Barn Doors

"Jill doesn't have a line on him" Jim said to his brother, the stable manager, and sent him over to the covered round pen to look in on the new team member and the naughtiest powerhouse chesnut of them all. There were some unusual thumping noises coming from in there.

When Jill saw his face peeking over the top, she was thrilled. It was the first time anyone had ever shown the slightest concern for her safety. He asked "How is it going in here?" so, with the beast cantering in a circle around her, she said, "Will you please make sure that those pins outside the door are all the way down? This bratty beast is so smart that he keeps banging against the doors and then turning around to see if they've opened. And, I would rather be locked in here with the likes of him than have him escape and be out there, on the loose."

Jim stuck his head over a few moments later and said for her to call him when she wanted out. He said he'd be listening in the barn for her call. Some ten minutes later, after shouting Jim's name, requesting release, she came in the stable and thanked big brother for his timely ESP. He confidently took credit.

But in the afterwork chatter they always shared, she'd learned it was actually Jim's awareness that had led to the assistance... she thanked him profusely.He said he was remembering what she had told him the the day prior, about how while free-lunging the same horse, he had banged against the doors, accidentally, while cantering and correcting his lead as she'd asked him to. "The doors burst open," she'd said "startling us both." But she had immediately and calmly commanded "Buddy, whoa" and was flabbergasted when he stopped dead in his tracks, facing the bright sunlight and lush grass outside the sandy ring.She had gone on and on how relieved and delighted at his new, beautiful obedience she was. Proud too, but she knew to give the horse the credit he was due... she said had told him, "Good boy good boy and came up to his side with a tiny bite of carrot for reward. "It's lucky he's so motivated by food," she enthused, but Jim said he knew it was her all of her kind training methods combined that were making the difference with Buddy.
"That and your sweet voice," he added.

When Jim and Jill had gone to see the trick horses at the fundraiser event in the nearby college town, the boss had said "you can teach Buddy that stuff. He would bow for a carrot." Jill replied, "Okay, good, instead of asking him to somersalt for our first trick, I thought I would start with "Head Down."The next morning Jim heard Jill leading the beast in from the paddock. She said "how do you say DON'T bite me in horse? Or maybe it's tiger. Are you part tiger? Should I try and speak tiger to you?"*http://loguelikevogue12.blogspot.com/2006/12/speaking-horse.html

*
They had him tranqued to do the full body clip, but the drugs didn’t really seem to be effecting him. He was his usual alert yet oblivous self. But, even Jill was surprised by how well Buddy behaved, in the cross ties, with her holding a lead shank for extra security. They had passed over his entire left side with the vibrating, noise rattling clippers, that had freaked out more reliably calm horses than he, and the stable manager was already half done the beast’s right hand side when it began to get complicated.

A new boarder, the New Jersey horse-humbling driver man started lunging in the dressage ring. Jill and Buddy noticed right away and when the distraction seemed too much for her charge she spoke up – “Is he allowed to be doing that in that ring?” gesturing out the big open doors. The clippers were immediately turned off and Jim was summoned and then sent to deliver the “lunging in the round pen only rule” as quickly as possible. As Jim returned to the barn, the big man and the small, young, chesnut disappeared from sight, in search of more appropriate schooling areas.

But then, when they suddenly appeared again, walking, with all their lunging gear, passing by en route to their area of the big barn giant, Jill's powerful, athletic, equine subject freaked out in the cross ties. With his scrambling, he sent both members of the clipper team flying, back against the walls. As Jill crashed back against the concrete walls, barely on her feet but still holding the shank she commanded, "Stand."

And Buddy stood, head held high and straining against the fully extended chains attached to the wall, fixated only on the pair on the concrete bath. Jim’s brother started whipping him with the electrical cord, as he regained his balance, but the horse didn't even seem to notice. “What do we want him to do?” Jill said, stepping forward towards Buddy’s head, struggling for breath.

The stable manager said, “he’s on the plug” and pointed to the other electric outlet end of the clipper's extension cord, on the ground under Buddy’s front right hoof. Still shakey, and despite the stable manager's so-called disciplinary action, she pushed on Buddy’s shoulder and pulled gently on the lead shank chain over his nose, saying weakly, “Back.” And, to their shock, he backed up one step, exactly as requested. Releasing the pressure on the crossties, instead of breaking them off the walls and bursting out of the barn loose like they'd all expected.

They decided simply to finish his body and shave his head the next day. But, she was proud of Buddy and proud of the way her ground work with him had just paid off.

For the follow up clipper session, the stable manager "changed the cocktail" and Buddy was so drugged he could not even walk down the hall safely. The stable manager was guiding his hind end holding his tail, and Jim was leading but having a hard time keeping the horse's front end moving down the middle of the aisle. Buddy was staggering, very out of balance, almost falling over and when they halted him his head was way down below the clips on the cross ties. As Jill attended to other chores, Jim held a handful of mane, while his brother finished the clip job on the halterless, barely conscious chesnut. When the boss came in, Jim's brother made a joke. "I think the way Jill held him yesterday made all the difference in his behaviour, don't you Jim?" And it was then that Jill knew that her influence on Buddy was legitimate, and tangible, even if only she and the horse were able to openly acknowledge or demonstrate it.

*
Thinking back on the incident got Jill believing Buddy had a problem with vision in his left eye, and that he had simply been trying to see the lathered yearling more clearly. After all, when he spooked right over you, you were always standing on his left. "There's something about the way he was holding his head up so high that sticks in my mind" she said to Jim. "They have to move their head to position the eye. Think about it, all his wounds are on his left side, I bet the eye was damaged somehow in the same accident." She had once shown Jim an odd dent-like tiny scar on Buddy's lower eye lid.

He said nothing, and she thought he looked unusually skeptical of her theory. "Either that," she added "or Buddy’s got a special sense of premonition, since that was the very chesnut yearling from New Jersey who made Sara parapalegic for life. Talk about closing the barn door AFTER the horse..." Jill sighed. "I can't believe they brought waivers around for everyone to sign the day after the tragic accident."

Don't Use FORCE

Jill pleaded, over the phone, when Jim lamented that Buddy was his project now. No one else had time for such a pain in the neck. "I can't even get him into the round pen, never mind what he pulls should we actually make it in there..."

"Have you SEEN the scars wounds on that horse? He can take it. If you are gonna try and force him you're gonna hafta kill him, so I beg you to think of something else."

She secretly wanted Jim to bring the beast to her. She always enjoyed the challenge of Buddy - it was so gratifying when something actually went well.

"Have you heard the thing about how an outside of a horse is good for the inside of a person? I totally see how the program of horse care for convicts would be rehabilitating. Things with horses are all about patterns. If you lose your temper with a horse he remembers, and is fearful, (or in Buddy's case EXTRA stubborn and difficult) and you have to deal with the repercussions of your loss of temper the next time. And that takes a long time." Jill was going on and on.
"Conversely, should you let him away with something 10x because you are a patient person, and then lose it on the 11th time, you're no further ahead. You have to discipline him correctly each of the ten times and then you won't need the 11th. Make sense?"
*
I just tell him whoa and he whoas. "Right now, in fact, I am working on EVERYone's whoas. They are supposed to stay out on the track (of the lunge line) and whoa when I say so, not just carry on OR turn in and face me.