Trust

As I went to go play today, Cal showed some really interesting behavior.  He stopped eating, and stood there, looking at me.  From what I could tell, he was frozen.  He hardly moved, didn't blink.  So I waited.  I played with my 45' line and waited some more.  Eventually, the other horses wandered away, and I retreated from Cal with them.  With that, he was finally able to move and come over to me, as I stood there with my back to him looking at the other horses.

I'm so horrified at the scars Cal has to be so mistrusting of me.  Some of them are probably from his past.  Others are from me.  From the times I read him as confident and played catching game until he came over.  From my impatience and anger that I have.  I was watching the first section of dvd 2 in Horse Behavior and Liberty, and Linda showed a clip of a horse she played with at a tour stop.  The horse would lower his head and look submissive when Linda approached, but he was just hiding in himself.  I'm so sorry...

My session proceeded quite happily.  I played approach and retreat in and out of the arena.  When he was in there, I had him play touch it, which usually builds his confidence.  I got lots of licking and chewing, and his stiff movements became more fluid as he gained confidence.  I could send him in and out of the arena at phase 1...a simple, yet brilliant thing in our relationship.  The pedestal happened to be near the door, so that got played with a lot.

When Mollie was here a couple weekends ago for lessons, she watched my online audition with me (I passed level 2++) and pointed out the differences between level 2 and level 3.  One of those big differences was Cal looking for the obstacle, rather than avoiding.  Such as with the pedestal. Video can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-wbSLhyUjw

Today I was looking for that.  The confidence and willingness to look for the pedestal.  What normally I have to go to higher phases (at least, lift the carrot stick) today I was getting with just small pointing.  He was putting three feet on the pedestal at phase one, doing it from 30 or so feet away.  And as I kept building his confidence throughout our session, he trotted to the pedestal and got on all four feet, and relaxed and licked and chewed immediately.

Trust...Perhaps that is why I struggle so hard.  For all my trying, I have broken my promises to Cal so many times.  That he continues to forgive me is the most mind-blowingly wonderful thing in the world.