Starry and Dante’s Problems, Still

Starry and Dante’s Problems, Still

We thought that We had Dante’s problem lickecd.  He was doing his business on the trail, and Ellen would reward him with a peppermint.  All was well with the world.  Then he decided he would only do it in the river, again.  That is what he has been doing the last month.  Ellen is trying to worry about it less.  He usually does it when she is close to the other side.  He hasn’t overreacted that much.  Sometimes he walks faster, and sometimes he will trot up the bank.  He is no longer doing it on dry land.  It looks like she will just have to live with it.

And then there is Starry’s problem.  For the last year or so, he has been reluctant to take the lead when we are on the trail.  He is the worst with Dante, his best friend.  This has caused Kevin much frustration.

He has tried changing Starry’s behavior with clicker training, and that is when he has the most success.  Then, he feels that Starry should be over it and quits the clicks.  Clicker training isn’t ever an instant cure all.  Repetition is a must, and then you can fade it off.  Kevin doesn’t like the repetition, and in the past, fading off meant going cold turkey.  Then, he would end up back where he started.

Finally, it seemed like the lesson sunk in.  So often, it is harder to teach the human than the horse.  Kevin got serious about the clicking.  We didn’t even try it with Dante, in the beginning.  He has always been better with Cole, so that is when we did our training.  On our rides, I would take Cole far to the side of the trail.  Kevn would ask him to pass, and clicked him for any forward movement.  Eventually, Starry would pass.  If he started to fight, we would just give up and try later on the trail.  

In a few weeks, Starry was doing pretty good.  Kevin would only click when he got ahead of Cole and if he didn’t pass, he got no clicks.  We finally got to the place where we could go on an hour ride and Starry would lead the whole time.

We then started to work with him and Dante.  It was, and is still, much tricker.  Sometimes, we would get him to pass Dante by following Cole--and then down the trail, we would ask him to pass Cole.  Kevin would still click intermittently.  Of course, he always gets “good boys.”

There are still places where it is nearly impossible to get him in the lead if Dante is there.  One of those spots is when we cross the second river on the way home.  On our last ride, together, Ellen and I went way off the trail and watched him.

Kevin asked him walk, and Starry stepped backwards 3 steps--then he went forward a step--click.  Kevin repeated it, but this time Starry went back only 2 steps--then forward-click.  He tried again, backwards one step--forward click.  The last attempt, he only stepped backwards a half step before going forward.

We did have one perfect ride with Dante, Starry and Cole.  It was a shorter ride, but it still counts.  Starry led the whole way with no drama.  The next day, he was back to his old tricks.  Kevin wants instant results, and we have to be there to encourage him when things don’t go as well as he likes.  There was a time when there was no chance that Starry would pass up Dante, and now he does it often, though he isn’t as consistent as we would like.  We just don’t want Kevin to give up and lose his temper.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and no horse is trained in a day, or week, month or even year.