KBR Training Case Study

"Velvet"
(Originally known as "Debbie")
Part Two

Debbie and her buds,
Mikey, Keno and Starfyre
Day 6

Sharon worked on more groundschooling and line work. Debbie didn't particularly like all the formalities, but she continued to learn about space and energy.

Day 7

After a little line review it was time for more fun stuff. Debbie, of course, does like to play. She would retrieve the stall ball from the round pen fence (ho hum!) and we decided to make the ball activities more interactive. Before long she'd retrieve and return the ball and would also "count" by pounding on the ball with her hoof.

Learning to take the ball

No, you have to hold on to it!
There you go!
OK, now can you give it back?
Ooops! I guess so!

While the games make for good sport, they also help shape behavior for more important stuff. When it came time to trim those scary hind feet, Debbie stood like a lady. She even let me put her hind feet on the shoeing stand so that I could rasp off the lower edges of her hoof walls and make them nice and neat.

Later we worked on standing quietly at the tie pole. Debbie would pull back and just lean on the rope. We worked on "Step up!" to take off the slack and after a short period of time getting positive reinforcement for keeping the line slack, she handled being tied at the pole.

That afternoon I climbed on board in the round corral and let Debbie get used to packing weight. She seemed not too disturbed by the whole affair.

Day 8

Day 8 really happened a week later. We both came down with the flu and Debbie's activities were limited to turnouts for exercise. When we finally got back on track, Debbie was still with the program and her second saddling took place in the arena.

Day 9

We took a day off from saddle work and concentrated on being caught and handled when turned out with other horses in the pasture. Debbie preferred to ignore humans at first but was actually easer to catch than some of the domestics. We found out right away that the best way to catch Debbie was to go to halter one of the other horses and let Miss "I'm jealous and want all the attention" push her way to the front of the group.

Standing nicely for a trim
(Note she's unrestrained)
All saddled up and ready to ride
Out in the arena

Day 10

Both the round corral and arena were busy so we mounted up out near the hay barn. We did some bending and turns, then I'd slap Debbie's butt a little bit with my hand to get her to move forward. Of course Debbie only really moves forward when there's a purpose to it, and she soon didn't see any purpose so we tried leading horses by her in hopes she'd want to keep up. This trick lasted maybe a minute and Debbie soon figured out that if she stood still the horses would just parade around her and she being the energy conservation horse that she is, it certainly made more sense to just stand and watch the goings on.

When it was clear that the "herd" trick wasn't working, Mary went over to the hay barn, tied Tess and got a couple of carrots and a target brush. Debbie stood patiently until Mary approached closely with the brush.

"Touch it, Debbie!"

Touch... Click! Snap! (carrot) Munch!

"Hey, this is pretty cool!"

Within about 5 seconds the clicker monster from within was in full swing.

"Touch it, Debbie!"

ZOOOOM over to the target! It was all I could do to hold Debbie back while Mary tried to get far enough away to set up the next target. To say Debbie was enthusiastic about the drill would be a gross understatement. She certainly didn't have any aversion to moving forward and if Mary took the target too far away, Debbie would come up and grab it in her mouth as if to say, "Just hold it here, OK?"

The whole thing was hysterical. Mary eventually targeted Debbie back to her tie pole where we untacked and let Debbie play a round of ring the bell before going back to her pen.

Day 11

Sara came out and I rode Debbie in the round corral. We started out with some simple targeting with Sharon holding and moving the target inside the round corral. After a few minutes we advanced to Sara holding the target through the rail from the outside. This impromptu exercise turned out to be great. Debbie really went for the target and Sara could make good time outside, walking back and forth. I would apply rein and leg aids to move Debbie toward the target. Eventually I would be able to hold Debbie back, then she'd truck toward her target. I'd ask her to go a few paces beyond it, then we'd do a rollback to the target. Debbie was having fun with the game and the rest of us were cracking up as she was moving more like a cutting horse than a green horse on her second actual "on the move" ride.

Continue to Part Three

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