13th August 2009

Plan

• Hill therapy
• friendly - legs, helicopter, lift leg, z3 toss rope over back, massage tail, pick up all for feet from one side, friendly flag
• Stick to me
• Touch it
• Circling game, practice me not moving feet
• Figure of 8's
• Drive weaving through cones
• Jumps
• Friendly ball
• Cross Tarps

Observation

An absolutely amazing session, learnt a lot!
Started with a lot of friendly. He is becoming very dominant with me, pushing me around and rubbing his itchies on me very hard. I matched his energy and brought my leadership up higher, I have been listening to pat talking about leadership and love and the balance between. I find it hard to be assertive at times because I dont want to be 'mean'. I found that the more assertive I got, the better he responded. It was interesting how quickly he stopped.

Larry has really changed as a horse. He is so much more confident and has been climbing the social ladder in the herd. He is beating everyone up except his love lulu and I have found that he has the same approach with me. He has also got a bit more play drive and I feel that some of the earlier probelms I had with him such as our sudden loss of yo-yo which used to be our best game is due to boredom (oh no the 7 jobs!!). Since he is becoming more confident I am trying to vary things as opposed to consistency.

Hill therapy, our first session, it was interesting to see how he handled himself (eek! hill therapy every play session now!). He pulled himself up the hill and fell down it. I havent ridden him in a while and will finish our hill therapy before I do again

I find that he is great at learning and this i believe is because of variance. This weekend I taught him to lead with his legs, even his hind which he hates having ropes around. I cant wait for the benefits of this, even though I dont want him to put his foot through a fence or something, it is great to know he will be prepared. I also started helicopter again and found that by doing it with the end of the 22ft instead of the carrot stick he is much happier, I guess that this is taking the pressure off him since he is still unconfident with the C.S. He was happier with it at his hind, not head area (RB position to run :D).

He is such a quick learner. We played on the tarp for a bit and he was the most confident I have seen him with the tarp so far. I read not long ago about a girl that asked her horse to lay down with her by getting on all fours and pawing the ground, her horse mirrored her. Well I didnt want to do that, its a bit too early, but I started pawing the tarp to see what he would do. I was pawing for a bit and he lifted his leg and put it back down, so I kept going and gently tapped his leg (how I asked him to pick up his legs) with the end of my C.S and he did 3/4 paws...well I was in tears!! I stopped and hugged him and he must have felt the positive energy...I asked him once more to reinforce and he did it again...I was hysterically crying with joy. I let him straight off the lead and ended it there, mainly because it was a great time to end the session with him feeling such positive energy, and secondly I didnt want to get too big for my boots and ask him for more stuff and confuse him. He stayed with me for a tiny bit, then walked straight back to the herd to beat them up....which was ok but I guess the herd still means more and I havent seen him in a while!

He is still turning circles around me, but I am putting my foot down and wont allow it anymore. As his confidence and leadership grows, my leadership must grow too, I must match and reinforce!!

5th July 2009 and 1st August 2009

Plan

• Friendly flag, C.stick
• yo-yo's
• stuff with gate
• tail, massage and life
• lead by front and hind leg

1st August plan

• Chillout session since been Overseas for a few weeks
• Friendly and 7 games reitteration
  

3rd July 2009

Plan

• more c.stick and flag and toss rope
• same as yesterday
• back up form nose and chest

Observation

Spent 1/2 hour on undemanding time with flag. Went really well, he gained a lot of confidence. Very mouth towards me, the carrot stick and at times the plastic bag. When I moved to his right he was OK but lost his confidence for a bit and hid behind me (RBI?????) looked sleepy- mild mild catatonic?
Still liked to have me next to him between him and the flag, although he did graze very close next to the flag. No obvious tensions except at the very beginning, didnt attempt to put it on him today

2nd July 2009

Plan

• Friendly flag, carrot stick, toss rope, helicopter
• Lift and lead by front led
• Back and forth from z3
• yo-yo up and down hill
• Change direction at trot
• Flapping rain coat

Observation

Couldnt do much due to the rain so focused on friendly. He came up to play with the flag, was mouthy with it but when I moved it with purpose he lost confidence. Extreme helicopter still not 100% confident. Throws head around - displace behaviour, wants to get away but can't.
Over body and face with lead rope great. Still positioning me on left shoulder. Seemed better having the carrot stick and savvy string friendly on the right side but prefers to have me on his left. Stuck around after session and stuck to me back to herd.

29th June 2009

Plan

• Friendly game with both carrot stick and flag (attempt z3 and z5)
• Games with the gate - sideways, yo-yo, squeeze
• Back up from nose and chest into and out ofshall
• Circles- change directions (hill therapy)
• Scratch ithcy spots
• Pick up all four feet from one side
• Umbrella

Observation

Getting curious with flag, still not confident. Great with slapping ground and helicopter.. Need to improve yo-yo communication and phases
Didnt do hill therapy or umbrella
Worked on focus and some liberty

Play session 7th July 2009

I wasnt actually able to see larry or play with him for 2 weeks during exam time, but once they were finished I was straight up to the farm and out again for a play session. He was happy to see me, came up to me etc and we started off great with some friendly. I was using my 22ft but things went a little sour. I was asking him to do things, but he had changed from LB to RB in an instant for what appeared to be no reason. Things just wernt working, I'd ask him to go over a pole and he jumped it like it was 6ft and run off. I'd ask him to do a circle one way but he'd spin the other way and charge off. Neck and tail high. Things wern't ok and it was serious RB behaviour, not LB play or dominance.
On the other side of me was Kate with Lulu doing some wonderful things and I was beginning to feel the pressure of having Larry on the end of my rope. Even though he never charges off and drags me along (infact he comes into me) we were both bouncing off each others emotions. There was no 'clear reason' for the behaviour from him, his herd were around him and nothing spooky was happening. One of the worst things was (and this has been happening A LOT since the course with his yo-yo) that when i would yo-yo him, he would assume I wanted a circle or to come straight in towards me instead of backing up, and I remember at the Chris Corbidge course being taught to break the pattern. So break the pattern was all that went through my head. My 22ft flying everywhere.
What i know about Larry is that undemanding time and hugs are what relaxes him (and I know that he sometimes uses this to get out of doing things, or especially to hide) but we both needed to relax, take a break and think things through - break the pattern just wasn't working and we were both getting more emotional.
So I went and sat on a log and tried to find the reason he was acting like this. I knew that he was trying trying trying, but getting more and more upset with confusion, and that confusion was because of me. I was not being clear enough and perhaps going too fast in my suggestions to him and being too strong with my "break the patterns", I was shouting at him via my commands.
I decided to retreat to my 12ft and go back to the basics and the 7 games.
Well, that fixed everything!! By the end of the session we had achieved so much more than ever before! Back and forwards over a log, driving from Z3, kick the ball, ball everywhere around him, bouncing and above my head too, foot on jump, Pick foot up with savvy string, yo-yo between two poles, sideways next to pole, sideways over pole, the list goes on! But, two AMAZING things happened.
I decided that I wanted to get on him bareback and spend undemanding time with him, but as he is so tall i need him next to the jump in our play area to get on. I tried and tried to line him up but 1. he has issues with riding (which are just surfacing) and 2. my directing him sideways to me sucks haha. Anyway Im on top of the log jumps and he offers to me even more than I could have imagined from my direct line thought of riding and starts going sideways next to the jump, circles around and steps over it. Well, I was sooo happy! I then decided to direct him from the jump. We were yo-yoing, doing sideways, jumps, circles etc. OMG playing ontop of the jump became so much better than my thought of being a fat blob on him bareback and even more, i was doing it from a different height and he had no issues!WOW!
Perhaps I should have ended the session there, but I became his pet predator again (luckily this did not ruin us) and decided to experiment with some liberty. I tied the 12ft to the halter and round his neck so i didnt have to hold it, but it was there incase. Well, the relationship that day must have been awesome. We were chasing each other around the play area, which is not closed off and is in a HUGE paddock, but he stuck to me. Id run backwards, turn fast and he'd follow. Everything I could have ever dreamed of. We then did sideways at liberty (no circles or yo-yo as Im not that great yet and probably would have lost him :D). I haven't come away from a session that proud of him, or that proud of myself in a while.

All because I sat down and reached a new level of savvy. I stepped back, realised my frist approach wasn't working, and then changed it. THAT'S IT! THAT'S SAVVY!