176 PERSONAL EXPEPIENCE. 



began to fall in one by one, and recognize my work. 

 It was here where I originated my system of colt 

 training. Some of the first colts that I had trained 

 I gave two lessons. a day, and turned them over to 

 their owners in about two weeks. But I found that 

 it was giving them too much in a short time ; it brought 

 their lessons too close together, and two weeks was 

 not long enough to fix the impression on the brain. 

 So I changed my plan of training to giving one lesson 

 a day, and teaching them four weeks instead of two, 

 making their lesson about one hour in length, accord- 

 ing to my present system, as described in this book. 

 I found that lessons given in this way would be remem- 

 bered better than to give them two lessons a da}^ and 

 there would not be §o much danger of running the 

 lessons into each other. 



A very important point I observed, was to teach 

 but one thing at a time. I learned through experience, 

 that it was almost impossible to give the colt the first 

 and second lesson both in one, or even in the same day. 

 The first lesson is to teach the colt to keep its heels 

 from us, its head towards us, and follow, while the next 

 lesson we teach is to keep its heels towards us, its head 

 from us, and go away from us; two ideas exactly op- 

 posite to each other. • In trymg to teach both ideas 

 at one time it only confuses the colt, and the conse- 

 quence will be to fjiil in teaching either point so that 

 the colt will ]•( 'member it. But I found by teaching 

 the colt one command at a time, it would so fix the 

 impression upon the brain that it would not forget it. 



