The Puppetteer - A Horse Training Story

There once was a lady called Peggie, who was married to a Carpenter. She had 3 young kids who were board. So she asked the carpenter to make her a puppet. He makes it a horse because she has always loved horses. She paints it and calls it Eric.
The kids love the puppet and it keeps them amused for hours.

At first, Peggie finds it difficult to get the puppet to put it's legs where she wants them.
Peggie wants to make the legs move like a real horse, in a walk, trot, canter and gallop.
There were ponies across the road from where she lived as a child, and she remembered clearly how graceful they looked as they cantered around the paddock.
Peggie was very focused and tried to get the horses legs to move in a canter rhythm,
but the puppets legs seemed to just swing all over the place and often ended up in a tangled mess. She kept a diary of her progress with the puppet.
At first she would try to shape the horses neck, all round and beautiful like the pictures of horses she had seen in magazines. But she realised the legs were still going everywhere and it didn’t really look like the graceful movements of the ponies she had watched as a child.
So Peggie decided to try, moving the horses legs in the rhythm of a walk, thinking this was a slower pace and surely it would be easier. However, she still had trouble because she didn’t really know which string moved which leg. Peggie would lift the string she thought was for the hindleg, but realised she must have got it wrong because the outside front leg just moved and fell outward.

Peggie understood how learning theory works, and so she decided that she needed to break it down further and teach herself properly, so that one day she would be a really good puppeteer. She realised she had made the mistake of starting with her goal, cantering with an arched neck, instead of first learning how to move each foot individually.
So Peggie set out to teach herself how to move each foot individually. Starting with the hind legs.

She thought that would be an easy enough starting point. But at first she kept getting the wrong string. She thought she was asking for the hindleg to move, but realised she must have got it wrong because the outside frontleg just moved and fell outward.
So she tried different strings until she found the right string to move a hind leg.
Once she found that one, she practiced it five times, until she could do it without looking.
Then she moved to the next hind leg. She found this one quicker than she found the first hindleg because it was in the same place just the other side of the horse. But she still practiced it five times each session, until she could move it quickly and easily.

Peggie decided she had the hindlegs "down pat" and she could move either hindleg in any direction, so she thought she would start on moving the front legs.

Peggie experimented with picking up one front leg, but she struggled because the puppet kept moving forwards, she realised she needed to keep the back feet still while she moved a front leg. She discovered that it was easiest to keep the back legs still if she moved a front leg sideways. So she practiced moving each front foot sideways, until she could do it easily.
Again she practiced five times on each front foot, in each session.

So now Peggie was starting to feel a bit more confident. She knew how to move all four legs individually, and she thought she would try putting it together into forwards movement.

So this time she didn't try cantering straight away, she wanted to get it right at the walk first.
She went and watched at some horse races, she paid close attention in the saddling yard, as the horses walked around in front of the crowd. She noticed that the walk is a four beat pace, with each hind leg sort of kicking the front leg out of the way. She also noticed that there was no moment of suspension in the walk.
Peggie took her puppet to the races, and practiced moving the puppets legs in the four beat rhythm of the walk.
The she watched the race horses trotting, Peggie already knew that the trot was a two beat movement, where the legs moved in diagonal pairs.
Peggie practiced moving the puppets legs in the two beat diagonal sequence of the trot.

The family goes touring with Peggy's puppet show, and the carpenter makes puppets and toys for children. Then one day while touring, Peggie is given a real horse by someone who loved the show so much. She has three months to get the horse back to their hometown, Peggie has to learn how to train it and ride it, so she can ride it home.

At first she is so excited to get the horse and she loves it and feeds it and thinks that it will love her and look after her in return. She quickly discovers that the horse has no concept of its duty to humans for their care. She tries bribing it, to no avail. Then bossing it, with dominance "moves" she learns from a horse whisperer. She eventually gives up on those techniques and decides their must be another way.

She thinks back to how she learned to move the puppets legs. Starting with the hind legs.
She teaches the horse to move a hindleg in response to an indirect rein, and slight leg pressure.
Peggie discovers that in fact the horse responds in a similar way to her puppet.
After getting both hind legs "down pat", Peggie starts teaching the horse to step its front foot sideways in response to her focus, a direct rein and slight outside leg pressure.
Peggie had studied operant conditioning and decided to incorporate clicker training into her work with the horse.
Peggie soon discovers that she can yield a front or hind leg just like she could with the puppet and because of the clicker training her horse is now really motivated!
She progresses to working moving forwards, backwards and sideways.
Then she gradually works on the work trot and canter.

Within no time at all Peggie has trained her horse to perform almost any movement at all, just because she has controll of the feet!

She discovers her horse really is almost exactly like her puppet!

Peggie begins refining her cues, and she can now pick up a particular foot just with a slight change in her posture and seat.

Peggie remembers the show ponies she saw as a child, with their necks all arched and proud.

She decides to teach her horse to carry its neck arched with its poll at the highest point and its nose just slightly in front of the vertical.

Since she can already has controll of the feet, it is very easy to get her horse to understand, to carry its neck arched and move its feet at the same time.

One day someone comes to the paddock and sees Peggie riding her horse.

The person is a "dressage expert", and tells Peggie that her horse is so fantastic she could go in the olympics.

After selection competitions etc, Peggie and her horse go to the olympics and win a gold medal in dressage. A magazine editor comes up and asks her how she taught her horse to perform so well.

She said "Well I just got controll of the feet first, like a puppet...then I put the icing on the cake and taught the horse to carry itself with its neck arched".


The moral of the story is: Get control of your horses feet!
Be able to move any foot, anywhere, anytime!!!
The rest is easy..........





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