The Art of Natural Dressage

I got a huge problem with my horse, Shanna.
Online everything is going great. I can communicate with her without visible signes.
But when I unfasten the leadrope, en do exactly the same as before, she walks with me some time, but then suddenly she runs away, keeps cantering around me in circles and sometimes she runs back and forth at the gate, but most of the time she runs around me with a sort of smile on her face. She has a great time, it seems. And after a few circles, she looks at me, comes back to me at a canter, en says hello. It is not difficult to ask her to come back either.
When i calm her down a bit, and try again, she walks with me for a moment, and then leave again.
The more this happens, the more energetic she gets, the harder it gets to keep her with me.
Send her away just before she gets that idea makes her upset, it seems.

It looks like playing. she is a very playfull horse. But when it takes too long, she get's unconfident en the playing turns slowly into fear.
I work with her for almost 2 years, have been to an instructor with this problem, but no-one really knows what the reason is, she is doing this.

Yesterday I asked her online to go around 3 cones. Then i asked the same with the cordeo, and then without anything, and she listened very well, untill i asked it at liberty. She sort of freaked out, started running, jumping in the air, and challenged me.
I worked at a corral, but that was too small. I worked at a small pasture, and now i work at an area of 20x40 in her own pasture. I only do liberty when Shanna feels confident and focussed. But as soon as i ask her something without the halter, she is gone...

anyone, any suggestions maybe?

When in liberty, do you keep one hand against her body?
That could indicate to her that she is not free to play but still you want her to do some things together with you.

For the rest, maybe you can take a few steps at a time, just rewards massive if she clings on to you while free and still is focussed and make sure you tell her, okay run free before she does it herself.

But the other thing I wanted to express is this:
Why not grant her this if she chooses it so.
Cordeo means: working and training together, cordeo of means Shanna can play like she wants to.
You could leave it at that for the moment. Afterall, you already have much more with your horse on a cordeo then lots of people have with all their tack
And over time, things could change. Patience is the tool most used in AND I think

And last: most AND trainers would relish horses that go nuts and playful when released instead of clinging to you like a toddler on his mommy

You say 'she smiles'. What more can you want

When she does things you do not like, simply leave the paddock.

When she gets stressed, calm her and put the cordeo back on and do things you know calms her down and makes her feel good.

Just some thoughts from my point of view.. she is a wonderful Master!

Warm regards,

Josepha

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www.equusuniversalis.com

owkee, i know what you mean. And I understand why you think i should be glad
Sure it is great when your horse is cantering right to you, although she escaped first
I have been happy with that for 1,5 years now. Let her go, wait until we are connected again and then try again or put the halter on (depending on how stressed she is at that moment). I have tried to go with her playing, run with her,

But now i feel it's time to get a bit further with her. No difficult tasks, but just walk with me, to begin with. Especialle because everything goes nearly perfect online. I never need that line for control. So why can't I just release that leadrope?

that advice of my hand on her body. i'll try that one! i think this will help her stay in contact with me. Maybe this will break the pattern somehow.

I know... but sometimes horses just do not grant us that what we want most somehow.

And the moment we do not think it important, then they just do it

Maybe this can help you girls:

chase the tiger

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www.equusuniversalis.com

I was thinking of chasing the tiger too. If you can play with her she might feel calmer too, and more sure that she is ok doing what she does, because you like doing that too, then she might just feel more secure at liberty all the time because she knows you tell her she does good at liberty.
Just a thought though, I don't have a clue if it's correct

My horse's signal that he is free to do as he wishes, is that he has nothing on him. If the cordeo is off, he can choose to stay with me, or he can play, or he can leave. I don't ASK anything, and I don't expect anything.

Sometimes however, I will go out to the pasture and ask Cisco or Tamarack to follow me back to the barn. If I do this without a cordeo, I risk them changing their minds. If I don't put the cordeo on, it is still their choice. I cannot MAKE them do anything without at least a cordeo on. So, if I go without any means to back up a request to come with me, I have to find a way to make it worth their while to do so. If that means giving a treat every few steps, then that is what I will do.

Cisco will come with me as if he has a halter on, if my hand is on the top of his neck, or holding onto his mane. Tamarack is just now learning this, but he learns it with a few steps at a time.

If you change the situation for the horse (removing tack, for example, or changing the training location) then in the beginning, you must lower the criteria (ask for less than what you would normally ask with the tack on), and reward more often. If a horse will trot the full length of the arena with you, with a cordeo on, then when you take the cordeo off, you have taken away something the horse is used to relying on as a normal part of the behavior. So ask less. Ask only for a walk, for a few paces, then stop and reward. Reduce the criteria as far as you need to for the horse to remain comfortable with what you're asking.

For instance, say you have trained your horse to lie down in an arena. This behavior requires that the horse trust you very much, and also that they are comfortable and calm with the surroundings. So teaching this behavior in a quiet place that the horse is used to is the best place to do it. But then should you expect that he will lie down for you in a different arena, or in a place in which he is not familiar? No! He probably won't do it because there are things around him he is unfamiliar with and where he may still trust you, that doesn't mean he will be comfortable with the surroundings. So essentially, you would have to teach the behavior over again, from the beginning, in this new place. It will probably go faster than it did the first time you taught it, but you can't expect the horse to perform the same when the situation changes so dramatcially (unless you have taught it throguh force, and the horse never thinks he has a choice!).

This is also the same as me riding Cisco with a bridle, then riding with the cordeo. He didn't have a clue what I was asking and he got very cranky with me...so I had to stop and reward very basic things. We are still at this stage, and we will remain at that stage until he says he's ready to move on from there.

So just ask less for now, or take Josepha's advice, and put the cordeo on for your "liberty" work. No one says you have to hold on to the cordeo, but perhaps your horse would be more comfortable with it on.

With a halter or a cordeo on, your horse works by more cues than you know...it's not just your presence, it's the feel of the tack as well.

Maybe I missed it, but when you are working on-line, do you mean you're working with a halter plus line, or with a cordeo plus line? Because that makes a big difference in what might be happening in the head of your horse.
And do you work with foodrewards/treat?

If you mean that with a halter everything goes well, but when working at liberty or with the cordeo she takes off, Ithis behavior might means that she 'breaks free' from the halter and its restrictions when you give her the chance. This can also happen with horses who have never violently fought against the halter or anything, but who silently realise that the halter always is a restriction. It's a bit like dressage horses who seem very content and have been taught good collection with a bridle, but who will raise their neck and hollow themselves as soon as the rider lets go of the rein. I Then I would suggest to not use a halter in training at all, but to begin with the cordeo and end with it in order to give your horse a fair chance to respond to you and have her do everything at her own speed, not that of the human who can get quite pushy with a halter.

If you only train in cordeo already, it can also be however that she is a bit bored in training. When Sjors gets bored, he starts to dig a hole in the ground, which is quite annoying. In that case I would not give her many 'just walk' pauses but instead think of exercises and new things in new combinations all the time. Not a whole side of shoulder in, but only two steps, then forwards in trot and then stop and do three steps of Spanish walk. And get ahead of her in time. You now know that after say five minutes she takes off: so instead of 'forcing' her to take this decision on her own all the time, take it yourself before she has had the chance: start running around after four minutes yourself, and let her follow you. And I agree totally with what is written above: chase the tiger is a perfect exercise for this.

And a final idea: there's no need to divide the world into three categories only: on-line, in cordeo and at liberty. Why not introduce the concept of liberty work slowly, by still working in cordeo, but just not holding it all the time anymore? The same goes for on-line work: when I train the ponies with the cordeo and leadrope, we spend about half the session with the leadrope being slung over their backs and us playing at liberty instead. When there is something that I need to explain with the cordeo, I just grab that. When that's not necessary, I'll let it go again. It's like the hands-on idea of Josepha: just because you're not holding the tack anymore,doesn't mean that you should be away from your horse.

And one final, final, final thing : Check your bodylanguage: with most trainers their bodylanguage shifts about 100% when they change tack or let go of tack. Me too. Holding tack somehow seems to stabilize the person holding it, making is much easier to hold a position. When you're at liberty, you'll be less straight in your bodylanguage: being a step too far forwards, or behind, or too close to the shoulder for shoulder-in, or too close to the hindquarters for the signal to canter... Small details, but they do have an effect. Some horse just respond by then not doing the exercise because you're clearly giving the wrong cue, but others get insecure because you don't seem to know what you want, and distance themselves from you untill you've regained your composure again.

thank you all again.
yesterday I first worked with her with halter and leadrope (that's what i call online), then with the cordeo without leadrope (because with the leadrope attached on the cordeo she also tries to run off).
Things i discovered:
1. she is a lot more willing to collect with the cordeo than with the halter on. Normally I can ask some sort of slow high trot at the circle with my legs, back and head (show her what i want). But with the cordeo I only needed to walk a bit more collected en she showed me a lot better collected trot than before with the halter. It felt like she was more proud to do this, and also seems to challenge me.

2. she tried to escape 2 times on the cordeo (not running off, but just put some more weight in the cordeo for 2 steps), then immediatly came back, and was ok with me.
3. she got playfull or angry with me after a 10 minutes at the cordeo. I think this was the moment she would normally really run off, and now she couldn't because of the cordeo. I couldn't really see what her emotion was at that moment, sometimes they look very the same. I asked her to go around a cone, come back and search the other cone. A wellknown game she normally does very nicely. Now she jumped in the air, reared by the cone and looked at me wth a wild face. So i put the halter back on (maybe not the best idea I think now, but then it felt more save) asked some things of her she found exciting (like kicking a cone), but she sort of exploded every time again...
I think this was because I was working a bit too enthousiastic, and it was too much for her.
So I calmed her down, put the halter and the cordeo of, expected she would leave right away. But she followed me, halfway to my closet, and then run off, with all kind of jumps you can imagine...

Great that you had another try!

Reading your new experiences, I really think that you shouldn't use the halter at all during this kind of training. She actually showed it to you the best she could:

1. I'll do much better without halter, giving way better steps in the cordeo
2. When I'm getting jumpy, putting on the halter will make me even more stressed

I don't remember if she was Parelli trained or not, but that kind of obedience training puts a lot of emphasis on the halter as restriction/correction tool and it seems that she outwardly might me able to cope with that pressure, doing all the things she has to do online, but mentally isn't able to deal with it that well.

Another thing is that as a human you can put so much more pressure on the horse in a halter, that you can very easily become overdemanding and rude to the horse. I see that in myself, and in your story too a little: you put the halter on as soon as she signalled you that she couldn't focus on you and the focused work anymore, and then kind of overruled her and went on with the focused exercises still. The other thing is that by using the halter as a stick behind the door like this, she will realise that she still doesn't have a voice in the training, even when working at liberty. That is how a lot of natural horsemanship/liberty-trainers work too: as soon as things get a bit less or they have to correct the horse, the halter goes back on. Parelli and others even prescribe that you start every liberty session in a halter to let the horse know that you are still in control, and only when he accepts that, you take it off and proceed at liberty. It works really well that way, but your horse won't collect out of his own in that system and will need quite a bit of pressure in order to get him to do more fanciful stuff, as he knows that as soon as he gives you a more difficult manouvre, you will kind of abuse this gift and demand it whenever and wherever you like.

If you don't use the halter as correction tool when things go wrong, but really listen to the horse when he tells you that he is not fit to do something at that moment, you will gain much more respect and trust because only now there is a real communication between the two - and your horse truly has a voice now too. Only when a horse knows that he won't be forced to do/repeat things, he will offer them on his own, and will start doing them more enthusiastic and playful and will also start to offer more complicated manouvres. But only if you really show your horse that you've become a good, polite and trustworthy leader, instead of the pushy, annoying and overdemanding humans we all really are deep down inside...

So my advice would be: leave the halter off, only work in cordeo and liberty during a session and let your horse teach you how to be a good, polite and trustworthy leader. Start responding to your horse instead of telling her what to do: work in very short sessions of focused work (with her about 7 - 10 minutes I guess), and then go and play with her (running, chase the tiger, as long as you two move together), and then see if she wants to do more focused work again. If she doesn't want to do something, do something else that she does want to do and if you can't find any exercise she wants to do, go and run. You do exactly what she needs, but you can be the one to suggest it whenever she needs it so that you show her that you really are a good teacher.

Learning that lesson, how to become a good trustworthy leader from her is simply the start of Natural Dressage. And once you've learned that and she feels that you have passed the test, things will go very fast!

I had trouble with liberty that sounds very similar to yours! I had alsready been doing stuff with a flank rope so I started doing more flank rope stuff until I felt safe taking off the hlater/cordeo and communicating just through the line around her flanks. I didn't have any direct way of bringing the head/front end to me, but i could use the flank rope to stop her from running off (of course it took a lot of prep work to get that far!)

The flank rope was the ticket to true liberty. Part of it was my confidence- that I could ask her do somthing without that underlying feeling of "ah, darn, this isn't going to work!" I knew the flank rope allowed me to get her on track again. Once I used the flank rope less and less, I beacame confident that I didn't need to direct her front end with a line and the liberty just came- now we can do liberty in big arenas in front of an audience- and so far she hasn't run away (although she still does at home sometimes!)

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Learning to put the relationship first.

Comparing this approach to Miriam´s posts, I think that this is very much a question of what you want to teach your horse. Either "You can not get away" or "You have no reason to get away." I have used the first lesson for years, walking through the countryside with a liberty Titum and feeling absolutely safe, because he and I knew that I would have ways to make him stay with me and get him back in case he escaped... personally I am happy that we have left this after us. Now when I let him free (instead of only walking at liberty) I do not only feel safe, but also totally relaxed - because I know that now we have cured the problem instead of the symptoms and he has no reason to escape.

I had the same problem Sadra83 had- my mare didn't leave becuase she felt threatened or scared- she was bored, she wanted to play her own games. Or she wanted to go back with her horsey buddies ad eat. I was in a 20 acre green field with her best friends turned out! It is going to be awefuly hard to make your horse want to be with you SO SO SO much that they prefer you to that!!! Children have to learn to sit and behave at school in order to learn to read and do math- I have no problems with horses learning that "We will play your game later (or, you can go back to your buddies in a little bit), but let's finish this game first."

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Learning to put the relationship first.

This is exactly the example that does not work for me

I think also children would learn better, nicer and more efficient when they are not 'molded' into chairs and tables to soon. When a child needs to play (=learning also!) it needs to play. When it has the concentration and relaxation to sit on a chair, great! It will get longer and longer each time. In between lots of playing would be actually quite good for learning!

You see, this is also a pattern that is seen as normal in 'our' world

I agree with you completely. The bad thing though is that most schools go for extremes: the child has to work all the time, or there is no coordination at all and he can do whatever he wants. The thing is that just as with horses you need to teach children that learning and working is actually just as rewarding (or even more?) and fun as play. So you can't just let the class run wild, but have to really stimulate the learning and working is a positive way, while also acknowledging the need to play in between. I guess it's that balance where most 'playful' schools go wrong, leading to kids who don't learn a lot because they get the idea that play is much better and more fun than work, so they skip the latter.

i tried to play the "chase the tiger"game yesterday again, in a smaller area (30 x30meter).
First I reinforced her when she touched the bag. But soon enough I started walking and later running and she was really enthousiast. She run off 3 or 4 times in trot, but came back in a few seconds in a fast canter.
One big thing I have to learn here (and have learned a bit already) is to let her go, and to see her leaving as a part of the game, and not to worry to much about it. I noticed that Shanna wasn't really thinking about leaving anymore. She only left when I made some wrong movements she couldn't follow, or when I was moving to much.
After a minute or 10, we worked shortly at the cordeo, and she showed me a almost collected trot and a beautiful shoulder-in. I let go of the cordeo, started the tigergame again fo a short period.

After this session I let her out of the work area, and run fast to the closet. Shana followed me at a galop, cantered next to me until we were there.