Today i decided to take Spice for a walk around the block and within the first few minutes we were faced with our first obstacle - a motorbike. Sensing that Spice might have a problem with this my first instinct was to have Spice stand still whilst the bike passed us. But having reflected on my actions i see that what i did was completely wrong. Why? because asking her to stand still and essentially not telling her to keep on going passed it meant that she had no forward momentum, no reassurance and nothing else to focus on but running away. I managed to control her spook by reacting quickly and telling her to 'walk on' past it (which is what i should have done in the first place) but whether i would have been able to do this on her back is a different story. She was already in flight motion and were it not for being in front of her i'm not sure she would have been quite as responsive.
So, what have i learnt? when i think Spice might be scared of an object in front of her...i need to give her the momentum to walk past it and re-direct her attention from the object to myself. Sounds simple and i know i've already learned this lesson before but sometimes even the best lessons can easily be forgotten (as i demonstrated today).
So bring on the motorbikes, the quad bikes and the tractors so i can put what i've learnt into practice!
Think forward, forward, forward!!!
Tuesday 6 July 2010
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