Day 6 - New Halter and Backing Up

I got Lilly a new halter. It is a rope halter. Because she has such strong opinions and ideas I need a different halter to help her hear me better. Right now her flat halter does not communicate with her properly. I wanted a softer gentle halter (ie why I got a flat halter) but with confident, extrovert horses they need a halter that gets their attention a little. It does not hurt them. It just helps them pay attention. My trainer said I needed to get a rope halter for her. So I did. But it is too big. Lol. She is still a little small for it (but will surely grow into it quickly). So now I am asking my trainer if I should make it smaller or just work with it the way it is. 

Now with her new halter we can practice her putting her nose into the halter and backing up. We are still working on being polite at feeding time. 

I now know how to adjust the halter so before I use it again I will adjust it so it fits her better. I can loosen and move the knots in the halter pretty easily. So I will try that. 

Haltering

Haltering went pretty well for our morning session. She came to me willingly and was curious about the halter and put her nose in and held still while I tied it up. 

Haltering in our evening session had a slight hiccup. When I tried to get her to put her nose into the halter she did but I wasn't fast enough and she walked away to her hay. But she still didn't fight me or protest. She let me put it on her while she was eating. 

Backing up

Morning session went really well. She surprised me. She did very well learning this. The first time she backed up one step. We took this very slow going step by step. First step, was just to take one step back. Then reward. Then take 3 steps back. Another thing is to get her to respond faster with gentle pressure. It went really well and I stopped at a good place. 

Here is the feedback I got from my trainer

At 2:48 she pushes quite heavy into the halter and takes a very long time to find the answer. You release a few time the pressure on the halter - this makes it very unclear to her what you want. In this moment it would help her and you to have the stick and to tap her on the chest to encourage her to try finding a different solution.

Look what you do right after you reward her at 3:05 for backing up: She lowers her head and starts walking towards you - and you back up. This is where you should stand your ground and stop her. She should learn to wait and relax standing still in front of you.

This evening was a little harder. I wasn't as clear in my directions. She still backed up for me but it seemed like it didn't work as well as it did during the morning session. 

Here is the feedback I received from my trainer. 

Your first back up was indeed the best. When she pushes the nose down and starts to walk off, don't let go of the halter. This is something you can correct firmly. give a clear release and reward when she holds her head still though.

I would use the stick with the flag attached to help her find the good answer quicker. You can tap her on the chest as soon as she pushes her nose into the halter - this will take her attention off the halter and cause her to back up.

Towards the end you had again a very nice back up. Keep going like this, but take the flag with you because you will need the backup cue with the flag when feeding!