Fixing What's Broken

There have been times during my Parelli journey with Sonny that we have been going down a path that I thought would be taking us in the proper direction but I found that Sonny was not responding as I had expected. While I seem to be pretty good at recognizing when something is not working, I have not always been that successful at correcting the problem. Turns out that I don’t always know just what is broken.
Recently I was fortunate to be able to attend a clinic with the 5-Star Parelli instructor Carol Coppinger. This was my second clinic with Carol and we were working on level 3-4 skills. I’d heard Carol tell more than one student that it is important when working with your horse through a puzzle not to make him feel like he’s wrong and I’ve found that she is one of those rare people who can coach you through a problem without having you feel like you have been completely wrong.
The first morning we were in the arena with our horses on line playing with a variety of obstacles. There were 10 students in the class and even though it was a fairly big indoor ring, between horses and obstacles, space was a bit tight. Midway through the session, Carol told us that we were going to begin working at liberty. One by one, we were to remove the halters while disengaging our horses and then have them stick to us and continue to play with the obstacles.
I thought that we were going to have absolute chaos, but one by one as the horses were released, they stuck to their leaders. Then Carol called my name. I untied Sonny’s halter and turned to disengage him so that he would be facing me but instead of following me he drifted away and soon was trotting around the arena.
“We have a loose horse.” Carol called out to the rest of the group. “Protect your herd of two when he comes near you and chase him away so he can find Noreen.”
Sonny trotted around for a few minutes before finally making his way back to me. Thinking this would be the end of his Houdini routine, I patted his neck and slipped him a treat before disengaging him we could start again but instead of following me he turned away and soon was at the far end of the arena trying to join up with one of the other horses. He was chased back to me again but just wouldn’t stay with me and we repeated this catch and run off routine again. None of the other horses seemed to be having a problem following their leaders and feeling more than a little embarrassed at the disruption Sonny and I were causing, I finally concluded I needed to put him back on line.
At this point Carol came over. “OK, let’s see if we can figure out what the problem” Carol said. “Let me see you disengage him.”
I backed Sonny away from me, then looked at his butt and wiggled the carrot stick. Sonny turned to face me but his response was a bit lackluster.
“Your “disengage” is broken.” Carol said. “Let’s see if we can fix that.”
Carol took Sonny’s lead line from my hand, walked over to him and gave him a pat on the neck. Rubbing his back with her hand and the carrot stick, she stood next to his midsection for a moment before taking a step straight backwards and focusing on his rear end. When Sonny failed to turn promptly she popped him on his butt with the carrot stick, causing him to jump around to face her, ears pricked forward and attention riveted. The look on his face was almost comical. I was sure he was thinking “Who IS this woman?” Carol repeated the procedure and by the third time, Sonny was turning immediately when she focused on his hindquarters. Then she shifted around to Sonny’s other side and replicated the process before handing back his lead line and letting me give it a try.
“OK” Carol said after watching me briefly, “I think we have that fixed.”
I silently hoped she was right as I unknotted Sonny’s halter and disengaged his hindquarters. He stuck to me for a few minutes but then one of the other horses trotted by and Sonny turned to follow. Desperately trying to disengage Sonny, I flicked the carrot stick toward him. He jumped sideways and dashed away. Deflated I looked toward Carol.
“That was too much for working at liberty,” she told me. “At liberty you need to be much more subtle. It looks to me like now your friendly game is broken. So go ahead and catch him and then we will fix that.”
By this time I was getting pretty dejected, but I retrieved Sonny and put his halter on. Carol told me to rub Sonny’s back along his right side with my hand and the carrot stick but he didn’t seem to want me behind his withers. At her instruction, I persisted until he relaxed and then went around to the left side. Pretty soon he let out a big sigh and was following me around meekly.
“OK”, I said to no one in particular, “Let’s give this one last try.” Removing Sonny’s halter for the third time, I disengaged him and walked off. To my great relief, Sonny followed along and this time stuck to me. Heaving a sigh, I smiled toward Carol.
Addressing the group Carol acknowledged my trials. “Noreen is doing the right thing here. When something is broken at liberty, you go back on line to fix it. Sometimes it will take you more than one attempt to get it right. You just have to keep working on it.”
The rest of the liberty session passed without Sonny taking another walk on the wild side and by the time we broke for lunch, I wasn’t feeling quite so embarrassed about our lack of harmony at liberty. Besides, I had learned an important lesson about what is broken when the “Stick to Me” game isn’t working,
Following the afternoon group session, we each had a private 15 minute session with Carol. Since we could work on anything we wanted in our private sessions, I chose to work on change of direction and figure eights on line at the trot. Sonny does these maneuvers but often he exhibits what I refer to as “snarky” behavior, pinning his ears and feigning a charge. I explained the situation to Carol.
“That is usually a sign of dominant behavior,” Carol told me. “You’re already moving backwards when you ask for a change in direction so he thinks he is driving you. How’s your snappy back up? Why don’t you show me that?”
I asked Sonny to back up and he sauntered back a few steps.
“Is that as snappy as it gets?” Carol asked.
I asked Sonny again, this time with significantly more flapping of stick and arms. He back up a little more quickly.
“Well, that took quite a bit more effort on your part than on his part” Carol said. “I think your snappy back up is broken. Let’s see if we can fix that.”
Taking Sonny’s lead, Carol asked him to back up. When he gave his usual lackadaisical response she popped him in the chest with the savvy string and Sonny scooted backwards a step or two. Pretty quickly she had him backing with alacrity as soon as she asked.
“OK, that looks pretty good” she finally said. “Now let’s take a look at the figure eight.”
Carol asked Sonny to circle at the trot and after a couple of laps, she back up and asked for a change in direction. Sonny responded the way he usually does, starting toward her with ears pinned. She sent him off in the other direction by popping him on the shoulder with the savvy string. Looking surprised, Sonny hopped away on the new path.
“You need to make it a game” she told me. “The game is, if you come at me like that, I’m going to reach out and tag you. Pretty soon he is going to figure it out.”
As Carol continued to ask Sonny to change direction, he began to shift his front end more quickly away from her. By the fifth try, his shoulder was out of reach of the savvy string and he was registering a much nicer attitude on my “snark-o-meter.”
“That looks pretty good” Carol said. “Why don’t you give it a try?”
I used the snappy back up to move Sonny away from me and then asked him to trot in a circle. When I began to walk backwards and ask for a change in direction, he pivoted through the turn and trotted off in the other way with only the mildest of complaint.
“Wow” I said to Carol. “I never would have figured that the problem with his change in direction was not having a good snappy back up.”
The next morning I put Sonny on the 22 foot line and took him into the arena. I practiced disengaging him in both directions and then did a few snappy back ups. I asked him to trot a figure out around two barrels and he stepped off quickly keeping his far ear pricked forward and his near ear rotated toward me. Feeling encouraged, I took off his halter to check his liberty and he stuck to me like a tick on a dog. He trotted next to me over a pole on the ground and wove through some small cones. I was thrilled with our progress in such a short period of time and reflected that it is amazing how much you can fix once you have figured out just what is broken.