Zen the Mustang

Some fun in the jump chute today! I’m pretty sure that second jump (2’) is the highest Zen’s ever jumped—we don’t do much jumping! Theoretically, the goal of a jump chute is for only the horse to jump, but Zen wanted some emotional support, so it became a workout for the both of us 😂

Three years ago, I was ONLY comfortable working with Zen at speed in protected contact, and rightfully so—he didn’t have the emotional regulation to canter anywhere near me without lashing out. And you might notice that I only reward him for certain behaviors: 1) Targeting my hand, and 2) Completing the jump (then at the end, I do reward him for offering a polite calm trot up to me just because that was really sweet, ha, then we finish with our end of session/break signal by me dropping food on the mounting block, which means that my asks are done, and he’s welcome to offer more, but it won’t be reinforced—to keep him from offering behaviors when I’m trying to clean up/leave the arena, and to keep him from getting frustrated that he’s not being reinforced for anything he offers).

My +R is far from perfect, but I try to put measures in place to prioritize safety and enjoyment while decreasing frustration and overstimulation. You’ll notice when he follows me at the canter, there are moments his ears go back and he gets ahead of me—no problem, I just don’t reward until he’s back in his default position and targets my hand so he doesn’t get the reward for ”chasing,” which can become dangerous. We keep most of our +R walk/trot for now and don’t play with speed often, and do so with plenty of breaks to try to avoid frustration building :)