Beeman's Better Deal

Update on Rima's Training

Rima is getting more relaxed in her work. I have handled her mouth several times in preparation for bridling and in the process discovered she had a wolf tooth.

She was very good for the vet ,taking the needle for sedation.I discovered she has a very narrow mouth and will first try a small 3 piece snaffle and see if it is a good fit.

I have been roping her feet. Her first session was a little tricky and she kicked out with her right hind. She has since become more accepting of me placing the rope around her leg and dropping it to her foot and has learned to give to the pressure without bracing or resisting. (You might notice there is a horse and rider working in the arena while we do this, and Rima is paying attention to me despite this potential distraction.)

She is yielding the front end now in a much more cooperative way. Yielding the front end is challenging for most horses, and is a basic exercise I always use in evaluating and developing any horse at any level. It's one of the ten fundamental exercises included in the book The Better Deal (available here). 

Finally, Rima will now stand and allow me to rub her head while it is down. Up until now she would raise her head and run backwards when I tried to rub it, particularly when I was standing on the left. She came around much sooner on the right.

Horsemanship Workshop May 4th

A DAY OF HORSEMANSHIP WITH MARGARET BEEMAN
SATURDAY MAY 4th 9AM-3PM

This clinic is full but there is plenty of room for auditors.
Come join us for a day of learning how to be with your horse.

Tomahawk

Tomahawk is a 25 year old POA pony. His current owner has had him for a year but has ridden him only a few times. She would like to have the confidence to take him trail riding with her friends in the nearby state park. Practicing towards that she is loading and trailering him to the ranch twice a week. We are working on basics for safety: good ground manners, standing at the mounting block, staying there until asked to walk off, and stopping immediately any time the rider asks. With a little practice I think they will make a great team.

Here he is on a jaunt around the ranch.

Thanks to Ruth for sharing the photo.

Saddle time for Rima

Rima has been doing well in her circle work in both directions, so I introduced the saddle. She stood well for saddling, but once on the circle experimented with every trick in the book to get rid of it. She finally realized it was just part of the job to carry the saddle and hasn't tried anything to get rid of it since.

After the first saddling session I walked up to rub her on the head, turned around to walk away and she bit me on the arm. I didn't react, as she caught me by surprise and my timing would have been off. Instead I returned to her side, talked to her for a bit, slapped the stirrups on the saddle a bit (below), asked her to disengage her hindquarters a few times, and then walked away again.

She didn't try to bite a second time. She also attempted to bite once while having her feet handled and will threaten with her mouth when having the halter removed after work. She is getting better about that. It's a rather strange habit, but she's a smart horse and I enjoy working with her and I think we'll work through it.

Rima makes progress (part 3)

Rima is making very good progress with her feet. When she first came she would not allow her feet to be held, and was prone to kicking and biting when frustrated. Over the next weeks she got better at allowing her feet to be picked up, though she would stomp them down right away. She is now allowing her feet to be held and her legs extended forward or backward as the farrier will need to do. 

In her circle work she can now hold a nice trot in both directions and we have introduced the canter. She can canter three circles in each direction without getting disorganized or inattentive and falling back into the trot or reacting in frustration.

She is a smart horse with a playful streak who just got confused about how things work. But a confused horse is not a safe horse to work with! I'm happy to see that with consistent handling she's making such good progress and her underlying good character is shining through.

See past posts about Rima here and here. There are other posts about case studies in training in the category "Training Observations," including videos of round pen work, a hard to catch horse and others.

Thanks to Bobbie Wynne for the photos.

The confused bay Lipizzan, part 2

(Read part 1 here).

So after a week and a half of work I can now walk up and pet Rima on the head without her getting defensive.

When I take her down to the arena for ground work I work her and then tie her to the wall while I work a second horse. This helps her learn to wait patiently and be around barn activities and work out any tendency to pull back when tied. I lead her around while tidying up the arena, too.

She can walk and trot a circle in both directions now, but I'm not asking her to canter yet as she is still braced and learning to balance herself at the trot.

When she braces she sometimes gets tangled up and tries to get away. In this picture she's just spun around to try to get away. I'm bracing the rope on my hip in the second picture so it doesn't get pulled out of my hand.

All in all she's clearly got a good mind and she wants to understand. She's listening. Bit by bit her old defensive habits will drop away and she'll lose the anxiety and reactivity.

Many thanks to Bobbie for taking the pictures!

A day of horsemanship - May 4, 2013

Saturday May 4, rain date Sunday May 5.

Morning Groundwork session: 9:30-12:00 noon

Learn the basics of groundwork. You will learn the importance of your position and presentation when handling your horse from the ground. Margaret will teach you 4 basic exercises to use to help you and your horse develop a better understanding of effective communication. Groundwork helps make handling your horse in new and/or difficult situations much safer.

LUNCH BREAK

Afternoon Driving or Riding session: 1:00-3:30

Learn effective communication from the box or mounted.
You will learn how to prepare your horse correctly for transitions and changes of direction.
Margaret will teach you exercises to use to help soften and supple your horse in harness.
Developing a language both you and your horse can understand will make your driving experiences much safer and much more fun.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maximum # of participants is 6 horses per session, no limit on auditors.
Cost to participate with your horse, $75 for the day, or $40 for one session, 1/2 down upon registration.
Audit fee $10.
To register contact Margaret at 845-518-9376 or profcowgirl@gmail.com

One confused horse

A new mare came in for training recently. Rima is a young Lipizzan mare who had fallen through the cracks after her original elderly owner had to give her up due to failing health. Bay is a rare color in Lipizzans but it does occur.

Rima is now four or five years old and has ended up pretty confused and frustrated with human beings. When she arrived she was hard to catch, hard to halter, head shy, and would present her teeth and feet frequently, including when you were trying to catch her. No farrier would work with her and she had become dangerous to be around.

I started her on the basic ground work exercises described in The Better Deal. These are what I use with any horse that comes in, as they get to the root of any problems large or small. I don't worry about the horse's past, but just present everything very simply and clearly. Anxious or aggressive horses soon start to settle down with this approach. They start to relax when they know exactly what I'm asking them to do and realize my responses and actions are going to be very consistent.

After a week and a half of work Rima will now lift up all four feet briefly, without kicking. She won't hold them up for more than a moment, but it's progress. We are doing a lot of yielding exercises on the ground which will help her with picking up her feet. Yielding builds trust as well as balance, both of which impact a horse's comfort with letting you hold one foot off the ground. That's a very vulnerable feeling for a horse.

Lowering the head is a big trust building and softening exercise. Today she did it for the first time. Up til now each time I've asked her first reaction has been to fly backwards and try to get away. We have just kept calmly coming back to the exercise. Today she dropped her head instead of pulling away.

More on Rima's story to come... Thanks to Bobbie Wynne for the photos.

Being big, being small

A lot of people aren't very aware of how they move around their horse or how much their body language impacts their horse. I remember talking to a student one afternoon while she groomed her horse. She was telling me about an upsetting event that had happened the day before, and every few seconds she'd accompany her tense body and voice with a sharp hand movement to emphasize a point. Her horse stood still, but his ears and eyes were on her and every time she made that movement I saw the muscles in his shoulder flinch. Had he been a less mature or more nervous horse, he might have gotten quite reactive.

Learning to be aware of your own body language is one of the things discussed in depth in The Better Deal. The book offers simple explanations and also some fun, practical exercises you can do with a (human) friend to really get a good understanding of how your movement and position impact the horse. Here's a short excerpt:

Your presence is your body language and movement around the horse. Your presence is an important part of communicating with your horse on the ground. It shows the horse your leadership qualities. When you work around your horse, you show him your leadership by having a confident, relaxed body presence. It is important to exclude emotions when presenting yourself to the horse. Replace them with directness, simplicity, controlled energy and enthusiasm.

It is very important that your horse learn to distinguish when you are just walking around him, and when you are asking him to move away from you. You need to learn how to move around him in distinct ways. Your presence needs to be different when you are asking him to move his hindquarters, as opposed to when you are just walking over to pat him on the rump. Your presence can be raised or lowered by changing the way you carry yourself.

Examples of bigger presence (left) and smaller presence (right):
Raised arms: Lowered arms
Tense shoulders: Soft shoulders
Facing the horse squarely: Looking or turning away
Moving towards the horse: Moving away from the horse
Moving fast: Slowing down
Shouting: Speaking softly

The more you raise your presence, the stronger and more aggressive you seem. The more you lower your presence, the more timid and gentle you seem. If you approach your horse with too big a presence, he will become afraid. If your presence is too weak, you can seem hesitant and tentative, making the horse nervous or aggressive. If you approach with a calm, relaxed, deliberate presence he will become confident. When working with horses you need to be able to change your presence to fit the situation. Your body presence is a vital part of communicating with your horse on the ground.

Take a look at the books page to find out more about The Better Deal: Practical Horsemanship Training for You and Your Horse.

My horse won't stand still

A common problem I see is horses that won't stand still. Whether they need to stand still for mounting, stand still in the lineup in the arena, or stand still at a road crossing, instead they fidget, fuss, move forward, move backward, or even rear. This is certainly annoying, but can be downright dangerous. The concepts and exercises in the book The Better Deal (by Margaret Beeman and Ona Kiser) address the underlying misunderstanding that needs to be dealt with to fix this problem. Here's a short excerpt from Chapter 2 that touches on the subject:

Giving the horse the freedom to move is the key to getting him to move when you say move, and also key to getting him to wait. I always offer the horse the choice. For the horse that won't stand during or immediately after mounting, for example, I always allow them the freedom to move. Holding the reins tightly only confines him, and makes him struggle to be free, increasing the problem. In the horse's mind he is trying to get away from the pressure. Instead I mount on a loose rein, and sit there adjusting my clothing and stirrups on a loose rein. If the horse takes a single step forward, I immediately back him up to where he was, and again drop the reins. As long as he is standing still, there is no pressure on him, and he is rewarded by that feeling of freedom.

When the horse misunderstands, you help him by recognizing which of the herd rules he has stopped following. Did you lose acknowledgement? Did you lose respect? You help him re-establish his understanding so he can continue with the work at hand. So many times things go south simply because people get ahead of their horses. It is so important to be in the moment with your horse, so you can feel where he is having trouble. He is your partner: help him out!

If you follow the order of the herd rules when communicating with your horse, your requests will be structured and presented to the horse in a way which takes into account the way a horse thinks. If your horse understands you, you have a much better chance of being safe with him.

You'll find more about the herd rules and practical exercises for developing good communication with your horse in The Better Deal: Practical Horsemanship Training for You and Your Horse. Find out more on the books page!