Posts Tagged ‘pedestal
Minnow Caught on Film
I really am on this “looking back” kick. Can’t help it!
I decided to check out some of my REALLY old videos on my Youtube account, so I went back to the very first video I ever posted onto Youtube. And of course it was a video of Minnow painting – published on February 21, 2007.
I had filmed this video for a class I was taking at Kutztown University. Now I must disclaimer first I am not a videographer, in fact I really suck at making videos. My brother is the videographer – and I’m dying to have him make me another video of all three of the Trick Ponies. But alas he is living in North Carolina right now (if you are in North Carolina and need a Videographer/Editor contact my little brother!), so it looks like I may have to reach my 2010 goal of making a new film of the ponies myself. I know it won’t be pretty.
But speaking of stinky videos of mine. Here are a few more I had done for the class I took in college. My downfall is music choice, I really can’t choose a good song if my life depended on it. So when it comes to making my new videos I may just have to enlist everyone’s help out in blog land!
I’ll be waiting until the Spring/Summer to start my new film project – as the ponies will look much prettier without their fuzzy winter coats. So I have until then to really work on some new exciting tricks for the new video.
The Rear
Minnow rears during competition
So one of my 2010 Goals is to teach Minnow to rear. And by golly, I’m going to do it! So since its blistery cold here right now, and I’m sort of a weenie, I haven’t actually started any training yet. Do you blame me? I am sort of ashamed.
Anyway, since I haven’t actually started working on my goal yet, I thought I would share with you how I prepare to teach one of the ponies a new trick. There is a lot of thought and preparation that I do before I even begin to shape a new trick. Ok I lied a little bit there – sometimes I just head out to the farm with clicker in my hand and see what happens. Some of the best tricks I have taught the boys happened that way.
For example, Minnow’s shovel trick. I saw a sand shovel and bucket at the store, brought it to the barn, showed it to Minnow, and let him decide what to do with it. He decided to dig in the sand with it, I liked it, clicked it, and viola a new trick was born.
But for the more complicated tricks I usually like to do a bit more research. Most of the time I start out on Youtube, mostly because I am a very visual learner. In the case of the rear I searched “clicker training rear”. And this is what I came up with:
I spared you most of the not-so-great videos (many of which were a little too harsh for me). But from this collection I’ve gathered a few options for training the rear.
Minnow on his pedestal
Option 1: Teach the rear through mimicking. I lift a leg, Minnow lifts a leg, I jump, Minnow jumps. I’ve never done mimicking with Minnow, but could be a good time to try it.
Option 2: Teach Minnow to target his knees to a target stick, start with one knee, then add two, then add height to it. Minnow loves to target, but it might take some coaxing to get him to not target with his nose, but I’m sure he could do it.
Option 3: Teach the rear on the pedestal. Reward for upward movements of the legs instead of getting onto the pedestal. Could end up with a neat trick of rearing onto the pedestal, but this requires a lot more coordination on the horse’s part.
Option 4: Capture the behavior naturally. Catch him playing out in the field and click/reward him for the rear. Capturing hasn’t worked well for Minnow (on bigger skills). I once tried capturing the lay down, but as soon as I approach Minnow to give the reward he panics and gets up. This wild born pony still has trust issues when it comes to his most vulnerable position. This option would work better with Blitz and Boomer.
I might do a bit more research before I commit (checking my clicker training books, checking the clicker training yahoo group archives), but from just these options I came up with I think I am going to start off with Option 2 – teaching Minnow to target his knees to a stick. I chose this option because I think it will work best for MY pony. I know how he prefers to learn and I think this option will produce the best results with the least amount of stress for Minnow. If I was going to train one of my other ponies this trick I might go for a different method. Training is about tailoring everything to the specific horse you are working with. Maybe your horse is deathly afraid of whips, asking him to target a dressage whip is probably not a good idea (not to mention I probably wouldn’t even think about teaching this trick if I knew my horse had underlying issues to be worked on).
And as a side note – for now I only plan to teach Minnow how to rear. Minnow is retired from riding due to a diagnosis or ringbone (equine arthritis) in 2008, so I run no risk of having a rearing pony when I stick someone else on to ride him. I believe at 6 and 7 years old, Blitz and Boomer are still too young and immature to learn this trick. I’m sure they would take advantage of their new and fun skill and I would end up with a problem. My equine sport of Mounted games is an emotionally intense sport for horses that is prone to bring on rearing due to the adrenaline horses experience – I definitely don’t want to advocate this trick during competition. So that being said, Minnow will be the only rearing pony, atleast for a while. 🙂
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Please do not attempt any of these tasks at home without the help of a professional. I am not responsible for any harm or injury that may occur.
The Greening of Whitney Brown
One of my childhood friends (who I learned to ride with!) now works at a Gypsy Vanner Farm, El Brio Vanner, across the street from my farm. Her favorite horse, Odd Job Bob, is the star in a movie that is currently filming, “The Greening of Whitney Brown”. Bob spent most of this summer with famous trick trainer, Tommie Turvey, where he learned to lay down among many other tricks. I’ve been watching Tommie’s Youtube channel all summer as I’ve seen videos of Bob learning liberty signals and tricks specific to the movie. I feel like I know a movie star…even though I still haven’t met Bob!
In the spring I brought two of the Trick Ponies over to El Brio Vanner to give my friend a preview of what I had taught them and how I had taught them – unfortunately Bob had already left to get training for his big movie debut. I’m hoping when he finally returns home in a few weeks I will get a chance to meet this special horse. Maybe I can get his autograph. 🙂
Here’s a little info on the movie:
THE GREENING OF WHITNEY BROWN follows the misadventures of ‘Whitney Brown’ (SAMMI HANRATTY), a privileged and popular Philadelphia teenager whose world is upended when her parents, ‘Henry’ (AIDAN QUINN) and ‘Joan’ (BROOKE SHIELDS), experience sudden economic problems that necessitate a family move to Whitney’s grandparents’ old farm in the country. There, far from her dizzying world of shallow girlfriends, endless parties and school pressures, she finds a new best pal: ‘Odd Job Bob’, a beautiful and spirited Gypsy Vanner horse owned by her new neighbor ‘Dusty’ (KRIS KRISTOFFERSON) — a crusty rancher who turns out to be her estranged grandfather. Through her new relationships with Odd Job Bob, Dusty and her parents, Whitney rediscovers what it means to respect not only nature and her family, but also someone very special she had almost lost touch with: herself.
And here are a few behind the scenes clips:
Super exciting! I hope someday one of the Trick Ponies will make it into a movie – wouldn’t that be cool. For now I’m living vicariously through my friend! 🙂
Will a fat pony resist lush grass?
So after a mini-vacation for Minnow and myself after our trip to Chincoteague I finally got a chance to do some trick training yesterday. We basically took the whole month of August off (aside from our mounted games competition in NJ) and it was high time I got back to some training.
On Saturday Minnow and I will be attending the Ludwigs Corner Horse Show as part of the entertainment on Family Day. We’ll have a small fenced in coral near the booths and tents to perform in – with a 1pm and 3:30pm show. The key is that this coral will be placed on a bed of lush grass. Very tempting for a fat pony that spends most of his day with a muzzle on due to his arthritis and inability to be exercised.
So in order to not embarrass myself I decided it was probably best if I practiced performing with Minnow on grass. And what better place than the pasture that Minnow is turned out in! So I lugged all of Minnow’s equipment out to the pasture and set up my camera (of course I thought of all of you who read my blog – how kind of me to make a video for you!)
First I will let you watch the video, then I’ll explain further:
As you can see Minnow stayed with me the entire time. Even though his trick pony partner, Boomerang, is in the background grazing. I think Minnow displayed great self control, and demonstrated just how clicker training can help create a language and a bond between horse and trainer. I can guarantee you that if I was training Minnow with force or pressure (as many trainers do) he would definitely not stay with me. Clicker Training has created a positive experience for Minnow, and even though I know he’d much rather eat grass and not have to work at all, he has chosen that being with me and working for a reward is something that he would like to do. Did I mention I love this pony?
Tomorrow I will share with a video of a new trick that I taught Minnow yesterday. Its quite different in that this time I have decided to work with two animals at once. You’ll just have to check the blog tomorrow in order to see the debut of this amazing new trick!
-KD
http://www.ponypaintings.com
Trick Horse in Chincoteague
Ok, so those of you following this blog have probably been WAITING for me to post an update on how my trip to Chincoteague Island with Minnow went. We had kind of spotty internet – so posting down there wasn’t much of an option, not to mention my days were packed with pony swim excitement and performing! So anyway, this week I’m going to go over how our trip went – complete with videos and pictures from the exciting week.
Today I’m going to share with you some of the videos I took (well had someone else take) of Minnow performing. The first video is of us performing our beach picnic skit. Considering that Minnow learned some of the tricks only a week before our trip I was so proud of him! We had a few little mishaps during the week, like Minnow not wanting to do some of the tricks, but we pressed on and overall I think everyone enjoyed his performance.
This next video is of the Extreme Pony Race. Basically it is one small “act” in the Chincoteague Pony Center Performance in which some of the ponies/riders are asked to go through sort of an obstical course. The whole thing is timed, and if you have to skip a task (or you don’t complete it correctly) then 5 seconds is added onto your time. Minnow was asked to perform the extreme pony race twice during the week – having never seen or tried it before. I had been buting him all week so that he wasn’t in any pain from his arthritis (normally I never ride Minnow), and honestly, he could use the exercise and its good to use his joints sometimes. Anyway, this video is of the first time Minnow tried the extreme pony race, and much to my surprise we won, infact we were undefeated the entire weekend! Go Minnow! If you watch closely you can see me using the bitless bridle with Minnow, I had many comments after the show from people asking about this unique bridle and how I liked it. Of course I think the Bitless Bridle should now sponsor me because I was quite the spokesperson if I do say so myself!
As you can see I didn’t ask Minnow to complete the backup task. He did back up for me at first, but when I asked again he gave me a big head toss. Now I know my pony well, and I decided he was not happy with this request, so I opted to skip the skill. Some people may see this as me being too “soft” and I should of made him do it, but honestly Minnow has done so much for me, and he constantly performs for me when I ask him to, with barely much of a protest. So when I can tell he’s frustrated and not up for it, I opt to let it go and ask for it another day. This is what makes our relationship so special. If you had a bad day and didn’t feel like doing something – and someone forced you to do it anyway, you can bet that the next time that person asked you to do something you’d start to resent them for asking. This is who I like to view horse training. I pick and choose my battles. If I can tell my horse is definitely not in the mood (maybe they are grumpy that day, maybe the flies are bothering them) then I usually decide to save it for another day. 9 times out of 10 if I respect how they are feeling they will perform bigger and better for me the next time I ask.
After the extreme pony race I was actually complimented by several spectators for not making Minnow perform the back up. In the end those compliments were well worth it to me. Minnow was happy, and specators appreciated my decision to make it more enjoyable for my horse.
So there you have it, a little peak into my week on Chincoteague Island. And for those of you wondering, sadly I did not come home with a new foal, but I swear I will someday! I actually had my eye on a georgous colt, you can hear all about it in this weeks posts, so keep reading!
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
