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Apr. 16th, 2005 11:10 pmNick, who'd been ailing much of the week, appears to be on the road back to normal. She was much more pleasant today and appears to have a full range of motion back in her neck. This is just in time for me to take her out for a spin tomorrow, which should do both of us good. Today we worked on ground skills and I learned that she can "feel" my hand and move away from pressure when my hand isn't even touching her -- about two inches of air between me and her. Yay for us. The invisible-yet-effective contact is a sign that she's really attuned to what I want and we're on the same page. The only down side with this is that if I forget to ask lightly and go directly to with-contact asking, I burn the cue. *sigh* Some days I feel like I'm training me instead of the damn horse.
Work with Taku continues. She's quite smart, if a little goochy yet. Today we played with a feed sack. For non-agricultural people, modern feed sacks are made of plastic. They rattle if you shake them. Inexperienced horses should be gradually exposed to lots of flappy, noise-making items. Confronting scary things helps them control their emotions a bit and defeating scary things builds their confidence. The process of gradually exposing an inexperienced horse to a flappy, noise-making item is called "sacking out". It's not a very original idea on my part to use a feed sack for this process. Anyway. We did not make tons of headway with the sacking out process. *sigh* Tomorrow is another day. I did, finally, get her to touch it with her nose lots of times. It's about forty steps from the driveway to the field gate. Taku drifts to the gate. She wants to go there, to get put away. So each time I touched her nose with the feed sack, I'd take a big step towards the gate. Then I'd stop and wait and offer the feed sack. Nose to feed sack, and another big step towards the gate. It took her about five reps to get the idea. Fucking horse is ugly as sin but she's brilliant. Once she's got the idea, she tests it to see if it really does work. It's so funny to watch her figure out the answer and then TEST it. I can almost see the little wheels spinning in her head.
[SIMULATED HORSE THOUGHTS]
Okay, if I put my nose on the feed sack, she'll take a big step towards the fence. Right. However, humans bore easily. I'll just wait here a while and see... Uhm. Wait a while... Er. Waiting. Waiting. She's just holding out the sack. She looks like she can wait all day. LA LA LA, I'm waiting. Waiting. She's still standing. Still. Holding out the feed sack. Bet I can go around her. Er. No, damn it. Just a big circle and she's still standing there with the fucking feed sack. Hrm. How about if I lunge really fast past her? *yank* No. Bad plan. No more plans like that one. I didn't get anywhere, just went in a big circle ad dow by pucking doze hurtz. Fuck it. *nose to sack* Ha! Look at that! PH33R MY POW3RZ! *nose to sack* I AM DA MAN! *nose to sack* Yep, she's my bitch.
Work with Taku continues. She's quite smart, if a little goochy yet. Today we played with a feed sack. For non-agricultural people, modern feed sacks are made of plastic. They rattle if you shake them. Inexperienced horses should be gradually exposed to lots of flappy, noise-making items. Confronting scary things helps them control their emotions a bit and defeating scary things builds their confidence. The process of gradually exposing an inexperienced horse to a flappy, noise-making item is called "sacking out". It's not a very original idea on my part to use a feed sack for this process. Anyway. We did not make tons of headway with the sacking out process. *sigh* Tomorrow is another day. I did, finally, get her to touch it with her nose lots of times. It's about forty steps from the driveway to the field gate. Taku drifts to the gate. She wants to go there, to get put away. So each time I touched her nose with the feed sack, I'd take a big step towards the gate. Then I'd stop and wait and offer the feed sack. Nose to feed sack, and another big step towards the gate. It took her about five reps to get the idea. Fucking horse is ugly as sin but she's brilliant. Once she's got the idea, she tests it to see if it really does work. It's so funny to watch her figure out the answer and then TEST it. I can almost see the little wheels spinning in her head.
[SIMULATED HORSE THOUGHTS]
Okay, if I put my nose on the feed sack, she'll take a big step towards the fence. Right. However, humans bore easily. I'll just wait here a while and see... Uhm. Wait a while... Er. Waiting. Waiting. She's just holding out the sack. She looks like she can wait all day. LA LA LA, I'm waiting. Waiting. She's still standing. Still. Holding out the feed sack. Bet I can go around her. Er. No, damn it. Just a big circle and she's still standing there with the fucking feed sack. Hrm. How about if I lunge really fast past her? *yank* No. Bad plan. No more plans like that one. I didn't get anywhere, just went in a big circle ad dow by pucking doze hurtz. Fuck it. *nose to sack* Ha! Look at that! PH33R MY POW3RZ! *nose to sack* I AM DA MAN! *nose to sack* Yep, she's my bitch.
