Ack! It's sooooooo cold!!!!

Needless to say I haven't played for awhile now because it's usually about ten degrees outside!

I took another trip to the savvyclub vault instead! This time I watched a liberty demo that Linda did at one of the old ISC courses(you can find it in videos, liberty, lvl 2, level 2 liberty). I've watched with clip before and I didn't really understand it the before. Now I'm starting to get it so that must show some progress for me.

The whole video centered around the game Linda was playing with a crabby little palomino LOL. She sent him on the circle at libert and although he maintained gait pretty well he had a rhythm to his pace he was very crabby. Linda showed how by using the friendly game and his own laziness she actually got him motivated. After having watched the more recent sc dvd featuring Lois and Clide I think I understand this one a lot better. It was funny to see that horse realize that Linda had beat him at his own game. Pretty soon he really didn't have a reason to be crabby because Linda had been perfectly fair, firm, and friendly.

I think next time I get a chance to play with Gingy I'm going to focus a little more on getting to his mind which is something I've been forgetting to do! Gingy has been going along with what I ask largely because he thinks he might get a treat. Now I feel ready to try rising above the need for treats all the time.

I was in the lvl 2 libert section because I've been wanting to get going on liberty. Last time I tried liberty it was really more a of a circus performance Gingy would offer up a trick and then I would give him a treat. When I stopped giving the treats he stopped listening. I guess our liberty needs to be more that just treats and tricks, that's why I have to really focus on getting into his mind.

He just needed to know I had phases!

Yep, I got to play today and it was great.

Gingy and I had a super time together and I even got to hang out with Marsan for a little.

After having posted about the new things that I've been teaching Gingy it got me inspired. I set a feed bucket against the fence to see if he would put his back feet in. It took some heavy duty explaining to get him to understand what I wanted and then he tried to do it, I released. After several tries he got both back feet in the bucket!

Of course we worked on the figure eight a little more. Once again took a little while for him to really get thinking about what he was doing. During that time it took him to get "in the groove" I found something out about his draw issue. I hadn't been using any phases with him! I had pretty much done everything, but give him straight and simple phases. Once I realized this things changed for the better. It only took him a couple of laps to start drawing when I first combed the rope. At first though I had to from combing the rope just barely to running it through my hands like tomorrow wouldn't come! Wow, I just couldn't believe it could be that simple!!!!!! I'm hoping that once I can get him to do at least five laps on a regular basis then I'll really be able to start refining. I realized that he has to be able to go for a lot longer than one lap before I can start provoking those little changes that refinement is all about.

I can't wait for tomorrow when I'll be able to work with him again.

Oh yeah, I wanted to put in a few words about my time with Marsan. I still don't really feel like trying to work with Marsan's many sessions, but I did feel like working through her very tangled hair LOL. I took out our metal comb and the super strong hair detangler, then I got Marsy. We had a short but very interesting catching game. When I got to the gate she came over, but when I let her sniff the halter through the fence she walked away as if to leave. When she was about five feet away she wheeled and came back hmmmmmmm..... After that I decided to walk away, hoping that she would follow. I made a motion to let her know I wanted her to come to then I waited for what seemed like hours when it was really only about 2 minutes! I was suprised when I heard her hooves on the dirt and the sound wasn't reseading, it was getting closer. She came around me and turned to face me. After saying hello I haltered her and away we went.

A while back I had made a pattern with her of rubbing her with the comb and squeezing the detangler bottle so it would make a weird noise, so I didn't have to do much approach and retreat this time. I put some hay on the groung for her and she was happy to eat. As I gently worked the snarls out of her long black mane she lost her tense nervous look. She had started grazing through the pile with her forehand slanting away from me, but when she relaxed she started eating right against me. We both felt so relaxed and it was so wonderful.

Teaching Gingy new tricks, a summary

Yes, Gingy is learning lots of new stuff! This is a post to kind of tell about what he has been learning through multiple sessions.

I've been teaching Gingy how to hold his foot up when I tap it. He is likes to do this new trick for me and in hopes of getting a treat since at first I gave him a treat for holding it up longer. I'm probably going to stop using so many treats with him on this since he gets it now. He's is starting to become a little cookie monster now that he has new tricks to show me!

Another thing we have been working on a lot is his lateral flexion and indirect rein. I must say he does really well with this now. In fact his haltering has improved a lot because of it. It used to be with haltering that he would bend his neck as far as he could and then start moving all over the place, now that he has learned he can bend his neck And stand still he is great with haltering.

He favorite tricks which I am continuely trying to improve is standing in his feed bucket. He'll hop right in with his front feet but he is not quite sure about the back ones. I'm not sure he quite understands yet, but time and time again I set him up to put in his back feet. The other thing we've been doing to supplement this is to have him stand on one of the two manure piles. The piles have gotten kind of stiff because of the weather we've been having and they are pretty high so it's great for him to stand on. He is getting to be really confident about putting his back feet up on the pile. I hope all of this will help him to get more confident in a 4/5.

One interesting thing is that Gingy does great with improving distance and quality, but it's really hard to get him to do anything faster LOL. I wonder how I could approach this challenge.....

Well, that's what Gingy has been learning of late, hope you enjoyed hearing all about it :D

What are we missing hmmmmm(yesterday's post)

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

I've been doing more figure eights with Gingy and we are progressing nicely except for a few little things. First it's, you guessed it, his draw again. This time the problem is a little different compared to before when he would simply walk toward me with a one-eyed sullen look on his face. Now when he rounds the obstacle he stops. So far I've have been accomodating his stops, when he stopped I would just stop and wait to resume drawing him. This worked for awhile, but now he's starting to use stopping as a way of getting a rest. I know that I need to do something besides letting him stop me, maybe if I stop him before he stops himself he'll be more willing to keep going. I know I need to use the discomfort vs comfort theory somehow.

The second thing that we are having a little bit of trouble with is his drive....of course. It's not a big problem, just something that I would like to refine. It really seems to catch him off guard when I go from drawing to driving him. Instead of picking up on my body he waits until I practically have to resend him!

I need to find out if he is doing these things on purpose or if he doesn't understand what needs to do. I'll keep ya posted on what I do find out :D

How can I describe this! It's too awesome!

I know I haven't posted in forever! There is was a reason that went beyond being too busy. I was frustrated and I really didn't want to post about my frustration. I guess I forgot how much writing can help you figure things out!

I've actually been playing a lot behind the scenes, but first is was my frustration that kept me from posting then it was just how busy I was thinking about how to post what I felt!

It still isn't easy to explain what been happening, but I have undergone a big change. For the last several sessions I've had it's been me and Gingy. We've been playing a lot with the figure eight pattern since this is really the only weak point we have now that might stop us from getting our level 2 online. The first day I played with him last week I had hoped to refine and reinforce the FE pattern with him and I figured in a couple of days we would have that level 2 pattern down. It wasn't quite as simple as that LOL.

There were there several problems that I didn't know how to fix. The biggest problem was that Gingy would usually lose his motivation for what we were doing after about the first two laps, so then he would eithe just stop or invent his own games. His games were really helpful to what I was trying to do LOL. When he was trying to do what he was supposed to do then he still wouldn't get far enough away from me to make it around the obstacles. Besides all of this my rope would get all wet so then it was difficult to communicate with and it got me all of wet and miserable too.

It took a couple of days to put all of the pieces together just in my mind and even then I did have to do some minor fixing and tweaking. First of all I decided to give Gingy a treat if he could do one lap, I hoped that slowly I could ask for more laps before giving him the treat. The next solution I came up with had to do with my rope. For quite some now I've had this pair of horsemans reins that I haven't had any use for. I decided to take one end of the reins and tie it to the halter so it could be like a 22' line. The line worked perfectly and as long as I was carefully to keep it out of particularly wet places. It was light since it was almost brand new, which was exactly what I needed. The last thing that I had fix which was actually really minor difficulty was my drive and draw. Usually the drive didn't start out so good like I said before and when Gingy lost his motivation he usually lost his draw. I had always linked his draw to his motivation, but it turned out it was because he drive never worked that well. It didn't take much to persuade him to that needed to get out farther and not be five feet away from me all the time. After his drive was "fixed"(for lack of a better word), his draw was almost perfect.

Two days ago when I was really able get all of my changes put together, we soared like never before. I've had a lot of breakthroughs, but this one was very different, it was what all of my other burst of understanding have been coming to. This has really been the first time I deeply cared for Gingy as my partner and I went beyond just listening to what he said. This was the first time that I didn't feel all of this deeply rooted pressure to convince Gingy to love me. Instead I felt deep down inside that he already did. It wasn't me against the horse trying to get him to join my side, he already had. I guess this was the first time I experienced true emotional connection and I learned that I was the one who had to connect to him! All of this time I had worried and worried about other things like getting to level three and stuff. It's no wonder that he COULDN'T get connected to me, because I wouldn't let go and connect with him!

I don't think I did a very good job of explaining this, but it has certainly changed me.