Further Adventures with Bridget

How do you get a Bridget to go forward?

Answer #1:  If the Bridget is not used to a rider and legs, even a little amount of pressure will cause a Bridget to go, "Yikes! What was that?!" and walk forward.

Answer #2:  When the Bridget is used to the rider and legs, pressure will cause the Bridget to turn her head all the way around to inspect the leg closely, asking, "What is that annoying thing you're doing with your foot?"

Answer #3:  After you've spent several intervening days pondering the issues posed by Answer #2 and how you're going to induce the Bridget to proceed forward without resorting to Old Fashioned Means, the said Bridget will have solved the issue in her own little head and will walk forward on your first or second request.

Why does a Bridget approve of being ridden?

Because when the Bridget is being lead around, the human on the end of the rope is very slow and boring.

Because if a Bridget is turned loose into the wide world, it's TOO SCARY to go across the farm to the far side all by herself and See What's There.

Because when the rider is up, Bridget can go ANYWHERE SHE WANTS, and her buddy has no option but to accompany her at a reasonable pace and without being slow and boring.

When does Bridget's rider get to lay down the law?

Sometimes Bridget's rider says, "No More Eating!" Bridget will toss her head and maybe say a bad word, but then she's like, "Oh ok, whatever."

Sometimes Bridget's rider says, "Slowly please!" Or, sometimes, "Stop!" Bridget will accommodate such requests without demur.

Sometimes Bridget's rider will say, "Let's make a circle here, just for - y'know - like, practice." Bridget will get into the spirit of this somewhat willingly-ish.

Sometimes Bridget's rider dismounts, takes the saddle off, gives Bridget a shower and then tries to take her back to her pasture. Bridget usually says, "No, no, no, no, no, don't want to." So it might take a loooooong time to get her back there.

Why does a Bridget walk away when you appear with the halter?

Aha! We have a rather different answer to that now. Now what she's up to is getting away from George before she's confined at the end of a leadrope and at his mercy. (Mea culpa? Should I make Bridget feel safer?)

How do you know this?

Because, while I suspected this for some time, it was confirmed the other day when I appeared with the halter and she walked away from me across the field toward the other gate. When I caught up with her, she stopped. Then, just to check, I left her and walked the rest of the way toward the gate. She followed me and then was totally fine with me putting the halter on. And today, when I appeared ditto, she did the same thing and was thoroughly put out when I took George out instead of her.

Why does Bridget have a gash under her arm?

Because that George lunged at her, and she wheeled around to get away, and there was a fence in the way, and she reared up and came down with one leg in the fence. She is almost all healed.

Here is a fun item Bridget found one day while exploring with a rider.
(Sorry, I don't  think the video works - but you get the picture.)

Freedom to Refuse

On Saturday I went out on two last-minute trimming calls. Two different barns but, coincidentally, two recent rescues who needed trimming, preferably before Christmas.

The first call was to a new mini, adopted a few days before by a man who already owns three. He has a lovely, neat set-up for his pets and takes very good care of them. He's a softie when it comes to dwarf minis, and he heard about this little one who was being fostered by a dog-rescue lady until a permanent home could be found for him.

His name is Bashful, and he is the teeniest, tiniest mini you have ever seen. Five years old and fully grown, weighing less than 60 pounds. It was obviously a very, very long time since his last trim - perhaps he'd never been trimmed before. Both fore hoofs were growing out to the side, and he was walking on the side wall of both hoofs. Both hoofs curved to the left. These dwarfs can have distorted joints, but he has mobility in the fetlock joint, and I think if his hoofs could grow straight, he might be able to walk on his heels. But HOW to effect the transition? This will require some thinking and consultation with others more experienced than I. On Saturday we settled for getting rid of most of the excessive over growth to get things started, but I didn't want to take it all away, as it wasn't clear what would be left for him to land on.

He was so little, his owner just picked him up and plonked him on his side. He didn't seem to mind, and when we were done, he stuck around being curious and friendly.

The second call was to a newly-adopted pinto Shetland pony. When we started, he was very distracted by his absence from his pasture-mates, and he reared away occasionally while I was working on his forefeet. I encouraged him to "ask politely" and pretty soon he got the hang of doing just that, and we were able work on his feet, taking little breaks when he wanted.

The hind legs were a different matter. He turned out to be a kicker, and when it comes to kicking, ponies are champs. At one point, he kicked out with both feet at once, and the stand went flying. So - time to back off and re-group. Seemed like he had had a bad experience in the past with his hind legs being worked on, which is turning out to be a not-infrequent experience, with ponies especially. The first thing to do was to ask him NOT to pick up his leg. I put my hand on his leg and asked him to leave it on the ground. Kick. Try again. Kick. But after several more tries, he left his foot planted.

At this point, the pony became pensive, calm, and inwardly listening. He turned to look at me sometimes. I started asking him to pick up his foot, and each time he refused. I backed off, asked again, he refused, I backed off, asked again, received a refusal .... and so on. I've come to see this as a powerfully positive experience for both horse and human -  this opportunity for the horse to respond to a request with a refusal. Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling talks about obtaining an almost immediate "healing" in horses when he works with them. I've always found this very puzzling, but in this dialog of "Will you?"-"No, I won't," I'm finding there is a balm and a peace for both species involved. Perhaps this is akin to what KFH talks about?

After a while, I started to put a little suggestive pressure on to his foot - not trying to make him pick up his foot, but to illustrate what I was asking. We set up a little quiet conversation between my pressure and his resistance. I was saying "Do you think you might shift your balance a little so that your foot could come up?" He knew it wasn't going to escalate to an argument, and so he was able to respond with, "Well, maybe, let me see, maybe I could, just a little."

And then, with no fuss, he picked his foot up; I plonked it on the stand, and there it remained of its own accord until I was done trimming. Work on the other foot proceeded more quickly.

The thing is - for this to "work," it can't be about getting it to work. I have to be willing to walk away with the work unstarted or incomplete. I remember Lynne Gerard saying something to this effect (I believe it was in response to a comment I left on her blog). I had succeeded in "getting" a friend's mare to take her medicine (which she normally resisted) by holding her on a loose rope, politely asking her to take the medicine, and by expecting her to take it. Lynne congratulated me but wisely reminded me that if my intentions were sincere, I had to be willing to not succeed as well.

This is the way we should treat our fellow humans too, I believe. Unless someone is going to cause harm to themselves or others, there is no cause for coercion. That is why I admire the special ed school where my daughter teaches. The kids are given ample opportunity to act goofy and play, but when it comes time to teach The Basics (manners, sharing, anger control, arithmetic, reading, etc.), the teachers do the equivalent of me standing with my hand on the pony's fetlock, waiting. My daughter has been punched, bitten, kicked, and cursed at. But she and the other teachers don't react; they stand quietly, waiting and suggesting. These children, who have failed at (been failed by) all the other programs they have attended, gradually blossom and improve. I wish all school children could be treated like this.

I am thankful to the little pinto pony for being present, for trusting for listening, and for communicating.

The Bored Game

I can't quite remember how or why I came up with the Bored Game. Leading impatient horses from one pasture to fresh grass in another may have had something to do with it. Waiting with Bridget while she makes up her mind to step backwards when I ask may have been another cause.

Be that as it may, the Bored Game is a very useful tool.

It goes like this:

Rule No. 1: We Are Both Bored. Sorry, but there it is.

Rule No. 2:  No Eating.

Rule No. 3:  No Moving Feet.

Rule No. 4:  No Getting In My Space.

Rule No. 5:  No Scratching Your Leg To Distract Yourself.

Rule No. 6:  I Suppose I Can't Stop You from Pawing the Ground.

Rule No. 7:  No Taking An Interest in Anything.

Rule No. 8:  No Chit Chat

Rule No. 9:  The Human Must Always Insist Politely and Display Good Manners.

Rule No. 10:  Like I Said: We're Bored.

The first reaction of the horse (especially if her name is Bridget) is: "What? Are you kidding me? You're kidding, right? I know you're kidding - here let me chew your arm a little bit. What?! No??!"

In the case of Bridget, she raises her objections in an upfront, communicative way. Other horses continue their quest to distract themselves and get away from being in-the-moment-with-the-boring-person by pawing, trying to graze, pulling, or - as in the case of a little mini I was working with the other day - rearing. Before long, however, a magical change occurs, and boredom settles like a gentle mist upon the scene. Only when the horse stops resisting it, it's not boredom - it's peace.

I've had occasion lately to ask owners to play the Bored Game before the horse would agree to cooperate with trimming. Once that blessed aura of peace descends, you can see how futile it was to try and work with the horse's mind constantly darting off in all directions.

Today, I was trimming a very bossy, smart, dominant mare. She's done fine with me in the past, but today her owner warned me that she's been very difficult lately and that we might not get anything done, as she's been refusing to let her owner work with her feet. Sure enough, when I started working, she would give me her foot but immediately snatch it away again. She was very distracted, fidgety and absent. So I introduced the Bored Game. She surprised me by not taking very long to subside into an almost trance like serenity. I caught myself talking too loudly and agitatedly - the comparison between me and the horse suddenly showed me in a bad light, and I slowed down to join the mare in her tranquillity. The owner was pleasantly surprised by the mare's mood.

Maintaining this restful state, I asked the mare to give me her hind foot, which she quietly did, and I was able to work on both hind feet. However, when it came to the front feet, whichever foot I asked for she would calmly press into the ground, at the same time leaning gently into me with her shoulder. I don't know where this new reluctance has come from - she is sound, and I don't believe she is physically challenged by holding up her front feet - but I would prefer that she politely refuse to give her foot than that she give it and then snatch it away. I decided that it would be "against the rules" for me to use any physical effort to try and pick up her foot myself. She knew I wanted the foot, and for whatever reason, she declined.

But this was a conversation, and a polite one at that - very different from the interaction we'd been having just a short while before - the mare listening to distant sounds, thinking about the other horses, reaching for food, pushing into her owner, giving her foot, snatching it away, moving her feet.

This mare lives on dry, stony ground; her feet are good; and her owner knows how to rasp hoofs in between trimmer visits. So we agreed to let her off the hook. For a fearful horse, it's very empowering to be allowed to leave the feet on the ground. Somehow, even though this mare is far from fearful, I felt it was important to give her the same consideration we'd give to an anxious horse. Who knows - perhaps her hyper, pushy behavior might be a form of anxiety. This mare was an unlikely candidate to embrace the Bored Game, but she did, and perhaps she was thankful for it.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity to work with owners like the owner of this mare, who not only shares my "liberal" views about horses but is relieved that I share hers. We both agreed that "letting the horse get away with it" does NOT make things worse the next time, but can often make things better.  I'll be curious to see how the mare will process her experience today. Today I feel I really learned (again! - seems a lesson that I must repeat many times before it really sinks in) the importance of working from a place of peace and focus. Hempfling says (something like), "Everyday chaos accumulates to high danger," and I think this is a wise observation.

The owner and I drew the mare into a state of peace, but once she was there, the mare drew us in even deeper. The hyper mare teaching the humans a lesson in tranquility. Horses are perennially amazing.

Third Time's a Charm

Today I returned for the third time to trim a little herd of three horses (and a yearling, who doesn't need to be trimmed yet). The first time I went, the horses were pretty much all basket cases. The last time (Passing Go, 9/13/12), things went rather more smoothly.

Today, the horses were all perfect.

We started with the original runaway gelding, who behaved like a complete angel, permitting his front feet to be completed inside and out. He has stringhalt and is a little funny about his hind legs, but he was very cooperative while I worked on the undersides, and I let go of the idea of prettifying the outsides on the grounds that he'd been very good and I didn't want to push it.

The nervous gelding was also a total mensch. He found it hard to lift his RF, as his RH leg has problems, but we figured out that if his owner provided a leaning post at his left shoulder, he was able to give me his RF foot and let me keep it long enough to work on. He had to hop around a little and figure out out to brace his back legs in order to accomplish this, but we had enough trust established that he was fine with me gently keeping his LF while he tweaked his balance.  As his LH was still obviously giving him problems, I feared that - like last time - he wouldn't let me touch it. Again, I asked permission before even approaching the leg, and this time there was no reaction from him. When I touched the leg, he gently picked up the foot. As his hind feet have been wearing very nicely and evenly, I just settled for picking up both hind feet; and then we were done.

The dominant mare was a poster child for good behavior, and all the work on her feet was completed in a timely manner. As with the nervous gelding, I felt we were now on a footing of cordiality and trust, so when it was a little tricky to find a good angle/position/height to rest her hind feet on the post in order to rasp the outsides, we were able to fiddle about and try different things without anyone becoming stressed.

Then the owner asked if the Percheron yearling could be introduced to the concept of future hoof trims. He's very friendly, but not used to being handled by anyone except his owner. When she clipped on a leadrope, and he saw me looking purposeful, he became anxious and wanted to leave. I could feel myself acting too assertive and even menacing, but didn't know how to stop. I figured that if I took the leadrope, I could interact with the yearling in a way that felt more normal to me. That did help, and then I remembered my manners and - giving the leadrope back to the owner - stood back and asked permission before approaching. That mollified the youngster, who was then comfortable enough to give me his feet, one after the other. And that was enough for one day. He has beautiful round, well-worn feet with huge, healthy frogs.

The "guidelines" I established at the last visit for working with these horses seem to have proved very helpful. Instead of the nervous, mentally absent, annoyed, resistant, fearful, and reactive creatures which I met at my first visit, the horses have become cordial, helpful and focussed. These guidelines are not a magic formula for every horse in every situation though. I still have a lot to learn and figure out. For instance, the other day I was trimming a good-old-boy buckskin gelding who absolutely-no-way-forget-about-it was going to let me work on his RF. Last time I got him to lean against a wall, but this time he'd been shut inside for three days because of a storm (thanks, Sandy) and was just too stiff and sore on his left  hind stifle. (Why is it that sometimes that makes the same-side foreleg hard to work on, and sometimes the opposite-side foreleg?) My daughter was with me, and she said she'd never seen a horse rear so politely! It was true - he didn't want to make a scene or hurt anyone or run away - but if I held onto his RF, he just, politely, reared up and took his foot away. So we just had to give up and hope that next time he's not so stiff. And buckskins, I'm finding (call me racist), are a stubborn lot. Well, not stubborn - strong-willed and sure of themselves.

I'm more and more convinced of the incredibly cooperative nature of The Horse. I used to espouse the pressure/release approach to training: put a little pressure on - increase it if the horse resists - release it if the horse cooperates. Nowadays I prefer to just ask.

No relevant photos, but here is one of Bridget from the summer. (Ah! The summer!)

Finding a Balance

Sometimes it's hard to find a middle point between the two extremes of being confrontational and being a milktoast.

There are certain horses whom I find particularly challenging in this respect. Ahem, did I say "appaloosas"? Surely I wouldn't say something as racist as that?

Today, however, the challenging horse was not in fact an Appie but a buckskin Quarter Horse mare, about seven years old.

The owner has four horses and a donkey. She saved the buckskin mare for last, after the other equids had proven themselves to be gracious and cooperative. I was warned me that the buckskin was occasionally aggressive and often not cooperative and that I shouldn't worry if I couldn't get much done.

The owner was really nice to work with, because she knows all her horses very well and has a good relationship with each one, as well as helpful insight into both their character and their physical condition. It was no different with the "difficult" mare. The owner really loves her in spite of/because of  her strong-willed nature and was able to help me with her, rather than just standing there randomly saying "Whoa! Steady!" and apologizing for the horse - which is what some people do.

I think it was because of the very good relationship this mare has with her human (who understands and appreciates her character, while at the same time insisting on certain improvements in the behavior resulting from that character) that the horse was able to help me figure out how to "deal with" her.

It seemed that the following were good approaches to adopt:

1. not to be bossy or confrontational;

2.  not to be intimidated;

3.  to allow the mare to express a certain imperiousness - e.g. allowing her to snatch her leg away; but at the same time

4.  to keep asking for more help and cooperation;

5.  to ask and expect her to give me her leg of her own accord; and

6.  to remind her - if she forgot and became too engrossed with her haynet - that I was standing there waiting for her to pick up her foot.

By the time I was working on the hind legs, she was picking up her foot freely and leaving it on the stand.

The owner was relieved, as there have been some tussles in the past with this mare and the farrier.

As I drove away, I reflected that I felt it really was the horse who had been the instructor somehow, that she had firmly and kindly shown me how she wanted things done, and had rewarded me when I figured it out.