So you want to be a professional trainer..

[Tootsie4U]

(I've been asked by Bon's up-and-coming trainer to make a 'work plan' of things I'd like to have accomplished (ie goals) for his 30 days of training)

I sat thinking last night that I dont want Bonfire trained for a specific performance. I could care less if he came back to me after 30 or 60 days and never had a single canter put on him. The only thing I hope for Bonfire is that this experience will put some miles on him and give him exposure to the big wide world. But how do you convey that to a trainer? Money is money and I dont want to get taken for a ride either.

If someone came to you for pro training and said that their only goal is to have their horse's exposure increased, what would that mean to you? How would you tailor your training schedule to meet that goal? What would be signs of successes? How do trainers know when the training is finished (I realize there is no such thing - but how do they know its safe to hand the horse back as a done deal?)

[Peace]

That's how Leslie has gone about things with Quanah - her aim has been to expose him to as many different things as possible. And she measures success by how calmly and willingly he participates in his new experiences.

What would you like to be able to do with Bon when he comes back? I remember your mentioning hacking out with OH and Fella - so could the trainer work on making him a bombproof trail horse? That's not really so much a specific performance, in my mind, as anticipating the kinds of things a horse needs to be able to do in order to be a pleasant trail companion. Leslie works with Quanah on things like waiting patiently for all the other horses to pass him and head for home and then walking on quietly.

Leslie also tried Quanah out in a few different disciplines, just to see if anything sparked *his* interest, and it turned out he loves to jump. Now I'll be jumping him myself about the time pigs fly :p , but it's been a good talent for Quanah to develop because it gets him out at schooling shows and makes him happy to trailer somewhere with his friends, which I will be doing with him one day when we're ready to do horse-camping trips.

I think I'd talk with the trainer and tell him the things I wanted to be able to do with the horse, and then ask him how he'd go about helping you acheive your goals.

[cvb]

root cause analysis tells you to ask why seven times ;)

so here's the first one. you say what you want "is that this experience will put some miles on him and give him exposure to the big wide world"

why ?

Or to put it another way, if you have a picture of "now" and a picture of "after", what is the difference between the two. This doesn't have to get technical, you can tell me the difference is a blue sky if you want :p What I am after is the "image" of after.....

[Tootsie4U]

Why - to use someone elses' words: To make him a good citizen.

I've raised him to be an arena horse, unfortunately. Early on, my sights were set on showing and I didnt concern myself with the importance of hacking or getting him out on roads, etc. But now, life has changed and priorities have changed. I would still like to show him, but the need for him to be cool, calm, and collected out in the mountains or on the show ground is most important to me, even beyond a nice collected canter or fancy lateral work.

Good enough for a copy and paste to my work plan? :D

Peace, I know what Bonfire loves and he loves to jump as well. I aint a jumper - too much of a control freak to be one. :D :rolleyes: I try on occasion, for his sake though...

[cvb]

hey, you answered more that one "why" in that one ! :eek: cheat !! ;)

seriously - yes, I think that probably makes it a lot clearer for a trainer, plus its something you can "measure"....

the next stage, that the trainer may or may not ask for, is an idea of what is wrong with that picture now i.e. you say calm etc, does that mean he gets tense, what happens when he gets tense etc,

But the trainer may also want to do the "discovery" on that himself as then its independent of the owners expectations ;)

[Mehitabel]

i'd say just that. tell them he is dependent on walls, insecure, what he does in wide open spaces, and what you'd like to be able to start doing with him once you're riding again.

[KarinUS]

Peace, I REALLY like Leslie. The three of you were lucky to find such a gem!

Good Luck on Bon's training adventure! :)

[Tootsie4U]

Thanks all, you helped me out!

But it is a general question too.

If you were a personal trainer, would sort of mile stones would you look for to gague your success with each horse? I know that you'd have to tailor the schedule to each individual horse... I completely get that. Just wondering how a pro trainer deals with the progression of the horse after 30 days, 60 days or whatever the contract is for.

[KarinUS]

Just wondering how a pro trainer deals with the progression of the horse after 30 days, 60 days or whatever the contract is for.

I only have one experience with that and it is perhaps not very useful but here is what I saw with pro-trainers and how they measure success:
Friend has slow-poke Arabian and wants to do Dressage (but has Western background herself). The horse is a sweet inquisitive animal but has about as much impulsion as a brick.
This lady has been showing Western for 30+ years. So she decided to send the horse off to the trainer who tells her to quit Dressage.
The horse has been at the trainers and the owner visits him every few weeks for a lesson. Then 2 months after they started they enter the first show. At the first show the trainer even rides the horse! :rolleyes: Then the owner gets to ride in one class as well. She doesn't groom or anything. They just haul the horse (stabled at Trainers) to the show and she gets on. Weird huh?
Anyway, they judge their progress by how well he places in the shows and if he can qualify for the next level up, etc.

We used to ride together (both at Dressage shows and out on the trails) but of course he lives at the trainers barn and can't go trail riding anymore because he is a show horse now. :(

Sorry not much help... :o

[pengapenga]

This is a really interesting thread :) Good luck with Bon's training :)

I don't have much to add that is interesting anyway :p . Frits's trainer is really quite an interesting fellow to watch, he guages Frits's progress one small step at a time and only when Frits is comfortable with what he has been taught does the trainer move on to the next step however before the end of the session he will go back to the first step and see how well frits has absorbed the lesson :) He also does not do too much in anyone session and sometimes will only concentrate on one step. At the beginning of every session he asks Frits to do what he was taught in the last session. Frits to his credit has been doing very well and he also likes the trainer even whickering a greeting when he arrives for a session and in my book I think that is good progress that Frits accepts the trainer into his life :)

The trainer and I at the moment are concentrating on good manners so we are only doing ground work :) I think that that is very important in all horses but especially with a stallion. At this point Frits will stand quietly when you wave a whip around him, touching him with the whip and we can crack the whip on either side of Frits and he stands still looking quite bored with it all :) I guess our test will be in two weeks when we go to our first in hand show and see just how well he behaves himself :D

[Harry Hobbes]

If someone came to you for pro training and said that their only goal is to have their horse's exposure increased, what would that mean to you?It would mean that someone is handing me a solution rather than defining the problem(s); and I would interview the person to get to the underlying problem(s). But only for a little while; because putting any horse in the round pen and asking the horse to move will tell more in five minutes than all the interviewing in the world. The horse would demonstrate any problems.
I dont want Bonfire trained for a specific performance.But you are after behavior modification, correct?

If you want him to be that solid citizen, then that is what you should convey to "D". Be prepared to articulate the behaviors of a solid citizen. Here's the solid citizen short list (which you can add to as you wish):

1. Respects ALL human space.
2. Never displays dangerous behaviors in proximity to humans. (Do you remember the dangerous behaviors?)
3. Softly responds to human cues. (Including such things as taking the bit in the mouth, stepping over on cue, loading into a trailer, etc.)
4. Demonstrates compliance, acceptance, willingness, and respectfulness (in the second sense).
5. Demonstrates patience around humans. (I.e., waits on the human: defers/yields to the human; doesn't grab grain/feed, etc. from the human.)

The way to think about this is: "What is the list of behaviors that my horse exhibits that tells me he no longer needs training." When your horse consistently exhibits those behaviors, then he no longer needs training.

The time-honored method of developing solid citizens is through the vehicle of "giving the horse a job"; or as Brannaman has stated it: get him "cutting weeds". This will may or may not be "D's" primary method; but can be the equivalent of what you were alluding to when you wrote about "...give him exposure to the big wide world".

If Bonfire is well-started, I would expect "D" to quickly move beyond the round pen (evaluation) and get to some productive work. (I.e., cutting weeds from the horse's point of view.)

But starting in the round pen is where "D" will make the initial determination whether Bonfire has holes in his development (or not), what they are, and start to resolve them by working in the pen.

So I'd charge "D" first with determining if Bonfire "has any holes". If so, what are they, what'll it take to fix them, and how can he help.
What would be signs of successes? How do trainers know when the training is finished Check off behaviors against the solid citizen short list above: when the horse consistently exhibits the correct behaviors of a solid citizen, then the trainer can honor the horse as a solid citizen.

If you were a personal trainer, would sort of mile stones would you look for to gague your success with each horse?
For each and every interaction, I'd want to see a progression of behavior modification:

1. Compliance (to my cues; each and every one.)
2. Acceptance (that I have the right to ask.)
3. Willingness (to respond to my wishes.)
4. Respect (in the second sense).

In that order.

All of the drills, exercises, tasks and actions are merely vehicles to work our way though this sequence to achieve true respect. Saying this the other way around, once the horse consistently displays respect (in the second sense), one can safely engage in all of the drills, exercises, tasks and actions.
Just wondering how a pro trainer deals with the progression of the horse after 30 days, 60 days or whatever the contract is for.By necessity, they put each horse through their "program" (whatever it is). Typically, they have one hour per day, five days per week, four or eight weeks to train the horse. That's 20 hours per month per horse. This is required by the customer of course: the customer would never sign up for an open-ended deal; the customer wants results in 60 days (or whatever).

So professional trainers have the same (training) business problem that the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have: How to move each participant from A to Z (behavior-wise) to standard, on a strict, un-yielding schedule.

The answer is to put everyone (all those individuals) through the same program and push hard so that everyone has more important things to think about than relatively unimportant things such as "missing their mommies"; they push so that the participants "focus". There's nothing quite as effective in the training context as doing 100 pushups - or running eight miles (both examples of "cutting weeds") - to help one focus. And the name of that game is "behavior modification". (Basic Training is only a label.)

The "individual attention" only exists within the bounds of the available time.

If "D" is worth his salt, Bonfire will be very busy learning to focus and respond properly to being "pushed on". (Reference the behavior modification list above for the proper responses.) That is, Bonfire will be very busy "cutting the weeds" that Delorenzo tells him to cut; but all the while the objective is the progression through the four behaviors listed above.

"D" may or may not be subtle, but the thing to look for: Is he working on the behavior modification list above in everything he asks of the horse? He may not articulate it as above, but you should be able to detect him working through the list. (He may say something like: "There's a change.")

Best regards,
Harry

[cvb]

Thanks all, you helped me out!

But it is a general question too.

If you were a personal trainer, would sort of mile stones would you look for to gague your success with each horse? I know that you'd have to tailor the schedule to each individual horse... I completely get that. Just wondering how a pro trainer deals with the progression of the horse after 30 days, 60 days or whatever the contract is for.

When I've seen anything written or discussed on this, the US version seems to be based on how many hours work has gone into the horse, rather than "elapsed days". e.g. 'after X hours I would expect to have basic paces, stop, turn established' and so on.

What I would set for a particular horse would depend on what they arrived with ;) and what the objective was. But you would want to take the end point (go out for a hack calmly) and break it back down into milestones - thats just sensible project management ;)

I would also not wait until end-date to test that I had met the objective - my "plan" would be to deliver it ahead of time, test it, and then refine it. If I left it til the end, there could be remaining issues I would have no time to sort.

So for example - I might say that I would start by being able to walk out in hand for a certain amount of time. Then ridden. And then increase the time. This way you are securing the end point as you go, not just doing all the "academic" work in the arena and hope it works as you expect at the end :eek:

EDIT: i.e. I would look at what the elements of the end point are, what the pre-requisites are or qualifying criteria, and build those into my plan,

As an example, I was at a western group thing just nearby the other weekend and Fi was still VERy concerned about other horses cantering past. (Yet she os ok when warming up for dressage comps - I think its cos in the western/group thing everyone is going the same way). So there is not much point going in a proper pleasure class til this one is sorted :rolleyes: