Friday March 30, 2018
Mr. Mikey actually nickered to me when I went in the mid-afternoon to collect him from his home paddock. I slowly led him towards the cross tie area in the main barn and then groomed him more free of any mats (winter coat and all that).  Tended to a tiny area of scratches he'd formed on the front of his chest probably from rubbing against a top rail...his new coat is coming in and he has awfully fine, soft fur and thin skin.  I led him to the round pen and then played a bit using a dressage whip and the clicker.  Basically I reinforced the idea of yielding his quarters to pressure.  Then I tried 2 things that did not (yet) firmly take hold: 1. I worked on asking him to move his haunches TOWARDS ME while standing on the OPPOSITE SIDE via taking a uber long whip and tapping him on the outskirts of his haunches.  He did not understand this. With my own. horse this took a while to "get" as horses are usually told not to move into humans...but with my own horse I can make him do shoulder in while working in hand and have him march down a rail...I had to first teach him, though, to yield his haunches towards me as I took a slight step BACKWARDS.  It was just a test.  Mikey did not get it and I did not keep after it.  I will work on that later.  I did, of course, re-establish the response that he yield his haunches to the slightest tap of a tip of the whip and he was super light and willing to move his haunches...often 3 strides worth! (more than I wanted but hey, it was towards what I wanted so I clicked and treated)...as long as I was standing on the same side that he needed to be moving away from. I am sure I can get this established sooner or later. It is not majorly important. Just a question...
The second thing I played with was something I've seen clinician J. Ashton Moore (Jeff Moore) do many times in clinics and that involves teaching a horse to drop his head to a rhythmic tapping of a cupped hand on either the neck or anywhere ON THE TOP LINE.  How you start this (and I was using the clicker and treats to back it up) was you take the butt end of a whip and tap about every 3/4th of a second...very "neutrally" either on top of the crest of the mane (can go low or high) and it is sort of like water dripping....tap, tap, tap, tap.  You reward the horse for the SLIGHTEST dip of his head.  Even if he goes to snort.  Jeff did not allow the horse to barge forward...and all you need is a halter and lead or a bridle on the horse.  He did not mind if the horse siddled sideways or went back a few steps.  He simply brought the animal back to same spot and returned to his endeavor of the tapping.  Once the horse began dropping his head or even just momentarily dipping it, Jeff would stop, stroke the side of the horse's neck usually with the same butt end of the whip and then begin again.  Usually w/I 15-20 minutes the horse got the idea and would drop his head all the way to the ground.  Mikey did not respond to this much if at all. I tapped for about 2 minutes and he simply kept his head and neck ramrod straight sort of up and his eyes wide open.  I decided not to mess with this for now. I tried applying light hand downward pressure on his poll but he just resisted that too.  So, perhaps another day. Jeff liked to bridge this "lower the head" thing into a tapping with a slightly cupped hand because he found that with rearing horses from the saddle one could use this stimulus and response as a way to make a horse go into "downward head" position merely by tapping as little as 2x right in front of the withers (while mounted) and the horse would almost nonchalantly just drop his head rather than rear.  Not that Mikey has a rearing problem...it is just a nice "trick" to have up one's sleeve. I use it with my own horse sometimes to encourage him to bring his head down for bridling.  I put Mikey away with some treats and love and used my target ball as a way to encourage him to walk with me 10-15 steps, click and treat...so he was so busy with this, he forgot to barge downwards to try to grab any grass! (ha).

Saturday March 31, 2018
Went out to Mikey's home paddock, used a de-fur scraping blade I have in my car.  Then put on my own leather training cavesson (really just a dropped nose cavesson and made sure it did not come too low on his nasal bone) and a light lead.  Again, he had nickered to me when I parked my car up next to his paddock. I had my dressage whip with me and my special tennis ball stuck on an old dressage whip (my "target"ball).  I only used my target ball a few times at the very end and Mikey definitely has the idea now about that. I stood about 4 feet away and said "target" and he eagerly stretched all the way forward so he could nuzzle the target (and thereby get the click and treat!).  But in the interim, I worked on this diligently...I took the stab (butt) end of the dressage whip and rested it into the middle of his shoulder and then applied periodic (lightly thrusting) pressure onto his shoulder...and would say "over." My intention was that he step sideways with his forehand.  I rewarded (at first) even if he moved his OTHER front foot more sideways away from me and this "pressure."  Then he started backing up thinking that might be an answer. I just said "no" and kept on with the mildly throbbing prod prod prod.  ANY movement of that front foot towards his midline (navel line) was a "go" as far as I was concerned.  He began giving me like 1.5 inches of movement in that direction. Yes, click and treat. And finally he gave me a GREAT full sideways step with the front leg I was indicating I wanted moved OVER.  I just was so delighted. I squealed my delight and clicked and treated. He looked almost p puzzled about my reaction but he knew he'd done something good. I then went to his other side and worked on his other shoulder...we went through the "several steps back" phase but suddenly, he had like an epiphany and stepped fully with that foot towards SIDEWAYS.  I praise the heck out of him and gave him a click and several treats...(what is called "a jackpot!").   Then I put on his regular halter, led him to the pond and let him eat a lot of grass for about 20 minutes and kept praising him.  Put him up.  Tuesday will have another go at this. I was worried about asking him to move his front feet sideways a step because I know he is not super comfortable on his fore feet but since it was just for about 5-7 minutes of me asking him and he finally gave it to me...I am happy with that.  I may revisit it from time to time if I need to use it as a building block in something else...but for now...will play with something else clicker-wise on Tues.