Nov 10, and it has finally stopped raining. I take the opportunity to invite trainer Trish Hyatt out to help me get off to a good start with Xeo's and Xoia's education.
They are both in the round pen in which they currently live, sticking close together, so Trish starts off trying to work with both of them at once. Basic stuff like "I can move your feet which makes me boss mare." and "Turning your butt on me is rude!" They know all this already, having been taught the basics of respect and good manners by the other horses in their herd. Now they just need to learn to apply it to humans!
It quickly becomes apparent that it is very difficult to reward one of them for getting it right at exactly the moment when the other one did something particularly disrespectful, so we rig up a temporary gate in front of their run-in shelter and herd one of them inside. Xeo is the first in the newly created 10' x 10' pen. He is unhappy about being separated, even just by a few feet, from his buddy. Trish continues to work with Xoia in the round pen.
Xoia picks up what is expected from her pretty quickly. Whenever she turns towards Trish, Trish takes the pressure off. Whenever her butt gets closer to Trish than her head, Trish increases the pressure, either with her body language or by flicking the lunge whip in Xoia's direction. Trish keeps things calm and quiet; there isn't a great deal of running around. A lot of the time Xoia just stands there, looking at Trish, thinking about it. She isn't quite ready to come up and be best buddies yet, but she allows Trish to approach her and cautiously sniffs the outstretched hand. Touching muzzle is OK, touching elsewhere not. She walks off again. Trish works with her a little more. Now, when she asks Xoia to change direction the filly does so by turning towards the inside of the ring. That's progress, even if she does it noticeably more willingly on one side than the other. We leave it at that for now.
Because the round pen is pretty big for the little horses, Trish decides to start with Xeo inside the smaller pen. It is a bit crowded, particularly since there is also a large feed tub and a spare bale of hay inside it. She begins with desensitizing him to a length of rope, until she can slide it around his neck, explaining that at this point he will likely accept that pressure more easily than pressure on his head via halter and lead rope. Then, with a bit of control over the front end, she starts working on yielding hind quarters. It takes Xeo a while to work out that the point of the exercise is for him to move his butt over. Instead, he bends his head and neck in beautiful lateral flexion. But the penny finally drops and after a few more successful repetitions on both sides, Trish puts a halter on him and clips on the lead rope. This goes off without any fuss whatsoever.
Meanwhile, Xoia, who has followed us over to the pen and has been standing at the gate with me watching the proceedings, is showing signs of feeling left out because Xeo is getting all the attention. She has been sidling closer and closer and is now standing within reach next to me. Casually, without even looking at her, I stretch out my hand, touch the side of her neck and withdraw again immediately. She doesn't move. OK, let's try this again. This time I stroke her neck for a couple of seconds before withdrawing. She is still standing there. Getting bolder, I now proceed to massage up and down the side of her neck, rub her withers, scratch her behind the ears. She is flicking her ears back and forth nervously, not sure what to make of this, but makes no attempt to move away. Well, well. I leave her to think about this and get into the pen with Trish and Xeo.
By now Xeo has pretty much got the hang of yielding hindquarters and it is my turn to work with him a little. It is pretty straightfoward: as long as I've got my own body positioned correctly, he does what is expected of him. In between, I spend a lot of time rubbing and massaging him, and he really enjoys this. While I am fussing over Xeo, Trish gets the wormer ready, which is also on our agenda for today. I have been dreading this, having heard a lot of horror stories from various people about their impossible-to-worm horses, but in the event it is over in about three seconds. Xeo is standing there with a slightly bewildered look on his face, smacking his lips. We turn Xeo loose in the round pen, and get Xoia into the small pen. Then we go through the same steps with her.
A couple of hours have passed since we started. We're happy with what we've achieved. Trish remarks that the little ones already have better attention spans than many older horses she works with. I am very excited about all the things the horses and I are going to be doing together for years to come.
