Wednesday L&HB Day Three

Wednesday morning started with Remuda taken by Jesse. We covered communication and body (or universal) language by playing a game where you ask the horse (your human partner) to do something, i.e. put a foot on a chair, by using the universal language only. You then swap and have a go at being the 'horse'. This proved incredibly powerful and highlighted the need to be gentle, to allow thinking time, the power of focus and to reward with rests or by being friendly. The answer is to break the task into 100 small steps and to look after every step!

Great tip: Play with your 'best' horse first, then take that feeling to the next best and so on....

Day Three of Liberty&HorseBehaviour

We put human emotions onto horses (anthropomorphism); horses do not miss us, require praise, fell jealousy, etc - these are human emotions. The horse's heirachy of needs are.... Safety, Comfort, Play and then Incentive (Food). These needs are directly linked to their horsenality.
RB Extrovert - Safety - Bonnie and Whinney
RB Introvert - Comfort - Dillon
LB Extrovert - Play - Whinney
LB Introvert - Incentive - Dillon and Bonnie

Respect is the horse giving the appropriate response to pressure and the human, the appropriate application of pressure.

Strategies to deal with RB or safety/comfort issues are 'rhythm, relaxation and retreat', consistency, good friendly game and remember you have 1000 fresh starts.

Strategies to deal with LB or play/incentive issues are variety, to keep moving on and doing, incentives such as food, scratches and rest, and the power of reverse psychology.

Roget and I had an assignment to teach something new, which proved difficult as he is a Parelli lease horse and therefore has already done most things! So I took the attitude that everything is new for our partnership, regardless of either of our pasts and went and experimented. Firstly I simply requested he place his foot on the log and this went smoothly, so we quickly moved on to jumping a bank. Again, this went smoothly, so I looked for something more challenging and chose an enormous tractor tyre and suggested he walked through it......

Well he happily placed his two front feet in, then paused and asked for direction. I told him he was on the right tracks and encouraged him to place his hind legs in also. He lifted them and pawed at the tyre, but could not put them inside. He then asked another question and I told him he was on the right track. This time he moved his front feet further forwards to make room for the hinds. I then suggested he try the hinds again, but this he found too claustrophobic and continued merely to lift them up and rub the tyre. I accepted this as a try and called it game over. Remember - it's not about the tyre - it's about the relationship! And with the relationship building, I think we succeeded!

Wednesday evening was spent singing songs around the camp fire (see photo) with Pat and Caton Parelli and a country western singer (who is well known in America, but not to me!). This proved just a little surreal! It was very interesting to see Pat as a learner guitarist when I am used to observing his mastery of natural horsemanship, when he is very much the teacher/expert.

I also saw Linda Parelli today driving a bright yellow convertible jeep - surprised at her choice of car! She waved pleasantly as we drove past, which was nice.