Day Eleven

Bob Marley continues to make progress in everything except trust, and that is hindering our progress most of all. He'll do great during class and then I'll come out later that night and the next day and I have to start all over again with him, because he just doesn't trust me. Of course, the amount of time it takes for him to relax shortens with each session, but I wish he'd just settle and learn to trust us. I don't even want to think about how leaving him alone for six days over Easter break is going to set him back. I wish I could stay here, but I can't. I need to sit with him for days on end, but with school winding down its so hard to find the time. That's no excuse though: this is a living creature whose life I am forming, and that should be far more important than a normal class project.

As Cindy said, "This isn't math class."

Day Ten

Its incredible to see how quickly the synapses in his brain make connections. Although he tried to kill the butt rope initially, he learned to tolerate, and then accept it. Without actually telling me this, Cindy pointed out that I'm not rewarding him for every little bit he gives to me. He'll give and then I'll wait for something bigger to reward him for. Especially since we're beginning to work with him on giving to pressure, both at his side and at his head, this is going to be very important. I have to reward him when he does something correct, or else he'll get discouraged.

My personal after class work today got father than my in-class work did. He's giving to me, and this is important because not only does he have to learn the physical act of giving to pressure and to me, but he has to learn the mental act of submitting to his handlers. If he doesn't learn to submit, he hasn't got a chance in the real world.

Tomorrow's another day...

Day Nine

Basically, today I learned that sometimes extenuating circumstances will change your daily training plan, which should be mutable. Our goal was to get in there with him and get him used to working with humans, because the day before he was okay with it. I did not pay attention to my horse and how keyed up he was by all of the people and the TV camera, and he clocked me. We took a step backward today, but it was a step forward for me. Even though I had to take a bruise to learn it, I learned my lesson and will not repeat the same mistake again.

Day Eight

I try to be super professional about working with my Mustang. I get so intensely focused on him when I'm working with him that I don't notice anything else. Everything is slow, methodical and predictable. But today, when we got that halter over his head, I've never felt that kind of elation in my life. I called out to Cindy like a Kindergartener who just colored a picture. Highly unprofessional, but I had to share that with someone! I'm a real trainer, I have taught this horse something! He went from what he was when he got here to wearing a halter in fourteen days.

I have learned so much about training from this, even in the short amount of time so far. I've learned that you've got to know where to draw the line between too harsh and not firm enough. Some of the girls aren't being firm enough, and although I know this journal is not about them, from watching them I've learned what I don't want to do. We've had to push Bob Marley out of his comfort zone a few times, but the idea is to push him barely out of his comfort zone so he'll get acclimated to a new thing and then his comfort zone is expanded. Last week his comfort zone went from accepting our nearness to accepting our touch to accepting a rope touching him to accepting a rope around his head to today, when he accepted a halter and began to give to pressure.

It seems like once we were able to touch him, a wall was broken down and he became immensely easier to work with. He's still nervous around us, but instead of getting high and staying high, he gets high and then comes down as we stroke him. That one thing, touch, became our first aid in working with him.

We got a halter on him!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!

Day Seven

It seems like touching him really was that huge breakthrough, because now it seems that our hands have a calming effect on him and he's instantly more accepting of everything else we put him through. I cannot even describe to you the pure elation on my face when not only did we touch all over his body, but we put a rope over his poll and his nose like a halter. Not only that, but when we opened the squeeze chute back up into a normal sized pen, I noticed he did not move away from me. I found that I was able to touch him in the pen! Oh my gosh, I can't tell you how amazing that was. He's actually learning to trust us! A week ago this animal would have stood in the corner as far as he could get from us, and now he'll let me touch him when he has the option to move? Amazing! This class has seriously become far more than a grade to me. This little Mustang sure came into my life at the right time.

I did learn today that its okay to use a little more force with them. Even if they are temporarily scared, they will relax eventually if they see that it won't hurt them. By being more forceful, we found that we made more progress. Sure you have to tread lightly and go slowly, but you also have to know when to turn it on.

I believe that our plan is to do more with the rope tomorrow outside of class and Monday during class, and attempt the halter on Tuesday. I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day Six

The breakthrough I was so desperately lacking yesterday came today, and I'm sure the expression on my face betrayed the feelings I had inside. I was able to touch, pet, rub and scratch (nameless bay, who I've begun to call Bob Marley). Excitement?! You betcha. His muscles were tense and coiled like mine just before the gun goes off in a cross-country race, only his were tense because he believes he's fighting for his life.

Many times during this process I've thought, "If only I could speak to you and rationalize with you. If I haven't tried to kill you yet, I'm probably not a cougar." But then if he could rationalize he wouldn't be a horse, he'd be a human, and we like horses because they're horses. If we were tired of training horses in the way they must be trained, we'd do away with them and ride the only animal capable of true rationalization: humans. Since I don't see that happening anytime soon, my wishes that I could rationalize with Bob Marley are inane.

Touching him gave me that feeling that learning I got accepted to the Woods did. I glowed and all of the frustrations of the previous day melted away in his soft hair. I realize that with horses its 'Two steps forward, one step backward,' and tomorrow a new challenge will be presented, but for now, I'm amped about today's progress.

Day Five

My own faults are coming into play more than ever now that I'm training the mustang. I'm competitive, naturally impatient, and get discouraged. Seeing Mary leading her baby around and then knowing my own horse tries to climb the fence at the touch of the rope left me discouraged. I realize that every horse is different, and mine is exceptional because he's a three year old. So from having these thoughts, I've realized two things: 1) I cannot compare myself to the other girls or the other horses. I have to know that Sara sees everything and realizes the challenge presented in (nameless bay). 2) I have to focus on my own horse. That's hard, when Goose is trying to go through the panels next to us and (nameless bay) is reacting to Goose's fear. But if I break my focus all the time, that's not going to be helpful.

My impatience probably hasn't been noted by Sara or Cindy. I've done a really good job of keeping it in check. I only have the tendency to be impatient, and I know when it needs to be controlled. Horses are not something you can rush, especially these guys. But when I can't be impatient, I get discouraged. Its day fiveand I feel like I'm spinning my wheels through different failed ideas, trying to make that big breakthrough that will restore my faith in myself as a horsewoman. But two steps forward, one step backward, right? And those are little steps.

I have learned to stand my ground when he reacts. That's my personal step forward. But I can't get through to this horse, and I feel like such a failure, even though I realize that I'm not. Part of me wishes that I had an easy baby for my first real test as a trainer, that perhaps I'd learn a bit more. But then again, part of me recognizes that in dealing with a horse whose reaction time is almost zero seconds to any stimulus, I will learn so much more than I would dealing with a less flighty animal.

Sigh. Crappy day. Maybe I'm PMSing.

Day Four

Today's objective was pretty simple: touch. We can't do anything else until we can touch them. At first, I thought this was best accomplished by going into the pen with him and standing until he relaxed. That worked pretty well, but that's something best done outside of class. I wanted to do something more active. So Christina and I used a form of a squeeze chute, and I was very happy with the results. He (yet unnamed) actually relaxed for the most part, and carried his head much lower than he normally does. We did manage to touch him, but he immediately flipped out when we did. I was happy with this: he's beginning to submit to us. While submitting may be second choice to trust, it is also necessary.

Personally, I need to learn to stand my ground more. I have to learn to be the leader in this relationship and less of a follower. He's looking for some guidance now that his herd is split up, and its up to me and Christina to be his dominants. I worked on that today and it worked out pretty well. He's such a hellion compared to the three little ones, and will take longer to work with.

I can't help but think that we should have gotten these guys in January, and been habituating them to us during the theory portion of the course. That way, we would have been ready to go now that we're in the training part. But oh well, we'll work with what we're given. At this point, I'm forgetting all about the class, the grade, and the requirements. I'm throwing myself into the training of this horse. I can't be focused on myself when I have him. Forget the fact that my semester exam *should* (probably won't) require him to trailerload and such. If he leads, if he accepts my presence, if he stops trembling when I come near, that is my goal.

Seattle's gone and I'd like to think that all the love I had for him and the extra time I gave to him, this horse now needs. He needs it more than anything.

Day Three

Huge progress was made today, and I'm actually okay with the idea of hazing them into the pens. Now that they're all five in separate pens in the round pen, things will be a lot easier.

My big bay (still as yet unnamed), does not like the idea of confinement as well as the babies do, and that's a bit discouraging, though entirely expected. Now that we can each focus on our babies, I can give him the quality time I believe he's going to need to overcome his fear of humans. I have no doubt that, in his three years of life, he's had many unpleasant experiences with humans - or at least, what he perceives to be unpleasant. Its up to us to fix that. I want to be the one he trusts more than anything, which means that I have to think about every little move that I make. If I accidentally sneeze and he gets scared, that's a step backward, and at this stage, a step backward is not what we need at all.

We don't have another class until Monday. This weekend, I plan on busting out my lawn chair and a novel and sitting with him until I can't sit any more. Then on Sunday night, I'll reevaluate where he is with Christina and we can formulate a plan for class on Monday. Some of the girls have been talking about using a squeeze chute for their yearlings...with mine, I think that's a terrible idea right now, but we'll get there eventually. Sure I want him haltered, but I'm willing to give him the time he needs to make that happen. Even though I'm on a time schedule myself, I'm on his schedule.

Day Two

Day Two - March 14, 2007

If we had more time, I would not choose to do things this way. I would work much slower and get them acclimated to us before I began hazing them. Because we only have six weeks with them, and because we need to begin working on our individual babies as soon as possible, I am okay with hazing them into the smaller pens. For this reason, I remained quiet most of yesterday. Rather than get caught up in the mechanics of the plan, I tried to focus on the horses more, even when everyone else was debating about where the panels should go and how we should go about the situation. It would be better if we could have all of that worked out before we entered the pen, but with so many girls that is a problem. The name of the game, at least for now, is teamwork. I was extremely encouraged by the fact that the light-colored yearling, rather than being scared at the idea of the herd being separated, kept moving towards us as we set up the stock panels around the little one.

I feel no fear around them. Maybe that’ll come back to haunt me later, but they’re more afraid of us than we are of them. If I act confident around them, but not in a predator-like sense, perhaps they’ll feed off of that and relax. Dealing with them is more about anticipating their every movement before they even execute it, and for that reason, I choose to have my attention almost always on them rather than, for example, setting up the stock panels.

Day One

I didn't get this blog started until Day 3, so let me catch you up a little bit today. These are more for an assignment than they are a blog, and the point of the assignment is not to write down what you did that day, but to write down what you were thinking when you did it. If explanation is needed for the blog, I'll amend it a bit.

Day One – March 13, 2007
Well, here we go. At first, I chose to observe the mustang’s first interactions with the girls when they went into the round pen, because I wanted to form a plan. I felt that they went in there without a plan other than ‘halter the horses,’ which wasn’t going to happen. We needed to break that goal into smaller, more manageable steps. For my personal goal, I said I would like to get within five feet of them. I felt that we weren’t going to get anywhere running them, although I do agree that separating them is a necessary thing. But again, if we have to break training goals into smaller steps with domestic horses, we are going to have to break the goals down into minute steps with the mustangs. While the girls were formulating a plan, I maintained a neutral body position and kept my gaze at their hip – not making eye contact - with any of them so I would not be perceived as a predator. When I saw the intelligent lightly colored one flick his ear towards me and lower his head, I took a step forward. When he appeared uncomfortable, I released the pressure. Looking back on it, I probably should have taken a step forward, released pressure when he relaxed and stood my ground when he got nervous. But that’s why we’re learning, right? I think that we’re going to have to take things slowly with them and get them acclimated to the idea of humans before we attempt anything exceptionally crazy – especially with the two older ones. My ideas differ from those of the girls, but once we get them separated that will get sorted out.

My baby (?) is going to be interesting…but a challenge I am looking forward to.

Background

My name is Jen. You may know me as Jalean06, if you frequent Xanga. I'm a freshman Equine Studies major at a tiny women's college in Indiana. Every year, all of the equine freshmen have to take Training and Handling I, where other people bring in their yearlings for us to halter break. This year, we're starting a pilot program with the Bureau of Land Management: they've brought us Mustangs to work with. Three yearlings, a two year old and a three year old. The three year old is mine and Christina's to work with. This journal is a requirement for class, and I decided to publish it for all of you to enjoy and perhaps learn from. We've never trained yearlings before, although I've dealt with Thoroughbred yearlings. The format is hands-off teaching, though our professor is always observing and will offer guidance if needed. Mainly, we're on our own.

Five Mustangs, ten freshmen, one round pen: the coolest homework any of us have ever had in our lives.