Recognizing the Slightest Try

During my natural horsemanship journey I have often had instructors tell me to reward the slightest try and I have worked hard to do that with my partner, Sonny. But this summer during a clinic with John and Kathy Barr I gained a new appreciation of just how subtle the slightest try might actually be.
The clinic was being held at Willow Brook, Peter Fuller’s magnificent facility near Bethlehem, PA. Willow Brook is a wonderful place to play with your horse. There is a large, Parelli friendly playground with a variety of obstacles, including various bridges, a teeter-totter and a car wash that I don’t have access to at home. There are also two large arenas, one indoor and one outdoor and a lovely pond where the horses can enjoy a swim. The staff is both friendly and helpful and everyone does their best to make you feel welcome and comfortable.
John Barr had been my instructor when I attended Fast Track at the Parelli Center in Florida during November of 2010. I had really enjoyed his teaching style when I was in Florida, but with 45 students and 6 other instructors at Fast Track, I didn’t have many opportunities to work with him individually. I had been excited when I learned he was coming to Willow Brook and looking forward to the opportunities presented by the smaller class. John’s wife, Kathy had also been in Florida but she spent less time with the Fast Track students because she was teaching another course. The two presentations she had made to us in Florida had been both informative and entertaining and I was looking forward to spending more time with her.
Unfortunately it was mid July and it was almost unbearably hot and humid, even in the Lehigh Valley which is usually a few degrees cooler than Delaware in the summer. There is not much shade on the Willow Brook playground so after a morning of playing with our horses on line, everyone was happy to head for the picnic grove where we could have lunch under the tall evergreen trees and enjoy the shade and slight breeze. After lunch each day, John and Kathy would let us sit in the shade and ask any questions that might have come up from our morning activities. The second day, the conversation turned to the idea of rewarding the slightest try and someone asked Kathy what she looked for to tell her a horse was trying.
“Well,” Kathy answered, “it depends a lot on your horse’s horsenality. With an extroverted horse, you might see more than with an introverted horse and if your horse is a left brain introvert, you might not see much at all to begin with.”
At this point, Kathy really had my attention. Sonny is inherently a left brain introvert. He is much more dominant than my previous horse, a right brain introvert, and when I first purchased him, I was surprised by some of his behavior. For example, whenever I had treats, he would come at me with his ears back and an expression that generally communicated, “Give me the carrot and no one gets hurt!” He also was very stubborn and when I was asking him to do something he often had an expression on his face that I came to think of as the “You and what army are going to make me do this!” expression.
“Let me demonstrate. I’ll be the horse. John how about if you are ask me to yield his front end,” Kathy said,
John took the carrot stick and wiggled it toward Kathy’s nose. .Kathy crossed her arms over her chest, hunched her shoulders, wrinkled her face into a frown and stared directly forward.
. I knew that expression instantly. It was Sonny’s “you and what army” face.
Kathy shifted her eyes to the right and then back forward, maintaining the frown. “I might reward that the first time,” she told us. “But the second time I would expect a little more.”
John wiggled the stick at Kathy again. This time she turned her head the slightest bit to the right and then back forward. “That would be a good second try” she told us.
On the third try, her head turned a little more and this time her expression began to soften toward John. Finally, on the fourth try, she took a step sideways.
A low hum broke out among the students. I don’t think any of us would have thought of a shifting of the eyes as a try and that was what one of the students said out loud.
“With an introvert, sometime the first or second try will be very slight and subtle.” Kathy reiterated. “You really need to learn to read your horse. You may not think you are putting much pressure on your horse but many times you are almost yelling at them with your body language and expecting way too much.”
This little demo had given me a lot to think about and I was anxious to get it a try. When I saddled Sonny for the afternoon riding session, I was determined to see if I could apply what Kathy had showed us during our warm up. I took him out on the play ground on line, positioned myself in front of him and asked him to yield his nose. As soon as he began to move his nose away a fraction of an inch, I stopped asking and went back to neutral. Sonny stared at me. I rubbed his nose and then asked again. As soon as Sonny flexed his nose away a tiny bit more than the first time, I stopped asking. He lowered his head a bit; ears pinned forward at me and very slowly gave a secretive little chew. I waited a moment and asked again. This time he turned his head away to the side and I immediately stopped. Sonny’s focus instantly came back to me and this time he blew and then really started to chew in earnest.
“Wow!” I though to myself, “Kathy is really on to something. I think I have been wanting way too much as the slightest try.”
For the rest of the clinic I continued to experiment with just how little Sonny’s slightest try might be. By the end of the clinic he was showing more exuberance than I had ever seen from him before. He was giving me traveling circles and jumping the largest logs on the playground with hardly any encouragement from me. This small adjustment in my expectations had made a huge difference in our relationship in a very short period of time.
Since attending John and Kathy’s clinic at Willow Brook, I’ve continued to experiment with this idea of how small the slightest try might be. I’ve become much better at reading Sonny’s expression and rewarding his slightest efforts and as a result, our progress has really accelerated. But I don’t think we would be where we are today, if I hadn’t had Kathy Barr’s help in refining my idea of just how small the slightest try could be when dealing with a left brain introvert like Sonny.