Making Lemonade from lemons

This week we tried again to get her blood drawn. The day before the vet came, I haltered her and worked through touching her neck on the jugular vein, first with my finger, then with a pen, then with a pen while clicking it. She only reacted a little bit and by the time I was done she didn't mind at all. I was optimistic when the vet came, but her memory of the vet or the situation or the feel of a needle pricking her skin was too much. She consistently backed away and would not stand still long enough for the vet to draw her blood. She didn't rear and strike this time so I think I can call that progress, but I was disappointed to say the least!

The vet had to leave and we decided it just wasn't going to happen than day in a way that would keep everyone safe so I turned her loose and let her decompress, then came back for another training session, I wanted her to have a positive learning experience in her mind. I also needed to desensitize her to the training whip so we can use it as a cue to her for trailer loading. So I haltered her and presented the whip. She was apprehensive but not too reactive to seeing it, so I took it slow. But she was still addled from earlier in the day. I really wanted to be able to touch her haunch with it without her reacting in fear. But I noticed that as I brought the whip parallel to her body, she looked at it and moved away with anxiety. I understood I would not reach my goal. But I also noticed that the way my cue and her response were looking, it very closely resembled the way I like to teach leg yield in hand.

Teaching a horse to use their limbs differently than their normal patterns creates new pathways in the brain, and that's just the kind of neural engagement this mare needed - to get out of her reaction mode and into a learning brain. So I followed her lead and changed my goal from touching her with the whip to teaching her leg yield off of the whip. In my mind while I might not get the short term skill I was hoping to teach her, the long term benefit of helping her feel successful instead of stressed far outweighed the loss of a single skill. So I went with it, and used the whip in the air parallel to her body gently asking her to cross both front and back feet. We did it a couple of times both directions. As you might expect she was a little unsteady at first, but by the time we finished she was crossing with her front and back feet together in proper, if a little wobbly, leg yield. I praised her immensely and she seemed a little surprised and confused but not reactive. That was the unexpected outcome of our training session and I was very happy with it.

The mare I discussed in my fear and rage post got a reprieve. The new buyers waited for the heat of the summer to pass so I could work with her a little more and get her ready for shipping. She made some progress but with all the other things going on at the barn and trying to endure the summer heat myself I didn't get as far as I would have liked. There is also some truth to the idea that keeping a horse in a positive learning mode takes a little more time. I tried to teach her in slow increments and keep her in a learning mode and a positive state of mind. That's not easy to do in the environment I am working in and I don't have unlimited time to work with her, I'm only out there 2-3 days per week. But she has made progress. She approaches me in the field, can be haltered reliably, is learning to lead, pick her feet up and move away from her herd.