Cob Jockey

 July

 I started to explore 'sitting heavy' with my home trainer with great results. Connor colicked for the first time ever, just a mild gas colic. And my PT friend helped me further explore and fix my asymmetries.

 

August

Mary moved 40 minutes away from me and started jumping Connor once a week. I found a way to make Pilates fit the budget long term after realizing how much it had helped my riding, and my home trainer announced she was closing her program September 1 to focus on her family and her crazy successful TruTex footing business.

Wouldn't be where I am today without her <3

 

September

Buckle up, this month was big! I announced my big plan to send Connor off to full training with my GP trainer and lease Castleberrys Aeres from their breeder while he was gone. I started doing stalls twice a month mostly for fun, sent Connor to Cincinnati, brought Aeres home, and Mary and I dyed her forelock. Aeres got treated for foregut ulcers with Esomaprazole, and Connor got treated for hindgut ulcers with Misoprostol. I put my heart dog down and showed Connor at both a WPCSA show and a Dressage schooling show.

 

October

I clicker trained Aeres to stand at the mounting block with huge success. Connor made flat out amazing improvements in his canter with CGP and got his first flying changes at the end of the month! Mary bought me my first glitter saddle pad as a birthday present (foreshadowing, lol) and we adopted the newest member of the family, Meatloaf. I took Aeres to Cincinnati for a lesson with CGP, and came to the tough realization that I had to do a lot better for my "new" pony after all he'd learned.

November

We made a sale video for Aeres even though she's not really for sale. Mary gave me a lunge lesson on Aeres, Aeres "jumped" for the first time under saddle, Connor started going in a nathe and loved it, and I started seeing results from buckling down hard on Pilates and my position over the last month.

December

I had to quarantine for two weeks in late November/early December after close contact with a COVID-positive person. I learned I have an incredibly weak right glute med and what that's been doing to my riding. Meatloaf solidified herself as my first good barn dog ever, I crashed a jump lesson for Dressage ladies at CGPs while wearing a sparkly teal saddle pad, we blew up my posting mechanic (again), I became a fancy stirrup iron convert, and I drove to Cincinnati every day for a week to take four lessons before I brought Connor home. And I brought Connor home on New Years' Eve <3

Last night I finally got around to introducing Aeres to clicker training. I had tried it with Connor in the past; he was supremely indifferent to it, but I had a strong feeling Aeres would be different. She reminds me of Hank in how treat motivated she is, and more specifically in how a treat seems to turn an "I'm afraid of this/I hate this" situation into "Oh yeah sure totally" for her.

Easily bought. Like yesterday at the vet's when the vet was definitely killing him with those nail clippers until the vet came back with a treat bag.

With Aeres, I introduced the clicker differently than I had with Hank or Connor, based on an idea I got from a Facebook group JenJ added me to. Someone suggested standing next to the horse's shoulder facing forward, which naturally makes them want to crane their necks around to investigate you, but only click-treating when they get bored of that and face forward, standing quietly. So stand quietly facing forward becomes their default response in the future, especially when they're confused about what you're asking.

 

This could not have worked better or faster with Aeres. Not only did she quickly understand the ask, she started to play with her response. How long does my head need to be forward before the treat? What position? Do I get a treat if I swing my head back around after the click? It was so cool to watch her brain work, and to give her a chance to do real work that doesn't cause anxiety, that she has no pre-existing associations with.

That was as much as I'd planned for last night, intending to keep it short and simple, but she was so engaged and excited about puzzling out the clicker training that I decided to see if I could transpose that into the mounting block. Up to that point, I had had to either have a ground person hold her, or squeeze her against the wall to get on, because otherwise she'd swing her hindquarters away from the mounting block.

Sorry about the glare, I only took these videos to prove it to Mary, because I knew she wouldn't believe me

I broke it down into tiny steps, asking her to stand while I stood at her head, then her shoulder, one foot on the mounting block, two feet on the mounting block, scratching her withers, scratching her hindquarters, standing on the mounting block, rocking the saddle, finally getting on, click treating all the way. In between each of those especially at the beginning, I had to stop and move her hindquarters back into position several times.

But within probably 10 minutes...

I was able to get on and get off over and over again without her moving so much as a foot. She didn't even have the outside hind leg tentatively held in a "I might need this so I'm going to get it ready" kind of way. 

I could see and feel her brain puzzling out how to make the click-treat occur, and she was genuinely enjoying it. I probably got on and off 10+ times and she never moved a muscle, which is a stunning amount of progress. She stood at the mounting block relaxed as long as I asked her to by the end of the session, no matter where I was on the ground or if I was on her.

I am so excited to see what else we can do with this. Just like with Hank, it feels like I built a language bridge with her that I can use to do lots of other things now.

Connor's done some pretty athletic trotting lately.  Unfortunately, I've been able to admire it from the ground as I try to catch him in his paddock:

Frisky.

I caught him NINE TIMES IN A ROW using clicker training.  On the 10th time, his buddy walked between the two of us right as I was about to halter him, and they had a great time playing and scampering through the field for 30 minutes.  Ever since then, it's been back to the same old thing, and the clicker training methods have been largely ineffective.

He really hit a high point (sarcasm) when my mom was there.  I had already brought his buddy in, but he was still running around by himself.  I had the bottom strand of hot wire down as usual, but the top two up, and he went under the top two, pretty much on his knees since it's maybe 2 or 2.5 feet of clearance under there, and escaped.  Of course my trainer was right there teaching a lesson, too.

Moments before the great escape.  You can see the height of the middle strand of hotwire behind him.

What a handsome jerk.

I ruefully yelled "Connor!" as his butt disappeared into the barn at Mach 12.  All of the gates were wide open, but there's nowhere else he'll go except his own stall, so I wasn't worried.  I captured him in someone else's stall, and we got on with our day.

Captured!  The criminal's mugshot.

Back to the drawing board...

I feel like I have a large enough sample size to follow up on clicker training for the hard-to-catch Welsh Cob.

Captured!

I'm 4 for 4 over the past two weeks!  Some might say that is a small sample size, but if you consider that I haven't caught him without catching his buddy first in about two years, four is a pretty good streak.

My last couple of tries, he's actually trotted away from me, then realized I had the clicker, stopped, turned around and walked up to me.

He's still sensitive when I catch him - last time I moved too fast to halter him after I gave him his first treat, and he spun 10 feet away from me before coming back and allowing himself to be haltered.

I have been:
- Making it about the touch game for about a minute before I move to halter him - long enough to make it seem like I'm not just there to halter him, short enough to keep his attention
- Giving him high-value treats that he loves and only gets when the clicker is out (Cliff Bars!)
- Doing a click-and-treat-jackpot once he's wearing his halter
- Practicing the 'Connor, Touch!' game in other places besides the field as well.  He's slowly getting better.

I still hold my breath every time I go out there, expecting him to catch on and ignore me, but so far, so good.

First off, every comment left on my last post was genuinely good - many of them were multiple paragraphs long, too!  It inspired a lot of good discussion, and honestly might be the biggest help this blog has given me so far - but that's a post for another day, because...

I caught Connor like a normal horse today!  First time in two years!  And in a big field!

"Me?  Hard to catch?"

Bad Eventer recently inspired me to try clicker training.  She basically said, when all the desensitization/familiarization/obedience in the world didn't help her crazy Baby Seabiscuit, she tried operant conditioning, aka clicker training, and it worked.

And I thought, "Hmm...all the desensitization in the world and Connor is still spooky with stupid things, like his owner walking up to him in the field.  That's a good theory."  It was not an avenue I would normally consider for training, but it worked for Bad Eventer when all else failed, so I gave it a shot.

Step 1: New rule: Connor only gets treats if he does something clickable.
Step 2: Connor learns the command "Connor, touch!" means that he should touch his nose to the treat jar lid that I hold in front of him, and that he gets a click/treat when he does it right.
Step 3: We do a couple of touch target sessions in his stall, and then in his field after I turn him out after a ride, when he is totally not spooky about me being around him, unlike before the ride.

Then today, I get to the barn and he and his buddy are in a far pasture, while the two super easy keepers are in their drylot.  Since that situation looks permanent, I decided it was time to set new ground rules for the new field.  He was at the far end of his field, and I walked out about 15 feet from the gate and called his name.  When he raised his head in response, I clicked.  I said, "Connor, come on!" and when he started walking toward me, I clicked immediately to mark the good behavior.

He ended up walking about 75 feet toward me, stopping once or twice to consider his options.  When he stopped, I repeated "Connor, come on!" and when he started walking, I clicked again.  When he finally was close enough to reach out and touch the target, he was reactive and spooky, and started at the clicker once, but didn't run away.  We played the touch-click-treat game for a minute, and then I was able to halter him.

Just like a normal horse.

For the first time in 2.5 years.

I seriously hope that was not a fluke.