Rescuing Rusty

I need to get this written down while the epiphany is fresh. It’s amazing how sometimes you hear the same thing, again or in a different way and it becomes clear. Or seems clear. Sometimes what I think is an epiphany becomes as clear as mud when I try to put it into practice. This, though, I really think is quite clear and simple, I simply need to pay attention and do it.

Back chaining or building a behavior chain is something I hear and read about all the time with clicker training. Breaking an action down into its individual and very small pieces and concentrating on each one separately instead of lumping an action into one big, and confusing, movement.

We are working, loosely, on stops followed by a roll back. We aren’t drilling on it, but I try to do a couple every time I ride. I always feel like I’m all over the place so I have a few set things that we cover consistently. Right now it’s stopping, roll back, trot departure, turns on each quarter, trotting poles, and trotting circles. Other things get added and basic steering is built in, plus, when able I try to build up little trips out of our arena. Slowly building courage, for both of us 😉

The roll backs are coming pretty good. Sometimes the stop is sloppy. Sometimes the turns lack momentum or are around the middle. It’s what we are doing anyway but I need to put more thought into each piece. Instead of randomly treating I need to get one piece down and then add the next step. So I guess we need to perfect our stop. Make sure that each time he is offering the same response. I exhale, say whoa, and sit. In response he should drop his hindquarters and stop, fully and completely. If I then continue to sit and hold onto him with my legs he should go into a back. We have both of these for the most part. Sometimes his stop is slow, he wants to keep going. His back is often crooked, that can be fixed once I have more control of his hind quarters. I will keep clicking and rewarding after each one.

Once that is down and easy for him we can start again on the roll backs. Ask him to give his head around nearly to my knee on the side we are turning to. Open up that rein so he can “go through that door”, apply outside leg and rein asking him to go through the door. I suppose at this point I will reward him for and after the turn. Need to make sure he is turning on the hind quarters not around the middle. Once that is good we will move onto the next step.

The next step is to launch out of the turn with speed and power. Eventually I will want him to go straight into a canter, for now a walk then trot is good. By this point he will no longer be rewarded for the stop or the turn, unless we are going back and reinforcing them. His click will come after he has performed all the steps in the chain, stop turn, and go. In the beginning it will be a take off, click, slam on the breaks and get reward, but as he understands and get the maneuver down the treats will fade out and we can continue to lope, or trot 😉

In clicker training the act of setting a goal and writing down the goal and your plan on how to reach the goal is strongly emphasized. I don’t usually do it. This is my plan, my goal, it is nice to have it thought out and written down, it helps to clarify and think through the actions needed to accomplish said goal. Now to see if we can reach it.

Which ever Rusty happens to show up for the day.

He is such a conundrum. Flighty and reactive. Scared of nothing, a big puppy dog. Heavy on my aids, so light and responsive it scares me. That horse is going to drive me insane, sometimes from the shear joy of riding him. When he is good he’s so good. A shift of my weight send him off in what ever direction I think about going. An exhale causes him to slam on the brakes. I can feel him move beneath me more clearly than any other horse ever has. His gaits are spectacular and since I have finally learned to stop trying to get a horse on the bit and instead ride them forward working from behind, he carries himself so round and straight. Most of the time.

This time I recorded our ride. It didn’t cause total failure but our ride wasn’t as good as the ones before. I could tell from the ground that he wasn’t with me, I got on anyway. He didn’t do any of the very unpleasant things he had been doing for awhile there, he just wasn’t all there. He was fidgety with the bit, lots of mouthing and head movement. He wanted to fall into his circles. Mostly to the right, or we may never have made it to the left, he dropped his shoulder in and stuck his head out to the outside. I was working hard to get him straight, asking for a slight leg yield to the outside. It doesn’t look pretty, I was hoping to get his prettyness on video.

I did get a little bit of the thing that has been thrilling me the most lately. I laid out some ground poles for the girls and their “riding lessons” or for them to play on. That is mostly what they do. Who would have thought that jumping tiny cross rails would make for great riding lessons for girls who want to play at rodeo.

Anyway. I’ve been trotting him over the ground rails. I never noticed anything spectacular with horses before. Or maybe I never did it before. This time I seem to have gotten the spacing correct, except for one, and he is doing everything that is hoped for when trotting poles. The lift to his back is breath taking. He rounds up, extends his stride, and reaches over the poles. I don’t always do the best job sitting it, in the video I flop around like a fish, but it is so incredibly fun to ride.

The point of the video is the first little bit of him trotting the poles. The rest is mostly just admiring how gorgeous he is. When did my ugly little duckling get so big, and beautiful, and Morgany? He used to look like a scrawny ugly little thing with a neck far more quarter horse than Morgan. He grew up!

I’ve been riding, just not writing.

Rusty has been, changeable. To say the least. After one beautiful ride, way back whenever that was, he went insane. The next time we went out there he tried to buck, tried to, in typical Morgan fashion he’s no good at it, tried to rear, and spooked at everything. I got off and lunged him, hard, then got back on. We made it home.

Back in the comfort of our arena we trotted some circles. I had not liked the complete lack of control the halter allowed when he pitched his fit. I got my bit out that I had chosen so carefully for him. The little leather snaffle, so soft and supple and some day able to be used without a headstall. I put it on him and let him wear it while we worked. He got close to his usual self and we stopped for the day.

The next time I got to ride him I put the bit on again. This time I ran reins to the bit and another set to the halter. In double reins I could use the halter he was used to while introducing him to the bit. He was awful. Running sideways when asked to turn, refusing everything. Where had my horse gone? He had been so willing, so light and responsive. Now he was terrible.

Nearly in tears I texted a friend and asked if she had a sidepull I could try. He didn’t like a bit and a halter offered nothing when I needed to pull him around in a one rein stop or try to keep his head up. She thought she could find one and offered to come ride with me bringing a couple of bits that she liked. I was willing to try and thrilled at the thought of someone to try riding out again with. In the end duty, and her many jobs, called and she wasn’t able to ride but she dropped of the bits and, not a sidepull but a hackmore.

I haven’t had hardly any time to ride since then but I have managed to make it out twice. Once for each bit. The first was a snaffle, they both were, this one had two bars connected by three links of chain. I was hesitant in part because I was afraid the chain would lay on his tongue making it hard to chew and swallow food. Part of why I theorize he doesn’t like my little leather bit. It was not a problem. I rode with the double rein again and didn’t need to pick up the rope to the halter once. He was light and responsive and obviously liked it better than the leather one.

The second bit was her great grandpa’s, I think, if not it was her grandpa’s, either way it’s really cool to have a bit handed down like that. It has the two bars connected by a figure eight piece in the middle. It was too wide for him, I don’t know if that really matters, but it stuck out a fair bit on each side and I worried that the center piece could possibly get on the bars of his mouth. He worked wonderfully in it. The same as the other one really. Before riding we went for a walk out to where he had so much difficulty earlier. He was a nervous wreck, hardly able to concentrate at all. If he can’t go for a walk out there he’s not going to be able to ride. We’ll have to keep taking our walks.

Back in our arena I got on. At one point my direction seemed laborious and excessive. I lowered my hands, shifted my weight and turned slightly in the direction I wanted him to go. He spun off that way. I clicked and rewarded. He started spinning randomly in that direction. I sat and waited. He finally stopped walked forward again. He is such a strange combination of responsive and idiotic. He can pick up new things so fast and yet still be unable to remember something we’ve been working on constantly for a year. His concentration is so intense it scares me but he is completely scatter brained. He is fearless and curious but terrified of everything. My husband thought perhaps bipolar and I don’t disagree but might instead call it a double whorl.