Black Jack

January 5th- 9th 2010
Today I met my horse that I am assigned for the semester, I will be the only one working with him and if he gets sick or injured I will be the one taking care of him. Black Jack is a gelding about 4 years old. When I went out to get Black Jack for the first time he was very comfortable with me coming up to him and putting the halter on him, very left brained, getting him to follow me out of his pen was difficult though, he did not want to and when we got to the gate he just stood half-way in it. As soon as we left his pen, he changed to right brained. I noticed he was very reactive and scared of every little noise. Grooming him was difficult because he did not want me touching him so he kept moving around. I think he is probably a right brained extrovert, however in his pen he is left brained, and in the arena he also seemed left brained. He was pretty curious when we got into the arena, he was interested in looking at all the objects that were in there. I am excited to get to know him better and build a relationship with him!

January 11-16th 2010
Black Jack and I have been working on playing some of Parelli’s games, most importantly is the friendly game because I first need to build that relationship of trust with him. We have also been working on the yo-yo, driving game and porcupine game. Though I can tell these games are new to Black Jack he seems to pick up on what I am asking him quickly. I have found that Black Jack is very uncomfortable with having his hooves picked up. He really pushes back against me and will not lift his feet. I asked the TA what I can do to help this, she told me to take the rope part of the carrot stick, play the friendly game around his leg and then apply the pressure to his pastern area and then as soon as he starts giving into pressure and slightly lifts his hoof quickly release the pressure. This is a method of the porcupine game. I am hoping that as we continue to play this game he will get better about his hooves. I have been working on the friendly game with some of the objects that are in the arena such as the tarps, hula hoops, cones. Black jack is a fairly confident horse once he's in the arena, he doesn't really seem bothered by new objects.

What Black Jack learned this week: To learn to trust me and be desensitized to objects through the Friendly Game, Give into pressure around pastern through the Porcupine game, learned to play Driving and Yo-Yo Games.

January 18th-22nd
Black Jack has girth itch on his back, so I am now taking care of him everyday. I scrub him with a betadine wash to try and kill the infection and get rid of scabs. He does not like having cold water poured on his back and then having his skin scratched so he swishes his tail and threatens to kick me. I asked my teacher if there was anything I could do to keep from getting kick and he suggested putting him in the stocks, so far it has made a big difference. I gave him treats while he was in there to try and make it a more positive experience for him so he will want to go in next time. To get him into the stocks I have tried playing the driving game without much success, so I yo-yo him in there which works great. To have him get out of the stocks I can yo-yo him backwards and down. Even though sometimes when I go out to take care of Black Jack we only play a little bit I feel that because of it he and I are getting more connected in our relationship. He really enjoys the driving game, he is more than happy to go where I ask him to. His hooves are definitely still a challenge and he really kicks out the back ones when I try to pick them. We are still working on the porcupine game in other ways, he pushes back and it takes holding the pressure at phase four to get him to actually move off the pressure. I did learn that I should start teaching him the porcupine game with his head, by applying pressure to areas such as his nose, side of face, his poll and right behind his jaw. These are good places for him to understand what I am asking because he will more easily move off of pressure in the those spots. Black Jack and I have been working on the circling game, he seems to do well with what I ask him. I have been working on driving Black Jack from his pen to the barn, thought it was a challenge at first because he wanted to keep stopping for snacks we are making improvements and when I really focus on where we are going he listens to me and drives along next to me. On Saturday we practiced trotting while playing the circling game, I was surprised at how willing Black Jack was to trot. After that it seems like while playing the driving game he has a little more go. Black Jack also really enjoys chasing after the big green Parelli ball that is in the arena, he enjoys pushing it with his nose and running after it.

What Black Jack learned this week: Yo-yo in and out of stock to be washed, Move off of pressure on head, Drive from his pen to the barn, Trot while playing the circling game, Play with the Green Parelli ball.

January 25th-30th
This week in our class we had three tasks that we had to do with our horse, all by playing the driving game. The other game involved in these tasks was the squeeze game. We had to drive them into a trailer, drive them between two ground poles, and drive them over the bridge. Since Black Jack does well with the driving game, I wasn’t too worried about the poles task, he did that one very well. The bridge was a challenge, every time I would drive him up to it he would go around it rather than over it. The TA helped me to help Black Jack succeed, this included giving him the correct length of rope so he physically couldn’t go around the bridge, and when he did try to go around the bridge to stop him and back him up and then give him a break to let him know that was what I wanted. Eventually I was able to drive him over the bridge. The trailer loading was a big challenge, Black Jack was convinced the one red trailer was going to eat him because it was dripping, I was able to get him to sniff it and stick his head in, but then it spooked him so after that I could not even get him near enough to it to sniff it. I then took him over to a white trailer, which was not dripping. I was able to drive him up to it, and he would paw it and I would reward him by releasing my pressure, and then he would step in it and I would release, and eventually he would stand with his two front legs in the trailer. I had a really difficult time getting him to put more than just his two front legs in the trailer, if I asked him for more he would panic and back up from the trailer and then do a little rear like thing. I would then take a break from the trailer go do something else and then come back to the trailer. I then asked him again and he climbed all the way in he trailer and stood in there comfortably until I asked him to come out, but after that I couldn’t get him in the trailer again so I asked my instructor for help, and we went over to the red trailer that Black jack was scared of. Twitchell showed me that I needed to reward Black Jack for every little step he made such as standing 4 ft from the trailer, then sniffing the trailer, then pawing the trailer and all of a sudden Black Jack just climbs up in the trailer that he was terrified of just a short time earlier. Doing things right takes so much less time than doing it wrong over and over. Also I was getting stressed about trying to get Black Jack to finish the tasks by a certain time, and that probably just made it worse, so as soon as I stopped worrying about the time Black Jack responded better to what I was asking him.

What Black Jack learned this week: Playing the squeeze game, To be driven into a trailer, to be driven over a bridge.

February 1st-6th
Black Jack and I are working on all of the obstacles and tasks we have to do for our midterm next week. I have been having trouble getting him to play the Yo-yo game with me. I learned that sometimes I need to go to phase 4 quickly so that when I release that pressure it is a bigger reward for Black Jack and he will understand what I wanted him to do better. I also learned he would be a good candidate for treats, at first I wasn’t sure about this, because it seemed like when I was giving him treats before he was starting to get more dominate and pushy with me so I didn’t want that happening. We are supposed to drive our horses around and through three cones for the midterm and Black Jack didn’t particularly enjoy that, so I started giving him a treat when he did something right and eventually he was doing really well with the cones. The treats work as a motivation for Black Jack! He is also getting better about letting me pick up his hooves, so we are getting there, I still have not been able to do all 4 in sequence. Black Jack has started doing this thing where we are playing and all of a sudden in what seems like out of nowhere he bolts away from me, I think it might be because he is bored with me and wants to do something else. I have been alternating where I take care of Black Jack girth itch, sometimes in the stocks, sometimes just tied up. While I was taking care of him he threatened to kick me, so I untied him and just worked on yielding his hindquarters away from me a few times, after that he learned that he did not want his hindquarters near me and gave me more respect. Over the weekend we continued to practice the obstacles for our midterm and also worked on speeding up while playing the driving game. He really enjoys trotting along side of me.

What Black Jack learned this week: Treats are motivation to do something that would otherwise be boring, to yield his hindquarters away from me. Trotting while playing the driving game.

February 8-13th
This week Black Jack and I spent a lot of time preparing for midterms! I was able to come out to play with him on both Monday and Wednesday night. For midterm we had 6 obstacles to complete. The goal was to get our horses to be able to perform each obstacle smoothly.
-Drive horse over a tarp on the ground.
- Drive horse over a small jump.
-Drive horse over the bridge
-Drive horse through a Z shaped ground pole course
-While standing in one spot drive horse around 3 Cones ^ ^ ^ in a figure-eight type pattern.
-Drive horse over three parallel poles on ground and then turn them around and have them go back the other way while standing in one spot. Then yo-yo them towards you so front feet are over the pole nearest to you, stop them, then yo-yo them back so their rear feet go over the pole furthest away from you.
In our practice Black jack did very well with the tarp, the jump and the bridge. He somehow figured out that he could go over the jump and then go right up over the bridge.
We had a little difficulty with the Z pole course and the poles on the ground, but after a few times of practice I was able to figure out what he needed to succeed at those. The cones were a big challenge for us, even with the treats it was still difficult. While we were practicing we were both getting frustrated with eachother so I figured it was best to get him to do his best rather than try and get him to do it perfectly.
Twitchell told us that we could do the course in whatever order we wanted, so I decided to save the cones for last. He told us that if our horse is having trouble with an obstacle we need to decide if we want to keep pushing them or move onto something else because if we keep pushing them on one obstacle that might damage our relationship for a later obstacle. When it came time to do our actual midterm Black Jack did excellent on the first four obstacles, fairly well on the poles on the ground we didn’t do to well with the cones, but he went through them sort of.
As we were warming up for midterms I decided to pick Black Jack’s hooves, this is the first time he has stood nicely and let me pick out all four of his hooves at once. I didn’t even have him tied up and he just stood there. I was happy to see we had finally made real progress with that.
I learned before midterms that I might have to switch horses because Black Jack’s girth itch is not improving as much as it should be and so it would not be good for him to be ridden. I went out on Saturday to play with Black Jack one more time. We tried to use one of the longer lines to play, we're not quite there yet for driving, but he did well with the circling game. We just played and did some of the things we did for the midterm.

What Black Jack learned this week: Successfully walk/be driven over a raised pole, move back or front end over to accomplish obstacles, pick up all four hooves in sequence.