Life Intervening

I'm not dead, I promise.

Life is currently haywire.  I work in the defense industry as a pricing analyst (it sounds much fancier than it really is, trust me).  In my company there are two pricing analysts.  One went to Vegas and ended up in the emergency room with a perforated colon.  One stayed home and now has to do all the work.  Guess which one is me?

I've been spending a little time with the ponies.

Last week I finally did some work on shimming my saddle - got in just under the wire on that part of my August goals!  It's not perfect but I think it lifts my saddle more off Bleu's shoulder.  My saddle is build for my brick-house QH mare.  While the spring of Bleu's ribs is enough to support the middle and back, her narrow, rotated shoulders are trapped by the super-wide gullet that fits Cricket's linebacker build.

I took a Centered Riding lesson on Bleu last week.  She did fantastic.  It was only the third time I'd ridden her in a bit and the first time I'd done anything with real contact.  I think she liked it . . . a lot.  We worked on balancing Bleu and getting her to move her body with more nose-to-tail connection.  She is very strung out and Mimi gave me some ideas for helping her use her body better.

I've not been following a regimented clicker program with Cricket.  I'm just not focused enough.  But I have been playing with it.  We've been doing some liberty in the arena and having a blast.  The other night, I had Cricket in a lovely canter circle game - all her idea.  Did I mention the arena gate was open?  And that she actually spiraled in towards me rather than heading for the great wide open?  Love that mare!  She tried to give me a FLC on a change of direction but got tangled up (she made the choice too late) and ended up bucking up to sort out her feet.  She also did some lovely trot sideways towards.

So for now it's hit or miss with getting horse time and, unfortunately, hit or miss with getting to blog about it.  Maybe in the coming weeks it will settle down.  As it's Government Fiscal Year end, I highly doubt it.

Having A Little Fun

So I haven't been doing much with the horses other than routine care.  Chaos reigns in my little universe and I seem to be struggling against the tide of disorder.  But I have found a little time to just have fun with Cricket.

One day last week, I pulled her out to groom her and have a look at her feet.  I incorporated the clicker for picking up and holding her foot.  I would have been more successful without the added task of picking and spraying her feet.  As such, I didn't reward her honest efforts even when they failed to meet my needs for the husbandry tasks I was trying to perform.

Of course Cricket knows to pick up her feet, so why add the clicker.  Because I can.  Because it seems to cause her to become a willing participant in whatever I'm doing.  And it's not as much for the treats as some (even I) might think.  It's because she knows she's right.  And if there is one trait she gets from her two-legged mother, it's a deep love of being right.

Saturday I decided to just play with her.  No plan, no idea - just a loose horse, an arena with stuff in it and a bag of treats with a clicker.  I had my carrot stick to help guide her but tried, as best as I could, to just offer enough pressure to indicate what I might want.

She played with the barrels, the cones and the big bridge.  She offered close range circles at the walk, trot and canter.  She jumped the small cross rail and a single down barrel.  We just played and had fun.  No stress, no worries.  Just having fun together.

And isn't that what this is supposed to be about?

Oh, I did jump on her bareback and bridleless.  We meandered around for awhile and I introduced some C/T for lateral flexion.  That was interesting.  But it was fun.

Something Clicked!

Two days of clicker play with Cricket and I'm wondering why I never stuck with this before.

I started with targeting a small plastic cone and also introduced standing on a mat.  Cricket picked up targeting after a few clicks.  Almost like, "Hey! I remember this!"  The mat took her a moment but it wasn't long before she was doing something with it.

I did four short sessions on Friday and four sessions yesterday.  By the time we were done last night, she had just about figured out the idea was to put both feet on the mat.  In clicking her for duration, I started to select for a "pretty girl pose" - eyes forward, chin slightly tucked.  I can't get her ears forward because she ends up standing sideways to me and one ear is always on me!  Eventually we'll get it.

This is the beginning of a major change.  I need to process some more before I post.

More Natural than Natural Horsemanship?

Late last night I finished reading Karen Pryor's newest book, Reaching the Animal Mind.  I bought it as part of my renewed interest in clicker training.  I thought it would be a fun read and get me psyched up to fool around with CT and Cricket.

Boy howdy was I wrong!

If you've ever been even remotely curious about clicker training, read this book.

It starts out very anecdotal - Karen tells stories of her various experiences with clicker trained animals, weaving through out the stories the benefits of clicker training over conventional or traditional methods.

And just when you think this is a cute book about some cute animals, she introduces the science that simply blows your mind.

Clicker training accesses the deep, primitive structures of the brain: the amygdala, or "reptilian brain" and the hypothalamus, part of our emotional center.  Learning in these two structures is different than the more evolved cerebral cortex.  Clicker training taps into the more immediate, permanent learning of the amygdala and the hypothalamus.

Could it be that clicker training is more natural than even natural horsemanship?

I wish I could explain it as eloquently as Karen laid it all out in her book.  I simply cannot recommend this book enough.

I understand, now, the light in Cricket's eyes when I pull out the clicker and the treats.  It's not the food (read the book and you'll understand why!).  It's something so much more than that.  I cannot wait to get this started again!

Gearing Up

Being the consumate LBI, I cannot start any new adventure without reading and thinking and planning and plotting.  I have decided to revisit clicker training with Cricket. A recent post on Emma Kline's blog and some encouragement from my friend Clare have sort of kicked me into gear.

I have dabbled with clicker training, never ready to fully commit.  I started reading Karen Pryor's, Don't Shoot the Dog and I bought and perused Alexandra Kurland's books on equine clicker training.  I played around with it and had some fun and some success.  But I just wasn't ready.

Last night I started re-reading (for the umpteenth time!) Sharon Foley's book, Getting to Yes.  I first heard of Sharon from a good friend and fellow PNH student who was combining CT and PNH.  I "met" Sharon through an interent clicker group and actually had some lovely conversations with her.  Sharon's approach combines classical dressage, natural horsemanship and clicker training.  Three of my favorite subjects all rolled into one.  How cool is that!

I came across Sharon's blog and started looking through some of the archives.  In her post, The Paradigm Shift, she writes:

The rule, that applies no matter what you are training, is behavior that is rewarded will tend to occur more often. All trainers depend on the horse finding doing what you want more desirable than not doing it. Some people may use the method of forcing the horse to “want” to cooperate by making not-cooperating more unpleasant. This puts the emphasis on the “wrong” thing. Clicker training turns the equation around and looks instead only at the goal, the right thing. By giving the right thing the most attention and reinforcement you simply get more of the right thing.

Sounds like a damn fine idea to me.  In the above post and in her book, Sharon uses a quote from Bill Dorrance.  I've heard part of it from Pat but Bill's twist just seems to be more about where I'm at right now.

Some fellas will say, make the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult, and that may work for them. But, I say, why not just make the right thing obvious? - Bill Dorrance