A Dog's Mark

Part III
by Allen Pogue and Suzanne De Laurentis, all rights reserved, 2005

As a precursor to stepping the front feet up on the pedestal the horse is taught to move and walk each foot individually as we tap it with a guider whip. This is an exercise that can be used to set a horse up in a halter class or to teach it to park out for mounting.
The adult horses that we have pedestal trained have all seemed to enjoy the height added to their stature and also the stretching out of their muscles when the front feet are on the pedestal.

As many trainers will tell you, standing quietly at attention is a desirable behavior for a horse of any age to learn. Horses are like children and have a hard time just being still especially if they do not understand the reason for not moving. Once again a pedestal helps the horse to stay in place until released because it is his mark.

We have conducted many seminars and exhibitions where one of us has turned to speak to the audience and left one of my horses parked on a pedestal. Usually when we’ve parked a horse on a pedestal for our convenience it has turned out to be a wonderful prop and discussion topic on willing obedience. What looked like a great trick to the audience was just my horse taking a chance to relax on his mark and skip the work for a few minutes!
After the desired behaviors have been taught and confirmed, the pedestal exercises may be transferred to the ground without the pedestal, as they will have become etched in the horse’s mind.

Imagine A Horse has an entire troupe of Trick Horses and exhibition horses and those of saddle age are also great all around mounts. The word trick can be a verb, an adjective or a noun. When describing the exhibition horses we have often thought they should be called tricky horses rather than trick horses. Roget’s New Thesaurus says that tricky means requiring great tact or skill.
Whether training exhibition and performance horses or movie star and agility dogs, the mark and the pedestal are valuable and productive training tools for most animal species.
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