Ironing out a loading glitch
It was great to see this lovely big mare for loading earlier this week.
I worked with her 18 months ago when severe sand colic meant that she had become extremely defensive to touch and aggressive about grooming and rugging.
She was extremely poorly then, and her defensive habits were quite ingrained so it took a lot of confidence building work to rebuild her trust and not to mention peoples trust in her. So the fact that I got a call whilst at the Suffolk Show to say she didn’t want to load to go home, is frankly a coup in itself that she is out and about competing at all. Her owner has done incredibly well to get where she has.
One of the things that often causes horses a problem with side load lorries is the walking in to a space they don’t apparently fit in to and then having to make a 90’ turn. So I will often practice the turn before attempting to load.
I also say that often the horse will ‘tell’ me which bit of loading it is that they are having a problem with.
We practiced the turn in a box size space with poles stood up against a wall to simulate the tight turn, and that didn’t seem to be too much of an issue.
So we went to the lorry with a mindset of ‘let’s see what she tells me’ and sure enough, I could see exactly what the issue was: there’s quite a step up from the ramp to the floor of the lorry, so because this lovely mare is a big girl, she needs to make the step up at the same time as turning, she’s too long to get in the lorry and then turn. And she couldn’t quite work out how to do it.
So we went back to our little ‘box’ exercise but this time with a pole to step over to simulate the step up whilst turning, and then back to the lorry and hey presto…
I’ll put the video of the exercise we used in the comments. I do love the ‘detective’ element of my job.
Silly season has most definitely arrived, but while I’ve been busy some lovely updates have been arriving in my inbox, like this lovely one from fellow TRECcie Mary and her newish horse Kasia. It’s so nice when people take the time to let me know how things are going.
Hi Bridget
I just wanted to let you know how Kasia and I are getting on a year after your visit. This was us at our first ever ‘party’. It was a Trec training session at a nearby yard. Four horses per group, an hours training and then a little mini competition at the end. Kasia was a star. Loaded beautifully in both directions ( we practiced at home a couple of times in the month preceding). Stood calmly during the teaching sessions and was happy to move away from the other horses. It was a really good experience.
Thank you for giving us the confidence to continue our partnership. This is the result. Once I’ve had my trailer serviced (bit fell off!! It wasn’t all smooth sailing) then hopefully we will be able to go out and about regularly.
Thank you again!
Mary
Maggie loves the lorry!
No rest for the wicked.
The Suffolk Show was great fun but also meant three full days of not earning so was essentially a holiday! Albeit a rather exhausting holiday.
So an even more busy than usual Saturday to make up for it today. Which finished off today with 14 year old owner Sophia doing an absolutely lovely job of loading 8 year old Maggie who had previously been dragging her all over the yard- anywhere but on to the lorry!
They were both like sponges to teach which makes my job extremely rewarding.
And Sophia’s non horsey parents said: “She’s like a different horse”.
Pebbles at Suffolk Show 2024
Being present enough to notice our horses LITTLE worries can make all the difference in their ability to put their trust in us as decision makers.
Suffolk Show 2024
The power and importance of small incremental steps.
Pebbles at the Suffolk Show
Here I am explaining looking for your ‘Yes, No and Maybes’ and how to turn your Maybe’s in to Yesses.
Introducing clippers demo Suffolk Show 2024
Where we started: don’t go straight to the point of consternation! First I need to build some trust in Pebbles that I can make good decisions for him.
I must stop clipping ❤️ ‘s on horses at demos, because I really can’t clip good ❤️’s!! 🤣
But what a good boy Pebbles was, all those vintage tractors rumbling away behind us sounded like an army of clippers heading his way!
If you can’t hear the audio well I’m saying that by allowing Pebbles to move when he feels he needs to, he’s actually less likely to want to. Human brains often think that the way to get a job done is if we can just get the horse confined in a small enough space, but that feeling of confinement often actually makes the situation worse. My human example is - if we had to visit the dentist would we feel better knowing we can stand up and walk out, or if we were tied to the chair?
I reinforce Pebbles standing still by taking the pressure off, teaching him that standing still works well for him. But I don’t insist he stands still. And I’m doing lots of positive reinforcement in the form of lovely scratches which he very much enjoys.
Albi at the Suffolk Show 2024
So a quick report from day one of the Suffolk Show and more to follow…
A looooong day! I’ve been up since 4am and I am typing this at 10pm having been home for half an hour so you’ll appreciate this might be ‘the highlights’ and a fuller debrief tomorrow.
We had some challenges- the weather was provided by Crowded House (cultural reference showing my age), some technical issues (mic’s etc)….
Albi my super lovely demo horse has just turned seven and has been out of racing a year. His last ‘big outing’ would have been to race and oh my golly today was a BIG atmosphere. As we headed in to the arena for our first demo the Prince Phillip cup mounted games got under away in the ring next door… galloping ponies, an excitable commentator whipping the crowd up… some feedback on our mics in the wind… it was a lot for Albi to deal with! So let’s just say he provided me with an excellent opportunity for some “real life, real time” horse training 🤣
I invited Albi along because I had worked with him recently, just once, and he was one of those lovely horses who make me look like a magician (witch, some of you will prefer). He came with a back story of being ‘impossible’ and runs backwards at speed, but after some groundwork he took less than 5 minutes to load.
But as loading away from home can be a very different story I knew he wasn’t going to be a doddle. And in the first five minutes of our demo when keeping all four feet on the floor was challenge enough I knew no one was going to be in any doubt that this was “one we prepared earlier!”
Anyway, once again Albi was a superstar going from ‘difficulty rating 10’ to foot perfect loading.
And if nothing else our audience hopefully saw how important it is to simply deal with the horse in front of you and not get too hung up on the agenda!
Sadly our second demo of the day was the one where ‘it all came together’… which I very much hope our three audience members e
More about expectations
A few weeks back I wrote a post called ‘Living up to expectations’ and talked about how horses, like people, tend to live up (or down) to our expectations and so we have to be careful to deal with the horse we have in front of us, not the one we expect to have in front of us… (big difference)
Bentleys owner Jo actually got in touch with me having seen the Facebook reel that went along with that post. And as it turned out Bentley was another case where it paid off to not get too invested in the back story.
Bentley came with the reputation of being ‘impossible’ to load despite many attempts by good people.
Jo also told me that the only area we could work in was a large car park which was not enclosed with lots of cars and horses coming and going. For this reason I decided to take round pen panels out with me, something I don’t think I’ve done for years, but they can be extremely useful in setting up a safe space to work in and Bentley sounded like the kind of horse that you don’t want to allow to practise his No!
As it turned out I don’t think we really needed the panels (and we folded them back out the way early on to confirm this) because it became clear in my pre-training exercises that the thing causing Bentley an issue was turning in a tight space. I’ll put a video of working through this in the comments.
And that’s exactly why I do pre-training exercises, my aim is to learn about the horse and what worries them and for them to learn about me and how I interact with them. I aim to take the individual components of loading and deal with those questions away from the trailer before putting those questions all together back at the trailer.
Jo’s “That was amazing!” with a big beaming smile is why I just love what I do.
Leo building good habits at the mounting block.
Remember Leo the horse I wrote about with an extreme abandonment complex?
I went back to see him this week and was thrilled to hear he has made enormous progress. Owner Jo said she has seen a real difference in him- he has been in situations where other horses have left, and where before he would have totally lost the plot, she has been able to redirect his attention and he’s stayed calm.
In fact, as we were standing discussing his progress, his neighbour left the stable and he stayed chatting with us.
I’ll post a picture of the stable door he destroyed when this happened previously in the comments.
I’ll also post a picture of Ted who is proving invaluable- Leo checks in with Ted when he goes in to his stable (he’s wearing one of Jo’s old T-shirts).
So success has been a combination of factors, but even I was impressed by how quickly he has improved. All down to Jo, who happens to be a dog trainer herself so well understands the concepts I am using. (It’s a really lovely thing that my client list boasts about five dog trainers I think, four vets, four trimmers, three physiotherapists - it’s great to work with other professionals from my field.)
But a new issue has arisen- standing still to mount. We think this might have come about as a result of saddle fit needing tweaked. So after a quick check in on the techniques we discussed in the first session we moved on to mounting. Hopefully that can now be added to the ‘In the bag’ list ✅
Jo’s friend watching said: “I’ve never seen him stand so calmly at the block.”
And an added bonus was that tension around mounting had meant that Leo was moving off with tension, but after a few repetitions of relaxed mounting Leo started to move off in a much more relaxed fashion- which is altogether more conducive to having a positive ride.
A delightful pair to work with and an owner who said she is “Delighted”. Lovely.
“It’s been emotional.”
A lot is talked in the equestrian world about the control of emotions. But is control really the right word?
We know that horses are extremely in tune with our emotional state and can reflect back at us what we are projecting, so it’s certainly true that there is no point getting cross and frustrated with our horses, as we are just going to end up with a cross frustrated horse on our hands.
But I think sometimes we are overly cautious about showing our emotions. We are conditioned by society as we grow up to suppress our emotions- it’s not the done thing to show our feelings too openly. (Maybe particularly so if you are of a certain age?)
I think sometimes we are taught that we mustn’t show fear because the horses will somehow exploit it.
I don’t think though, that suppressing emotions is helpful. When we suppress emotions what they do is build, like a jack in a box, and erupt eventually in an unhelpful overwhelming torrent.
Emotions when we own them, or accept them, generally are fleeting things. If we can acknowledge for instance “I’m a bit sad today but that’s okay, it will pass” that’s actually healthier than trying to ‘pretend’, because when we refuse to acknowledge that sadness we add it to a big well of sad which eventually we can’t keep the lid on any longer.
Often our own judgement of our emotions- feelings of ‘I shouldn’t feel sad, I’ve so much to be grateful for’, or ‘I don’t want to feel sad’ cause us more problems because we are waging an un-winable (yes, well it’s a word now, okay?) war with ourselves.
If we can just accept them for what they are- everyone gets sad sometimes, we all get scared, it’s natural to be frustrated - then actually we allow those emotions to pass through us and we can move on.
What I believe to be true is, that it’s not the case that our horses can’t deal with our emotions, rather our horses struggle to cope with our incongruity. When o
Very impromptu/unplanned video- just turned camera on to film Reb being cute, so excuse rubbishness but it says what I needed to say.
Thank you everyone for good thoughts today.
It could be worse… hopefully we can get Dee comfortable enough to come back as a light hack.
Giving myself the evening off from emails/messages etc so apologies if you are waiting for something from me. I will get back on it tomorrow.
First catch your pony…
Today’s brief was one of my favourites: catch the uncatchable.
I met owner Amanda about ten days ago when she called me out to help with a different horse. It was only as I was leaving that she mentioned she had another horse whose headcollar needed to come off.
Amanda showed me that she could get close enough to the lovely Marshall for him to take a treat from her but then he just exited stage left.
Mars only arrived in the UK from the USA a couple of months ago and hasn’t been caught since, he was wearing a headcollar which was hanging annoyingly low on his nose and still wearing his air freight tags. His owner didn’t know this when she bought him but it seems that Mars was stall kept in the US, so it’s not a huge surprise that having been turned out in a grassy paddock, and not knowing his new people Mars had decided he was going to hold on to his new found freedom, if you don’t mind thank you very much.
So homework was set to make a ‘catch pen’ that Mars could come in to of his own accord, for his food and hay on a daily basis for a week, in order to create a comfort zone before I returned today.
In all training, things will always progress more quickly when we are able to give the horse the release of pressure, rather than them releasing themselves from pressure. Coming to get the treat and then walking away was Mars’ way of releasing pressure, and in so doing he was teaching himself it was a good thing to do.
It may well have been possible given enough time to eventually catch Mars this way- but his feet are in need of attention and my concern was that he could become a welfare concern in the time it might take to bring him round. Sometimes it is necessary and ultimately the kindest thing to ‘push’ a little bit to get to a better place.
I’ll put in the comments my first ‘approach’ to Mars so you can see what we were up against. My non horsey partner is filming and he confessed later that in the first ten minutes he w
