Week 1
I am incredibly excited to get VBA Ruby home and begin our journey together.
Unfortunately we have encountered a few roadblocks with our transport, but in one more week we will be together at last.
In the mean time, Ruby has been paddocked at the Brumby Junction Sanctuary where she will relax until she is picked up towards the end of next week.
When I met Ruby last weekend at the sanctuary, I could see that she is a feisty and opinionated mare (I adore such traits in a horse) and also bold and curious.
I think of her constantly and am so excited for our journey of connection and learning to come.
Week 3
Ruby has now been home for 1 week. In this time she has watched me from a distance, buddied up with my QH mare Opal, walked with Opal as Opal followed me and slowly learned that I am no threat and not asking anything of her. Only after she acknowledged me, I offered her some hay from my hand which she eventually took, and then we began building connection- her approaches rewarding her with a bit of hay and me moving away. This way, she is only experiencing a positive outcome for approaching me, with no pressure of me moving towards her or asking anything of her.
Eventually, she would approach me more readily and get excited to see me when I'd walk past the yard, and learned to accept pellet from my hand.
We are now establishing positive reinforcement training methods, learning to understand the conditioned reinforcer, and walking on together and stopping together at liberty without any form of touch or pressure.
I have just introduced the halter, letting her get used to it and being able to sniff it while we walk around at liberty.
Week 5
The past 2 weeks have been peacefully eventful for Ruby and I. Not that we have done a whole lot from an outsider's perspective, but the relationship we have built over the past 3 weeks since her arrival is substantial.
Everything we have done together up until about a week ago has been at liberty. Which has laid the foundations of not only the beginnings of a strong relationship between us, based on trust, connection, holding no expectations and consistently providing safety, but has also laid foundations for her to understand my body language, cues and behaviours that have transferred into our next layer of learning.
Roughly a week ago, once Ruby was consistently self haltering at liberty and happy having it tied on, I introduced the lead rope. Because of the previous work at liberty, walking, turning and stopping beside me were already established. So introducing light pressure to these movements was accepted easily and the behaviour of responding to halter pressure was established.
Next came tying up, where she was tied to bailing twine and I moved away slightly so that she would reach the end of the rope and feel the pressure. She was quick to give to that pressure and was immediately reinforced when she did so, never being pushed over threshold and choosing to break the bailing twine. I would then move further and further away each time until she was happy standing tied.
Now that she was consistently giving to pressure from the lead rope, I felt confident taking her exploring out of the large paddocks she has free roamed, and introduced her to some new stimuli such as narrow gateways, different ground, meeting chickens, walking through plants and up stairs.
With each new stimuli, I held no pressure with the rope, allowing her full ability to tell me if she was not ok with something. However, after sniffing everything, looking intently and ensuring each thing was safe, she confidently followed me through these tasks, once again thanks to the foundations of establishing a bond which I believe holds me as a herd member and a leader to be trusted.
Only since she has been self haltering have I been touching her, giving her neck scratches so long as she wanted them. Currently, she is learning to be groomed and will continue with more basic handling and exploring new areas together in the coming week.
Week 7
Over the past two weeks, Ruby and I have continued to strengthen our relationship and trust, and develop new skills.
Ruby is now comfortable being groomed all over and learned to accept the saddle pad and then the bareback pad and girth at liberty. We have also started working on picking up front hooves which she is quickly figuring out.
Ruby developed a cough and so we spent a couple of days focussing on her learning to have her temperature taken. I wasn't sure whether this would be possible, as she certainly wasn't ready for something so invasive and although her trust in me develops every day, she still has a fine threshold and I knew this would be well out of her comfort zone. But through R+ training, taking tiny baby steps and always listening to her body language and reacting accordingly, she learned to stand at liberty and have her temperature taken every time.
I love her so much and am so proud of her attempts and little wins through each new step of our training together.
Next, we will be working on float loading and the next steps towards riding- when she is ready.