I recall one of my 2017 goals was: GOAL ONE: Getting Jillie to perform all of her groundwork and liberty tasks in good (functional) posture. I don’t just want her to do something, I want her to do it correctly and well. This will make every element beautiful and beneficial.
Well, for the most part, we didn’t do all that badly but the stopping and backing task needs to be refined and, essentially, redone. My bad. She could care less, “Head up, head down, whatever! Give me the treat!”
Another goal that fits into this frame is GOAL FOUR: Perfect my ability to lead Jillie effectively on a loose line by establishing consistent use of body language and signals to guide her without picking up the line in preparation for liberty work.
This goal I accomplished with more to do, but I did abandon the Agility liberty work in favor of the Straightness Training liberty work because the latter focuses on posture and balance in a different light and is consistent with our Straightness Training work.
Well, for the most part, we didn’t do all that badly but the stopping and backing task needs to be refined and, essentially, redone. My bad. She could care less, “Head up, head down, whatever! Give me the treat!”
Another goal that fits into this frame is GOAL FOUR: Perfect my ability to lead Jillie effectively on a loose line by establishing consistent use of body language and signals to guide her without picking up the line in preparation for liberty work.
This goal I accomplished with more to do, but I did abandon the Agility liberty work in favor of the Straightness Training liberty work because the latter focuses on posture and balance in a different light and is consistent with our Straightness Training work.
I put this together as a lark after Jalila and I had a particularly funny day with our ferrel cat, Willow. I trapped Willow and took her to the animal shelter to be spayed 9 years ago and she has been hanging around ever since. She is aloof and I still cannot pick her up, but as she gets older she’s hanging around more and goes to the arena with me almost every time I take a horse out. She’s revealed quite the personality and I love having her company.
When I say I “accidentally” taught Jalila to stop and back with her head too high, I mean I taught her that by not being focused on the big picture while clicker training. In Clicker work, you get what you click and the results can be aggravating as hell because the horse only does what is rewarded. So, there’s no way around the fact that I allowed the obedience part to get out of balance with the posture part of the exercise.
My editor friend wrote to me to say: Loved the mountain lion video! But I figured I should tell you quickly that you have a typo there and it says mountian lion. Don’t know if you can fix it but hopefully you can before your name is mude.
Well, sorry about that. Living in rural Idaho, it takes 3 1/2 to 4 hours to upload a short little clip like this one and I'm gonna live with the typo.
When I say I “accidentally” taught Jalila to stop and back with her head too high, I mean I taught her that by not being focused on the big picture while clicker training. In Clicker work, you get what you click and the results can be aggravating as hell because the horse only does what is rewarded. So, there’s no way around the fact that I allowed the obedience part to get out of balance with the posture part of the exercise.
My editor friend wrote to me to say: Loved the mountain lion video! But I figured I should tell you quickly that you have a typo there and it says mountian lion. Don’t know if you can fix it but hopefully you can before your name is mude.
Well, sorry about that. Living in rural Idaho, it takes 3 1/2 to 4 hours to upload a short little clip like this one and I'm gonna live with the typo.
RSS Feed