Groundwork

[jan]

Hi
I have a Dually head collar that I use on my 12 year old welsh cob mare. I read and was totally inspired by the Kelly Marks book - Perfect Manners. I started doing groundwork in the field - have to do it there as no access to menage. She is really good! She will walk with me, stop when I do, go back if I wiggle the lead rope or step into her, she will go 'over' on command. Fab!!! The problem is transferring what she can do in the field to outside. As soon as she gets into the yard - she forgets everything - not entirely her fault - you know what yards are like there is always someone or some one's horse doing something unusual - it's just life.

So my question is - anyone got any tips for transferring the skills from the classroom to real life? Or is it just time? I know it's important to be consistent.

On the point of consistency - I am finding that I'm following the same routine everyday - and that is good in that she's much easier to predict if nothing is changes - but I'm questioning if that is such a good way to be going? I think that she may be controlling me, by the very fact that I'm not changing anything. So my plan is to change something very small everyday - maybe just alter the length of time she waits for her feed - or stands tied up.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Jan

[lisandsaf]

Hi Jan..

I am an avid follower of Parelli,, and i play with my horse everywhere.. in the field, the yard,, her stable,, even out riding,, sometimes i jump of and play with her on the ground sending her over logs or asking her to do figure of 8 pattens in the stream,, all of this re affirms our bond and mutual respect,,,

Horses are creatures of habit, they learn very quickly the good things we teach them and even quicker the things we do not want them to learn..

If you constantly apply the same routine your horse can pre- empt your requests or equally switch off through boredom,, so i would alter the pattern of play or the surroundings just to keep the horse interested..

regards

Lisa and Saf

[jan]

Hi Lisa
I don't know much about Parelli - I will have to find out more . What you said sounds good - I'm interested to hear more - you couldn't be more specific about what you mean by play? Sorry if that sounds a bit of a numpty question!
Jan

[liz]

I have a friend who runs natural horsemanship lessons but, sadly, she's nowhere near you!

I worked with a couple of horses with her and she helped a lot with one in particular. We did a lot of free schooling and, as Lisa says, you must keep the lessons varied to avoid boredom and anticipation!

It would help if you could be given a kick start by someone who knows what they are doing, I basically did what might be called join up to start with. There is no need to keep repeating this once achieved but you really do need to know what you are doing. We progressed to free schooling in walk, trot and canter with changes of direction, transitions, figures of eight etc My horse and I got so good at this I could actually do a reasonably good serpentine! We also used poles to make a labyrinth and would guide the horse through, forward and back ards. I also used traffic cones and with these we would go in and out and also do as tight a turn as possible. My horse used to adore jumping and so I'd out a few little jumps up around the arena - this was the only exercise that I found hard as he took a lot of persuasion to stop! We also played a game with a gym ball. Slow bounces were "walk", slightly faster bounces "trot" and so on. The horses also loved to push the ball around. The horses were trained to walk over a tarpaulin and we also created a little bridge for them to walk over.

I was lucky in that I had a half size indoor arena which was a very useful size to work in. What is nice about free schooing is that the horse responds to your body language. You cannot hurt the horse and if he doesn't do what you want him to do, it is most likely because your sigals are not clear enough. I would say be careful not to overdo this - the horse must find all this enjoyable. One word of warning. If you are not assertive nough, you may cause more problems than you solve. This applies to any methodology used with horses.

[lisandsaf]

Hi Jan,,

Could i refer you to the parelli website where things are somewhat easier for you there to understand rather than me waffling on and on,, i am totally addicted to it and having just moved yards and feeling somewhat vunerable as you do. i have found the consistency of parelli and avril's diary very helpful in settling both me and Saf,,,

Liz in her thread above has described some playing that parelii encourages..

WWW.Parelli.com

The parelli's are at the NEC in birmingham on November 21st and 22nd its expensive to go but the tickets admit you for both days, and if you are a savvy member you get discount prices,, i will be going with my daughter and looking forward to it.

Let me know what you think when youve had chance to look at the web

Regards

Lisa and Saf