Sunday, August 13

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

A very "summer" day. Bright, hot, sunny.

I went to see River, and my husband biked to the barn, got there as I was finishing up, and then I gave him a ride home. It took him about half an hour, maybe forty minutes.

It was pretty hot today, and River had no energy to spare, so I chose to work on his ground tie (lately he's been moving around a lot instead of standing still for it), and getting better at the back from behind.

The "back from behind" that I refer to, is a Liberty thing. You ask the horse to ground tie (thus it is necessary to have a good ground tie first), then you walk behind the horse, stand back a bit, and using the whip directly over their back as a cue, as for the back. I think some people train their horses to do this for unloading from the trailer as well.

River gets confused sometimes, and wants to keep following me when I go to walk behind him (thus I needed to improve the ground halt), and when I ask for the back, sometimes he just tries to turn to face me.

So, we worked on that today. He actually does already know these two things, and has done them properly, but it is not consistent. He doesn't do them correctly all the time, so, we work on it.

By the end of the session he was doing them both consistently, so we'll see if that continues.

It was good work to do on an otherwise very hot day where he wouldn't have a lot of energy for other things.

As I mentioned, my husband showed up as I was finishing up, we went home, and I suggested we take the canoe out onto the lake in the park down the road. It didn't have to be a strenuous thing.

It turned out to be a lovely evening for a paddle, not much for mosquitoes once you are away from the shore. Lots of water fowl, and smooth as glass. The sunset was spectacular.

I'm glad we went. There are a million chores we need to do at all times, but we both love canoeing. Roxy loves sitting in the boat too.

Then we watched some more "American Gods", which was very good.

I learned that in 1938, there was interest in making a German translation of "The Hobbit", but only if Tolkien could demonstrate that he was of "Aryan Descent". He refused to deal with them, and wrote a letter back to them that is wonderful. A German translation was made in 1957, presumably with no further demands made about Tolkien's lineage.

https://lithub.com/on-the-time-j-r-r-tolkien-refused-to-work-with-nazi-leaning-publishers/

Comments

[ratunderpaper]

That sounds like a splendid date night, whether or not that's what it was intended to be. Canoeing, sunset, movies at home.

[gottawonder]

We do try to make room for things like going to our park down the road, and I don't know if it's a date or not; but it's what we like to do.

[ratunderpaper]

It can be anything you want it to be, but it certainly sounds pleasant and peaceful.

[lantairvlea]

When you ground tie do you have a specific word command you use to signify that he shouldn't follow you?

Good ol' Tolkien.

[gottawonder]

Yes. With Liberty, at least at the stage we are at, we use a whip to help communicate. A halt is bringing the whip up beside my body, straight up and down. To ground tie, I keep the whip up, and then take my core energy off of him to walk away.

He generally does well with it, but we go through periods where maybe he's confused about something new that can have too close of a command, and he will offer all kinds of other movements if he forgets about the ground tie.

So, periodically we have to go through some refresher work.

[lantairvlea]

I was wondering if you use a word like "stand" or "back" to help with the clarity or is the goal to be completely silent?

[gottawonder]

I do use "whoa" for the halt, and to reinforce the ground tie. I do use "back" as well.

He goes through stretches for some reason, where he "forgets" the ground tie and gets confused and tries to do yields, I guess because he's just trying to do SOMETHING and see if it's the right answer. Then I have to spend some time on specifically the ground tie again.

He seems to be doing okay with it again.

The back from behind was new, so his confusion was just a learning curve. It's a tricky one. You stand right behind the horse a good six feet behind, and use the whip at a 45 degree angle over the back and ask for "back".

River wanted to turn and face me, which is normal at first. We used the wall to help guide him, and when we got better with that we could do it off the wall.

It took several weeks, but we are getting two or three correct back up steps now.

This video shows the back up from behind. Of course, this is a very high level of this cue (the people shown here are pretty advanced); I am just getting a few steps back.

https://youtu.be/miOiatQ8cGs?si=9JH2a36uy7Vei2X1

[lantairvlea]

I've found having a separate "stop" and "hold position" command to be helpful for a lot of horses, especially with driving since standing still is so important for hooking up and also if something goes wrong that you have to fix.

That video is an insane amount of backing. I don't see any benefit to backing that much other than human bravado. It's impressive, but I just don't see the benefit to the horse asking it to back that much.

[gottawonder]

Yes, we would never do that kind of backing in our work. It was just the only video I could find that showed the back from behind cue that I use.

[lantairvlea]

I didn't think you would. It is an interesting cue and definitely taken to the extreme in the video. I can see it being useful asking a horse to back out of a trailer and things like that.