Passive Resistance

[pengapenga]

We went to PC today with Mushu and the coach said that Mu is passive resisitant.

I kinda of thought his behaviour was resistance of some form just did not give it a name, which it now has:rolleyes:

Basically if he does not want to do something he ignores the rider, and keeps pulling his head even though my duaghter is now keeping good contact without pulling on his mouth.

What kind of excersises can I do with him to help him not be so resistant and what kind of excersises can I do with my daughter to enable her to deal with his resistance.

[Harry Hobbes]

Basically if he does not want to do something he ignores the rider, and keeps pulling his head...What kind of excersises can I do with him to help him not be so resistant and what kind of excersises can I do with my daughter to enable her to deal with his resistance.Train the horse to "give to the bit" as a conditioned response. Here's a reference:
Giving To The Bit is described in detail in John Lyons publications:

1. Communicationg With Cues, Part I, Chapter 18
2. Communicationg With Cues, Part III, Section II (Chapters 6-12)
3. Ground Control Manual, Lessons 13, 16, 22, and 23.
Taken from this thread: http://www.newrider.com/forum/showthread.php?p=485450#post485450

Both you and your daughter can (and should) practice this anytime you're mounted and standing still. Get it good while standing, then get it good while moving. You'll find that it takes care of all kinds of problems.

Best regards,
Harry

[NoviceNic]

Now that is the name I would give to Captain when we are surrounded by horse he doesnt know.....:rolleyes: I try with all my limited knowledge to ask him to listen to me with lots of bends and transistions. But he just sticks his head in the air and completly ignores me...:o Will have good read on Harry's link...:D

[neen]

This sounds like Fluke, too -- rather than kicking up a big fuss, if he doesn't want to do something he turns on the "who, me?" approach and studiously looks the other way.

It's interesting what Harry says about the conditioned response. There a few things that always get through to Fluke, no matter how much he's switched off -- we've done them so often, he just can't ignore them. One is disengaging his hindquarters; one is flexing his nose to his girth; one is the verbal command "trot on". They all work like magic now, but I hadn't really thought about why that is.

I'm now working on a conditioned response to singing -- "when aunty neen starts singing, drop head and relax." My RI has already conditioned me to start singing when I get tense -- so my plan now is to condition him to respond!

On the plus side, I tend to think that this sort of resistance is somewhat safer to deal with than the more active sort ;)

[pengapenga]

Thanks for the advice HH. I shall look for those books and let you know how we go:D