PNH Clinic Reports
Report from the first day of a Partnership (level 1) Clinic with
Tony Lander at Bangalow, NSW, Australia.
FRIENDLY GAME
Work with the horse with the 12ft line looped once over your elbow.
This game teaches the horse that if you rub any part of the horse it
can stop.
Densitising can include approach and retreat during the desensitising.
If the horse gets scared and needs to move, allow it, but don't just
let them walk away from you. Keep horses eyes and attention on you.
Prey animals know that predators give up.
To determine whether your horse is gentle: can you run the back of
your hand from the groove behind the chin, up over the muzzle, turn
your hand over and continue up the head and over the ears, down the
back to the tail, then down the legs to feet.......all in one
continuous motion.
If your horse turns his head away from you, bring it back to teach that
comfort is with you, not elsewhere.
Does your horse trust you: stand in front of the horse, place hands
between ears, push ears flat, cause horse to drop its head, then move
it across, back up, over, down, etc.
PORCUPINE = constant pressure
Carrot stick on chest, holding it like a bayonet. Stand with one foot
in front of the other. Go through the 4 phases of pressure with a
determined look on your face. Rub to stop. The pressure turns into a
rub, there is no total release of pressure then the rub. This helps to
get the stop more and more quickly.
To ask for more than one step, keep the pressure on at the phase you
got the initial response. Only remove the pressure to stop.
Porcupine the nose:
Hands above the noseband, look out the back of the horse. Don't have
hands near where the nostrils are soft.
If horse lifts head too high, run hand down face or somewhere else, but
maintain contact. Don't let the horse get your hand off.
If head goes too low, lift knee up rythmically to bring head up.
If throwing head around, keep hand on but don't worry so much about the
backup, just work on geting head to stay still. Then work on the
backup.
Might need to put pressure on chest as well as head if horse locks up,
ie use fingers like eagle's claws on chest muscles.
Use "paint on/paint off" motion to stop horse crowding in on you at any
time.
Porcupine Hind Quarter:
Carrot stick in flank. Ask for one step. Get a good bend first
(harder for horse to kick!).
If horse walks forward lift rope up high. May need to use some defence
means to stop front feet moving too much.
Don't assume horse will be dull, always start at phase 1, always give
horse a chance.
*If you ask for too many steps too early, the horse will look for
another way to get the release you haven't given it ....... bite, kick,
etc.
*
If asking horse to yield a full circle, stay in the proper position,
which is where you started from.
Porcupine front end:
Carrot stick in dip behind throat latch.
If horse moves forward, move more in front of horse and keep on
pressure. Keep stick perpendicular to horse. If horse moves forward
despite your position and stick, jerk rope to stop forward movement but
keep stick in position. Don't release presure till you get the
step-over. Don't let horse invade your space.
Porcupine head down:
Hand just behind where the halter goes. When head moves down
immediately rub hand down the mane to the wither. Remember phases,
steady pressure. Then bring hand back up to head to apply pressure
again. Repeat whole thing over and over till head down as far as you
want.
Once head is down, kneel and try playing friendly in zone 1. Porcupine
up again, then down etc. Up from anywhere underneath head.
Porcupine -- isolating front and back:
Move hand from front to back maintaining contact. If it doesn't work
don't get stuck trying to do the full exercise, go back and get just
front or hind yield happening, then recombine to ask for one then the
other.
If horse is reacting rather than responding just do more to desensitise
the horse.
Get the bend in the neck before asking for HQ yield. Don't be in a
hurry to combine front, then HQ.
DRIVING GAME
Backup:
1) Stand in front of horse. Rub rope with stick. Then lift rope up
and tap with stick. If horse goes back, rub rope, otherwise up phase
of tapping. Get to where light taps cause horse to backup.
To bring in, rub underside of rope and put pressure on rope to bring
horse in.
2) Stand in front of zone 1. Tap stick to either side on the ground.
Move in towards horse. Aim to hit horse on knots of halter, and do so
if horse doesn't move out of the way. Be prepared to connect (phase
4).
3) Stand in front of zone 1. Have popper of rope just touching ground.
Swing the rope around in front of you, beside you, over etc. Change
hands. As you're spinning rope, pull rope through to shorten it or let
it run through to lengthen while keeping it spinning. When you are
comfortable with this use the rope in the helicopter action towards
horse. Allow rope to slide through hands to lengthen. Aim at knots on
halter. Rope doesn't have to be moving fast.
4) Stand in front of zone 1, hold rope half way along. Tap stick up
and down on ground. Walk into horse working hand up rope at same time.
Keep two eyes.
If horse hasn't backed, make contact with chest. Rub when you get a
response. Try putting horse into a curve -- helps with straightness!
Driving zone 4:
1) Stand beside shoulder but out from the horse a bit. Stand sideways
to horse. Tap stick on ground, bring in to zone 4, look at zone 4. If
horse doesn't move get to tap zone 4.
If horse walks forward lift rope high.
If horse wont move at all, keep persisting!
2) Same procedure but with stick moving up and down in the air.
Stop horse running into or over you by lifting rope high.
Aim at getting the front feet to do less. Focus through to the other
hip. Walk forward as the horse moves, not before, ie walk through
horse. Have your feet moving towards horse's back feet, ie don't walk
away from the front, walk through the HQ.
If horse walks forward lift rope. Have your feet and belly button
towards zone 4. As horse turns you have to turn with it.
Don't pull zone 1.
3) Stand in front of zone 1. Walk quarter circle out and around horse
to get opposite zone 3. Don't let front came round. Then play
friendly with zone 4.
When you can do this, walk the quarter circle, then drive zone 4.
Don't let zone 1 come round to stop you.
Driving Zone 1:
1) Stand at back of zone 2 facing front. Put most of rope over
horse's back. Put arm that's closest to horse up over mane. Hand
holding carrot stick is way out to the side. Move stick in little
circles. Bring stick in towards knots on halter. Make contact if
necessary. Bring elbow in across body and turn belly button towards
horse. Keep stick on the side of horse, not in front.
2) Stand in zone 2 and face horse. Put stick along delicate zone, zone
2, and zone 3. Pulsate stick to drive front end as you walk into
horse, ie through horse.
Driving Zone 3: (ie driving horse forward)
Stand in zone 3, rub with stick.
1) Stand in front of zone 1, half way along rope. Should be able to
rub middle of zone 2. Lightly tap zone 2. When horse moves (like in
beginning of circle game), move stick top of zone 3 and just hold it
there. Horse will now be walking around you in a circle. If it stops
and faces you, tap zone 2 to send, then move stick back to zone 3.
Keep your feet as still as possible. If horse stops on circle just tap
zone 3 to ask it to move on, then rest stick. The resting stick is a
neutral stick telling the horse it's doing the right thing.
Once horse is circling round you well, just walk off straight. You
need to be behind the drive line.
If horse goes too fast and passes you, shake the rope up and down
vertically.
Once this is going well, tap zone 3 to speed horse up past you, change
hands to bring horse round to other side of you. Then drive forward.
Keep changing sides.
Keep your focus straight ahead all the time. Don't look at horse.
YO-YO
Stand in front of zone 1. Use phases to ask for backup.
If your horse wants to eat instead of pay attention to you, just keep
going through the phases.
If horse goes crooked, step out to whichever side is needed to
straighten him up.
*If horse wants to eat at any time when you don't want to allow him to:
smooch once, then slap!* (So simple! What a revelation.
NAC u.k. Instructor - Ross Simpson
Level 2 - primary day lesson
by Clare Coombs
We started the day with a short introduction and we all warmed up for
about 10 minutes before having a discussion about how we could get faster
responses from our horses. This went on for about 30 minutes and we all
worked individually though Ross our instructor was walking round and
commenting. At no point in the day did I feel out of my depth, which was
excellent! Infact I could understand all the theory even if it took me
slightly longer to grasp the applying! I managed to get a couple of really
good sideways games and we were trotting sideways along the fence without
any assistance which was brilliant! Then everyone had to work on their yo
yo game getting their horses to trot back to them. This caused a few
problems with my pony as when I used the carrot stick she went sideways away
from it and started going into the circling game. So Ross had me turn
around and run straight past her, as if to say "Ooops you went the wrong way
now come straight to me" this worked as she had already started trotting.
We then divided into two teams to do a small relay race running backwards
with our horses trotting towards us running up to the far end of the arena
and running back again without out horses coming past us. Next task was
circle one way, disengage the hind quarters and sent the opposite direction,
preparation for flying lead changes. This was confusing I had rope, stick,
pony and hands to organise! We were only doing half circles so even less
time to sort myself out! This is where I learnt the power of disengagement,
if you can disengage without moving your feet by focusing on HQ then
toughing the flanks you can get a very swift disengagement. My pony who did
not like this task stood up on her back legs and pirouetted to change
rection! Quite impressive I was told but I was too focused on changing
direction! The next thing was "hunt the human" this was a great task. This
was slightly chaotic with 9 or 10 horses in the school and at one point only
the instructor having his own horse! My pony though was absolutely
brilliant she didn't leave me except when she was chased away by someone
else's horse who seemed to have affinity for her! We then had to walk
around the school at liberty before going over a jump. There were not many
people who managed to get their horses over the jump and luckily I was one
of them although it was a squeeze game at liberty. I was later told that we
had been the calmest pair and therefore had a strong bond. We rehaltered
and played the yo yo game on a 22ft before breaking for lunch.
After lunch we went down to a playing field, full of long grass! to work on
two main games. We first started by warming up for 5 minutes, and then
worked on back up from the side of our horse followed by a quarter turn,
using fingers - driving game then back up and a quarter turn repeated over
and over. This was preparation for the sideways game without a fence, which
we then went on to. This was quite hard because most horses walked forwards
to avoid the pressure so they could just shake the rope but mine went
backwards so I had to find an even pressure to stop her backing up. This
took a while but I would never have expected it at all! We then worked on
the flying lead changes again on the circling game. Again my pony stood
back on her hocks but only slightly brought her front legs up this gives a
very swift disengagement though and I am not complaining! We repeated that
task on 22ft, which caused a slight confusion with the large amount of rope!
but we managed! And the results were excellent. Ross showed us how we could
incorporate the sideways game into it by moving our feet and driving the
horse out but it was a bit too advanced so I settled for just a couple of
sideways strides! We finished off looking at Ross showing us the
rock slide ( a few more sessions before we contemplate that I think!).
Before heading back up to the arena for a liberty display from Ross and then
from Liz another lady on the course. The demonstration was mind blowing,
Ross was doing canter flying and sideways game without a fence completly at
liberty, it was really amazing but then when he made Liz do it with her
horse reality and it was clear that we would really be able to do this task
at home! Ross showed us what to do when we lost the draw and then what we
could do with the draw when we had it.
The day - Absolutly brilliant/excellent! It was soooooooo much better
than the level 1!
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