No really....that's enough now!

It feels like forever since my last training session with Faith, although it has only been about a week. I don’t like long gaps between sessions, a couple of days, and I start feeling withdrawal symptoms. However, I try not to get too hung up about it, after all, like most amateur horse keepers, I find that life often gets in the way. This week ‘life’ has taken the form of feral kittens belonging to my next door neighbour who has five young queen cats who she refuses to get spayed, as she finds that she can get £25 a kitten. Consequently these young cats are having litter after litter, and frankly they look old before their time. One of them got run over the other week, and another of the cats adopted her litter as well. Unfortunately she brought all of them over to my stables, and they set up camp under a massive laurel hedge in my garden. I managed to catch four of the seven kittens the other night, and returned them to my neighbour. I saw the other three yesterday, bouncing around my yard, but neither I, nor seemingly mummy cat have seen them since, which is worrying.

So I wasn’t surprised when upon seeing me appear with the bumbag this evening, Faith greeted me with a big neigh! It was nice enough to work on the yard again this evening, which makes a nice change, and after a lovely groom, I started up with the rug again. Faith was brilliant as usual. I had the rug fully along her back, although undone, and we were walking back and forward nice and calmly. I also got her used to me bumping the rug and buckles etc. against her legs, and rattling the big clips at the front.

We then did a bit of work on getting her to respect my space, even when she was wearing the ‘snarky face’. I just do a little bit of an emergency stop in front of her with my hands out in front of me, and she immediately stops and shifts her weight back. I then ask her for a few steps of rein back, and then we walk on again. She was foot perfect, and I think bringing her up abruptly like this has just made her realise that I mean what I say, and caught her attention and focus a little more even just by using a bit of visual pressure.

I often get on my soapbox about not doing ‘too much’ with youngsters, but I often find myself out to be a total hypocrite. Most of the time, even during a week unblemished by distractions and gaps, I will end up training for up to 40 mins a session. Now if somebody told me they trained their two year old for 40 mins a night every night, I would probably begin to swell with righteous indignation, but the fact is, I totally lose all track of time, and get so immersed in the moment, that that is what we end up doing. Having said this, I do try to do at least two different activities, broken up by a grooming session, and hopefully I am a sympathetic trainer in that if I can see that it’s not happening for whatever reason, I will change the activity and end on a good note. But it is still so easy to get carried away with the clicker, and I can’t help thinking that because the horse is more often than not hearing ‘yes that’s right’, instead of ‘no, don’t do that’, the training becomes more compelling and absorbing for them as well.
This was certainly borne out this evening when Faith showed to me that she wasn’t particularly interested in going back to her stable for tea. Instead, she mooched around the yard for a bit, then went over to her rug, which I had left folded on the fence, picked the corner up in her teeth, and stood there with it in her mouth just looking at me, as if to say, can we do a bit more of this Mum? There is no denying it, and I really don’t think I am fooling myself, when I say that this little mare makes it quite clear that she actively enjoys our training sessions, at least as much as I do.

So we met halfway, and did a bit of WWYLM for a few minutes, which strangely enough ended up with me walking into her stable with her beside me, where she got her jackpot and a hug.