Almost Home

I decided to leave Elvis at the Fair Hill therapy center for the month of April. I wanted to give him one more month under their watchful eye while he graduated to hand-walking and turn-out in the round pen. If something happened and his hock started to swell again, he could go back into the cold seawater spa straight away. And in fact, that happened twice. They aren't really sure why; maybe doing something in his stall or the increase in walk time, anyone's guess, really. The swelling wasn't bad but Bruce Jackson felt it best to get the swelling down quickly. ( Look who else has made good use of a cold seawater spa. Elvis is in good company!)

He is enjoying his time out in the round pen and gets to hang out with the other horses in the neighboring pens. The other day, all three of them decided to roll, practically in unison. It was fun to watch. "Hey, good idea! I'll join you!" And I was glad to see that he didn't struggle when he went to get up so the leg must be feeling better. He will rest that left hind, as you can see in the picture, but he is putting more and more weight on it and seems very comfortable in his stall and during his walks.

Tony, one of his favorite grooms, walked him for me the other day (the video is below). I haven't seen him walk in 2 weeks and was very pleased to see that his stride looks pretty normal. He seems to move just a tad short on that leg but I am really hoping that will improve once the walking time increases more and we can start long-reining him. So, one more month down, who knows how many more to go. I am checking out a rehab place that is closer to home and will probably move him sometime in May. It will be nice to have him closer and start doing the next steps of physical therapy myself. Hope I'm up to the task....

Where Do I Go From Here?

So here I am, the owner of a green-broke 10 year old Hanoverian whose first reaction to anything that he's unsure of is to spook first and ask questions later. And not just a hop sideways or planting his feet. This guy's flight response goes from zero to panic in a second, with not much in between. I'm beginning to think we didn't get such a deal...

After feeling sorry for myself and wondering what to do next, I get a call from my good friend Janalee Redmond. She is a very gifted horsewoman and I always welcome her advice. She invites me to her farm to watch her work a mare that she has in training that has some similar issues as Elvis. When Janalee first got this horse, the mare wouldn't stand still on the cross ties, the farrier said that he wouldn't come back to do her feet until she behaved herself, and was generally difficult to work around.

In the course of a few hours, Janalee showed me that what Elvis and I had was a failure to communicate. And we had to develop a language that made sense to both of us, not just me. She showed me how she controlled her mare through body language using all of the ground work skills that the natural horsemanship folks rely on. And, when she needed to teach the mare something new, she taught her through clicker training.

Many of you have probably heard of clicker training and I had seen it used in zoos to help the caretakers care for the animals. But I had never heard of it being used for horses. I was so inspired when I left her barn. The next few weeks were transformative for us. Between making him respect me as his new person and giving us a language to communicate through clicker training we made some real progress. He seemed so thrilled to get an indication of when he was doing something right and I was equally thrilled to find things to make him do.

The first order of business was to teach him to target. I used the lid off of a supplement bucket. Since horses always check things out by touching with their nose, this was an easy behavior to teach and he was a very quick study. Hold the lid right in front of his nose, touch, click, treat. Hold it farther away, or drop it on the floor, touch, click, treat. We went into the indoor and I could throw it like a frisbee and he would walk me over to it and put his nose on it to target. And he would always give me his lovely nicker every time he did it right. What fun!

We put this new behavior to the test one winter day after a light snowfall. The snow was melting and sliding off the roof of the barn and indoor. I hate that sound, it's sounds like a train is going through the barn. All of the horses were a bit bug-eyed from the noise when I got to the barn. No time like the present to see how well this new targeting behavior had been learned. When we first went into the indoor, Elvis got pretty tall and was jumping at every little sound. I started with targeting the lid very quickly and very close to his nose. He would target but was clearly waiting for the next scary snow slide. But, by the time we were done, we were walking all around the indoor arena targeting away. Elvis was so concentrated on where the lid was going next that he completely forgot about the snow. And so did I. Huge breakthrough for me, really. This stuff could be the trick...

But the biggest triumph for this approach came when it was time to get back in the saddle. A professional in the area had been recommended to me. A great rider who is quiet and good with green horses. I wanted Bernardo to get Elvis going for me. The rearing episodes had really backed me off (Hard to admit, but true. I realized I wasn't a young, fearless teenager anymore. Dammit.). I told Bernardo about this and he was willing to give it a try. The first time Bernardo got on, it went well until the first time he asked for a trot. Elvis stood on his hind legs within seconds. Bernardo looks at me a bit surprised and asks "Is this what you mean?" I nodded a weak yes and fully expected him to hop off, hand me the reins, and tell me that he wasn't so interested in helping me. He stuck it out but told me that it was going to be tricky to deal with.

The next day, I told Bernardo I wanted to try something different. I gave him a brief explanation of the clicker training I had been doing, got a very skeptical look, but told him I wanted to walk beside Elvis with Bernardo on his back. Every time I would stop, Elvis would stop, click, treat, with Bernardo giving the aids for a halt. We would walk off again with the aids coming from Bernardo, click, treat. Slowly, I began to move away from beside Elvis and Bernardo would ride around me as I walked up and down the middle of the arena. Bernardo took over the clicking, too. And the first time he asked for a trot, no rearing, no stopping, just a lovely transition that was rewarded with a click and a big pat on the neck. "It worked!" Bernardo said with a big grin. It made a believer out of both of us. And Elvis seemed so relieved that he finally understood what us crazy humans were asking of him.

Am I Ready

As I mentioned in my first post, Elvis has taken me down paths I'm not sure I would have explored in my quest for dressage knowledge. My husband and I first saw Elvis one hot summer day five years ago. It was pretty clear that he was very green which wouldn't be so unusual except that he was 9. He was pretty unstable in the bridle and pretty nervous. But, when he put it all together, he looked amazing.

The owners were asking way too much for what he was but there was clearly talent there. I didn't bother to get on because it was obvious that the horse was on his last nerve. I politely told the trainer to keep me posted on the horse's training because I liked what I saw. When we got back in the car and before I could make a comment, my husband said "Don't even think about that horse. He's for a professional." But, I replied, no professional is going to want him because he's too much of a project.

We kept looking and had 3 horses vetted that didn't pass but I kept thinking about this horse. Fast forward 4 months. It's Dec 30, I'm convinced I will never find another horse and am feeling pretty sorry for myself. I come home to a message from the trainer telling me that the horse is still available if I'm still looking. The owners want him sold by Dec 31 and will take any reasonable offer. OK, I'll play. No promises, but I will come and take another look.

To shorten the story, within 12 hours we bought the horse. At a very reasonable price. With no vetting, because the trainer was insistent that the purchase take place that day. The poor trainer didn't stand a chance against my husband, who negotiates with insurance companies all day long. He made a crazy-low offer stating that we didn't have to buy the horse, they had to sell him. And that the low offer was the amount we were willing to lose in case the horse didn't pass a vetting that we would do with our own vet later.

I know what your thinking. How many red flags did we need to see to walk away from this horse? The rational side of me couldn't agree more but I kept thinking of what it felt like to sit on all that power. And he had a sweetness to him that intrigued me. I kept him at the trainer's barn for the month so he could help me get to know the horse better. I mean, he just needs more training under his belt. How hard could this be? One day, when I was longeing Elvis, he was so electric that he was just exploding off his feet at the trot with his tail up over his back and kept wheeling around on the line. All I could think was "Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it."

A good friend of mine, who is an equine massage therapist, offered to come and give him a massage while he was still at the trainer's barn. I was so excited to show off my new horse and see what she thought because she has worked on some really nice horses. So, I bring him out of his stall and she carefully and quietly starts to pat him and lightly work on him. "I'm having a little trouble getting into his muscles. He's pretty tight" she tells me. "I know!" I proudly say. "He's in such good shape that his muscles feel like you can bounce a quarter off off them". "Well, no. He's so tight because he's holding himself so much because of his nerves. It's like he's doing isometric exericises all the time" my friend tells me. Here is the first hint of what is in store for us.

At the end of the month, I took him back to the barn where I had boarded my previous horse and gave him a week to settle in. I would longe him lightly every day that first week and just let him get used to me and his new surroundings. It was during the second week that I realized that I indeed had a training project on my hands but not the one I had expected. I knew he was nervous and unsure of me but discovered that his reaction to any perceived pressure, a light leg aid, asking to go into the corner, flexing to the left, would result in either a stop or, much worse, a rear. Not my favorite thing to ride. Ah, I thought. There's the hole in his training....

After about the third time that this happened, I thought I had gotten myself in way over my head. He was so nervous and so quick and strong that I wasn't sure I was up to the task. And so began our exploration of different approaches to his training needs. This is still an ongoing process but I hope to chronicle in the next couple of posts what the past 4 years have taught us.