This message is from: "the Sessoms'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Basically, we are gradually getting the horse to move its front legs towards the pressure by first getting the head to move, then the neck, and then the shoulders and forelegs follow. You are now leading your horse. You are leading it in a circle and remember to practice this type
of leading from both sides, both ways. Horses will not transfer learning from one side to the other, and although you may not lead your horse from the right, your riding turning ability later will be much easier. Once the horse leads in circles, you can get it to take a few steps straight, and when it balks, ask it to started again by moving the forelegs. This might take days, hours whatever. You can stop at any point as long as you only stop after a correct response and you reward it. WHat better reward for a correct response than to be done for the day. You also mentioned using a whip. Again, your filly needs to learn that the whip means to move. The fjords have little fear, so it is not going to move away from a whip like most flighty horses would. So the whip is a separate step from teaching the horse to yield to pressure on its halter, and you are going to teach it what you want the whip to mean. If you are like me, I want the whip to mean, move your feet or body. Because I have done the Parelli style ground games, my horse has already learned to move different parts of its body away from pressure. You can do the same with a whip. Decide what you want. Say, I want my horse to move its hindlegs away (laterally) from the whip. Or you can use John Lyons cue, he teaches the horse a "Go Forward" cue so that when he taps at the point of the hip or eventually when he just looks at that point or points his finger at it, the horse takes a step forward. Its your choice, just be very specific about your cue (where you touch the horse) and the response you want from the horse (walk forward or laterally) so that you reward ONLY the response you want. And you can teach your horse BOTH things, you just need to start with one. In this case the 'pressure' is a light tapping of the whip. The reward is when you stop the tapping of the whip. The response you want from the horse depends on which idea above you want to do. Lets say you want to teach the horse to move forward when you tap high on the hip. So, stand your horse, be at its side, and possibly even slightly behind so that your body position will encourage the horse to go forward, since you leave her more open room ahead of her. If you stand near her shoulder, and she wants to move forward, she will preobably move away from you , and so move less forward and more sideways. Anyway, start tapping and don't stop until she goes forward. It sounded like she did not run away from the whip. She will get annoyed with the tap tap tap eventually, and will try different things to get it to stop. Again, the idea is to reward her ONLY when she takes the step forward. So if she moves sideways, or she pins her ears, or what ever, ignore it and try to keep tapping in the same place. If she gives a slight warning by raising her leg as if to warn she might kick, I keep tapping. If she actually kicks me or agresses on me, I act like another horse and attack her back for 2 seconds, but I have never had to do this. If I don't push too hard, they do not feel the need to attack.
