Flip that Horsenality

Here we are, Friday again, and it is raining…..AGAIN! We got a couple of dry days this week and we had a few back slides and a few victories. I have been doing a horsenality chart on him every two weeks, and it has been interesting, educational, and captivating to watch the change. I would not have been able to move so quickly with him, were it not for the theory of Horsenalities. When I first got him, he seemed extreme in every category of both RB extrovert and introvert. And while he flipped the quadrants in a nano second, he quickly emerged as an RBI. Had I not known that early on, my extrovert personality would have for sure been WAY too much for him. It helped me change my strategy immediately and move forward a lightning fast pace. I am an expert….EXPERT….at RBE’s. Snookie has been an extreme one for the last 22yrs I have owned her. I managed to survive her, and she survived me, as a young woman, non natural and basically just a dumb kid. I don’t know exactly how, but I know Snookie taught me so much, and the fact that I was successful with her before I became natural makes me proud of my innate natural abilities, since I learned it all on my own. No arrogance here, just a 40 yr old woman proud of the 20yo I once was. Anyways, his profile today looks more like a Dalmatian with dots in all 4 quadrants, rather than the one sided, highly uniform row of extreme dots, like orange cones on a highway, that it was in the beginning. Many sections are now so mild they are nearly on the center X. NOTHING falls in the extreme category, and only a few in the moderate. What I find relieving is how much he is moving into the LBE category, but the LBI is a close second. RBI is still dominant, and RBI strategies still work best…Don’t push or rush, and lots of waiting. A long phase one works magic and his phase 4 is still a whisper. It is EASY to accidently use too strong a phase and push him over the top, but he is getting an ever so slight stubborn side and I have accidentally scared the crap out of him, when what seems like a lot of ask on my part isn’t enough to cause him to comply, I go to a ‘different’ technique and start at too high a phase and ……FIREWORKS! But I love how quickly he is OVER things. I think he is a lot like Rose. Just a milder, less argumentative version since the RBI overrides and underlies, the LBE. He is also beginning to view me as his friend, not just his leader. He is touching me more, rubbing his head on me now and coming to me quickly without me having to ask him to. I can’t wait for the day, he waits for me by the gate (he does this) but doesn’t leave once I get there. He also is putting his nose in the halter, in fact seeking out the halter when I am not even ready. We have done two friendly sessions now with the trailer using pellets inside and undemanding time near the trailer along with the L2 online trailer patterns. A big step forward in our friendly game this week…..I got to enter zone 5 for the first time. Not touching him of course, I have no death wish. But I can now slap the ground and toss the stick and string over zones 2-3 (both touching and helicopter), while standing in and touching zone 4. So I took a chance and walked about 5 feet behind him while slapping the ground and safely made it to the other side. I walked 2 full circles around him. He moved his hind end a step and a half so he could more easily see me out of the new eye, but that was it. No fuss, no muss and the lead rope was just lying on the ground. A big leap of faith for him and me. I don’t know what the weather will be like for the weekend or what exactly I have planned for him, but of course it should be interesting.
Savvy On
Michelle