Day #7: “Horsenality Tuesday,” Sept. 1

1. September 2009 by Edie.

“Knowing what makes your horse tick, what’s important to him, what motivates,de-motivates,upsets, or excites him is a fantastic key to success with your horse.”  ~Linda Parelli

Today I came to the ranch early to check on HotShot.  He was a bit swollen up,  but none the worse for wear, just a slight limp on his right front leg.  So, I took him out and moved him around a bit in the same 50′ round pen (returning to the scene).  He was a bit nervous at first, but settled down quickly.  I gave him about 10 minutes to move around, then put him away for my morning classroom session.

We started in the ranch house with John Baar talking again about rapport and how important it is to have it.  He described it as the basis under the triangle hierarchy (bottom to top) of Respect, Impulsion, and Flexion, but separate from those three, since the amount of Rapport varies in size.  He stated that as our savvy increases, we actually need LESS rapport to be effective with any given horse (like Pat).  We do need to continue to build our rapport with our horses, as it is the basis for our improving relationship.  He asked us to think about ways we can do this.  He also said that there are a lot of ways to do things, as long as we keep the 8 Principles in mind. He reminded us to never say never and gave the example of Pat’s introduction of the Cradle Bridle to Linda, who said “I’m not putting that contraption on MY horse.”  Well, you all know “the rest of the story.”

After our morning discussion, we all went outside and did a “blind horse” game.  We chose partners and one of us got a savvy string.  The other person got to be the horse.  The horses were solemnly SWORN to close their eyes and NOT CHEAT by opening them until the end of the exercise.  I was the horse first and this was an “eye-opening” exercise (OK, a bad attempt at a joke, but you all know I’m not very good at those).  I had to trust my handler/leader to guide me effectively over hill and dale (and even under a sprinkler) completely by FEEL, without being able to see where I was going.  My partner had a green string (great clue she knew what she was doing, since she’s passed her L-3) and had GREAT feel and leadership.  After about 10 minutes, we switched roles and I got to be the handler/leader at LIBERTY with only a swimming noodle to use for contact.  My horse and I did great - even climbed over a three-foot log!  I was obviously more concerned about my “horse’s” safety than Ash’s handler was, as Ash almost went into the pond in front of us!

After this exercise, we went back into the lodge for a brief discussion of it.  Then John wrote a bunch of “gibberish” on the board and said “go do this - do it now!”  We all looked at each other.  It was a great analogy for how arrogantly we expect our horses to understand our language and what we want them to do - they simply don’t know most of the time because we are giving them gibberish!

After this, Kathy Baar did a discussion on each of the four horsenalities and effective strategies to deal with each one.  It would be impossible to blog all of this info, as it’s all over my notebook, but a few important things are:

each horsenality has a savvy that is easiest for them:

LBE - Liberty

RBE - On-line

RBI - Finesse

LBI - Freestyle

This was rather interesting to ponder, but when going over the motivating factors for each one it became clear that it made perfect sense.  RBE’s are PLAYFUL and want to move their feet and as such, love liberty games.  RBE’s are mostly concerned with safety and comfort and moving their feet and as such, feel secure on-line and doing repetitive patterns, which will bore a left-brain horse to death!  RBI’s are also concerned with safety and comfort and are more controlled in their movement, but need the security of contact riding (finesse) and LBI’s are all about incentive (often food!), get bored easily, and don’t want/need to move their feet (lazy!) so they do better with less rein contact and more encouragement to go forward.

We also talked about how left-brain horses are thinkers and typically need “sensitizing,” while right-brain horses are reactive and typically need “de-sensitizing.”  We need to give left-brain horses more responsibility and right-brain horses more contact (security).

Then, we took each horsenality separately:

LBI -

- the more responsibility we give them, the smarter they will feel, the harder they will try, and the lighter they will be

- We need to be light and soft in our language to effectively get their attention, THEN go through the phases.  If we are “yelling” at them all the time, they just tune us out - no nagging!

- lots of rest

- treats for incentive

- use psychology (don’t make me . . . pick up the stick!)

- variety! the more you drill a task, the worse an LBI will get - be creative!

- yes, you CAN get to 40 canter laps with no correction, but you will have a psychology degree when you get there - I can’t wait!

RBI -

- can easily get claustrophobic and “freeze.”  We need to be slow and gentle with them - they love patterns!

- will get scared and feet get slower (sticky) if pushed

- patterns build confidence

- go back on line sooner than later, the more stressed they get, the more your relationship will suffer

- use CONSISTENT phases!

RBE -

- Again - patterns!

- MATCH their energy - they get offended when our energy doesn’t match - causes dis-harmony

- don’t make them stop their feet

- use pattern interrupt (ex: falling leaf exercise)

- play on-line unless you NEED to play at liberty

- big circles are ok IF they are thinking, otherwise smaller ones are better (for pattern interrupt)

- their natural flight-line is straight, THEN turn around and re-assess

- put obstacles in their way on the circle to make them think

LBE -

- PLAY!  (have FUN, DO something! Yes, Trish - that means YOU!)

- when you’re out of ideas, put your horse away, because they are NOT out of ideas and YOU will become their new play-toy!

We then talked about why all horse-herds in the wild need all four horsenalities in the herd, because if they were

all RBE - they would kill themselves running off cliffs

all LBI - they would be FAT and EATEN

all LBE - they would be so curious, they’d try to play with a porcupine or a mountain lion

all RBI - they would be frozen in fear and also be eaten

In short, they would all be dead!  The combination of all four horsenalities is what helps them to survive.

After this, we went out to the small Coverall, where Kathy played with her LBI mare and her LBE gelding, showing us the different strategies for motivation.  The most interesting thing about this was how she trained her LBI to back all the way around the pen in circle game (backing is a gait!) by using buckets with little bits of grain strategically placed around the arena - brilliant!  She won a contest with her hubby John by using this method.

I went to town at lunch to get Betadine, Swat, and anti-biotic ointment at Pagosa Feeds.  When I came back, John had an on-line focus group going in the Big Top.  I watched with several others while he taught people to keep their horses “on the rail” with ONE rope while driving from zone 5 - tough! He made them switch sides and from direct to indirect rein.  He worked with a little spotted saddle horse that was quite frantic to start, but was pretty calm when he got done with him.  Ash and Libby were there and Libby looked as calm as a stone, standing with Ash on a horseshoe with a bunch of other horses with her leg cocked - I got a bunch of photos, will try to add a couple to this entry when I get them uploaded.

After this, I took HotShot out for a drink of molasses water (his favorite - I swear he waits for me to take him to that tank every day!), then we played a bit in the 100′ round-pen on-line and at liberty.  He seemed recovered (no limp) and happy to do what I asked.  We did the on-line “on-the-rail” exercise I had watched in the Big Top - almost perfectly!  He even OFFERED a canter several times - so much impulsion and respect - wow!- and we did some lovely change-of-directions at liberty.  The swelling around his legs has already gone down quite a bit since this morning.  Then I cold-hosed his legs, cleaned his owies (he just looks a bit banged up), prepared his and Lib’s dinner (grain, vitamins, and pro-biotic powder - Pat’s “Big Blue” team of blue roan draft horses had already brought the hay around in a wagon), and cleaned pens before I could have MY dinner (just so you all don’t think it’s a bowl of cherries out here - I’m pooped!).

Well, enough for tonight - gotta go find Ash near the pens and head home for a hot bath.  More tomorrow.

Edie

P.S. I thanked God again today for my wonderful horse and for protecting him from serious injury - I don’t know what I would do without him!

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