A horse is an intriguing animal

I had Banjo joined up and hooked on tonight. Yes, I did! I've wanted to do this since we got him. I read everything I could find about "joining-up" using a round pen. This Sylvia Scott Round Pen Training article was the best one I found. I also watched the John Lyons symposium video I checked out from the Library. Something has always gotten in the way of doing this, but with him getting his feet trimmed on Tuesday (that has to go well- his hooves are way long and getting cracked) and going to training, it had to be now.

Why round pen work?

This is the animal who took the entire Rice Lake neighborhood to catch when we bought him. The animal I couldn't touch in the pasture until a month after we got him. The one who's feet you couldn't touch after his foot trim when we discovered thrush last fall. He has gotten to the point where I can sometimes walk up to him in the pasture and touch him, but most often not. I have just recently been able to lift all feet and pick them, but he is still resistant. Round pen training is supposed to help with all this.

What round pen?

I made my round pen using the corral panel end of the arena which is rounded off and plastic posts with fence tape on the other side to complete a circle. I brought him into the space and he made one loop before he learned he could either walk through the tape or jump over it. So I tried the other side of the tape, the larger area. Same thing - he would escape inside the fence area. So I took the fence down and used the entire arena. 45 X 90 feet.

All lathered up

He had no halter. All I had was the lead rope and a kissing noise. At first he tried to hide in the corners and not make complete loops. I found that a shushing sound and hitting the ground with my lead rope when we got to the corners kept him going. Pretty soon I had him doing loops and making turns when I wanted. I got his ear focused on me pretty quickly, but he would often turn his head to the outside. Then, he started slowing down, making smaller circles and on one turn he just stopped and faced me. So we took a big break and I turned my back to him and relaxed. After a few minutes, I moved toward him on his right, stretched my neck to the right to see if he'd move his hindquarters away and face me more, but instead he just moved his butt toward me so I sent him away. By this time he was getting pretty lathered, so I moved him to the curved end of the arena making him just go back and forth on that end. Then company arrived. Art and Vicki stopped by to say hello and razz me about all the kissing noises. Banjo seemed happy for the break.

Progress

While we chatted, I made him do some turns at a walk. I used a karate chop motion with my hand toward his butt hand while moving my head in the same direction and he would turn in toward me and go in the other direction. Then, sensing the quiet in him, I moved closer. Suddenly and mysteriously, we were doing small circles to the left - he was joined. But only for a short distance and not to the right.

Invisible lead rope

I had to give Vicki some money so we left Banjo for about 10 minutes. When I came back to the arena, he was on the far end and made a bee line straight toward me. I could not believe my eyes. I went into the pen and started walking away and there he was close to me as he could be following me. The invisible lead rope was there! It happened. I went in circles, left and right, zig zag, serpentines. I could not lose him. Fast or slow. So cool. We paused, I petted and rubbed. I pressed my cheek to his. He pressed back. Bliss.

What's with this?

So with time slipping away, I had to end this beautiful moment and release him to the pasture. Would this continue outside? No... Once he was out with his buddies, it was as if he didn't want them to know that he had submitted to me and would not let me touch him.