Saturday was the first day I took Remy by myself in the trailer. Luckily Sandy is feeling better; and she started teaching again. With Remy, the key right now is to keep the hallway narrow, meaning keeping my hands close together and low. I have a tendency to widen my hands in an effort to help him with straightness. Unfortunately, that produces just the opposite and gives Remy more wiggle room. So a good image is to pretend we are on a narrow highway, and we better stay in our lane!
Remy worked well, and didn't get rattled about being alone. However, when it was time to go home the picture changed: "Young Man" planted his feet in front of the ramp and refused to go forward. Now here is a horse that until then loaded perfectly, always on the first try. This time though, no go. I remembered Buck Brannaman's saying "You need to control the feet", and clearly, I did not have control of the feet. Thinking back, that also happened during my ride, as Sandy pointed out several times that Remy was not responsive enough to my leg. The temperatures were scorching and I decided to get the job done, pronto. We got Cay-Lyn out from under her well deserved shower, and all it took for Remy to march in was her standing behind him with the 'handy-stick'.
Hmm, obviously, we need to put more emphasis on groundwork, and controlling the feet. On Sunday the goal was to do exactly that and practise loading. Another area that needed addressing was Remy's idea of unloading. Having always traveled in slant load trailers before coming to us he preferred turning around in the trailer and walk out head first. I used to open the partition of my straight load so he could turn around and walk off. Not the safest way to do it. So yesterday I left the partition up and we practises backing down the ramp (after having worked on backing on the flat). The first attempt was rather reluctant, but by the second try Remy had it and we quit on the perfect third unloading.
What do the old masters say? "Repeat often, acknowledge the smallest progress, praise lavishly". Works equally well for animals and humans!
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