Duncan's lame! Thresholds explained by LP. Don't let him stay there too long!

Mon 10th May 2010

Having mentally committed to 29th May dressage, taken courage to ask J if I could use her school - she said yes!! Got tacked up ready to go and use said school, I found poor D was hopping lame on his off-fore! Looks like an abscess brewing.

Disappointed but not surprised. He seems prone to them in the summer. They usually resolve themselves but it could take a couple of weeks. I've been hoping he won't get one right before something important like my Parelli course days so, maybe he's getting it out of the way now! We can always put the dressage back. Next one is 12th June.

Just found some fab stuff on Linda Parelli's blog about thresholds. I'm sure she won't mind me copying them in here to remind me what I need to do - or what not to do! Slightly alter to fit all scenarios as she is talking about trailer loading but it applies to everything!

1. It has to be the horse’s idea to cross the threshold, don’t push him over it in any way or you destroy trust and confidence.

2. Making him uncomfortable outside of the trailer only causes a horse to load into the trailer to get away from that rather than having him really want to be in the trailer. That’s why we don’t use that approach. It certainly would not be using Love, Language and Leadership!

3. “The next move is his”. So once he’s at the threshold, we WAIT until he does something – either moves forwards or wants to come out again. And if he stays there too long, we bring him out and simply ask him to reapproach.

4. Never push him forwards once he’s stopped, you can only encourage his thoughts otherwise you are forcing the horse. The bottom line is that the horse has to be able to TRUST that you won’t push him “over the cliff”, that you will allow it to be his decision to go there. When you can do that, your horse will try his heart out for you. He will trust you and feel safe with you, and the effects will be felt in everything else you do with him too. Anyone can force a horse to get in, the real art is in helping him to develop the confidence to load himself.

Wow! That's really got me thinking again about Duncan's thresholds. When he stops, I watch his expression to see when he's ready to move forward of his own accord or is confident enough to be directed. He will either look soft in the eye or grumpy! I know I don't get it right all the time - Duncan tells me so! - so this is a good reminder for me.

Actually, re 3 above, I have been doing "don't let him stay there too long" without realising why. I've been asking D to back up, disengage or flex but NOT go forward. Fantastic, this is answering all the questions I had floating around. In fact, I'd emailed Kat asking her for a synopsis of what was covered in a "what to do when my horse is unconfident" session they had on a recent course. Whoopie do! Now, here's the funny thing. If D hadn't been lame, I wouldn't be sitting here writing my blog (now Weds), I'd be riding but probably not figuring things out the way I am now.

Every cloud has a silver lining....!