At some stage we thought that three months was not an unrealistic goal to be able to throw the saddle on and go for a ride on our brumby.
After three weeks I actually managed to test out all kinds of different saddles on her and she had no problem with any of this. We walked around the paddock together with the stirrups dangling on her sides, no problem.
How come that after five months I feel that I’m going backwards instead of forwards?
Brandy has been fine with Sam our dog whenever he walks with me tidying up the yard. Unexpectedly the other day Brandy decided to have a closer-up look at this tiny Dane sized ‘horse’. Which kind of unnerved both Sam and I because for Brandy closer-up is really quite in your face, and she’s not small.
Sam has a quirky habit of jumping up with all fours at once when he plays with Baileys. Sam’s playful leaps clip Baileys’ ears or ruffle his mane, which our little stallion takes in the good humour as it is intended. I wasn’t so sure how Brandy would respond to a dog hurdling himself up at her throat with a grin the size of a Dane.
Sam wasn’t either so he decided against it. Pfewie. My heart rate slowly returned back to normal over the course of the rest of the morning. Later in the afternoon Sam must have thought, you started it, when he leaped through the electric fence to go and have a closer-up himself. Or so he thought.
Before he could even think, I go and have meself a little sniff of Brandy, she was onto him. Baby, was she onto him. That dog rocketed back so fast that I never even saw him move from A to B. One moment he was heading up towards Brandy, the next moment he’s safely panting his little heart out right next to me on the other side of the fence.
Brandy’s frolics managed to half heartedly tempt him to get back in but in the end we all sat back and watch Brandy run it off.
She doesn’t mind charging either, our brumby. In a closed up paddock with nowhere to go, in the end she just goes for it; thumping hoofs, bristling manes, smoking nostrils, the works.
I like.
Over the last few weeks the most progress I’ve made is due to my very deliberate ignoring of Brandy. This has resulted in her following me wherever I go, pleading for my attention.
Terry’s long pep talk the other night really boosted my confidence and put a lot of things in perspective. In hindsight a lot of things have become much clearer. It really makes all the difference to talk to some one who has experience with and understands brumbies. Their body language is so much more subtle than domesticated horses. Annie also managed to make me see the whole ‘breaking-in’ from a fresh perspective. She mentioned the infinite patience which Terry seems to be able to apply and how different personalities deal with the horses differently.
Just exchanging our (mainly mine) frustrations and little victories (mainly his) relaxed me enough to come up with a few fresh angles and approaches to work with within the next few weeks.
Next week it’ll be five months. Brandy and Baileys are getting friendlier every day. He has become her refuge when all the ‘baddies’ are out to get her. Such as the motorbikes. We barely hear the punk kids passing on their bikes every now and then a few streets away. For Brandy however this is a RED ALERT which makes her kick, buck and gallop around the paddock till she finds her refuge Baileys. We figure that she may have had a few run-ins with bikies in her wilder years out in the Toolara Forest.
In the end it is all about exposure. Every single time she is exposed to a what-she-thinks-to-be life threatening event, she does what all decent flight animals do. And that is, run for her life. However, every single time this perceived life-threatening-event turns out to be OK-ish, her reaction gets tempered a little bit.
This is becoming more and more obvious. Not from day to day but thinking back over the four and a half months there’s been massive progress. I read somewhere that Richard Maxwell found that a horse needs to be exposed over a hundred times to the same ‘threat’ before this becomes normal to them.
Brandy has been with us for nearly four months. I don’t know if using my friendly aid, the little stallion, is considered cheating a little. But because Baileys and I have grown quite fond of each other over the last year, Brandy is now equally eager for some of my attention and instead of me having to coerce her, she now waits in line for attention.
Man, this is good!
Haven’t done much at all for the last month or so yet made stacks of progress because of this little fellow. He has been quite a handful himself in the past but that’s a different story.
The desensitising is quite a large part of the training and obviously takes a lot of time. Brandy clearly needs to absorb and process each and every new sound, sight or smell a number of times before she’s OK with it. Looking back from four months ago till now, we’ve come a long way. In the early days, the only movement Brandy didn’t react to were the movement of clouds, wind, birds, hares and leaves, anything natural. By now she’s added lawn mowers and whipper snippers, loud music, playing children, pool noises, all kinds of different engine noises and whiffs of back burning bushes and wafting bbq’s. She’s not even jumping anymore when my sister is trialling her new exercise regime of rocketing down our drive way on a mini skate board.
So yeah, we’ve come a long way.
Plan B quite unexpectedly included spending very little time with Brandy for the last month. Which turned out to be just the right thing.
Baileys (our miniature stallion) begged us if he could please spend some more time with Brandy. Initially she snubbed him but when the tree lopper’s chain saw got going, Baileys became her refuge. Our neighbour’s weekly test of the roaring jetski motor saw her running to him for cover as well and within no time we found them cuddling up together at night. Baileys has become Brandy’s measure-of-normal.
Over the last few months Brandy has come to appreciate our neighbour’s love of rock and roll music. Like us, she isn’t that much into it but it doesn’t make her gallop to the end of the paddock any more either. But it is Bailey’s behaviour which teaches her that banging noises on shed walls and motor bikes and kids on skate boards and builders with rock grinders, annoying as they may be, are equally innocent noises.
It is Bailey’s rock solid, even-tempered and composed presence which calms Brandy down each and every time a new noise, sight or smell presents itself.
Calypso has gone back home and Brandy is now well and truly setting the pace.
For plan B I’ll be drawing on all my resources, my friend Terry, Richard Maxwell and contemporaries and ‘The Ten Steps” given to me by my mentor.
Really what I’m coming to is that it’ll be easier to follow Brandy’s clues than setting my own schedule. On the days we’re good, she pretty much does whatever I ask her, within reason. But there’s still the odd occasion where she treats me as if I am a stranger, ouch.
I’ve learned to recognise that when Brandy is already stressed even ten minute sessions strain our friendship. I’ve noticed that already without my input, she’s learning so much every day, the sights, sounds and smells of our laid back neighbourhood are clearly a little overwhelming to her at times. But whenever I put no pressure whatsoever on her we can hang out for ages and it’s all good.
