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A few posts ago, I mentioned an audio book I’d been
reading and suggested it was a great book for anyone experiencing the imminent
demise of his or her relationship with the big, furry tank standing glaring in
the pasture. I thought it might be a
good idea to spread the word while I took the author’s experiences to heart and
put some repair effort into my big Paint, Zips Moodswings. The book is Healing Shine: A Spiritual Assignment, by Michael Johnson, and at that
point I was just happy to hear that there was someone else out there having the
same (okay, “similar”…we never roped anything in our lives and cows scare the
crap out of us) problems . Misery loves
company, and whining is better with permission from a higher power, namely
someone who knows something.
As it turns out, I was wrong. I didn’t just need permission; I actually
needed the details. I am here now to
touch up my recommendation with a big, gold star. A bullet.
A little “I heart this book” thing in the margin. This is truly one of the most powerful books
on my shelf.
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| "Give us a hug" |
Back when I posted
all that stuff, I hadn’t really made the
mental connection that came with the philosophy. Sure, it was great to hear that I was allowed
to have bad feelings about my horse, to rant and rave in the silent barn while
the horses watched wide-eyed and twitchy-eared.
And it was a plus to know that someone else had been brought to tears by
their bestest buddy in a setting outside of a college fraternity party or a
prom-night dumpage. And I immediately
went about mending fences with the Zipper.
But, see, I really wasn’t doing anything different. I was simply not. I was not-yelling, not-smacking,
not-using negative language, not-discouraging.
I was, I thought, accepting the situation and letting Zip be Zip. Something, however, seemed terribly wrong. That something was my attitude.
So I listened to a couple of chapters over again. Now, Mr. Johnson is not writing as a
trainer. This isn’t a how-to manual for turning a knock-kneed, twisted-brained
creature into a blue ribbon show-pen star.
It’s about sadness and frustration and motivation and making
connections. That was the part I
missed. I was all about sadness and
frustration without adding the motivation and connection piece.
The next day I started again, but first I did what I always
tell my readers to do: I got the “should”
out. Zip, for reasons all his own, had
decided he wanted to be nothing more nor less than a trick pony. And he was (and is) a good one as far as my
limited training ability has taken him.
I was using his love of tricks (nice line-dancer, that big guy is!) as a
reward for good behavior by letting him perform before and after our miserable
riding experiences. If he so much as seemed like he might think about cooperating, I
praised him and treated him to some trick time.
That was fine, and he was much happier with me overall. But the riding part wasn’t moving
forward. Meaning Zip wasn’t moving
forward. Three walking steps followed by
ten minutes of arguing doesn’t constitute forward motion in my book. Then
it came to me. All the stuff I’d written
about stimulus-response and positive reinforcement came flooding back, and I realized the reward wasn’t
timely enough and there was no pre-cue, no primary and secondary reinforcer
set-up, nothing but chaos in my mind and his.
The next day, we started over. I am sure that the neighbor who watches me
from behind her curtains had a good laugh when I climbed aboard with my handy Hoofprints.com
leather treat pouch
around my waist and a clicker dangling from my wrist, but honestly, horse
folks, at this point I don’t care anymore.
Retraining from the bottom up seemed like a plan.
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| The t-shirt is supposed to fool him |
That first day was nothing to write home about. The first half of the session was devoted to
mounting block etiquette. A few strides
were made, and I opted to move on.
Aboard the horse, getting forward motion was the next obstacle. For that day he got a click for every step he
made. He got a treat after every few
steps. Between times, he thought, and I
let him do that.
ZIP: “Huh? You
clicked me. I didn’t do anything.”
ME: “Yeah, you
did. You moved.”
ZIP: “You should see a doctor. You’re losing it. What if I do this?”
ME: “Nope. I just want you to walk. Spinning around isn’t on the agenda.”
ZIP: “It’s harder, though. Can we substitute?”
And so it went, with long discussions and a lot of wondering
on both sides of the saddle.
The next week or three presented a problem, as haying
intervened. Our efforts were cut
drastically to a few minutes whenever I wasn’t on the tractor or too tired to
move. But the intermittent reinforcement
effect was in full swing, and the changes were obvious.
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| The Good Ol' Days |
Yesterday I hopped aboard with minimal fuss at the mounting
block and we had a lovely workout session capped by a ride to “get the mail”
(down the driveway). There was clicking
and there were cookies, but there was almost no balking and considerable effort
at lateral work, round circles, straight-horse-going-straight and the rest of
the beginner business. It was almost
like the good old days. Almost.
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| No, I was never as good as Jess, and I'm okay with that. |
Now, we might never get back there to those sunny times when
a jump course was his favorite thing to see in the ring and trees falling
alongside him in the woods didn’t make him turn an ear. Fortunately I have two other horses to ride,
at least one of which is a dream all the time without a mood swing in his
repertoire. But I’m seeing the problem
through fresh eyes, and Zip seems to be enjoying learning his new “tricks”, and
I don’t care how silly it looks to have the treat bag and clicker dangling
because it’s working, and that’s the bottom line for every training method, isn’t
it?
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