If it weren’t for Covid-19, we’d be celebrating the end of winter by resuming the barn’s regular lesson days with dressage and clicker guru Alexandra Kurland. Instead, we resort to info tech, which sucks but is better than nothing: we gather on Zoom for a video chat.
In spite of my low-rent wi-fi service and its sporadic momentary freeze-ups of audio or video or both, I glean several good tidbits of advice and inspiration for donkey training. (And I’m eager to share them also with my friend who has an Irish Sport Horse gelding and a Morgan mare.) Here are just three:
1. In response to Gay, who owns a magnificent jet-black Frisian and a magnificent pearl-grey Lippizaner — big boys who can get jealous when one of them is clicked and treated in the presence of the other — Alex suggests some ways to train them together. They both like to stand on a mat, so one turn-taking game involves scattering six or eight mats, starting each horse on a mat, and then asking one horse to stay while sending or leading the other horse to an empty mat. Upon arrival, the traveler gets clicked for stepping on the new mat and the waiter gets clicked for staying put. A simultaneous cooperation game begins with two parallel lines of three or four mats each. The handler(s) should lead or send each horses, both at the same time, to the next mat in his line. If one horse barges ahead to his mat first, it doesn’t matter, because the click isn’t delivered until both horses land on the mats — that is, neither performer wins unless both performers work together. Because making a bitey face at your little brother delays the reward, sibling rivalry diminishes, and therefore fearfulness of your big brother's bitey face diminishes too. This is fun for horses, dogs, cats, giraffes . . .
2. For Julie, who is teaching her new Holsteiner the basics, like head-down, mat-standing, target-touching, etc., Alex gives a refresher course in front-leg flexion exercises. It’s good for strength and limberness and balance, of course, but if done right it’s also good for the core-muscle development. And done right means getting the horse to really unweight his front end and take more weight on his hind. To start, Alex recomends placing both hands around the very top of the leg — almost in the horse’s armpit, as it were — and waiting to feel a slight lift, perhaps when the horse inhales. Whenever and however it happens, click and treat that tiny lift. Once the horse is lifting that shoulder a bit each time, move one hand to touch his leg just above the knee; reward when the knee bends up and forward to meet the hand. Unlike a human’s lifting of the horse's foot, as for hoof-picking, this method ensures that the horse does all the work, and in the right way to help develop lovely and powerful dressagey self-carriage. I can’t wait to re-teach the leg lift to Gus like this, for his orthopedic health and for the first step in our take-a-bow trick.
3. For desensitizing Gus to the spritz and smell of fly spray, Alex suggests dabbing myself (well, my clothing) each day with a different smell — not just fly-spray but perhaps citrus, spice, medicine, perfume . . . I’ll be the same old me, still with ear-scrubs and games and an apronful of treats, but with various odors that he can learn to ignore. Also she suggests goofing around with (e.g., touching, wearing, straddling, fetching) many different items only one of which is the fly-spray bottle. By noodling with, say, a dog toy and an umbrella and a jar lid and a scarf and a sponge and a squirt-bottle (maybe one or two each day), Gus can get familiar with all of them pretty equally. That way, the spray bottle won’t be presented only when we’re about to assail him with its startling noise and freaky stink. I fear he might be too savvy an analytic thinker to fall for this ploy, but it does sound promising. Anyway, the more objects he can interact with, the happier he is. So I aim to gift him with a vast and motley embarras de richesses.
And we humans agree to connect again via Zoom in future, until such time as we dare to gather in person for hands-on lessons. I’m drumming my fingers ve-e-ery patiently . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment