[drivingpairs] Voice Commands

In a message dated 5/9/2003 12:22:43 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

> I don't want my ponies responding to a cluck made by someone else,

Mine can differentiate quite correctly if it's my voice or somebody else's. 
In addition, with mine there is also the rein contact, and as described, the 
half halt that starts the upward transition so somebody else's cluck without 
my half halt shouldn't mean anything to them.  Besides, yours can 
differentiate that very well too, otherwise your next statement wouldn't work 
either, or what would happen if somebody else says "ho"?  :-)
> 
> 
> And "Ho" ALWAYS means "stop and do not move at all."  It doesn't mean "slow 
> 
> down a little" or "slow down a lot this time" or "almost stop" or "stop for 
> 
> three seconds before inching off again" ... it means STOP!!!   AND YOU 
> DON'T 
> *** EVEN *** MOVE UNTIL I LET YOU!!!
> 
That's fine, however, in stopping just with a verbal command I see the 
following problem: When you say "Ho", from that very moment that the word 
leaves your mouth to the time that they stop, you have turned the execution 
of your command over to your ponies, unless you do it also with the reins. 
Otherwise from that moment on, you are not in charge, but they are. You have 
no influence if they stop right here, on a dime, or two feet from here, or 6 
feet from here. You have no precision anymore and leave it up to them in what 
kind of a mood they are today, if they execute your command immediately when 
they are very alert, or perhaps a little slower when they are not in such 
high state of alertness. And since they are animals and not machines, there 
will be variation in their mood, and with that variation, there will be 
differences how quickly they react. For driving down the road, no problem, 
who cares, if they stop right here, or a foot later. But for halting in the 
dressage arena at X or a C, it does make a difference.

So in order to have precision in the execution, instead of a verbal command 
(which then turns the execution over to them) I bring them to the halt with 
my reins (bt have no problem if one uses a verbal command in addition to help 
with that as a little extra, only personally I don't see a need for it), by 
just holding them with more contact and guiding them through the downward 
transition to the halt, with my hands in the reins exactly as I guide my car 
to a halt with my foot on the brake. So as the mood of my horses may be 
different from day to day, I feel exactly how much contact I need to take 
today, the same as we all feel exactly how much we must step on the brake 
pedal today to come to the halte exactly at the stop sign, not a foot earlier 
and not a foot later, regardless if we stop with the car uphill, where we 
need less foot on the brake or downhill, where we need more foot on the 
brake. We don't even have to think about that anymore, it has become second 
nature, and we are able to vary the pressure with our foot enough on the 
brake pedal 
to always come to the stop precisely where we want to even under all 
different conditions. I try to do the same with my hands in the reins.
Hardy


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