Kate Little Clinic: Day 3 (+) - Groundwork

 This is *partly* a recap from day 3, when I had my lesson focused on honing my groundwork skills and adding to my knowledge of in-hand work that translates to under saddle work. However, Pyro had a very full dance card over the 4 days, participating in lessons with other co-op members, and I will include learnings from those groundwork sessions as well. Saddle up, because this post is substantial.

To add to the fun clinic atmosphere, Pyro sported a sparkly Pinto Party cutie mark.
Once again, grainy screenshots are mine, and any nice photos are courtesy of Jen and Liz.

Pyro can be a... difficult horse to handle. Due to some things outside my control, he got away with a lot of pushy behavior as a foal, and he has a rather bold, playful personality in general. Even though I've earned his respect and don't have any issues handling him, he does not automatically translate that respect to other humans. He tests each new person who handles him. If they don't earn his respect, he can be pushy and rude. Add in that while he's slow to think through and process things, he is highly sensitive and VERY fast to react, which can cause a situation to snowball into downright dangerous. As you might imagine, this adds a lot of strain in a co-op boarding situation, where other members are handling him daily. 

It might be hard to reconcile this relaxed and focused boy I can ask to flow through groundwork with me with a horse that has bitten other people, but that's our reality. 

I've made it clear to my fellow co-op members that their safety is paramount. If they deem they don't feel safe handling Pyro that day, all they have to do is text me, leaving him for me to deal with. Now, this is not a normal occurrence. I could count on one hand the number of times over the past 4 years that I've had to make an extra trip out to the barn for Pyro. I think once he refused to be caught to be led in, so they left him in the pasture (with hay and water of course), until I came out about an hour later. More commonly, especially if particularly bad weather requires us to keep the horses in for 24 hours, it's simply that his hay gets tossed loose in his stall, rather than retrieving his hay pillow from the back corner to be refilled. Other times, rather than calling me, he gets herded into his stall from a distance. 

I often get to work with Dr. Jekyll...

...while others are stuck with Mr. Hyde.

Going into this clinic, I felt I had exhausted everything I knew in trying to fix his inconsistency when handled by others. Prior groundwork with Kate had given me a lot of tools to use with Pyro that I found deeply beneficial, so I made the open offer to the co-op members to pay for them to take a groundwork lesson with Kate and Pyro. All of them took me up on the offer, although one later couldn't attend due to an emergency. My hope was that we could all be consistent in our handling of him, giving him clear boundaries of what is and isn't acceptable behavior. I dreamed that some of the broken trust between Pyro and other boarders could start to be mended. 

I want others to be able to see the good boy Pyro can be, not the problem child of the barn. 

While I was unsure how my presence might change Pyro's behavior, I chose to audit each of their lessons so I could be aware of his trouble spots and use the same cues they were being taught. In hindsight, I can say this was the right choice because he definitely still tested them, and I came away with a better understanding of what handling Pyro is like to each individual. 

A barnmate sidepassing Pyro over an "L" of poles

Kate had a couple key observations about handling Pyro that I have paraphrased:

• If you don't slow down and give him a chance to think, the abrupt cues breed resentment.
• He's only going to get "loud" with his behaviors (such as resorting to biting) when he thinks that's the only option left to him. It's easy to try to override his quieter behaviors (such as dragging him along when he leans back on the cue to walk forward), however, this communicates to him that you don't HEAR him. Making it a 2-way conversation goes a long way in building trust and cooperation.

He can get a bit angsty

An underlying theme across all of the groundwork lessons was starting with the softest cue you want the horse to respond to, then methodically escalating the pressure in 4 second intervals. While this 4 seconds feels like an absolute ETERNITY, Pyro really does need that time to process a cue. 

Asking for haunches in 

Kate also reiterated that we all needed to consistently adhere to the rule that he is never allowed to touch us. (If he reaches out his muzzle and touches us, that's our cue to put him to work.) However, we may always reach out to touch him. This guidance helped provide structure for engaging with Pyro's muzzle on OUR terms. 

He very much wants to engage with his world via his muzzle. 

One of my barnmates was completely new to groundwork. It was interesting to hear her feedback after her lesson because she felt really empowered by the tools Kate gave her. She suggested I offer this kind of groundwork lesson to any new boarders going forward because she originally felt a little thrown in the deep end when she joined the barn and had to handle Pyro. (I think this is an excellent idea and will implement it going forward. Thankfully, Kate offers virtual lessons.)

Pyro giving her floppy, listening ears

Since haltering/muzzling in the stall is one of the most common tasks the co-op members have to do with Pyro, Kate helped us develop an approach that teaches him to soften and relax so we can safely and quickly complete that chore. When we open the stall door, we ask him to back a step or two. Next, we approach his shoulder and loop the crownpiece of his halter around his nose. Using that, we ask him to slightly bend laterally toward us and drop his head. Finally, both hands can be used to lift the muzzle over his nose and flip the crownpiece smoothly over his head, avoiding rubbing his eyes. This helps us make a habit of him relaxing and holding his head where he can be easily haltered (as opposed to going full giraffe-mode). He often tries to mouth the muzzle, and Kate coached my barnmates to wait it out, continuing to focus on asking him to bend and drop his head into a relaxed position. Since I'm more comfortable with him, she gave me the option to yield his hindquarters, making him work harder, while maintaining the ask with the crownpiece around his nose. 

Kate discovered a very tender knot in the muscle on the right of his poll. I'm gently working on it to help with any reactivity it might cause. 

While less frequent, another trouble spot is picking up his feet to check his hooves for snowpack or replace a fly boot while loose in the stall. He often tries to playfully (or not so playfully) reach around and nip while you're bent over. When he tries this, we are to put him to work. My barnmate who brought it up first got to practice in the arena while Pyro ground tied. In the small space of the stall, sidepassing him back and forth while you stay in the doorway worked well. We're looking for him to let us pick up his feet, keeping the leg nice and loose so we can wiggle it freely, without reaching his head around to us. 

No media from in the stall, but this relaxed, attentive state is what we want when we're handling him in the stall. 

In my own lesson, it once again became clear that I needed to constantly be searching for moments I could be even softer. There were exercises when I wasn't quite ready to let him stop moving (such as when waiting for him to relax into the movement rather than just putting his feet in the right places), but I needed to reward his efforts by returning to that soft initial cue, rather than holding the increased pressure. On the rare occasion I remembered to soften mid-ask and timed it right, he melted into the movement. 

Kate led me through many in-hand exercises to further build his balance, such as walk pirouettes, contra bend walk pirouettes (trying to draw his shoulders towards me about broke my brain), haunches in along the wall, shoulders out along the wall, etc. 

Driving him in front of me for shoulders out, watching how he balances and uses his body

Working through these movements shed light on a hole in Pyro's groundwork with me. I've spent so much time driving him away from me that I hadn't developed the draw to balance it. He was sticky at first, and rather than increasing the pressure forward on the lead rope, I was told to lightly and rapidly tap-tap-tap my dressage whip on his side, like an annoying barking chihuahua (lol). When I did finally draw him forward, it was like he thought the boundary rules went out the window, and he crowded into my space. Kate had me stand in front of him along a wall (to aid straightness) and alternate between sending him back and drawing him forward at the trot to me, maintaining my bubble. This exercise also had benefits for how he uses his body, and I was to look for him to sit into the back and snap his hind legs up under him when transitioning forward into the trot.

Drawing him towards me at the trot while I jog backwards. 

At the end of the final barnmate groundwork lesson (also on day 3), I took a minute to ask for what general advice or guidance Kate had for me in dealing with Pyro needing to be handleable by other people going forward. She tactfully delivered some constructive criticism, saying that I don't realize how much I help and manage Pyro in our day to day interactions. She said that 5% that I help him might be 100% of someone else's horsemanship skills. This was an eye-opening revelation for me, because I truly didn't realize how many little communications I had with him to help him make the right choice. 

Such is the danger of raising a homebred and being his sole trainer for 6 years, I suppose. 

It's unfair of me to expect others to know, understand, and handle Pyro the way I do.

I'm "his person", and we've built a deep foundation of understanding and trust.

So, I have to stop making up for him. With each interaction, I have to ask myself, "Could an 8- or 88- year old, not-very-horse-savvy person handle him with ease?" If not, I have to take the time to *teach* him the correct behavior, so he does it automatically on his own without any subtle cues from me. This is how I help make him safe for anyone to handle. 

Kate Little, delivering "come to Jesus" moments to both horses and handlers with a healthy dose of joy, compassion, and confidence building.

My hope that Pyro can become the kind of solid citizen that anyone could handle has been rekindled. I realize it'll take time and consistent work on my part, but I no longer feel at a loss for what to do to work towards that. Since this revelation, it has honestly been kind of fun to channel my inner 8-year-old when doing mundane daily tasks with Pyro. If he does something that makes me think, "hmm, that might make a non-horse-person uncomfortable", I take advantage of the training opportunity, then continue to bop along like I expect him to perfect without my help. Example behaviors are crowding my space when leading, milling around the stall while I'm in there, and touching anything with his muzzle when ground tied.

He's a grown-ass man, so it's about time I took the training wheels off.

I'm grateful the environment of the clinic made it a safe space for these kinds of tough conversations. Every time I get a chance to learn from Kate, I become a better horsewoman, and her lessons continue to be transformative as I implement them on a daily basis.