are in the "thinking" position here.

This video shows Gemma leading her just after doing the exercise, and you'll see her lowering her head and licking and chewing and finally yawning.  It was just amazing to see.

Then, this morning the chiropractor came.  I wasn't sure what to expect because I hadn't met this lady or seen her work before.  I think it can be a little iffy to find a good chiropractor, but she was one the vet had recommended, so I was hopeful that she would be good.

Right off the bat, I was impressed with her.  She was personable with people and she took her time getting a history.  She watched the videos I had and listened to me tell her about what we've been doing with her for the past six weeks.  Once she had all the information, she introduced herself to Star and did some preliminary touching to get Star used to her.  Then she worked in several adjustments and range of motion exercises, followed by acupuncture and finally stretching.  It was a very thorough process for a very reasonable price, so I would definitely feel comfortable recommending her to others and using her for my own horse.

There were a few times when Star looked a little uncertain about the process, but overall, she seemed to tolerate it well and even enjoy it a little.  There was a lot of blinking and lip twitching and licking and chewing and head shaking and snorting throughout, so I know that what the chiropractor was doing was helping her.

We talked about a plan for Star going forward which will look like more ground work using poles or patterns and me starting to do in-hand work with her using the Science of Motion principles, plus some carrot stretches to see if that helps her neck improve its range of motion.  Gemma can also start riding her again in a week or two as long as Star continues to show improvement and her trot in-hand at least improves over what it looked like before.  Then, the chiropractor will come out for a recheck in about a month to see how she is doing and whether the adjustments will hold.

I feel really good about the plan, and if feels nice to have supportive people involved.  Everyone, from the owner to the vet to the chiropractor, are committed to helping Star feel better.  And the owner trusts me a lot, which is both good and a little scary:)  I'm also so excited to have a quiet horse to work with.  It's nice to have a break from the higher energy level of Donut, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to do some lessons with my riding instructor on the in-hand techniques.  

But the experience certainly serves as a cautionary tale.  Horses like Star, who are stoic and quiet and compliant, are especially at risk of being overlooked when it comes to physical issues.  Their quietness gives a false sense that everything is OK when it very much is not.  And unfortunately, by the time they start speaking up, a lot of damage has been done.  In Star's case, I don't know how much of her function we will be able to get back.  She is certainly more comfortable now than she was a few weeks ago, but I don't know how far we will be able to go.  Obviously, something is better than nothing, and there is no doubt in my mind that Star will get more attention going forward, which is a really good thing.  Her owner now knows a little bit more than she did before, and she has assured me that Star has a home for the rest of her life with the care that she needs, which is a lot more than many lesson horses get.  But the lessons that all of us will learn from this experience come with a pretty high price.

Connection

I stood next to the big, black horse.  I could feel warmth radiating from his body, and I could hear his gentle breathing.  I picked up the reins and...nothing...I'm not sure what I expected to feel, but I thought I would feel something.  After all, I'd known this horse for years.  I'd petted him.  I'd given him treats.  I'd gone riding with him so many times for so many hours.  Shouldn't I feel some connection when I picked up the reins?

Instead it felt like I was holding reins connected to a fence post, or any other inanimate object you can think of.   It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.  There I was, standing next to a big, well-trained horse, with close to 40 years of being around, handling, and riding horses, not to mention over 2 decades worth of riding lessons, and I had absolutely no idea how to ask him to move forward.

It was last October, and I'd gotten in touch with my riding instructor.  I still didn't feel like riding any horses, but I thought maybe I could go out to where she keeps her horse and get a lesson on working in-hand with him.  He's a lovely Canadian horse that she has had for many, many years.  He is her primary riding horse and he also has been known to give lessons to her students or be ridden in clinics with Jean Luc Cornille.  I've never ridden him, but my instructor and I rode him and Nimo for 2-3 hours at a time out on the trails surrounding her barn many times, so I thought I knew him a little.

I'd seen him at the last clinic I went to with Nimo.  He was being used by a Science of Motion student visiting from another area who didn't have access to a regular instructor.  And while I've seen him do impressive things when my instructor rides him - in fact, I could watch her ride him all day, they look so beautiful together - this time, you would have sworn he didn't know how to steer.  He is a nice, quiet horse, but he isn't a push-button horse.  He expects his rider to be engaged and using her body correctly before he gives anything good.  So his rider got an education in how much she didn't know.  But when she did coordinate her body, he would respond immediately.

In my hubris, I assumed that because I'd been working with my instructor with Nimo for about four years, I would have an advantage over someone who didn't have that opportunity.  I figured that because I had worked with Nimo, even though I hadn't done a lot of in-hand work with him, that at the very minimum, I'd be able to ask this horse to walk and trot in reasonable balance while I walked with him around the arena.

As anyone who has worked with horses for very long knows, horses can usually disassemble any illusions of grandeur that we have about ourselves in one second flat.  So I stood there in that arena, attached to this lovely, well-trained horse who is easily capable of flying lead changes and canter half-pass and piaffe and passage, and asked my instructor how to ask him to take a step forward.  I was a complete beginner again.

We worked for over 45 minutes and my instructor gave me feedback on my body position, my energy, the way I was holding my reins, and every minute detail.  I did my best to respond to her feedback, and mid-way through the lesson, I was able to do really legitimate shoulder-in at the walk and do some slow, cadenced trotting as well.

The horse is wearing a double bridle, but I'm only using the snaffle.  He would be overbent if I used the curb reins.

From a technique standpoint, it looked like I had made huge improvements.  And I had.  I figured out how to communicate with him through the reins and with my body to get the movement that I was looking for.  The thing that I never felt for even one second was connection.  

It was devastating.  I'm sure I've written before about how I felt a connection with Nimo.  One thing I don't think that I have written about was what the word connection means to me.  Since that experience with my instructor's horse, I've spent more time than I care to admit thinking about it and paying attention to how other people use that word.  And I think it means something different to me than to at least some others.

I've heard others use the word connection to be more along the lines of what I described above with my instructor's horse.  So connection means being able to work with the horse using your preferred tools (halter or bridle or whip or flag or arm or spurs or whatever) to achieve your riding/driving/handling goal. 

I've also seen countless videos of Warwick Schiller working with all kinds of horses, but in particular a young horse that he started working with as a weanling.  He talks about the success of that work, which was a little different from the way he used to work with horses, as a credit to achieving connection.  And I can certainly see what looks like a connection between the handler and the horse.  Warwick has that horse's full attention and the horse moves around him like he's been doing it for years instead of minutes or days.  Warwick refers to the kind of training he does now as relationship-building rather than the more technique-oriented approach he used in the past.  The results don't look that different to an outsider, but they feel different, according to Warwick.  And that feeling is pretty important to someone who really cares about horses.

Now, I don't mean to be critical of anyone who has achieved international success in training horses.  There is not question that Warwick Schiller and many others like him are amazing trainers who accomplish really impressive things with their horses.  And they do it in a way that is designed to be as low stress and reasonable for the horse as possible.  That is awesome, and I hope that some of their techniques will help me with Donut.

To me, though, connection goes far beyond using tools and communicating with a horse to accomplish a rider's goal.  And I don't care how good a trainer you are, it isn't achieved in minutes or days or weeks or months in the round pen or the arena.  It is a long-term effort.  It is knowing what that horse is thinking.  It is knowing what that horse is feeling.  It is knowing that the horse knows what I am thinking and feeling.  It is knowing that if we get into a situation that isn't in an arena, but rather on the side of a mountain in the middle of a thunderstorm, we are going to be able to work through it.  It is knowing that when my horse gets so tangled in sticker brush that he can't get out on his own, he is going to stop and wait for me.  And then wait some more because when I try to help, I get tangled up too.  And when I ask him to do something that may be uncomfortable or even painful to get out of the situation, he does it without hesitation because he knows I've got the solution.

None of that stuff comes directly from techniques.  The techniques can lay the ground work, for sure.  But I didn't know any natural horsemanship techniques when I worked with Nimo.  I just blundered my way through.  And we still managed to form a connection.  It was a connection that probably kept both of us alive through more than one potentially catastrophic situation out on the trails.

That connection didn't mean that Nimo did everything I asked him to do, though.  In fact, he not infrequently refused my requests or did them differently than I expected.  Sometimes, I had to spend some time convincing him that my idea was worth doing, and there were times when he clearly thought I was an idiot, but I did what I asked him to do anyway.

I'm not sure what that reminds you of, but it reminds me a little bit of a deep and long-lasting friendship or even a marriage.  Those relationships start out because two people like each other or find something attractive about the other person.  And there are techniques that can help keep a relationship going and even improve it.  But in the end, a friendship or a marriage that is one year old is not in the same category as one that is 20 years old.  Because no matter how great you and your friend are at communicating with each other, it simply takes time and experiences to develop a connection.

I'm lucky to have a couple of close friends that have been with me for about 20 years.  The feeling I have when I am with them is much different than the one I have when I am with people that I like very much, but have only known for a couple of years.  Likewise, my husband and I have been married for 13 years.  The way we interact with each other and resolve conflict is much different than when we were first married, even though we had been dating for some amount of time that I'm sure my husband knows, but I don't remember (maybe two years?), before we got married.

So what is a connection to me?  I think it is a little bit like the famous definition of pornography that a Supreme Court judge once used - "you know it when you see it" - or rather, "you know it when you feel it."  It is both horse and rider listening to each other and knowing the other is listening.  It is being able to back off from a request if the horse tells you it is too much or he just doesn't want to do it.  It is the horse doing something he doesn't want to do just because you ask.  It is the horse and rider problem-solving together.  It is a partnership with contributions and participation from both horse and rider.  It is the result of years of communication and experiences where the horse and rider have learned that their partner is good for something and worth paying attention to.  It is the recognition that it is probably a good idea for the human to be in charge most of the time because the world we are in is a human one and not a wild one, but that there are times when the horse can be in charge or present a solution, especially once he knows enough about the world he is in.  But most of all, it is picking up the reins or the lead rope and feeling a consciousness on the other end.  It is a direct line to the mind and body of another sentient being.  (If you want to read a great book about one way that connection can work with a horse and human, check out Mark Rashid's Life Lessons from a Ranch Horse.  I have read it more than once, and when I read it again after Nimo died, I cried almost the whole way through.)

Working through this idea of connection is important to me.  Because if you ask me what I want to do with Donut someday when she grows up, my simple answer is, "I want to have a connection with her."  It matters far less to me what discipline we do.  Whether it is dressage or trail riding or endurance or working equitation or team penning or jumping or driving or liberty work, makes very little difference to me.  What I want more than anything is to pick up the lead rope or the reins and feel Donut on the other side.

Writing about connection has been on my mind for awhile, but it seemed appropriate to write about it this week, because I think I finally took my first step toward achieving it with Donut.  We have a long road ahead of us still, but we had a little breakthrough a few days ago that made me realize I'd been going about things the wrong way.

I've been writing a lot recently about some techniques I've been exploring with Donut, particularly with respect to some personal space and reactivity issues we've been working through.  I had come up with a plan to really target those issues and I started following that plan a week ago.  It was an unmitigated disaster.  

I started out by taking Donut out to eat grass by the arena as usual.  But instead of going in to the arena to work, I just led her back to her field.  I wanted to break the cycle of reactivity and temper tantrums, and I thought if I changed the routine a bit and she didn't have to work, she would return to her normal self.  That didn't happen.  She was even more reactive than usual and threw a big fit.

I remembered that I planned to use the TRT method of backing her out of my space, but using a swinging lead rope instead of a shaking lead rope.  Yeah, so I used a bit more energy to swing the rope than I needed, and Donut went straight up in the air instead of moving backwards.  (Probably should have spent more time watching the Mark Rashid video on using a rope to influence a horse's movement...)  And then she proceeded to run around me in circles, leap in the air, perform what looked like the movements a border collie would use to catch a frisbie in mid-air, and in general be a complete nutcase.  I stuck with my TRT methods though and kept trying to move her hindquarters over until she relaxed.  The problem was that every time she relaxed, she would almost immediately explode again.  It went on long enough that I was disrupting the barn turn-in schedule and I had to let it go.  Somehow I got her in a state that I could lead her forward and managed to get her to the barn and in her stall for her to settle.  Which she did and I led her the rest of the way out to the field without any issues.

But it was obvious that I either needed to commit to using the TRT method at a time of day where I could potentially spend hours working on it until Donut was exhausted or I figured out what I was doing wrong or we needed a new technique.  Because I have things like a job and a child to care for, spending hours at the barn was probably not going to be the solution I needed.

To that end, I decided that working on breaking what seemed to have become a habit of reactivity was the first priority.  My first thought was to take Donut to a different place to graze and see if that affected her reactivity.  Maybe the habit was ingrained in her because of the location?

So the next day, I took her to a different grassy area and she ate for 5 minutes, and I cued her to lead.  Almost immediately she was up in the air again.  At that point, the mom in me had had it.  (If you are a mom, you may be familiar with the feeling.  After your kid has ignored you for the 800th time and you have tried all the brand new techniques from the parenting book you bought on being a better parent and you really are at the end of your rope, and you use the look and the voice that tells your kid that whatever is going on is going to stop RIGHT NOW.)  And I did what I should have done months ago, but didn't because I've been trying so hard to be an enlightened natural horsewoman exploring new techniques.  I grabbed a hold of the chin strap on her halter and put firm pressure on it and informed Donut in my mom voice that we were going to walk quietly out to the field and there was not going to be any more of this nonsense.

My little nutter then proceeded to walk quietly out to the field.  She once thought about going up in the air, but I had my hand on her halter and I felt her thought before a single foot left the ground, and it was over before it started.  I kept using that technique all week whenever I led her from eating to the field.  The second time I led her, she tried to go up in the air twice, and each time, I was able to stop it from happening, with slight pressure on the halter.  The third time I led her, she balked at going forward to let me know she was on to my new technique.  I swung the lead rope at her haunches to get her going and then she walked with zero attempts to go up in the air.  The fourth, fifth, and sixth times have all been issue-free.  

In fact, on Saturday, I was leading her in from the field, and needed to use my hand on the chin strap (normally I just lead her with a loose lead in to the barn because she is good about it and is only reactive if something out of the ordinary spooks her).  We were having an ice storm, so the barn owner had told the staff not to come that day so they could stay off the roads.  She and her husband took care of the horses instead.  And they did things a little differently than the regular staff might have, so the horses in Donut's field got a little elevated with the change in routine and getting fed and having Donut and another horse caught and taken out.  Donut had picked up on that energy, and I could tell she was going to want to go up in the air.  I didn't want that because I really don't want her reacting in the first place and because the ground was icy from all the sleet coming down and I was not imagining my day ending with both of us falling down on the ice and getting tangled up in each other.  I put my hand on her chin strap, looked her in the eye, and that was the end of it.

You may be screaming at the computer and saying, "No!  You aren't supposed to lead with your hand on the horse's halter!  It's dangerous!  You could be dragged into the air!"  All I can say is that is the technique I used with Nimo, and it was incredibly effective and I was never once hurt, no matter how animated his 17-hand self got.  I remember once I had taken him to a local schooling show.  He was three years old and just under saddle.  I didn't take him to compete, just to get him out of the barn, in the trailer, and at a quiet show to see how he handled it.  He was awesome about everything except when I led him by the warm up ring.  Then he lost it.  (I'm reminded of Warwick Schillers 13 rabbits theory, which is probably what happened, in hind sight.  Basically the other things probably were bothering him, but he wasn't showing it, and I asked a little too much because of my own ignorance.)  So I had this enormous horse almost out of control, and I knew I needed to get him back to the trailer before he scared the living daylights out of everyone at the show.  (I've notice other people seem really concerned about animated horses.  I tend to be less bothered by it, I guess, especially if I know there is a reason.)  I put my hand on his halter and not once did he rear up or run over me.  Because I could feel him.  And he was reminded with every step that there was a human next to him.  He didn't become magically calm, but he did become controllable so that I could get him out of the situation causing the stress and keep him and everyone around him safe.

Would it have been ideal if I could have worked with him there until he settled down?  Maybe or maybe not.  Maybe it would have made shows terrifying.  As it was, I competed at that location two or three times during the next couple of years, and I never once had an issue with him in any of the arenas (except the time they mounted reflective pumpkins in straw bales and placed them all around the perimeter of the arena to decorate for Halloween - we did our entire dressage test on the inside track!).  So getting him out of the stressful situation didn't have any adverse effects.  Instead it showed him I realized my mistake and I was getting him out of there.  That is a critical step in building connection, I think.  I listened to my horse and when I made a mistake, I didn't compound it by trying to work him through it.

I never tried this technique of putting my hand on the halter with Donut because I really thought that all of the things I did with Nimo were ignorant or uneducated or just could be done in a better way.  But Donut didn't watch the videos or read the books that I did.  She is who she is and she was telling me over and over that things weren't working for her.  But it wasn't until she reared up right in my face that I got the message.  I'm hoping she doesn't have to be that vocal again.

What I love about having my hand on the chin-strap of the halter is that I can feel Donut.  There is another sentient being connected to my hand.  Having that sense of touch and immediate feedback is so important to me, and I didn't quite realize how much I missed it until I had it back again.  We are a long way from in-hand work with a bridle, but I may move that up in the timeline in my head, especially if Donut keeps responding positively to a more direct technique.  I am now completely relaxed when I lead her.  (And by relaxed, I mean not stressed as distinct from not paying attention and drifting in to my head.)  I don't worry about what she is going to do, because I can feel it and prevent it from happening.  And now I have an awesome technique to help break the cycle of reactivity that she was in.  She just needed me to communicate in a different way.

For the next week or maybe even two, all I am going to do is the basic routine.  Bring Donut in from the field.  Let her eat her dinner.  Groom her.  Possibly torture with the vacuum or water from a hose, depending on weather.  (It's possible that I booked a photo shoot for her on the 27th without really thinking that through...) Take her out to eat grass.  Walk quietly back to the field.

I'd like to see if walking with my hand on her halter continues to be effective in preventing the reactivity.  If it is, then I'll gradually start doing ground work in the arena again, and potentially trying the TRT methods again to see how she reacts.  I also finally got Mark Rashid's video on Ground Driving, which is quite honestly about the best $35 I have every spent.  I can't believe I didn't buy it in 2005, which it first came out.  It has several really good tips that I wouldn't have thought of and I'm definitely going to use on Donut.  I'd been planning to start her on longeing in mid-April when she turns two and then transitioning to ground driving, and the video actually walks through that process.  I may start it a little earlier, depending on how things are going.  Anyway, I can use a couple of the techniques earlier as prep work, and I hope to start those in a couple of weeks as well.  

I also want to see how having my hand on her halter fosters our path toward connection.  I think it is certainly possible to have connection and not have contact, but for me, feeling that contact has become such a critical part of how I feel connection.  Anyway, stay tuned, and I'll check back in next Monday and let you know how things are going!

Where Not to Be

You'll remember from my last post that I was going to start trying the TRT Method with Donut to see what happened.  In particular, I was interested in whether it would make a difference in Donut's level of reactivity.

My first task was to do what Tristan calls teaching the horse where not to be.  When Tristan does this in the videos, even when he is working with a fresh three-year-old stallion, it looks completely doable and not that difficult.  I just stand still and direct my energy and shake my lead rope into the space in front of me - rather than at the horse - and the horse steps back and stands calmly.  Then I ask the horse to lead and maintain whatever distance I've set.  I go a little faster and a little slower and stop and turn, and the horse is expected to maintain the distance.  If she doesn't, I turn around and direct my energy and my lead rope at the space the horse is not supposed to be in to help the horse learn to give me the space I've asked for.  That sounds ridiculously simple, right?

Yeah.  So Day 1 of this little endeavor was a complete fail.  I thought I would start by introducing the concept while leading instead of standing still.  (Why I feel like I have to overthink things and do something different is beyond me.  At this point in my life, it is a bad habit that I am having trouble breaking.)  My plan was while Donut was next to me, I would direct my energy at the space I didn't want her in and shake my lead rope to move her away.  I guess I was still reluctant to try leading in front of her, and I wanted to see if it would work from the side.  It did not.  Donut was unimpressed and completely non-responsive to my attempts to move her over with my energy and lead rope.  If I put my hand on her and asked her to move over, she would do that, but that was not the point of the exercise.

So I went back to the drawing board, and for Day 2, I decided to FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE VIDEO.  This time I took Donut out to the parking area where there is plenty of room, solid footing, and where she is used to working.  I stopped her and then I turned around, directed my energy at the spot in front of me, waved my lead rope, and said "SHHHH."  (The shhhhh sound is one that Tristan uses and he is often able to get the horses so they work off the sound, which I thought was a good idea.)

Nothing happened.  Donut just stared at me.  Thankfully, I had brought my stick with a flag on the end of it for reinforcement.  I started waving the flag, shaking the lead rope, directing my energy, and SHHHHing.

Nothing happened.  Donut continued to stand completely still and look at me.  I mean, she hasn't ever stood still for that long in her entire life.  How she was able to do it while I was doing all that I was doing was beyond me.

In desperation, I escalated my movements and lead rope and flag and voice as much as I could and finally I directed everything AT her and started firmly tapping her on the chest with the flag.  I can't even imagine what I looked like, but I finally got a single step backward.  

I was exhausted and needed a rest at that point, so I called it good, and led Donut out to the field.  The good news is that there was absolutely zero mouthing on my sleeve.  Normally, Donut will lip my sleeve a bunch of times or crowd me a little, and she did neither of those things that day.  I considered that a success.

On Day 3, I repeated the process in the parking lot.  I was able to get a single step backward with a whole lot of energy and rope shaking and flag waving.  I asked for more than one step back this time, and started working on the exercise of leading her while she was behind me and changing my speed and direction.  She was great about doing that with the exception of the stop.  That is probably mostly because we've already done that type of work.  She's actually really good at it, and the only reason I stopped working on it was because when I would get to the point where she was trotting, she would tend to get overexcited and then I would spend 5-10 minutes working with her to get her calmed down.  So I decided to leave that bit for when she is older and better able to manage her excitement.

The only issue we were having is that when I stopped she would come all the way up to me.  Then I'd turn around and move her back.  After doing that several times, with sort of minimal improvement, I decided to call it a day.  I try to never work with her for longer than about 5-10 minutes.  She is still a baby, really, and I feel like her attention span is just not capable of longer sessions without losing some of the impact of what we are working on.

On Day 4, we headed out to the big arena.  I went through the same process as before.  I started with backing her out of the space she wasn't supposed to be in.  I was beginning to think of it as setting the distance.  Then I walked her around.  And I about jumped out of my skin when she tripped a little, and I thought she was spooking.  Because she was directly behind me, I had no idea what was going on, and I almost had a full-blown panic attack.  

And that ended the leading the horse directly behind me part of the process.  I realize that many great horsemen lead their horses this way.  But I absolutely cannot do it.  I am so anxious the entire time that Donut is behind me because I can't see her.  It is making me crazy.  So, whatever I do, it isn't going to be this particular way of leading.  I want her on either side of me instead.  She doesn't have to be right next to me, but I have to be able to see her.

However, there is more to the technique than simply setting a distance between the handler and the horse.  There is also a little pattern that the horse does with its feet.  The first part of that pattern is teaching the horse to move its hindquarters in a certain way.  I was pretty sure it was similar to what I've already worked on with Donut and it is something she does well, so again, I wasn't expecting too much trouble.

I first asked her to move with gentle pressure from my hand on her side.  It took maybe 1-2 minutes for her to understand how she was supposed to move.  I congratulated myself on that bit and then went to her right side to ask her to do the same thing.  At that point, she was completely uninterested in doing in more work, so it probably took a little longer to get the same movement.  I called it a day at that point, and started leading her back to her field.

Which is when I discovered I might have another problem.  Donut was really insistent that she wanted to eat some more grass.  Weeks ago, I think I did 2-3 sessions in the arena where I let her eat grass after we worked as a way to reward her for being out in the big arena all by herself and for paying attention and doing what I'd asked.  Apparently, she decided that needed to happen every time.  

I just kept her moving and we sort of wandered all over and eventually made it out to the field (which is a really long way from the arena when you are dealing with a recalcitrant horse).  As before, I noticed that one thing that seemed really improved was her mouthing behavior.  For what was now 4 days in a row, she had made zero attempts to put her mouth on my sleeve.  It was a joyous occasion.

For Day 5, I was back out at the arena.  This time, I was able to do the exercise of moving her backwards with just the lead rope and not the flag.  So she was gradually improving on that bit.  Then I worked with moving her haunches in each direction (I skipped the leading for my own sanity).  She seemed to struggle with it a little more and there was a lot of moving backwards before sideways.  She is normally really easy to move around with pressure, so I kind of wondered if the specific way the legs were supposed to move was triggering a response.

I have to admit that I thought the pattern was sort of random and possibly even an unnecessary marketing technique.  But Donut's refusal to do it when I knew she was perfectly capable of it got me thinking that maybe there was something to it (or that I was not doing something correctly...).  Because there is nothing about it that should be uncomfortable.  It is basically disengaging the hindquarters and doing a modified turn on the forehand until the horse yields through their body to the movement and the pressure of your hand on their side.  I wasn't using anything other than my hand on her.  So no whips or hitting or yelling or anything that might make a sensitive horse upset.  I wondered if it could be a little like the Masterson Method of horse massage, where sometimes horses will struggle a bit when you get to a spot where there is tension.  They may move around or fuss or throw their heads up or even kick, simply from a light touch.  And then they will release the tension if you can stay with them.  Maybe the way I was asking Donut to move was operating in a similar way?  

By Day 6, I was starting to feel like I knew what I was doing.  I did the same thing I'd done on Day 5.  I asked Donut to move back with the Shhhing and the lead rope and she was doing that well.  She was still having some trouble with the movements for the hindquarters, but it seemed like it was getting a little easier.  What was not getting easier was the way she was reacting when I led her from the arena to the field.  She was getting extremely reactive about not being allowed to eat grass (even though she was able to eat grass BEFORE we worked).  

When she'd fussed at me before about wanting to eat, I just worked her in circles and serpentines.  This time, I decided to try the movement with the hindquarters that we'd been practicing in the arena.  I ended up having to do it from a distance and using my lead rope to cue her to move because she absolutely started kicking out.  Again, that was a really interesting response.  All I was asking her to do was move her hind legs over.  When she fussed at me in the past and I'd turned her in a circle, that never triggered any kicking.  In fact, it would often settle her.  So what about the movement was causing such a reaction?  Was I doing something incorrectly? And more importantly, was it a reaction that I should work her through or did it mean that the technique was not appropriate for her?

On Day 7, Donut and I headed back out to the big arena.  My daughter happened to be out at the barn with me, so I conscripted her to take a video so I could take a closer look at how I was moving and my timing.  She is not quite ready to be a professional yet, but it is much better than the videos she used to take, where the camera moved so much, it would give anyone watching motion sickness:)

Anyway, you can watch it here: 

 

I started off by just walking her a little and asking her to back up normally as a warm-up.  You'll see her looking at something shortly after that.  There was a car coming down the road off in the distance and she was a little worried about it.  I took a page from Warwick Schiller in that moment and just gave her a little time.  And you'll see me eventually look over at the car.  I should have done that sooner to show her I saw it.  I keep forgetting that part of the technique.

Once she was over her worry about the car, she started moving around and getting in my space a little, so I asked her to move back.  She was not as sensitive to the request to move back as she had been previously, but once I thought I had her settled, I moved on to asking her to move her hindquarters over.  Before that, though, I checked for tension and reactivity by running my hand over her body.  Tristan actually has little movements that he will do with his hands if he detects tension in certain areas, and I didn't do those.  I was mostly just making sure she didn't feel like kicking at me if I was touching her side.  What Tristan does if horses are reactive when he is touching them is to keep his hand in the position that caused the reaction (even following the horse around if it is moving) until the horse stops reacting and then he takes his hand away.  I didn't notice anything that concerned me when touching Donut, so I proceeded with asking her to move over.  In case you are wondering what I was looking for when moving her hindquarters, it was for both her inside hind leg and outside front leg to move as a diagonal pair.  As soon as I saw her do a a couple of steps like that, I would stop.  She had a little more trouble moving to the left than to the right, and she even stopped a couple of times on her own.  I just kept my hand where it was and increased the pressure a little until she started moving again.

I'm really glad I had Gemma do the video because I can see a couple of places where I can do better.  You'll see that when I ask her to move back, she is slow to react and the way I'm shaking the lead rope is kind of erratic.  I think I might switch to swinging the end to see if that works better.  I also think the way I hold my body could be more confident.  Because of her reactivity, I think I've gotten to the point where I try to keep my energy as low as possible and that has led to a change in the way I carry myself.  So I'm going to try to move a little more confidently. 

I'm also glad I saw the video because my memory was that it was more difficult to get her to move than it really was.  I would have sworn we worked for at least 10 minutes, and it was really less than four.

So I thought that session went OK, especially for a situation that is a little closer to the blind leading the blind than I would like.  I felt like maybe we had gone a bit backwards on the energy needed to ask her to move back, but moving her hindquarters seemed to go better.  One interesting thing I did notice was how much she is moving her mouth.  She seems to be doing a fair amount of chewing, and I'm curious about why.  But I think I'll need more time to think on that.

Unfortunately, I still had that pesky problem with Donut wanting to eat grass after the arena work.  We had barely made it through the gate when Donut started getting really reactive about not being able to eat grass.  (I will give her this - she is a persistent horse when she wants something!).  So she was escalating her behavior.  I completely forgot that I was supposed to be testing the hindquarters movement as a way to resolve the problem because I was so surprised about the escalation.  I really thought that the more times we went through the process, the easier it would be.  (It is true that animals will sometimes seriously escalate a behavior just before extinction, so it could be that was what was going on here.  But based on subsequent events, I'm thinking that the problem is actually less about the grass and more about something else.)

I used my usual circling method, but she just kept reacting.  I think she went up in the air at least four times on the way to the barn.  In fact, when we got to the barn, she was so obnoxious that I contemplated closing the sliding door in her face and making her stand out there by herself until she settled down.  All I did was ask her to stop before walking through the door, which is a habit I have always had.  I like to make sure everybody knows where they are supposed to be before walking through any opening that is less than 10 feet wide.  So it wasn't an unexpected request.  But she lost her mind about it and started trying to run me over and rub on me and just basically physically intimidate me.  I was able to withstand the pressure she was putting on me and if I had been thinking, that would have been a great time to deploy the technique of "get out of my space."  I felt like I had my hands full, though, and my brain hasn't adopted the technique yet, so I was stuck with my usual techniques of making myself bigger and using my body to block her forward movement into the barn.  (I was also super thankful that she wasn't a 17-hand Friesian attempting that - I would have been outclassed for sure.)

Finally, she settled down at the door and I led her to her stall.  Normally, we would have gone past the barn and straight to her field, but I have been trying to occasionally go through the same routine we would go through if she was in work.  So I've started wrapping her front legs with polo wraps before we go to the arena.  And then when we are done, I bring her back to the stall and ask her to stand tied for a couple of minutes while I remove the wraps.  My plan is to increase the number of times each week that we go through that routine and add steps as well as minutes to the time I expect her to stand while tied until it feels like old habit.

Anyway, it turned out to be a really good thing that we stopped at the barn.  It gave both of us a chance to get our thinking brains working again.  And I had no trouble with Donut in her stall.  She stood quietly while I took the warps off, and she even managed to freeze when she got the lead rope wrapped over the top of her head.  She stopped when she felt the pressure and waited for me to release her.  So all that was good.

When I went to lead her out of her stall, though, she got into my space and was a bit pushy.  This time, my brain was working, and I was on it.  I immediately asked her to back up using the same method I'd been using all week.  So something really interesting happened here too.  She didn't back up.  Even though I'd been working with her on it all week, it was like Day 1.  So I escalated my energy and the rope.  Still nothing.  I kept escalating and I was literally SHHHHing as loud as I could, shaking my rope as violently as I could without hitting her, and JUMPING UP AND DOWN IN PLACE AND WAVING MY ARMS before she backed up one step.  I repeated the process until I had her backed up as far away from me as she could get.  And then we just stood there for probably two minutes.  Any time she tried to move out of that position, I cued her to move back.

Finally, after I felt like the lesson had started to sink in for both of us, I asked her to walk out of the stall.  (I don't think Donut is having this issue completely on her own.  I think something that I am doing with the way I interact with her is causing it.)  Completely on her own, she walked slightly behind me and to my left.  Which didn't bother me at all because I could see her with my peripheral vision.  (She prefers to be led from her right side, which is unusual.  I do typically lead her from the right, but I work on the left as well, to keep things more balanced.)  She walked completely calmly all the way out to her field.  Even when one of the dogs who lives on the property came up near her and barked at her and ran around.  Then when I got to the run-in shed where I turn her out, she waited quietly while I moved another horse away from the door and stepped into the run-in shed where she waited patiently while I took her halter off.  She is normally pretty good about those things anyway, but there was definitely a new sense of quietness about her.

So I'm thinking there are two things going on here that I need to pay special attention to.  First is the space issue.  Even though I haven't felt that Donut was particularly pushy when I was leading her in normal situations, she can be when she gets reactive or in a situation where she thinks she knows what to do.  But her reluctance to move indicates a problem, which is likely my own fault.  In my attempts to pay attention to her and keep my energy low, I've probably lost some of my normal assertiveness.  That might not matter for all horses, but it clearly does for her.  

I have to address this pushiness before I can do much else, I think.  I'm going to do that by asking her to move out of my space in lots of different places.  In her stall, in the barn aisle, in the parking lot, while I'm leading her to the field, in the arena, in the round pen, and anywhere else I can think of.  I'm going to do it over and over until she is responsive anywhere and everywhere to the sound of my voice.  I'm still not planning to lead her with her positioned right behind me, but I may consider leading with her slightly behind and to one side.  That may allow me to enforce a space requirement while still being in front and most importantly, being able to see her so I don't feel anxious and transmit that to her.

The next thing is this focus on eating after she works in the arena.  That issue could be related to the pushiness issue, but it is more likely part of the process where young horses have to go from being able to do whatever they want when they want to accepting direction from someone else.  I've done a lot of work with Donut in her comfort zone, which is when she is in her stall eating.  I groom her, I trim her feet, I put polo wraps on her, I've washed her tail, put body wraps on (more about that in another post), and I've even vacuumed her in there.  And I don't think that was the wrong approach.  Based on my research, it seems like a common strategy to work with baby horses in spaces that they are comfortable in and get them to think that interacting with humans and doing things is their idea.  But it's time to start transitioning her to learning that sometimes she is going to need to give me her full attention and do what I ask her to do.  There will hopefully come a day when she can be a true partner and participate in the decision-making process, but that day is not now and it probably won't be for quite some time.  She needs to learn the rules of engagement, so to speak, before she can learn how to make good decisions within a partnership.

To that end, while I work on the space issue, I'm going to change the location of where we work.  I can still take her out to eat grass by the arena, but then instead of working in the arena, I will work her either in the large space in front of the equipment shed or the parking area.  Both places are on the way from the arena to her field, so I'm going to see if that avoids the whole issue for awhile to get her out of the habit of thinking she needs to eat after she works.  Then after a week or two of working on the personal space issue, I will try working in the arena again to see how she acts about the grass.

Even though this past week did not yield a bombproof horse, I feel like I learned some really valuable things.  And I feel like I have a plan to address the things that aren't going as well as I'd like.  I'll be sure to report next Monday on how my plan works out!:)

Snow Day (or days...)

As I write, I can hear the little ping of bits of ice hitting the window.  We are on Day 2 of a winter event.  It's not really a snow storm, because there is very little wind.  Yesterday, the snow just gently fell all day and then as the temperature warmed slightly above freezing, the snow changed over to icy bits.  I can't really call them hail or sleet.  They are just very tiny bits of something more solid than snow flakes.  (I bet if I lived in Norway, there would be a very specific word to describe this type of frozen precipitation.)

A meteorologist that I follow on Facebook initially said we would get 8 - 12 inches by the end of our snow extravaganza, but I think that was a bit optimistic.  Our foray into temperatures just above freezing for a few hours contributed to some melting.  Plus we probably aren't getting much accumulation today, even though the icy bits are supposed to keep falling through today and tonight.  At our house, we will probably get 4 - 5 inches, but the barn will have a little more.

Of course, a forecast of any snow at all usually leads to a frenzy of buying essentials, and a forecast of significant snowfall can create massive shortages of pretty much any and everything.  I ran errands on Saturday and stopped at the tack store and the feed store.  The tack store normally has 1-4 customers in it.  On Saturday, there were only two empty parking spots.  I'm not sure what people were buying.  Emergency bridles?  That must-have sponge?  The riding shirt with the bling on it so that the owner could take "frolicking in the snow" pictures for Instagram and Facebook?

I was there with Gemma for a legitimate purchase that I hadn't been able to make during the week.  The horse Gemma is riding now, Star, needed a new blanket.  Hers had been shredded in what was the most brutal attack I have ever known in domestic horse land.  I only witnessed the aftermath, but eye witness accounts indicated Star was attacked and forced to the ground where the attack continued.  One of the barn staff thankfully had the courage to go in and force the attacking horse away so Star could get up and get out of the field; otherwise her injuries may have been life-threatening.  (No one knows why the attack happened.  Star has been in that field for a long time and the horse that attacked her has been in the herd for at least a year, maybe more.  Star was kept in a neighboring field for a few weeks to keep a single horse company, and the attack happened on the day she was returned to the field.  The only change that happened was that a horse that had been in the herd died - as a result of old age - a couple of weeks ago.  Star is a very unassuming horse and basically keeps to herself and avoids conflict, so I think the reason behind the attack will remain a mystery.)

I got to the barn shortly after the attack while the owner was waiting for the vet to come.  Star was trembling and sweating - basically she was in shock from both her physical injuries and probably the mental trauma as well.  Thankfully, the vet was unable to find anything broken, and the blanket had likely saved Star from quite a few bites and kicks.  But assessing the damage was difficult because Star would not leave the stall she was in.  I think she was completely terrified.  Time will only tell whether she will fully recover, but luckily she has an 8-year-old girl who adores her to help with grooming, putting ointment on wounds, and hand walking her until the vet gives further instructions.

Star seems happy with her new snazzy blanket!

Recently, going to this particular tack store has been kind of sad.  It has always been my favorite and until the past year, it has been stacked to the roof with horse and riding products of every kind.  But the pandemic has made it hard to keep a healthy inventory.  So the back room, which is normally full of saddle pads, blankets, halters, pony equipment, boots, and lunging stuff, was empty-looking.  I basically had two choices for a blanket.  Normally, I would have had probably at least five.  I could have ordered online, of course, but I wasn't sure that the blanket would come before the snow, and we've been borrowing one from another boarder.  Star's owner was planning to get one too, but she has been dealing with a lot of other things in her life, and I wanted to take this task off her plate.  And Gemma loves going shopping for horse stuff, so it was a fun Saturday activity.

What was not fun was going to my least favorite feed store to get straw for the ducks' bedding.  I prefer to get it from a different store, but my husband had taken my truck in for an oil change, and I was left with his tiny car.  So I had to go to the feed store that carries the compressed straw bales wrapped in plastic so the straw would not escape the bales and embed itself in the car's carpeting.  (Apparently, my husband does not find it endearing to find clumps of straw in his car - confusing, I know...)

I'm pretty sure every single person in town was at the feed store.  Again, buying what exactly?  If you are wondering, it was things like 200 pounds of dog food (just in case we can't dig ourselves out of the snow until July, I guess?), the last pair of winter gloves (I guess some people didn't know it was winter, what with the below freezing temperatures and frequent bouts of freezing rain we've been having for the last two months...), and egg incubators (because it's a good idea to hatch chickens in February).  Anyway, we survived the trip to the feed store and emerged successfully with two bales of straw so my ducks could be comfortable no matter what the weather brought.

On Sunday morning, we woke up to a good 2 -3 inches of snow on the ground already.  Gemma was delighted, as was our dog, Hera, who has been living for this day her whole life.  Hera is 12 years old now and definitely slowing down, but she managed the stairs like she was a puppy when she realized what was outside!

The ducks were less excited about all the white stuff, and spent much of the morning wandering around looking confused.  I've got to give them credit, though.  They stuck it out all day before finally conceding at night to go back into their straw-filled pen.  Today, though, Clancy, our drake, tested the snow and found it seriously wanting.  He assured the ducks that they did not want to venture out today, and they believed him.  It was probably a good call.  The bits of ice falling from the sky have created a crust of slick ice on top of the snow and even walking is risky.  

The ducks are baffled by their change in surroundings!

I headed out to the barn in the afternoon to check on Donut.  The roads were really in good shape at that point, and I definitely didn't need the four-wheel drive setting that I had proactively engaged.  I could have easily made it to the barn in my husband's car.  There was definitely an inch or two more of snow out there than at our house, though.

As is typical, despite the barn owner putting hay out near the run-in shed so the horses would not have to venture far into the snow for food, all of the horses in Donut's field were at the farthest point of the field, scrounging for bits of leftover hay.  Donut wasn't even that happy to see me.  Usually, she loves coming in for dinner, and I figured with the constant snow, she would be excited to come inside for a bit.  But her approach was much more of the meandering, "I'll get there when I get there" type.

 

I brought her in despite her lack of enthusiasm, mostly just so I could reassure myself that she was really doing fine without a blanket.  Hopefully I don't start World War III by bringing up blanketing...

I discovered over the course of Nimo's life that he absolutely did not need a blanket in even the worst winter had to offer unless he was clipped.  And honestly, as a boarder, blanketing is one of those things that seems to cause more trouble than it is worth.  No matter how detailed your instructions are, one or more of the staff will always overthink things and somehow manage to put the wrong blanket on.  Or they just assume that you are an idiot, and even though you wrote that your horse doesn't need a blanket until it gets to be under 20 degrees, they will put your heavyweight on at 50 degrees.  Then there is the constant filthiness of the blankets as they accumulate what seems like a year's worth of grime in one day because your horse rolled in a mud pit.  And the most common precipitation is rain here in northern Virginia, so then it's a game of managing sopping wet blankets dripping on every available surface while trying to figure out if the spare sheet you have is really waterproof because there is more rain on the way and your current sheet is never going to dry in the 40 degree, humid air.

So for all those reasons and because Donut spent the first year of her life with only trees for shelter, a creek to drink out of, and definitely no blanket, I have opted not to blanket Donut.  I don't even have one to put on her so as to avoid the temptation.  (But she does have a stall to stay in if the weather gets really bad or she needs a place to dry out or warm up.)  I've left her out in freezing rain and snow and sleet, and so far, she has shown no indication that she is bothered by the elements.  Unlike Nimo, who had a fairly short winter coat with incredibly dense, thick, wiry hair that even shampoo couldn't penetrate (I know because I tried once), Donut has a long coat that is quite fluffy.  And interestingly, her white hairs are different than her black hairs.  I can't get a good picture of it, but you can actually see the difference when you look at her coat.  The hairs lay differently too.  Her black hair is finer and softer, I think.  But regardless of its texture, it seems to keep the water out and the warmth in, so for now, she is open to the elements.  Once she is full-grown, I will have a set of sheets and blankets for her, just in case, but she literally grew two blanket sizes in three months, so I can't justify the expense of having blankets for her right now unless she really needs them.

The snow has added a little wrinkle to my training plan, though.  You may remember that in my last post, I was using grazing as a way to see if I could mitigate Donut's objections to anything that resembled training.  Regrettably, we've gotten several inches of snow so far and the forecast indicates more is likely on the way, along with colder temperatures that will prohibit much melting.  So, the grass is really not an option for the short-term.  I did try to convince Donut that she could dig in the snow to eat the grass, but I could tell that with each meager bite, she was getting more and more irritated by the situation.  So much so that she was not really on her best behavior as I led her back to her field.  Normally, she really is pretty easy to lead to and from her field, but yesterday she threw one thing after another at me.  First there were airs above the ground.  Then there was trying to chew on my hand.  Finally she decided she had to rub her head on my hand and it was like trying to unstick Velcro with one hand to move her away.  It's a behavior I have not seen before, so it caught me off guard.  I'm still not quite sure how to deal with it.  I think I'm going to try insisting that she stay about three feet away while I'm leading her.  Usually I like her close to me because I can feel her energy shift when she is feeling rambunctious and it's good information.  But I think we'll take this as an opportunity to practice staying out of the handler's personal space.

I also may experiment a bit with the TRT Method.  It was developed by Tristan Tucker (who goes by the alter ego Brett Kidding for some of his videos).  You may know of him through a video that went viral awhile ago.  It's a comedic performance that pokes fun at FEI-level dressage riders, and it entertains me every time I watch it.  Here is the link to watch it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3CgnSrWMJ8.  He's got another funny one on trailer loading here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yfvocbWteQ.  Anyway, I had been intrigued by the method and ended up buying the course last fall.  But after watching some of the videos, I decided it really wasn't for me and Donut at that time, and I kind of set it aside.  But last night, I was procrastinating about doing anything that required me to get up from the recliner and the heating pad, so I went back to watching some of the course videos.  And I wondered if the method might be worth trying now while I wait for a spring thaw.

The main thing that turned me off of the method early on was the introductory leading technique.  It involves walking quite a distance in front of the horse and teaching them to leave space between you.  It must be the old 4-H Showmanship class training, but the idea of walking in front of a horse seemed both wrong and vaguely terrifying.  How would I know what the horse was doing if it was six or ten feet behind me?  What if the horse ran over me because it spooked?  How would I work on things like backing up and stepping over?  And then, the technique involved teaching the horse a pattern that of course used disengaging the hind legs (a phrase that is starting to irritate me), along with some work on the front end too.  But I happened to watch a case study video of Tucker using the method on a very tense and high strung mare.  She was young - I think four years old - and she clearly knew what she was supposed to do, but she was so stressed that she was having trouble listening and being quiet.  I happen to know a certain yearling who occasionally has problems like that too.  While Donut isn't in a constant state of tension like the mare in the video, she does sometimes get reactive and have trouble figuring out how to regulate herself back into a more calm state.

Once I saw the technique used in its entirety on the mare in the video, I started understanding the value of the technique a little better.  One thing in particular that I found interesting was that Tucker didn't worry about staying below the horse's threshold of reactivity.  In part, that was probably because he couldn't.  Even just touching the mare caused her extreme stress.  But I also remembered something that Mark Rashid wrote.  I can't remember which book or the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of seeing a lot of horses come to his clinics where their handlers had spent a lot of time learning natural horsemanship techniques that required them to stay below the horse's threshold of reactivity.  And when those horses got into a situation where the the stimulant couldn't be controlled, neither the horse nor the handler had any way of resolving the tension or stress, so the horse basically lost its sh*^ and spent a long time in a state of panic.  

That certainly happens with Donut sometimes.  I can't necessarily predict what is going to happen when and whether or not it is going to be upsetting to her.  For example, there was one day where I was grazing her outside and someone was flying a drone fairly close to the ground.  You could easily hear the buzzing, and I was concerned that Donut would not want to go past the area where the drone was.  As it happened, she couldn't have cared less, and we actually stopped to chat for a minute while the drone buzzed around overhead.  On the other hand, when a couple of the dogs that live on the farm run around and do zoomies, she gets very concerned and it is hard for her to settle once she has gotten excited about the dogs.  It would be nice to have a technique to use in situations like that so that she could learn how to calm herself down quickly.

The TRT Method looks like it has the possibility to do that, as long as it doesn't cross the line into flooding.  I'm not a big fan of using flooding to desensitize horses, because I think that it teaches them that they have no control over their lives, so they might as well resign themselves to being in near death situations all the time.  A lot of mustangs appear to be trained that way, and I think it is a bomb waiting to go off.  What Tucker claims his method does is to provide horses with a way to learn that the instincts they come with, particularly the flight response, don't work very well in a world of human invention.  Running away from anything that looks like it could have the vague potential to be mildly threatening is a great way for a wild horse to survive, but it is at best inconvenient and at worst life threatening for both horse and handler/rider.

After having a horse for 17 years that was certainly prone to anxiety and that I spent a lot of time working with on an assortment of issues related to anxiety, I am certainly willing to listen to someone who offers a technique other than the one I used, which was basically a form of gradual desensitization involving exposing the horse to the situation in small or less-threatening doses until after weeks, months, or even years, he came to accept the situation.  The reality is that sometimes there aren't weeks, months, or years to accept a situation.  If it is a dog running from out of nowhere on the trail or a car is driving too fast next to the horse crossing on a road or hot air balloon is gracefully floating overhead, there isn't any time to adjust to the situation and there isn't necessarily a way to predict those things ahead of time or work with a horse on them.  While Nimo eventually did become quite trustworthy out on the trail and handled a variety of situations that could have ended badly, I wonder if it needed to take as long as it did for him to develop those skills?  What if I don't have to go through Donut's baby years and her first few years under saddle constantly worrying that she will spook or spin and bolt or buck me off in the middle of nowhere?

That is sort of a heady thought, and I feel like it won't cause any harm to try the TRT Method out on her.  Plus her newfound habits of chewing on things and rubbing on things and not being as aware of her handler's personal space as she should be have caused me to reconsider how I feel about leading a horse that is a certain distance away from me.  If she isn't close to me, then I don't have to worry about how I will react to the chewing or rubbing, because she simply won't have the opportunity to do it.  And over time, I suspect those habits will disappear on their own if they aren't encouraged.  I think it is fairly common for young horses to explore the world with their mouths, but I also think they usually grow out of it as they learn their environment.  So it is possible that if I find a way to interact with her that doesn't give her many opportunities to stick things in her mouth, it won't become a big issue and will resolve on its own with time.

I'll keep you posted on how my experiment goes.  If it isn't like walking on an ice slick at the barn today, I will probably start the process of teaching her to leave space between me and her while I lead her, and we'll go from there.