Doc's Introduction
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Doc's Decision

Horse Anatomy Reference

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Doc's Life or Death Decision
A Rehab with a deadline

Week 6, Monday
Whew. Doc is much, much better today. This setback is behind us, really behind us, and not even a video record because the camera simply refused to work the two times I was going to record the lame Doc. Guess we won't be keeping that for posterity. I ponder that a bit and decide I'm happy with the energy of not keeping lame Doc around to look at later. Back to work-in-progress Doc.

Right fore is still a bit filled, but nothing like last week. Left fore seems to be working just fine. Hind end connection looks more, well, connected. And Doc is ready to GO. No looking back for him.

This was one of those interesting "ah-ha" sessions for me and, I hope, for him. I've been working, working to overcome his habitual left-hind hop into transitions, and today I discovered an interesting thing. If I ask him to back a few steps -- really correctly back, with his belly lifted and connecting straight back into both hind legs -- he can walk and trot away without the hop. Really. I have video! So, as I have suspected all along, the hop is not a physical necessity at this point in his life, just a compensatory movement pattern left over from some other time.

Week 6, WEDNESday
Variation on a theme. Rock back, walk, halt, rock back, walk or trot -- but this time, do it all at liberty. Choose to have the correct bend and posture on the rail. Choose not to hop the left hind into it. Yeah, well, some of the time, anyway. Other options explored included hanging his head over the fence and blowing me off after the halt, motorcycle turning and cutting across the middle of the ring at the trot or canter when asked to walk, and "mistaking" the halt command for a request to wheel around and take off the other direction. The good part of these evasions was three in a row absolutely clean right-lead canter transitions. Silver lining. And yet ...

Here's where I get on my soapbox about teaching horses to halt straight and to turn both toward and away from the fence when free longeing. And mixing those options up so they don't make an assumption -- mentally and posturally -- every time you step in front of the shoulder. It was very clear to me that Doc, like many horses, wasn't ever taught to stop on the rail, still in the appropriate bend, and then simply return to forward motion at whatever gait requested. We do that all the time when riding, so why is it so rare in longeing work (either on a line or at liberty)? Instead, we accept them stopping crooked, wheeling around or drifting to the inside before turning back the way they came. And we habituate them to think they only stop as prelude to reverse, so they anticipate and start to turn before they've even come to a stop.

I also suspect strongly that Doc was always allowed to turn toward the fence. So, when I ask him to stop on the rail, he just automatically turns his head toward the fence (or even over it) and moves his hindquarters a step or two to the inside. The problem with this is, when I'm asking him to rock back into his inside hind and push off into bend again, he's in exactly the wrong position to do that. Instead, I get a dropped outside shoulder and a disengaged hind end -- a horse crooked and on the forehand.

So, we practice. I walk even with his shoulder and a dressage-whip length away, reminding him the shoulder and ribcage go toward the rail and the nose and backside come in. Ease forward, toward the point of the shoulder, to stop. Step back to the flank to dissuade him from turning into the rail instead. Repeat, fine-tuning my position and energy levels until he can halt in bend, rock back and strike off with the inside fore (meaning he's rocked his weight to the outside shoulder instead of falling in).

Small successes both ways. He'll have the day off tomorrow, then we'll see Friday whether the wheeling and cantering will trigger another setback, or whether he's learned something useful for himself.

Week 6, Friday
No apparent adverse effects from his bits of exuberance on Wednesday. A short but very interesting session today. We went out of our usual workspace, a roundpen, and walked around the property in the halt -- rock back - walk - halt pattern for a while. Then I started to notice that he was cheating just a bit on the connection into the right side. He would rock back into the hindquarter, but on the forward rock into the walk, he would take a miniscule step -- just a hoofspan or less -- laterally with the left fore.

So, I changed the game. Rock back and take a small step straight back with the left fore, then rock forward and take a small step straight forward with the same foot, always working over the right fore so the steps back and forward are symmetrical, moving the same amount from where the left fore would be if it were squarely aligned with the right.

No problem with the left moving, but when I asked for the same thing with the right fore, he habitually moved the left fore laterally as he started to rock forward, then took the step with the right fore moving just a bit medial. In the exercise where I ask him to yield a shoulder and step across with a specific forefoot in a transition, this would look like he was just rebalancing with the left fore before unwieghting the right fore, and I probably would accept that as a sensible balance decision. But when he's doing this without the lateral movement, it's clear he's not just rebalancing. Hmmm ...

Then, more interesting happenstance. Our path to get into a working space with good footing took us across a barrier, a simple railroad tie. Instead of simply walking across it like he does the poles in the roundpen, Doc walked across with his front end normally, then pitched onto the forehand and gracelessly hopped his hindquarters over. What's that about?! So, we did it again. Same procedure from him, with even less grace and catching one toe on the tie so he basically stumbled and flung himself across this 6-inch-tall barrier. Clearly that's no good. First of all, his front end doesn't need to take that kind of jamming of weight. Second, he should be able to walk in normal rhythm across something that small.

Doc's body's choice not to follow the normal footfall for the walk is something I think of in engine-tuning terminology -- his firing order is off. That's what happens if you have a bad spark plug and the cylinders aren't engaging in the proper order. Your engine will turn into a shuddering, stuttering mess. I think of the same thing happening in a horse's nervous system, through either injury or habituation.

I wonder what would happen if I returned to the earlier exercise, the straight rock back and forward with the little step, and just did a larger version with the railroad tie just happening to be in front of the horse. I positioned Doc a couple feet from the tie and started with the left fore, which had moved more easily earlier. As he rocked straight back and stepped back with his left fore, he also too a small step straight back with his right hind. Rocking forward and stepping with the left for also meant stepping forward with the diagonal hind. Would this be enough of a "jump start" to get the footfalls right over the obstacle? I rocked back and forth a few times, asking for a slightly larger step as I went, and then just extended a rock forward into a step across the obstacle. No problem. All the feet went in the order they were supposed to. Cool.

Same thing with the right fore, still working to contain his tendency to cheat with that little stutter-step to the left. Same outcome -- clean four-beat walk across the railroad tie. Okay, now what happens if I just lead him straight across without the prep? He flings himself on the forehand and hops across behind. Very interesting. We finished up with a bit of a redirect -- one more tie crossing with the prep work, performed perfectly. Guess we'll be doing more of this exercise, which I have dubbed The Pendulum, to see if Doc's nervous system can hold the programming. Should be fascinating.

Week 6, Saturday
Couldn't stand the suspense, so I made a small block of time today to find out whether Doc's body would remember how to cross the railroad tie obstacle with some organization, or whether he would hurl himself at it again. We did a small amount of prep, releasing the neck and swinging the spine, plus the now-familiar rock back to move forward. Then I led him straight across a tie at a moderate speed and on a long rope so he could choose to slow down if he wanted to. He stepped across in balance with a normal four-beat walk. Whoo hoo!

And so, on to the next balance question. I set three heavy poles in a wide fan shape, spaced out so that Doc could stand between them at the midpoint and have room to move forward and back a step or two. At first, I just led him toward them on about a 2-foot line at moderate pace in a soft left bend. Not too surprisingly, instead of holding the bend and stepping quietly across, he sped up, dropped his left shoulder and clunked his way across with a couple of spastic hops with the left hind. So, back to our connecting exercise. Approach the first pole, stop, do the little pendulum dance with the left fore/right hind stepping a few inches backward and forward several times, then cross the pole slowly and deliberately. No hops, no clunks. Halt between the first and second poles (we're working toward the outside of the fan at this point so we have plenty of room to move.) Repeat the connecting exercise and walk across in rhythm and keeping a consistent speed. Then I meant to halt and repeat again, but at my command Doc sped up and flung himself at the third pole, hopping and clunking.

Even if Doc didn't have the soundness issues he has, this wouldn't exactly be an unusual choice for him to make. Work over poles is supposed to confirm whether a horse can maintain a consistent rhythm while in self-carriage. But all too often I see horses who have clearly been allowed (= taught) to rush to a pole or line of poles, fling themselves across it and race away on the forehand. So this exercise where we deliberately slow down, rock back, confirm balance and then go forward softly should be useful in all kinds of situations.

I worked with Doc both directions across the fan, and by the end of our session (about 15 minutes total) he was able to cross at any point, wide or narrow, in a consistent step on about a four-foot line. To get there, we went through several evasions -- plow over the top of the handler, duck to the outside and miss the pole, shake your head and prance (Doc's favorite editorial comment when he's sure I'm asking him to do something impossible.) But in the end, he did seem to believe it was possible to cross the obstacle in balance and without a fuss. We'll have to wait until Monday to see how well this lesson sticks, and what it does for his overall soundness.