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.