More walking, and an introduction to positive reinforcement!!

I'm a day behind on my posting, good news is that means I have been busy!

Thimble was tacked up in harness again yesterday and went for a little walk. This time we went with my sister on her large ginger ninja as thimble has never been out with another horse whilst in harness before. 

Safe to say she impressed me.

Poor old Sid had little to no idea what the strange small creature in the blue harness was (He's only five himself!). But he decided that he liked his new pet and was quite happy for her to accompany him for some schooling out in one of the fields. 

Thimble decided that exercise was much to much hard work in the sun so behaved almost impeccably. 

Almost.

She had one small tantrum when we first got into the field and Sid trotted away to do some work, understandable and after some bucks (A little unnerving when stood behind the little madam) And a lot of noise she resettled and walked across the field.  With Thimble and her driving the biggest thing for me is the reins, I don't like to hold her tight and due to her lack of 'horse' sense due to being hand reared I have learned that the best way to let her work out a behaviour is wrong is to just ignore it. Keep my reins the same as much as I can and she will learn that when she is stupid she puts pressure in her  own mouth. 

I dont use a driving bit for this very reason. 

Because she can be strong and hard headed I only use a snaffle. And slowly but surely this approach is working. She has her paddies and instead of carrying on like she used too she is learning that coming back to a walk actually does her a favour and all of the pressure disappears!

I plan to do some trick training sessions with her  as well, to keep her mind nice and motivated as she does seem to enjoy doing it. All of her trick work is done at liberty and she loves the freedom to be able to have a bit of a kick and a buck as well as working.

Stella also did amazingly. We did five minutes of learning how to yield to gentle pressure in the form of learning to back up when being led. She currently gets very solid and tense when you ask her to yield in any way. So the clicker will be built into this training. Now that she has heard the clicker we will be using it in our training sessions as it doesn't bother her and the sound seems to catch her interest. 

I have found that when she gets ahead when being lead, currently she finds it easier if you halt her and turn her around, but I am hoping that as we introduce the clicker in a bigger way she will learn to lead int he correct position. 

What she did best yesterday was to investigate things that she usually finds terrifying. 

My dad has some large farm and haulage equipment, all of which makes my girl incredibly nervous. Yesterday, after seeing Thimble walk past it without an issue she seemed to decide that maybe, just maybe, whilst it was all quiet and not moving, it might be safe to investigate. 

She managed to walk up to the large low loader trailer, the super reach excavator and the Artic lorry unit, and touch each one with her nose.

This is huge progress for her! 

I will turn this into a targeting exercise that we can use in other situations when things are a little scary so that she has the chance to stop and look at things. 

However are main aim and thing to work on at the moment is still the leading. 

We wont take the next training step until she is happily leading without pulling my arms to pieces. 

But I am begging to see trust forming. And the start of her beginning to think instead of just running away. 

Its all very encouraging.