Monty Roberts

Kameo: The Experiment (Process & Goals)

Tchad

I thought I would explain a bit about what we are going to try to do with Kameo over the next few months.

Cyndi and I have talked about goal and process a lot.  and have come up with a timeline that is a little compact and aggressive without being too heavy with expectations that could make this whole thing a terrible wash.

Pat Parelli is a horseman and trainer that runs and international horse training operation with his wife Linda.  Pat is the Western rider and Linda cut her teeth long ago in high-level dressage.  They make a great pair.  Each of them has a slightly different approach with the horses, but they use an organic natural training.

Their training (as I am understanding it) is based on what they call the Seven Games.  These are games that Pat developed as he worked with and watched horses over his career.  They are games that horses play with each other and humans can play with them.  You use the Seven Games to speak the horse’s language during training.
The seven games are:

  1. Friendly Game
  2. Porcupine Game
  3. Driving Game
  4. Yo-Yo Game
  5. Sideways Game
  6. Circling Game
  7. Squeeze Game

More information can be found about these games and horse-training philosphy at the Parelli website and the links in the sidebar of this site, but here is a (very) basic breakdown of what they are and what they do:

  1. The Friendly Game is a way of introducing yourself physically to the horse and letting it know that you aren’t a threat.  You do it with a carrot stick and rope initially.  After the horse is comfortable with you touching them all over with the stick and rope, you can work into more aggressive and personal touching.  In this case, we are going to have to go SLOW.  Every day we will have to start off with maybe 45 minutes of friendly game and incorporate it into all of our interactions.
  2. The Porcupine Game is a way of getting the horse to respond to pointed and direct pressure.  The point isn’t to poke at the horse, but for them to understand the implication of direct pressure.
  3. The Driving Game is a kind of outgrowth of the porcupine game.  You use it to imply pressure to direct the horse.
  4. The Yo-Yo game is a game of backing up in a controlled and direct way.
  5. The Sideways Game is just that.
  6. The Circling Game is a way for the trainer to direct the movement of the horse in an intentional way.
  7. The Squeeze Game prepares the horse for tight spaces and helps them overcome their claustrophobia.

Now the Parellis aren’t the only game in town, and like I tell my sewing and design students: You want to find out as much information from as many different sources as possible for a couple of reasons.  On one hand, you may find the same information written or presented in a different voice that appeals to you more.  Always look around.

When I was researching how to train and what I was going to need to do, I started with Parelli through Cyndi and my cousin Bill.

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make a difference in just two days a week, but Bill said that if we managed it right, it should make a difference.  I would have to be careful not to push too hard and that I may have to extend my timeline a little, but two days a week would work if we kept it together.

I sat down and started to think about the problems we were up against, the positives we could use to our advantage, and the schedule we would need to come up with.

Here goes!

Goals:

  1. Have a sweeter, kinder horse.
  2. Have a braver horse.
  3. Have a breed-able horse that won’t imprint its own negative traits in the foaling stall.
  4. Have a functional horse from a riding and working perspective.

Problems:

There are a few problems right off the bat.

  1. Halter and leading
  2. Touching and trust
  3. Movement and direction
  4. Spooking and fear
  5. Biting, nipping, and kicking

Positives:

There are a few good things about her:

  1. She is whip smart.  She can pick up on things fast.
  2. She is in great shape.
  3. She has tons of energy.
  4. She isn’t food driven.  This is nice. It means I don’t have to have a pocket full of treats to get my point across.
  5. She really likes me, it seems.

Schedule:

I have two days a week that I can be out on the farm.  Kameo can’t take two 12 hours of instruction.  Both of us would be in a battle of wills.  I don’t need to prove that I am the Duke of Wellington to her Napoleon.

I am going to have to come up with a schedule that is a bit of a challenge and yet gives her some time to think and relax.

Process & Schedule:

And here we are.  The process.  I am going to have to come up with a direct and yet somewhat flexible schedule for us.  Here is what I’ve cobbled together:

  • Week 1: Friendly Games, grooming, leading
  • Week 2: Friendly Games, grooming, leading
  • Week 3: Friendly Games, grooming, leading, begin desensitization
  • Week 4: Friendly Games, grooming, leading, desensitization, begin porcupine, begin some squeeze game to prep for trailering
  • Week 5: Friendly Games, grooming, leading, desensitization, porcupine, squeeze game, begin saddle & cinch as a friendly game, begin introduction of bit & bridle
  • Week 6: Friendly Games, grooming, leading, desensitization, porcupine, squeeze, saddle & cinch as friendly game, introduction to bit & bridle
  • Week 7: Friendly Games, grooming, leading, desensitization, porcupine, squeeze, saddle & cinch as friendly game, begin driving, bit & bridle
  • Week 8: Friendly Games, grooming, leading, desensitization, porcupine, squeeze, saddle & cinch as friendly game, driving, begin circle game, bit & bridle
  • Week 9: Friendly Games, grooming, leading, desensitization, porcupine, squeeze, saddle & cinch as friendly game, driving circle game, bit & bridle

We will leave it there for the time being.  I am still pretty new to this and have to remember that I can’t put a horse on a training schedule like I would schedule a dress for one of my clients.

Wish me luck!

Kameo: The Experiment (An Introduction)

Tchad

Alternate Title:

My Strange Love Affair With Mustang Sally

Or, less preferable:

A Horse is a Horse (of Course, of Course) Until She Stomps Your Head

 

When my friend Greg died, I ended up spending a lot of time with his two sisters. One of them has a small herd of horses in Wisconsin.  Cyndi runs Getaway Farms in Plymouth, Wisconsin.
When I first visited the farm last Summer, I met Kameo.

Kameo in Stall

The only time this horse was calm was when she was eating.

Kameo is a 5 year old Arabian horse that has decent bloodlines and a sad history.  She shied from everything and seemed to think that everything was dangerous and scary.

Those who know me know that I am a fixer.  I fix things.  I set things right.  It doesn’t matter if it is people, architectural rehabs, or (as it turns out) horses.
There was something about her that drew me to her.  The fear and panic in her made me think that we had a lot in common.  We both have been pushed around and abused to the point where we draw in on ourselves and spook at the world.

She had been foaled on a small farm and scared to death her first couple of years.  They kept her in cross-ties and stalls and got her through doors and trailers by shaking milk jugs full of rocks at her.  Pretty much just frightening her to do what they wanted her to do.  When the results of this kind of imprinting became obvious and she was deemed un-trainable, they gave her to a smaller farm where she was tended to by a worry-wart of a new owner.  The new owner wasn’t abusive like the former owner, but she was very high-strung and hand-wavy.  Instead of working through the abuse that the horse had gone through, she would fret and fuss over the bad behavior making it worse.
By the time Cyndi got her, she had been abused and then coddled so that her bad behavior was exacerbated a hundred-fold.

She wouldn’t let you halter her, she couldn’t trailer, and she had never even had a saddle or blanket put on her.  She was practically feral.

She was given away as an un-trainable horse.

She had had no trailering experience, so they had to practically dismantle the trailer when they brought her to Getaway.  Tight spaces made her crazy.

Cyndi wasn’t sure how the other horses would react to her, so she brought her to the back pasture a couple score yards away from the main herd.  Even as frightened as she was with all of the stimulation and new environment, her herd instinct is so strong that she ramped and raced through two electric fences to join the herd she didn’t even know.

Now, she is second-to-last in the pecking order of the herd.  She gets pushy sometimes in the pasture, but the herd that existed before she came was well established and so her place is pretty solid.  Because she seems to be the equine equivalent of Rebbecca Sharp, she is always being pushed back into place after an attempt to climb the social ladder.

One day this Summer, I mentioned to Cyndi that I would like to try to train Kameo and see what happens.  She likes me enough that she will come to me in the pasture and follow me for a bit and I have been wanting to get back into horses, so it seemed like a good match.

We had been watching a lot of Pat & Linda Parelli on DVD and were in a place where anything seems possible.  The Parellis will do that to you, you know.  One minute you are thinking that nothing good will ever come of this mare and then you see Pat and Linda doing what seems to be magic on some monster of a horse and all of the sudden you are seeing yourself Roman riding in the circus as cannons fire and lights flash.  It is very seductive.

It helps that I grew up watching my cousin Bill Hewig train and work horses. When I was little and we went over, I would watch him work with them in the round pen and listen to him talk about them.  He gave us our family horse, Nicholas.  Nick was a large sturdy white Quarter Horse that was great with kids.  We rode him and played with him until my parents got divorced and my brothers and I had to move into the city.

In any case, Bill was talking to me about a couple of conversations he has had with Monty Roberts and gave me some intro pointers and references.  The next thing Cyndi and I have to do is come up with some goals.

She wants a happy horse that will be tolerant, manageable, and softer so that Kameo can be bred.  I would add to that that I would like a horse that is capable of some work as well as pleasure.  I don’t really respond to the idea of horses as pets, but don’t think that all they should do is pull or carry.  So she and I are working on a bit of a continuum of expectations.

The things we agree on are far more important.  We both are thinking that natural riding and training are the way to go.  We aren’t going to use cross-ties and bits if we can help it and we are both against whips and crops as discipline.

And thus begins the experiment.  I am going to incorporate the training into some of the broader aspects of my business for two days a week for the next six months.  We will see how far that gets us.

Stay tuned.