Clever Girl

 So...  two of my friends have some OTTBs and even a mustang. And they mentioned trailer loading issues and overcoming them. And, since they seemed to be good about building confidence in the mustang and such, I though they might be very helpful for my emotional chestnut mare. So I messaged Jen and she offered to help. Apparently Jen does the bribing and desensitizing and bonding part and then Kelly is really good at the actual loading and training the loading part. They don't live terribly far so they offered to come help. Yes please!! (And funny enough, shortly after Aubrey also said she would come over, but her schedule and mine weren't jivving). 

So they showed up yesterday and told me the plan. We put Lyric in a bridle and then put the lunge line on attached from the bit over her head back through the bit. Basically this is just so that she has a hair more control and if they get loose, we've got a lot of line. Handy. So then we put her near the trailer and gave her some treats while Jen banged the butt bar around making a lot of noise. Lyric was okay with it since she was getting food and honestly seemed okay with it. So then it was Kelly's turn. Her tactic is kind of brilliant. Basically she starts out near the trailer and starts tapping the horse with the whip on the lumbar area. She starts as soft and quiet as she can, as long as she's getting a reaction. She's not hitting them or increasing the force of the tap, or even the frequency of the tap. She just keeps tapping. And it's a fairly rapid fire tap - not the slow taps I've tried. And if she makes any forward motion, she gets rewarded by the tapping stopping. She can do whatever she wants to try to evade the tapping or going into the trailer and she doesn't get punished. There's no emotion involved. It's just.... annoying the tar out of you unless you go towards the trailer. And Lyric got annoyed! Remember how she hates bugs?! She hated this "horsefly" tapping her. So she moved sideways, she backed up, she kicked out, she bucked, she piaffed, she spun... and nothing happened other than the tapping kept up. When she took a step towards the trailer, the tapping stopped. And there wasn't a huge reward verbally or with praise. Again, not emotional. Just black and white. So then after a little bit of time, she had to step towards the trailer and get closer to the trailer. And then she had to step on the ramp. And then once she was on the ramp, she got praised and petted. Then she had to get on the trailer. I think it took about an hour yesterday to get her on the trailer somewhat consistently. We quit when she got on, stood for a very short time, came off, but then went right back on.And then the second she thought about coming back off, Kelly grabbed her tail and pulled hard and was like "back!". ha ha... It was quite comical because obviously she wanted to teach her to only come back off the trailer when we ask by pulling her tail, but since Lyric was coming off, Kelly grabbed her tail and used the opportunity. ha ha. But yes, good smart pony!  And we opted to just do it like I wanted... not the side ramp.. not backing in... because I want my tack room back. Good girl! 

They were very complimentary of her and said that she was pretty.. huge (ha ha)... and clever. They said that she never really escalated and she never really got naughty. She was smart and tried to evade, but she never got angry at Kelly. She kicked the fence a few times and let out some bucks, but... never aimed at Kelly. Oh, she was smart though because one of the rules in the game is that you have to keep turning towards the trailer and you have to turn away from Kelly, not circle around her. And a few times Kelly let her circle around her, so then Lyric started using that to cheat and avoid going on the ramp. See, clever! They also said that in addition to not escalating dramatically she also didn't have a meltdown. We decided that it was a bit more of a temper tantrum than a huge fear. She was trembling a little bit but she was also still thinking and not frantic. So yep... we decided to try again today because Jen had the week off work and I had time and we thought it would be good to be progressive. I opted to not ride her yesterday given her mental workout and she just got a light little 10 minute lunge in the roundpen. Just enough to get her stretching down and out. And she did! Not brilliantly like Funny or Dan, but progress for her! Yay!

So then today I managed to get some time between farm calls so I snuck home for lunch and then did a tiny bit of pillar work with Lyric and then another tiny lunge. Again we just worked on stretching. She was a super good girl again. So then she went back out and I went to my last farm. Then when I got home, Jen and Kelly showed up and we tried day 2. We put the bridle back on and the lunge line back on and Kelly got started. She had said yesterday that since she was clucking while she was tapping she was pairing them and that eventually all she had to do was cluck. And sure enough today she really only had to cluck. She rarely had to tap. She's brilliant with her response time and timing of her aids and reading them. Lyric was sooo much better today and immediately went to the ramp. And instead of tapping Kelly just clucked and mentioned that the clucking was enough to get a response from Lyric. No, she wasn't moving into the trailer immediately, but she was agitated by the clucking and was considering whether to move forward or back. So, instead of amplifying the aids, which would have just made her overwhelmed and explosive, Kelly just kept clucking until Lyric took a step forward. Brilliant! I'm not sure I would have caught on to that. So within 5 minutes she was in the trailer! She poked her head out like "look Ma! Did you see?!". Awwww, yes baby, good girl! She got in a few times and then Kelly noticed that she was sort of throwing herself in and then flying back out. So I went in and fed her some treats to help encourage her to stay in a bit longer. It sort of helped. Kelly decided to then teach her to get half on then back off, then half on, then stop, then go forward. And it was so cool because you could totally see Lyrics brain working. She picked it up quite quickly!! So clucking and "walk on" means get in the trailer. "Whoa" means stop where you are, whether it's halfway in or not. And then we "schussed" her to get her to back off. So that progressed to her stopping on the ramp, or stopping half way in (well, 1/4 of the way in.. she wouldn't quite stop once she was 1/2 in but she at least kept going in), and then all the way again. And she stood for a bit. And then we actually had to ask her to come off a few times! Yay!!!! We decided to quit with that because we didn't want to punish her for being brave by doing the butt bar. I think that was a wise choice. So they're coming back tomorrow and hopefully that will be the final day! 

Well... after that they did suggest I either meet them at their house for a RRP ride (they have a boarder/friend with another RRP horse and do some evening rides together just beebopping around) and then they could help me load her to come home. Or to meet them at Ashland the first time I haul her so that they can help me load her up to come home. But Kelly swears that once you do this method, they almost always load because you've given yourself a tool to use and they know that tool. It's not luck. So yay! And then Aubrey mentioned the same thing.. that she wanted to teach me the tool so it was a given vs a hope that she gets on. I like it!

I'm optimistic! And it's so nice to see how smart the mare is. Now I really hope that she loads and hauls because I want to keep her! Hee hee. We were also laughing that Kelly was simultaneously training the piaffe for me. Girl is fancy!