Took Pandora to a PC dressage lesson today. She was anxious at first but settled down pretty well, no major spooks or anything. The lesson gave me some very solid ideas of areas to work on with her -- so far I've just been kind of puttering around, trying to figure her out and help her figure me out.
The trainer wants me to work on getting her off her forehand. Since she tucked behind the vertical so much when I first got her, I'd been encouraging leaning forward into my hands. Which helped get rid of her anxious tucking....but led to leaning and running on the forehand!
So we worked a lot on bringing my upper body back so I don't add my weight to her forehand. I also need to stop letting her take the reins and lean on them; she told me to really be steady and solid with my outside rein to keep her from leaning on the forehand, then ask her to bend with my inside rein but then relax so she doesn't curl her nose, all while using my inside leg to support.
It certainly made her anxious and a little frustrated -- she's a bit of a perfectionist and tends to get nervous when she's not sure what we're doing -- but we made some progress and I could feel her starting to understand what I was asking.
I liked that the trainer had plenty of balance between asking for her to come up off her forehand and allowing her to stretch in a free walk or trot. As she pointed out, it's the "carry, relax, carry, relax" that will help Pandora to become supple and strong.
I felt like it was a very constructive lesson.
Pandora's been having a little loose stool lately - not every pile is loose, but some are. I think it's because she accidentally got some alfalfa yesterday, so I'll keep an eye on her, but she seems to be feeling fine.
Haven't had a chance to play with the clicker again yet. I'm going to go make a new and improved target now (we have a dog ball-throwing stick that got pretty beat up, so I'm going to duct tape a dead tennis ball to the end) and do another 20-minute session with her tomorrow. She responded so well the first time that I think we'll be able to take this pretty far.
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2 comments:
Hey, I read a lot about clicker training today. May have to give it a try. Why not?
I say go for it.
What's the worst that'll happen? You and your horse will get a little confused and you'll set it aside to try again next time!
It's great fun. Let me know how it goes, would you?
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