Baby Steps

Sometimes when training it is necessary to go slow....really really slow.  I am currently working with a mare who is almost completely blind and it has been quite the learning experience.  Meet Bella,

Bella is a very sweet, teenage mare of unknown breeding who has been blind for most of her life due to neglect.  Her owner, Mary,  rescued her many years ago and has now decided that she wants to try to get her started under saddle.  To be honest, at first I did not have any idea where to start.  The normal protocol would simply not work in this situation.   After some consideration and a long talk with Mary, we decided to start at the beginning.  The very beginning.  We started with teaching Bella to lead.  Even though she was several years into her teens and had been led a lot during those years, most of the time she was only taken to a few known places, like in and out of pasture, or back and forth to the barn.  We needed to get this mare to be confident in allowing us to lead her ANYWHERE and know she would be safe.  She also had to learn the importance of "whoa" and to respect it each and every time.  We worked on that alone for nearly two months.

I have to give a huge amount of credit to Mary for laying a fantastic foundation over the years. She was and is completely dedicated to taking the time and doing the work that needs to be done for Bella to be as strong and confident as possible. She has worked with Bella extensively using clicker training and it makes a world of difference.  Whenever we introduce something new and Bella gets nervous, we can revert back to something she knows well and it helps to build her confidence.  And lately we have been introducing lots of new things!  As you can imagine, Bella is very wary of things that flap around or make strange noises, so things like saddle pads and the reins of a bridle take some getting used to.  We opted to go with a bitless bridle in order to keep things simple for Bella, and since it works off of pressure points similar to a halter, which she already understands.  Bella has worn a saddle in the past, so we simply had to reintroduce that to her.  And here we are about seven months later, with a fully tacked up, confident mare!

 

We still have a long way to go, but I am thrilled with how far we have come.  Good job Mary!

 

Building blocks

I work with a lot of horses who's background is unknown.  Maybe they are broke to ride, maybe not.  Maybe they have great training, or maybe there are big gaping holes in that training. Who knows.  So it is quite the guessing game for me to figure out what they know, what they don't, and what I can do about it.  I am currently working with a fabulous little quarter horse mare who knows A LOT.  I don't know much about her past, but I know she had some western training.  She stops on a dime, leg yields like a champ, and is one of the least spooky horses I ride.  She bathes, clips, ties and can be safely ridden by a novice rider.  So imagine my confusion when I realized that she does not know how to canter, or seem to have any idea whatsoever that she had a third gear.  Somehow, in her fifteen years of life she was never taught this skill.  It kind of baffles me, to be honest.  It seems so basic.

I decided to go back to the beginning and started off lunging this mare in a round pen.  At first, she would only give me a stride or two of canter before she would lose her balance and fall back to trot, but that was OK.  Even just those two strides were a big step for her.  Eventually she was balanced enough to make it around a full circle, then two circles, then three.  It was slow going.  As she got stronger and started to understand more, we progressed outside the round pen and onto a lunge line, then to under saddle.  I have been very careful to take is slow as she needs, she gets upset when she makes a mistake and I don't want to blow her mind.  It has been about six weeks and just the other day she finally offered me a relaxed canter that I barely had to ask for.  We still can only make it about halfway around the arena, but we are making progress.