Brick by Brick, My Citizens

Sometimes the small things are the most important.

I have been working on increasing Stella'as confidence by NOT pushing her too hard to commit to me all out. A lot of trainers will tell you that round pen sessions where the horse is at liberty are only useful if they end with the horse joining up and following you around. I have never had one of those sessions with Stella. Ever. She has never so fully committed to being with me that I could go anywhere in the working space and know she'd follow.

However, I don't declare that lack of success.

The "old" version of round penning I used to do was basically running Stella around, changing directions a few times, then "asking" for that join-up when I saw she was getting ready to ask. It always lead to her stopping, sort of facing me, but then standing there like a deer in the headlights. I always responded by sending her back out. This became a vicious circle with no real end. I'd leave the round pen feeling defeated.

This is no longer. It's not perfect, but I'm noticing a pretty significant shift in Stella's demeanor.

Today I worked her on the line first. We practiced yielding the forequarters, which we discovered is MUCH harder moving left compared to right. Then I sent her out on her own with no line to see what would happen. My goal has been to gain a little ground each time: I don't need her to follow me like a puppy (yet). In fact, it's better if I ditch that idea all together for now, because then I see progress no matter what.

It was okay. She still keeps more eye to the outside than on me, but I see her inside ear stay consistently with me, and when it leaves, I remind her by sending her a little more forward. We do some transitions: walk to trot, trot to walk, walk to trot again, trot to canter, canter to walk, walk to halt, halt to trot. We change directions every time she gets squirrely: this sends her a couple different message simultaneously: "let me direct your feet," and "hey, focus here".

Eventually, when she's fairly focused, I ask for her to untrack her hind feet and turn to me. She doesn't the first time. She stops with her body perpendicular to mine, and she looks and licks and chews, but doesn't face. I give her a minute to decide if she's "ready" to approach me, and during that minute she decides to see what's good for eating on the ground. Wrong answer, so I send her back out. This time it only takes a couple laps before I can see her lower her head and "ask" me if she can stop. I ask for the untracking. She comes a little bit closer this time, turning her body at a 45 degree angle to mine and meeting me with her eyes. She didn't truly untrack the hind, but it's better, so I take it.

Now comes the waiting. I think the biggest mistake I made when I first started round penning her two years ago was not knowing when to wait. She needed time to process, and I was cutting that processing short before. It taught her absolutely nothing.

I stood with my hands in my pockets for probably a full two minutes, waiting. She didn't make any attempts to eat or "leave", which told me she was still thinking. Every once in a while she'd turn her head to gaze towards the barn, so I'd whistle at her or lift my hand to catch her attention again. Finally, without hesitation, she turned square to me and ambled over, coming to rest a few inches from me. I couldn't help but smile. We stood together for a solid five minutes while I patted her. She didn't follow me to the gate, but that's just fine for now. We'll just keep building on this until she gets confident enough to do so.