Bookends Farm

Introducing Enrichment

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 17:46:00 +0000

As often as I encourage giving horses and dogs enrichment, I sometimes get the response of, “oh he’s not smart enough to figure that out” or “she’s too lazy to do that, she just wants to eat”. I’m not always sure if that’s an assumption people make because they think of their animals a certain way or if they have tried it unsuccessfully. In either case, my response is the same as it is for other training challenges: break it down, make it easier. And then slowly increase the challenge.

I know from experience that learning to slice things into easier steps is a skill which takes time to develop so here are some suggestions.

Enrichment items sometimes come in the form of an obvious puzzle, such as items that require an animal to “open” it before finding the treat. But even if the toy appears straightforward to you such as a kong with food sitting right inside easy for the animal to see and smell, if the animal’s experience with eating has been having their food in an open bowl or tub to eat simply, they might not be sure what to do. And if the animal has ever been punished for helping themselves to food (i.e. getting into a bag of food or treats left where they could access it), then they are going to be more skeptical about investigating further. So first:

Make it Easy:

If food is spilling out of the toy into the dish or bucket the animal usually eats from, it is going to encourage them to go for it to get the easy food that’s out, and then nose around for any that might be along the edge, which if they nudge it causes more to come out. That is where the learning begins: “hey, if I push this thing around with my nose, I can get more food!”.

kibble that falls right out of a kong
is a good first toy for dogs

carrot pieces poking
out of a hay bag

When first introducing enrichment, give it in addition to a normal meal. Even if our end goal is to feed the animal’s meal in a toy, (which I encourage), they can become frustrated if they now have to work for it all of a sudden. You can withhold a small portion of their food to put in the toy, and give them the rest in the way they are used to. What is really fun about this is seeing how many of them will slowly come to enjoy the challenge so much that they eat out of the toy before eating the easy stuff in the dish. Then you really have a happy consumer!

hay in a hay ball with pieces poking out that are easy for the horse to grab and pull...which pulls more hay out! At the same time, there is "free" hay on the floor they can eat to prevent frustration if they are hungry and don't know how to access the hay inside the ball. But this pony likes the toy enough that he eats out of it before eating the hay on the floor

Make it Tasty:

the West Paw "tux" toy
with Honest Kitchen that's easy
to get started

If you have a hungry hungry hippo for an animal, you might be able to use a low value food in the toy to start. But if you are working with one who is more particular about their food, or isn’t as enthusiastic about eating, try making the food in the toy more interesting: a sweet grain or treats you know your horses love; or some canned or dehydrated food mixed to a thin soup consistency (so it comes out easily!) for dogs. Again, you want to draw them in right away, experience the good taste, have it easy to access more, and be well worth any little work that is required to get the last of it. If they don’t finish it all right away, pick it up and clean it rather than leaving it for them. You want them to learn that they need to empty it or it will disappear, as well as making sure that remnants left inside don’t get moldy or stinky which could turn them off.

Make it Fun!

Dogs and horses both love interaction with people, so join in the fun at first, rather than handing out a food toy and walking away expecting them to entertain themselves. One of the most economical sources of toys is your recycling bin. You might dump a piece or two out of the toy right at your animal’s nose to get them interested, then shake the container so they hear the goodies inside before dumping a little more out. Put the container down and bump it yourself as they watch so they see the food coming out. Stay with them, helping if necessary but not interfering in their experimentation. If you just dump it all out, they won’t get to experience the process so give them a minute or two after you’ve helped a little to see if they start to work at it. If they manipulate the toy and get nothing, then step in quickly so that the consequences are rewarding, even if they didn’t quite do it hard enough themselves yet. The next time let them work at it a little more before helping out so they learn to keep trying and they will get something for their efforts.

Increase difficulty slowly!

Once your animal has figured the toy out, don’t immediately jump from easy kibble that falls out to a frozen kong or from a hay net to a bob o lot with big treats that are hard to get out. Make it just a little more challenging every day, making sure your animal continues to be successful and that you introduce new toys or trickier foods while watching to be ready to help if needed.

examples: after kibble in a kong, try peanut butter that is stickier but most dogs find really high value. Then stick some kibble in the peanut butter. Then mix some peanut butter with some yogurt, working up over time to freezing a yogurt/kibble/peanut butter mix into a kong…maybe even adding a “handle” of a bully stick or other chew.

jamming two carrots from opposite ends
into this carrot ball is a bigger challenge
better left to when the horse
has had many successes
with easier presentations

For horses, use hay to plug the hole of a Kong Equine or plastic jug so that when they pull on the hay to eat, pellets inside (grain or hay) fall right out. Then leave the jug on the ground so they push it around to get the goodies out. For a bigger challenge, hang the jug right side up so they have to knock it around a lot to empty it (for hanging things with horses, I like to stay right there so no one gets tangled, but you could do this while you do chores and are there to keep an eye on safety).

Remember this is supposed to improve your animals' days and so if it takes some time to teach them, it's time well spent. If they are finding it too hard, it defeats the purpose.

And take the time to enjoy observing them! Sure, I do it so that I can get some free time, but I also love to see them enjoy what I offer.

Using Enrichment Toys to Train a Call to Barn

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 20:00:00 +0000

Through the month of June, I posted a series of posts to my Instagram and Facebook pages on Mondays with examples of enrichment toys I am now using.

Here's a quick review of those toys.

Carrot ball (with apples!)

Kong Equine

The Hay Ball

Two Kong Wobblers

A dog tug toy adapted!

Last week I mentioned that I have three goals for the toys: reinforcement for coming in off grass, puzzle challenges for building learning skills and resilience, and longer term entertainment. This post addresses the reinforcement for coming in.

My horses and ponies can be reluctant to come in off good grass. Previously I needed to halter them individually (very tedious with six individuals) or "herd" them in...not a positive reinforcement approach, even if they received treats once they were in. In previous years, I have tried to increase their interest for coming in by leaving their favorite treat, peppermints, in tubs in the paddocks. The problem was that the first horses in could scamper around and easily eat up the peppermints so that the tail-enders didn't get one. And then they could even turn around and go back out before the slower ones had arrived.

When I began putting the toys out earlier in the year and saw how happy the horses were to find them when they came in, I thought I might be able to put coming in on cue. When I was a child, my parents had a distinctive whistle they used to call the horses in from pasture. It was almost foolproof that the horses would come when they heard it. Looking back, I am fascinated to think about things my parents taught animals, and us, without the benefit of the education in animal behavior that I had. They did, of course, have a lot of practical experience. In that case, the horses would come in because it reliably predicted that a meal was waiting in their stalls. As new horses were added, they easily picked up the behavior from others, following the group in, and learning the whistle cue.

Ande's sliding stop on mud

In the past I had trained a recall cue to the horses, but it was problematic for several reasons. One was the excellent response I got. That might not seem like a problem, but six equines galloping at me was a little hairy. I trusted them to stop in time...but I didn't trust them to appropriately judge the footing they were on (having seen them wipe out in mud and snow while playing). My little Quarter Pony in particular can leave some impressive sliding stop marks, and I did not want to be halfway along that track.

Another problem was that if I only wanted one individual to work with, I had no way of calling that one, and if I gave my recall cue, I'd have to reinforce everyone, and then they'd go back out, which wasn't always good for maintaining the behavior. So I abandoned that, although I do now have a recall cue for Percy alone, which is quite nice.

As I watched their behavior when they saw me start putting out their toys, I realized I wasn't really teaching a "recall" cue any longer. I was teaching a "go to the barn" cue. Rather than coming to me, they would go right past me at the gate to go to the toys. I liked this behavior since it prevented the galloping at me. I decided to be careful not to give out any treats to a horse or pony who stopped at me so that it didn't transition to a "come to me" cue.

I was able to test this when my 3 year old granddaughter visited because she loved the whistle I used and could whistle from the house porch, and the horses would come to the barn, even though the whistle was coming from the house, and even if I was not in sight. With the cue meaning "go to the barn", I would need to be aware of that specific behavior and use something different (such as a simple hand target) if I wanted them to come to me.

As I worked on it, I got a very casual response and that was ok with me. I actually preferred it that way. No more horses galloping at me, and no horses vying to be the first one through the gate. Instead, they come slowly, one at a time, allowing me time to open appropriate stall doors or gates to guide them where they should go.

Training the cue

When adding a cue to a behavior, you want to have the behavior solid first. I got a little tripped up with this because when I started, the horses were getting the toys in the paddock near the barn- they could see me set them out and would begin to come in. So I was adding the whistle as they did so.

But as the season progressed, they were allowed to stay out on grass longer (as their digestive systems adapted and grass matured) and by the time they came in, the flies and heat meant they were going into stalls and I was putting their enrichment toys inside. They could no longer see me setting out toys, and I no longer had an environmental cue to work off. The whistle was not yet strong enough to get a response so I had to stop using it or I would kill the new cue.

Instead, I reverted to my former tactics of waiting until they were begging to come in from flies and heat. I'd keep an eye on them until I saw them volunteer their way up to the barn, at which point they wanted to get IN. Then I blew the whistle as I opened the stalls. The whistle was now connected both to the behavior and to the immediate access to their toys and treats...and out of the bad bugs!

Below is a video of me adding the whistle cue as the horses are let into their stalls or paddock.

And here is a video of what it looks like when I now cue them to come in before they ask to come in. You can see how casual it is. They lift their heads in response to hearing the whistle, and slowly start to make their way to the barn.

Giving Instead of Taking- How to Deal with Destructive Behaviors

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 19:23:00 +0000

How to deal with destructive behaviors? I've been dealing with a few in the barn recently from both the horses and the cats. And another behavior which, though not currently destructive, will certainly become so if not addressed. While it can be tempting to take things away in these situations, I opted to try giving more instead.

With the horses, the problem was the cover which my husband had built for the water tank. It was one of several pieces we put together to be able to offer the horses open water through the winter, as opposed to tanks that froze over shortly after filling. In order to protect the wooden cover from the moisture environment, my husband glued some waterproof paneling onto it. This worked perfectly...until Percy got bored one day last week and started picking at it. Whether he removed it all himself or he just lifted it enough that high winds removed the rest of it, I'm not sure. But the end result was that it was completely off. Initially, we were going to just wait until Spring when it could dry out to re-glue it, but then all the horses started to nibble at the wood...and Percy started to climb onto it. Prompt measures were needed.

The problem was that it was February turning March, when all creatures in this part of the world get cabin fever. Eating hay is necessary for survival but it gets boring when that is all there is to do all day. I offer the horses little bits of enrichment but I get nervous leaving them with anything which could be potentially dangerous; which, let's face it, is everything when it comes to horses. They love the jugs of hay stretcher pellets I put out, but we only go through so much milk and once they've smashed them, I need weeks to collect more so that everyone gets one. I cut apples and carrots up into inch-sized pieces and throw them into the paddock for them to chase down and sniff out, but that only lasts for a short period of time. I snowshoe out to the far side of the field with their hay on a sled so they have exercise and environmental variety, but all these things just aren't enough by March.

Since what they were doing was chewing on wood, I knew they were craving that sensation. Poplar logs to the rescue. This is an annual tradition in March, and it really helps to let them gnaw away at the bark so they don't gnaw on the wood of buildings and water tank covers. Once we had substituted something else (given them something), my husband replaced the waterproof sheeting with some special nails that we hope will hold it down better than glue did. Risky as it was, I hoped that when Percy put his feet on the slippery surface, the foot would slide and he'd decide against climbing further.

The cats, on the other hand were destroying the interior of the barn by sharpening their claws on the corners. I had ignored it for the last seven years with George as he didn't spend a lot of time in the tack room and the other spot he chose was the back of the pony shed. It is amazing how much wood he's removed over the years in that spot, however.

But now I have Jerry as well, and he just adds to the wear. In George's youth I did not have a tack room to worry about so it's a problem of the luxury of having a tack room at this point. I'd previously given George a cheap piece of cardboard to scratch on which he enjoyed but it wasn't enough for Jerry. A quick scan of the internet provided me with a couple options for scratching that I set up in the tack room. Now that they have somewhere else to scratch (I have given them something) I think I will try to cover the old spot with some hard plastic since that spot has a history. They'll need a reason to try out the new options.

My last problem (well, for the moment) was Jerry deciding that my saddle was the most comfortable place to sleep. I had protected it with pads and a safety vest but that was a temporary solution. I didn't want cat claws in my leather saddle any time I was washing saddle pads or wearing my safety vest. I needed to figure out why that was an ideal spot in his opinion and how I was going to give him what he needed and wanted in another way.

First, height. Cats enjoy high spaces and Jerry loves the shelf in the feed room as a place to walk back and forth and tap on my head when I walk by. So I would put up a Jerry shelf. I put it as close to his present spot as possible. I realized that from my saddle, he could see out the window and soak up the sun in that spot. George chose the windowsill for this and I was grateful that the little upstart hadn't tried to displace him. That was another reason to give him a spot of his own. It meant moving a bridle rack, to have a spot to put the shelf, but for now I have just moved the bridle until I am sure it is going to work.

I also needed a way to make it appealing. I purchased some heat reflective pads and put one up on the shelf, using duct tape to hold it in place so that it didn't slip when he was on it. He loves the reflective beds I have for the dogs so I am hoping he'll figure this works the same way. I also hung a ribbon with a card on it from the bridle rack so it dangled temptingly. He didn't seem to explore it right off so I added my final temptation in the form of some fishy cat treats. That was enough to have him climb from my arms onto the shelf to clean them up. So far, I have not seen him sleeping there but I know habits don't change easily. I may have to cover my saddle(s) with something slippery to make them less appealing (tarps?) in the short term so that he seeks out the new shelf.

So now my question for one more problem. George has really spoiled me- or his upbringing in the previous rough barn spoiled me. He has always drunk out of buckets or the horse water tanks. Jerry not only knocks over the little stainless dog buckets I put down, but will knock over a horse bucket (no, I don't know how). So I'm looking for recommendations on water receptacles. I know that fountains are the thing but I am not going to use anything that needs to be plugged in. It also has to be small enough to fit in an already overcrowded tack room. That a can't will be less likely to tip over (he loves to dangle his arms in the horse water buckets...I imagine that has something to do with how he dumps them).

Suggestions happily suggested in the comments, on my Facebook page, or on Instagram or private message on social media or email!

Pony of the Month- A Training Plan for Too Many Horses

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 21:00:00 +0000

There, I've admitted it if it wasn't already obvious. Too many horses. Actually only two are horses and the other four are ponies. One of the challenges with this many is finding time and focus to work with each of them. I really can't give them each time every day and meet all my other obligations so I have used various plans to find ways to give them each at least some attention.

My plan this winter has been to focus on one pony per month. I still try to do something little with the others in turn, but the pony of the month gets daily sessions. The horses get daily sessions as well or at least, as weather permits. I tell myself to pick a temperature that I won't work below but it depends on what else is happening on the weather stage. Sunny and still at 10 degrees F is ok for going for a walk, whereas damp and windy at 25 is really hard. As a result, the projects I picked for the ponies this year so far have been able to be done indoors for the most part.

2020 was quite a ride!

For December, I started with Kizzy. I had decided on this plan for my holiday card to clients. I like to do a card which includes both canine and equine subjects when I can since I work with both. I also like to use my card as a teaching opportunity- to explain the amount of training I put into the setups I choose.

In this case, I didn't just put Eloise on Kizzy's back and expect them both to remain still for a photo. I thought about the component parts and how to work up to this step in a way that kept both of them happy. Before working with two animals together, it's important to think about what you expect from each, and train that with each one alone. Since there is a deadline for a holiday card (I send mine out for New Year's), I couldn't have this project go on endlessly. Choosing a setup that took advantage of behaviors they each knew was one way to give myself a better chance at being successful. Basically, they both had to remain still, and preferably look at me, rather than dozing off.

Kizzy has a lot of experience with standing on a mat, but tends to tap dance a bit at times, and also didn't have a lot of practice with me going a distance from her and then turning to look at her while holding still (i.e. taking pictures!). So we started with that and it was a lot of work to get that! As Kizzy is a lesson pony, most recently teaching people of all ages about clicker training, she mostly works on the very basic behaviors so she had a lot of history of getting on the mat and getting treats, as opposed to standing there for an extended period of time. We spent many sessions on that piece alone.

For Eloise, my mental image was of her standing, not sitting. That was going to be a challenge in itself since she has a rapid and automatic sit. So the majority of her sessions were finding ways to teach her to stand and remain standing. I also had to introduce questionable balance while she stood and used my saddle rack to practice that.

Finally, I needed the two together. They are not strangers but I usually try to keep dogs and horses a safe distance from each other and this would be quite different. I began by just having them together in the same space, feeding treats to each. I started with Eloise up on a shavings bag, to give her a little height for confidence, as well as to set them both up for increasing height as we progressed. Over several sessions I moved them closer together, until Eloise was on a height of three shavings bags right next to Kizzy. It was when she was this close and that high that Kizzy started to demonstrate dislike of the situation, putting her ears back at her.

I have put many, many children on Kizzy's back over the years and she has been a saint. I think for that reason, I wondered if that would be better than next to her. I was using a thick bareback pad to give Eloise some grip while also protecting Kizzy' from dog nails. We'd been practicing with that and so since it was already on when I saw the unpleasant faces, I took a chance and popped Eloise over onto Kizzy's back. I held on, stayed close, and watched. Kizzy was perfectly fine. No more grumpy faces.

At this point though, I really found myself challenged with juggling treats. Dogs are more than happy to eat hay stretcher pellets but it takes them a while and involves a lot of crunching and dropping bits: not ideal for rapid reinforcement. And horses and ponies get very insulted if you try to feed them dog treats...or even if you happen to have crumbs or even the scent of meat flavored biscuits on your hands. There was no way I could use anything moist. Luckily, Eloise works well for tiny bits of hard biscuit.

Even with horse treats in left pocket and dog treats in right, I found myself getting tangled up while also trying to feed Eloise just-so to keep her standing. Props to the rescue. I pulled out the shavings bag again, put a tub on it and put a scoop of hay stretcher pellets in it for Kizzy to freely eat while I worked with Eloise on her back. Classical conditioning for Kizzy, operant for Eloise. Once Eloise was confidently standing while I backed away and returned, while at the same time Kizzy in her solo sessions would stand while I did the same, I was able to merge them back together.

We did a couple sessions in the barn aisle where I took pictures just to be sure I could really do it. Then I think we had one session outdoors before the day I took the final photo I used.

If you look at the photo, you can see that a couple of my planned components did not pan out but I liked the end result so it was ok. As we approached my deadline (needing to get the card designed, ordered and delivered in times of covid), I started looking for appropriate weather for a photo shoot. When I saw a stretch of bad weather coming in, I knew I had to give it a try late one afternoon before the weather turned. The light was fading and it was cold. Even though Eloise's stand was coming along beautifully in the house, and pretty good on Kizzy's back, I knew she'd be cold standing in the frigid wind so I let her sit. I still don't know what Kizzy saw behind her to cause her to turn and look back, but it worked out to a nice photo and didn't require me to catch her with her ears up looking at me.

Once the card was done, I had about a week before the end of December and I returned to working on each of them alone again, to finish up Kizzy's month by putting more reinforcement history for standing on a mat while I walked away.

Feline fotobomb of bow training with Stow

January's pony is Stowaway. Last winter I decided that teaching him to bow would be a fun thing. Ha! As usual, it was a much bigger project than I anticipated and while we got enough of a start for me to realize how long it was going to take me, I dropped it when warm weather came. I decided to resurrect it for him this winter.

When I initially started, I turned to my good friend Katie Bartlett for a training plan as I knew she'd done it and written about it. Reading her article was the first indication that I might have bitten off more than I could chew. First of all, the bow she taught was no small thing. Be sure to check out the article, with the photo of one very impressive final behavior! Secondly, Stowaway is notoriously unaware of where his parts are. It's always been amusing to see the positions he ends up in when you ask him to move one end..because he only moves that end. The other end does not catch up unless you specifically ask it to. So whether it's a lesson child who has pulled his head around to tie him, or the hoof trimmer who has asked him to step his hind end over, that's where he stops: with his front end facing north and his hind end facing west. It's actually one reason I chose this for him so that he could learn a little more how to coordinate his pieces.

Whew. Both his history as a camp pony before I got him (where he learned "don't move unless they absolutely force you to") and his temperament (the barn could come down around him and while his head might shoot skyward and his eyes bulge out, his feet would remain still), I've had my challenges with this. I abandoned any notions I had of Katie's end result, and thought if I could just teach him to lift and hold one foot up while lowering his head a bit, we'd call that good.

When I started up again this year, I was thrilled to see him perk right up and offer exactly the result we ended on last year. There was no need to backtrack. He would quickly lift a foot and hold it up without me touching him, and he would target my hand at any height or location I put it. Two separate components- check! What he struggles with is the balance to do both at the same time. When he lifts a foot, his head goes up and in the opposite direction of the lifted foot. Since body awareness and coordination is my purpose, and the bow is just a fun possible end result, I've been focusing on teaching him about starting square (originally he seemed to do better if one front was significantly behind or in front of the other); and slowing down his fist target. He wants to shoot his head down rapidly which throws him off what little balance he has, resulting in him slamming his foot down as soon as he sees my fist.

What I am trying to do here is use "additive adduction". Again, I refer you to Katie's blog, to a report she wrote on a talk by Ken Ramirez at the 2020 ASAT conference.

Additive adduction: cue one behavior, while animal performs that behavior, cue a second behavior so that the animal continues with the first behavior and now adds the second behavior, performing both simultaneously.

It's an advanced skill for an animal, and therefore requires a solid base of training. Just as with Kizzy, Stowaway has been a lesson pony, both for kids' riding lessons and clicker training for all ages. So it would be expecting a lot for him to figure out this concept. We'll get what we get when it comes to a bow, but at least he's getting a fun training session each morning and learning about how to move and balance a little better. We've got another ten days to play with this before February starts.

In February, I will turn to Rumer. She is a fun little pony who loves attention. I have been intrigued with the notion of equine agility for a while and played with pieces of it with both Percy and Ande. I think Rumer will have fun with it and so have signed up to be a member of the International Horse Agility Club to have access to the courses and ideas they use for competitions. With covid, they opened up their competitions to video and whether or not Rumer gets to the point where I might want to submit a video, I think she'll enjoy the training games involved. I'll be using my own training plans. While they accept the use of treats, I know I'll want to break things down into smaller slices for her but it's always good to observe how others train, providing it isn't aversive.

International mail is such fun to receive!

I'm going to have to figure out things I can do indoors, for the days (who knows how many) when weather or footing prevents outdoor training.

I'm not sure yet what I will do in March. Many people are planting gardens and are able to do warm weather horse activities by then but we are usually still up to our eyeballs in snow at the beginning of the month with anything from snow to mud and back again by the end. I do have one more pony, but someone else has been coming a couple times a month to work with Ande so on top of regular husbandry training I do with each of them, I don't feel he is as needy as the others. But this will at least have gotten the ponies and me through the deepest part of winter.

Grazing Tuesdays- Managing Horse Pasture

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 14:07:00 +0000

If I had married someone else, well, a lot of things would be different. But specifically I probably wouldn't be as interested or careful about pasture management for my horses. My husband has been a dedicated rotational grazer with sheep and cattle for decades and I have gone along, sometimes willingly, sometimes being dragged. But like everything else in the relationship, I'm better off as a result.

But I want to be very clear that I am not as invested nor educated in grasses and their growth and care as many other people are. What I do is a result of those decades of listening to him, and then experimenting. Because horses are different from cattle and sheep in many ways, it wouldn't make sense to do exactly what he does. I would love for other horse people to read this and look at their pastures more carefully, research further, and try to do a better job of managing the plants and the land. But what works for me is specific to my situation, where I live, and the equines who are here. So please do your own careful research and consult with professionals before making any dramatic changes.

I recently posted some photos of my grazing stick on social media and several people commented on it, wanting to know where I got it. Many years ago (ten?), I attended a pasture walk specific to horses pastures hosted by Vermont Extension and that is where I got the stick. I use it during grazing season as it has a lot of information on it. Because of the feedback I received about it, I'm going to post more pictures of it on coming Tuesdays, along with information about how I manage my horses, ponies, and pasture. Those will be available on both my Facebook and Instagram feeds.

To start things off, I thought it would be a good idea to give a general overview.

I have about 4½ acres of pasture for 6 equines. For a really cool tool to calculate the acreage of your pasture, you can use this nifty site along with google maps.

I have divided those 4½ acres into paddocks. For many years I tried to build paddocks as I went, as a good rotational grazer would do, so that the paddocks were the right size depending on the season. But that was way too labor intensive for me (I'd rather be training than building fence!) and I now have somewhere between ten and fifteen paddocks which I set up in the spring and take down in the fall, ideally before snow falls but October snow takes me by surprise.

The general rule is that you should never graze a paddock longer than five days. This is because that's when the first grass they bit off begins to grow back and that's the sweetest. That's what the horses choose to eat, and so they just keep eating what has already been grazed, which is why you see horse pastures where some of the grass is chewed off right to the ground and other parts are high. The high grass is older and doesn't taste as good so they just leave it.
The other important number is 30 plus or minus days until that grass regrows enough to be grazed again.

A little math tells us 30 days to regrow, divided by 5 days per paddock, equals a minimum of six paddocks. But of course later in the year, the grass is not growing as quickly as it is right now so it takes longer than 30 days for a paddock to recover. Therefore I need more than six. It's best to really study the grasses and know the best maturity stage for grazing. And that's where horses and other livestock differ dramatically. Livestock which is grazing to produce milk or meat needs high energy grasses. High energy grasses are not good for horses...with the exception of mares nursing foals or young horses who are rapidly growing. Therefore, I aim for mature grass, and I only turn my horses out onto it for a couple hours/day.

One of the reasons I caution others to learn more before trying this is because both my vet and hoof trimmer were horrified when they saw what my horses were grazing. Because of the dangers of laminitis, we are told to keep our horses off "lush" grass. But what exactly is "lush"? That's why it's important to learn more about the growth phases so we know the best way to keep our horses happy and safe. Two things I read/watched this spring were helpful to me. The first was an interview put out by SmartPak about when it is safe to turn out onto grass in spring. What I loved about this interview was the discussion about time of day, as well as time of year, and the science behind it all. That can be seen or heard here: When Should I Let My Horses Out to Graze?

The other video which was helpful is by the UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture and discusses the plant side of things. It's called "It's Spring. Is Your Pasture Ready for Animals?

When my horses are not on grass, they are either in their stalls (during the heat of the day in summer) or in the "sacrifice paddock" or "dry lot" (at night). They have access to hay there but often don't eat much of it because they are so full from grass. But horses do best with small amounts of fiber going through their systems regularly so I want to be sure they can nibble when they want.

As far as the horses I have, they include a 12 h, 30+ year old pony who foundered before I got her 15 years ago and has pretty significant bone rotation seen on x-ray. But she hasn't foundered since I've had her through my rotation grazing journey. Initially I was really cautious about her and kept her separate, locking her into those tiny patches of weeds that the horses wouldn't eat. Over time, I got more bold in where I put her, as I became more confident about the grass. Finally, a few years ago, I made her a deal. I told her she had earned the right to enjoy her final final years. I could have locked her into a dirt paddock as I was advised, but I couldn't bear that thought. I wanted her to enjoy her retirement. So I told her she could go out with the others, and if she foundered, I would put her down. I voted for quality over quantity of days. And she has been fine. My vet cringes, my hoof trimmer nervously checks for digital pulses (and I confess I do too), but she just is fine.

On the other end of the scale is a 16.1 h, solid, 11 year old OTTB gelding. He's the one who challenged me that grass was sufficient. He just needs more calories. Rather than putting him out on richer grass, I supplement with high fat, high fiber, low starch, low sugar grain. Because the other part of pasture time is social time. I like my horses to be together to play, groom each other, and help keep off the bugs. So I take that into account if I'm tempted to separate anyone out.

The challenging two are the middle aged ponies. The do not need calories and are easy keepers. If I separate anyone, I separate them. They stay together, but go into less desirable areas to graze. Especially because they are voracious grazers and tend to get quite portly. And somebody needs to clean up the barnyard!

Having learned about #BlackoutTuesday, I postponed this week's Grazing Tuesday social media posts to Wednesday.

Anyone Else Experiencing Trigger Stacking?

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 16:54:00 +0000

I recently had someone ask about how to address trigger stacking with horses. First, a discussion of what it is.
Trigger Stacking is a non-scientific term to describe what happens when an individual is exposed to multiple stressors all at once, and reacts in a way that exceeds the way they would react to just one of those stressors. Observers might only see one of those stressors, and thereby think the individual was over-reacting.

An example might be a horse who spooks dramatically when a dog appears. The horse might be familiar with dogs, and might even be familiar with that particular dog. They might live at the same place and have had lots of exposure previously. So a person's response could be, "you've seen that dog thousands of times! Don't be so silly!" What the person might be missing is how many other stressors the horse is dealing with at the same time. Perhaps there is an uncomfortable saddle fit and the person doesn't know it because normally the horse doesn't overtly react (that's the yellow block in the photo here). In addition, the horse has gone away from the barn with the person. Again, that may have been done many times before with cooperation. But a horse alone often feels less comfortable than in a group. So there's your orange block. On that day it also happens to be windy, which interferes with a horse's hearing AND makes things in the environment move. Now you've added the red and green blocks. And that's when the dog appears. If the horse was dealing with any one of those stressors individually, they could still appear calm and responsive. He might even be able to deal with two, three, or four of them stacked. But add that final stressor of the dog appearing when the horse is already uncomfortable from the equipment fit AND is out alone AND they can't hear well AND the branches and grasses and loose bit of plastic are blowing around; and it becomes too much. If it's a block tower, it comes tumbling down. If it's a horse (or dog or human or cat or giraffe or...), there may be

I think many of us can sympathize with this right now. We are living in a time when stressors abound. Many of us are dealing with:

novel uncomfortable equipment (masks, gloves)
lack of access to our supportive friends/family
a threat as invisible as the wind (until we see the damage)
limited resources (real or perceived)

So when one "little" thing happens, such as the appearance of others in the environment who may not be taking precautions, we may blow up. Ahem, true story.

Now that I have hopefully given you some empathy for your animal, what can we do to help? With all good training, we need to break it down, but there are many things we can do. And lessons we can learn for ourselves.

First, what can we do to give our horses more choice and control? As humans, we are experiencing a lot less choice and control in our lives than we are used to. We need to figure out what we do have control over. How should we spend our time? How much news and social media is too much? Who should we focus on for information? What will we eat and drink that supports us long term, rather than momentary pleasure?

Figuring out what our new choices are and taking control over them can be a breath of fresh air these days. But what about our animals? Last summer I wrote a blog post called Lessons Learned about helping a horse on stall rest and turnout restrictions. In it, I wrote of how I searched for ways to give him choices in his limited confinement. Just having choices can make a world of difference. My husband happily stays on our farm every day, all day. But he said just knowing that we were supposed to be staying home in this virus outbreak made him want to go somewhere! People have come up with lots of ways to distantly socialize these days- virtual chats with friends and family, meeting for walks or hikes when you can keep your distance but still "be together", sitting outdoors at safe distances to visit with good friends.

Does your horse have others to socialize with? Activities for when you are not there? Look for equine enrichment ideas such as hay bags and trees to chew in my Facebook and Instagram accounts. Make sure there is opportunity for movement and exploration in a safe setting to give your horse confidence. Regular positive reinforcement training sessions keep brains busy and hearts happy. I recently posted this example of things you can do with your horse which should all be non-stressful. Share with me on social media or in the comments if you use this!

Once you've done what you can to give your horse the best welfare physically, mentally, and emotionally, then you can work on the stressors themselves. The first step is to identify as many as you can. Is the equipment you use all comfortable? Ditch the rope halters that bite into faces and substitute a flat, even padded halter. Have someone knowledgeable with bridle and saddle fit check yours on your horse. Keep your equipment clean so that buildup doesn't make sore spots. And try to find the most comfortable mask you can for your own face when you go out these days. You can find some with pretty prints, but let's be honest. Does your horse or dog really care about bling or color? Put comfort first.

What about environmental conditions? We have no control over the wind and precipitation, but we can honor our animals' preferences in those conditions. Start by letting them choose (more choice!) where they would like to go. Give them plenty of time to learn that you will listen to their requests. Once they know they have a voice, you will probably find them much more willing to take risks with and for you. Only ask for a little at a time. If the environment is a stressor, start with literal baby steps and make them reinforcing ones. Give them a target to head for, reinforce when they get there. Repeat until they are comfortable and confident. Then move the target a little further. By advancing slowly but steadily, over minutes, days or more, you will give your horse the foundations to be successful at greater distances.

What about specific things in the environment? Do you know what things your horse finds concerning? Watch that body language: ears, head height, muscle tension and more. One of the things on my bingo card is to write down 10 things your horse looks at. Doing that will inform you about what is worthy of their attention. Is it something they want such as companions or grass? If so, what can you do to use that as a reinforcer? Is it something they may be frightened of? How can you present new and unusual things in a mild enough way that they are interesting but not scary? I wrote a blog post about this called Desensitization Continues in which I describe putting things into the environment every day to show my horses that new things might pop up, but they don't need to be concerning.

If you can present your horse with some of their stressors in teaspoon amounts that don't scare them, they may begin to generalize to other stressors and new things in the environment become less frightening. Then you have minimized the triggers in the stack so when something unexpected happens, they are better able to handle it.

Here are some examples of things I've put out for my horses in the past week. And be aware of your own stressors, try to minimize the ones you can, and take control of the choices you do have these days. Be well, my friends.

Grain bags with more grain bags inside:
bright colors, crinkly noise, move in wind

A rain sheet out to dry lifts its "wings" when the breeze blows

Poles which were familiar last summer but
have been put away all winter and never
higgledy piggledy on a chair like this

and then the wind blew it all over!

When Classical Conditioning Accidentally Goes Operant

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 15:45:00 +0000

That's a confusing title but I wanted those terms in for search purposes.

Classical conditioning is known as learning by association. We can pair something we know the horse likes with something new, and that helps the new thing be associated with the same calm and/or happy emotions.

Operant conditioning is learning which takes place as a result of consequences. If your horse walks up to you in the paddock and gets a carrot, that consequence will affect the likelihood of the horse walking up to you next time you enter the paddock.

We often say that classical conditioning and operant conditioning go hand in hand. It's impossible to separate the two. If I am training with operant conditioning in mind by offering treats when my horse does things I like, the fact that I am giving treats will give an overall happy association to training with me.

It also goes the other way. If I am trying to make a simple associations with food and something else, such as hoof trimming, and I hand treats to the horse, the horse will find any patterns in when I feed. If I happen to feed when the horse swishes her tail and then coincidentally do that two or more times, the horse may think that swishing her tail is what earns the treats. The consequence of getting a treat after she swished her tail, even though it was coincidental, will inform her decision about whether to swish her tail again.

I experienced this challenge this morning while trying to classically condition my Kizzy pony to the sound of clippers. In my 30 Days of Husbandry online course, Kizzy demonstrated some concern with clippers. In the last week I have been focusing on that as a training goal. She has made good progress in her comfort level and I was almost ready to try doing a little clipping, but decided on one more step first. I had been working on a lot of classical conditioning with running the clippers around her, but I know that when the clippers actually do some cutting they can change sound. I decided to let her listen to me clip another horse while she ate treats.

Walter's "cat hairs" under his jaw

I don't clip my horses as a general rule. I like to leave them with their whiskers and other hair which serves a function. But sometimes clipping needs to be done for veterinary purposes so I like to prep my horses and ponies for those just-in-case situations Another thing I tend to clip are the long hairs which grow along the jawline in winter. During cold and icy months, I think those hairs serve to wick water and ice away from the face. But they tend to hang on long after cold weather does so in spring I sometimes decide to clip them to neaten up the appearance. I often wait until later in the year so I hope I haven't jinxed us by using Walter as an example for Kizzy and clipping under his jaw.

Luckily, I have been videoing my daily sessions with Kizzy and so I caught this on video. You can watch it here.

The Launch of Bookends Farm Academy

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 04:33:00 +0000

The 30 Days of Husbandry course is now open at https://bookendsfarmacademy.com

Preview 30 days of Husbandry

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 12:01:00 +0000

I am about to open my new 30 Days of Husbandry course for registration. From now through the weekend this post will be available which allows you to preview the detailed description and the Introduction. I was going to open registration today but decided I better have access to my tech guy for the initial registrations so am waiting until Monday but you get to read the Introduction for free.

Please note that this is copied from the course. Links, arrows, and things "to the right" are not available in this blog post!

Who is this course for? Participants should come to this course with at least a basic understanding of clicker training. If you know the importance of good timing and keen observation; and have the basic mechanics of how to click and feed safely, this course can be a great next step of what else you can do with clicker training. Many of us have found ourselves in the position of needing better behavior for certain situations and wishing we had already practiced them. These 30 skills will give you a launching pad toward that end.

Description

In this course are 30 things you can do with your horse to help her become more comfortable with her care. They include things as basic as haltering and as challenging as injections. To be clear, I am not teaching people how to administer injections, apply bandages or drive a truck and trailer. I am going to demonstrate how I teach a horse to stand still for injections, desensitize a horse to bandaging materials, and the process I use to load a horse into a trailer.

The day that your horse gets injured or ill is stressful on you both. I want to encourage people to be proactive in training for these times. A horse who has been exposed to procedures with positive reinforcement ahead of time will be a horse who is happier and safer to be around than a horse who has no, or only unpleasant experience with them.
I came up with this list when I had a horse on stall rest last summer. I needed things to do with him to keep his brain busy and provide his much-loved clicker training sessions. As a result, all but two of these things you can do in a stall. It’s always good to practice in a variety of locations, but it’s nice to have a list of things you can do when injury, weather, or time constraints call for a quick training you can do in a stall. I like to add one of these lessons to everyday grooming sessions in order to keep up with them even when not on stall rest.

You will see real life oops moments. You'll see poorly timed clicks, unintended cueing of other behaviors, and some rushing through training. I try to note them so they serve as examples. Noting our mistakes helps us quickly regroup and with that knowledge we can adapt our training to get back on track.

You'll also see real life situations such as the presence of errant dogs and a cat. My intention is to have dogs confined away when working with horses and this is what I strongly recommend. But you'll see I don't always take my own advice.
Bookends Farm is located close to the 45th parallel. Some of the videos were taken in warm weather and some taken in winter. As a result, some of the videos show sleek and shiny individuals, and some show fuzzy and stained ones. Training can't wait for the perfect moment or the perfectly groomed pony. I love grooming and a well turned out horse, but I took advantages of training moments when I had them so you'll sometimes see us dirty.
My hope is that the variety of what you see here will help you decide what you could work on to help your horse, and a range of possibilities as to how to use positive reinforcement with them.

The Introduction

THE LESSONS- Each lesson includes writeup and brief video of various phases of training. Some lessons show the introduction of a topic, such as introducing a pony to clippers for the first time, while other lessons show progress toward comfort. Your horse will most likely offer a different response than mine do, because each horse is different. This is why you will want to work your way through all the lessons, even if you start with the ones which interest you most. If you feel frustrated or are looking for troubleshooting help, be sure to read the lesson called "But My Horse..." very carefully.

To navigate through the lessons as they are listed alphabetically, you can use the blue arrows toward the top right of the screen. Clicking the blue X will take you back to this introduction. To keep track of which lessons you have completed, click the red "Mark Complete" button. You can always come back to any lesson, even if marked completed.
You can also jump around to the lesson of your choice by using the menu at the right.

THE GOAL- My goal for your horse is what I will call Relaxed Cooperation. Please note that this course does not include what can be called “consent”, “choice” or “start button” training. This course will, however, give you a foundation for that type of training.

Let me define what I mean by relaxed cooperation because it is possible to have cooperation without relaxation and relaxation without cooperation.

Relaxation- I assess relaxation by watching for stress signals. As you watch the videos in the course and then go out to work with your own horse, I encourage to you look for things like wide eyes and pricked ears. Does the pony lean or step away from me or an object I hold? Does she raise her head or have nostrils flaring or heart pounding? These responses tell me if my horse or pony is feeling stressed. We know they respond to fearful situations with fight, flight or freeze. I want the opposite in a horse who stands while maintaining body signals of comfort: soft eyes, ears at rest, head at mid height, muscles relaxed.

Cooperation- Cooperation needs to be considered on a case by case basis with each topic.  Before beginning to work with your horse, decide how you are going to define cooperation. What may be cooperative in one situation may be uncooperative in another.  A horse who stands with four feet planted firmly on the floor is being cooperative for an injection, but uncooperative for having her feet trimmed! Have a picture in your mind of what your horse looks like while you are working on something and then be sure to include that picture in what you reinforce when training.

PHASES OF TRAINING FOR HUSBANDRY

I have created four loose phases for these lessons. First, is the Introduction. By introduction, I am referring to the very first time that a horse or pony is presented with a particular experience or piece of equipment. This is relevant for both young horses and for horses who may not have had much handling in the past. But it can also involve a situation where you and your horse are just lucky to have avoided the necessity of that experience, such as an x-ray or ultrasound machine. The saying "you only get one chance to make a first impression" applies here. After that, you are in phase four, recovery phase.

The second phase I refer to as Progress. This comes after the first introduction but does not necessarily get you all the way to being ready for the real thing. The Progress portion of the training may just take a session or two or it may take weeks or more, depending on your horse and his history, as well as you and your skills. Please don’t rush this phase or you may find yourself in an unpleasant state of the fourth phase unnecessarily.

The third phase is Ready. This means that you have gone through a thorough training process to prepare your horse and yourself for whatever is to come and you are ready for it. When you do, you’ll find out how well prepared you really were, and what holes there may have been in your preparation. And that is why there is a fourth phase.

The fourth phase is Recovery. The recovery phase is when the horse or pony has already experienced a procedure, even once, but you return to work on it more. At this point the previous experience is going to affect responses.

Many people skip this training phase and regret it the next time they need to do something.  A classic example is loading a horse in a trailer. A smart person will begin weeks in advance of actually needing to haul the horse somewhere, or better yet, when you don’t even have plans to haul but you want to be ready Just In Case. So you practice in careful and simple training sessions until your horse walks calmly into the trailer and remains relaxed while you close him in and you have even taken him for short rides down the road. Then comes the day when you need to go somewhere. You load him up, and take him to a show, or to meet friends for a trail ride, or wherever you need to go. After you get home, you clean out the trailer and put it away. That’s the mistake. How often have we heard, “he loaded fine last time”. We need to leave that trailer available after our adventure and go right back to loading practice again. Just because he got on the trailer that time, doesn’t tell us how he felt about his trip. We may have thought it went well, but we don’t know the horse’s opinion until we ask him. Maybe you had to travel on a really bumpy portion of road, or got stuck in noisy construction traffic, or the horse next to him was trying to bite and/or kick him for much of the trip.  Or maybe he didn’t like where he went: a long day of showing, being tied to the trailer in the hot sun, going to the vet clinic. Or maybe you weren’t your normal self that he has come to know and rely on because you were nervous, or distracted by other people, or just concerned about your horse.  All these things factor into your horse’s experience of what happened after he got onto the trailer and will affect how he feels about getting into the trailer again. Going right back to training the day after you return will show you whether he is still willing to load and stand calmly, or whether you have more recovery training to do (as well as thinking about what might have upset him enough to make him less cooperative afterward).  And this kind of thing happens with all our husbandry interactions from vet visits to care from us at home. That’s why it’s important to add regular husbandry training to our days.

EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES- Some of these lessons require nothing more than you and your horse, but others will be more effective with some basic supplies. I have included a list of things to have on hand. If you don’t have them, you may be able to borrow from a friend or create something out of things you do have on hand.  In the lesson on x-rays, for example, I use a small piece of plywood as a mock x ray plate.

LASTLY If you have a serious behavioral problem, please contact a positive reinforcement professional for assistance.  I know people in different parts of the country (and other countries too) that I can refer you to if you email me, and many of us also provide online support if you don’t have anyone in your area.

You will have six months to work on this course before your registration expires.

HOW TO BEGIN
There is no particular order in which to do these lessons. I recommend beginning with the Haltering lesson. This lesson shows how to break things down into baby steps. After that, the Picking Up Feet lesson will give you an example of how to look for tiny beginnings like weight shifts without expecting the full lift of the foot immediately. Once you have done those two, there are a couple approaches to consider:

read and watch through them all before ever including your horse
choose what looks most interesting to you, do the lesson, and take it to your pony

That's it! All you have to do is check back on Monday morning (7: AM EST) for the link to the new website where this course will be available. I will be posting it here, on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The cost for the course will be $100 but I will be giving 50% off next week.

Training Motivation in a Wintry World

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 15:21:00 +0000

I'll be the first to admit that I get into a training funk in the fall. Not the early fall. That is a glorious time to be alive, be outside, and sharing time with horses. They agree. It's when the damp cold sets in that I find myself wanting to get back inside after chores, rather than spending more time cold. The leaves are off the trees and it's what's known as "stick season" around here. The trees are bare and everything is a shade of brown, black and gray. Yuck. Holiday season is approaching and then here and I find myself avoiding training.

But after Christmas, I give myself a stern talking to and know I can't let the whole winter go by like this. Everything is now bright white with snow, the air is colder but drier and we have all acclimated to the winter temperatures. The easiest way to motivate myself into the cold outdoors on a daily basis is with training plans. But first I have to make the plans. This year I even had trouble doing that. After putting it off another week, I finally decided I'd just look at January of last year and follow that. Once I opened my journal to look back, I was reminded of all the things we'd worked on and the progress we'd made. From there it was easy to adapt last year's January plans to new ones for this year. And I was really excited to see the horses pick right up where we left off, even though I was prepared to backtrack if necessary after some weeks off.

In the winter, I plan for really short sessions. Most days it's only 5-10 minutes. That protects hands from freezing. But as a friend used to say, "ten minutes is better than no minutes". That friend is no longer on this earth, but I think of her fondly every time I say it to myself. In better weather, ten minutes often extends to longer. But this time of year, it's plenty.

In the winter especially, I also develop rotations of training days. I pick five to seven different things to work on and assign them Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc. That way, I know exactly what I'm going to do each day. I know that when training time comes (I find it also helps to have an appointment time each day to go out for training), I can go into the tack room, pick up my training journal, and see what day we're on. I check back to the last time I worked on that particular day's skill to see where we left off and if I made any reminder notes to myself. Then I can go straight to training with no further planning required.

Kizzy is a good measuring stick for snow depth.

If I have to skip a day for any reason, the next day I pick up where I left off. For example, Monday was Day 1, but yesterday (Tuesday) the hoof trimmer came. We spent a lot of time standing in the cold for that, and of course worked on behavior that makes that go smoothly. So I didn't do any additional training sessions. Today I will go on to Day 2. Tomorrow we're supposed to have a high temperature in the single digits (Fahrenheit). There's a good possibility that I won't do anything which requires removing my gloves, such as handing out treats at a high rate of reinforcement. So then Day 3 will be Friday (thankfully, tomorrow's cold is only a brief arctic front!). That way I spend the same number of sessions on each skill in a month. The only exception is that I plan one day per rotation for hand walking. If the weather does not permit, such as icy wind or icy footing, then I do skip that day because it's likely we'll have a couple of those in a row. I go straight to the next day's plan and come back to hand walking the next time it shows up in my rotation.

Once warm weather returns, my training plans will become more complex, and training sessions longer and more numerous. But for deep winter, I am glad to be able to have a routine that allows me to maintain some training which the horses, ponies and I all enjoy.

Not Listening: Guilty

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 15:56:00 +0000

This morning when I entered the barn, I automatically started my usual routine: grab the buckets already prepped for Walter's and Kizzy's breakfasts (oddly, it's the largest and littlest who get "grain" in addition to hay in the morning). I quickly dump it in their tubs and hurry to let Percy out. This morning I opened his aisle door and immediately noticed how little manure was in his stall. In hindsight, I always find it somewhat amazing and very reassuring when I immediately notice something out of the norm which could indicate a problem.

In real time, my mind went straight to colic, and my eyes went straight to him. Usually if I am concerned about horse or pony health, I stand and watch them. Is that individual sleepy and relaxed or depressed? But Percy never looks sleepy and relaxed and this morning was no different. Bright eyed and right at the door as I slid it open, his ears were pricked and he greeted me as warmly as ever. Weird.

I crossed his stall and opened the dutch door to the paddock to let him out. Sometimes he stands in his stall, sometimes he walks halfway out and sometimes all the way out, but he always spends a few moments scanning the horizon intently on his first look at the world in the morning. This morning he walked out to the edge of the run in before stopping to stare. I closed his door and let Stowaway out. Then I walked across the paddock to open the gate to the big field. Percy followed right behind me, as usual, and when I opened the gate, he marched down through the snow to the first hay bag and started eating.

That did not look like a horse who was colicking. I wondered as I walked back to the barn, could he possibly have had a mild tummy ache that resolved itself? But I couldn't believe that anything which limited manure production enough for me to notice would resolve itself. Going back into the barn through his stall, I looked at his water bucket. Full. That was really off as well. He and Walter almost empty their water buckets each night.

And that's when I noticed there was no hay bag in his stall.

They sometimes manage to unhook the carabiners in their tugging at hay which leaves the hay bag on the ground. I looked around the stall but there was nothing half buried in shavings. I looked in the wash stall and there was an extra empty bag there. Did I really? I was dumbfounded. In a lifetime of caring for horses, I don't think I have ever managed to forget or miss feeding a horse. But last night I had. I thought back to night chores. I specifically remember putting Walter's in his stall because I had thrown a flake in on the floor earlier when I emptied the cart. I was intending to add it to his bag that night but now the bag was full so I just left it and figured he'd have an extra. What in the world had distracted me so that I never filled one for Percy? (for a fascinating listen on our memory accuracy, or lack of, Hidden Brain had a great program a couple weeks ago).

But what I do remember, and here's the worst part: he tried to tell me. When I was ready to leave the barn last night, I did my usual last look down around, checking door latches, etc. Percy's head was out of his stall looking at me. I walked to him and actually said, "what do you want? You have hay and water and everything you need". But I never looked to see that was not true! He offered me some behaviors and I had the gall to tell him that not all interactions involved treats. I rubbed his neck and walked out of the barn. He hadn't been asking for treats, he'd been trying to figure out what to do to get the rest of his dinner! Thankfully, he does get a big mash with hay cubes and supplements at night, as they all do. So at least he had something in his belly going into the night. But he was short about 6 pounds of hay.

When I was a kid, I had a phrase that I would repeat to myself as I left the barn: "hay, grain, bedding, water". I would repeat this thinking about each equine I was responsible for. It was my way of making sure that I hadn't forgotten anything for anyone. I continued that mantra as I got jobs on a breeding farm, a competitive stable, a track layup stable and more. I taught it to others who were learning to care for horse. When did I stop? I need to resurrect it.

Many of us rely on routines and habits to make sure everything is done. Certainly I've gone through chores thinking about things completely unrelated to horses and I still get everything done. But something must have interrupted my routine last night which resulted in my skipping an important chore. One of the problems with routines is when we change them, and that happens a lot if we are dealing with living creatures and Mother Nature because we need to respond to changing conditions. This is the first year I have fed hay in bags in the barn. In previous years they got hay bags outside where there was risk of it blowing away or landing in soiled areas that couldn't be kept clean in freezing conditions. But I'd still give them their hay on the floor in the barn.

I think I changed that when we put up a bag for Percy in his stall while he was on stall rest this summer and fall. I realized that since the longest stretch my horses went without fresh hay is overnight, that is an important time to use nets to make it last longer, keeping those sensitive equine digestive systems full longer. In previous years, I have set the stalls up at 4: when I bring the ponies in, so filling hay bags at 9: or 10: is a relatively new habit (I can't set them up earlier because the bags are still outside until I put fresh ones out and bring the empty ones back in). In any case, habit alone didn't protect Percy last night.

I like to have an order of operations for chores that takes into account the priority of what needs to be done. Most important, water. After that, hay. Bedding and any grain tie for last. That way if I get interrupted during chores, (loose sheep, UPS man arriving, needing to leave early for an outside appointment), there is a better chance that the critical pieces are done. I considered changing the order of my little phrasing from childhood but considering how well I can chant it to this day, I think I'll leave it alone.

And I guarantee you, next time Percy solicits attention from me when I am leaving the barn, I will listen more carefully to what he is trying to tell me.

morning chores done, all set for tonight

Ready for Training: The Eager Learner

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 20:11:00 +0000

(note: this blog post was supposed to be written months ago but Things got in the way. Therefore, the details of its origins may be fuzzy due to my memory bank being overwhelmed with more current cases! But the results remain in active use)

When we train with positive reinforcement, we get eager learners. That is certainly the case with mine. When winter finally started to let go a little in March of 2019, I began working with horses after morning chores. As soon as Percy noticed this new routine, he was excited for training sessions to begin. When I was cleaning stalls, he would come over to the barn and poke his head in over his dutch door, wondering if I was ready yet. And he would wait there, ignoring the hay in his paddock, nickering hopefully, while I went through all the chores.

I wanted a way to explain to him that he could go eat his breakfast and I wouldn't forget but that I would come get him when I was ready. I needed a cue to tell him when I was available. I didn't want it to be his halter, because then if I went out with anyone's halter, he would think it was time. I needed it to be clearly visible from a bit of a distance so that he could see it from afar. I didn't want it to be anything I wore because, well, weather.

Having learned that yellow and blue are both colors which can be seen by horses, I have two other bright yellow objects that I use for different Percy cues. It has become "his" color. I decided to stick with a good thing. The nice thing about bright yellow is that it can be seen from a distance, and with the exception of peak foliage season, it usually stands out against the background. In my tack room, I had some sheets of rubbery material which I thought would be weatherproof, large enough, and yes, there was a yellow one. I had my cue.

Next to explain it to Percy. I opted go the route of letting him figure it out. He's a smart boy and I didn't really want to try to train him to come to it or target it because I wanted this, as with my other cues, to be clearly optional. One thing I have learned from the consent/control type work I've done is that history of reinforcement is a very strong motivator. Anything we teach as a starter cue which is separate from the actual behavior can be deceptive if not carefully trained. "Sure I'll touch that target, but hey! I didn't know I was going to get a shot when I did!". This can put the horse in conflict if they know touching the target will earn a treat, but they fear the pain which might occasionally follow.

If I taught Percy that coming to the yellow sign would earn a treat, then he would certainly come to the sign. But if what I wanted was for him to learn the sign simply indicated my availability for a training session, I decided it would be better to have no reinforcement history for the sign itself. The only consequence for coming when he saw the sign would be a training session. If he enjoyed training and wanted to participate, he could come over. If the sign was not out, then coming over might earn him some brief attention in the form of tactile rubs, but then I'd go back to my chores.

Percy's default is that if he sees me approach a door or gate, he comes right over. Now I simply needed to "label" that behavior with my sign. My training process was to take the sign with me when I went to the door with the intention of a training session. If I did anything else near the door, there was no sign, and I did not yield to his requests for a training session.

He figured it out in three days.

Without the sign, he ignored me completely and stayed out at his hay pile. As soon as he saw me approach with the sign, he came right over. I tried to be sure that he never made contact with the sign. Interacting with it was not the point. As soon as he approached, I put the sign off to the side, put his halter on, and brought him in to the barn. He did not get clicked or treated for coming, nor for haltering or any other part of the transitional process. His only consequence was a training session. Therefore, if he came over when he saw it, I knew that the training process itself was reinforcing. A behavior which is reinforced is more likely to be repeated. He continued to come over when he saw the sign = training sessions were reinforcing for him. I loved that he could now stay out and eat breakfast without hanging around hoping for a training session. He now had a way to know when that would happen. The other thing I loved was that being Spring, I'd give him a thorough 30 minute grooming before training, something which was initially taught with positive reinforcement, but has been conditioned so that they are no longer needed. So he wasn't actually getting any treats for a good half hour after coming in. His decision to approach was based on our history together being an enjoyable time, even if he wasn't sure exactly what it would be.

This led me to another possibility. Some days we did training sessions in the barn and some days we went for walks. If you read my "Learning to be Brave" post back in February, you'll know that going for walks used to be a very scary thing for Percy and that part of the process in helping him through it was to push through some hesitation on his part. In that process, if he stopped or looked worried, I did not turn around and take him back, but I proceeded in such an incremental process that he was able to go slightly further and further. Reading his body language over time was enough to tell me that he was becoming more comfortable.

But would he CHOOSE to go for these walks? I wasn't really sure. And I thought my new sign could help me find out. If I went for walks some days and did training sessions in the barn with lots of treats on other days, how would I know if he was just hoping it wasn't a walk day? I needed to give him clear information that today was a walk day, and see what his response was.

Again, I chose to let him figure it out. He'd figured out the sign in three days so I trusted he'd figure this out too. The only thing I did differently was where I placed the sign and myself. If I hung the sign over his dutch door, we were going in the barn. He usually got some grooming first but at some point, we'd do a training session. He didn't know exactly what we'd be working on, but I was pretty confident that didn't matter.

If instead, I was planning on taking him for a walk down the road, I would take the sign and go to the gate which connected the paddock and the barnyard. That is actually what you see in the video above. When he came to the gate, I'd put on his halter, and we'd go directly down the driveway for a walk- no grooming, no clicks and treats. By now I had dropped the Foundation Lessons portion of our walks. There was green grass growing along the roadside and we just went a little further each time, then stop and have a lovely hand grazing session.

In the months which followed, he never hesitated to come over if I took the sign to the gate. There was one day when he ignored it when I hung it over the door. I have no idea why, but I had to be very firm with myself: he knows what this means. He chose not to come over so you need to respect that and walk away, regardless of your training plan or other schedule for the day. I did, and he never ignored the sign after that.

Lessons Learned

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 13:40:00 +0000

Three weeks ago, Percy first injured his knee. He's been home for two weeks after a week at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts, where he was treated for a puncture wound into his knee joint. When they told me he'd need 30 days of stall rest, and then handed me the discharge instructions that stated another two months of restricted turnout after that, I knew I had to do some serious planning. I'm certainly not the first person to deal with this but I wasn't sure how best to go about it. So these posts are my way of sharing my experiences, in hopes that if anyone else can benefit from them, it's worth my time in writing them. My previous post in this series details how I began. In this post, I'll summarize some of the lessons I've learned in the two weeks since.

My good friends, Cindy Martin and Katie Bartlett each gave me sage bits of advice on this stall rest thing. Katie said that she usually found that horses settled in to the routine after about a week. Cindy said I'd probably find a good routine and it would work for a day or two and then I'd need to adapt. Not as contradictory as it might sound, they both proved to be true. I found that I settled in after a week, and for the most part that meant we had a new routine overall that Percy understood. But yes, we needed to adapt every couple days.

The lessons I've learned:

Nanny Kizzy

Lesson number 1- ponies are wonderful. Don't underestimate the value of having some sensible equines under 14 hands around. When one needs a babysitter, they're usually able to provide the necessary resumé, and they work for less than minimum wage. If you have more than one, they can share duties. In our case, Kizzy spends nights with Percy in the barn, mornings on limited rations next to him while he gets his 12 x 12 grass. She gets evenings off when she goes out with Walter for a few hours (picture Walter and Kizzy playing darts at a bar).

Stowaway fills in when she's off. He was less than pleased the first night he had to stay in for the evening, but he got to go out at late night, and by the next night he seemed to have adjusted. That schedule remains.

Lesson number 2- enrichment is a no-brainer but Percy told me the best enrichment is the interactive type. If I gave him his carrot ball, he wanted me to hold it for him. When I put it down, he ignored it. Same with the huge chunk of watermelon I gave him and the apples I stuck on a tree branch. The corn husks were great as long as they could be used for tug of war with me. And so on. Luckily, I had planned on plenty of training sessions and they soon filled in for the bulk of his enrichment.

Lesson number 3- a Houdini is a Houdini is a Houdini. Sedation does not reduce one's creativity. On one of the first days, I let Percy loose in the aisle to explore. I have plastic chains across the ends of the aisles and he has always respected them. Not that day. He walked down to the end of the aisle, and without so much as a look back or hesitation, he ducked his head, walked underneath, and trotted (EEK!) over to say hi to Ande and Rumer. Which isn't the first, nor last time, I was grateful for:

Lesson number 4- a long history of positive reinforcement training. It is invaluable during rehab situations. All he wanted to do when he escaped was to greet his buddies. He was no trouble to catch (though I had grabbed an entire freaking bag of peppermints just in case). I have used his history and understanding of learning theory to bandage, remove sutures, begin hand walking, administer meds, and on and on.

scab on left from previous day's shove

Lesson number 5- transitions are difficult. The careful setup I executed to turn everyone out in the morning worked like a charm. But it never occurred to me to plan similarly for when everyone came back in. I blew that big time and just now feel like I'm starting to extricate myself from the fallout. When he hears the others approach the barn to come in, he gets really anxious. If I open the top door so he can see them coming, he threatens to jump out. If I leave him with doors closed, he spins around in Stowaway's stall. When I tried putting him in his own stall before bringing them in, he shoved the closed top door so hard both days that he skinned up his nose. Spinning was preferable. I now have a planned routine for that phase of the morning.

I did think to transition carefully to our hand walking and outdoor 12 x 12 turnout. Long before I was allowed to hand walk, I would step outside the barn door and let him graze. It was only two steps out the door and there was good, good grass. He was surrounded by friends and was happy to drop his head and eat, eat, eat. We went a few steps further each day but I still let him drop his head immediately. Grazing is incredibly soothing. Once I had the 12 x 12 pen set up, I transitioned to that carefully as well. The first day I just left it open and hand grazed him inside it. We had an escape if necessary and he had company. The next day I started by hand grazing, then removed his halter but stayed there just leaning on the pen while he grazed. The next day I began the same way, but after he had been quietly grazing a while, I stepped into the nearby paddock and started picking manure. I was close enough he could see me and close enough I could get to him quickly if necessary.

12 x 12 outdoor "stall"

front end in

hind end coming in

Over ensuing days, I gradually moved into doing chores that were further away, but I still make sure I have eyes on him. I also let him graze his way into the pen. I feel like if I led him to the pen and let him go, it could lead to a whoopee moment. Instead he grazes toward the pen. Having eaten most of the route, it doesn't take long to get there. I guide him to the opening and at some point, he volunteers to walk in. During that time, he often picks his head up high to see if he can see Walter and Stowaway way out in the field, he checks out what's going on up the road, stops chewing to listen for wild critters, etc. I feel that because I am with him and he is not confined, he is less likely to react. After another minute or two of grazing inside the pen, he lifts his head and nudges me. Anthropomorphism alert: it's as if he is saying, "ok, I'm good, you can go now". And I do. For the next hour he grazes happily. As soon as I see him start to reach under the panels for better grass, I know it's time to get him out before he gets antsy.

Walter and Percy eating their hay "together".

Lesson number 6- Find a way for social interaction. Horses are social animals. Percy was accustomed to grazing with and playing with his friends, as well as social grooming. I was so grateful that the barn and turnout setup I have allowed some of that to continue. There is good visibility from each stall to the other, as well as the ability to sniff noses. With the dutch doors, Percy was able to feel like he was in a shared space with the others as long as I put hay in the shed. He was also able to share deep and long withers' scratches with Walter over the top of the door.

Lesson number 7- have I mentioned grass? Not only was the grazing wonderful for him mentally but it was the best thing to get his digestive tract back in order. He slowly improved with electrolytes and lots of water, but once he was getting 45 minutes of grass twice a day, it was a miracle cure.

Lesson number 8- I already mentioned the value of all his positive reinforcement training but I'm going to add two more things which I didn't train for the purpose of medical needs (like oral dosing and bandaging), but skills which nonetheless came in very handy in our situation. One was a project I worked on a couple years ago and had published in the IAABC journal. In that article, I described how I used sitting in a chair as a cue for Percy that I was there, but I was not going to offer reinforcement for anything he did. The purpose was to help him relax around me, rather than throwing behaviors, but the chair became a significant environmental cue that we were just going to hang out together. This past couple weeks I have been able to go back to that as a way to help him settle. I get out the chair and my training journals, park myself outside his stall, and he relaxes.

The other wonderful happenstance is all the work I have done with him in hand. Once we could begin hand walking, I wasn't a kite on a string as so often happens with newly released patients, but we could go right back to "work". Mats, rails on the ground (single ones for now), stationing, and backing were all things I could work into our hand walks to keep him focused, earning reinforcement, and feeling a little bit normal.

Lesson number 9- offer choices in any way possible. Percy's choices had been sorely minimized due to his condition. He had no say in what was done to him at the hospital and not much had changed when he came home. He needed his medications and bandages and more. I had done all I could to make it as pleasant as possible but he couldn't say no. Until he could. One night after his knee bandage had been removed, I wanted to put a standing wrap on him because his lower leg was looking a little puffy. I took the materials into his stall where he was eating hay and squatted down next to his leg. He stepped away. I scootched closer and he moved away again. I looked up at him. He was not eating, but looking back at me with his eye as his head faced forward. I said, "you know what? OK. I am giving you this one. It's not life or death this time. No wrap tonight". It just felt like I needed to respect this little request. I could have worked him through it but it had been so long since he'd said no and I said ok, it felt right to hand it to him. So I did.

Other little ways I tried to give him choices:

toys to choose to play with

Gatorade or water to drink

hay on the floor and hay in his net

soaked hay or dry hay

where to graze

opportunities to explore in the barn (with aisle doors closed!)

listening to when he was ready, when he wasn't and when he just didn't want to participate

he could eat off the floor or from his net

gatorade in the left bucket, water in the right

Last but not least, Lesson number 10: secondary s*#t is going to happen. Dehydration from stress sweating and sedation; new wounds from bandage rubs (not MY bandaging, he came home with them!); the resurgence of an old cough; and then the switch from dry manure to too loose manure are all secondary things we've dealt with so far. There are new fears and concerns. You don't go through a traumatic injury and treatment without repurcussions to mind and body. I try to anticipate, deal with it as it comes, and hope things will settle out with time.

Clicking through Residual Trauma

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 14:34:00 +0000

The sound of hoofbeats woke me with a start in the barn at 6:45 the day after bringing Percy home. I jumped off the cot. Walter and Stowaway were trotting around outside for some reason. Percy was watching them a little anxiously so I quickly tossed some hay into the shed to entice them closer and to settle down. Now wide awake, I needed to start my new plan for morning chores. The previous routine dictated that all horses would be let out together for several hours grazing in a large paddock in the big field. The routine needed to change. In working out my attempt at a plan, I took as many physical and behavioral issues into account as I could. The only thing to do was give it a try.

First I hayed the baby-sitter and put a flake of hay into Stowaway's empty stall next to her. One of Percy's enjoyable pastimes is being allowed to play in the barn- walking around poking his nose into things and also investigating the other horses' stalls. I'd gotten permission to let him do that amount of walking, but I wasn't quite ready for that myself yet. I still didn't fully know how this sedative affected him. He worked his way into some tight spots but was always clever about extricating himself from them. Would his coordination and cognitive abilities stand up for that with the sedative? Instead, I slowly entered his stall, knowing not to assume he'd pop his head right into his halter. I let him check it out, and clicked and treated a couple times until he was comfortable pushing his nose hesitantly in. Then I led him across the aisle and put him in Stow's stall where there was more hay waiting for him, and removed the halter. I held my breath to see if he'd panic, but he peered over the edge of the wall down at Kizzy, and circled the stall slowly, stopping to look out the windows as he always did when playing in the aisle. Then he started in on the hay with more steady circling. So far, no worse. I opened the dutch door to the run-in shed where Walter and Stow were waiting for me to let them out and quietly closed the top doors of both dutch doors. Now, Percy could not see south of the barn, where Stow and Walter would go far from the barn to a grassy paddock.

Again, I checked in and Percy was still quietly eating and walking.

Ande and Rumer live outside 24/7 in a large round pen and run-in shed of their own, west of the barn. Normally, they get led across the barnyard and are turned out with everyone in the morning. But I wanted to leave them where they were this morning, for two reasons. One was that Percy could see them out the windows. He'd have Kizzy in a stall on one side of him and Ande and Rumer on the other side. Another reason I didn't want to put Ande out is because he goes out to pasture like he's been shot out of a cannon. Every Single Time. I think his ancestors were Pony Express, the way his thundering hooves echo out every morning as he gallops to grass, regardless of weather or what the other horses are doing. That was not something I wanted Percy to hear.

Instead I carried some hay over to them for their breakfast in bed. They settled right into eating quietly. Now for the tricky part. Percy was watching me through the window and I casually walked toward the arena, south of the barn, then across the arena to the gate which would allow Walter and Stow to go out. At the gate, I was now out of Percy's sight. As quietly as I could, I unhooked the chain from the gate and slowly opened it. Walter and Stow are not wild types, so even though they were anxious to go out, they trotted quietly out in a somewhat dignified manner. I listened for Percy's worried calls and heard none. When I got back to the barn, I slid in through the door, shutting it behind me quickly so he wouldn't see them way out yonder. All was quiet. Phew.

With Percy in Stowaway's stall, I could do a thorough cleaning of his. I was dismayed to see only a tiny wet spot from urine. He could usually flood a pretty good spot when he peed inside. I was keeping the electrolyte imbalance on arrival at Tufts in mind. Even though he had drunk more than two five-gallon buckets of water since being home, not much was going all the way through.

As I cleaned stalls, filled water tanks and buckets, picked paddocks and all the other morning chores, Percy seemed content to eat and circle. At 8: AM, it was time for some more meds, both his SMZ's again, and some bute. The jar may say the bute is orange flavor but Percy thinks it's nasty. For him, it works better to smash a pill and mix it with peppermint but I didn't have any pills and needed to use up the powder before it expired, so that's what he got.

He was getting less wary when I entered the stall, but carrying anything in with me resulted in him swinging away. I kept the syringe tucked under my arm and clicked and treated my way through haltering again. Having practiced dose syringing enough over the years, we had our own routine, and he seemed to settle back in to it. He still tossed his head when he saw the syringe, but when I stood quietly and touched the barrel of it to his cheek, he stayed still for me to slip it in his mouth. Squirting it in still ended up with the inevitable wearing of some of it on my end, but most of it was inside him.

After medicating him, I got his carrot toy and stocked that up as a bit of enrichment for him. He nibbled at the carrot (which he normally loves), as long as I stood there and held it for him, but when I placed it on the ground, he only took a couple more bites before abandoning it to go back to his hay. Later in the morning when I had moved him back to his own stall, I found the carrot ball out on the lawn. A terrier or two also like carrots. And balls.

Once I brought Stowaway and Walter back into their stalls for the day, I was less worried about Percy's state of mind. This was normal. Everyone in for the day, eating hay and quietly dozing.

I spent most of the day in the barn, observing him alone and seeing what he would respond to from me. I brought him out onto the cross ties and curried as much of the dried salt off that I could. He leaned into the brushing happily and stood quietly. I wanted to give him a bath, but did not want to get the bandages wet, or worse yet, dirty water in the wound.

salt accumulation where sweat had run down his leg

The bandage they had put on yesterday was supposed to be good for 2-3 days but they hadn't counted on it becoming saturated with sweat. The vet had told me the elastikon wrap at the top was to keep shavings out of the lower bandage on his knee. There was currently a huge gap around the top of the elastikon so that not only would it not keep shavings out, it would have caught and funneled them right down in. I knew I would have to change it that day but wanted to wait until I had backup. As good as he'd been before leaving, he had had a lot of invasive behaviors on that knee between then and now. The hospital had sent extensive wrapping instructions and there were multiple layers and supplies involved. It would be better if I had someone to hand me things so I could be as time efficient as possible on this first re-wrap.

To try to help with his possible electrolyte imbalance, I was going to try some Gatorade. When I was eventing, and then later when my daughter was, we would offer the horses Gatorade after cross-country day. With Percy's curiosity and the sweet taste of Gatorade, I thought he might be willing to drink some. I poured about a cup into his favorite green feed tub. This is the tub that I used since he was a foal, to offer "open bar" hay stretcher pellets for things like hoof trimming. He no longer needed it but he always got really excited when he saw that tub if I brought it out. He perked up when he saw me approach his grill opening with it but as soon as he got a sniff of something different he backed away fast, snorting quietly. He was so suspicious of everything now, he turned away back to his hay. But I was not going to give up easily. I targeted him over to my fist and fed a couple treats. From there, I did just as I had with the halter, shaping him slowly to bring his head out the window, and then to reach for the tub. I kept my body language casual, leaning against the aisle wall of his stall. I finished that session when he would reach toward the tub.

Later in the day, we did another session, this time ending when he'd dip his nose into the liquid. I just wanted him to taste it and decide for himself whether he liked it, rather than being so fearful that he wouldn't try. The video which follows is our third session. He dipped his nose in repeatedly, licking his lips afterward. At the end of this session, he actually drank a little bit. By Saturday, he was loving the Gatorade and by Tuesday, I was able to use it as a fun break from suture removal. But that was a week away and we still had more hurdles to conquer.

After dinner, my husband came out to the barn to help while I changed Percy's wrap for the first time. I had all the materials stacked on an overturned muck tub where I could easily reach them. I decided that I'd rather not have Percy tied, so that he could move if he needed to without feeling stuck. I asked my husband to just hold the rope while I worked. My husband has worked around many horses, mine and others' before mine, but he's not a positive reinforcement trainer. He is perfectly capable of holding horses and doing all the chores if I go away, even if he enjoys cattle and sheep more. Using bandage scissors to cut through the elastikon that had sagged so badly, I discovered that everything was stuck to everything else. Not having put the bandage on myself, it was a challenge to figure out where to cut, where to unwrap, and which part wasn't accessible yet. I was clicking and treating frequently but Percy started to fidget. I wasn't surprised since his recent experiences with that knee had been painful ones.

I mentioned in an earlier post how important it is for Percy that I take the "make it happen" out of requests. Well, "make it happen" is encoded right into the double helix of my husband's existence. It's why we have the life we do and I love him for it. It has saved my butt more times than I can count but it now caused a problem. When Percy fidgeted, my husband stood firm. So Percy left. Right out the end of the aisle and trotted a 5 meter circle around my husband on the end of a short rope while I sucked in a "no trotting, notrottingnotrotting!" I now had an upset horse with a partially unwrapped leg. I took Percy back into the barn and decided to try cross ties after all. I asked my husband to just stand by (over there) in case I got in worse trouble. I resumed cutting and unwrapping (there was seriously a LOT of bandaging material on that leg); and clicking and treating. When I got down to the last layer on the knee, Percy was shaking as badly as he had been when he stepped off the trailer. He just stood and shook. That crack in my heart got bigger.

He needed a break. I crossed my fingers that what was left on the knee would protect it long enough to give him a break and for me to come up with a better plan. I put him back in his stall. My husband left to do his own night chores.

I started to putter around the barn, picking stalls and filling water buckets, knowing I couldn't put this off very long. I also gave Percy his dinner, with the sedative in it. I had no idea how quickly it would kick in, nor if it was possible that it was wearing off since the 24 hours were nearly up since his last dose. I had read it takes days to reach full effect (and it had been days) and lasted for days after taking them off it so I doubted it would make much difference but it was time for it anyway and maybe eating would help calm him.

When he'd cleaned that up, I entered the stall as he was back at his hay bag. He stopped chewing and froze. I stroked his neck a few times and then reached down and barely touched the remaining wrap. Click, treat. I repeated that nine more times and left his stall. He went back to eating after I left.

I did some more chores and returned to his stall, this time doing ten repetitions with click/treat where I placed both hands gently on the knee wrap or stuck a finger into the top of the wrap as I would need to do to cut it off. Then I left his stall again.

The third time I went in, I took the bandage scissors with me. Seeing something in my hand, he froze again. I let him sniff them, and I opened and closed them right there in front of his nose, clicking and treating each time as they made their unusual sound. Then I bent over and opened and closed them by his knee; then while I had a finger in the wrap, but not touching him with them. Again I left his stall after ten clicks and treats.

One last time I went in after a short break, and this time his body stayed softer, his head followed me down to his knee and he watched as I palpated the wrap. I figured he was as ready as I had time for. After a last little break, I put his halter back on and led him out into the aisle. I cut off the wrap while he stood quietly and I got my first look at the wound since I'd wrapped it a week ago. There were stitches with funny little tubes on the wound, and additional stitches in two more small spots where they had used the arthroscope. I touched it gently, assessing swelling, and showing Percy that I wasn't going to poke anything through his skin. He stood.

About then, my husband returned and I asked him to again stand by, but he only needed to watch. This time, we had approximated our way back to Percy feeling safe and comfortable while I wrapped him at liberty. I didn't follow the hospital's wrapping instructions to a T, but as closely as I could. I didn't love the results, and I'd have to redo it all again the next day, but we had everything covered and safe, body and mind alike.

That night as I stepped out of my clothes and into the shower, I realized I'd been wearing them for 36 hours straight- to Tufts and back, through the night on the cot in the barn, and through another day. The shower felt awfully good.

Starting to Rebuild: Physically and Emotionally

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 02:48:00 +0000

When we arrived at the large animal hospital, my husband dropped me off at the office to deal with paperwork and went to hitch up the trailer. I was handed a multi-page list of discharge instructions to review and see if I had questions while they found someone to come answer them. The instructions were thorough so I didn't have many questions when the doctor came out. One was that it stated Percy had mild electrolyte imbalances on arrival. I asked if that was simply due to the sweating and stress of the trip down. He said most likely it was and that the fluids he received would have taken care of it. But I knew this would be important for me once I got him home again.

I was also given a small box of supplies, including a month's worth of sedative to be sprinkled on his daily feed. I was amazed to hear they said he ate it easily as he is pretty fussy about anything added to his food. Once I got him home, I found that he gobbled it right up. I need that recipe. I asked about the possibility of weaning him off it and how to do so if I decided to try. Finally, there was a bottle of SMZ tablets to continue his antibiotics orally for a week. I had told them I had bute at home and didn't need more.

When my questions were answered and my thanks expressed, they said I could go wait outside and they'd bring him to me. What? I wouldn't get to see where he'd been? I knew Ally had been in to visit him so wasn't sure why I couldn't go get him, but it wasn't important so I went back outside to wait.

As anxious as I was to see him again, I wasn't expected a Hallmark reunion. I remembered back to the year he was born and my daughter, who owned his dam, had moved across the country and was gone for several months. When she returned, Zoë, Percy's mom, acted like she didn't know her. Worse actually because she wouldn't even let her catch her and she wasn't a hard mare to catch. I won't pretend to know why, but I wasn't going to be surprised if he was miffed. I'd just dropped him off at the Worst Summer Camp Ever for a week.

Finally I heard voices on the other side of the overhead door in front of me. The door went up halfway and stopped. I saw a familiar chestnut leg and another leg bandaged to the hilt. The door went up the rest of the way and there stood Percy, head straight up in the air and eyes bugging out. If I hadn't seen all Ally's photos of him looking so sleepy, I'd have been asking for eye muscle rehab for the poor boy.

He was led forward and I think his eyes briefly glanced my way but went right back to staring at his surroundings. I took his lead rope and offered him the carrot from my back pocket. Nope. Ok, I thought, let's take you home. I sent some wishes up to the trailer loading fairies and walked up the ramp. He came to the top of the ramp and stopped, looking left and right. This time I had a firm hold on the rope. The connection we'd had when I dropped him off was not there. I knew he was on the sedation drugs and as yet had no idea how they'd affect him. And after his last trip, followed by the week he had, I couldn't blame him if he'd wanted to take flight. I gave the rope a little tug and he walked in. This time I asked my husband to deal with the partition, butt bar, and ramp while I stayed up front talking to him. After tying him up, I offered him the carrot again but still no interest. I broke it in three pieces and stuffed them into the hay net that had ridden all the way down with him. When we'd get home four hours later, they would still be there. I shut the door and we started our journey north.

Just as before, he was in a black sweat at the first check, with drops coming off his midline. At the second check, we stopped long enough to use a bathroom and he looked like he relaxed a little bit in the few minutes we were stationary, but he still wasn't eating any hay. The trip was smooth sailing until we were a mile from the turn onto our own road. A huge manure truck pulled out of a side road in front of us, pulling a flatbed loaded high with round bales. I said to my husband that at least we wouldn't have to follow it far, thinking we'd turn off in a mile. His reply was, "he's probably going to our house". Sure enough, this was hay being delivered to our sheep barn and we were going to follow it the rest of the way. It's three miles from the end of our road to our driveway and two of those miles are pretty much straight up. That rig crept up the hill and we crawled along behind it. I tried not to imagine what would happen if one of those round bales came off the back of the trailer and rolled toward us. The kind of sensible thinking one does in those situations.

When we finally stopped at the horse barn, I asked my husband to throw a flake of hay to each of the horses before he ran off to his own animals. This was their normal turnout time and no way was I putting anyone out. I wanted everyone else in, quiet, and calm. When I backed Percy off the trailer, the poor guy was shaking from head to toe. His butt and tail were roughed up from the butt bar. I'm guessing he sat on it during our slow climb up the hill. He followed me in to the barn and then stopped dead when I tried to lead him into his stall. Not only had I sent him to the Worst Summer Camp Ever but I'd rearranged his room while he was gone. The stall guard was up over his door and there was a new hay bag hanging in the corner where hay had never hung before. It was all too much. It took me longer to get him in his stall than it did to get him on the trailer. Luckily my husband was still there and he took the stall guard down and out of the stall. Percy was able to walk in then and investigate the hay bag.

spots of sweat just dripping off

so much sweat that it pooled and ran

At first I just unclipped the lead, leaving his halter on, just in case. But one of the first things he did was throw his poor itchy, sweaty self against the side of his window to rub. I was afraid he'd get his halter caught on one of the new screw eyes so I went back in and took it off. He stopped shaking and took a bite of hay. Then he walked in a circle, looked out his door, took another bite of hay, walked in another circle, looked out the door, another bite of hay, and repeated it. This is what he would do when upset in days to come. The sedative seemed to take the edge off enough so that what was left was restless circling instead of panic.

I started to unload things and clean the trailer, making trips back in to check on him. He seemed fairly quiet so when I had done all I could there, I went in for dinner, leaving windows open to listen and looking out frequently. I ate in record time and went back out to the barn. Now I had to deal with turnout.

The summer routine for my horses is that they go out at about 4: or 5: in the afternoon. The ones who have stalls in the barn: Percy, Walter, Kizzy (sometimes) and Stowaway, spend the night in the paddock attached to the barn. In the morning, they all go out on grass for several hours until it gets hot and buggy, at which point they come in their stalls. Because we'd left at 8: AM that morning, they had come in earlier than usual, and they hadn't been turned out at 4: when we got home. I couldn't delay it any longer. Walter actually has his door open all day so he can go in and out but he spends most of the day in his stall.

After dinner, he had taken himself out and was hanging out in the shed outside Percy's stall. I was glad that this had been the routine previously so didn't worry about Percy being upset with Walter out when he was in. But now I needed to put a pony out too. Percy knows the routine and in the past, he was the first one out. How would he react when Stow went out and he had to stay in? I had already decided that Stowaway and Kizzy would share babysitting duties. They are both laid back and I thought would be able to handle more stall time than normal. Kizzy, in fact, had decided this summer that she preferred her stall to being outside, since the bugs drove her so crazy. I'd put her out with the others and in an hour or two she was begging to come back in. So she got the first shift. I put hay out for Walter right outside Percy's door and another flake on the other side for Stowaway. That would keep them close at least until the hay was gone. Percy watched closely when I put Stow out, circling slowly, but went back to his hay bag. He looked across the aisle to where Kizzy was eating in her stall and seemed content with that.

I cleaned all the stalls and then it was time for 8: meds. He was due for his SMZ tablets and his sedative. As I mentioned, I put the sedative on his feed and he ate it right up. The SMZ tablets had to be ground up and mixed with what I call peppermint juice for oral dosing. Percy loves peppermints and I have found that's the best vehicle for getting oral meds into him. I soak a peppermint candy in hot water until it partially melts, and then dissolve the meds in that water. He accepted it quite well. Before.

18 SMZ tabs twice a day requires a coffee grinder

Peppermint juice being brewed

mixing up the concoction

I approached his stall and lifted his halter off the hook. Usually this had him right at his stall door, ready for anything. Instead, when I opened his stall door, he turned and put his head in the corner. When I spoke to him and walked up, he turned again, so that his butt was to me. A little crack in my heart. I left his stall and put on my training vest. I don't usually use treats for oral dosing until I'm done (when he gets what's left of the melted peppermint) because food in the mouth just makes it easier to spit out the medicine you squirt in. But we needed something here. I returned to his stall and waited. When he glanced at me, I clicked and offered some hay stretcher pellets. He took them and from there I shaped him into allowing me to put his halter on. Now I understood the four inches of gauze wrap that had been tied hanging off his halter. I bet they couldn't catch him in his stall.

His head went up when I presented the syringe, but by moving slowly, I got it into his mouth. His reaction when I dosed him resulted in white splatters all over his face, the far wall, and me, but I hoped enough went down for that night. We'd try again in the morning. He seemed happy with the peppermint scrap.

I still wasn't comfortable leaving him. I've seen horses jump out over the top of dutch doors (and others attempt to and not make it). I've seen Percy lean on his door with all his weight in excitement to get out. Because of his fear of the stall guard, and not knowing if he'd try to push his head around it, that plan didn't seem feasible. I was afraid that shutting his top door would upset him further since he wouldn't be able to see his friends. I wanted to be right there to make sure his first night home was supervised. My husband helped me carry a cot up the hill and into the barn. When everyone had their late night hay and water, I collapsed onto the cot. For several hours I listened as Percy circled and chewed, circled and chewed. At last the circling stopped and all I could hear was chewing. I think that was when I finally slept.

The circling woke me again at 2:45 in the morning. I wondered if Walter and Stowaway had moved too far for Percy's comfort. There was a lovely full moon and when I got up to look, I could see Walter lying down in the paddock about 20 feet from the shed with Stow standing over him. But Percy's hay bag was empty, the hay on the floor was gone, and his water bucket was empty. All that sweat needed to be replaced. I filled both hay and water, he resumed eating, and stopped circling. I went back to sleep.

Percy at the Hospital

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 13:29:00 +0000

I won't deny that I was more relaxed on the drive home. Of course I worried about what was happening, but at least I wasn't the one making decisions and managing the moment to moment. I trusted the professionals at the hospital to do what they were good at and that's why he was there.

Before I'd left home, I had posted some photos and the situation on social media. Once we were out of the city driving and on the highway that would take us back north into ever more peaceful surroundings, I checked Facebook and Instagram (my husband was still driving). The responses were overwhelming and wonderful. Not only messages of support and confidence, but offers of help. Some people offered to go visit him for me and they lived up to two hours away. Others offered to put me up if I needed to stay closer or visit. Still others contacted my with optimistic stories of their own horses' hospital visits or to give advice on communicating with staff. I hope I responded to each one but if I missed anyone, I'm sorry and appreciate it all! Positive Reinforcement people make up the nicest community and I am forever grateful.

The surgeon had told me she'd call when the surgery was over and he was in recovery. She said it would be about 3 hours so by 8:30 (we were still driving home), I started checking my phone obsessively. Finally the call came with word that everything had gone well and they'd flushed nine liters of fluid through his joint to be sure there was nothing left in there which didn't belong. He was in recovery and she'd call once he was up. They'd have ropes on his tail and head just in case. Eesh.

It was dark when we got home. Another person I am grateful for is the friend/client I sent an SOS to on the way down. I had left the horses with piles of hay and most had outdoor access. But as I traveled down the highway, I found myself worrying about the four dogs confined to the house. There is a dog door but only one of them can use it for complicated reasons. I couldn't think of anyone nearby that I trusted to let the dogs out though. So I texted Cindy, who is not a horse person but is great with dogs. I tried to politely say, "only if it's not too much trouble" knowing it would be at least half hour drive each way. She agreed immediately and I could release that anxiety. She later sent pictures of the dogs outside playing, had fed the terriers, and everyone was back in where we'd left them. So when we got home, the dogs were very happy to see us, but not as crazed as they would otherwise have been!

I was definitely ready to collapse into bed but wasn't about to until I heard he was out of recovery. When that call came saying he had gotten up easily and seemed comfortable, the surgeon promised another call in the morning. I didn't even have to ask. The relevant doctors on his case called every day. I only called them twice, on days that I hadn't heard from them and needed to leave cell range so didn't want to miss. When I did call, they always connected me to his doctor in short order. I got thoughtful reports, they listened to my suggestions, and they answered my questions.

So the big question is, how did this sensitive, clicker trained, country boy do in the hospital? Honestly I don't have a lot to go on since I wasn't there, but I'll share what I do know.

From the doctors I spoke with: they knew I was concerned about his behavior. I wanted him as happy as possible of course, but I also made clear that I was worried for their safety. He's not subtle when he's upset. I would say that their reports on his behavior indicated improvement over the week. The first few days I heard, "we had to sedate him pretty well to treat him". For treatment, he had a catheter in his neck so that they didn't have to poke him for his antibiotics and sedatives. He had another catheter in his knee for regional limb perfusions- they put a tourniquet on his leg and then flooded the knee itself with antibiotics. They did that every other day. They also had to check the wound and change the bandages.

After the first few days, the reports were more along the line of "he was pretty good today". "I didn't have to sedate him for the bandage change". That, to me, was progress. I hoped that the sedation was keeping Percy relaxed and people safe, and that they were all learning about each other. The morning after the surgery, the surgeon told me she was transferring his case to two other doctors who would be responsible for his after surgery care. Sure enough, the next day I got a call from one of them. I always tried to express my gratitude and trust when I spoke to them. Percy was in their hands and they needed to be reinforced for that! I told that new doctor about the success with the blindfold and she said that was very helpful. She said the others had told her to keep people to a minimum. That told me that my suggestions were being taken and passed along. When I asked a few days later if the blindfold was still working, she said, "we don't need it any more. He's fine without it". More progress. Yes, he was still getting sedated for treatments but I've seen what he can do even when sedated so I knew that wasn't the only factor.

After five days, that doctor, who was a resident, was transferred to another specialty and I had yet a third new person to talk to. His comment about him was, "he's quite a character". Bingo.

My biggest boost was a visit from yet another friend/client. When I initially heard all the offers to go visit him, I thought I could make a visitation list and he could have a visitor every day. But I wondered if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. Would he appreciate yet another new face every day? These were all clicker trainers offering, and my thought was to have them run through foundation lessons with him but would that be confusing with all those people? Would he get frustrated when some people spoke his language and others (hospital staff) didn't? The general rule is, if the animal doesn't have a choice, it's far better not to offer one, than to have to ignore the answer. Did I need to extrapolate that theory to "this place is about a different mindset"? Again, I had nothing to go on.

I decided to try one visitor and see how it went. I chose the person the shortest distance away and hoped would be the least inconvenienced. I asked Ally if there was a feed store or something nearby where she might find a toy to take to him. When she listed several and then said that Smart Pak was close, I was ecstatic. I called Smart Pak and asked if I could pay for things over the phone for her to pick up. She said they did that all the time for Tufts clients. Finally, something I could DO for him. I got online and picked out a food interactive toy that could be stuffed with carrots, a peppermint flavored (supposedly) jolly ball, a bag of treats and a Himalayan salt block on a rope.

When Ally sent the photos from her visit, it was the highlight of my week. She told me his stall was immaculate and so was he. That was a relief because I knew how sweaty he'd been and was worried he was still caked with salt. She said there was a bucket of brushes hanging on his door. Such nice news.

Another reason I picked Ally to be the one to go visit is because she had been here for some lessons and had attended our Training Intensive this summer. So I'd seen her work with my ponies and knew that she knew my priorities. When I told her I wasn't sure how interested he'd be with the sedation, she said, "I'll just offer to interact with him and see what he says". Oh, that was just what I needed to hear. Plus, she's a KPA grad, so I knew she was special.

She was texting me while she was there and sending photos and videos. She said the salt inspired the most interest so I was glad I'd sent it. She also said he loved the fan they put up for him. He could stand in front of the fan and lick his salt. He wasn't interested in treats though, so there was no "training". I have to say I was a little concerned with the lack of interest in treats and how depressed he looked. I knew they were sedating him for morning treatments but she visited in the evening so the Ace should have worn off by then. I made a note to ask the doctor on the next call.

As happy as I was to see the photos and videos of Percy, one of my favorite pictures was:

Percy is a Houdini and knows how to get someone's attention. He can also get a little panicky when he thinks it's time to go out. I wasn't sure which of these were the stimulus for his escaping behavior but the fact that he had enough spunk to try to escape was an indication to me that he didn't feel too badly.

When I spoke to the doctor the next day, I mentioned that the horse I saw in video and pictures was either sedated or depressed. She didn't think he should have still been sedated but assured me they were taking vitals each day and none of that indicated a problem. [note: now that Percy is home, he does not want those treats either. Maybe it was just a preference that made him turn them down with Ally. I thought he'd like them as special. Lesson learned!] I also asked her about the escaping sign and said she had not had any trouble with him herself and guessed it was stall muckers who may leave the door open a little. I told her how easy it was to stop him with a "whoa" but they better be ready to "pay" for it or he wouldn't stop the next time. I'm not sure if that information was passed on or not but they probably thought it safest not to risk it.

enjoying his salt

The day after her visit, the report was that he was going well, the wound looked good, he was looking sound at a walk (on bute) and if all continued that way, he could come home on Tuesday. More good news! That would be just six days there. As a result, I decided not to chance any more visits. Somehow with the short duration left, it seemed better to leave him in his semi-sleepy state than get him thinking he could solicit attention for playtime.

As it turned out, that resulted in my only disappointing communication. I continued to speak with the doctor daily, but on Sunday, she left for her next rotation and I had a new person to speak with. I did not hear from him on Monday and had cancelled all my Tuesday appointments to clear our schedule to go get him. Not having heard anything, I called about 4:30 and found out that no, it would be better to get him on Wednesday. Grr. When they heard my frustration, the doctor said I could get him Tuesday if I really needed/wanted. But since the reason they were holding off was because they had not transitioned him to the oral antibiotics and sedatives yet, I agreed that I wanted him to transition there and make sure all was good before bringing him home.

Having already heard that he'd need to be on stall rest for a period of time, I thought a lot about how I would manage that. We put screw eyes up over his dutch door so I could hang a stall guard in case he wanted to jump out, or even lean too hard on his door in his desire to be out. He has already bent the sliding latch from doing so before. I also cleaned all the old shavings out of his stall, swept down the walls and ceiling, and left it to air out. I ordered sheet cotton and vet wrap in bulk. The hardest part was figuring out how to adapt a very active, sociable, and playful horse to stall rest. I had some ideas to try, but I wouldn't know how they worked without trying them.

Wednesday morning, I packed a bag of carrots with our lunch and snacks for the drive down.

Clicker Training Through an Emergency

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Sat, 17 Aug 2019 18:37:00 +0000

Life has a way of throwing us lessons we might not choose to go through, though we learn plenty from them. Ten days ago, the photo above is the sight that met me when I went out for chores in the morning. My initial assessment from this distance was, "well, that's probably going to change my plans for this morning". I had no idea how it was going to change my plans for months.

The first good news was that, as you can see, the leg was easily weight bearing. That told me it probably wasn't a break of any any kind or even a bad blow. Also, it was a Tuesday morning so I expected my vet to be readily available. I'm not one to call the vet for every little thing, but that much blood and I was pretty sure I was going to need professional assessment. Unfortunately when I called, (yes that was the FIRST thing I did before going a step further), I learned my vet was away on vacation and I'd need to call the vet on call...an hour away. I was glad I hadn't hesitated to initiate that process. I left a message with his answering service and then started to hay horses. Why was that the second thing to do in this circumstance? The horses were expecting it, it wouldn't take long, and it would keep the group quiet while I dealt with the injury. The last thing I did before grabbing Percy's halter was to get the hose out where I'd need it so that I had everything I needed before having a seriously bleeding horse on the end of a rope.

Percy came right to me when he saw me approach and again, I heaved a sigh of relief that he looked completely sound. I was less happy when I saw that it appeared the blood was coming from the knee itself. That was definitely not good. Joints are scary things to get injured. He followed me happily through the barn and out onto the lawn where the very best grass is. This was a treat in his mind. None of that tall grass that was good for him; this was cookies, candy, and cake grass!

still happily weight bearing

Percy is not a fan of being hosed. He will allow it as I've spent enough time doing it for both training and need but the only time he actually likes it is when it's about 95 degrees and he's been sweating while standing in his stall. So I take advantage of those situations to show him how good it can feel! Otherwise, I tend to use a sponge which is less likely to have him shrink away. Now I was going to need to hose and hose with cold, cold well water. My hope was that that candy grass would be a sufficient treat to make it tolerable. I needn't have worried. He happily ate for twenty minutes while I hosed and hosed the knee. During that time I also checked my calendar and made the appropriate cancellations, knowing I'd be waiting for the on-call vet.

After twenty minutes, I hoped the wound was clean and the cold had slowed the blood but it certainly hadn't stopped it. I put him on cross ties and gathered bandaging supplies and a clean towel. I didn't touch the wound with the towel, but used it to dry the leg as much as possible so that the bandages would have a better chance of staying put. I put a sterile pad over the wound, sheet cotton over that, and then vet wrap on top. Below that I put a standing wrap to prevent the knee wrap from sliding down, as the knee is much fatter than the cannon bone below it.
(note- wrapping a horse can cause more damage than help if you are inexperienced. If you don't have the experience, find yourself an experienced horse person, an upper level Pony Club member or instructor to show you how. Never leave your practice wraps on the horse. Practice many times until your teacher tells you that your tension and coverage are safe).

Up to this point in the morning, I had not done anything with Percy that hadn't been trained with positive reinforcement before. Some things were easy for him (coming to put on his halter and leaving his buddies to come with me), some things were not his favorites but I'd put in the time to make them non-issues (cold hosing), and some things had much less history, but I had worked through, step by step, in the past (bandaging). I'd never actually put a knee wrap on him before, come to think of it. But with positive reinforcement in his past, he had learned:

to come to me
to put his head in the halter
to follow where I led
to stand still
to graze without pulling me around
to stand for hosing
to stand on cross ties
to stand on cross ties when I left the aisle and disappeared into the tack room making rustling sounds as I dug around for supplies

He did not "need" nor receive clicks and treats for any of this on that particular morning. The bandaging was less familiar, and certainly not when there was a potentially painful wound involved. So I did click and treat through the following even though he had experience with all but the knee and wound.

to stand while I waved cotton around
to stand when made contact with strange materials on his leg
to stand when he heard vet wrap being pulled out
to stand when he heard masking tape pulled off

Percy and my other homebreds are not expected to "just handle it" when I do something novel. With a click and treat, I explain what I am doing and what my expectations of them are while I do things. This is the way it's been all of their lives. There have been times when excessive pressure was involved by accident, by frustration, or by chance; but it's never been my plan and it's been rare. They trust that I will explain things to them and go slowly. Which is why what follows was so difficult for me.

Going back to July for a minute, the 5th Vermont Vermont Training Intensive was again held here at Bookends Farm. Cindy Martin, Katie Bartlett, and I spent two and a half days on the topic of cooperation, choice, and consent when interacting with our horses. I was now entering the "when choice is not an option" topic we shared. One of the things we discussed over the weekend is that it isn't a choice when they don't know what is about to happen. The more things we can give our horses experiences with, training through positive reinforcement, the fewer things that will come as a surprise. We can train for hosing and bandaging; for tooth care and oral dosing, for injections and blood draws; for examinations and the taking of vital signs; for handling eyes, ears, sheaths, udders, and more.

I have done that and more with Percy. But I never taught him to stand for having needles injected into his knee joint. And he'd never been forced to shut down and just handle it.

I have enormous respect for veterinarians. Large animal veterinarians have to work in some horrendous conditions (outdoors in New England for example), with animals who can outweigh them 10 to 1. The training or lack of training these animals have runs the gamut from unhandled individuals to performance sports athletes. They work with incredibly expensive tools and equipment, all of which can be as dangerous as the animals themselves. And they have to deal with people- the owners who want their animals fixed fast and with the least expense possible. Anyone who gets up and does that every morning with compassion has my respect.

When the on-call vet arrived, I went out to meet him at his truck. He had come out once before, when my Kizzy pony colicked last Fall. I liked him a lot, but Kizzy is a good patient, and having come from a not-so-pleasant background, she did know how to just handle things. When I saw two other people climb out of the truck, I was dismayed. Something else Percy is not a fan of is multiple people at once. It was time to advocate for my horse. Politely.

I explained that Percy is a highly sensitive individual. I explained how we normally do vet visits. I told him I would stand between Percy's head and him so that if he did snark, I'd be the one receiving it. I told him that trying to make friends could be counter-productive. I turned to the other two people and said apologetically, the fewer people the better. I suggested that the vet walk within a couple feet of him, no contact, and wait for me to tell him when he could get closer. I'd spent a lot of time this year teaching Percy a "ready for a stranger" cue. I knew there was a good chance this would not be enough, but I had to start out by trying.

When I went in to get Percy from his stall, he was very lame. Night and day difference from earlier. My heart sank.

Everything started wonderfully with Percy giving his ready cue when he was ok with the vet touching him. After the initial examination, the vet determined he was going to need to get pretty invasive to properly assess the situation and so he injected him with a sedative, which, thanks to the vet's speed, Percy barely noticed.

After that, it got a little hairier. Sedation helped a lot but things progressed more quickly than Percy was comfortable with and he wanted to move. Moving was not advised when there were instruments inside one's knee joint. The vet suggested a blindfold. I was afraid this would cause a real panic but out of respect for him, said we could give it a try. I was amazed how well it worked. Percy settled right down. Of course I was still right at his head, using my voice and tactile reinforcement at appropriate times (food not being safe under sedation). The vet said that for many of them it's more the worry of what will happen than what actually happens. I'm still trying to resolve that with what I know about preparing horses, not to mention my own experiences (the dentist who tried to sneak a novocaine injection in without telling me is no longer my dentist).

note how far into his knee the forceps go!

Another injection of sedative was needed before he was through- the vet couldn't believe how he burned through it. He certainly didn't stand without moving at all, but he responded well to carefully timed pressure and release if he tried to walk off. I resisted his movement with the rope and released the second he released. Then he would stand again while I scritched bug bites under his forelock. I am grateful for all of the Alexandra Kurland rope handling we'd done. None of that contained this much pressure, but the education was there in both of us. There were a couple times I saw the vet and staff react in surprise when I did things such as giving Percy his "wait' cue before leaving him at liberty to move some things which were behind him. A minute earlier he'd been dancing around and I think they thought he'd bolt if not held tightly, to say nothing of walking away and leaving him loose. Percy does not appreciate being held tightly. This was obvious when we were through and I needed to put a wrap back on. By this time the other two people had become essential for holding items such as the x-ray, prepping instruments and wound sites, filling syringes etc.

Percy's ear followed them as they moved around and I asked them to speak as they moved so he wouldn't be startled hearing a voice in a new place with the blindfold on. So when one of them offered to hold him while I wrapped, I accepted the offer, not sure if Percy would hold still after what he'd just been through. But the guy couldn't bring himself to keep the lead loose and when Percy felt that grip he just fought. So I took him back, rubbed his face for a minute, told him to stand at liberty in the aisle, and wrapped the whole damn leg while he stood like a star.

Now came decision time for my choice/no choice drama. The wound was very deep and into the knee joint. The better medical care would be to send him to the veterinary hospital to fully flush the wound and he would stay for 2-3 days. The hospital was two hours away. A stressful trailer ride, a new and strange environment, many new people and I couldn't stay with him since I had other horses and dogs relying on me at home. The vet really thought he should have the exceptional care offered in a hospital setting and that if he had to come to the farm daily instead, the cost would be comparable. When I tried to express my concerns regarding Percy's behavior, he assured me they would use sedation as needed to avoid drama.

I had absolutely nothing to go on. I had no idea how Percy would respond and how much sedation they would need or use or how it would affect him. But I also wanted the best chance possible for him medically. I agreed to send him. The vet stepped out to make the referral call and when he came back he had more bad news. The surgeon he wanted to refer to at the hospital was away on family emergency for a week. Now we were looking at hospitals even further away. And in the wrong direction in my opinion. The ride to the initial hospital would have been a winding route through the hills of Vermont but now we were talking about going to another state where there was traffic and congestion and multi lane highways. When we opened the trailer door at breaks, he wouldn't look out to see hills and grass but asphalt and mayhem. I tried not to melt down, but stuff kept seeping out of my eyes. How could I have possibly prepared him for this? Was his life to this point in any way going to stand him in good stead?

I had already decided that a hospital setting was best and so I stayed on that roller coaster rather than getting off. My husband hooked up the trailer while I tried to gather my wits as to how we were going to leave the farm for nine hours with no planning. He had generously agreed to go with me. I wondered if it would be better to go alone and try to stay down there for the 2-3 days so I could be with Percy whenever they'd let me. I have driven all over the northeast with a truck and trailer but not This Horse in This Condition and going to an emergency hospital. I decided I needed someone else to drive and my dear husband dashed off to ready his own animals for a long day. The referral was made to the surgeon at the hospital. My phone wouldn't pull up the location so the vet handed me a piece of paper with the address. I tried to express my gratitude to him and his team before they left. They had listened. They had tried. They had helped.

Would Percy get on the trailer? We practice some but with the setting events we'd just had? His opinion of trailer travel was similar to hosing. He'd do it, but he didn't like it. He was usually in a black sweat in twenty minutes.

I put hay in the net, threw a couple things in the tack room, and led Percy to the trailer ramp. He walked on without a moment's hesitation and stood at liberty while I walked behind him to push the divider over, put up the butt bar, and put the ramp up. Deep breath. Thankful for reinforcement history at its finest. Then we were on our way. He was alone in the trailer for the first time on this trip. Previously he'd always had a pony companion, either by need or by choice. I considered taking one along but asking a pony to be on the trailer for nine hours since we'd need to bring them back seemed very unfair.

True to form, Percy was dripping sweat at the first check. He hadn't touched his hay, and his head craned out the door when I opened it as he scanned the sights with huge eyes. I shut the door and got back in the truck. The next time we stopped there was a small pool of sweat on the floor under him, edged in white salt. When I went in to the convenience store for bathroom and caffeine, I saw they had small containers of baby carrots available. I bought one and took them out to him. If I stuffed one in the corner of his mouth, he chewed distractedly and let it fall out of his mouth as he stared around. I got back in the truck and wondered how a horse with that experience of trailer travel was willing to load so well each and every time. I hoped he'd do the same when it was time to come home.

After four hours on the road, we arrived at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts. Percy backed off the trailer politely, put his head up in the clouds and I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head. Luckily, we'd arrived at a quieter, more farmlike environment than the highways and rest areas. Someone came up from the building and asked if they'd like me to take him and I said no, thank you. I was going to give that boy choice right up to the very last minute I was able. We walked down a slight slope toward the hospital with him walking tentatively, looking all around trying to take it in. When we got close to the building and he could see in, he stopped. It looked like a barn aisle in shape, but was very light, people moving around inside and unfamiliar sounds and smells coming out. I left my hand open. The lead rope lay across my open palm with no chance of "making it happen" going down the line. I knew if he moved too quickly, the rope would pop off my hand. But I also knew that in his eleven years of life, he'd never run away from me. If he startled and I dropped the rope, he'd only go as far as his startle. Maybe it was stupid, but I had to trust that would happen here as well.

I held out a fist for a target and he came forward to it. A click and treat and inside we went. Talk about stimulus overload. He walked like a long-legged bird, taking slow but consistent steps with his head going forward and back with each, trying to take it all in. I was directed to the scale on the side of the aisle. It was only a couple inches off the floor. I tried a fist target but he was trying to stay away from the edges of the aisle. The woman behind us reached out to put a hand on his butt to push him over and I quickly said, "don't touch him!". Sorry, lady. We walked past it, turned around and this time he walked onto the scale. He's a heavy little monster.

Then they told me it was time to take him in for x-rays. I took him to the door and now had to hand over the lead rope. "The looser you keep it, the better he'll be", I said. They responded as if they knew that type, rather than like I was crazy. They told me to wait in the waiting room while they did the x-rays and then I could talk to the surgeon.

Standing still wasn't working for me so we asked about leaving the trailer there and they told us where we could park it. Glad we didn't bring a companion pony. Then we went back to the waiting room and I paced slowly around. When the surgeon came to talk to me, she was wonderful. She showed me the films and explained the surgery and after treatment. I again mentioned his unique personality and she said he was much better when she led him alone for the x-rays. Good. I'd told them he was clicker trained and she said they were strong believers in cookie treatments or something like that. Well, better than nothing, I thought. I said if anyone on the staff had any real experience with clicker training, they could use it. I didn't say that if their timing or other skills were off, he'd just blow them off. Oh, and she said he'd be staying 7-10 days. That was a shock so I'm glad I hadn't expected to stay the duration.

They said I could see him before we left. He was really doped up- they'd had to sedate him heavily for the x-rays. I kissed him on the nose, silently apologized, and walked out the door.

To Be Continued

Using Positive Reinforcement in a Lesson Program: Part 7, Help the People to Help the Horses

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Sat, 22 Jun 2019 17:25:00 +0000

"Finally, do have any experience with TAGteach? If not, get it. Now. www.tagteach.com "

from the introduction to the series.

tagulators, lined up in the tack room for young students

That was a pretty bossy line. I really do strongly recommend TAGteach certification. While tagging people has many similarities to clicker training animals, there are also distinct differences when teaching someone who shares a verbal language and societal pressures with us. It is well worth it to get the specialized education for using this very same learning theory we espouse for animals.

using games to build balance

I have tried to keep this series focused on the horses and ponies with whom we have chosen to interact and this post is no different. Using TAGteach will make life better for your lesson ponies and horses. I have recorded a webinar with Joan Orr of TAGteach and have written a blog post with some ideas for teaching the people. You can refer to them for more information on using TAGteach in an equestrian setting.

So how does using TAGteach help our horses? It makes us better instructors. The more clearly we teach, the more our students progress. The sooner they ride better, the more comfortable the horses will be. Or the more easily understood the cues on the ground will be.

mounting practice without the pony

As you will see in the blog and webinar, many lessons can be taken away from the ponies, back to the barn. Anything we can work on while the ponies are napping in their stalls or paddocks is a bonus. I give examples of teaching correct mounting and riding a round circle both without involving a pony. While neither clicker training nor TAGteach are really magic, it sure does seem like it sometimes. The rider may not transition seamlessly from ground to saddle, but the seams are a lot neater.

Other lessons may take place in the saddle but using TAGteach methodologies gives us the ability to work at slower gaits. I once had a woman who struggled to release with her hands sufficiently over a fence. She knew she should, and I showed her on the ground where her hands should go, but in the heat of cantering down to a fence and jumping it, she was unable to repeat it. This poor release showed up in her entire position. Not only was the horse's mouth yanked on but she fell back into the saddle, rather than being in a position to absorb the landing in her own joints.

Enter TAGteach. I placed a marker in the horse's mane. I carry duct tape of various colors in my teaching bag for this purpose. Without it, I've been known to yank out my own pony tail to hold a braid in the horse's mane as a marker. Then, at a standstill, I tagged the woman for placing her hands in the correct position. First, just her hands, then while using her whole jumping position. TAGteach gives us the same repetition success as clicker training. She didn't have to canter over ten jumps, fatiguing her horse, to get ten successful reps of the position change. Her horse just stood. The marker did its magic, cementing that position into place. Then she went back to the jump. With that "muscle memory" established, and a clearly marked spot to put her hands over the fence, she nailed it the first time. And every time after that. Horse's mouth and back were spared. Magic. Nope, science.

a nice soft contact, free of restricting noseband

This is also an example of how TAGteach pushes us to become better at understanding what we are teaching. Anybody can stand in the middle of an arena and yell, "stop pulling on his mouth!" every time a student makes that mistake. But we need to analyze why that student is not releasing. Fear? Improper equipment? Something in the horse's jumping style? An insecure base of position? In the above example, I went to the release to cure the flopping back in the saddle. In the process of teaching a better release, the rider had to adjust her base of position. I could have focused on her position, and then focused on her hands, but I chose to focus on her hands, which then caused her to find her own balance better. That might not have worked with another rider, if she hadn't had decent basics already. Certainly a novice could go right over the horse's head if they shoved their hands too far forward without the base to support it. So we need that education in our own pasts, to find the thing that makes what we want to happen.

Finally, students who experience TAGteach can make connections to working with their horses. When we stop nagging them, we model how to stop nagging ponies. When we teach with compassion, we make it a safe space for them to show compassion for their horses. When we use scientifically sound learning theory, we demonstrate how it works for all species.

Positive Reinforcement in a Lesson Plan- Part 6, How Familiar is R+?

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 20:57:00 +0000

"Are you teaching people on your own horses/ponies or on theirs? If you are teaching on yours, then you can train them to fit in with your teaching program. If people are taking lessons on their own horse, then you have to consider whether the animal has any experience with R+. If not, again, creativity comes in to find ways of making the lesson reinforcing for them, how to incorporate markers and food treats, and not be too depressed knowing that will only be a small part of their lives." from the introduction to this series.

The photo above shows one of my ponies, getting into my trailer, using a target he had previous knowledge of, and being handled by a student. I had offered a one day clinic on trailer loading and I honestly didn't know how easily this pony would load. I've trailered him twice in the decade (?) that I have owned him. Once was to bring him home when I first bought him, and he did not load well for that. Not badly, but not what I would call an easy loader. It was on this trailer (I think?). The second time was to move him from our previous farm to our present one. That time I was moving six equines in one day and chose to put the two horses on this trailer, and the four ponies into our stock trailer which was a very different experience. The advantage that time was that he climbed onto the trailer with his three buddies.

For the clinic, even though I wasn't sure how he'd load, I knew his history, his temperament, his cues, and his personality. This allowed me to set my human learner up for success. At the conclusion of our very methodical approach, each of the ponies I used that day was loading like a dream. I know that at least two of the participants went home and were able to replicate the plan to success with their own horses, but they were able to stretch the training over time, as needed. This shows the advantage of being able to use one's own ponies for training, even if they aren't familiar with the skill to be trained.

Another time, more recently, I had a student bring her own horse for a riding lesson. She said he was not a good loader, and hoped to arrive on time, but promised to give herself an hour to load him. After her lesson, when it was time for her to load him up to go home, he did not want to get on and I offered to help. This was not a horse who was familiar with positive reinforcement training. By that I mean he did not understand the significance of a click or other marker, did not offer behaviors and he had significant experience with the use of pressure to get on a trailer. Having been pressured to get on once already that day, he did not want to do it again. That was one of those days which I wish I had timed and videoed the session. I can't promise because I didn't time it, but it took between 5 and 15 minutes. I backed him off regularly, as I do, and he quietly got on again each time going further in. By the time he was fully on the trailer, his owner looked at me in some awe and said, "that was lovely, how did you do that?". Of course she had watched the whole thing but couldn't figure out how it had worked. I simply used the good training basic of reinforcing small approximations. I used some pressure on his rope, but it was very light pressure and released at any effort to respond.

My goal with that horse was to get him on the trailer, with as little stress as possible, so he could go home. Had my goal been to train him to get on the trailer well every time, I would have taken a much slower approach, over many days. Had my goal been to teach the person how to use R+ to load a horse, it would also have been a longer process, as we did at the trailer loading clinic. But it illustrates how an experienced positive reinforcement trainer can get things done quickly and quietly. It doesn't make for as exciting a show as using sticks and "moving feet". But we can always choose to spare an animal some stress without avoiding the situation entirely (I could have chosen to go in my house and not watch).

Using my own horses and ponies allows me to draw on their skills and their known behaviors to facilitate the learning of the people. Handlers or riders can experience success and get the feel of that into their systems to take home to their own. This is another reason I try not to get my ponies too well schooled, as if it is too easy, then the people will be frustrated when their animals don't respond at all. So when I'm asked for lessons in something my horses do well, I need to get creative. My Rumer pony loads like a dream and always has, having been introduced to loading and life with positive reinforcement, as well as having no unpleasant experiences. To use her for loading practice, I introduced a platform she was unfamiliar with. With a strong history of standing on mats, she climbed right on, but even though she was used for standing on mats with hind feet at last year's Training Intensive, when it came to putting her hind feet on the platform, her inherent worries about her hind feet came through. (note: I think I can safely say they are inherent as I've known her since birth, she's always been "funny" about her hind feet, and her mother is the same way!). So this client was able to spend several weeks of lessons exploring various approaches to fine slicing how to get feet where you want them, even if the pony initially found it aversive.

For people interested in learning and training with positive reinforcement, and willing to take the time, it's a thrill to oblige. For trailering practice, I can demonstrate how mats and rope handling allow us to fine slice our training. Clients and their horses build up their own repertoire of skills to draw on when the time comes. I often say that I have never found a behavior problem that I cannot solve using one of Alexandra Kurland's Foundation Lessons. I'll add rope handling into that recipe box of necessary skills.

I mentioned in a previous post in this series how I try to work reinforcement into riding lessons for horses inexperienced with it. Since traditional riding focuses on pressure and release, teaching people better timing in their releases can yield quick results that impresses students (and sure does help the horse). If I can demonstrate that I really can help them with my knowledge of learning theory, that sometimes opens the door a crack for me to squeeze some positive reinforcement in. They may still think that stopping to offer treats mid-ride is crazy, but finding an itchy spot for the rider to scratch is sometimes accepted more readily by people who don't want to use food when they ride. And if they don't want to carry treats when they ride (sometimes the resistances people have is beyond ridiculous), I teach people that allowing their horses to graze while out on trail will be more effective at curing a reluctant trail horse than giving him a carrot when he gets back to the barn.

Because I have incorporated positive reinforcement into all my training and teaching, it is natural for me to look for training solutions there. But I know that I have twenty years of experiences that have gotten me to this point. And I know that others simply haven't been exposed to what I have. My job is not to shame them into changing their ways overnight, nor to refuse to help them if they don't buy the full package immediately. My job, as I see it, is to toss those pebbles into the pond and know the ripples will reach the shore. It may be a long time and/or many more pebbles in the pond before I see their mind shift. Or I may never see them again. But I trust that with gentle introductions and successful experiences, they are more likely to keep their minds open.

Next time- Conclusion

Using Positive Reinforcement in a Lesson Program: Part 5, Group or Individual Lessons?

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 14:07:00 +0000

"Are you planning on teaching groups or individuals? Regardless of the above considerations, teaching groups requires a different skill set than teaching individuals. This is especially true of teaching groups of kids. You really do need eyes in the back of your head and the ability to juggle flaming swords to teach groups of kids. If you have a lineup of "broke" lesson ponies, who just follow each other around the arena, the job is easier. But if you have creative equines, looking to find ways to earn reinforcement, the job of the instructor needs to become very creative as well!" from Part One of this series.

Teaching groups of any kind can be a challenge. I have not taught groups in a strictly positive reinforcement environment so it's been interesting to think about how I would do that. The groups I have taught have been kids on their own ponies when I taught for Pony Club. At the time, I was focusing more on the riding skills and so utilized TAGteach where I could. Both TAGteach and clicker training require eyes on individuals so you'd have to set up your lesson toward that end.

If you are teaching riding lessons, I recommend thinking about whether your lessons will focus on the rider or the horse. Both are involved, but where is the focus? If you are focusing on the position of the rider, and possibly using TAGteach for that purpose, how will you keep the horse engaged? When I teach kids using tagulators, they like to pull down their beads frequently, and I often will use tactile contact on the ponies then. Not just a mindless pat, but something I know that individual pony appreciates. It's just my way of thanking them for their patience. I also sometimes combine TAGteach and clicker training though it takes a lot of focus on my part in planning and execution. Most often I do it in a Games environment. If the lesson is on balance for riders, a fun game is having them lean down and pick something up off a barrel as they go by. They need to keep centered over the pony (far more important to me than the success or not of grabbing the item), so the tag point might be "weight in outside stirrup". I will watch them carefully and tag for meeting that criteria. But I will also set up a target after the barrel for the pony to go to. This functions to direct the pony, so the rider does not need to steer, and if the weight shifts give conflicting information to the pony as to where they should be going, the target keeps them on track. The rider knows that after picking up the item, the pony will continue to the target, and that is where I click, and deliver a treat. In this way, instead of being mindless drilling back and forth for the pony, it's a fun game for them as well.

If your focus is on the horse, and you have a R+ knowledgeable group of riders, you could set a lesson and they would work on it as they rode, while you observed them one at a time to assess and assist. It would be much like a group dog training class. The space would need to be large enough to allow room for each horse/rider pair to stop for treating without the person behind them running into them.

If you don't have a large space or R+ savvy riders, then it would be better to choose an area of the arena, say a short end or, between two particular dressage letters or other landmarks. As each rider entered that space, they would work on the training skill (flexions, for example), clicking and treating under your observation. When they reached the end of the observation area, the horses would be given a break as they proceeded around the rest of the arena, while you worked with the next horses in line.

I think a big difference between riding with positive reinforcement vs traditional training is the amount of drilling which occurs. We give a lot of breaks as positive reinforcement trainers, dictated by the need to stop when we mark, in order to reinforce. There are huge advantages to this that are hard to see if you aren't familiar with the process. Every time you stop and reinforce, then you get to do it again. Getting a break usually functions as an additional reinforcer. One just needs to build duration and chains from there, but both need to be clean, which will only happen if that reinforcement initially happens frequently.

If you can set clear criteria for your rider to observe even at a novice level, you may be able to trust them to work behind your back while you focus on others, rather than having a long break. An example would be going over trot poles. If you set a single rail on the ground, and the criteria for a click is to step cleanly over the rail, the rider can easily hear if the horse hits a rail or not. If there is no hoof contact, then click! Stop and feed. If you hear a hoof hit, then just keep riding quietly on. And guess what? You are subtly educating your riders as well, to feel each foot as it goes over the rail, as they listen. If they are doing this behind your back, you can ask how the horse did when they come to the area you are observing. If they say she didn't earn a click, ask which foot hit. Is it always the same foot? Why is this? What can you do to set the horse up for success the next time? Etc.

An excellent tool for teaching in groups (or individuals) is video. You can set up a camera to record somewhere along the rail or if you have parents or someone else observing, they can man the camera, only videoing particular parts. This allows you to play the video back later and point out the pertinent points of a lesson, saving the ponies from being drilled repeatedly just for the purpose of observation. We don't want our ponies practicing things incorrectly so that others can observe. Get it on camera, use your clicker to fix it, then show it at a later time so everyone can see before and after.

Another tool which is clearly demonstrated on the TAGteach website is learners tagging other learners. You could do the same with riders. The other student would have to be on the ground with his horse in the barn, so as not to confuse it, but if the lesson was on something more difficult for the rider to perceive (size of step, whether straight or lateral), a learner on the ground could do the clicking, thus educating two human learners and the equine learner. I will do this for introducing lateral steps to a rider who doesn't know yet how it should feel so they can't click it appropriately. I observe and click the initial efforts at a lateral step from the horse. Not only does the click point out the right step to the horse, but it also points it out to the rider. You aren't specifically teaching the rider what to do, but you are educating their feel.

So if you are teaching a group lesson, you could set up a pattern in which you observe one part of the pattern, and maybe one or two other learners from a different class observe a different part of the pattern. This keeps riders and horses entertained and learning while working on this assembly line of lessons. The environment should clearly cue the horse to know what the lesson is for each piece of the pattern. Ideally, the rider is cueing the behavior, but if we are working with newer trainers, it helps to have additional cues.

Working with a group of people who are specifically interested in clicker training opens itself to an entirely different clinic setup than I was accustomed to with traditional riding clinics. I have to remember that now, when I offer a clinic to traditional trainers. They should not plan on going home after their lesson. When one signs up for a traditional clinic, one is usually given a lesson time. If you're lucky, or the format requires it, you might get more than one lesson. The remainder of the time, the smart people observe other lessons. Hopefully this means their horse has a pleasant place to hang out, such as a stall, rather than being tied in or to a trailer for an extended period of time. But it isn't unusual for attendees to wander away during others' lessons, since the lesson time is designated for the person in the ring at that time.

I was introduced to a very different format when I began attending clinics with Alexandra Kurland. The focus on that clinic was that ALL attendees were being taught all the time. Observing was easily as educational as working with a horse, just different aspects of the same lesson. In this format, one is teaching both individuals and a group at the same time. The lessons for each horse/handler pair can be much shorter but there can be more of them. Learners of all species get frequent breaks, to allow the learning to settle in, and then come out again for another go.

Whether teaching individuals or groups, I think it's important to take the time to think clearly about how to at least keep it interesting for our horses and ponies, if they are not specifically getting clicked and treated themselves.

Next time- my ponies or those belonging to others.

Using Positive Reinforcement in a Lesson Program: Part 4, The Goals of the Program

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Sat, 15 Jun 2019 14:24:00 +0000

"Third, what are the goals of the human learners? The primary job of my lesson ponies currently is to teach people about positive reinforcement. Most of my lessons are now lessons on the ground, to adults, so they can practice with R+ on experienced learners and then take their skills home to their own horses. But I also teach some riding lessons, and did much more of that previously. In all honesty, I have pulled further away from the riding lessons on my own ponies because of the stress of trying to convince people of a different approach. Traditional riding is heavily ingrained in our society due to the visibility of everything from cowboy movies to watching the current competitive scene. As someone who used to partake in that competitive scene every other weekend throughout the riding season, it has been a long road to where I am now. I enjoy working with others with the same mindset and so I have gravitated to more of that teaching. But we need to preach not just to the choir, so I don't turn people away if they want riding lessons. I know that I will need to be tactful and patient with my human learners, just as I must be with my equine learners." From the introduction of this series.

Whether child or adult, many people just want to learn to ride. More sad are the ones who don't even realize it's a complex set of skills to be learned. They just want to ride, forget the learning part. Now I love to ride, and feel more at home on the back of a horse than I do in most places. Numerous equine therapy programs recognize the therapeutic benefit of being on a horse. But all these statements are about us, not about the horse beneath us.

As positive reinforcement trainers, we have a responsibility to educate people about what a horse's body language tells us and humane ways to respond. Actually I think all trainers have that responsibility but as a group, I think positive reinforcement trainers are more open and sensitive to those responsibilities.

A common response to any concern about how a pony feels is, "it's his job. He gets food and shelter; veterinary care and hoof trimming so he better not complain about being ridden". Or "he can handle it". These responses minimize our responsibility and make it easy to do what we want, without concern for the emotional and mental states of the animal.

I have always had horse management as a centerpiece of all my teaching. This includes leading, grooming, safety, feeding, health, and more. Since transitioning to positive reinforcement training myself, I simply include that as part of the package. People are taught to leave slack in a rope when leading, which then prepares students for my insistence on soft hands when riding. I teach that instead of shoving a pony over, there are cues we can use to ask her to back up or move over when we are grooming, and we can thank her by clicking and treating. I know the weak points of each pony, and step in to demonstrate over many lessons how to address that specific skill in a compassionate manner.

In this way, I can have positive reinforcement training be the umbrella which covers everything I do. While students may come with the goal of learning to ride, my goal is to teach them how to do so in a scientifically up to date way. Not only do they learn that turning their head affects the way their seat bones contact the horse's back, but I challenge them to observe and share with me what they think the horse is looking at, thinking about, and feeling, based on observations, as they ride.

Children can be very compassionate when encouraged to do so. As I no longer have full sized horses for riding lessons, I don't have to deal with adults who may have years of societal pressures about how animals should obey humans and "just want to ride". With kids, I can use analogies of their own lives to explain that we get better cooperation when we ask politely and reward good responses.

A skilled trainer working on desensitization for trailering

A large portion of my horse related business is teaching others to train, not just ride, with positive reinforcement. As these people are coming to me with the goal of specifically learning this way, my job is easier without trying to convince people to let go of old thought patterns. They still need help letting go, but they are willing to do so when taught how. This means they give off somewhat conflicting cues to my ponies. For this reason, I do not fine tune my ponies. To do so, I believe, would sensitize them to the point of frustration with novice handlers. Instead, their cues remain somewhat coarse. Gross movements are easier for people to mimic than subtle ones. Being handled by a rotating variety of people is much more pleasant when you are getting paid in hay stretcher pellets to make your best guess as to what the person wants.

I make sure the ponies get frequent breaks, with hay in their stalls, while the student and I step out to discuss, review, and practice some more without the pony. This is where I can pull out TAGteach so that people can learn the movements of cueing, rope handling and feeding mechanics. I may or may not specifically "tag" and reinforce, but my teaching methods are heavily informed by TAGteach as far as my instructions, my marking of correct moments, and my responses to errors.

using targets to build behavior

For the past five years, I have hosted a Vermont Training Intensive here at the farm. This is a two day clinic, during which up to twelve people come for instruction in some aspect of positive reinforcement for horses. I have been joined by good friends Cindy Martin, Katie Bartlett, and Marla Foreman, who have co-taught the weekend with me in different years. These weekends are always instructional for me, not only in how best to help people learn, but how my horses and ponies respond to strangers. The first year was an incredible experience in realizing how fully I trusted my fellow coaches with my equines. After five years, I am even more appreciative, as I have learned more and more what challenges the ponies have with different people.

Stow and handler having fun!

Most years, we have had a couple dog trainers join us. Most of them have at least some horse experience as well, since that number of participants does not allow the one-on-one supervisions that novices require around horses. Even so, they always come with a friend who does have significant equine experience and the friend is tasked with keeping things safe from a "do not walk straight up behind the pony" aspect. I always encourage participants to bring their own treat pouches if they have them. One year, we had a couple dog trainers, one experienced with horses and one not. I was amazed to see my ponies quit on them, and just start walking away from training sessions. They assured me they had scrubbed their treat pouches clean of any dog treats before coming, but just to be sure, I had them wear some of mine. It was a night and day difference. The ponies were back to being committed participants in their training session.

Another fascinating thing to observe is how people "invite" problem behaviors which their own horses have. They certainly aren't doing it intentionally, but when my reliable lesson ponies start mimicking the horse they have at home, the person is more likely to realize that the problem is not in the horse.

another skilled trainer demonstrating keeping a pony in balance

For the first several years, I divided participants into teams, with 2-3 people assigned to a particular pony for the entire weekend. They chose a goal, relevant to the topic, and worked together through the weekend toward that goal. Then one year we had a topic that seemed to lend itself to having everyone able to work with every pony, because the different ponies had different things to teach on the topic. So the ponies would work with 2-3 people, then they'd get another 2-3 people, then another 2-3. I really saw pony fatigue set in. Whereas they usually were enthusiastic participants, by Sunday afternoon, they were telling me they were cooked. I realized how exhausting it was for them to try to adjust to each new person who came along. Horses are so observant of our body language and while I try to keep gross movements as cues for the ponies, they no doubt pick up on all the other little things each person does. The way we stand, the way we walk, the way we move our shoulders when we turn, where our toes point, at what point do we reach for the treat, how quickly we reach for and deliver treats, and so much more. I have gone back to the team approach, so that each pony only needs to learn three new people in a weekend, instead of twelve!

Next post: Teaching groups or individuals?

Positive Reinforcement in a Lesson Program: Part 3, The Horses and Ponies

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Fri, 14 Jun 2019 19:59:00 +0000

"...we also need to consider what the histories of the horses and ponies are. If these saintly individuals have only known a more traditional approach, you will have a very different experience than if you are starting an equine in a program with positive reinforcement from the get-go. Again, I have done both. I currently have four lesson individuals. Two were purchased at an older age and had histories with traditional training. The other two are homebreds who were started with R+ as babies. They are very different to teach on." From the Introduction posted on 6/13/19

As always, these are my experiences and I don't know if others see the marked difference between crossover horses and clicker started horses that I do. There are so many things which determine the personality of a horse and how it responds to training. My understanding of the difference between temperament and personality is that temperament is innate. It is what we see when an individual is born and displays certain tendencies even in the first minutes after birth. Personality is what develops over time when life experiences are layered onto the temperament.

Because two of my lesson ponies were born on our farm, I got to meet them in their first minutes. I find it fascinating to see what parts of their temperament remain with them today. Of course having seen those first behaviors, it's undeniable that I interacted with them according to what I saw and so that may be a large part of why they remain so to this day. My goal was never to mold them into what I wanted, but to take what I saw from them and make it work for all of us.

My other two lesson ponies came to me when they were about twelve to fifteen years old. They did not come at the same time but the teeth on each indicated that to be their approximate ages when I bought them.

Kizzy, my 12 h pony, had been rescued. I was told that she was emaciated and had a foal at her side when rescued, and went by the name "Bitch". The rescuers had renamed her "Socks" and fattened her up to the point of obesity by the time I got her. X-rays indicate she had foundered badly at some point. And that is the extent of what I know about her past. When I brought her home, she was next to impossible to catch. I had no idea if she had ever been ridden but my original purpose for her was as a companion for my TB gelding who was lonely. It was only when a neighbor asked if I'd give her daughter riding lessons that I considered using her for that. I don't think she'd had much, if any, training under saddle. She certainly was never an easy horse to ride independently. Being so little, it was hard to find anyone that would fit on her who was good enough to school her. At the time, I didn't have the ground skills to do it. She was, and remains, a wonderful lead line pony. She is sweet and careful with little ones.

My other lesson pony, Stowaway, came from a woman who dealt in camp horses. She bought horses in the Spring, leased them to summer camps (where they were ridden in multiple lessons a day), and then put them up for sale in the Fall. So he came with a history of many miles as a lesson pony. By this time I was teaching the Junior Pony Club for our local Pony Club and needed a larger pony for bigger kids. Stowaway's personality at that point was the "perfect" lesson pony. He was quiet to the point of laziness, non-reactive, and acted like he never had an original thought in his head. He remains the animal I had the most difficulty teaching about clicker training. He could not believe he was allowed to initiate anything. It took me an entire winter to teach him to target. He did learn that the click meant he would get a treat, and would perk up when he heard it, but reaching out to touch something, whether my hand or an object, seemed too risky to him. I would try one day, and then decide to give him more time to settle in and find that we weren't going to punish him, and try again in a week or more, with no luck. He never did have that light bulb moment, but finally inched his way into believing that yes, he could reach out and touch my hand without worry. From there, we continued to inch into more understanding.

In addition to these two ponies, I have helped many horses transition to a life of positive reinforcement over the years. I have less experience with starting foals since very few people start their own horses, and most clients picked up their horses later in life. This is a big difference from working with dogs. Although rescue is not an uncommon way to get a dog, many people get their dogs as young puppies. We know much more about their parents and early life experiences than we do about horses' early days. My opinion about the results of starting a foal with positive reinforcement is strengthened by the experiences of starting puppies.

So here's the difference. Animals started in training with positive reinforcement are enthusiastic and clever learners, who love to offer behavior. Very often, traditionally trained ponies and horses have been taught to give up. I can't count the number of times I've been told how wonderful a horse is because he "just stands there" unless told to do otherwise.

There are some incredibly aversive approaches to starting young horses. There's a reason they call it "breaking" a horse, whether to a halter or to being ridden or driven or anything else. They used to call it breaking a horse's spirit. Horses are big and can be very dangerous. The goal is to get on their back which goes against all of a horse's self preservation instincts. Predators are usually the only thing which climb on a horse. Techniques to breaking sometimes mean putting tack on its back and letting them buck it out until they give up. No matter how hard he bucks, he can't get it off. Sometimes that is done with a rider as well.

Even if a horse is backed in a more kind manner, equipment and techniques have been developed over the centuries to control, not train, a horse. Round pens give a flight animal no escape. Bits, hobbles, martingales and bitting rigs tie the horse up in ways that they give up when they find they have no way to escape.

I spent a couple summers working on a TB breeding farm when I was younger and one of my jobs was to "break" a couple of the young horses who stayed on the farm. The farm owner gave us general guidelines but also gave us a lot of independence. I had never heard of positive reinforcement at that age, and I doubt the owner had either, but we did not use any of the aversive methods listed above. We went slowly and we gradually increased our expectations. These youngsters had learned as foals that they could not get away from our ropes. We taught them that when they were still small enough that we could hold on if they fought to escape. That knowledge, along with slow and quiet handling, taught them to do what we wanted. There were no treats involved, but there were rests, stroking, and quiet words.

Even in this kind approach, creativity from the horse was not encouraged. The expectation was that they do what WE wanted. There were no puzzles to solve. The best thing they could do was stand quietly until asked to do something. They learned to stand on cross ties for grooming and tacking up and that prevented any efforts to move or leave. If they balked at anything, pressure, though mild, was used to encourage them forward. They became nice horses who did what they were told.

In contrast, Ande and Rumer, the two lesson ponies who were born here, learned with choice and I listened to their opinions. Their foalhoods were earlier in my positive reinforcement journey. I'd "only" been doing it for seven years when I started them. So I made mistakes and came on situations I didn't know how to handle. There was some pressure used simply out of habit, but for the most part, Alexandra Kurland's work was my guiding light. Even if I used pressure, responses were followed by a click and a treat. Yielding to pressure was learned much more quickly when followed by a click and a treat than I'd ever experienced before. (note: Ande is the oldest, then Rumer, and then my Percy horse. Percy had the most positive reinforcement-based start of all, as I learned from each one along the way and could do better with the next).

When I taught them to wear halters, then bridles, harnesses (for ground driving), and saddles, every step of the process was explained with a click and a treat. If they balked, I slowed the training and broke it down into smaller steps. If they saw something scary in the environment and balked at that, we played "touch the goblins". That is Alex's game where approaching a scary thing gets clicked and treated for any forward movement. Ande was the first to show me how drastic a difference this was from my previous experiences. While other youngsters might learn to ignore things in their environment, Ande would see something new and march up to it to touch it with his nose. The world was not to be ignored, but to be explored! New skills were puzzles to be solved, challenges to conquer. They were active learners, not passive ones.

Ande was also the one who taught me that ignoring unwanted behavior was not sufficient to eliminate it. With his Quarter Horse breeding, that pony could leave in a flash. If leaving got him to grass or friends, the leaving was highly reinforced. I had to delve deeper into Alex's work to learn how to teach him to flex away from his freight train alignment. I did many, MANY repetitions of that with a high rate of reinforcement to overcome the previous reinforcement history of grass or friends for bolting away. When I turn him out, he still loves to gallop fast in a straight line and then do a sliding stop for grass...his temperament as dictated by his genes. But he hasn't done that in hand for many years, or under saddle ever. As a lesson pony, I don't need that in his repertoire of things to offer under saddle!

Remember, positively trained individuals OFFER behavior. Transitions from one gait to another should be under very careful stimulus control. When I was teaching Ande to walk, trot, and canter under saddle, I got a lot of offered upward transitions, which was great at the time. I wanted him willing to trot and canter freely. But that would not be good for a rider who was not prepared with the physical skills to ride it OR the mental awareness that the pony was not running away with her. So I had to take the time to put it under strong stimulus control.

All four ponies offer behaviors now. But the ones that Stowaway and Kizzy offer tend to be things which they were taught with positive reinforcement initially. So Kizzy loves to go to and target cones. I can use that for lessons to indicate where I want her to go with a little rider. Or I can avoid that by removing cones from the arena. Stowaway will seek out mats in the arena. Again, I
can use that or remove them. Additionally, those are behaviors which stop movement. So they are relatively safe, providing that they don't speed up to get to the target or mat. I did have Kizzy in a perky mood one day and I'd neglected to remove the cones so she zipped from one cone to another, giving her little rider an excellent lesson in keeping her balance! I was laughing so hard I could barely stand up so it was a good thing the little rider was ready for that lesson.

Stowaway is an energy conserver when under saddle. I can't imagine how many kids he carted around before I got him, but there was no enthusiasm for the job. Somehow, he'd been taught to do as told, no more, no less. He was dead to leg aids. Even now, I might expend more energy than he does during a lesson. The way to get him to willingly trot is for me to go to the end of a long side and hold out my hand for a fist target. His ears perk up and he breaks into a trot to come to me. Then I have to run down to the other end of the arena to give the rider another trot. [While Kizzy is an exception, I avoid teaching horses to target cones because I like to use them for guidance. If they are indicating a circle, horses and riders both get frustrated when they continually stop at cones.] This is how I have helped him enjoy his lessons better, but is an example of how he responds to me, rather than to his rider (see part 2 of this series).

Last summer, I had a young teen, who is a lovely rider, come and ride Ande. I wanted to see how he did with a traditional rider. Ande is very light to rein aids as a result of getting clicks and treats for responding. Negative reinforcement has been shown to produce the least response necessary to remove the aversive stimulus, whereas positive reinforcement trained behaviors lean toward giving you more. So I found I needed to remind the rider to keep a very light contact. He can be really wiggly until you get used to using those light aids. Novice riders are not able to keep a light and consistent contact so he is not appropriate for beginners.

I had this young rider go over individual cross rails, which I had done with Ande myself in years past. Then I began to set a gymnastic line. He has done those before, at liberty, but I can't remember how many jumps I have set in a line. In any case, with this rider he would do two, and then peter out. It wasn't a slam on the brakes, just a loss of energy until he stopped. Neither rein, nor leg aids changed the situation. He had zero fear of being chased through the line. Whether it was a loss of energy or balance with a rider over additional obstacles, or what, I'm not sure. But it was quite clear that we were going to need to break this concept down for him somehow, as good training should. I've seen a lot of horses stop at fences over the years, but this was unlike anything I've seen in his total nonchalance.

While this has been a scattering of anecdotes about my own ponies, the theme I have found is that individuals started with positive reinforcement are creative and enthusiastic, responding to very light aids. Beginner riders instead need reliable, calm mounts who can ignore all the crossed wires that a novice gives with seat, hand and legs.

Horses who have been initially taught with traditional methods have very often shut down their reactions to things in the environment. You can see it in their flat expressions. This does make for a safer ride. When transitioning this type of horse to positive reinforcement, I have found that even when they "wake up" to offering behaviors and more enthusiastic responses, they maintain their ability to accept aversive experiences, such as an unbalanced rider. On the other hand, if a lot of pressure was used to build or maintain their behavior, and that is no longer used, they may decide they'd rather not participate at all. Then you have to decide if you are going to maintain them with the negative reinforcement with which they are familiar, or take the time to retrain everything with positive reinforcement. This is made more complicated when working with students who may not have the observational and timing skills necessary to train, rather than just being able to focus on their own skills.

Next up: the goals of the lesson program and the students

Positive Reinforcement in a Lesson Program: Part 2 Who are the Human Learners?

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 14:31:00 +0000

“There are many things to consider when beginning a R+ lesson program. One is the ages and experience of your human learners. Are you teaching kids? If so, are they 6 years old or 16? Are you teaching adults? Are they beginners or are you transitioning them to positive reinforcement as well? Is it a choice they have made to come because of your R+ program or because they don't know any difference? Are these people resistant at all to this "new" approach?”

So, why do the age and experience of the human learners matter when considering how to run a lesson program with positive reinforcement? Simply put, as positive reinforcement trainers, most of us consider many things beyond what we can train. We consider the environment, the husbandry, and the overall opinions of the horse (ok, from here on out, I’m going to try to swap “horse” and “pony” since both are used in lessons and I don’t want to exclude either).

This means we need to prepare our ponies for the behavior of who may be working with them. Small children

can be unpredictable, moving quickly or dropping

things. I am extremely safety conscious and all my students know that their first lessons will have very little time in the saddle while they learn about leading, grooming, and equine body language. Picking up feet can be scary for any age. One of my ponies will lift a foot when I simply bend over next to him, but not for students. He has experienced the squeals and dropped feet enough times that he just does not trust others enough to shift his weight and hold his foot up for them. When working with him, I “fill in” until the person is ready to hold a foot confidently and even then, I will treat at the head when he picks up a foot.

We also need to prepare our horses for the behavior of people who will be riding them. We need to prepare our lesson plans in a way that our human learners will learn, while at the same time ensuring that our horses, who are really our assistant instructors, will have an enjoyable experience. In the plethora of choice and consent conversations in the positive reinforcement world these days, don’t forget that daily training and/or exercise sessions should also be the horse’s choice and what we do with them should be with their consent. I doubt you’d find many (ok, any) lesson horses in traditional programs who would choose to go out and take part in a lesson if they were given the choice to graze instead.

The experiences that ridden lesson horses will have probably include poor balance from the rider. Lesson horses will certainly get muddled cues whether under saddle or on the ground (using horses to teach others about R+ or about simple care such as grooming). How will we prepare our horses for this so they are not aversive experiences? We can ride the horses ourselves, exploring being off balance and clicking and treating the horse for maintaining a straight course even with a wobbly rider. Cues are harder, especially because they become mixed up with poor balance. A rider struggling to hold on may have legs that swing or grip. If the horse learns to ignore that, they may also ignore the leg movements which are supposed to indicate a cue to go forward. Thus, the dead-sided or hard-mouthed lesson horse who needs to be thumped to go forward and hauled on to turn or stop.

The solution which my ponies and I came up with for this problem during riding lessons is that I give the salient cues, and the ponies pretty much ignore the rider. All my students begin on a longe line, with no reins. By desensitizing the pony to various movements from the rider, and reinforcing them for responding to my voice and body cues, I can work on that with or without a rider. I do give treats during lessons. I also use props, such as targets and mats, to guide the pony’s direction if we are working on things which preclude being on a longe line, such as changes of direction. The ponies learn the patterns I use, and know where treats will be delivered. The rider is learning to steer, and gets the reinforcement of the pony going where they wanted.

The downside of this solution is when the riders are ready to give cues/aids themselves. The horse has learned to ignore the rider, and continues to do so. If you are teaching on the rider’s own horse, you can do a simple cue transfer, and proceed from there. To do this, the rider gives the aid and you follow up immediately with your cue, then click and treat the response. Soon the horse will respond to the rider's aid before you get a chance to give your own cue. The horse transitions from taking cues from the person in the middle to the person on its back. But in my situation, with multiple riders for one pony, it got messy because the pony didn’t know whether to listen to me or the rider on any given day. And they could get quite irritated at the rider for making noise (with any body part) when they were trying to listen to me.

I think the simplest solution for this is an environmental cue. I do have a round pen, and I think if beginners ride in that, rather than the arena, I could teach my ponies that “in the round pen, you take cues from me standing in the middle, but if you are in the arena, you take cues from the person on your back”. As I say, I have few riding students for my ponies these days, but it’s an idea going forward. To transition them to that, I will sit somewhere on the outside of the arena while people ride, rather than standing in the middle. It goes without saying that before the riders graduate to the arena, they will have decent balance, I will be able to see that they have the skills to give ridden aids appropriately, and they have practiced them in the round pen, even if the pony ignored it.

To change gears from teaching beginners to teaching more experienced riders on their own horses, it is as much about changing the rider’s mindset as anything. How easy this will be depends on how much traditional training the rider has had, how successful it has been for them, and if there is a problem which I can help them solve with positive reinforcement that they couldn’t otherwise. Sadly, they may want you to solve that problem, but go on using negative reinforcement or punishment for everything else. But I don’t know anyone who has made that transition in an instant. It takes all of us time to see, experience, open our eyes and then learn how to do it correctly!

In the meantime, I work to make lessons as pleasant as possible, pointing out ways for the rider to reinforce without using food if necessary. Many horses like a rest so time those rests to function as reinforcers (using it as an excuse to explain something to the rider if necessary). Explain how to use releases appropriately, rather than just constantly nagging the horse with leg or rein. Bring in the TAGteach! If students can experience how helpful timely markers and reinforcers can be in the learning process, they may be more sympathetic to the idea of using it with their horse.

The job will be easier with people who embrace the notion of using positive reinforcement. What I often run into with those people is excessive self-consciousness. They want so badly to be kind to their horse and “not to mess up” that I need to use all my teaching and training tools thoughtfully. People are bound to make mistakes in timing and execution so break it down carefully. This minimizes the cringe moments which make compassionate riders feel awful. I must take responsibility for their errors! It’s my job as the teacher to set tasks they can accomplish and to reinforce them for successful completion. Finding different ways to phrase things and different exercises to get to your goal is helpful to turn to when the first effort doesn’t succeed.

Now, about those clicker training lessons. My horses and ponies love to see people arrive for those. To be honest, my ponies don’t get the attention from me that they deserve. I have limited time in which to train and that time is spent on my two horses. Then I need to go out and make money to buy hay and pay the vet so my ponies get really happy when other people come to train them.

Muddled cues are still a problem. My ponies will try hard to interpret various iterations of cues they know. They are less tolerant of poor mechanics, whether it be rope or feeding. In this case, it is my job to introduce people to human horses and get those cues and mechanics clean with me (or a fellow human learner) as the “horse” to minimize stress on the real equine. Video can be very helpful here as well. Most of us have the ability to video with our cell phones and do instant playback right there in the barn aisle. That can help people see how they are executing skills, and that may be different to how they thought they were executing them.

Next time- are your lesson horses crossover horses with a traditional background or individuals who have been trained with positive reinforcement from the start?

Using Positive Reinforcement in a Lesson Program- Part 1, Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 20:40:00 +0000

using antecedent arrangements in teaching a young rider to train a pony about turn on the forehand

Recently I have received many inquiries about how to incorporate positive reinforcement in a lesson program. I have been teaching for over twenty years and in that time, I transitioned to positive reinforcement from a traditional (negative reinforcement and punishment based) approach. I don't have the solutions yet, but I have learned some things which may help others. I am so glad to see so many inquiries because it means we have lots of people starting to teach others about positive reinforcement. And that is a very good thing.
There are many things to consider when beginning a R+ lesson program. One is the ages and experience of your human learners. Are you teaching kids? If so, are they 6 years old or 16? Are you teaching adults? Are they beginners or are you transitioning them to positive reinforcement as well? Is it a choice they have made to come because of your R+ program or because they don't know any difference? Are these people resistant at all to this "new" approach?

Then of course we also need to consider what the histories of the horses and ponies are. If these saintly individuals have only known a more traditional approach, you will have a very different experience than if you are starting an equine in a program with positive reinforcement from the get-go. Again, I have done both. I currently have four lesson individuals. Two were purchased at an older age and had histories with traditional training. The other two are homebreds who were started with R+ as babies. They are very different to teach on.

young kids can be far more compassionate with training than adults

Third, what are the goals of the human learners? The primary job of my lesson ponies currently is to teach people about positive reinforcement. Most of my lessons are now lessons on the ground, to adults, so they can practice with R+ on experienced learners and then take their skills home to their own horses. But I also teach some riding lessons, and did much more of that previously. In all honesty, I have pulled further away from the riding lessons on my own ponies because of the stress of trying to convince people of a different approach. Traditional riding is heavily ingrained in our society due to the visibility of everything from cowboy movies to watching the current competitive scene. As someone who used to partake in that competitive scene every other weekend throughout the riding season, it has been a long road to where I am now. I enjoy working with others with the same mindset and so I have gravitated to more of that teaching. But we need to preach not just to the choir, so I don't turn people away if they want riding lessons. I know that I will need to be tactful and patient with my human learners, just as I must be with my equine learners.

Are you planning on teaching groups or individuals? Regardless of the above considerations, teaching groups requires a different skill set than teaching individuals. This is especially true of teaching groups of kids. You really do need eyes in the back of your head and the ability to juggle flaming swords to teach groups of kids. If you have a lineup of "broke" lesson ponies, who just follow each other around the arena, the job is easier. But if you have creative equines, looking to find ways to earn reinforcement, the job of the instructor needs to become very creative as well!

having horses who understand basic clicker skills under saddle is a bonus

Are you teaching people on your own horses/ponies or on theirs? If you are teaching on yours, then you can train them to fit in with your teaching program. If people are taking lessons on their own horse, then you have to consider whether the animal has any experience with R+. If not, again, creativity comes in to find ways of making the lesson reinforcing for them, how to incorporate markers and food treats, and not be too depressed knowing that will only be a small part of their lives.

Finally, do have any experience with TAGteach? If not, get it. Now. www.tagteach.com

In coming posts, I will address each of these situations in more detail.

Helping Others to be Brave: Component Parts

noreply@blogger.com (Bookends Farm) — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 14:49:00 +0000

A year after beginning the project, Percy
continues to demonstrate a higher level
of confidence in his outings.

In my last post, I wrote about a lengthy project I worked on helping my Percy horse to be brave going away from the barnyard area and his friends. I got many lovely responses telling me I had struck a chord with others in similar positions. I also received some questions about specific things I did and why, and if a certain variation would be ok to use.

I also mentioned that I used this same approach to get Percy more comfortable in the arena, as well as with a couple dogs I was working with (and their people). Some people wanted to know more about those possibilities.

I know that in my previous post, as well as in the Equiosity podcasts during which I discussed this with Alexandra Kurland and Dominique Day, I made a lot assumptions about the component parts of this whole project. So now I'd like to delve a little deeper, specifically why I chose the pieces I did and how I think that benefitted the result.

Exploration day, which included the opportunity to graze, was the first day in each series. I came upon this as the initial experience in each new zone while watching Percy. He was the one who gave me the idea to use this as part of the strategy. I had let him loose in the barn, the doors closed against the winter chill, and he did what he always does when he has the chance. He explored. I keep a cart in the wash stall with a bale or two of hay in it and while he usually goes there for part of the time, he doesn't spend a lot of time standing there and eating. Instead he wanders around sniffing the ground like a big red dog. He looks out the windows of the aisle doors, he goes into the other horses' stalls and looks out their windows. He goes back into the aisle and pokes his nose into places to see what he can find. When he is "confined" in any way, such as in his stall or on a lead rope, he loves to grab stuff with his lips or teeth: halters come off hooks, blankets come off racks, etc. But when he's loose he doesn't do that. He explores. During the exploration he "grazes". I use quotes because in the barn, he isn't eating grass. We often use the word "vacuuming" to describe it. He walks along slowly, using his whiskers and lips to hoover up any hay on the barn floor. Since this floor and environmental exploration is something he does by choice, as opposed to standing and eating at the hay cart, I believed it was something he liked to do.

And this leads me to an underlying goal I had for this project. I wanted him happy. I knew I was going to be taking him places he might not be comfortable but I aimed to do it in a way that kept him as happy as I possibly could. During the Equiosity interview, Dominique expressed some confusion and perhaps dismay that I was not always giving him choice to return to the barn. I acknowledged also that he was not always under threshold as we otherwise want a learner to be in a desensitization protocol. That concern of hers is hugely important and should be seriously considered. The success of this project has not changed my mind about animals having choices and keeping them under threshold whenever possible. As Alex said, Percy is on the very outside of a bell curve and so maybe this approach is similarly on the fringes of a training bell curve. But it sounds like there are others out there.

By starting each zone with this freedom to eat or wander, I felt I was giving him choice, but within a set of parameters. You can do whatever you want, as long as you stay with me. I followed him, my only request that he not leave the zone. And as I mentioned, we know that grazing is exhibited by horses who are in a relaxed state and that grazing can help an anxious horse to become more relaxed. So not only was I choosing this based on his choices and expression, but I was also going on ethological foundations. Could someone do this project without that grazing and exploring piece? I don't know. A different trainer with a different horse might. But I would suggest that they observe and think carefully about what they choose to do instead, if they want it to be an initial day of a happy and relaxed horse.

Rope cues were another assumed behavior in Percy's backpack. Rope cues, for anyone unfamiliar with the term, are just what they sound like. I simply used contact on the rope to ask him to stop or turn. I would encourage you to check out Alexandra Kurland's work for more detail on the subtleties of using them for flexions and more. What is critical about this is that his rope cues were taught and maintained with positive reinforcement. That is such an important part of this entire project that I am going to repeat it.

His rope cues were taught and maintained with positive reinforcement.

If he had been taught with escalating pressure ("if you don't respond, I'm going to pull harder"), putting pressure on the rope would have been associated with fear of escalating pressure. Instead, the association with slight rope pressure is a happy one because when he learned about it, he was clicked and treated for responding.

If Percy spooked at something during this process and that resulted in the rope being straightened (our default is for there to be slack in the rope at all times), I didn't want him to feel trapped, but instead to automatically yield and take the slack out of the rope on his own, and to do so happily.

Likewise, if he was exploring and tried to leave the zone we were working in, I could redirect him back in my direction with a light rope cue. If I had ever had to put real pressure on the rope, I think that would have increased the tension in the overall emotions he exhibited. And I can tell you that if you try to stop him when he doesn't want to stop, he has a very effective twist of his head and neck that make it quite clear who is stronger. It's not me.

Building chains of behaviors is another component I used. To use this, again, the behaviors must have been taught and maintained with positive reinforcement. Chains (which are referred to as sequences by some) are built by cueing another behavior at the moment that one would normally click the previous behavior. I have been chaining behaviors with Percy for about seven years and he can happily do quite lengthy behavior chains. On day 3 of this project I asked for very short chains and they were simply a slight progression in his focus from the previous day's Foundation Lessons in which he was clicked and treated for each behavior.

A horse with no history of behavior chains should be introduced to them in a calm environment, and be allowed to explore them for some time before ever using them in a situation which might otherwise be stressful, such as a taking them out in potentially scary places.

So, could you do this project without using chained behaviors? I think I can more easily say yes to this than to skipping the grazing and exploration day. The chained behaviors were a way for me to ask for just a little bit more focus. It was also a way for me to assess if cueing behaviors in this environment was still reinforcing. If he was stressed to the point that responding to behaviors was not in and of itself reinforcing, then the chain would fall apart and that would tell me something about his emotional status.

A trainer could substitute some other cue/response for chained behaviors if their horse is unfamiliar with behavior chains. To stick with my approach of making each day just a little more challenging, the trainer would pick a cue/behavior that fits that description. One might go straight to newer behaviors. Or one might try different cues for well known behaviors. If a behavior is initially trained with body cues, and a verbal cue is added later, one could see if the horse responds as well (accurate and low latency) to a verbal cue as a body cue.

The way the treat was offered is something I described in the blog post but we didn't discuss on the podcast. There are many ways to present a treat to a horse. As any student of Alex's knows, one should at the very least keep one's own balance and one's horse's balance in high regard for this process. Emotional balance and physical balance are inter-related. A trainer can choose to present the treat in a location that affects the training in various ways. Offering a treat in a slightly lower position can bring an anxious horse's head down in an effort to tap into the physiological/emotional response similar to grazing. One can turn to face the horse in a way that asks the horse to either rock back or step back in an effort to help the horse's balance or teach them not to push into our space looking for food. One can also offer food in a place that sets them up for the next repetition.

I did none of these.

As a component part already in place, Percy has a very reliable square halt. I did not want to fuss about his being square at any point in the process but we have worked on it so much in the past, that I did not feel that his balance was going to negatively affect his emotional state. In contrast, a horse who falls on his forehand is going to have a harder time stopping (for Grownups or the mat) and will be more likely to speed up just to try to catch up with his own balance. For a horse without that understanding and practice of halting in balance, the emotional success of this project could be jeopardized.

Remember that my goal was to increase Percy's trust in me when we went places. To build that trust I wanted to be reliably consistent. I wanted to offer the treat in the exact same way each time. If he was keeping an eye out for monsters as I clicked, I didn't want him to turn quickly and have to look for the treat, which could have resulted in frantic grabbing or frustration. Neither did I want to be shoving treats in his mouth wherever it happened to be when I clicked. I wanted to establish a norm in which I was responsible for putting the treat where he knew to find it and he was responsible for receiving the treat politely.

While it might take some brain work, I hope describing these component parts helps with adapting this to other situations, whether it is other species or other places. I'll walk through one example to try to help further. It's a concrete example as I used it for Percy again to teach him to be more comfortable in the arena. My arena, like all arenas, has a scary end. When we built our current farm, I set it up specifically so my paddocks surrounded my arena. Therefore, the horses were turned out on all sides, my hope being that would eliminate a scary end since all surrounding space was happy turnout space. It seemed to work on days that they were turned out in that specific paddock at the far end but for Percy, if he hadn't checked for monsters in the last 12-24 hours, they might have returned.

"The Recipe"

Start where the horse is comfortable.
Build a succession of behaviors to build on in that space.

each successive approximation should require a little more from the animal

Once complete, move to a slightly more challenging zone.
Repeat the same succession in the new zone

Applied to the arena-

started at the gate, envision a zone that I think he can remain calm in
day one- remaining in that zone, allow him to sniff, graze the edges, roll in the sand, weed the arena.
day two-

stand by the gate and do one of the foundation lessons 5-10 times, followed by
walking in a circle on the edge of the zone, returning to the gate facing the opposite direction
do that foundation lesson another 5-10 times,
walk around the edge of the zone and back to the gate
do another foundation lesson 5-10 times
repeat through the foundation lessons

day three- I used the mounting block as the "marker" of where each day's work would be. So before going out with Percy, I placed the mounting block in the next zone. I used dressage letters as a way to advance. So my gate is in the corner by the letter F. The next day I put the mounting block at C and that is where we did our foundation lessons, walking off in a slightly larger area which now included the zone by the gate and the new zone around C. After 5-10 reps of a foundation lesson, we walked off around the edges of the zone, returning to face the opposite direction and do some more.
day four- now I put the mounting block in the corner by K. We did our lessons there, and now the walk could include the entire close end of the arena. In previous years he has been fine for the most part at this end of the arena. But I was developing a routine he could count on in a comfortable space before pushing on.

Percy standing and waiting for me at the mounting block, head down was his choice.

And so on we went around the arena. Each day we were in there (I was doing every other day walking out around the farm still), I moved the mounting block to the next dressage letter and repeating our pattern. I also added in other fun things he liked to do. I put ground rails and cross rails out that we could go over on our walks around. I changed them up to add variety, while still being things he reliably liked to do.

You could do this in hand or under saddle. I progressed to partly under saddle through the summer. In that case the zones were mental, not physical. After we'd gone through the process all the way around the arena, he was completely relaxed at the scary end now. I added the mental challenge (for us both), of getting on him, first by the gate and then over time all around the arena. Some days were windy. Some days there were "things going on" that he could see or hear at a distance. But we stuck to our pattern.

So I hope that gives you some idea of the flexibility that is possible while still following the critical piece of the recipe that I laid out above.

Epilogue-
While there is still about three feet of snow in the arena, I was able to get Percy out down the driveway a few times in Febuary and March this year. I did not progress slowly, but went as far as I could to assess whether the training had "held" with many months off. He kept a steady pace with my, although his head was high and looking. Amazingly, for the first time, he did not switch sides behind me at the scary corner as he did all last year. He stayed on my right going out and back. He did foundations lessons and chains beautifully out there over a week or so, on days we could get out. The last time, I took the boat bumper out for stationing and he stood quietly while I walked away.

Then I had a funny idea. I wondered what would happen if I let him walk back to the barn at liberty. I assessed the dangers. I knew he wouldn't turn toward the road, since it was the opposite direction of the barn. The snowbanks were well over both our heads so he would be funneled back to the barn if he did decide to race back. Walter was calling to him from the barn, but he'd been able to stand quietly as I walked away. I decided to try it. I unclipped the lead rope and started walking back.

And I was thrilled with the results.