So last weekend, Chief and I hit the trails with Double Trouble A. and A. and another cohort T. So we had a nice little group. Chief is often extra excitable when we ride with so many horses but this day he was super excited. Not only were we out with his arch competitor Dandy, but we also hadn't ridden in two weeks. Remember how I said I wasn't going to do that again? Well life happens, what can you do?
It was a super foggy, gray, chilly day, but it was warm enough to ride so we went out. We all like the new, new trail so we decided to do that one again. I was in the back which is good for Chief, he needs to learn how to follow. He's a great leader, but great leaders need to be good followers too! Right away Chief wanted to stay on the behind of Kris. I find this bad manners so I kept asking him to slow down but Chief wasn't up much for listening. There's all these horses and we haven't been out in awhile and it's all so exciting!! At least for Chief... You'll notice there are no pictures from this trip. Well folks, my hands were full of reins so I wasn't able to get any shots so you'll have to excuse this post.
I tried lots of different things to absolve this situation. It is very helpful that while Chief will come out of the gate strong, he lacks in stamina. So after a couple of big hills, Chief was much easier to keep off of Kris's rear. But, I kept thinking "What would Clinton Anderson do?" Clinton has a lot of great sayings like "Move Your Feet" and "Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard." So I kept repeating these in my head. So, first I tried pulling back on the reins and when Chief would give in the mouth and slow even a tiny bit, I would release the pressure. Of course as soon as I released the pressure, he would speed up again. So when my arms started getting tired, I decided to serpentine him whenever the trail was flat enough. At this point I was thinking, "move your feet." He was sooo excited so if I directed his feet where to go, I thought maybe he would slow down. That didn't work so well.... So next I tried make the wrong thing hard, so every time we got too close to Kris, I would do tight circles, this is also good for "move your feet." That seemed to help the most. So the plan became, ask him nicely with the reins to slow down. If he didn't listen after three tries, do two circles. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat. Most importantly, I added lots of praise when Chief was doing good and keeping his distance. Also, if he automatically slowed down when Kris did, he got event more praise. That is what a good follower does. He sees the horse in front of him slow down so he does too, rather than running up on his butt. Yeah, that's a dangerous situation... Thank you to Kris for being a good boy and not kicking the snot out of Chief (though he deserved it).
By the end of the ride, I felt like we were doing pretty good, keeping a decent amount of distance betwen Chief and Kris. So persistance pays off folks! If you've never heard of Clinton Anderson and are interested in natural ways to train your horse, I suggest you check out his website http://www.downunderhorsemanship.com/. He does clinics throughout the year all over the country and of course has tons of DVD's for purchase. All in all, it was a good ride with good friends. Whenever we can hit the trails its a good day!
downunderhorsemanship.com
No comments:
Post a Comment