Post by LouiseM on Jun 11, 2006 22:19:48 GMT 1
Just wanted to share my husband's thoughts on the clinic last weekend. He's spectated in the past but this is the first clinic he's taken part in
(sorry this is long, but this is the heavily edited version! PM me if you want the full 1,500+ word version!)
Saturday morning began with bright sunshine and a general chat with Steve and the participants in the clinic to discuss what we wanted to achieve. My goals were relatively simple- I wanted to be able to hold Othello's attention instead of him ignoring me and I wanted to help him move more softly and in a relaxed fashion rather than in his typical tense and braced way. Because I was self-confessedly the least experienced horseman with the least experienced horse I volunteered us to go first.
We began with some very simple leading and Steve quickly picked up some problems with the most basic things I was doing. Steve did some basic work with him, observing that the way he was looking away from handlers and tasks and seeming to not be paying attention was actually him defensively blanking out humans in the hope that if he shut down and ignored them hard enough, they might go away. This is probably because he has been treated in a way that seemed to him as though whatever he tried to do was the wrong thing, so he just closed down and stopped trying. This made me realise that the reason that he has seemed slow on the uptake is possibly because he has never been able to benefit from making a decision- it seemed to him that whatever he did was wrong and so he just gave up trying and let himself be dragged around by whatever human was on the end of the rope unless he saw an opportunity to drag them off. Steves approach to working with horses is to set them up with choices and to make the right choice easier. He can be very direct and bring a lot of energy into his work, but he always notices and rewards the slightest try on the part of the horse.
Within minutes Othello was starting to realise that not only did his choices count but he could choose to make things easy for himself. When I took him back he was much more receptive and willing to listen - quickly we were leading from both sides in such a way that our legs were perfectly synchronised. Othello had relaxed so much by this point that he looked like a different horse, much softer and more willing to listen. By the end of that first hour he was behaving significantly differently.
Watching the other participants through the rest of the day was also fascinating - seeing how many of the things that started out looking like very different problems actually came back to the same basics that Othello and I had worked on already was most informative.
This morning we had our second session - Othello and I were first again - and this time the focus was on controlling Othello's feet, moving his hindquarters and shoulders to make sure he is going exactly where I ask, getting him to step under his body and to follow the softest feel on a rope to encourage him to respond accurately to light cues. There was a lot of consolidation for both of us and once Steve had explained where I needed to stand (at some points he had to actually take my shoulders and move me to the right place before I could understand it) we started to get some really good results.
(sorry this is long, but this is the heavily edited version! PM me if you want the full 1,500+ word version!)
Saturday morning began with bright sunshine and a general chat with Steve and the participants in the clinic to discuss what we wanted to achieve. My goals were relatively simple- I wanted to be able to hold Othello's attention instead of him ignoring me and I wanted to help him move more softly and in a relaxed fashion rather than in his typical tense and braced way. Because I was self-confessedly the least experienced horseman with the least experienced horse I volunteered us to go first.
We began with some very simple leading and Steve quickly picked up some problems with the most basic things I was doing. Steve did some basic work with him, observing that the way he was looking away from handlers and tasks and seeming to not be paying attention was actually him defensively blanking out humans in the hope that if he shut down and ignored them hard enough, they might go away. This is probably because he has been treated in a way that seemed to him as though whatever he tried to do was the wrong thing, so he just closed down and stopped trying. This made me realise that the reason that he has seemed slow on the uptake is possibly because he has never been able to benefit from making a decision- it seemed to him that whatever he did was wrong and so he just gave up trying and let himself be dragged around by whatever human was on the end of the rope unless he saw an opportunity to drag them off. Steves approach to working with horses is to set them up with choices and to make the right choice easier. He can be very direct and bring a lot of energy into his work, but he always notices and rewards the slightest try on the part of the horse.
Within minutes Othello was starting to realise that not only did his choices count but he could choose to make things easy for himself. When I took him back he was much more receptive and willing to listen - quickly we were leading from both sides in such a way that our legs were perfectly synchronised. Othello had relaxed so much by this point that he looked like a different horse, much softer and more willing to listen. By the end of that first hour he was behaving significantly differently.
Watching the other participants through the rest of the day was also fascinating - seeing how many of the things that started out looking like very different problems actually came back to the same basics that Othello and I had worked on already was most informative.
This morning we had our second session - Othello and I were first again - and this time the focus was on controlling Othello's feet, moving his hindquarters and shoulders to make sure he is going exactly where I ask, getting him to step under his body and to follow the softest feel on a rope to encourage him to respond accurately to light cues. There was a lot of consolidation for both of us and once Steve had explained where I needed to stand (at some points he had to actually take my shoulders and move me to the right place before I could understand it) we started to get some really good results.
