Kids go through stages. They thumb-suck, they bed-wet, they eat glue, but fortunately these are only phases. Riley is in a new annoying phase. It's the I won't lunge phase. He's been lungeing since he was a 2-year-old. I'm baffled. Ri is not the kind of horse you need to lunge before riding, so till a few weeks ago he hadn't been lunged in a long time. When we had all the rain here in PA, the horses were all stallbound, and I started lungeing again. Or rather I didn't.
I'm a lungeline loser Ri flat-out refused, and in the battle of wills I was on the losing end. He would not go counter-clockwise at all. The evasions:
He would turn into the circle and trot boldly into my space--I had to dodge him.
He would bolt in the opposite direction and canter wildly.
Either way, it was dangerous. My trainer worked with him briefly. She pushed him pretty hard for cooperation, working him on a tight circle. He started kicking out sideways (at her), and I made her stop for her safety. We wondered if he was lame, or hurting, but he was sound under saddle.
Rebel Riley He was definitely challenging authority and using intimidation to get the upper hand. Now Riley is not a jerk; he's an easy-going horse, but he can be stubborn. I think his "challenging" behavior is more playful dominance than real aggression but when you're standing there and he's trotting into your space that's not much comfort.
The video below was taken yesterday. He is 80% better after a week or so of working with him, but here you see residual misbehavior--in four minutes he tries his maneuver three times, but at least he complied eventually. How sad is it that this represents progress? Oh well, he's a little better every time I work with him.
So what did I do? I was at a loss, and I had no "strategy." I was scared, especially when he turned into me -- he was moving into my personal space, ears back, and I was never sure if he'd keep coming at me or would turn away. But I put Ri on the lunge every day. While I couldn't quite bring myself to escalate to a flat-out confrontation, I made sure he got no satisfaction from his antics.
I kept the circle as small as I safely could and started carrying the lunge whip butt-end out -- he respected the butt end more. When he came into the circle or tried to change directions, I whacked him HARD on the neck (preferred) or snout (last resort). I tried to whack the left side to drive him back to his original direction.
I stood further behind him than normal, almost as if I was long-lining, and I drove him forward with a sharp whip-crack when I saw his head start to turn inward (a sign he was about to misbehave). The down-side to this is that if Ri did turn this position put me more in the "line of fire." He turned right into me.
If he managed to switch directions, I was too busy gathering the slack line and organizing it to react. But once I was organized I flipped the whip to the butt end, got in front of him, and whacked him on the neck to drive him counterclockwise again. That was a vulnerable moment--but if I did it right, and reacted quickly, he didn't get far in the wrong direction before being swatted back to the right way.
When he was going the desired direction I praised, praised, praised. I counted 20 seconds and let him stop (staying in the same direction at the halt) so that he got relief when he behaved correctly. I let more time pass as he got more consistent.
One look at the video and you'll see that I'm far from the confident authoritative lunger. But somehow we seem to have gotten back on track over the course of 4-5 days.
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