Buster's Journey Begins . . .

Buster at about a week with his Mom

So.  About a year ago, a just-weaned gelding was sort of abandoned in the Dream Valley pasture.  It isn't as awful as it sounds - ask me about if you're interested in the whole story - but, a couple of months ago, Julie, the owner of Dream Valley and a wonderful resource for anything horse-related, decided that someone *really* ought to start working with the "baby", since he was then about 16 months old.  I was nominated.  I was, and still am, somewhere between really intrigued and really scared.  I ended up agreeing to do it.  I'm still not sure that was a good decision, but I'm going to give it a try.

The first thing I had to do was figure out how you approach a horse that hasn't learned to learn - from a human -  yet.  I think I know the basic rule:  release pressure instantly when the horse makes an effort.  I get that, but what counts as an effort?  What counts as pressure?  If you're teaching them *not* to do something, do you wait to apply it until the deed is done, or do you try to react at the moment that you think that they're thinking of misbehaving?  What if you're wrong?

Then, I don't know how you all are, but a serious problem I have with dealing with horses is knowing how much to expect from them, how quickly I should get a response before I increase pressure, how much of a response I should get before I decrease pressure, and how quickly those expectations should change over time.  And it has to vary, horse-to-horse, so how do you start the process of learning to "read" a specific horse?  (Hmmm.  I guess I've strayed from the case of the horse with little experience: I have those same concerns working with Sunny.)

Buster discovered Big Horse Food early on

There are a zillion ways break the problem down, but a way that highlights one of my weaknesses, is to divide things into the case where you're trying to teach a horse something for the first time and the case where you're trying to refine a skill that he already has.  Some of the new skills can be taught by waiting for them to offer them up, then rewarding the tries - but I don't know how to even approach some skills, like how do you teach them to tie (Sunny's still nervous after all these years) and have you both stay safe?

Then, to illustrate the refinement case, how many horses have *you* seen that back up on-line, but only if the handler threatens them with death-by-shaking-rope?  And other horses (or the same horses with different handlers) back up with a change of the handler's posture - *and* they're willing to back in circles, around trees, up hills . . . I've been pretty successful at getting Sunny to do things:  step on a tarp, side pass to pick something up, open a gate - but I've been pretty miserable at helping her to get better at those things, that is, I'm not so good at changing my expectations and upping the ante.

Buster, not too long before he was weaned

I guess what I'm lacking is judgement about horse behaviors - how to tell if they're on the edge of learning to do something new, or on the edge of learning how to yank my chain.  Or if they're really overcoming fear to do the little bit more that they've offered, of if they're very effective negotiators and are giving some finely calculated amount to to make me stop annoying them.

That's where Ray Berta comes in. We don't have the resources to hire Ray to train the baby for us, so my plan is to develop a list of things that the baby and I are working on, or would like to be working on, and have Ray come out periodically and set us off in the right direction.  For me, I hope to get instruction on the physical skills that I have to develop to be effective, and insight into what's happening internally with the baby; that is, to work on developing judgement. And, if Ray thinks something's out of my skill set, I hope he'll let me know and we can figure out how to deal with it.

Buster & his mom in the pasture - note the "baby lips" on Buster

So.  I'm going to attempt to blog regularly about what the baby is up to, the insights Ray is offering, and if I'm having any luck putting Ray's ideas into practice.

Oh yeah.  The baby's name used to be Kharma.  After working with him for awhile, I changed it.  He will henceforth be known as Buster.

Buster and Sunny in the pasture