I am so pleased with Theoden. Today we took out our first guided ride with Highland ponies Shay and Morag. Not only did Theoden lead the way most of the time but he was also all terrain, happily sploshing through puddles and mud.. I don't know how much his confidence was helped by having to stand and wait for the two slower moving ponies but it was as if each stop recharged his confidence batteries. Perhaps having a purpose helped. In any event this was much better than practicing his 'no' which happens all to frequently when nappy horses are repeatedly kicked or even hit to move on.
"Thank you so much for yesterday, and all the help with the
loading [previously]. I really surprised myself with how comfortable I felt on the hack
yesterday - you certainly have a positive effect on my
confidence!! So, pleased with the loading too. I realised how much we’ve
progressed when you asked if he’d loaded OK on the outward journey and I
realised it hadn’t even occurred to me that he wouldn’t." BW
Later it was time to go and see Fern again. We are starting to look at her ridden work and in particular her response to the bit. Having been through a few homes, I suspect that she has never understood what the bit really means nor has she met with any consistency. So many people, me included, were taught that you kick to go and pull to who and even in the highest dressage competitions the bit is mis-used. No wonder horses get so confused. Fern has learned to push through the bit in order to get the release that she felt she needed from a physical or mental point of view. She also engages in displacement behaviour by scratching her leg. By simply closing the hand and waiting for her to soften we made much of this behaviour redundant very quickly and made sure that we rewarded this reaction with a soft release ourselves. At the moment she is wearing a loose-ring jointed snaffle and it may be that in time we will change that to something more sympathetic. In the meantime we are using the gentlest pressure (the closing of the hand) and just asking her to notice the requests that we make.
