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Since I have never trained a horse largely through protective contact this process is as new to me as to her. I also wanted to guard against making all of her behaviors too finished and perfect outside the pen and then disappointing myself when I finally went in and lost some ground, so I decided this week would be the week.

The only problem was I wouldnвЂ™t know which behaviors would fall apart until I was in the moment with her. I knew no matter how well I laid out my training plan, some of DjinnвЂ™s behaviors would be harder for her to access than others. As an experienced trainer I know when you change your criteria you should expect some behavior to deteriorate. This week I felt Djinn and I had built up enough of a repertoire to start working without protective contact. What matters is that she is relaxed, content and properly educated. We have time to establish her foundation and ages before IвЂ™m worried about riding her. SheвЂ™s a young horse so I donвЂ™t expect too much of her. Oops.Дjinn is doing a good job learning her lessons and settling in.

She does great but at the end of the video you get to see me make a huge mistake! What is it? I invite her to walk off without first removing her lead rope from her back. Below is a short video showing how relaxed and still she is now: DjinnвЂ™s cue for ground-tieing is her lead rope draped over her back. ItвЂ™s safer than using the cross-ties right away and once they are ready for the cross-ties they have already been standing still so long that itвЂ™s really not a big deal. When I first take my horses into the barn, I like for them to understand that they should stand totally still when grooming. Overall, a nice start.ДЄnother skill we are working on is ground-tieing when being groomed. SheвЂ™s a bit of a вЂyo-yoвЂќ on her head down but itвЂ™s almost stabilized to a true head lowering after just a few sessions. In the rest of the video you see me moving between a few steps of back up and refining her head-down behavior. ItвЂ™s not what I want to do with my horse and especially this horse. People take the hip forcibly all the time. Even though I only need it as a last resort if she gets really excited, I still want her to have an active understanding of the behavior so I donвЂ™t scare her by changing her balance. In a few weeks it will be more smooth and I will be able to ask for more steps. I only ask for one step of her hip right now and then move on to other skills since it is hard for her. She does a good job offering her hip, though, and I am able to release and click. Ideally my requests will be light as a feather before we go inside. In the video youвЂ™ll see she is still not completely light and responsive about giving her hip and we both pull on each other a little as she tries to adjust to the request. HereвЂ™s a short video showing us moving between walking forward, asking for the hip, backing up and head down:

Once these skills feel fluid and 100% available to me outside we will start walking into the lean-to for short sessions and walking back out. All of these skills involve slowing down her energy and allowing me to direct her energy into a still, relaxed place. Most crucial are: 1) back up, 2) the grown-ups are talking, 3) head-down and 4) giving her hip. In this case, Djinn and I need a few skills available to us to help her calm down inside. It is a learned skill to be able to identify what skill set your horse needs to cope with a new situation. Instead of forcing her over threshold and into a flight response, IвЂ™m working on the foundation leading skills she needs to stay calm outsideВ so they are available to us once we go inside. Now that she has settled in IвЂ™m going back in to refine what we worked on over the summer and add in some new pieces.Дjinn is very claustrophobic in any indoor space and tends to panic and race around. I was a little worried about how she would acclimate given the вЂњdiscerningвЂќ temperaments of her pasture mates, but her social skills proved so charming that our head mare, Fig, actually grooms her. Since Djinn has joined the other mares in their pasture I have been giving her time just to be a horse and to enjoy getting to know her new equine friends.

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