Flexibility

The other day I learned [or rather was reminded about] a lesson in being flexible, from none other than my resident introvert, Zephyr.

Its coming up to that time again, that time where I call the farrier out. Now Zephyr is, for the most part, fairly good with her feet. Her attention span is that of a gnat though, and she tends to pick up and promptly say thats enough. Its just not something that has been worked on, and something I havent had time enough since getting her to really address since there were more pressing issues to deal with like DONT RUN ME OVER! Now that priorities have shifted from safety and survival to more fun and progression, I feel like I can communicate more with her to enhance her footie play interest.

It started during feeding times, I would just grab a hoofpick and go out and quietly pick the snowballs out of her feet. That was going ok. She was distracted eating and wouldnt squiggle around tooooo much, but also wasnt really good, or getting better. Hmm... The next day after I realized it wasnt getting better, I was lucky enough to have soem 'warmer' weather, so I haltered Zephyr and brought her into the barn to finish her dinner and went to playing with her feeties.

I started with the usual pinching chestnut technique, but our dear introvert just didnt care. "You can pinch as much as you want, I am not going to move" was her attitude. In fact, she put MORE weight on the one Iwas trying to get up! Silly girl. So I broke out the cookies. One thing I have learned about Zephyr is that she LOVES food. To the point of chasing me and Mo at a gallop apparently to get some. Time to figure out if I can motivate her to lightness in her feet with food now.

At first she didnt really get it. I would ask for her foot and if she even took her weight in the right direction I gave her a treat. She just thought she was teaching me to dispense cookies. Thats ok. It was sort of progress. I continued with that for a bit, but still no real connection from Zephyr about WHY she was getting cookies. So I switched tactics to trying with the carrot stick, tapping her leg, seeing if that would cause her to be uncomfortable enough to lift her leg. Not much disturbs my little girly. Mostly I like this.

Hmm. So the tapping was mostly a flop. There was zero ideas in Zephyrs head that she should move away from this annoyance, and she just kept trying to mug me for cookies. About this point I was wondering if it was even a good idea to break out the cookies, but I stuck with it and just kept thinking of different things I could do. Running through my 'how to pick up feet' list in my head I ran into the good ole fashioned 'savvy string around the ankle' version and decided to try that one!

I wrapped my string around Miss Zephyrs ankle and went through my phases. Lo and behold, up came the foot.  COOKIE. It was kind of just a "Whats that, get it off" flail on her part, but she clued in after the cookie. So I tried again. More flailing, more cookies. I think this is when a little cartoon lightbulb went off above my dearhearts adorable noggin. Phase two, up, cookie. Lather rinse repeat. Before ten tries I was moving on to holding it up for a few seconds and Zephyr was really trying! How cool is that?

Three techniques down the trail, all for the same task, and I finally found one that clicks for her. Thats the key isnt is? The one that works FOR HER.  Its not about the technique. I just had to find out what made sense to her! Pretty cool lesson. Sometimes it is so easy to get stuck in ' Well I saw Pat/Linda/whoever doing it X way, I HAVE to do it that way, its the only way!', when really, its one of many ways, and the way that just happened to be appropriate for that horse in that moment. How interesting.

I am so lucky to have had so many horses through my life to teach me that each one is different and needs a different strategy. Not to mention the advent of horsenality.... makes life so much simpler! 

Such is my lesson from Zephyr today.

:)
S