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| Cracker hanging out in the yard. |
We were originally going to do a conference call with Pat after her talk this afternoon at the Animal Behavior Society conference, but she must have been swamped after she gave her talk since we didn't hear from her.
Amigo and Jericho are both making great progress in their quest to become riding horses. The past couple days we've been getting them used to bits (having them put the bit on and eating hay/grain) and today they were both putting the head down and opening their mouths to get the bit. It's great to see such a perfect application of food for desensitization/counterconditioning in horse training. Not sure how other people do it without food and don't get horses that hate the bit... We even practiced some direct and indirect rein pressure (direct to get the horse to turn its head, and indirect to get the horse to take cross-over steps with their front feet) and they understood the bit cues immediately. No pressure needed - just pick up the rein, they can feel the cue, and know how to respond! Pretty cool stuff.
We also did some leading around in the training space, since Amigo's had trouble in the past with forging ahead. One method that had worked was swinging the lead rope like a helicopter so that if he forged, he'd smack himself in the face. Unfortunately, he wasn't generalizing it that well and would still forge ahead if he thought he could get away with it. Today, instead of using the lead rope, I just turned and walked in a circle every time he got ahead. Pretty soon he was walking with his head down (relaxed) and by my shoulder. Very proud of him!
Tomorrow, we will ride the boys again (as long as it's not raining/super muddy), and hopefully I'll remember to take a picture or two!
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