Sidepassing, Moving the Shoulder

Here is what I did with Claire:

1. I worked some more on the Western Jog. She is still too fast, but pretty much keeps her head down the whole time. I tried today to loosen up my reins a little and let her have more of a reward with lots of slack.

2. Lots of backing. Sometimes she did great with hardly any pull, and sometimes she wouldn't back at all. She definitely needs more work on this.

3. I tried for one step in sidepassing. It was a little frustrating as she had no idea what I was asking. She stumbled onto the idea almost by accident, but by the time we finished she was taking one step. I will be very interested after having tomorrow off, if she is any better on Monday.

4. I measured the two sets of trot poles and put them at 3 feet apart and she took them at a trot without avoiding them most of the time.

5. I worked a little on Stacey Westfall's favorite shoulder out exercise. I planted inside hand (left for left circle) on my hip and bent her keeping her going in the circle, and then I would take my right hand out to 3:00 (perpendicular to the horse) and guide her shoulder and feet out, while her nose was still bent to the inside. We did this about 3 times (circles) on each side.

I found a great website: http://www.horsetrainingschool.com/ that has Western Pleasure training videos. One of the ones that is over the canter departure suggests using a 'marker' or 'clicker training' to get the right canter departure. I was pleasantly surprised and love the author's ideas on how to train for Western Pleasure. She believes in lots of repetititons and working in small steps and in the stop being the reward. I am going to incorporate a few of her ideas into my training. I have already seen Claire depart slower for the Western jog when I stop alot and reward her. I think it has taught her to gear down.

I rode Claire out today and one bad habit is forming. Before I let her eat grass out by all the scary objects to help her calm down, but today she was always trying to pull the reins out of my hands to get some grass. I pulled her up every time and then let her have some grass when I decided, but I am going to have to rethink letting her plunge into the grass when we ride out after her arena work. I also tied Claire today for about 45 minutes while I worked Annie. She pawed a little, but was mostly quiet.

Here is what I did on Annie:

I am starting to work more on Annie. She loves the clicker, but I can see an impatience developing on her part to get to the treat. I have to be patient with her and know that eventually she will understand to listen to me and not anticipate or get impatient say if I work a longer time without 'clicking' to reward her. This is a learning process.

1. Ground driving by walking beside her and guiding her. I got her to walk over all the trot poles and to serpetine through the long row of trot poles and cones.

2. Lunging-- working on trot to walk transition using the clicker. She has it perfectly. We also worked quite a bit on the canter departure and she got it most of the time. We did however end on a really good note with her picking up the canter departure immediately when I asked for it.

3. I tied her for about an hour this morning wearing the bit and halter. I had no reins on the bit. She was mostly quiet, with very little pawing.

I am going to make a 30 day video Monday of Claire. I am not sure if I have ridden her exactly 30 days, and never very hard at that, but I want to keep a record of our progress.