Meep
The internal email system for livejournal is a pain in the ass to use. It's stupidly slow to load in comparison to the rest of the site and it displays in an awkward and confusing way. You can't just click on something to read it because the latest message is already fully expanded and it's impossible to get rid of, you have to do some stupid check box thing to get it to go away that only works half the time. For gods sake the people who developed this site can manage a sophisticated journal system but they can't do a standard inbox interface?
Dudes, step up your game, copy the old hotmail style (before they went all real-time obsessed), it's one everyone knows and it's fast and easy to use. A minor feature on a site should NOT be a mission just to even consider using it.
Rant over.
In other news. I'm making slow progress with my pony, the one who is a gigantic wuss. I'm currently working on getting him to walk into the garage. It's a double, but so wide that it could really be a triple, and full of junk but it does have a big clear space in it. With the (HUGE) doors open there's lots of light.
The trouble with my pony is that he's too smart. With most horses once you get inside their head and poke around for a while you work out ways to move them forward and making them think it was their idea to begin with. With Nick, it's different.
See, Nick KNOWS that you're trying to get into his head, Nick can see your ultimate goal ten or fifteen steps down the line so he's taking counter measures NOW to avoid it.
Here's a standard scenario. I will lead Nick to the garage. He will usually walk just up to it, put his ears back, his head down a little in a very uncertain and scared pose, and then stand there. If I give a tug on the lead he'll refuse. If I haul on the lead he'll refuse and throw his head up really high (which means that the top of the door to the garage is now below his head) and sit his weight back on his haunches.
Now, if I were to introduce another person into the equation, to give him a shove from behind, Nick will see them, and he will start backing up pre-emptively. Because Nick knows if they get behind him, he's got to go forward. And he also knows all the moves and feints you can to try and get round him and 'trap him' so to speak. So he dodges all of those. He knows that to escape going inside, he has to get far enough back that if we do eventually get behind him, he can just walk in another direction.
So what we have are initial measures from me, then counter measures from Nick, then counter-counter measures from me, and then counter-counter-counter measures from Nick, and he's keeping track of ALL of this at once and winning.
It really sucks when your horse is smarter than you.
The other elements involved are fear and stubbornness. Nick has ALWAYS had a very stubborn streak. He doesn't tend to be outright disobedient without a reason for doing so, however when he digs his heels in a bulldozer couldn't move him.
The last time we got him on a horse float a friend of mine PICKED HIM UP by the hindquarters and shoved him so that his front legs had to walk forward. We're not talking about a shetland here, Nick weighs about 450 kilos. For the record, that particular friend is awesome, and a freak of nature. Nick doesn't like him. Though I imagine it would be awfully disconcerting for ones legs to no longer be making contact with the ground when one desired them to - equaling absolute loss of control to do anything but what one is instructed to. Nick got him back though, he waited till the guy was leaning hard into his hocks, and then walked forward, meaning my poor juggernaut friend ended up face first on the float road with a horse's ass above him. We got him on the float, but he got his own back. We're currently tied.
Nick's fear is also something else entirely, and it's something that very few people, even horse experts can pick up on. I know it because I've known him for nearly 9 years. His eyes widen and he makes strange movements with his lips when he's nervous and thinking, when he's scared but tired his legs shake, and when he's terrified his head flies up and he moves backwards fast, stumbles and trips a lot. He anticipates fear as well.
I've been working on a number of issues around floating with Nick over the past few months. Ramps, Confined spaces, and having something overhead.
Ramps - A lot of horses have trouble with ramps, particularly backing down them. Due to the positioning of their eyes they can't see where they're putting their feet, and the sensation of falling is ever present, not to mention the risk of actually falling. what I would like to see on ramps is a simple barricade either side that stops a horse falling off the side of the ramp, it would create much more safety. The other element that causes older or injured horses trouble is the slant, arthritis in horses occurs first and foremost in the hips, which are required to flex a lot more whilst backing down a ramp and also to take more strain when going up one - this is accentuated by the angle of the ramp - the steeper it is, the harder it is on the horse. A lot of horses also don't like the sound of their hooves on the ramp, depending on the material the sound is often different, but it's usually a dull booming noise of some kind.
Enclosed spaces - Horses are naturally outdoor animals, and being prey animals the concept of being trapped is terrifying to them as to their instincts it relates to being hunted and ultimately, pain and death. Horses rely upon their speed for safety, the ability to get out of wherever they are in a hurry and without hurting themselves is paramount. Horses also have blindspots, so they can't always see what's touching them, another reason that an enclosed space it difficult. Enclosed spaces are often dark too, and while horses have excellent night vision, they have no depth perception, so the darker a space is the smaller it feels to them.
Something overhead - A horses instinct when resisting, afraid or fighting is to throw their head up, to give themselves the illusion of greater height and size. When a horse sees a snake, it rears. When horse's fight, they rear. When horses don't want a drench, they throw their heads up. When something touches a horses head that they weren't expecting, they throw their head up. When you put something over the top of a horse's head you are creating a shadow, and you're restricting them from throwing their head up, and if they do throw it up the chances are they'll hit it and panic themselves further. Some horses won't even go near large unfamiliar structures because the feeling of being overshadowed worries them.
Throughout the course of their careers many horses will deal with these issues in different ways, things such as wearing a halter or a bridle or carrying a rider all chip away at these fears, but often a single accident linked all that terror and negativity to one object or event - such as getting on a float.
I have tried in the past to work with getting Nick on a float step by step, using food to coax him on. However, the whole concept was just too big for him, so I decided to break it down into all the elements that bother him.
I started with a step of barrels, making him walk through them again and again, bringing them ever closer. He refused at first, but with time he has improved. I then leaned an old pallet against two barrels and made a path between it and two more barrels, for a long time he refused, but slowly accepted it. At this stage it's a great deal more about stubbornness than fear. What Nick needs to learn is that my word comes before even his most base instincts, that doesn't mean that I don't respect his instincts and his needs, which is why we worked very slowly. Every time Nick took a positive step, he got many rewards.
The thing to be careful about at a stage like this though is cunning. Nick is exceptionally crafty, and quickly became aware that if he walked a few steps towards a passage I wanted him to go through, he would get food. then he would back out and try to get food for retracing the steps he had already taken. In some cases a bit of tough love is needed and forcing him through the steps he'd already done and then rewarding him for one further, other times it needs to be about recognising that he still needs to get settled at the point he's made it to. It's a matter of getting him to a point, getting him to stay there, and then cement it in his mind that he hasn't been hurt and he's been rewarded.
I'm using a similar method with the garage, however I'm using a great deal more food and less discipline because the action is much more frightening to Nick, at this point the premise is simple, sometimes with the lead and sometimes without, Nick gets food for coming partway into the garage, and then I move it further back. Sometimes I push too fast and too hard and sometimes Nick gets in further than he's comfortable with and panics and tries to escape. I'm torn between getting him in and locking him in until he calms down, but I think he would remember the trap and we'd be back to square one. So at this point I'm just working on getting him really comfortable with the concept of eating a LOT of food in a covered area. He doesn't throw his head up too much at this stage, which is a definite improvement.
At some stage shortly, Nick will begin to get cunning and ham up his fear for the sake of getting more food for less work on his part. At this point I need to introduce another person, however, this will add an entirely new element, to which Nick will initially react badly. So for a while I need to get Nick used to just having people wandering around while I'm working with him, and for him to realise that extra people does not mean he's trapped.
Eventually Nick will eat and be groomed in the garage and then I'll start bringing in my horse Cracker, and do the same with him so Nick gets used to the idea of not being alone in the space. Then I'll introduce barrels and pallets for him to walk through whilst undercover, it's all about the concept of making the whole situation boringly familiar and old news to him.
Running parallel to this I am still working with the barrels, using them also to help promote flexibility, and other stuff for Nick to walk under, such as planks of wood propped up on barrels and sheets strung up on poles. Eventually I want to finish the crush for him and build it around him, and slowly bring it in tighter and tighter, all the while feeding him and carrying on general activities.
Eventually he should start to fall asleep in these situations, at which point I'll introduce the float. For several weeks I'll just work on getting him on and off step by step with no pressure, and once his fear starts to fade I'll work more on the discipline - but not too harshly, or he'll remember it as a negative experience.
The goal would be to get him to a point where he'll walk onto a float and fall asleep. Eventually he'll be fed on a float and groomed there, and then taken for short drives. This whole process will probably take months. But it's worth it.
In the past four times I have floated Nick he's been under so much stress I've been concerned for his heart. At 27, this is NOT a good phobia to have. The less stress he's under the better.
Cracker, my horses, will walk on and off on his own just to see if there's anything interesting on there, but if you tie him up and Nick doesn't follow he'll have a panic attack trying to find his friend. Cracker's a gigantic wuss too.
*sigh* I love my horses.