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Sparky's First Whole Day At Home - April 19, 2001
Gentling the Wild One: Not Really So Wild!
 This is Sparky, the morning of his first full day at home. Sparky is one dazed and confused and rough-looking character! Michael says he should have been named "Pokey" or "Dudley" instead of Sparky. | |
| The last thing Lesley Neuman said when she delivered Sparky yesterday, was, "Just remember - there's no rush! You don't have to get from Point A to Point B in any set amount of time." So I set about to follow that advice. Still, deep down, I did have a bit of a goal: I really wanted to be able to get hold of that lead rope. Well, Michael went out first thing in the morning, fed all the horses, and spent some time with Sparky. He reported that at one point Sparky took some hay out of his hand - by stretching out way forward and grabbing it, (actually Sparky had done that with me last night, too). Once, Michael was able to pick up the rope. But he decided to do no more than that - not to push the issue. | |
But what to do?
| Mid-morning I gave it a try. After following Sparky around the pen for awhile, the rope presented itself to me in a position where I could stealthily lift it up with my foot. I picked it up and then... Hmmm... Now what? I had many times watched Lesley Neuman and others using "Pressure and Release" techniques in the round pen. Any time I'd ever seen this, however, the horse spent a good deal of time at first, running in circles around the pen. Well, it was obvious pretty quickly that today Sparky was just not a running kind of a guy. Again I remembered Lesley saying that each horse is different and you have to work with what that horse has to offer. So what did Sparky have to offer? Well, I thought, it seems that maybe the first thing you want to accomplish is to get the horse to face you, to acknowledge you, to look at you. So I worked at that: I would tug gently on his rope in the direction I wanted him to move or to stand to face me. The nano-second he made an offer of trying to do that, I let the rope slacken. |
 Reward - we stand facing one another, with no pressure on the lead rope. |
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 2. Try - note the left front foot stepping forward |  3. Reward - Pressure's Off! |
3-2-1 CONTACT:He got pretty good at the pressure and release thing after awhile, so I thought, well, just maybe I can get closer to him - maybe work toward actually touching him. This was scarier for him. He would tolerate me inching closer until suddenly he didn't like it any more, so I would have to step back. |  |
 Little by little he desensitized to my moving close in, and even began to tolerate an outstretched hand. | I could get SO CLOSE, and yet still he would panic when I actually reached out a finger to touch him. |
 But little by little, that fear, too, lessened and he began to tolerate fleeting touches |  And then he actually reached out toward my hand - he was initiating the contact now, it wasn't just me pressuring him into it! |
| That was a good session. We stopped and took a lunch break. After lunch we took up where we left off. Talk about licking and chewing! They say that licking and chewing is a sign the horse is thinking about things and beginning to understand. Sparky was doing a lot of licking and chewing. Then he gave one last panicked attempt to stop his headlong path into domesticity. He reared up and tried to get away. I just held on, giving him enough slack to avoid falling over and hurting himself, but not enough to think he'd "won," and then he turned to look at me with this look of revelation on his face, and he was licking and chewing to beat the band. And then, to finish it off, just at dusk, Michael went out and worked with him for about a half hour, during which time he actually began to lead - with a slack rope - no pulling! What a day! Who would have thought this could happen so quickly - I certainly never did! Follow Sparky's Progress: Our Horses: | |
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