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My Join-Up® Experience

Lost attention

By:

whiteravenpark

Date:

2015-May-04 at 09:42AM

My 'special' little 4yo had his first join up session today.

All went extremely well. No round yard, so just used the 60x20m arena, not a problem at all. Had the ear focus, smaller circles and lowering of head within 2 mins of going back in the original direction, a few minutes later we had the licking and chewing, then a 'by the book' join up. Happy days!

Continued on with follow up...just cruising around the arena... Then the alpacas came over the hill (Harlem has never said a word about the alpacas when under saddle in the arena). He stood with me for the first little while, losing a bit of attention, followed by him taking off bolting around the arena, high tailing, snorting... The works...

He then proceeded to jump the 1.10m arena fence, went straight over to the fence the alpacas were at and said hello (like I said... Special...)

So my question is, how to keep his attention when things like alpacas show up? I tried a few times during the standing and looking process to 'hook him back on' if I began to walk and he did not follow, which worked a few times, but not all....

Thanks in advance!

vicci - UK (North Wales) 2015-May-04 at 01:33PM

I think he did really well for his first session - be careful not to expect too much too soon and to be realistic - you can hardly compete with an exciting group of alpacas to say hello to!! :-)
:
Accept that he did well rather than seeing it as something that went wrong. To keep him with you when Alpacas are around keep him on a line and Dually if you have one and then you can remind him to keep his focus on you. At the 'standing and looking' stage you described I would have clipped his line back on to bring his attention back rather than leave him loose.
:
It will all come together with time and patience. Good luck.

JoHewittVINTA 2015-May-05 at 07:43AM

Hi. I agree. I would mark that a great success. Ok he found something else to do but look on the bright side - this boy can jump! That adds to his value. Study the lessons on the Uni - from your lack of accreditations I assume either your new here or you've not completed Montys Challenges at the end of each lesson. Enjoy your journey - it's life long. Do another join up - it'll get better & work him on 2 lines from the ground with the Dually as this will help you both immensely. Keep in mind it's a University - work for the human to learn how to make the whole of life "play" for the horse - that they then throw themselves wholeheartedly into for you. You're going to have lots of fun. Cheers, Jo.