Dino is a great horse. Considering I was there about 30 minutes after he was born and have been with him ever since, I’ve got a bit of an attachment to him. But, he’s also been Charlie’s primary horse so my time spent working with him over the last year or two has been marginal. However, I’ve been on a trick-training spurt and decided that Dino, given his very mellow and accepting nature, would be a good candidate for teaching the bow and eventually the “lie down”. So armed with halter, rope, stick and a handful of yummy treats, I proceeded to start with the “bow”. Our first day was spent getting Dino used to the rope around his ankle and working on lifting the foot off the ground with pressure. The second day was more of the same. On the third day I held the foot up by dallying the rope around the saddle horn and applying some side pull pressure on the leg rope and the halter. As I crouched beside Dino, treat in hand, I used the stick to tap his knee (saying Booooowwww) and with some patience waited until Dino bent down on his knee using the leg that was being held up, to get the treat. Once he was rewarded for that move, the stage had been set! And Dino is a sucker for treats, petting and lots of attention – all of which he got in large doses.
The next time I worked on the bow with Dino it took very little pressure on the rope and only a couple of taps on the knee before he went down, several times.
The series of pictures below was the fifth time we worked on the bow. I still had to use the rope although I don’t think I’ll need it too much longer as Dino will start to lift his foot and scrunch down on his own. He just gets a little confused about how much to bend the leg so the rope helps to guide his leg. He likes performing this, for the treats of course (and I’m working on moderating this….) and he’s a big sucker for all the attention. Having done several nice bows from his left side, I decided I’d better work on his right side, just so he was balanced and each leg got an equal workout.
When I started to apply pressure with the rope on Dino’s right front leg, he was a bit confused and started pawing the air. With some cajoling and a couple of spins around me, he finally understood he was supposed to crouch down. For some reason, on this side Dino just decided he’d go all the way down and with a rather ungracious “plop” down he went! And he was very content to just stay down as we fawned over him, gave him lots of pets and of course slipped him a fair amount of goodies. He gave some thought to getting up a couple of times but life was pretty good laying down there in the sand.
Eventually I decided to sit on him and ask him to get up. At first he wasn’t all that enthused but with a few encouraging clucks he thrust himself upwards and I rather ungraciously bobbled with him. Of course he was wildly praised for this so when I asked him to go down again it took about 2 seconds before he was happily laying in the sand looking for his treats and attention. This time I decided I’d give the poor guy a break and had Ralen sit on him for the ride back up. Of course after Ralen sat in the saddle while Dino was down, Charlie was having technical difficulties with the camera. It’s a little difficult to explain to your horse he has to wait a few minutes until the cameraman is ready but somehow Dino managed to get the message and when the camera was ready, Dino got up – witnessed below!
I figure we need a lot more time spent on refining our technique, but Dino understands the basic concept. My goal is to eliminate the rope soon and just be able to cue on the knee with the stick. Eventually I’d like to translate that to a cue I give from the saddle so he will bow while ridden. The approach I’ll take is “baby steps” and lots of positive reinforcement (and reduction of treats as I’ve learned). My dilemma now is “what if Dino just wants to lay down everytime instead?”. Hmmmm… I’ll have to tackle that one if it crops up. In the meantime, maybe I’ll train the left side to bow and the right side to lay down! I’ll be sure to post my progress so you know how Dino and I fare over the next few months. 