107. Applying pressure and releasing pressure...

It's all Ups and downs and downs and ups...Being the pig headed person i am i knew i wouldn't be able to go to sleep tonight if i didn't go back to the yard and find out where i had gone wrong today.

So, armed with my boyfriend (for moral support) i went back up. I had no expectations, i merely went up to learn where i had obviously gone wrong earlier on. So, to start off with i led Spice around for a while yielding her hind quarters and asking her to stop to which she responded well. I then led her down to the stables (through the gate) and asked her to stand still a while - which she did. So, having assessed her overall temperament as being quite calm and feeling calm myself i proceeded in tacking her up with the view of long reining her down to the stables. I asked luke to stand at the side of her shoulder as we attempted to go down and as soon as we got to the gate she hesitated. Instead of applying more pressure (as i had done earlier on that day) i allowed her to stop and stand for a while. I then asked luke to try leading her just a couple of steps forward to which she responded well and followed his lead. We got down to the stables and Spice was still relatively calm so we went back up to the yard and then turned around again to come back down without luke leading her. She responded well and did exactly as i asked her to.

Wanting to end it on a good note, i decided to stop there but luke (my partner) encouraged me to go a step further and ride her down. Not wanting to but knowing that there was no good reason why i shouldn't i attached the reins and jumped on her back. I then walked her down to the stables with luke at the side and back again and then down again with luke staying behind us crazy if you think that just a few hours before she wouldn't even walk up to the gate whilst being long reined!

The most valuable lesson i learned happened on our way back down... as we approached the stables Spice was spooked by a noise coming from one of the stables and immediately turned back towards the field so rather than make her turn back the way she was facing i asked her to stop but i didn't apply any further rein pressure and ask her to turn back around until i was sure she had calmed down and was ready to respond to my cue and only then with the lightest touch did i tweek my rein and ask her to turn around and without any hesitance whatsoever she did.

So, i learned that before asking Spice to do anything i need to assess her temperament and if she is anxious or stressed to the point where she is incapable of focusing on anything but her fear i need to back off and give her the time to calm down before applying any further pressure. I think if i think of it as a scale of 1-10 where fear is 10 and relaxed/calm is 1 anything above a 5 requires me to be extra sensitive and anything below a 5 and i can probably get away with applying some pressure but if i feel that this is increasing her fear in any way and i am not getting the response i am looking for i need to change tack - give her a breather and ask a different way...

The video below shows the results of patience, understanding, compassion, calmness, gentleness, softness and above all respect when faced with fear and hesitance and how wonderful the results can be. I was so proud of her. (apologies for the rubbish quality)