Zetahra's First Lesson
Obviously Zetahra has been in work and learning things from day one, and especially in the last year, but yesterday was the first time she's had another trainer lay eyes on her and assess where we are. Things have been going well with driving training so instead of working with Michelle's finished mare Tenacity I brought Zetahra this week.
I wanted to see how she'd do in the environment as well as get an assessment and have Michelle on hand to eventually start ground driving around the neighborhood when we are ready for that.
Z was a little looky, more about the llamas and Michelle's set-up. She didn't blink at the sight and sound of the traffic, though walking around our place the cars are 10 feet away, not on the other side of the trailer plus 20 or 30 feet more so well within her comfort zone Even with large semis and noisy trailers.
I harnessed her up and figured we'd just start with double lungeing and ground driving. She was looky and showed some attitude and bucked a little into the canter, which I drove her forward through. It took her about half a lap to smooth out of it.
Michelle gave her assessment: Zetahra is very confident, cocky, really and her lookiness was a combination of curiosity and seeing what I was going to do about it. The bucking was also a "what are you going to do about it" thing. Driving Z forward wasn't what was needed as it took her a half lap to cone out of it. It wasn't enough of a consequence for her to change the behavior so instead Michelle had me bind her up, essentially do a one-rein stop on the lines and shut her down.
Asked her upn nice walk, good trot, canter and she humped up so Michelle sat on the inside rein just about and Z spun about four times before she stopped nose to shoulder with a look like "what just happened and how did I get here?" She stood as we unraveled her and I took the reins and sent her off again. Canter, buck, one-rein stop, unwrap horse, rinse and repeat in both directions. At first the bucks were her typical "rocking horse" buck where she bounced from forehand to haunch and didn't really go anywhere (thus I would drive her forward because she appeared "stuck"), then as we implemented the new tactic she realizes that wasn't working so she would "take off" and do a flying buck, which also got shut down. Eventually she tried just a nice canter transition, which was rewarded with verbal praise and then a rest. When she was going consistently both ways we called it a day. Towards the end you could see her having thoughts about bucking or otherwise being silly, but thinking better of it.
Michelle was in stitches most of the time. Zetahra has a very expressive face and the type of smarts that causes her to feel out her boundaries. I admit it was pretty funny.
Michelle noted that so far as desensitizing goes Z was rock solid. If she had not been, getting spun around in the reins could have caused some serious issues. So I'm doing some things right! She also noted that Z knows this stuff (walk, trot, canter, whoa, etc.) She's just choosing to be opinionated about it, which needs to stop, especially in a driving setting. Part of it is Zetahra being in the teenage phase (coming 4 in April) and part is a lack of clear discipline from the other horses in her life as well as ill-defined boundaries with people at times (not completely faultless on that, but most of the mixed signals are probably from my working students).
All in all I think it went really well and gave me some more tools to use with Z. She hasn't bucked up at home in a long time so getting her in a new environment helps show the holes in her training better, which appear to be mostly attitude based rather than lack of knowledge on her part so I haven't been doing too bad.
Last night it started raining around 8pm pretty hard, then it vascillated between sprinkling and driving all night and today it has been sprinkling off and on all day. We have received more than an inch and needless to say we are soaked. Yes, it is still raining. I need to call my lesson that was scheduled for this evening.
I wanted to see how she'd do in the environment as well as get an assessment and have Michelle on hand to eventually start ground driving around the neighborhood when we are ready for that.
Z was a little looky, more about the llamas and Michelle's set-up. She didn't blink at the sight and sound of the traffic, though walking around our place the cars are 10 feet away, not on the other side of the trailer plus 20 or 30 feet more so well within her comfort zone Even with large semis and noisy trailers.
I harnessed her up and figured we'd just start with double lungeing and ground driving. She was looky and showed some attitude and bucked a little into the canter, which I drove her forward through. It took her about half a lap to smooth out of it.
Michelle gave her assessment: Zetahra is very confident, cocky, really and her lookiness was a combination of curiosity and seeing what I was going to do about it. The bucking was also a "what are you going to do about it" thing. Driving Z forward wasn't what was needed as it took her a half lap to cone out of it. It wasn't enough of a consequence for her to change the behavior so instead Michelle had me bind her up, essentially do a one-rein stop on the lines and shut her down.
Asked her upn nice walk, good trot, canter and she humped up so Michelle sat on the inside rein just about and Z spun about four times before she stopped nose to shoulder with a look like "what just happened and how did I get here?" She stood as we unraveled her and I took the reins and sent her off again. Canter, buck, one-rein stop, unwrap horse, rinse and repeat in both directions. At first the bucks were her typical "rocking horse" buck where she bounced from forehand to haunch and didn't really go anywhere (thus I would drive her forward because she appeared "stuck"), then as we implemented the new tactic she realizes that wasn't working so she would "take off" and do a flying buck, which also got shut down. Eventually she tried just a nice canter transition, which was rewarded with verbal praise and then a rest. When she was going consistently both ways we called it a day. Towards the end you could see her having thoughts about bucking or otherwise being silly, but thinking better of it.
Michelle was in stitches most of the time. Zetahra has a very expressive face and the type of smarts that causes her to feel out her boundaries. I admit it was pretty funny.
Michelle noted that so far as desensitizing goes Z was rock solid. If she had not been, getting spun around in the reins could have caused some serious issues. So I'm doing some things right! She also noted that Z knows this stuff (walk, trot, canter, whoa, etc.) She's just choosing to be opinionated about it, which needs to stop, especially in a driving setting. Part of it is Zetahra being in the teenage phase (coming 4 in April) and part is a lack of clear discipline from the other horses in her life as well as ill-defined boundaries with people at times (not completely faultless on that, but most of the mixed signals are probably from my working students).
All in all I think it went really well and gave me some more tools to use with Z. She hasn't bucked up at home in a long time so getting her in a new environment helps show the holes in her training better, which appear to be mostly attitude based rather than lack of knowledge on her part so I haven't been doing too bad.
Last night it started raining around 8pm pretty hard, then it vascillated between sprinkling and driving all night and today it has been sprinkling off and on all day. We have received more than an inch and needless to say we are soaked. Yes, it is still raining. I need to call my lesson that was scheduled for this evening.