Posts Tagged ‘training

Keeping it in the Family

Last weekend was a busy painting weekend as Minnow created lots of new works and Blitz took to painting his first masterpiece with ease. But what about Boomerang? Younger brother to Blitz by a year and devoted follower/watcher of King Minnow – Boomer has the least amount of trick training (or training in general) out of all the Trick Ponies. But that didn’t stop Boomer from picking up the paint brush just like the others.

I mentioned a few days ago that I basically taught Blitz how to paint by allowing him to watch Minnow create his own masterpieces. But Blitz had already had some basic training on how to pick up objects and had already steadily been practicing holding the paintbrush. So when I decided to let Boomer give it a try, I wasn’t sure how he would do. Boomer knows one “mouth” trick and thats to play fetch. He successfully retrieves a fetch toy with his mouth – a trick that he really only learned this summer and has yet to have much practice with it. So I had a lot of doubts that he would even hold the brush considering I had never showed it to him before.

But Boomer is not your typical horse. I’m not kidding when I say I have YET to find a single thing that Boomer is afraid of or won’t do. Odd for a newly turned 6 year old that doesn’t have much life experience. In fact before I bought him last summer his only true experiences were ring work and a few hunter shows. He’d never even been out on a trail – something that can be quite scary for a horse the first time. Scary rocks, tall trees, rustlings in the bushes. So on the day that I purchased him in Virginia I was amazed when he went out on a trail with me, walked over a bridge, and let pool noodles smack him in the face with not so much as a bat of the eye. I knew then that Boomer was a special kind of horse. Since then I’ve exposed him to countless things that never seem faze him.

Just this Wednesday I had an 11 year old boy stop by my farm. I popped him on Boomer and told him to run through the obstacle course I had set up in my ring. The obstacles consisted of the giant ball, a tarp, some strange flags, a bicycle, and a bunch of soccer balls among many other things. Boomer had seen some of the stuff…never the soccer balls. Boomer kicked the ball around with the boy on his back, he tamped over the tarp, picked up the flags, let a pair of jingle bells flap all over his face, let the child ride the bicycle while leading him and trotted through the cluster of soccer balls. Lets just say I was so proud of Boomer. He’s definitely one in a million.

So that being said – back to the painting. After letting Minnow and then Blitz practice their painting skills I decided to pull Boomer out as well. He stomped up to the easel and stood infront of it like he had been doing it all his life. I handed him a paintbrush and he actually held it. After a few practices holding it I decided to ask him to touch the paper. Several minutes later he was consistently touching the paper. I decided not to ask too much of him (like strokes and such) in one day, but I have no doubt that within the next week or so Boomer will be the third painting Chincoteague pony to reside at Iron Horse Farm.

Boomer has been really fun to train because I can do/show him almost anything. With Minnow (and Blitz too) I have always had to be careful how or what I show him. Minnow in the beginning had extreme trust issues, not to mention he had issues with sound or anything that made a noise. As you can see he’s progressed TREMENDOUSLY in the 6 years I have had him, but I still always have to be careful what I ask of him or show him. With Boomer he’s like a clean slate. The first time I showed him a tarp he picked it up and flung it at his unsuspecting brother Blitz. Funny – but it set me back a bit with Blitz’s training…thanks Boomer. On Wednesday I brought out the big ball and he proceeded to put all of his weight on it until the point where he layed down on it (with me on his back!). With Boomer the possibilities are endless as to what he can learn. It makes me dream of days where maybe I will be walking him into a school or a nursing home so he can entertain people or perhaps he’ll be riding on a float in a parade – if I can think of it he will probably do it! My guess is (and he’s lucky) Boomer has never been given any reason to not trust people. He was born and raised by the loving people that I bought him from (www.1000welcomesfarm.com) and I think he’s been fortunate to have a life thus far where nothing bad has ever happened to him. I’ve never had a horse before that didn’t have some sort of traumatizing issues – and as much as I love working and helping the troubled ones, its a bit refreshing to have a pony that has no issues.

So I ask you….can you think of anything CRAZY I should try with Boomer? I’d love to hear your suggestions!

-KD
www.ponypaintings.com

Tags : assateague, Chincoteague, chincoteague pony, clicker training, horse, iron horse farm, Kyley DiLuigi, natural horsemanship, painting, painting horse, pony, training, trick, trick horse, trick pony

September Giveaway – WINNER!

So its time to announce the winner for Minnow’s mini-painting giveaway. Interestingly we had 23 views to the post but only 3 people commented to win the prize! But regardless, with the help of Random.org we were able to generate the completely random winner! And the winner is….. Mary H. from http://stalecheerios.com/blog I love her idea of a liberty act with multiple horses. I’ve always dreamed of the day where I can work all three of my boys in the ring at one time. So congrats to Mary – and I hope you enjoy Minnow’s painting. And for everyone who didn’t win I still have a gift for you!

If you purchase a Pony Painting between now and next Friday (October 2, 2009) I will give you 10% off the painting price. To receive the discount simply e-mail me at info@ponypaintings.com with the subject SEPT SALE and tell me which painting you would like to purchase. I will then send you an updated paypal invoice that reflects the sale price.

Hopefully we will be able to have more giveaways in the future….so keep reading!!

-KD
www.ponypaintings.com

Tags : assateague, Chincoteague, chincoteague pony, clicker training, horse, iron horse farm, Kyley DiLuigi, painting, painting horse, pony, training, trick, trick horse, trick pony

Stroke of Genius

So yesterday you hopefully read about how there are now TWO painting ponies at PonyPaintings.com. I briefly mentioned how I used Minnow as “teacher” to show the other ponies how it was done – and today I’d like to go into that a little further.

When I started painting with Minnow on Sunday I began thinking about the different strokes that he does. Sometimes he makes up and down marks, sometimes he swirls the brush around, sometimes he jabs at the canvas, and occasionally he misses the canvas all together and “air” paints. So I started wondering what made him decide which stroke to do. Why did he choose to jab the canvas this time and not the next time? Did he actually know he was making something? The answer is actually much simpler than that (I know my horse is smart – but sometimes I probably give him way too much credit). The real answer is that I was telling him what type of marks to make – although I didn’t even know it.

When I paint with Minnow I no longer use the clicker, I instead just occasionally give him a bite of grain to keep him interested and sometimes a “Good Boy” or a pat. In my mind I’m just giving him a treat at random – for continuing to paint, and typically I’ll chose a time that he really made a nice mark on the canvas and then handed the brush back to me. But this isn’t why Minnow thought he was getting food.

After about a 1/2 hour of really studying how he was painting I realized that his marks are being influenced by when I give him a reward. If I gave him a treat when he did an up and down stroke then the next time he does a stroke he will do another up and down mark. Seeing that I didn’t reward him that time he tries another stroke, and then another until I finally produce a treat for him. Then the next stoke will be again a repeat of the one that produced the food. And so on the process goes. So basically without even knowing it I was directing Minnow as to what strokes I wanted him to make.

Of course the next thing I did was experiment with him. I decided to only give him food when he made a really vigorous mark on the canvas. He also got a “Good Boy” as Minnow recognizes this word in almost the same way he does a click – because I use it a lot. If I give a really exuberant “Good Boy” with a hug and a pat he knows he did exceptionally well. Below you can watch the video of me working with Minnow on only “elaborate” brush strokes. As you can see he tries to just do the “bare minimum” sometimes – but I don’t reward him and wait for a bigger stroke.

I was impressed at the fact that Minnow is constantly trying to figure out what produces the food – perhaps this is why he would paint for hours if I let him. I’m going to continue to play with this concept and see if I can get him to make swirls with the brush or zig zags or something really interesting. Maybe I could even get him to paint something specific. Ever see the elephants that do that? I’m not sure if I could ever teach Minnow to paint something “specific” but that certainly would be amazing.

-KD
www.ponypaintings.com

Tags : assateague, Chincoteague, chincoteague minnow, chincoteague pony, clicker training, horse, iron horse farm, Kyley DiLuigi, natural horsemanship, painting, painting horse, pony, training, trick, trick horse, trick pony

Really Big News!

On Sunday (as planned) I lugged out Minnow’s paints and easel so that he could create some new artwork. We spent about an hour creating lots of new works (that will be available soon)….but I will post more about this later. While Minnow painted I specifically set up his easel infront of our dutch doors at the farm so that Blitz and Boomer could look out of their stalls and watch.

Why you may be wondering? Because I wanted them to learn by watching Minnow. And it worked.

After painting with Minnow I decided to pull out Blitz (the next oldest at age 7 and the furthest in his clicker/trick training). I haltered Blitz but let him have free range in the paddock where the painting supplies were set up. Surprisingly Blitz decided to take the exact spot Minnow had occupied infront of the easel. So I attached a new piece of Bristol paper to the easel and decided to let Blitz have a try with painting. About 6 months ago or more I had begun working with Blitz on holding brushes in his mouth. At that time we was able to get the concept down but was too afraid of the easel and strange setup to actually touch it to the paper. Since then I had also taught him to play fetch and generally pick up objects in his mouth. So those skills were already mastered.

I handed Blitz the brush and he touched the paper with it! Interestingly he began making marks on the paper in an up and down motion (the same way that Minnow had been doing it). He took to the painting with ease – simply as if he had learned by watching Minnow do it. You can watch the video below of Blitz creating his very first painting.

I was thrilled that PonyPaintings.com is now home to two painting Chincoteague Ponies. But then I remembered Minnow. I actually started to feel really sad, because painting had always been the special thing that Minnow and I shared. He was special and unique because he was the only one. Now Minnow has to share painting with Blitz – and he’s also no longer the only painting Chincoteague Pony in the World. I almost feel a little guilty for teaching Blitz. I took away something special from Minnow. 🙁

But a long-term goal I have always had was to teach all three of my boys to paint so that someday they could all paint on the same canvas. And Minnow has become such an influence and a teacher to my two younger Chincoteagues. I think they learn a lot by watching him and the way that he interacts with me. The fact remains that Minnow will ALWAYS hold a very special place in my heart. I’ve NEVER (as much as I would love to) felt that way I do about Minnow with any other horse in my life…and I don’t know that I ever will. Minnow will always be the pony that introduced me to clicker training, and trick training, and basically taught me everything I know now about training horses using positive reinforcement. Without Minnow I would probably never have found another way, a kinder/gentler way.

So as sad as it makes me that Minnow’s unique talent is no longer unique at my farm, I know that teaching Blitz was a necessary goal in order to better my relationship with him. Minnow will always be special to me and I’m happy that he’s now able to take on the roll as teacher more than ever. I can’t wait for the day when I bring home my very own Chincoteague foal from the Island and Minnow can help me to train him as well. And I guess I’m just going to have to teach Minnow an even better trick so that he can be unique again! What about painting while standing on his hind legs? Or while sitting on a bean bag chair?

Look for artwork by Blitz to appear in the PonyPaintings.com shop soon. But for now you can watch the video of Blitz painting on his first canvas 9-21-09:

-KD
www.ponypaintings.com

Tags : assateague, Chincoteague, chincoteague pony, clicker training, horse, iron horse farm, Kyley DiLuigi, natural horsemanship, painting, painting horse, pony, training, trick, trick horse, trick pony

Rain or Shine

On Saturday Boomerang and Blitz attended the Pickering Hunt Pony Club Mounted Games Competition in Ludwigs Corner, PA. I entered the boys into the training division as I’ve decided to finish out this show season continuing to take it slow with the boys. Hopefully next Spring Boomerang will be ready to compete in the Masters division and Blitz will go on to ride in the Veteran (or Fossil) division with my mom. I’m sure we will inquire some separation issues (especially with Blitz) when the boys are no longer riding in the same division. Until then they’ll just trudge along together.

So Saturday ended up being a rainy and mucky day. But being rough and tumble mounted games players there is no amount of rain that would keep us from playing. We were the first division to ride, so of course we got the worst of the rain. Not to mention the ring was really flooded with puddles everywhere. Both ponies were a little weary of the big puddles so we opted to “click” them into it. During warmup we asked the boys to walk into the puddles. Each time a foot touched the puddle they got a click and rewarded. Within 5 minutes both ponies were trotting and cantering comfortably through the muck. Ahh the power of a click.

I was a bit bummed that it was raining because I had hoped to use this competition to ask Boomer for a bit more speed. But since the footing was not ideal I decided to not push him and have him fall. If he fell likely it would undo a lot of my training making him fearful to go faster. But despite the rain, Boomer put in a good effort, especially considering the week leading up to the competition I was only able to ride him once. My mom was convinced that my 6 year old would surely give me some bucks since he’d had a little time off. But he didn’t buck once. My Boomerang is growing up.

We placed pretty consistently second in most of the races as we had some tough competition against some much faster ponies. Although I’d like to add that the competition ponies might have been faster than us, but our boys were the best behaved. The fast ponies were obviously being pushed too fast, and most were having “freak outs” at the start as well as some uncontrollable meltdowns during the races. This is usually brought on when a young horse is pushed into racing and going fast without basic flat skills and experiences. Most of the time these young horses get an adrenaline rush when put into a racing situation  and they have not learned how to control it (ever see young race horses at the start gate freak out?). So instead of dealing with the stress they feel they blow up, become uncontrollable, or some even shut off and refuse to move. It makes me sad when I see horses like this (and roughly 50% of mounted games ponies have this issue) because it could have easily been prevented had the horses been trained properly from the start.

Too much emphasis is placed on speed in mounted games – although yes it is true you can’t win if your horse isn’t fast. But mounted games isn’t like horse racing, we don’t run a straight line at top speed. We stop and go, spin around, halt, reverse – basically maneuvers you would see a talented dressage horse doing. But lets face it, how many people that like to go fast do you see doing dressage? They are polar opposites. I may be the exception as I love dressage and mounted games, I trained my big guy Nitro up to Second Level Dressage. But the fact remains, that if you want your horse to be a controllable (and calm) mounted games pony then you need to do your flat work first. Not only that but I strongly believe that one of the BIGGEST skills that a mounted games pony can learn is how to deal with their adrenaline. The way I accomplished this with my boys is to take them to an open field and allow them to gallop up a hill as fast as they want to go (which is pretty darn fast) and when we reach the top I ask them to stop, stand, and wait. This is VERY hard for a horse to do. After exerting all that energy (and racing another horse on top of it) they have a huge amount of adrenaline that likely would cause them to rear, buck, spin, or run off if you asked them to stop in the middle of their race. But by using clicker training I have successfully taught my boys how to control this feeling. They now calmly stand after a good gallop. Not only that but they stand like statues on the start line and when the other horses have finished the race and we’re not done yet they don’t become anxious about being the last to the finish line.

Anyway thats my rant for the day on uncontrollable horses. The same principles in mounted games goes for barrel racing or any type of speed sport.

So onto the competition…Boomer and Blitz ended up taking an overall finish of third place and I was very proud of how they behaved. Both ponies have improved in leaps and bounds from the beginning of this year. I can’t wait to see how much more they learn next year.

-KD
www.ponypaintings.com

P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos from the show. We didn’t have anyone to take photos for us, not to mention it was raining.

Tags : assateague, buck, Chincoteague, chincoteague pony, clicker training, horse, iron horse farm, Kyley DiLuigi, mgaa, mounted games, pony, training, trick, trick horse, trick pony

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