This is Training

Beauty, affectionately “B” for short, has been with me now for a month, she’s a foster from the GAIT rescue, and now that she’s settled in we’re beginning to start doing a little work. I’m discovering there’s some holes in her training, which is not all that surprising given her questionable past.

After a little bit of guidance from my trainer in my lesson, I was reminded that sometimes “training” doesn’t look like you expect it to.

B showed me very quickly that she did not trust me (people in general, I’m sure) on her right side. It is important to me that a horse be able to do things equally from both sides when I am working so that I can be effective helping them to work on their balance. So standing on her right side while she grazes, and grooming her is training. The fact that she is able to relax enough to eat while I worked on trying to get her thick winter coat off of her is the work that is most important right now. In my lesson earlier in the week, I would not have been able to do this at all.

To be honest, this type of work is always training. But we forget that the smallest actions may be the ones that have the biggest impact on our pets. If we can approach every interaction as an opportunity to work on “training,” then our pets will be that much more prepared when we ask them to develop bigger skills.

I’ve talked about relating to your pet’s relationship as a bank account before - every interaction is either adding to that account, or taking away from it. Right now B and I have very little in the account, so I have to be extra careful that I am continually making the smallest deposits. Very quickly this will lead to bigger and bigger deposits as she learns to trust me. And then when it comes time to stretch her skills, I’ll actually have something to draw on.

So here we are, out in the field of grass, with a lead rope, carrying the whip (she’s not fond of that, either, so I’m simply keeping it with me to help her recognize that it inherently doesn’t have any meaning), and just brushing away the winter woolies, working on our training.