Dante and the River

Dante and the River

Dante's river crossings were driving us crazy!  He was just so slow.  Some of the problem was caused by Ellen over clicking him.  When she was nervous, she clicked him, and she was very nervous crossing the water.  Dante just started demanding treats.  He wanted treats every step of the way.  She wouldn't give them to him--and then he refused to go.  When she did get him moving, if she felt nervous in the least bit, he sensed it and stopped.  He has learned that he gets a treat when she gets nervous.  The crossings would take forever.

Early this year, she tried to cross him to go home, and he got stuck on the bank.  She got so nervous that we switched horses.  He then crossed immediately for me.  After that, we switched to cross on the way home for a number of rides--and he barely stalled out for me.  He did bolt up the bank on the other side a few times, but we worked through that.

When it was time for Ellen to start riding him across, he just kept getting better and better for her.  We couldn't believe it.  She can now just ride him down the bank and across the water without him stopping.  No longer am I waiting up to 5 minutes for them on the other side.  We are so happy about this, and we both agree that we will never stop being grateful for Dante's wonderful river crossings.

That still left us the next river.  It is wider and much deeper.  Early in the year, the river was too high to cross there, so we were using the ford.  (There is no ford for us for our first crossing.)  We really don't like riding on the ford because we have to share it with the cars.  Eventually, Ellen had to tackle the river.

The first time she tried, Dante was just as bad as ever.  Same with the second time, the third time...   Ellen was still avoiding crossing the river whenever she could get away with it.  She simply hated it.  At first she was afraid, but the fear was replaced with annoyance.  It just took too long.

She tried different things--more treats, less treats, more kicking, less kicking...Would you believe that is what worked?  Less kicking!  In fact, she is best with no kicking at all.  She learned to squeeze her legs and if that didn't work, she tapped him with the whip.  He started crossing faster and faster.  The last few weeks have been outstanding.  He just goes down the bank and steps into the water.  She clicks and treats him for that, then asks him to proceed--and he does!!!  It is amazing!!! 

After years of struggling to cross that river, he is walking right across like a normal horse.  Sure, sometimes he likes to pause to stick his nose in the water.  They all do.  But when he is done, she just squeezes, and he crosses.

Kicking had become a poisoned cue.  (She has been having trouble with getting him to go in the arena, too, if she kicks.)  Poisoned cues are a cue that used to work that the animal associates with something unpleasant and refuses to listen to it.  We don't know what went on in Dante's mind to cause this to happen, but it did.  Once Ellen removed kicking--even though she replaced it with a whip tap which would seem to be worse--Dante progressively improved.

I seriously think that one of the reasons he improved so quickly is because he is now doing what he really wanted to do--get across the river to be with his buddies who are waiting on the other side.  So once he started to get better, the whole process was self reinforcing.

Now her river crossings are a thing of beauty.

Bomb Proofing

Bomb Proofing

The bomb proof horse.  We have all heard of that term, but does that horse really exist? I was reminded of some old friends that adopted a couple retired police horses.  Desensitization to sights and sounds are a big part of their training.  My father was a policeman, and he told me how they would get a bunch of police together to be a crowd--to teach the horses to stay calm in chaos.  Those horses have to learn so much to patrol the streets in the big city.  My friends' horses were afraid of trees, rocks, grass...  (Of course, their horses may do well with bombs.)

We try to expose our horses to all sorts of things and to teach them to stay calm in difficult situations.  It is never ending.  The trails that we ride on are particularly tough because we ride in an urban area and have to share the trails with so many other types of users.  Plus, we are always fairly close to the street, so there is traffic to consider, too.  For all our work, they all will spook at something.

With Dante, it is airplanes.  He is getting much better, but he still isn't trustworthy.  We ride very close to the airport, and when the airplanes land, it often looks like they will hit the tops of the trees.  This has caused more than a few Dante spooks.  Ellen has learned to ask him to stand and turn his head to the side.  (Lowering his head was not consistently effective.)  The direction she tells him to turn is head is the opposite from the direction he likes to spin.  This has been working very well, and it seems that Ellen is more nervous than Dante, now.

Cole is most likely to jump when he hear loud cars or motorcycles.  The worst motorcycles are the ones that backfire.  That can set him off running.  When I hear a loud one, I just ask him to stop until it passes--or at least walk.  If we are trotting or cantering, he is much more likely to run off.

Bella seems to be afraid of nearly everything, but not all the time.  It all depends on her mood.  Anything out of the ordinary can really get her going.  One day, I bike with a flag went by, and she spun on a dime.  Good thing Shari spun with her!

Starry seems to be afraid of nothing at all--except turkeys fanning out their feathers.  That strikes terror into his heart!

There is one other thing that spooked Starry, once.  And here is the reason you can't bombproof your horse for everything.  Kevin and I were trotting on the trail in a spot that parallels the street.  The only thing between us was a fence and the all purpose trail.  In the middle of the street was a pizza box.  I was looking that way when a car hit the box.  It flew up 10 feet in the air, spun around and landed.  Cole also flew up 10 feet in the air, spun around and landed.  Unlike the box, though, he hit the ground running.  Inexplicably, when he got to the end of the fence, he went around it and started heading for the street towards the killer box!  I got hem to stop before we reached the pavement.  Starry also jumped when he saw the pizza box go flying.  We just can't prepare for everything.

Cole

Cole

Cole

Cole

Starry's New Trick

Starry's New Trick

Ranger's stall is right next to Starry's, and there are bars between them.  Last spring, when Ranger was shedding, Ellen spent a lot of time in Ranger's stall; grooming him.  Starry wanted attention--whether he wanted attention from Ellen or Ranger, we can't say.  Sometimes he can be a rather annoying horse.

He has a Jolly Ball in his stall.  (You know, those balls that people get horses that they usually never play with.)  One day, he picked up the ball when he was standing by Ellen.  She clicked and treated him.  Of course, to get the treat, he had to drop the ball.  Then, he picked the ball back up.  Ellen clicked him, again, and a game was born.  He kept picking the ball up, over and over again.  If he wasn't annoying enough, before, he was now!

After a while, Ellen wanted him to do more, so she ignored him when he picked it up.  He wanted to get his treat, so he put the ball into his feed dish.  He struggled with this for only a short time before he figured it out.  He would put the ball in his dish, Ellen clicked and treated him and threw the ball back on the floor.  Starry then had to go find the ball and bring it back.  When Ellen was bored with the game, she would throw it to the far end of his stall.  He hasn't figured that out, yet.

Sometimes he would do it for me, too.  Over all these months, we would tell Kevin about Starry putting his ball in his dish, but Kevin never saw it.  Finally, it happened.  Starry did it when Kevin was there.  He put the ball in the dish seven times in a row.  Kevin was elated!

This is a perfect example of how we can train horses with clicker training.  In this case, Starry came up with the behavior and Ellen "captured" it by clicking and treating him.  Once he got good at it, she then stopped clicking him for the initial behavior, and then Starry experimented to see what would get him that click.  Then, by throwing the ball further away from him, the trick got harder for him.  We fear that he will eventually figure out getting the ball when it is on the far end of the stall, too.  Then we will be in trouble!

All Sorts of Little Things

All Sorts of Little Things

Nothing else happened in August that gave me enough to write about--except for some little things.

First off, Dante and Ellen are struggling with the second river crossing--and success seems to be right around the corner.  His problem has been slowness from the very beginning.  He is reluctant to go down the bank, step in the water and cross.  He stops a lot, and he can be tough to get going.  Ellen thought he was stopping because he wanted treats.  She tried just pushing him through--and he kept getting worse.  Her new idea is that he is pouting because he doesn't like crossing the deeper water and would prefer to go across on the ford.  She tried one trip across where she clicked him for walking and gave him treats.  The next ride--he walked across at least 50 percent better--and the best he has ever crossed that river.  We are looking forward to our next opportunity to cross to see how he does. 

There was one ride that was a little weird.  We were with Bella and Starry.  On the way out, Cole was very fast and kept threatening to pass the other horses.  He doesn't do that very much.  On the way home, he was even worse.  What makes this odd is that on the past few rides, he was fantastic.

He was so bad on the way home, we decided everyone should just walk.  About 20 minutes before the end of the ride, Cole suddenly stopped and urinated!  That is something he just about never does on the trail because he goes before the ride.  He kept going and going and going... Poor Cole, his bladder was bursting.  That is when I remembered that he didn't go before the ride.  After that, he was back to his old self.  He had a reason to rush the ride.

This month, I had the opportunity to ride by myself twice in 8 days.  I used to ride Cole alone all the time when I had 2 horses, but these days, I always have someone to ride with.  I had trouble with him last year when I tried riding alone, so I was ready.  He was really pretty bad the first day.  He was crying as we went down the hill.  Once we crossed the river, he tried to run at every little excuse.  H

e even got scared of a car with a loud radio!  I would just trot him short distances and stop before he got too much momentum.  It always seems to help when he is all wound up.

The next ride--he was significantly better.  We had a nearly normal ride with a "Cole Burst" only once, and that was right before we turned around to go back home.  I am sure that if I continued to ride him alone, he would be back to his old self in just a few rides.

Here is some good news on the Bella front.  That is just the problem--Bella always wants to be in front.  Shari has been encouraging her to follow us at a walk all summer, and that has been going well just as long as we walk fast enough.  When we would try it at a trot, she would try to burst forward.  Well, last weekend, we put her behind Cole and Dante.  Starry was behind her by a very large distance, but she did know he was back there.  It seemed like a miracle when she stayed behind us as we trotted along.  That was a problem that seemed insurmountable.   It may have taken years, but there is now some light at the end of the tunnel.

Bella

Bella

Four Days Off for Cole--Mistake

Four Days Off for Cole--Mistake

I ride Cole nearly every day when the weather is good.  We both seem to thrive on our schedule.  Cole really enjoys his time on the trail--as do I.  I do try to give him a day off a week, but things don't always work out that way.  Sometimes he has a day off after 2 weeks--and sometimes I lose count.

Well, when your trails are hard and somewhat rocky, riding that much really wears the shoes down.  Cole also has a little hind leg twist when he moves.  The outside of his rear shoes get so thin that the heads of the nails wear off.  My farrier knows just how to pound the nails in, so if there are still nails in his shoes, they usually stay on.

One thing I just learned is that my farrier goes around to other clients showing them Cole's old shoes--just to see their reaction.  Yes, they are that thin.

Well, 4 days before my farrier's scheduled visit, Cole was in a very hyper mood.  After the ride, I turned him loose in the indoor arena to roll and play.  Play he did--he careened around and around with no urging from me--kicking as high as he could.  Yes, even a horse that is ridden every day sometimes has way too much energy.

He threw a shoe.

We spent the next few days walking around the arena, doing tricks and grooming.  I finally got his mane and tail combed out.  It has been months since the last time,  He was looking great.

My farrier came and shod him.  We were good to go.

The next day, I rode in the park with Kevin on Starry and Shari on Bella.

Right from the start, I could feel Cole's excitement.  The ride was going to be a challenge.  As we were trotting, his energy kept building and building.  We were in the last position, so whenever I started to have a problem, I just yelled up to Shari and Kevin, and they would walk until Cole settled down.

It wasn't long after we started to trot that Cole felt like he was going to explode.  I took a stronger contact on the reins, and sure enough, he tried to pull his head down to buck.  He did some small hopping things, but I succeeded in preventing a full buck.

After that, he seemed to settle down a bit.  We got to our favorite stretch of trail, and I told them to go ahead and trot.  It was touch and go for me and Cole.  Once, he tried to canter.  I warned everyone, and tried to stop him.  He went slower and slower, but he was intent on cantering.  Finally, it felt like we were cantering in place, and he tucked his hind legs way under him--and stopped suddenly.  I had to use all my strength to keep from flying onto his neck.

We got to the next river crossing and turned around to go home.  Shari's time was short, so we didn't have time to cross.  The problem was that we had to get Cole back in the back.  Recently, we were in this very same spot, and Kevin was in the lead.  He wanted to stay in the lead after we turned around, so that meant Cole had to pass Starry.  Though Kevin made Starry stand still, I think he swished his tail.  For some reason, Starry's tail strikes fear in both Dante and Cole.  This time, Cole took off running just as he passed Starry.

Cole didn't forget that event, so when we tried to do it again--Cole froze with his head up in the air--facing Starry.  I warned Kevin, but Starry wanted to be with Bella--and he wouldn't listen.  He started to walk past Cole--aggressively.

This shouldn't have scared Cole, but it did.  He flew backwards faster than I have ever seen a horse go backwards.  That terrified Bella.  Shari shouted to Kevin to stop Starry.  Kevin was in awe of Cole's reaction, but he did finally get Starry to stop.  As we were going backwards, I bent Cole and that seemed to break him from his panic.  We then went into the woods--far from Starry and had him pass.

The rest of the trip home went really well.  We did have to stop trotting a few times when Cole got excited, but there were no more antics.  When I got back, I let Cole play in the indoor arena, and he ran and bucked and ran and bucked.  (I guess I should have let him do that before the ride.)  He was back to normal the next day.

And that is what happens when Cole gets 4 days off.

Dante

Dante

Dante

Dante