The Domino Effect

I’ve said it before, but I’d like to start getting back into blogging. I feel like I don’t keep enough physical record of Domino and I’s progress, and I’d like to have something besides memories to look back on sometimes.

Since my last post we’ve come pretty far. He can do all of the seven games, including his arch nemesis the circling game, and I’m also now able to ride him in all directions instead of just in reverse.

On Sunday (Jan. 29, 2012) We had our very first lesson with Kim Kindred, which in turn was our very first lesson with a Parelli Professional. We started working on changes of direction while circling. Domino had a habit of pulling on the rope which would make me fight back by tugging on the rope to regain his head. Needless to say, it was a game and a game I was losing. To make a game out of him pulling, I was instructed to ask him to change direction every time he pulled. However, this was a pretty big challenge due to the fact that he doesn’t particularly like changing his direction from tracking right to tracking left.

So, I ended up having to back up into the wall of the indoor arena, draw him in, have him face me with two eyes, and then resend. He got pretty unconfident when continuously asked to keep changing dirrection and being forced by the wall to stop and look at me. He even took off on us a couple times. This was the behavior that really gotmelicking and chewing. The taking off at full gallop is a behavior I used to see all the time when I first started working with him. He’d get nervous and unconfident panic and then eventually haul off for the hills.

I don’t see this behavior at all when it’s just me and him alone (with the exception of Monday). However, it seems like every time I have an instructor (besides my barn manager) come and work with him he loses confidence at the drop of a hat. My theory on this is that him and I are a herd of two, and 99% of the time I’m his leader. Perhaps in his eyes he sees the instructor, who he’s never seen before, as someone trying to take over the leadership position and the fact that I stand there and do nothing to try and protect our herd is nerve racking to him. I can see why that could be panic-worthy and why he would question me as a leader for not doing anything about it. I believe the only reason he trusts my barn manager is because he sees her twice a week when we use the arena while a friend of mine takes lessons under her, and he hears her voice every night when she teaches lessons.

Monday (Jan. 30, 2012): questioning me is precisely what he did. He didn’t meet me at the gate that morning like he usually does. In fact he even resisted coming with me after I caught him and tried to lead him to the gate. When we got into the arena he was completely unconnected and unconfident. We tried to play the friendly game and as soon as the string touched him back he was off like a rocket. I decided to just work on having him stick to me at the walk at liberty and come in to me when asked. He first assumed that I wanted him to circle and we did get some soft circles at liberty and good yields when I wanted him to come in. But, he was still hesitant to really trust me when he came it. He was only offering me his right eye. Eventually after an hour of playing to to me at the walk and Dom putting more effort into coming in when asked I decided to quit there for the day. When I put him back out into his pasture, he completely ignored me and even turned his butt to me every time I tried to look at his face. I spent some UDT with him out there in hopes he’d become interested in me, but he didn’t, so I packed up and went home.

Tuesday (Jan. 31, 2012): He was still a little reluctant, but he did meet me at the gate when I came to get him. I was in a pretty good mood because I had just watched my barn buddies, Mrs. Karol and her mom, have a wonderful lesson where their horse Tommy (an extreme RBE) really showed he can be confident in himself. I spiffed him up and put on his boots and headed to the outdoor ring. It was 63 degrees, so it was nice and warm and bright out there. We worked on the seven games and we even got some changes of direction with the circling game without a wall. He was so relaxed and soft this day.

When we both got bored of of usual games I got an idea to try something new an unexpected. I walked him over to the wooden mounting block and asked him to step on the first step like it was a pedestal. He questioned it a little at first since he’s never stood on anything more than 6 inches off the ground and made sure that he pawed it a bit to make sure it was sturdy, but after a couple tests he put both feet on the step. I was really impressed with him, so I wanted to see if he could get the the second step. he got right on it and must have even noticed that he could see a little better up there as he stopped to watch another horse taking a ride down the driveway. We eventually did get to the top step after a little bit of coaxing. I was so thrilled with his effort that I got a little excited when he got both feet up there and Dom gave me an odd look and swiveled his ears as if to say “Hey, wait a minute! Aren’t you supposed to be an introvert? Where’s all this energy coming from and why?” He always gets a little caught off guard when I get really high spirited and expressive which always makes me laugh.

Wednesday Feb. 1,2012: My initial plans for when I got to the barn were to borrow and English saddle from the schooling tack room, and try a couple of one foot jumps for the first Time with Domino. Dom always gets amped up about jumping while playing with On line, so I figured maybe jumping while playing freestyle would be fun and interesting for him. After we had finished tacking up I played with him with the seven games and even attempted to do a little work on the figure 8 pattern (we still need a lot of work on this). He did pretty well so I hopped on and had to take a few minutes to get back into the feel of an English saddle since I’ve been riding Dom in his western saddle. After a few minutes he felt so nice and collected under me, so I had no hesitations about being confident about jumping.

To get off on a tangent for a second, jumping isn’t really my thing. It used to be, right up until I took a jump on a 17hh horse about six years ago and nearly got rocket launched. It was a really big shot to my confidence and I hadn’t really tried it since. I feel confident doing pretty much anything on Domino though, so I figured I would give it a go and see how things went and if he liked it that we’d possibley continue with it.

We took the first jump at a trot, and beyond me releasing too quickly from being out of practice, we got over it pretty smoothly. I came around the turn and wanted to try it again, only this time Dom got really introverted and started getting a little sticky in his feet about halfway to the jump and when we did get to it he planted his feet and refused to even try and walk over it. We repeated this pattern a couple of time until finally he just stopped in front of the jump, took his foot and literally pulled the cross rails down to walk over them. He cracks me up sometimes. After He did that i thought to myself, If I really have enough moxy to argue with you about jumping, which I don’t even like to do, I have enough moxy to ride you outside for the first time.

My original idea was to hold off on outdoor riding until spring, as it’s something he’s never done. I planned on progressing to the fenced in outdoor ring, then to the fence-less dressage ring, and finally onto riding around the property. However, since I was feeling so confident I decided to take him out to the dressage ring and experiment. When we got to the ring we started playing with our usual walk/trot warm up. He did excpetional with me only having to keep him from stepping out of the ring once. When he started to feel really comfortable under me and blew out a few times I decided I wanted to step it up and walk to the end of the upper barn’s driveway. We did that without any issue, so we progressed to walking down to the lower barn and pretty soon we were walking and trotting all over the property! I was so proud of him. Just the day before I was talking about how we were a little ways off from outdoor riding and here we were tackling the challenge like champs. He seemed to really enjoy himself as well which was what I wanted the whole day to be about to begin with. He was so curious about everything going on around him- a huge contrast to the dullness of a walled indoor arena. I can’t wait to see where this milestone leads to!

I haven’t been posting on here nearly as much as I’ve wanted to, but to get back into the swing of things I figured I’d talk about the best Ride me and Domino have had together- ever!

Usually, being LBI, Domino hates going forward. He’ll plant his feet, maybe even give a little stomp in protest, and give me a look that pretty much says, “Go ahead squeeze all you want! I’m 900 pounds, go ahead and make me move! I dare you!” It can get pretty frustrating at times, especially when he decides to start backing up instead of moving forward. My boyfriend’s sister who sometimes gets on him says his antics reminder her of this scene from Spongebob Squarepants. He’ll just keep backing up, and backing up until finally I have to turn him and get him to halt.

I decided to ride him last weekend and get to the bottom of why he did this and how to motivate him to move forward. We started off as usual- a couple steps forward then some head shaking and backing up. It continued like that for a good ten minutes before he planted his feet and refused to budge at all. I squeezed with all my might and tried to turn him a couple times to get him going that way, but nothing! Then he decided that he wanted to smell every poo pile in the arena and have a nice visit with the gate.

Naturally I fought against him. I told him no, and pulled his head up what seemed like a thousand times. When he finally stopped at the gate and refused to move away no matter how much I squeezed or tugged, that’s when my “AH HA!” moment began. I relaxed, sat the reins on his withers, and went as loose and slouchy as a sack of potatoes and in my mind I said to myself, You know what? I don’t care anymore. No one is here to see us look like idiots, so we can just sit at this gate all day long if that’s what you want to do. Your back is comfortable enough.

We sat there for a good long while and then finally he started to walk off and around the arena. We went a whole half lap before we came upon a poo pile and I decided to just let him sniff it. I guess he got his nose full and off we were again at a nice working walk. I decided to take him to ever poo pile I could spot, let him get him get his sniffing in, and cue him to move on to the next one. Eventually after doing this around 5 times he got so bored with the gate and poo piles that he wanted to move forward. We went around the arena 5 times without a break in his walk. It was amazing. I always hear Pat and Linda say “Make their idea your idea”,  but I had really misinterpreted it. Giving Domino what he wanted really made his distractions boring for him. They weren’t a game of lets-see-how-much-it-takes-before-she-gets-mad anymore. Hopefully our next ride will be twice as good since I have this new psych tool to use.

This semester I’ve been studying human development in my psychology class. Our most recent topic was Identity crisis in adolescents and the continuing development of our identities throughout our lifespan. I’ve always been pretty confident in knowing who I am as a person. However, I couldn’t have been more off when it comes to the personality I display while working with my horse.

I’ve recently (within the past year) become more confident and more extroverted in my behavior. I didn’t give much thought into this when playing with Domino, but now that I’m scanning through my memories and analyzing our play sessions, I can definitely see a difference in my outward self when I’m with him compared to a few years ago.

When I first started working with him I was very introverted, and I believe I was using more soft body language than I have been recently. I’ve noticed I’m more demanding and pushy with him- more prone to fight him on something than retreat and ask again. This has to bother him as he’s a Left Brained Extrovert and wants things his way. I’ve had to battle with him for dominance before during our first year, but never like we are now.

[edit]

For the past couple of nights playing with him I’ve more carefully monitered the way I display my emotions and softened my tone of voice and body language. It’s seemed to have worked well for us so far. While he’s still trying to be pushy with his face and is still crowding me at times, he has been much more responsive and cognitive of his actions lately. Our connectivity has also has a boost in the past couple play sessions.

Being human is what I was born into, and sometimes it’s hard to lose the preditoty nature that’s been imprinted on me. However, when I just let go and start acting like a partner instead of a teacher, that’s when things click.

I think that’s the biggest thing I’ll have to overcome with Domino- Myself.

Challenge excepted!

I remember the very first time I “met” Domino. I was in the second stall of the lesson barn where I took riding lessons. His mother was quietly standing there beside me while I groomed her in preparation to ride. That’s when it happened- while brushing her flank a small tiny hoof tip stretched it’s way into visibility through her skin. I remember touching his little foot through her skin and having him kick at me. It was an amazing feeling- enough to make my little thirteen year old self squeal with delight shouting, “He kicked me, He kicked my hand!” I suppose that’s when I should have know that something special was in store.

I wasn’t a very large part of his life at first. The most we shared were trail rides when someone would ride his mother and he got to tag along with the rest of the group, and there was one occasion where I began teaching him to pick up his feet. Other than that we weren’t too involved in each other’s lives. I was more taken with a stallion we had on the property at the time. That horse was my first big step towards natural horsemanship, so I suppose Domino should be grateful for me being more taken with the other horse.

After the Lesson barn closed up, I left and went onto taking lessons elsewhere- eventually quiting after I entered highschool. Luckily, in my junior year, my school created an equestrian club group. I jumped at the chance, and began going to Graham Equestrian Center on saturday mornings. This is where my real foundation in the Parelli methods came from. I eventually took lessons full time with Jim Mcdonald at Graham until the horse I worked with, Jesse, passed away from a freak accident. I stayed away from horse stuff for about a year after that due to the grief I was feeling.

Domino re-entered my life in 2009 when I went back to the old lesson barn in hopes of finding the location of the other horse, Saleem, that I had been so taken with years ago. While I didn’t find Saleem that day, I found myself with an offer to start working with Domino from the new owner of the barn. She was lacking time to work with him, and he wasn’t exactly the type of horse you could afford not to take your time with. He was naughty, Impulsive, and the most forward-aholic horse I’d ever met, but he was intriguing and intelligent like his father had been.

I worked on basic things like catching him, the friendly game, and not bolting every time he got frustrated or confused for the first year. He was quite the handful, but I loved every minute of it. I kept at it until he finally trusted me. And after that, we were golden. Learning things was so quick and easy. By the second year we were playing with tarps, excersize balls, and plastic bags like he was born around them. I was proud of myself for coming so far with him.

in August of 2011, Hook (the other elderly horse he was kept with) became ill and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The owner of them both, Jenni, offered to give me Domino for free since I had done so much for him. I scrapped together all of my finances and became the proud owner of Domino in July. We have been progressing through Parelli ever since.