Trick Training Gone Bad and Other Ramblings

Several weeks before Christmas I found myself swamped with all the hubbub of the holiday chaos. I breezed in and out of our horse’s lives with little time to spare for riding – only to feed and pass out some kindly pats on the neck. Then it got bitterly cold and I blanketed everyone up snug and got even quicker with my feeding and visiting regime, trying to limit the time before my fingers, toes and nose suffered severe frostbite.

Rain, looking a bit scruffy, meeting the Friesians!

Unfortunately after the cold spell, rain hit in buckets and what once was a suitable shelter became a mucky mess (it was a ground water issue)! So, amidst the frantic and last minute holiday preparations, we also had to move the horses to more suitable environments. I took Hershey and Dino back to Walnut Spring Stable for boarding, farmed Rain out to a good friend for a little R&R and some Friesian company and my older daughter took her mare back to her Dad.

Hershey and Dino adjusted well to stall life again, and Charlie and I love having a spacious, light and airy sand-filled arena to work in during the winter. The beauty of stall boarding is:

• How clean you can keep your horse!
• How easy it is to get your horse – for riding, brushing, company, etc….
• And Most Importantly…. How easy it is to manage their diets individually!

Hershey, being the easy keeper that he is, gets fat on air. And having spent the summer in a lovely pasture and the fall having access to three other horse’s food – well, needless to say he was looking rather plump. So, being in a stall to himself and only having large sand turnouts to play with Dino in, I put him on some reduced “food intake”. This is not a pleasant experience for Hershey! However, this does bode well for me as he typically tends to be “super good” knowing full well that the more perfectly he performs for me in the arena the sooner our session is over and the sooner he gets to go back to his stall for a light lunch of a small flake of hay and a smidge of grain. Hershey is a smart boy. He’s performing his flying lead changes flawlessly. He’s switching leads on his serpentines. He’s cantering on the diagonal. He’s soft and supple and wonderful to ride. He was even a true gem when my youngest daughter Ralen took a lesson on him. How can I not help but reward this magnificent animal with some goodies?

Ralen and Hershey taking a lesson

But here is where the smart horse gets even smarter. Last year, for a little variety, I taught Hershey some silly little tricks. He learned to smile, to kiss me and to lift whichever leg I pointed to off the ground. Now when I’m standing around talking to someone and holding him, he likes to interrupt with smiling. When I come to the paddock to get him, he comes up to me and kisses me – perhaps hoping that by gently pushing my face like a button I will dispense food for him.

Perhaps the coup de grace with his fine display of trick talent was the day he stood in the cross-ties while I prepped him for riding. While standing on his left side and brushing him he raised his left leg in the air. This was no normal leg raise. This was done with enthusiasm! He lifted that shoulder, held that leg high in the air, bobbed it up and down and arched his neck beautifully. He was a sight to see. So obviously I ran to the little tack area and got him a treat. I then went to the other side and the same thing happened. And again I ran and got him a treat as I was so impressed with his animation and enthusiasm. When I put the saddle on him I had to go back and forth from side to side to adjust gear and fit. In an almost dance-like routine, Hershey hopped from one leg to the other in a showy display of circus horse talent. Of course this meant that I had to periodically pause and run back to the tack room for a few treats as this unexpected display of talent just had to be rewarded.

And as I started huffing and puffing after the seventh or so run back from the tack room I was struck with sudden clarity…“trick training gone bad”. It dawned on me that there was one of us who was really well trained – ME! I could almost hear Hershey’s horsey voice in my head as I imagined him discussing the facts of life with Dino: “…and if you lift one leg really high, shake it around a little and bend your head over like this, they run and get you a treat. If that doesn’t work you can try pushing on their face, but gently because they get mad if you push too hard. Watch the hand when you do this…it should come out to you with the snack, usually happens pretty quickly. You can also try this lip thing, that usually gets them too but the leg deal is the best.”

So perhaps a little reevaluation is needed here. Will I stop trick training? No – it’s just too entertaining and relieves the monotony of regular workouts. Will “I” try to be the “master” of the tricks? Well, I sure hope so in the future as it’s rather humbling being “out-smarted” by a horse! So, a little nugget of wisdom I glossed over on my first round of perusing the trick-training resources: don’t always feed a treat after the trick. Psychologically, you get better performance from an animal if you initially reinforce with a treat after every trick done right then start to cut down on the amount of “treats”. This way the animal isn’t quite sure if a treat is coming or not so he is more apt to perform eagerly hoping this time he’ll get the treat. If he gets the treat all the time he can become complacent. However, if it’s a horse like Hershey, he just figures out the best way to train you!

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Categories: Horse Sense | Tags: Friesian Horses, moving horses, trick training, winter horse care | 4 Comments »

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