Hi,....I love your training methods...I'm using it on my 10 year old...green-broke. He round pens very good. But I really have a problem moving sending him out for lunging. He stops when I get him to do 2 steps forward then he turns back to me facing me and I can't get in his drive line. Even with the stick/whip I can't get him to move out by tapping him.
If he stops then you may be cuing him to stop by releasing pressure somehow. All pre-cues and cues must be reinforced with something that is meaningful to the horse. We must escalate the reinforcements, or the pressure, until the horse makes a slight move in the direction we are asking, or so that he continues the requested movement . At that moment, the pressure must stop. Horses are motivated to move by the pressure, but they learn what they should be doing from the properly timed release of that pressure. So, the pressure must start light and slow; however, if the horse does not respond we must escalate the pressure until we get a response. Horses are ALWAYS looking for the release of pressure IN EVERYTHING, whether it's on the ground or under saddle. The horse understands that what ever he was doing at the moment you release the pressure, is what he should be doing, because the pressure went away. So, if the horse stops when you don't want him to, he found release from some pressure. Essentially, we are training the horse to believe that when he does the right thing, the pressure goes away. Therefore, the horse thinks that what ever he was doing at that moment actually made the pressure go away. This goes for all groundwork as well as ridden work. Cheers.
