July 30th 2017
I had to a brilliant lesson today with Jo, Mojo still is not 100% OK with someone on his back and walking at the same time. So it back to the dummy rider and lots of SD and CC to weight and things flapping about.
The first video he is learning to stand still at the mountng block and not try to turn round for the reinforcement.
The second one is him targeting the cone so he takes a step forward, he was tense and a little worried by this and spooked twice – once when bitten by a fly and the other time when he touch my stirrup with his nose – my daughter thought he may have been punished in the past for this – as apparently people kick their horses nose away! It never occurred to me to do that. So Mojo may have expected punishment – we don’t know for sure that is why, but he was in a riding school at some point in his life and they may have tried to discourage this behaviour.
Thank you Jo, I now have to remember everything!
Update August
Jo has looked at the videos and thinks the second spook was due to Mojo touching a cone, there was some trigger stacking in play – the fly bit him and he was already at his emotional threshold – the cone touching his leg was the thing that send him over threshold.
There is always a reason for a behaviour – we just need to look closely.
Positive Horsemanship. 