Getting to Know You

This morning was the new mare's first evaluation workout.  I use the term "evaluation" lightly.  When a horse comes to me for training as an adult, as this mare is, she has already had many experiences with humans, and the first workouts are mostly HER evaluation of ME.  As a human I'm being stacked up against all of her previous experiences with humans, all her past experiences with trainers, all of her history with people in carhartts jackets.  She's trying to place me in a context where she can understand me.  This is why it's so important for the herd to be a part of her adjustment to Bit of Honey Training, because by watching me interact with the other horses she gets an idea of how I teach and whether I'm reasonable, safe, and trustworthy or not.  Since time is of the essence with this mare, we will be doing a somewhat condensed version of my usual "getting to know you" routine.  Normally I would take a week or so for her to settle in, watch me work with the other horses, spend some hours just sitting with her and grooming in the pen and stall, teaching her voice commands including coming to me when I call her and teaching her hand signals.

This morning we began our day with her watching me again, feeding the horses and handling Major (who is led out of his paddock and fed tied at the hitch rail).  She watched my feeding routine very carefully last night, too.   After everyone was tended to, I went into her pen carrying a bucket of grooming tools, a leather halter, and a long lead rope.  She seemed concerned about me this morning, perhaps because she was rested from her trip yesterday and now she's wondering what on earth is coming next.  Anyway, she thought I seemed suspicious while carrying my equipment.  Because she is in a relatively small paddock, she couldn't go too far, and just walked away from me saying in her own way that she wasn't really interested in anything I had to offer.  I just stood in the pen and talked to her for a while in a kind voice, periodically swinging my rope at her buns to ask her to face me.  After a few minutes she let me approach her shoulder, and I put the rope over her neck and haltered her.  She hesitantly followed me to the fence, where I loosely tied her (so if she doesn't know how to stand tied and pulled back the rope would slowly unfurl, diffusing the panic reaction rather than her fighting against something solid).  I proceeded to groom her with first the rubber curry comb, then a hard brush, then picking up and cleaning each of her hooves, and finally combing out her mane.  She was sensitive to all the new stimuli, flinching and occasionally moving away from me or the touch of the grooming tool.  I just continued to talk to her and kept a hand on her at all times so she would know where I am.  The scariest part for her was the mane brush - it made weird noises as I dragged it through her hair.  But once she realized it wasn't going to hurt her and merely sounded strange she was fine.  She's not a reactive horse at all, just very cautious.

Once I had groomed her, I got my lunge line and whip, and I led her over to the round pen.  It's pretty funny to see all the geldings STARING at her and walking the fence line vying for her attention.  Fortunately my round pen is very open and shares a fenceline with the gelding paddock.  Because of this, any horse who works in the round pen has an instant support group cheering for them on just the other side of the fence.  All the geldings stood in a line, calmly watching me and the new mare.  If she seemed nervous or unsure of something I asked of her she would look at me, but also look at the geldings.  One of the boys would gesture with his head, and the mare would then figure out what I wanted her to do.  I also had Miles the border collie in the round pen with me barking and trying to play with the lunge whip, but it's good desensitization for the mare.

We very simply worked on voice commands, walk/trot/canter/whoa/reverse.  While she didn't seem to understand what I wanted of her in the beginning, by the end she had pretty well figured out the words.  I always teach this first because voice commands give the horse a way to understand humans.  Whoever buys her at Horse Expo will be a human who speaks English, and the mare will have a much easier time adjusting to a new home if there are some common words between her and her new owner.  I do use the lunge line rope and the whip to help direct her in what I want her to do, but in as minimally a way as possible.  If I ask her to do something and she doesn't understand or guesses wrong, I just ignore it and ask again.  When she does it right I immediately change my voice to be recognizable as praise.  So mistakes just earn her another try, and correct responses earn praise.  I also distribute cookies when she does something REALLY well or responds correctly right away, and that encourages her to perform that behavior again.

By the end of our half hour of round pen work she was much more settled, licking and chewing and blinking more, all signs of being relaxed.  All the geldings still stood at the fence, eager for their turn to maybe come out and play.  Walking back to her paddock from the round pen she was much more confident, staying right by my side, stopping when I said "whoa" and starting when I said, "walk on".  The change in her manner told me that I've passed her initial inspection, and she's found me to be somewhat trustworthy and understandable.  Once back in her pen I tied her again and went through the entire grooming routine a second time, and she was MUCH more relaxed.  Picking up her feet was no problem, just a little swinging of the hoof until she realized what I wanted, then she stood like a rock holding one foot in the air for me to clean, earning her lavish praise and a cookie.  After the final grooming session I walked into the stall where her uneaten hay from last night sat in the manger.  She followed me in and had a snack while still wearing her halter and leadrope.  Once she looked relaxed inside the stall I took her halter off, and she chose to stand by me and eat for a few minutes.  Eventually I left the stall, and she stayed in for some breakfast.

As I cleaned stalls and did general morning barn chores she watched me much more closely than before we worked together.  Puzzling over what kind of human might I turn out to be after all? 

During the work this morning I considered what her name might be.  She went by "MollyO" in her previous two homes at the rescues, but there has been quite a bit of confusion about whether she is a mule when I mention that name to people.  Lest people misunderstand what she really is, I feel like she needs to go by something different through her Comeback Challenge.  Because of the myriad of circumstances that have put her in a somewhat difficult life situation, I feel like she could use a little grace and overlooking of faults.  I know all of us humans definitely need some forgiveness and grace in our work trying to teach and communicate with horses due to all the misunderstandings and mistakes we make.  I think I'll call her Grace, and we'll see how she responds.