Teeter-totter through more groundwork

After my “aha” moments of the week, I decided to venture out to the barn and tackle some tarps and stuff. My tools for the day
- Flag
- Tarp
- Rope halter
- Patience

Q was not too impressed with my plan.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I got the snort, the scoot and the jump to the back of the stall when he saw the tarp coming. So by the time I had him in the aisle with his halter on, he was less surprised by their appearance. But he still shrinked away.

Then we got into the arena, Q giving the tarp and flag a wide berth until I asked him to approach. You can see how tentative he is.

This continued for a while but we eventually graduated to walking and trotting both directions, alternating with some flag work and poll release.

I then wanted to get a halt on the tarp, as I believe that the horse doesn't truly "own" the obstacle until he is capable of standing relaxed on the object. It took a few turns, and then he was able to do it. He did struggle with backing up, as it would snag at the tarp and make noises.

I did notice that he is quite upset when things are near his feet that he can't quite see. Especially if they rustle. Eventually it was time to graduate to the "tarp on horse" phase. It took many starts and stops, ask and release. At first, he was quite tense, as witnessed in this picture.

So that took a while,  and I broke up the session with other stuff. I would sometimes go back to areas he felt successful before going back to more difficult requests.

It took about 30 minutes to progress to the last step, the tarp unfolded. I would only ask more when he could do the last step relaxed.

This was my last step, one hour in. I saw a big weakness here that I will have to work on. As you see the tarp is bundled up on his back. I would then let it drop on the offside. Once it hit the floor, he would tense and at first he panicked and jumped forward. I redid the exercise 15-20 times on each side, but dumping the bundle on the same side. It took about 30 minutes to achieve some success here, but I would take advantage of having him practice a back/sidepass/forward/halt to reposition himself for the next task.

Stacy Westfall just started a new training series with Bold Willow and Timid Gaby and talks about her goal as a trainer to teeter-totter the horses to the best versions of themselves. She speaks of the reactivity of the horses and how it requires different approach at times. You can be sure that I will be tuning in, even from the Cafés of Budapest.