Dolly Bottoms First Ride with Huck

Today Huck and I headed down to the arena with Dolly Bottoms to do some ground work and have her ride him for the first time.  Huck and I had to do the usual targeting before she mounted of course.  Targeting is when Huck touches various parts of the doll with his nose to earn a treat, thus learning that the new stimulus isn't so scary because it's a type of odd looking vending machine.  The term "targeting" is from clicker training, which I do a lot of here especially with complicated horses or horses with difficult histories.  Most of the time if there is a negative association with people, tack, or riding I can overcome it with clicker training and utilizing large amounts of positive reinforcement.  This is probably because clicker training is uncommon enough that most horses haven't experienced it before, and so have no prior negative associations with the idea.

Huck still has a very large and dramatic spook in which he does the quarter horse "duck and spin" as I call it.  He'll drop his chest almost to the ground to take a hard look at something, then spin at stunning speed to get away from it.  He is pretty good with the pool noodles now, but Dolly Bottoms was a whole different beast.  I can always tell what a horse is paying attention to by where his ears are pointed, and Huck mostly pointed his at Dolly Bottoms.

By the end of our training session Huck was standing so I could give Dolly a leg up, and he was ok with me draping her over his neck, saddle, and haunches.  He never really got comfortable, but he quit the big spooking.  A nice feature of Huck's is that he will always look to me for help if he's afraid.  After he spooks, he stands as close to me as I'll allow.  Sometimes he just trembles, but he believes me when I say he's safe and he waits for me to remove whatever is scary to him.  I did get one photo of him with his ears up at the end, too!

This concerned face with the tense eyelids is how Huck shows he's worried.  However, he eventually realized he was ok and stood on the bridge while Dolly was draped over his saddle.

I may spend another session just on Dolly mounting and riding while walking around.  That would allow Huck to build his confidence with this floppy rider by repeating something he's already successfully done without me adding in anything new.  Next comes lunging with Dolly aboard, so that Huck can learn he's ok with a "rider" aboard, even while he's moving and the rider is moving.