Making different mistakes
One of our most important skills is the ability to learn from our mistakes, so we can at least vary our mistake itinerary. After reading Kathleen Lindley's book (which is excellent, and I heartily recommend) and watching her at work on Saturday I had a few new ideas, or useful reinforcements to my existing ideas, about how to help Zorro get over the Hedge...of DOOM. And by "over" I mean "near" of course- we have no plans for jumping it, or at least I have none, and given his feelings on it I doubt Zorro would be keen to leap it on some crazy moonwards escapade.
The first thing I made sure I was doing was approaching the hedge with no preconceptions at all about Zorro's reactions- I realised that he could easily be flipping out on that side of the school at least in part because I was expecting him to. Horses are amazingly subtle in their reading of body language so any tiny cue that we subconsciously give is likely to be very obvious to them. Instead I was focussing on visualising us walking happily along the side without anyone getting flustered.
Secondly I was concentrating on breathing, keeping mine regular, deep and even. This is really useful in the saddle where it seems to be a cue that horses pick up on very easily and deep breathing helps you to focus and stay aware of your body and your surroundings.
Thirdly I realised I had been inconsistent with him in the way we treated the hedge by moving him away from it when he got anxious and then using approach and retreat to try to get us close to it and get him accustomed to being near it. Bad idea. What that taught him is if he jumped up and down by the hedge he could get a break from regular work and maybe have a mouthful of food. To be a good leader in equine terms I realised my attitude should have been more "I know that you're worried but I say it's safe and I'm in charge here so deal with it" rather than "oh no, poor pony, are you all right?" All that did as far as he was concerned was reinforce that the hedge was a danger and something that he was correct to be afraid about.
On Sunday we did some good and fairly soft work that got us able to move quite happily around the hedge-free side of the school so today I figured we could confront the lions and tigers and bears that inhabit the holly bushes by adopting the strategy that all imaginary monsters hate most and simply ignoring them. Easier for me than for Zorro, but although he got his energy up and tried to hide behind me as we approached the side of the school, with me keeping position by him and being very steady and measured we managed to walk most of the way along without panicking. This was apparently easier to do with me on his left than on his right, but after a bit of scurrying around he was mostly able to do both most of the way along. He was still trying to drop his shoulder on me and having to be shoved away as he did, but he went along the side and he survived. After a few good runs sleepsy_mouse came over and we paused for a minute and talked about what we were doing and what a good and clever horse I had.
Then we went to do one more walk along the side to reinforce what we had already done and half way along a sparrow moved in the bushes making a tiny rustling sound. Zorro, realising he now had a gallery to play to, went ballistic; galloping flat out away until he hit the end of the line, rearing, bucking and generally showing off the kind of movements that are only approved of in the High School. This was where my consistency plan came in - I just kept walking along, kept him moving so that there was no relaxation or benefit to him while he was making a fuss, and did what I could to ignore him.
It's not always easy to ignore half a ton of furious equine trying to go at full gallop on the other end of a 12' line, but we managed to get from all-out rampage to a big stomping trot and finally to a very energetic walk in circles around me. I managed to extend the circles into ovals so that Zorro was walking along the fence line for a few steps before circling away and once we had worked that up to a few metres we called it a day.
I think that he was settling to the idea it wasn't fatal to be near the hedge, I'm fairly sure that he preferred me not reacting to him flinging himself around to me reacting to it, I'm hoping that tomorrow he will be better, having had a bit of time for latent learning to kick in.
It may seem excessive to get so involved in the fact we can't go on one side of the school when we could just do normal schooling in the rest of it if we wanted, but for me what it's saying is that he doesn't trust in my leadership enough to believe I will keep him safe. Once we find a way to get over that I think we will have a real bond that will give him confidence in me, give me confidence in him (and in myself) and make our lives together run a whole lot smoother.
The first thing I made sure I was doing was approaching the hedge with no preconceptions at all about Zorro's reactions- I realised that he could easily be flipping out on that side of the school at least in part because I was expecting him to. Horses are amazingly subtle in their reading of body language so any tiny cue that we subconsciously give is likely to be very obvious to them. Instead I was focussing on visualising us walking happily along the side without anyone getting flustered.
Secondly I was concentrating on breathing, keeping mine regular, deep and even. This is really useful in the saddle where it seems to be a cue that horses pick up on very easily and deep breathing helps you to focus and stay aware of your body and your surroundings.
Thirdly I realised I had been inconsistent with him in the way we treated the hedge by moving him away from it when he got anxious and then using approach and retreat to try to get us close to it and get him accustomed to being near it. Bad idea. What that taught him is if he jumped up and down by the hedge he could get a break from regular work and maybe have a mouthful of food. To be a good leader in equine terms I realised my attitude should have been more "I know that you're worried but I say it's safe and I'm in charge here so deal with it" rather than "oh no, poor pony, are you all right?" All that did as far as he was concerned was reinforce that the hedge was a danger and something that he was correct to be afraid about.
On Sunday we did some good and fairly soft work that got us able to move quite happily around the hedge-free side of the school so today I figured we could confront the lions and tigers and bears that inhabit the holly bushes by adopting the strategy that all imaginary monsters hate most and simply ignoring them. Easier for me than for Zorro, but although he got his energy up and tried to hide behind me as we approached the side of the school, with me keeping position by him and being very steady and measured we managed to walk most of the way along without panicking. This was apparently easier to do with me on his left than on his right, but after a bit of scurrying around he was mostly able to do both most of the way along. He was still trying to drop his shoulder on me and having to be shoved away as he did, but he went along the side and he survived. After a few good runs sleepsy_mouse came over and we paused for a minute and talked about what we were doing and what a good and clever horse I had.
Then we went to do one more walk along the side to reinforce what we had already done and half way along a sparrow moved in the bushes making a tiny rustling sound. Zorro, realising he now had a gallery to play to, went ballistic; galloping flat out away until he hit the end of the line, rearing, bucking and generally showing off the kind of movements that are only approved of in the High School. This was where my consistency plan came in - I just kept walking along, kept him moving so that there was no relaxation or benefit to him while he was making a fuss, and did what I could to ignore him.
It's not always easy to ignore half a ton of furious equine trying to go at full gallop on the other end of a 12' line, but we managed to get from all-out rampage to a big stomping trot and finally to a very energetic walk in circles around me. I managed to extend the circles into ovals so that Zorro was walking along the fence line for a few steps before circling away and once we had worked that up to a few metres we called it a day.
I think that he was settling to the idea it wasn't fatal to be near the hedge, I'm fairly sure that he preferred me not reacting to him flinging himself around to me reacting to it, I'm hoping that tomorrow he will be better, having had a bit of time for latent learning to kick in.
It may seem excessive to get so involved in the fact we can't go on one side of the school when we could just do normal schooling in the rest of it if we wanted, but for me what it's saying is that he doesn't trust in my leadership enough to believe I will keep him safe. Once we find a way to get over that I think we will have a real bond that will give him confidence in me, give me confidence in him (and in myself) and make our lives together run a whole lot smoother.