He's now on the highest level possible for Liberty - Gold is the Liberty equivalent of Advanced 1 star online! There are rumours of a Diamond Liberty level to be introduced at some point, though, so we'd better not rest on our laurels!
The results are out from the May competitions and Fat Pony has been promoted up to Gold level in the Liberty league, after scoring a brilliant 98 points out of a possible 100! Yay!!!!!! What a clever little pony :-D
He's now on the highest level possible for Liberty - Gold is the Liberty equivalent of Advanced 1 star online! There are rumours of a Diamond Liberty level to be introduced at some point, though, so we'd better not rest on our laurels!
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As I'm always on a budget, a couple of this month's obstacles have proved challenging to source.
The Contact Mat has made a re-appearance and, in fact, I didn't enter February's competition for lack of a suitable mat! The contact mat should be 1m x 1m and may be of any non-slip material, carpet is suggested. However, it seems to me that unless you just happen to know somebody who is re-decorating their house, cheap carpet is not so easy to come by. And it has to be cheap, as carpet left outside will not last that long! Even if the carpet is dry stored in between practice sessions (which is a pain in itself), there are bound to be days when it's raining or the ground is wet, even in the summer, but you still want to play with agility. In the end, I decided to use a piece of rubber stable matting from Fat Pony's diet pen. The matting was acquired 2nd hand and had been cut by the previous owner to fit their stables, all slightly different sizes, but as luck would have it one of the pieces was near enough 1m x 1m. Excellent from the point of view of being durable and non slip, even in the wet :-D Slightly on the heavy side to get out and put away in between courses, although at least I can be sure that it won't blow away! :-) And, come the autumn and winter, it will be needed back in the diet pen. But, for now, working very well :-) The other tricky obstacle is this month's narrow gap, which needs to have completely solid sides, at least 1m high. In the past, I have lost points and I have seen other people lose points for the sides not being high enough and/ or the sides not being 100% without any small gaps. Previously, I used plastic road barriers, but there was still a small amount of daylight showing through where I had to push 2 together to make the length. That could be fixed by hanging a tarpaulin or a sheet over the gap, but they are also only about 80cm high. For this month, I have solved the problem by using a tall and very leafy hedge as one side of the gap and then stacking the road barriers 2 high on top of each other and using duct tape to block any small remaining gaps. But I am slightly concerned that this is not the most stable construction and if the ponies spook into it or (more likely) decide to start "playing" with it, nudging it with their noses or rubbing on it, that it will all come tumbling down. So I'm still looking for a better solution when this obstacle comes up the next time! The new IHAC course is out for May and the Flower Arch has made a re-appearance. Since the ponies are prone to believing that anything I put out must be for them.... This was a new obstacle for me last year: I didn't want to use plants that the ponies would like to eat and, obviously, I also didn't want to use anything that could harm them. In the end, I decided to try using rocket (spicy salad leaf) thinking that they wouldn't like the taste but that it equally wouldn't harm them. Of course, Fat Pony had to try it.... but, I thought to myself, "well, he won't try it more than once, surely"....... Suffice to say, the Arch ended up rather bare, so it was lucky that no actual points were awarded or taken away for amount of flowers on the arch! This year, I've decided to use plastic flowers! Yayyyy! Fat Pony came 3rd in the Liberty Silver competition of the International Horse Agility Club in April :-D I think that "yellow" is a very fitting colour, given Fat Pony's initial response to the Noodle Walk obstacle. Very proud of how hard he worked to overcome his fears and quite amused that it ended up becoming his favourite new toy :-D Once Fat Pony was happy going through 2 noodles, it turned out not to be a problem to make it up to 4 noodles, then 6 noodles (Liberty Silver course) and then 8 noodles (Advanced Level on line course). Before long, he was walking through, trotting through and happily standing in the middle! Backwards needed a little more care to build it up, but soon that was no problem either. In fact, the noodle walk quite quickly became both the ponies favourite new toy! They would offer to do it if I was around and they also went through it on their own when they didn't know that I was watching. I don't know whether they enjoyed the noise it makes when they go through or whether they liked the feeling of it "massaging" their legs, but they definitely enjoy going through it! :-D With any new obstacle, I build it up slowly, even if I think the ponies will be fine with it, but they do like to surprise us like that. It's not uncommon for horses to not bat an eyelid at things we think might worry them and then to be completely sceptical about something we think they should be ok with, lol. So I built version 1 of the noodle walk with just 2 noodles. In some instances, I might then have started with the frames further apart, leaving a gap in between the noodles. However, in this case, I decided to begin with the noodles overlapping by 3cm, as per the competition instructions. The ponies appeared whilst I was still building (they have a 6th sense about such things ;-) and the New Girl (aka Mrs. Confident Dominant) walked up to it and walked straight through. Satisfied that it was New Girl 1 Noodles 0 she then moseyed on off to go and have a drink and a snooze. Fat Pony, on the other hand, was more sceptical. That may seem strange, since Fat Pony is now at Advanced Level in Horse Agility and is also very playful, however Fat Pony came to me with a history of fear issues and restraint and things around his legs are a particular cause for concern for him. I decided to try to work it out at Liberty, giving Fat Pony complete freedom of choice and engaging his curiosity and play. I used "draw" rather than "drive" i.e. I put no pressure on Fat Pony to come through the obstacle, rather I positioned myself on the other side and I invited him to come through. Fat Pony wants to do things and he also knows that there will be a reward waiting, however I must stress that I never "bribe". I never hold treats under their noses, trying to get them to follow. The treat is retrieved and offered only AFTER completion of the desired action. But I digress. I invited Fat Pony and then I waited. I was ready to give him all the time that he needed to investigate and to puzzle it out for himself. After some sniffing, Fat Pony decided to try going through. He didn't like the feel of it on his legs and he shot off to a safe distance, but turned to face the obstacle and he was watching intently. So I decided to demonstrate that the new "thing" was safe. I walked slowly backwards and forwards through the obstacle myself (feeling like a bit of a twit, thankfully no-one else around to see, lol ;-) and eventually Fat Pony came over to try again. This time he was fine with his front legs and then did a funny bunny hop with his back legs to clear the noodles at the back. The 3rd time, he didn't hop with his back legs, the noodles brushed them and he shot off again. Again, I did my "look this is safe" demo. Again, Fat Pony came back to try again for himself. This time, he went through, a bit rushed but he didn't run off, he stopped, turned and looked for his reward. I then took him through the noodles another half a dozen times and by now he was much more calm and relaxed about them. A good place to end the session and leave him to process the experience over night :-) I have been seeing Noodle obstacles pop up in various "unofficial" guises within the Horse Agility and Trec communities and it has now been adopted into the International Horse Agility Club (IHAC) Handbook, in the horizontal format, as "The Noodle Walk". In all cases, the thinking behind the Noodle Walk appears to be the simulation of pushing through soft branches or undergrowth whilst out hacking (although for horse agility it is very much a led obstacle). The IHAC version of the Noodle Walk starts with 2 noodles at Starter Level and increases to a total of 10 noodles at Advanced 1* Level. The noodles are attached horizontally to a frame of either fixed or moveable height and should, ideally, be at the horse's chest height. As this was the first time I was building one of these, I used the only "frame" that I had to hand and the noodles ended up first at leg height and then, as they drooped, more at ponies' knee height, lol. In the Trec world, the noodle obstacles that I have seen have a vertical format, possibly to avoid the horse trying to jump the obstacle, or perhaps this is felt to be more representative of a ridden horse having to contend with an overgrown path. I have yet to try this one for myself! This is not an official TrecGB obstacle and the idea seems to have originated in the US, however it has been used in the UK in Fun Trecs and I suspect will become seen in competitions more often as the idea spreads.
With last weekend's clinic out of the way (in the nicest possible way :-) I have been able to turn my attention to this month's International Horse Agility Club course and a very exciting course it is too :-D Lot's of new challenges - again :-) but at least I have most of the equipment this time, or at least materials to build! The most exciting new obstacle is the Noodle Walk, depending on the Level that you are at, from 2 Noodles up to 10 Noodles, attached horizontally to a frame (2 meaning one each side of the corridor, 10 noodles being 5 each side of the corridor). The Noodles are soft foam swimming pool noodles, or tubular pipe insulation works just as well and can be found from as little as £1 for 2 x 1m lengths (perfect for the Starter competition :-) The idea is that the horse has to push through the noodles, preferably at chest height, although mine have ended up more at knee height due to the limitations of the frame I had for attaching the noodles to. Another new obstacle for us this month is to pick up a closed umbrella, open it whilst standing next to the horse and then carry the umbrella over the horse's head whilst walking 4 metres. Fat Pony LOVES flags on poles, but an umbrella is new and a bit of an unknown quantity! The S bend is also back this month and for the Advanced Level, the requirement is for the handler to stand in a fixed spot outside the poles, whilst guiding the horse through the S without the horse knocking or stepping outside the poles! And the stand and wait has morphed from "horse to not move it's feet" to (at Advanced Level) horse and handler to stand COMPLETELY still for 10 seconds! Eeek! That'll be a challenge then! Pony to not move a muscle, not lick his lips, not move his ears...... Ha, ha, ha! I expect that blinking and breathing are allowed, but not much else. There is another park the pony at the curtain this month, which I'm not too worried about as Fat Pony's stand and wait is pretty good these days. But at Advanced Level, the horse then has to join the handler at a trot (from a standstill and not allowed to pull on the rope). We can do this in walk. Time to work on our cues for trot then, methinks! So, LOTS of challenges, again, but the ground has dried out, the weather is lovely and the course looks really exciting (and buildable!). Have a feeling I'm really going to enjoy this one :-) I was back at the lovely WPF on Saturday, for an Easter themed Agility course. Of course, there had to be a "bunny hop"! Some new obstacles were invented - the Egg Box and the Egg Timer! And one horse clearly didn't read the instructions about NOT helping her handler to eat the chocolate eggs!!! More than that, she smelt them at 100 paces, even before her human had noticed they were there! Well, if her ridden career doesn't work out, a second career as "sniffer dog" surely beckons :-) So, having accidentally taught Fat Pony to paw the log, instead of simply placing the foot, for the Leg Lift, I caused myself some re-training. To start with, I dug out the old pallet, which had been away for dry winter storage, on the basis that the pallet won't roll or move in any way, no matter how much Fat Pony paws at it. Then I pretty much carried on as before, modelling the desired action by putting my own foot onto the pallet and inviting Fat Pony to copy. He was rewarded initially for putting his foot onto the pallet in any which way and then I gradually refined this to eliminate pawing and standing on the pallet, whilst encouraging placing the foot on the pallet without weight and then gradually extending the period of time that Fat Pony could keep his foot in that position.
As had previously happened with the hula hoop, after a while Fat Pony became too enthusiastic to have his foot on the pallet (= reward), so then I modified that behaviour by rewarding the step off the pallet. So the training was foot on and wait - reward; ask for step off and wait - reward. In this way, Fat Pony learns to wait for the next instruction, rather than anticipating the request or over-enthusiastically offering to repeat the same thing over and over. Leg Lift sorted :-) |
About meI started Horse Agility as a way of making groundwork more fun. It was something I could do with my semi-retired old boy and his small, cheeky, pony companion. What amazed me was how much it improved the ponies' general confidence in the process. I compete at Advanced 1 star level on line and at liberty. Archives
December 2016
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