Working vs. Playing

As I have already mentioned, I base most of my training techniques off of Parelli Natural Horse-Man-Ship. One thing that Pat emphasizes is the importance of terms and philosophy. At one point in his colt-starting series he mentions that although you should only work with a young horse for 45 minutes, you can play with a horse for hours. This is one of my weak areas. I often find myself saying "today I worked on (fill in the blank) with Gambler" or "we need to work on (something) today."

Gambler hasn't really been himself lately. I'm not too worried; things like this happen. I do want to find out why he isn't happy and do anything I can about it. He is a very playful, goofy horse, who needs variety and fun. I think that he may be struggling because I have been too focused on the work, forgetting all about playtime.

So starting Thursday, which is the next time I see him, I am going to spend more time playing and spending quality time with Gambler. We are going to play games with "toys" like tarps, saddle pads, barrels, poles, a bandanna tied to the end of my stick, and other things. I'll spend more time grooming him and rewarding his effort. I really want to play around more with the liberty side of things. If he seems interested, we might try out some trick training too. Gambler has a bad habit of pawing when he gets annoyed, so I think I might take advantage of the opportunity to teach him to paw on command.

Hopefully, this new approach to Gambler's training will be to his benefit. Since he is such a playful horse, he should be more interested in training "games" than tedious training exercises. I hope to benefit from a new philosophy as well. By viewing my time with Gambler as playing a game instead of working on something, I hope to have more fun and not become as frustrated. I will definitely write about our play session, to let everyone know how it went.