#training fail

[crippledhockwalker]

Castiel decided he no longer wanted to do chin rests. Wait till the end.

[firstsubtwo]

About a month until the Spartan and LESS than a month until Whitney...

Ask me how training is going.

[crippledhockwalker]

Rogue, no.

[gallopinggold]

A uhhh, less successful day at the river, a photo story in three parts. We tried again to go the river, and Mary was actually much more agreeable to it. I brought the target stick and was really able to guide her to the bank, and so while she still didn't want to go in, she did get closer to the bank, and even splashed her face around in the water a bit! You can still see the tension in her face, but she was holding it together and was still willing to at least hang out.

However, that all changed when a group of about 20 kayaks came floating down the river. Mary was absolutely not about that, and with her already being uncertain, it pushed her straight over threshold. It's a private trail to get to the river, and I wasn't too concerned with her running away into the river, so I had her off lead like usual. I could tell she was already too far into her fear response to hold it together and wait it out, especially since the kayakers were obviously going to continue getting closer and closer at a rate I couldn't control and give her recovery time. So instead of throwing the lead back on and fighting her like a kite, I just maneuvered her so she was facing the trail entrance, and let her go. She bolted, and you can see in photo 2 if you squint where she ran out the trail and was waiting to see if I was coming. I had dropped my target stick at and her lead by the river so I had to go back for those, and when she saw me take a step back, she said 👋👋 and continued down the trail lol.

I found her back at the barn having a little snack. So overall definitely a fail lol. I'm glad she made it back safe and sound, and at least she got some exercise getting back there. I certainly wasn't going to punish her for reacting that way, the horse "winning" is nonsense, and part of me doing a lot of this stuff off lead in the first place is because I want her to have a choice in participating and feel like her "no"s are respected. Today was just a "no" day, and that's okay. She got her grain and got hosed off, and then went back out with her friends, no harm, no foul. We'll try again on another day when there will hopefully be less scary things at once. I hope this just didn't destroy her confidence, and hoping her being allowed to leave helped prevent that.

[coffee-mage-sans-caffeine]

Trained my SDIT to always be on my right when working (unless I tell him to be elsewhere for a reason).  It’s where I prefer him for various reasons.  For months I’ve been trying to figure out why he won’t chill next to me on the couch in his downtime. The arm of the couch was directly to my right.  When I shift so there’s space for him to my right, he immediately takes that space and settles happily.  Oops.  My bad, buddy.

[gallopinggold]

Fail compilation from the other day with Mary.  Our first session in a while, and she was not feeling it. One thing I’ve been working on recently is being patient and respecting her no.  I allow her to leave when she chooses without retribution, but that also means I literally stand around and just have to wait for 5 minutes at a time lol. In this session, she leaves both times when I ask her to stretch towards her hind feet, so it was pretty clear she was not doing that today, so I end the session with an easier stretch and call it good.  Working on establishing clear start and stop cues to try and cut down on her anxiety, start cue is touch my hand when I hold it out paired with a verbal “touch”, and end cue is me turning towards her shoulder and rubbing/scratching it paired with a verbal “All done, no more.”

This was from a  few days ago, and she did all her stretches (including lower hind) with no issues and with interest, so I think it just took a day to get back into the swing of things.  I’m also using really low value treats (timothy pellets) which don’t hold much weight in a giant filed of green grass, so I’m sure that’s contributing to her distraction.

[swizzymonster]

AHHHH! SHE DID SO WELL! Down stays is the trick she HATES the most. I got so far and I was REALLY pushing her limits by slow walking/skipping/dancing/being a general idiot.

Then a truck made a noise and she went into a sit. Theeeeennnnn she saw me and broke her stay. I still gave her a treat because that was beyond what I thought she could do.