My vet just needs to come live with me. She comes to my house so often for Firefly, she could probably drive here in her sleep. She came over yesterday to check on her. Miss Fly has been cleared sound for riding! Her tendon is healing up nicely. She's only allowed to walk and trot for the first two weeks and to avoid tight circles and collection for a while. One full month before any jumping. She was really stiff in her hind end when we moved her around the round pen though. Vet said this may be from being out of shape from stall rest.... or she may have a preexisting hock condition. I'm hoping it goes away with time, a 7 year old horse shouldn't have to deal with joint supplements and hock injections! My poor girl. Anyway, I'm planning to build her a stall run soon so she can keep moving, since there's no way I'm allowing her unsupervised turnout in the pasture or arena ever again.
Good news though, my mini Fancy is definitely pregnant! I felt the baby kicking last night! So that's exciting. She's due around June. I wish there were more Fast Tracks in Colorado this year. More and more things make it harder to be gone for all of July, but it would be a bit ridiculous for me to go to Florida since I live 4 hours from Pagosa. This summer will be crazy no matter which one I choose.
Just wanted to add that little update. We had another windy day of trees blowing over and stuff, so no play today, just school work. Which I am almost done with!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Dusting off the old carrot stick
Today was the first day of me actually digging out the carrot stick and playing since before Firefly hurt herself. It's been the winter of wound care savvy for me.
I brought Charm to the round pen first. He's my mini gelding who I started driving last summer. He's probably my next best achievement besides Roxie so far, since I raised him from a foal and have done all his training myself. Today, after my slump of avoidance, I knew I'd need to play with him before doing anything with Firefly. Thos darn pneumatic cart tires, I may have not had such a rough winter if I could have still driven him, but they popped before the accidents leaving me with an excuse for avoidaholism. I just invented a new condition, what is my life. :P Anyway, I started with extreme friendly game, which he was always really good at. I could slap the ground from zone 5, but then I remembered (because he backed up into me) that if I move backwards, he backed up to me... Or onto me if I forgot to move lol. Horse remembers things even I've forgotten I had taught him, so that's nice. Then I wanted to see if our yo-yo was any good. He backed pretty fast off of phase 1. Then I tried a circle, and he trotted off in quite nice form. Last summer, his circling game got really good, to where we could do 10 solid laps, bent properly, round back, one ear on me the whole time... off phase 1, no corrections, at liberty. I had started playing with him on the 45' line in open spaces to start doing liberty in open spaces. Today his circles were still that good, so I only asked for three and stopped. It was as if I'd just played with him yesterday, as opposed to October. He is so much fun!!
I put him back, and we jumped a log on the way. He's an amazing jumper, even at 31 inches! I got Firefly out next. She's only been let to run in roundpen so far. She trotted around at the introduction of the stick at first, but in less than a minute she let me throw the string over her back. We did a little refresher course of all 7 games. She was perky, and more dominant after being a bit stir crazy, but overall surprisingly good. She responded just as quickly as she always had. I think many other horses would do more than a head toss when asked to do something if they had been couped up all winter. She remembered just as well as Charm did, and her yo-yo was amazing. It was so funny, I asked her to squeeze between me and the fence, and she didn't want to so she pinned her ears at the stick and squealed at it. I laughed out loud at her and eventually she went. Her personality is hilarious. She is really smart and easy to play with. I called the vet to make an appointment sometime this week to clear Firefly for resuming full work. That was the plan last time I called her too, but we ended up removing more proud flesh and needing more rest. Fingers crossed this time goes better.
In other news, a new boarder came in with a Saddlebred. He's soooo pretty. I have missed seeing the flashy showhorses of the Equestrian Center.
Almost done with school!!! There have sleepless nights and way too much coffee ingested but we're gettin there!
I brought Charm to the round pen first. He's my mini gelding who I started driving last summer. He's probably my next best achievement besides Roxie so far, since I raised him from a foal and have done all his training myself. Today, after my slump of avoidance, I knew I'd need to play with him before doing anything with Firefly. Thos darn pneumatic cart tires, I may have not had such a rough winter if I could have still driven him, but they popped before the accidents leaving me with an excuse for avoidaholism. I just invented a new condition, what is my life. :P Anyway, I started with extreme friendly game, which he was always really good at. I could slap the ground from zone 5, but then I remembered (because he backed up into me) that if I move backwards, he backed up to me... Or onto me if I forgot to move lol. Horse remembers things even I've forgotten I had taught him, so that's nice. Then I wanted to see if our yo-yo was any good. He backed pretty fast off of phase 1. Then I tried a circle, and he trotted off in quite nice form. Last summer, his circling game got really good, to where we could do 10 solid laps, bent properly, round back, one ear on me the whole time... off phase 1, no corrections, at liberty. I had started playing with him on the 45' line in open spaces to start doing liberty in open spaces. Today his circles were still that good, so I only asked for three and stopped. It was as if I'd just played with him yesterday, as opposed to October. He is so much fun!!
I put him back, and we jumped a log on the way. He's an amazing jumper, even at 31 inches! I got Firefly out next. She's only been let to run in roundpen so far. She trotted around at the introduction of the stick at first, but in less than a minute she let me throw the string over her back. We did a little refresher course of all 7 games. She was perky, and more dominant after being a bit stir crazy, but overall surprisingly good. She responded just as quickly as she always had. I think many other horses would do more than a head toss when asked to do something if they had been couped up all winter. She remembered just as well as Charm did, and her yo-yo was amazing. It was so funny, I asked her to squeeze between me and the fence, and she didn't want to so she pinned her ears at the stick and squealed at it. I laughed out loud at her and eventually she went. Her personality is hilarious. She is really smart and easy to play with. I called the vet to make an appointment sometime this week to clear Firefly for resuming full work. That was the plan last time I called her too, but we ended up removing more proud flesh and needing more rest. Fingers crossed this time goes better.
In other news, a new boarder came in with a Saddlebred. He's soooo pretty. I have missed seeing the flashy showhorses of the Equestrian Center.
Almost done with school!!! There have sleepless nights and way too much coffee ingested but we're gettin there!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Roxie part 3 + paranoia
We just got lots of snow here and the high temps have been about 13 degrees. The horses were mostly in the barn yesterday, so I knew they had to get out today. There's about 5 or 6 inches of snow on the ground, and so far I haven't let Firefly run anywhere outside the roundpen. I considered waiting until tomorrow, but she looked so bored in her stall. I very carefully, slowly, led her to the roundpen. After I let her go, I watched for about 5 minutes to make sure she wouldn't slip and fall in the wet snow. After everything that has happened with her legs, I kind of realized I'm going to be paranoid about them now. I will be that overprotective mother that wants to wrap my horse in bubble wrap. I'll probably use splint boots all the time, shipping boots for trailers, and who knows how I'll practice jumping with her. I know she'll be a log crawler, oh my gosh I cringe when even thinking about her scraping a shin on a log. The other day I was watching an old video of Linda riding Allure in a particularly dry field and he was slipping all over the place. I've watched the clip many times and it never bothered me, I knew it was his responsibilty to stay upright.... but this time it made me really nervous, I felt like I don't think I'd ever let Firefly run anywhere slippery or poorly footed. I'm just too paranoid she'll hurt herself again and then we'll need more time off to recover. My other horses don't have that problem lol. Going to play a lot of personal friendly game with this one.
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Roxie part 3
Roxie's owner really truly always loved her, but you know, you can only do what you know at the time. She had grown up with barrel racers... if it isn't working, get a bigger bit. Through the course of the 5 weeks I played with Roxie only on the ground, her owner came to watch almost every day, and as she knew her horse's previous tendencies better than I did, she was constantly astounded at the changes I was making in her horse. She couldn't believe that I could now go rub her all over with the halter and lead in her stall, and find her favorite scratchy spot. Or that the horse who kicked to have her hind feet picked up would pick them both up from one side with a snap of my fingers while loose in the arena.
If you read parts 1 and 2, you know I had been doing most of my training in the park or that little back pen. I now needed to naturally introduce Roxie to the saddle, but I couldn't take the saddle to the park, or do it in front of the barn manager.... so I did it in the back parking lot in the dark after the barn manager left. All I had was the moon (partially obscured by city smog) and a street light at the end of the drive. Oh, and a motion censor light that did more harm than good. It may have taken less time had we not had to jump out of the way of cars coming in off the busiest street in town, and my saddle narrowly missing getting run over. In any case, by the end of that session, the saddle and pad were Roxie's new found friends, and she held still to let me on her from both sides. Of course, only because of about 15 failed attempts lol!!
We did that playing with the saddle and mounting game every night for about a week, until she accepted everything calmly, and stood for mounting the first time I asked.
The next day the owner came to watch me really ride her for the first time. This was the original experience that I think actually got her thinking that Parelli was the way. She sat on the fence as Roxie responded to me lightly and politely during our warm up / pre-flight check. I could jog and Roxie was right there next to me. I could slam on the brakes, and she'd plant her feet in the ground without me lifting the rope. Then the owner's jaw nearly dropped as I simply threw the rope over her neck and hopped on a perfectly still Roxie with a halter and one rein. I explained the importance of Passenger lessons. Our first one was me mirroring her instead of shutting her down while she frantically paced the fence line. After Roxie realized I wasn't getting in her way, she calmed down a lot, and eventually stood still in the middle of the arena. There, the owner saw the nearly immediate change in what a horse does when not micromanaged. She became super interested in every thing I did after that, and wanted to learn how she could be that good for her horse.
Next I made sure the Roxie could calmly walk around the whole arena, one rein stop from both sides, and knew the follow the rail pattern at the walk. Her owner was watching that second ride, when I was guiding Roxie with the halter rein back to the rail as drifted away. I believe the exact words were "It amazes me that you can ride her in just that." Soon after, I gave a very anxious owner her first ride on her "new" horse. I had her do a passenger lesson for both of their confidence, and oh the look on her face when Roxie stopped when she simply said whoa.
Most of our lessons were teaching her how to use the games in daily life, how to get in sync with her horse while riding, and guiding in this new way of using the natural power of focus. There were pitfalls when Roxie would step on her rope and leap into the air, or her owner would hold the snap and upset her, but they were learning how to communicate with each other.
Other than getting Roxie past the inital fear of life itself and flight instinct, I had hit a point where I realized I had never experienced anything like this before. I had never met a horse so impulsive, I had never ridden anything so fast, and I didn't have a clue about how to tackle any of her other problems. Ego status: sufficiently deflated. I set on a journey to watch everything I could find in the Savvy Club vault about RBE horses and how to deal with them. If Vanna was in it, I watched it. (Funny, I resorted to a similar game plan when Xena became mine, except with her I watched every single bit of footage that exists. If Parelli uploaded it, I have seen it. If they wrote it, I have read it. Oh predictability lol.)
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Roxie part 3
Roxie's owner really truly always loved her, but you know, you can only do what you know at the time. She had grown up with barrel racers... if it isn't working, get a bigger bit. Through the course of the 5 weeks I played with Roxie only on the ground, her owner came to watch almost every day, and as she knew her horse's previous tendencies better than I did, she was constantly astounded at the changes I was making in her horse. She couldn't believe that I could now go rub her all over with the halter and lead in her stall, and find her favorite scratchy spot. Or that the horse who kicked to have her hind feet picked up would pick them both up from one side with a snap of my fingers while loose in the arena.
If you read parts 1 and 2, you know I had been doing most of my training in the park or that little back pen. I now needed to naturally introduce Roxie to the saddle, but I couldn't take the saddle to the park, or do it in front of the barn manager.... so I did it in the back parking lot in the dark after the barn manager left. All I had was the moon (partially obscured by city smog) and a street light at the end of the drive. Oh, and a motion censor light that did more harm than good. It may have taken less time had we not had to jump out of the way of cars coming in off the busiest street in town, and my saddle narrowly missing getting run over. In any case, by the end of that session, the saddle and pad were Roxie's new found friends, and she held still to let me on her from both sides. Of course, only because of about 15 failed attempts lol!!
We did that playing with the saddle and mounting game every night for about a week, until she accepted everything calmly, and stood for mounting the first time I asked.
The next day the owner came to watch me really ride her for the first time. This was the original experience that I think actually got her thinking that Parelli was the way. She sat on the fence as Roxie responded to me lightly and politely during our warm up / pre-flight check. I could jog and Roxie was right there next to me. I could slam on the brakes, and she'd plant her feet in the ground without me lifting the rope. Then the owner's jaw nearly dropped as I simply threw the rope over her neck and hopped on a perfectly still Roxie with a halter and one rein. I explained the importance of Passenger lessons. Our first one was me mirroring her instead of shutting her down while she frantically paced the fence line. After Roxie realized I wasn't getting in her way, she calmed down a lot, and eventually stood still in the middle of the arena. There, the owner saw the nearly immediate change in what a horse does when not micromanaged. She became super interested in every thing I did after that, and wanted to learn how she could be that good for her horse.
Next I made sure the Roxie could calmly walk around the whole arena, one rein stop from both sides, and knew the follow the rail pattern at the walk. Her owner was watching that second ride, when I was guiding Roxie with the halter rein back to the rail as drifted away. I believe the exact words were "It amazes me that you can ride her in just that." Soon after, I gave a very anxious owner her first ride on her "new" horse. I had her do a passenger lesson for both of their confidence, and oh the look on her face when Roxie stopped when she simply said whoa.
Most of our lessons were teaching her how to use the games in daily life, how to get in sync with her horse while riding, and guiding in this new way of using the natural power of focus. There were pitfalls when Roxie would step on her rope and leap into the air, or her owner would hold the snap and upset her, but they were learning how to communicate with each other.
Other than getting Roxie past the inital fear of life itself and flight instinct, I had hit a point where I realized I had never experienced anything like this before. I had never met a horse so impulsive, I had never ridden anything so fast, and I didn't have a clue about how to tackle any of her other problems. Ego status: sufficiently deflated. I set on a journey to watch everything I could find in the Savvy Club vault about RBE horses and how to deal with them. If Vanna was in it, I watched it. (Funny, I resorted to a similar game plan when Xena became mine, except with her I watched every single bit of footage that exists. If Parelli uploaded it, I have seen it. If they wrote it, I have read it. Oh predictability lol.)
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Sunday, February 6, 2011
Roxie part 2 + Innate characteristics
Firefly is doing well easing off of stall rest. I have been thinking a lot about the differences between Xena and her. I put Firefly in the roundpen today, after she'd been couped up in the barn for about 2 days. When Xena is in for just 1, then the next time I take her out she acts like she's seeing the big scary world for the first time in her life. Firefly, even after 2 months of pretty much stall rest with hand walking, was still calm and quiet for me to walk her wherever I wanted. So I put her in the round pen, which had a hay bag hanging from a post and had gotten wrapped around it in the wind. Oh and it was one of those days that you think the wind might blow you over. I let Firefly go, and she ran around a lap to play, then ran past the bag and spooked at it. About a second later, her very LBE self came out, and she walked right up and sniffed it. Immediately recognizing the scary item as a hay bag, she began nosing around in it looking for hay. I love how she is innately so calm and curious and confident that scary objects become interesting or boring within about 5 seconds for her.
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Roxie Part 2
The next time I played with Roxie was to teach her the rest of the games. Sideways made no sense to her, I think she thought I was asking her to climb the wall in front of her. She tried. Circling she'd go... and go, and go, and go, but took me chasing her hindquarters enough to make ME dizzy to get her to stop. Repeatedly. Squeeze was the game that she needed to play the most - she had been so clausterphobic, that she absolutely could not go in to the grooming area, and had to be brushed and stuff outside tied to a rail. She tried to spurt through the biggest squeeze I could offer her, at all 12 feet of the rope. By the end of one session she'd at least turn and face when she hit the end of the line. And I do mean HIT. I think that day I quit and flew her back to her stall after we more or less got the mechanics of the games down.
Next big milestone I remember doing with her was the first time I backed her through a squeeze. Backing through gates is a big important thing in level 1, especially for this horse who was trained to bolt through them, and had run people over. Repeatedly.
I was working on improving my yo-yo phases with her in our little 15 x 30 pen. I decided to try backing her out of the pen we'd been playing in. She did everything but back through that gate! She tried running through it, she'd get to it forwards, and then back straight up. She'd swing around in a circle and hit it with her shoulders or hip. Eventually I got her lined up just right, after overshooting it about 12 times with her back legs. I asked her to back up, and she couldn't believe it. It was like I was asking her to jump off a cliff! She would toss her head, then leap back away from the gate, then I'd line her up again and lather rinse repeat. Finally, she put one foot across the threshold. When I quit wiggling, you could almost see the lightbulb go off in her head. She thought about it, took one teeny tiny more step backwards, then waited. Then she got a really focused look on her face, and slowly deliberately marched backwards all the way though, and waited to look at me once she was out. It was that seemingly diminutive detail of a moment that "it" hit me... we all have this moment, when even though you believed this Parelli stuff, you finally get how it works, and why you do it. Her expression had changed entirely, it was like I was reading The Miracle Worker all over again, when Helen Keller first understood a word, and that everything had a meaning. Roxie came out the other side of that gate an open-minded, renaturalized horse. I got it... I just caused an emotional change in this animal. This was horsemanship for the horse.
This tremendous learning curve sparked after that an upward parabola of both Roxie's progress and my commitment to Parelli. Each day she learned twice as much as she had the last, until we were blasting through tasks. I'd watch my old Level 1 dvds every night and go to the barn with a lesson plan in mind.
There were PLENTY - and boy do I mean that! - of days where I'd feel totally discouraged that she was just impossible. I knew she was smart, but some days Roxie would get so distracted by some invisible monster off in the distance that I'd think she would never learn to be the calm trail horse her owner wanted. What had I gotten myself into? There I'd taken my horse through an obstacle course with a string around her neck, and promised Roxie's owner that soon enough her horse would ride just like this?!?! We'll never get there!! First time I tried teaching her the figure 8 pattern online she'd take off like a rocket, and I couldn't understand why I had to reteach her to disengage all over again. Or why she wasn't "smart enough" to generalize that lateral flexion works just the same from both sides. Soon enough, she taught me that she wasn't trying to be bad, and she certainly wasn't being thick, she was just trying to survive. And that horses know they are most vulnerable without the use of hindquarters, which is why she resisted bending. Strongly.
Here I will add, as I may have mentioned previously, that I was in the worst most anti-Parelli boarding barn that possibly exists. The barn manager (yeah the one I was an excercise rider for and gave kids lessons for) was vehemently against not only anything natural, but also a minor handling others' horses. If I had another boarders horse in my hand accompanied by that orange stick, I got scolded for doing that ridiculous horse voodoo. Exact quote from the barn manager. I had been doing it since I was 13 because I had lived so close, but she either didn't know, or didn't care, or both. If she even spotted that orange stick, I was told I wasn't allowed to do it in "her" barn. She couldn't control what I did with my own horse, but she would sit outside the fence and scowl. Though she would yell if I jumped anything on my ex-jumping horse Mesa. What this meant for me and Roxie was that we used the back pen out of sight of the security camera, or we waited for the manager to leave before I could play with her. I was a pretty determined kid.
During that first month, I almost never got to use our arena with Roxie. The barn manager's piercing glares seemed to be around every corner for me. Most of our earlier sessions outside of that back pen took place out on the trail. Yeah, the trails Roxie was known for taking off on. Our first walk down the trail, I taught her owner the value of jumping jacks and protecting your space because Roxie was flying around like a kite. We didn't even make it to the park we had planned on going to before deciding it was best to come back. The next day I took Roxie down the trail, across a bridge, and to an open field that most people used as a public arena. It had cones lined up and a few logs here and there. She was extremely right brained and panicky so I tried for some figure 8 around 2 cones. The pattern was really run a few circles, reel horse in like a fish, upon running out of places to go, switch direction to run circles other way, knock out a few cones in the process. I think I got her to do one proper direction change before walking (flying?) home.
Through a couple "Roxie can't you please just do this"s and "Why are you still moving"s and "You don't have to run after other horses anymore"s, we built the foundation that turned into a beautiful relationship on the ground. It had been messy but after a little over a month, we had enough of a language going that I felt I was confident enough to start playing with the saddle.
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Part 3 coming soon.
I was right, recreating this story for myself reminds me why I want to follow this program. This is horsemanship for the horse.
Savvy on!!
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Roxie Part 2
The next time I played with Roxie was to teach her the rest of the games. Sideways made no sense to her, I think she thought I was asking her to climb the wall in front of her. She tried. Circling she'd go... and go, and go, and go, but took me chasing her hindquarters enough to make ME dizzy to get her to stop. Repeatedly. Squeeze was the game that she needed to play the most - she had been so clausterphobic, that she absolutely could not go in to the grooming area, and had to be brushed and stuff outside tied to a rail. She tried to spurt through the biggest squeeze I could offer her, at all 12 feet of the rope. By the end of one session she'd at least turn and face when she hit the end of the line. And I do mean HIT. I think that day I quit and flew her back to her stall after we more or less got the mechanics of the games down.
Next big milestone I remember doing with her was the first time I backed her through a squeeze. Backing through gates is a big important thing in level 1, especially for this horse who was trained to bolt through them, and had run people over. Repeatedly.
I was working on improving my yo-yo phases with her in our little 15 x 30 pen. I decided to try backing her out of the pen we'd been playing in. She did everything but back through that gate! She tried running through it, she'd get to it forwards, and then back straight up. She'd swing around in a circle and hit it with her shoulders or hip. Eventually I got her lined up just right, after overshooting it about 12 times with her back legs. I asked her to back up, and she couldn't believe it. It was like I was asking her to jump off a cliff! She would toss her head, then leap back away from the gate, then I'd line her up again and lather rinse repeat. Finally, she put one foot across the threshold. When I quit wiggling, you could almost see the lightbulb go off in her head. She thought about it, took one teeny tiny more step backwards, then waited. Then she got a really focused look on her face, and slowly deliberately marched backwards all the way though, and waited to look at me once she was out. It was that seemingly diminutive detail of a moment that "it" hit me... we all have this moment, when even though you believed this Parelli stuff, you finally get how it works, and why you do it. Her expression had changed entirely, it was like I was reading The Miracle Worker all over again, when Helen Keller first understood a word, and that everything had a meaning. Roxie came out the other side of that gate an open-minded, renaturalized horse. I got it... I just caused an emotional change in this animal. This was horsemanship for the horse.
This tremendous learning curve sparked after that an upward parabola of both Roxie's progress and my commitment to Parelli. Each day she learned twice as much as she had the last, until we were blasting through tasks. I'd watch my old Level 1 dvds every night and go to the barn with a lesson plan in mind.
There were PLENTY - and boy do I mean that! - of days where I'd feel totally discouraged that she was just impossible. I knew she was smart, but some days Roxie would get so distracted by some invisible monster off in the distance that I'd think she would never learn to be the calm trail horse her owner wanted. What had I gotten myself into? There I'd taken my horse through an obstacle course with a string around her neck, and promised Roxie's owner that soon enough her horse would ride just like this?!?! We'll never get there!! First time I tried teaching her the figure 8 pattern online she'd take off like a rocket, and I couldn't understand why I had to reteach her to disengage all over again. Or why she wasn't "smart enough" to generalize that lateral flexion works just the same from both sides. Soon enough, she taught me that she wasn't trying to be bad, and she certainly wasn't being thick, she was just trying to survive. And that horses know they are most vulnerable without the use of hindquarters, which is why she resisted bending. Strongly.
Here I will add, as I may have mentioned previously, that I was in the worst most anti-Parelli boarding barn that possibly exists. The barn manager (yeah the one I was an excercise rider for and gave kids lessons for) was vehemently against not only anything natural, but also a minor handling others' horses. If I had another boarders horse in my hand accompanied by that orange stick, I got scolded for doing that ridiculous horse voodoo. Exact quote from the barn manager. I had been doing it since I was 13 because I had lived so close, but she either didn't know, or didn't care, or both. If she even spotted that orange stick, I was told I wasn't allowed to do it in "her" barn. She couldn't control what I did with my own horse, but she would sit outside the fence and scowl. Though she would yell if I jumped anything on my ex-jumping horse Mesa. What this meant for me and Roxie was that we used the back pen out of sight of the security camera, or we waited for the manager to leave before I could play with her. I was a pretty determined kid.
During that first month, I almost never got to use our arena with Roxie. The barn manager's piercing glares seemed to be around every corner for me. Most of our earlier sessions outside of that back pen took place out on the trail. Yeah, the trails Roxie was known for taking off on. Our first walk down the trail, I taught her owner the value of jumping jacks and protecting your space because Roxie was flying around like a kite. We didn't even make it to the park we had planned on going to before deciding it was best to come back. The next day I took Roxie down the trail, across a bridge, and to an open field that most people used as a public arena. It had cones lined up and a few logs here and there. She was extremely right brained and panicky so I tried for some figure 8 around 2 cones. The pattern was really run a few circles, reel horse in like a fish, upon running out of places to go, switch direction to run circles other way, knock out a few cones in the process. I think I got her to do one proper direction change before walking (flying?) home.
Through a couple "Roxie can't you please just do this"s and "Why are you still moving"s and "You don't have to run after other horses anymore"s, we built the foundation that turned into a beautiful relationship on the ground. It had been messy but after a little over a month, we had enough of a language going that I felt I was confident enough to start playing with the saddle.
------
Part 3 coming soon.
I was right, recreating this story for myself reminds me why I want to follow this program. This is horsemanship for the horse.
Savvy on!!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Roxie part 1
Hello everyone! It's warmest it's been all week today: 27 degrees. It's been below zero all week, and I got the joy of feeding and doing chores the other day when it was -19. Looovely. So I'm finishing up school work really fast while hiding from the cold. And also planning out a program for getting Firefly to level 4. Man am I excited. I'm lucky she's such a smart horse, I really am.
Anyway, here is part one of the story that is my driving force behind sticking to the program and becoming a Parelli Professional.
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ROXIE
The first time I saw Roxie was the first day she came to the last boarding stable I was at. Some trainer was riding her in a double twisted wire shank bit, she was prancing in place flexed behind the bit, going sideways and half-rearing. It was in front of the mounting block behind the barns, she had BARN SWEET written all over her. I had seen a lot of right brained horses, but she looked like she was about ready to explode. Her owner was watching, presumably wondering if her horse would ever slow down. She wanted to get on her for a minute, but each time she went to get on, the mare would take off.
She was kept in the stall next to my horse Mesa. I thought she was a beautiful horse, but would look much better without the radiating anxiety. In fact, she moved so much it was hard to get a good look at her. She was sorrel with a perfect diamond on her forehead. Her legs were a blur.
I didn't think much of her for a while. Her owner never rode her she just let Roxie drag her to the arena to let her run loose to get exercise. Roxie never stopped, rarely rolled, just ran around with her head in the air. It's like she didn't even see the ground beneath her... she just ran over it. The minute she was let loose (always with her halter on) she ran and ran and ran. I saw trainers try to girth her, this horse would just about jump out of her skin, bite the person, kick out. It seemed to take them forever. And they always had to do it while tied to a corral behind the barn, she did NOT crosstie. Of course in Parelli we don't use them because we need to, but in this barn the tackroom was next to the crossties, and that's just where saddling happened. Usually I'd just throw the rope over my horse and fetch the saddle, or only clip her to one. But it was good to get them used to being so confined, I thought. I mean this was, you know, when I used a saddle. I almost never did. Err... never do, lol.
One day I was riding my Mesa bareback and bridleless, playing with a reining pattern. I had started riding Mesa this way early that summer, it was now August. Of 08. Usually I just had a leadrope around her neck. The habit started because the arena was closer than the tackroom, and as laziness would have it, it was easier to grab my horse from her stall with a lead rope and ride her in only that. It is here that I will interject with a bit of backround on me... I got level 1 for my 12th birthday when I got Mesa. I had completed it with her and then become one of those half-assed Parelli students that now get on my nerves - the type that pick and choose a few techniques but don't really follow the program. I had studied just about every program that existed though. Read every horseman's book, read every single article Horse & Rider had to offer me. I had a Parelli student friend who taught me how to play the catching game, sort of, and stick to me at liberty, so I did lots of that with Mesa. My house was 2 blocks from the barn, so I stayed there basically all day, only going home to feed my minis. I was always "that girl" who was always around. I was the one that took care of people's horses when they went out of town, the barn manager's official excercise rider, the one who gave all the kids lessons on the barn's ponies, that kid who wasn't afraid to get on any horse in the barn. The sad truth of city life is many people treat their horses like they would a boat docked at The Marina: they pay for the slip and come out maybe once a month to ride it as they please, but otherwise do nothing. Because I was around, I was the one that got pegged with taking those horses out. I got to see if they were ridable, and if they were I got to do it. Many of the times this meant I'd go flying, but I was young and dumb and 16 and hit the ground laughing. I remember being projectile catapulted off a gaited horse and laughing before I even hit the ground. That's just the way "us kids" were back then.
Back on topic!! When the following scene happened, I was just starting to get back to religously studying Parelli. Someone at the barn had purchased the Success Series and I had watched the whole things, and been really fascinated with horsenality. This day, I had 5 cones set up, was riding in the lead rope, and weaving my horse around the cones. While I was riding Mesa, Roxie's owner came up to me with an amazed look on her face and said "Wow you have a beautiful relationship with that horse. That's all I want, can you show me how to get that with my horse?" Of course, I said, and did another little demo with Mesa and explained a little bit of Parelli, and how I believed in this gentle relationship training stuff. She pretty much said she wanted me to help her with her horse until she felt confident with her. Now, Parelli isn't really a horse training program, it's a people changing program, but I figured I'd play with the horse just a bit and then get her owner doing it with her. "Okay," I asked her, "What's wrong with her?" Assuming that there was probably one main problem that could easily be fixed. Her owner followed with, "Well.... She takes off, she bolts for no reason, she spooks at EVERYTHING, I can't get her to cross the bridge to the trails, she's terrified of tunnels, she balks at streets and runs backwards, she never walks, she's had 3 head traumas from rearing in her stall, and she's so bad in new places I'm afraid to go halter her right now." What I should have said was the following four words, the last one being most important: Seek proffesional help immediately!!! But being 16 and what Pat refers to as The Young and The Dumb, I said, "Sure!! Sounds like fun!!!"
I figured most of Roxie's problems came from harsh hands and energetic riders (oh and did I mention I had the biggest ego behind the rough and rugged cowboys at the barn?), so I saddled her up the first day and went to take her on a little trail ride. She had the twisted bit in, so I wanted to stay light with my hands. I knew the one rein stop, and that right brained horses should be focused on patterns, so I planned to maybe do some circles and stuff on the trail. She trotted or cantered in place the entire time, it took 10 minutes and a few backwards launches to cross a street, her head was in the air constantly but I really didn't want to pull on that nasty bit. She spun around when I didn't let her bolt back home, she didn't take 1 step of walk in the whole 30 mins I was on her!!! The only way I even survived that ride was bending her to stop the take offs, but it didn't stop her - she just trotted in tiny circles until she hit something and lurched forward again. I came back to the barn with her owner awaiting to hear what I could do with her. I got off (whew! I'm alive!). I said Roxie needed to be completely restarted from scratch, she has 0 relationship with people, no ground skills, she doesn't trust people, and reacts 100% in survival mode. The owner asked when she could ride her next, or if she could ride her while I was fixing her groundwork. I said "I'm 16 and will get on anything, don't mind falling off, and you could not pay me a million bucks to get back on that thing!!!" She said "Okay, seeing as how I'm 40 I think I'll wait." :D
I showed her another round my my fun bridleless riding, and I promised that when I was finished with Roxie, she'd be able to do this pattern bareback and bridleless as well. You train one, you can train em all right? Did I mention I was incredibly arrogant?
I did know, however, in the back of my mind that this horse was out of my league. I couldn't use my own pieced-together method in this one. I dug out my old Parelli level 1 and decided to follow it from the start. My first day starting a Parelli journey with Roxie was pretty interesting! I followed the level 1 box program best I could. The first thing you're supposed to do is just hang out with your horse and do nothing. Roxie was so busy tearing around the pen, she didn't even notice me! Seriously... this was a maybe 15' by 30' pen and that horse was running around like a rabid dog chasing its tail. Next was friendly game... I picked up the stick and she jumped out of her skin. It took me 3 days to get her to let me pet her with the stick, and about a week to throw the rope over her back. You're supposed to rub the horse all over with the halter/rope before you catch them so you don't just barge in and get them... Roxie was a nut in her stall - leaping, bouncing off the walls, I had to halter her from the outside in the beginning! So for those first few days, I'd halter her from the outside of her stall, scramble into the back pen, and try to play there. She would be marginally better going back to her stall, but she still didn't lead nicely or look at me. I was about ready to tell the owner I'd made a terrible mistake, I didn't know what I was doing, and Roxie would NEVER be calm enough to do the things I'd promised.
I taught her the first 3 games that Saturday morning. Move from steady pressure (Porcupine)... I thought my stick was going to snap in half, she was so defensive. She just kept walking circles around me. Move from rythmic pressure (driving)... I think I strained a muscle with how long I had to stand there tapping her before she moved away. After the first two games though, she walked around fairly calmly. It was realllly hot that morning, which made everyone pretty lazy. The next thing is play "Put your nose on something" so the horse knows that where you're telling them to go has a reason, not just do this because I said so. I put every obstacle I could find around in our little pen. This was the first time I actually realized how smart this horse was. Before, she was just a fiery ball of mad instinct, I believed I'd never reach her brain. Once she got the game, her eyes completely changed. OH - we're going somewhere!!! And she'd walk by my side like a partner, trying to find our next destination. There was a patch of white paint on the wall.. I figured she'll never get that one, so I put a bucket in front. To my surprise, she waltzed right past the obvious bucket and put her nose on the white patch! She was for the first time thinking, using the partnership side of her brain.
We were nearly a week into it. It was the first time I felt confident in telling her owner "Don't worry, there's hope!"
------
Thanks for reading guys! Part 2 coming soon.
Hopefully it will warm up tomorrow and I can play with my girls.
Anyway, here is part one of the story that is my driving force behind sticking to the program and becoming a Parelli Professional.
------
ROXIE
The first time I saw Roxie was the first day she came to the last boarding stable I was at. Some trainer was riding her in a double twisted wire shank bit, she was prancing in place flexed behind the bit, going sideways and half-rearing. It was in front of the mounting block behind the barns, she had BARN SWEET written all over her. I had seen a lot of right brained horses, but she looked like she was about ready to explode. Her owner was watching, presumably wondering if her horse would ever slow down. She wanted to get on her for a minute, but each time she went to get on, the mare would take off.
She was kept in the stall next to my horse Mesa. I thought she was a beautiful horse, but would look much better without the radiating anxiety. In fact, she moved so much it was hard to get a good look at her. She was sorrel with a perfect diamond on her forehead. Her legs were a blur.
I didn't think much of her for a while. Her owner never rode her she just let Roxie drag her to the arena to let her run loose to get exercise. Roxie never stopped, rarely rolled, just ran around with her head in the air. It's like she didn't even see the ground beneath her... she just ran over it. The minute she was let loose (always with her halter on) she ran and ran and ran. I saw trainers try to girth her, this horse would just about jump out of her skin, bite the person, kick out. It seemed to take them forever. And they always had to do it while tied to a corral behind the barn, she did NOT crosstie. Of course in Parelli we don't use them because we need to, but in this barn the tackroom was next to the crossties, and that's just where saddling happened. Usually I'd just throw the rope over my horse and fetch the saddle, or only clip her to one. But it was good to get them used to being so confined, I thought. I mean this was, you know, when I used a saddle. I almost never did. Err... never do, lol.
One day I was riding my Mesa bareback and bridleless, playing with a reining pattern. I had started riding Mesa this way early that summer, it was now August. Of 08. Usually I just had a leadrope around her neck. The habit started because the arena was closer than the tackroom, and as laziness would have it, it was easier to grab my horse from her stall with a lead rope and ride her in only that. It is here that I will interject with a bit of backround on me... I got level 1 for my 12th birthday when I got Mesa. I had completed it with her and then become one of those half-assed Parelli students that now get on my nerves - the type that pick and choose a few techniques but don't really follow the program. I had studied just about every program that existed though. Read every horseman's book, read every single article Horse & Rider had to offer me. I had a Parelli student friend who taught me how to play the catching game, sort of, and stick to me at liberty, so I did lots of that with Mesa. My house was 2 blocks from the barn, so I stayed there basically all day, only going home to feed my minis. I was always "that girl" who was always around. I was the one that took care of people's horses when they went out of town, the barn manager's official excercise rider, the one who gave all the kids lessons on the barn's ponies, that kid who wasn't afraid to get on any horse in the barn. The sad truth of city life is many people treat their horses like they would a boat docked at The Marina: they pay for the slip and come out maybe once a month to ride it as they please, but otherwise do nothing. Because I was around, I was the one that got pegged with taking those horses out. I got to see if they were ridable, and if they were I got to do it. Many of the times this meant I'd go flying, but I was young and dumb and 16 and hit the ground laughing. I remember being projectile catapulted off a gaited horse and laughing before I even hit the ground. That's just the way "us kids" were back then.
Back on topic!! When the following scene happened, I was just starting to get back to religously studying Parelli. Someone at the barn had purchased the Success Series and I had watched the whole things, and been really fascinated with horsenality. This day, I had 5 cones set up, was riding in the lead rope, and weaving my horse around the cones. While I was riding Mesa, Roxie's owner came up to me with an amazed look on her face and said "Wow you have a beautiful relationship with that horse. That's all I want, can you show me how to get that with my horse?" Of course, I said, and did another little demo with Mesa and explained a little bit of Parelli, and how I believed in this gentle relationship training stuff. She pretty much said she wanted me to help her with her horse until she felt confident with her. Now, Parelli isn't really a horse training program, it's a people changing program, but I figured I'd play with the horse just a bit and then get her owner doing it with her. "Okay," I asked her, "What's wrong with her?" Assuming that there was probably one main problem that could easily be fixed. Her owner followed with, "Well.... She takes off, she bolts for no reason, she spooks at EVERYTHING, I can't get her to cross the bridge to the trails, she's terrified of tunnels, she balks at streets and runs backwards, she never walks, she's had 3 head traumas from rearing in her stall, and she's so bad in new places I'm afraid to go halter her right now." What I should have said was the following four words, the last one being most important: Seek proffesional help immediately!!! But being 16 and what Pat refers to as The Young and The Dumb, I said, "Sure!! Sounds like fun!!!"
I figured most of Roxie's problems came from harsh hands and energetic riders (oh and did I mention I had the biggest ego behind the rough and rugged cowboys at the barn?), so I saddled her up the first day and went to take her on a little trail ride. She had the twisted bit in, so I wanted to stay light with my hands. I knew the one rein stop, and that right brained horses should be focused on patterns, so I planned to maybe do some circles and stuff on the trail. She trotted or cantered in place the entire time, it took 10 minutes and a few backwards launches to cross a street, her head was in the air constantly but I really didn't want to pull on that nasty bit. She spun around when I didn't let her bolt back home, she didn't take 1 step of walk in the whole 30 mins I was on her!!! The only way I even survived that ride was bending her to stop the take offs, but it didn't stop her - she just trotted in tiny circles until she hit something and lurched forward again. I came back to the barn with her owner awaiting to hear what I could do with her. I got off (whew! I'm alive!). I said Roxie needed to be completely restarted from scratch, she has 0 relationship with people, no ground skills, she doesn't trust people, and reacts 100% in survival mode. The owner asked when she could ride her next, or if she could ride her while I was fixing her groundwork. I said "I'm 16 and will get on anything, don't mind falling off, and you could not pay me a million bucks to get back on that thing!!!" She said "Okay, seeing as how I'm 40 I think I'll wait." :D
I showed her another round my my fun bridleless riding, and I promised that when I was finished with Roxie, she'd be able to do this pattern bareback and bridleless as well. You train one, you can train em all right? Did I mention I was incredibly arrogant?
I did know, however, in the back of my mind that this horse was out of my league. I couldn't use my own pieced-together method in this one. I dug out my old Parelli level 1 and decided to follow it from the start. My first day starting a Parelli journey with Roxie was pretty interesting! I followed the level 1 box program best I could. The first thing you're supposed to do is just hang out with your horse and do nothing. Roxie was so busy tearing around the pen, she didn't even notice me! Seriously... this was a maybe 15' by 30' pen and that horse was running around like a rabid dog chasing its tail. Next was friendly game... I picked up the stick and she jumped out of her skin. It took me 3 days to get her to let me pet her with the stick, and about a week to throw the rope over her back. You're supposed to rub the horse all over with the halter/rope before you catch them so you don't just barge in and get them... Roxie was a nut in her stall - leaping, bouncing off the walls, I had to halter her from the outside in the beginning! So for those first few days, I'd halter her from the outside of her stall, scramble into the back pen, and try to play there. She would be marginally better going back to her stall, but she still didn't lead nicely or look at me. I was about ready to tell the owner I'd made a terrible mistake, I didn't know what I was doing, and Roxie would NEVER be calm enough to do the things I'd promised.
I taught her the first 3 games that Saturday morning. Move from steady pressure (Porcupine)... I thought my stick was going to snap in half, she was so defensive. She just kept walking circles around me. Move from rythmic pressure (driving)... I think I strained a muscle with how long I had to stand there tapping her before she moved away. After the first two games though, she walked around fairly calmly. It was realllly hot that morning, which made everyone pretty lazy. The next thing is play "Put your nose on something" so the horse knows that where you're telling them to go has a reason, not just do this because I said so. I put every obstacle I could find around in our little pen. This was the first time I actually realized how smart this horse was. Before, she was just a fiery ball of mad instinct, I believed I'd never reach her brain. Once she got the game, her eyes completely changed. OH - we're going somewhere!!! And she'd walk by my side like a partner, trying to find our next destination. There was a patch of white paint on the wall.. I figured she'll never get that one, so I put a bucket in front. To my surprise, she waltzed right past the obvious bucket and put her nose on the white patch! She was for the first time thinking, using the partnership side of her brain.
We were nearly a week into it. It was the first time I felt confident in telling her owner "Don't worry, there's hope!"
------
Thanks for reading guys! Part 2 coming soon.
Hopefully it will warm up tomorrow and I can play with my girls.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
It's about to get intense!
Hey world!! It's me that person who hasn't blogged regularly since September because she hasn't ridden regularly since then either.
If you read my post almost a month ago, you'll know that both my horses and I have been having some physical issues. Well Firefly was able to come out of stall rest this week. I've been putting her in the round pen every day to play a bit. She runs around and has fun and acts normal, it's just the skin hasn't completely healed back over the tendon injury yet so it doesn't particularly look like she should be doing too much. I'll have the vet out to give her the okay to get back into real work soon as I can though. Xena's still getting eaten by deer ticks which leave these nasty bumps on her, and I'm not too sure about putting a saddle on top of them. She might be fine bareback though, if I could find the time to warm her up sufficiently.
I was looking back through all the posts I never published here because they were half-written when I abandoned them. The last time I rode Firefly was October 18th. I remember it.... it was raining and most of the horses were in the barn. I saddled her up when it was barely sprinkling but soon as I got on it started actually coming down. But we didn't care. I hadn't done much cantering on her, and I knew that I should get more used to her gaits, so we went around our perimeter at a nice gallop. Not the fastest she can go I'm sure, but it was good to feel how she works. After we had run around, I took her underneath some big trees in the back pasture to keep us from getting soaked, and it had been fun just sitting on her while she grazed.
The last time I rode Xena was a few days before that. The first day, I played with her for over an hour, played with the saddle, pushed her around the front of the barn and pasture, then put her bridle on and got on. She felt like she would be better exploring the front between the barn and pasture than she would have in the arena. So we played some figure 8 between trees, trotted a little, and went grazing. The next day was one of those days that you can tell by the expression when you walk into the barn that your horse is in a good place and you can probably just saddle up and get on. And that was the first day I ever just saddled her up and got on. She was perfect. She was LBI to the max. We walked around the trees, which she wanted to eat. We walked around the front yard, which she ate. Then we played friendly game with Gertrude.... I don't think I've introduced Gertrude yet. "She" is a 1942 Farmall tractor, bigger than my horse, and when turned on makes this ungodly vomit-like noise. I remember Xena didn't care about "her" at all, and was more concerned with leaning over her to snatch an apple off the apple trees.
And then, you know, that's when it all kinda fell apart for us - Xena got sick, I got sicker, and Firefly slashed her legs up. I won't lie to myself and say everything's all better now... but it hasn't gotten worse yet. There's optimism for ya!
Anyway, soon as Firefly is cleared for duty, you all get to watch us (laugh at us, perhaps?) as I try to take a level 2 horse to level 4 in 6 months. It will happen. It will happen if it drives the both of us mad, and I'm certain it will! My confidence is not misplaced though.... for the following reasons: 1. On one post I never published, I had had my second liberty session with Firefly and also had finished teaching her every single thing on the list of stuff in level 2 in all four savvies. That was after maybe 5 play sessions. It was the second time I'd ridden her freestyle and I said I could audition level 2 with her that day and pass. 2. Long time loyal readers (I love you, I don't know why you stick around) may know I reference a horse called Roxie quite a bit. She was an ex-racehorse and to this day probably - no okay, I admit - THE number 1 strongest relationship I've had with any living being, and the biggest achievement of my life. She is the reason I decided to become a Parelli Professional. She was about level -7 when I met her, and after 8 months she was the calmest, safest, sweetest, best trained horse in the barn of 70-something where she lived. She isn't mine though, sadly, or we'd have passed level 4 together some time last year. So whenever I start freaking out about how I've got 6 months left, I remember that Firefly is an already quite calm horse with loads of good training, and just needs time spent learning different Parelli stuff... and I've done this very thing with a crazy horse, with beautiful results.
This brings me to my next warning point for all of you lol! As I drive myself clinically insane with bringing Firefly through the levels and spend likely more time in the saddle than not, I'm going to be writing here what is always going through my head - the horses I've played with in the past. Because I'm sure having the main point of this blog be about a problem horse who when we can walk around and also not die at the same time is considered an accomplishment, certainly doesn't showcase the best of my abilities. I used to work at a barn which held 70-something horses. I worked at the riding school the barn offered. I rode every one of the barn manager's 28 horses. My friend and I were the sole excersize riders for all of them. The way my life in Los Angeles was, is that my friend would wake me up at around sunrise and we'd go to the barn and between the two of us, work every one of those 28 horses before the barn closed at 10 pm. We'd go galloping through the Hollywood hills nearly every day. I certainly wasn't as savvy back then, since it was before having Xena and unlimited time with my own horses, but I will say I was a pretty darn confident rider. Too confident at times I'm sure. Most of the owners of problem horses in that barn came to me for advice. Nearly every one of them now has a relationship with their horse that they can atttribute to Parelli. Xena, however... Xena became mine.
So here we go, story time! Every post will contain some anecdote of some horse I've done something with. This week I'll take you through the whole story of Roxie, since remembering her is usually what reminds me of why I do the crazy things I do.
Thanks for sticking with me!
If you read my post almost a month ago, you'll know that both my horses and I have been having some physical issues. Well Firefly was able to come out of stall rest this week. I've been putting her in the round pen every day to play a bit. She runs around and has fun and acts normal, it's just the skin hasn't completely healed back over the tendon injury yet so it doesn't particularly look like she should be doing too much. I'll have the vet out to give her the okay to get back into real work soon as I can though. Xena's still getting eaten by deer ticks which leave these nasty bumps on her, and I'm not too sure about putting a saddle on top of them. She might be fine bareback though, if I could find the time to warm her up sufficiently.
I was looking back through all the posts I never published here because they were half-written when I abandoned them. The last time I rode Firefly was October 18th. I remember it.... it was raining and most of the horses were in the barn. I saddled her up when it was barely sprinkling but soon as I got on it started actually coming down. But we didn't care. I hadn't done much cantering on her, and I knew that I should get more used to her gaits, so we went around our perimeter at a nice gallop. Not the fastest she can go I'm sure, but it was good to feel how she works. After we had run around, I took her underneath some big trees in the back pasture to keep us from getting soaked, and it had been fun just sitting on her while she grazed.
The last time I rode Xena was a few days before that. The first day, I played with her for over an hour, played with the saddle, pushed her around the front of the barn and pasture, then put her bridle on and got on. She felt like she would be better exploring the front between the barn and pasture than she would have in the arena. So we played some figure 8 between trees, trotted a little, and went grazing. The next day was one of those days that you can tell by the expression when you walk into the barn that your horse is in a good place and you can probably just saddle up and get on. And that was the first day I ever just saddled her up and got on. She was perfect. She was LBI to the max. We walked around the trees, which she wanted to eat. We walked around the front yard, which she ate. Then we played friendly game with Gertrude.... I don't think I've introduced Gertrude yet. "She" is a 1942 Farmall tractor, bigger than my horse, and when turned on makes this ungodly vomit-like noise. I remember Xena didn't care about "her" at all, and was more concerned with leaning over her to snatch an apple off the apple trees.
And then, you know, that's when it all kinda fell apart for us - Xena got sick, I got sicker, and Firefly slashed her legs up. I won't lie to myself and say everything's all better now... but it hasn't gotten worse yet. There's optimism for ya!
Anyway, soon as Firefly is cleared for duty, you all get to watch us (laugh at us, perhaps?) as I try to take a level 2 horse to level 4 in 6 months. It will happen. It will happen if it drives the both of us mad, and I'm certain it will! My confidence is not misplaced though.... for the following reasons: 1. On one post I never published, I had had my second liberty session with Firefly and also had finished teaching her every single thing on the list of stuff in level 2 in all four savvies. That was after maybe 5 play sessions. It was the second time I'd ridden her freestyle and I said I could audition level 2 with her that day and pass. 2. Long time loyal readers (I love you, I don't know why you stick around) may know I reference a horse called Roxie quite a bit. She was an ex-racehorse and to this day probably - no okay, I admit - THE number 1 strongest relationship I've had with any living being, and the biggest achievement of my life. She is the reason I decided to become a Parelli Professional. She was about level -7 when I met her, and after 8 months she was the calmest, safest, sweetest, best trained horse in the barn of 70-something where she lived. She isn't mine though, sadly, or we'd have passed level 4 together some time last year. So whenever I start freaking out about how I've got 6 months left, I remember that Firefly is an already quite calm horse with loads of good training, and just needs time spent learning different Parelli stuff... and I've done this very thing with a crazy horse, with beautiful results.
This brings me to my next warning point for all of you lol! As I drive myself clinically insane with bringing Firefly through the levels and spend likely more time in the saddle than not, I'm going to be writing here what is always going through my head - the horses I've played with in the past. Because I'm sure having the main point of this blog be about a problem horse who when we can walk around and also not die at the same time is considered an accomplishment, certainly doesn't showcase the best of my abilities. I used to work at a barn which held 70-something horses. I worked at the riding school the barn offered. I rode every one of the barn manager's 28 horses. My friend and I were the sole excersize riders for all of them. The way my life in Los Angeles was, is that my friend would wake me up at around sunrise and we'd go to the barn and between the two of us, work every one of those 28 horses before the barn closed at 10 pm. We'd go galloping through the Hollywood hills nearly every day. I certainly wasn't as savvy back then, since it was before having Xena and unlimited time with my own horses, but I will say I was a pretty darn confident rider. Too confident at times I'm sure. Most of the owners of problem horses in that barn came to me for advice. Nearly every one of them now has a relationship with their horse that they can atttribute to Parelli. Xena, however... Xena became mine.
So here we go, story time! Every post will contain some anecdote of some horse I've done something with. This week I'll take you through the whole story of Roxie, since remembering her is usually what reminds me of why I do the crazy things I do.
Thanks for sticking with me!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Don't you hate angsty blogs?
HI BLOGGERS!!! It's okay, I didn't recorgnize myself either.
Fiction is nice. Fiction doesn't force you to lead an interesting life to create subject matter.
I do enjoy writing, and I feel more like myself when I do it, but then I always end up feeling bad when I don't have anything interesting to write about. Right now, it was kind of the only outlet that felt like it would help.
Anyone remember how happy and progressive I was like 4 months ago? Riding Xena, had just gotten Firefly, doing hill therapy with Mesa, driving Charm, doing fancy online stuff with Ghost, making leaps and bounds with my skittish mare, and generally excited for life? Well I guess what goes up must come down. Not gonna lie, this is certainly not a happy blog post. In fact, this is probably the lowest slump I've ever been in with the horses. Or in life, ever, at all.
Then what's even more been on my mind lately is this ASDFGHJPOIUYTREWDFGH!@#$%^&**&^%$#@ situation with video cameras. I have been ready to film an audition with multiple horses for AN ENTIRE YEAR now!!!! Last Christmas, I got a video camera. Was going to audition. Oh too bad that freaking thing took an expensive converting cord and an obscene amount of nonproductive customer service calls to figure out how to load it onto the computer. Sooooo that didn't work. I have sitting on it, somewhere, wherever the stupid thing is, the entirety of the first night I got Xena. And like some of the next day. Haven't watched it back, not gonna any time soon, and will never be able to get it online. Public service announcement: sony handycams are crap. Well I've been trying to make some videos with my digital camera, but it doesn't work very well. In fact, it's embarrassingly bad. It uploads in .MOV format, which Windows rejects. We have an old 2007 Macbook, so I tried editing them on there. Oh, it edits them alright, it sure does. But it won't upload to Youtube. I have to e-mail them to myself to upload it from my PC (I can almost hear you laughing at how awful this is... almost), which compresses it to such a stupidly small resolution that you can't tell the horse's head from its tail and it cuts out most of the audio. Greaaat. Macbook, out.
And then there's my horses. Have I mentioned the evil demon spawn of the devil plants we have here called goat heads? Yeah I think I've complained about them before. It's like if burrs had rose thorns on them, yeah it's like that only plus artificial intelligence which tells them how to destroy things by clinging to them. They make playing with ropes a literal bloody mess, causes you to want to micromanage the rope so it won't touch the ground, and are just obnoxious. Well not only is it unpleasant to play online at all, it's now below freezing every day and cold hands and goat heads don't mix. /tangent. What I was getting at is that my cart tires popped AGAIN. So I haven't driven Charm since like October. Ohhh you think that's all? HAH.
I got sick in the end of September. I'm still sick. It's effing December. It sounds like pneumonia but doctors just give you allergy medicine that doesn't help. So Starting about halfway through October, I haven't ridden much because I feel like a corpse running on caffiene.
Firefly got a 4" deep puncture wound on her leg the day I turned 18, November 2nd. It took about 3 weeks of my sick self hauling it out to the barn twice a day to walk her, hose the leg, and flush it out with an unseemly looking syringe for that to heel up. The day - I kid you not - THE DAY I went out to catch her, planning on calling the vet to give her the okay, she lacerated the other back leg on a loose wire. Brilliant. It was about a millimeter from the lowest joint in the hock... which loosely translates to "pretty freakin dangerous." So the vet prescribed a few weeks of stall rest for that. The first week I cleaned and bandaged it every day. Then after that, I had to just clean it out and put medicine on it twice a day. You'd think that would be it right? <--- obvious forshadowing is obvious.
NOPE! While on stall rest, she got an abscess on her hindquarters. No, seriously. It burst through a bunch of muscle, and was open about 6 inches long in that big muscle next to her tail. I have never seen so far into the insides of the muscle structure of a horse, nor did I want to. While I was flushing it, I'd sometimes look at her and say, "Honestly, horse, how many times am I going to have to violate an orifice you created with this syringe?"
The tendon was healing nicely, of course vet had to come back out and remove some proud flesh. Actually a lot of it.
My vet now recognizes my number when I call after, you know, calling her twice a week at one point for the same horse. She joked that since every time she comes she leaves blood on my barn floor, she should write her name in it and say "...was here."
EMOTIONAL FITNESS IS A MYTH!!! I'm sure of it!!!! *banging head against wall*
If anything, I've proved Karma doesn't work. Maybe it's just trying teach me patien-- OH shut up.
The puncture wound is just a bit of scar tissue now. The abscess is only open about 3 inches now, and the tendon is... well okay the tendon doesn't look a whole lot better. She's supposed to regain full athletic use of it though, which is nice. If either of us feel up to riding any time in the distant future. Somewhere in there, she rubbed most of her mane out... so between her scabs and scars and such she just looks like a ragamuffin. THEN, and I nearly forgot, Xena broke out in hives again about a week before Firefly's tendon injury. Oh, and this was after she ran herself through probably the same fence that Firefly cut herself on. She still has the hives and slight scar on her chest. Allegedly, they are deer tick allergies. She looks gross. She looks like she's never been brushed in her life, the bumps under her long winter coat are just awful. So yeah, no riding for her either, even if I felt up to it. Things like this make me feel like we didn't really move to a dream ranch of any kind at all... we've moved to a death trap.
The only slight snippen of possible good news? I got accepted to Fast Track 2011 for sure, signed up and going. Possibly the worst news? I have to go to Fast Track. Wtf Alex you're insane! Yeah yeah I know. But think about... I have to take either already super emotional Xena, hope she's not allergic to the campus, and also take her from a sketchy level 3 online to a confident riding horse in 7 months, if I started today. Which I can't because we're both sick. Or Firefly from a calm confident level 2, to a proper Parelli horsey in however long she's physically sound between now and July. Freaking out? Just a little. To add to that (and I swear this is all quite actually happening) the mares we bred this year are due next June. We lost the first foal we tried to breed in 2006, and this is the first year we've tried since. I basically just want to escape, and trade pretty much anyone for their life right now.
Soooooo I've been sleeping mostly. Because there's not a whole lot else to do. I spend too much time on the internet, watching other people enjoy their interesting lives on youtube. In fact, because I realized how I need to get out more, or at least need to meet new people, I decided I wanted to start a real show on youtube because it's something non-horsey to do. So I went camera shopping. Again. It wasn't any better. In fact it was worse. I got a new camera for Christmas which apparently isn't any easier to edit on. Now I need to go be socially awkward an return it and admit to the people at Best Buy that I'm technologically inept and just want a darn camera that works! I hadn't left the farm in 2 weeks before we went camera shopping. And the last time I did was to go to the animal shelter. The only place I ever leave to is Wal-Mart or the shelter. Social life? Sounds nice. But I can count my friends on one hand - 3 I met at the shelter and they live too far away to do anything regularly, and the others spend more time flying back to Los Angeles than with me. I'm an animal person, but when your pets are the only source of entertainment for miles around, even I want to rip my hair out every time I see something with a tail nowadays.
I'm going to die alone making crappy youtube videos.
*exhale*
Fiction is nice. Fiction doesn't force you to lead an interesting life to create subject matter.
I do enjoy writing, and I feel more like myself when I do it, but then I always end up feeling bad when I don't have anything interesting to write about. Right now, it was kind of the only outlet that felt like it would help.
Anyone remember how happy and progressive I was like 4 months ago? Riding Xena, had just gotten Firefly, doing hill therapy with Mesa, driving Charm, doing fancy online stuff with Ghost, making leaps and bounds with my skittish mare, and generally excited for life? Well I guess what goes up must come down. Not gonna lie, this is certainly not a happy blog post. In fact, this is probably the lowest slump I've ever been in with the horses. Or in life, ever, at all.
Then what's even more been on my mind lately is this ASDFGHJPOIUYTREWDFGH!@#$%^&**&^%$#@ situation with video cameras. I have been ready to film an audition with multiple horses for AN ENTIRE YEAR now!!!! Last Christmas, I got a video camera. Was going to audition. Oh too bad that freaking thing took an expensive converting cord and an obscene amount of nonproductive customer service calls to figure out how to load it onto the computer. Sooooo that didn't work. I have sitting on it, somewhere, wherever the stupid thing is, the entirety of the first night I got Xena. And like some of the next day. Haven't watched it back, not gonna any time soon, and will never be able to get it online. Public service announcement: sony handycams are crap. Well I've been trying to make some videos with my digital camera, but it doesn't work very well. In fact, it's embarrassingly bad. It uploads in .MOV format, which Windows rejects. We have an old 2007 Macbook, so I tried editing them on there. Oh, it edits them alright, it sure does. But it won't upload to Youtube. I have to e-mail them to myself to upload it from my PC (I can almost hear you laughing at how awful this is... almost), which compresses it to such a stupidly small resolution that you can't tell the horse's head from its tail and it cuts out most of the audio. Greaaat. Macbook, out.
And then there's my horses. Have I mentioned the evil demon spawn of the devil plants we have here called goat heads? Yeah I think I've complained about them before. It's like if burrs had rose thorns on them, yeah it's like that only plus artificial intelligence which tells them how to destroy things by clinging to them. They make playing with ropes a literal bloody mess, causes you to want to micromanage the rope so it won't touch the ground, and are just obnoxious. Well not only is it unpleasant to play online at all, it's now below freezing every day and cold hands and goat heads don't mix. /tangent. What I was getting at is that my cart tires popped AGAIN. So I haven't driven Charm since like October. Ohhh you think that's all? HAH.
I got sick in the end of September. I'm still sick. It's effing December. It sounds like pneumonia but doctors just give you allergy medicine that doesn't help. So Starting about halfway through October, I haven't ridden much because I feel like a corpse running on caffiene.
Firefly got a 4" deep puncture wound on her leg the day I turned 18, November 2nd. It took about 3 weeks of my sick self hauling it out to the barn twice a day to walk her, hose the leg, and flush it out with an unseemly looking syringe for that to heel up. The day - I kid you not - THE DAY I went out to catch her, planning on calling the vet to give her the okay, she lacerated the other back leg on a loose wire. Brilliant. It was about a millimeter from the lowest joint in the hock... which loosely translates to "pretty freakin dangerous." So the vet prescribed a few weeks of stall rest for that. The first week I cleaned and bandaged it every day. Then after that, I had to just clean it out and put medicine on it twice a day. You'd think that would be it right? <--- obvious forshadowing is obvious.
NOPE! While on stall rest, she got an abscess on her hindquarters. No, seriously. It burst through a bunch of muscle, and was open about 6 inches long in that big muscle next to her tail. I have never seen so far into the insides of the muscle structure of a horse, nor did I want to. While I was flushing it, I'd sometimes look at her and say, "Honestly, horse, how many times am I going to have to violate an orifice you created with this syringe?"
The tendon was healing nicely, of course vet had to come back out and remove some proud flesh. Actually a lot of it.
My vet now recognizes my number when I call after, you know, calling her twice a week at one point for the same horse. She joked that since every time she comes she leaves blood on my barn floor, she should write her name in it and say "...was here."
EMOTIONAL FITNESS IS A MYTH!!! I'm sure of it!!!! *banging head against wall*
If anything, I've proved Karma doesn't work. Maybe it's just trying teach me patien-- OH shut up.
The puncture wound is just a bit of scar tissue now. The abscess is only open about 3 inches now, and the tendon is... well okay the tendon doesn't look a whole lot better. She's supposed to regain full athletic use of it though, which is nice. If either of us feel up to riding any time in the distant future. Somewhere in there, she rubbed most of her mane out... so between her scabs and scars and such she just looks like a ragamuffin. THEN, and I nearly forgot, Xena broke out in hives again about a week before Firefly's tendon injury. Oh, and this was after she ran herself through probably the same fence that Firefly cut herself on. She still has the hives and slight scar on her chest. Allegedly, they are deer tick allergies. She looks gross. She looks like she's never been brushed in her life, the bumps under her long winter coat are just awful. So yeah, no riding for her either, even if I felt up to it. Things like this make me feel like we didn't really move to a dream ranch of any kind at all... we've moved to a death trap.
The only slight snippen of possible good news? I got accepted to Fast Track 2011 for sure, signed up and going. Possibly the worst news? I have to go to Fast Track. Wtf Alex you're insane! Yeah yeah I know. But think about... I have to take either already super emotional Xena, hope she's not allergic to the campus, and also take her from a sketchy level 3 online to a confident riding horse in 7 months, if I started today. Which I can't because we're both sick. Or Firefly from a calm confident level 2, to a proper Parelli horsey in however long she's physically sound between now and July. Freaking out? Just a little. To add to that (and I swear this is all quite actually happening) the mares we bred this year are due next June. We lost the first foal we tried to breed in 2006, and this is the first year we've tried since. I basically just want to escape, and trade pretty much anyone for their life right now.
Soooooo I've been sleeping mostly. Because there's not a whole lot else to do. I spend too much time on the internet, watching other people enjoy their interesting lives on youtube. In fact, because I realized how I need to get out more, or at least need to meet new people, I decided I wanted to start a real show on youtube because it's something non-horsey to do. So I went camera shopping. Again. It wasn't any better. In fact it was worse. I got a new camera for Christmas which apparently isn't any easier to edit on. Now I need to go be socially awkward an return it and admit to the people at Best Buy that I'm technologically inept and just want a darn camera that works! I hadn't left the farm in 2 weeks before we went camera shopping. And the last time I did was to go to the animal shelter. The only place I ever leave to is Wal-Mart or the shelter. Social life? Sounds nice. But I can count my friends on one hand - 3 I met at the shelter and they live too far away to do anything regularly, and the others spend more time flying back to Los Angeles than with me. I'm an animal person, but when your pets are the only source of entertainment for miles around, even I want to rip my hair out every time I see something with a tail nowadays.
I'm going to die alone making crappy youtube videos.
*exhale*
Thursday, September 9, 2010
We did it!
These past two weeks have been full of sooo much personal growth for me, it's unebelievable. I will have to come back and post all the awesome stuff I did last week, my profound life discovery, and dream catching... but right now this morning was good that even though I've only got 10 minutes I NEEDED to post!
I had an AWESOME freestyle session with Xena today!!! We started with a liberty warm-up, and I taught her the weave pattern. She offered to canter it! My little introvert found spunk! We played some porcupine games with a bale string around her neck. Then I put her bareback pad on... no girthiness. At all. Amazing. I've been riding the new horse (I promise she'll get at least a few posts all to herself lol!) and I can't believe how fast my confidence is riding has come back. I hopped up on Z, she stood there, I felt absolutely no fear, realized I forgot my helmit, got off , grabbed it, hopped right back on. She stood there for over a minute, and I let her decide when to take the first steps. I was stearing her primarily with the carrot stick, and we went around a couple laps of weave pattern no problem. We did some spirals around the barrels. She was listening and calm, but not quite with it... she kept wanting to go stay by the gate. So I changed the game.
To where I would work on improving my stop and go phases, and she could choose the direction. Clearly the gate was her comfort zone. So instead of saying No, being the Ambassador of Yes, I said yep I love gates too! I just didn't let her stand there long. Smile, squeeze, smooch if you please, tap the air, tap the hair... soon enough she was moving forwrd consistantly at phase two. When she'd stop, I would rub her, and then start asking for movement again. She got the game, and started stopping less and less, even though she was only doing small circles around the gate. I kept an eye on where her comfort zone was... which shadows and pieces of poo she would go past before circling back.
I kept up with asking for walking but being a passenger, and I noticed her comfort zone increasing. She'd go a foot past the poo pile. And then two. And then she'd go half way to the barrel. Then she actually turned away from the gate. Then she walked right where I was focusing and put her NOSE ON THE BARREL!
She was confident enough to leave her comfort zone with me, and trust me not to push her over it, and then take my idea.
When I stopped she had the most confident curious look I've ever seen her have.
It was like "Hey, where are we going next? This is cool!"
She was calm, confident, and willing.... after an exhuberant warm-up. We're gettin there!!!.
I am sooo proud of my girl. <3
I had an AWESOME freestyle session with Xena today!!! We started with a liberty warm-up, and I taught her the weave pattern. She offered to canter it! My little introvert found spunk! We played some porcupine games with a bale string around her neck. Then I put her bareback pad on... no girthiness. At all. Amazing. I've been riding the new horse (I promise she'll get at least a few posts all to herself lol!) and I can't believe how fast my confidence is riding has come back. I hopped up on Z, she stood there, I felt absolutely no fear, realized I forgot my helmit, got off , grabbed it, hopped right back on. She stood there for over a minute, and I let her decide when to take the first steps. I was stearing her primarily with the carrot stick, and we went around a couple laps of weave pattern no problem. We did some spirals around the barrels. She was listening and calm, but not quite with it... she kept wanting to go stay by the gate. So I changed the game.
To where I would work on improving my stop and go phases, and she could choose the direction. Clearly the gate was her comfort zone. So instead of saying No, being the Ambassador of Yes, I said yep I love gates too! I just didn't let her stand there long. Smile, squeeze, smooch if you please, tap the air, tap the hair... soon enough she was moving forwrd consistantly at phase two. When she'd stop, I would rub her, and then start asking for movement again. She got the game, and started stopping less and less, even though she was only doing small circles around the gate. I kept an eye on where her comfort zone was... which shadows and pieces of poo she would go past before circling back.
I kept up with asking for walking but being a passenger, and I noticed her comfort zone increasing. She'd go a foot past the poo pile. And then two. And then she'd go half way to the barrel. Then she actually turned away from the gate. Then she walked right where I was focusing and put her NOSE ON THE BARREL!
She was confident enough to leave her comfort zone with me, and trust me not to push her over it, and then take my idea.
When I stopped she had the most confident curious look I've ever seen her have.
It was like "Hey, where are we going next? This is cool!"
She was calm, confident, and willing.... after an exhuberant warm-up. We're gettin there!!!.
I am sooo proud of my girl. <3
Monday, August 30, 2010
Appreciate the small stuff
(just noticed this was unfinished in the drafts, so its a bit more hindsight perspective lol! but still important)
We got two new horses boarding here. Very traditionally trained, rather large, ridden English and used to show jumping. One is the spittin image of Remmer, built just like him, same color, pretty similar horsenality! He seems more LBE though. His buddy is a LBI Appaloosa. They are 23 and 30, but they don't look OR act it! They are so sweet and cute. But since getting my own place I've only dealt with my own Parelli horses, and my friend's gelding to whom I have full creative licence to play with lol.
We left them in the arena all night together until we could get the pasture fixed. The first morning after, I had to bring them into the barn to give them their breakfast before rotating them to the other pasture. By myself. My friend had helped me all weekend. I can't take one at a time out of the arena, because they are sooo attached to each other that they go totally right brain, and the 23 year old freaks out and screams. Whether there is a person connected to him or not. (1 month later, 23 year old still acts like this, he has separation issues haha.) The 30 year old isn't as worried, but he has next to no respect for my space and will shamelessly barge right past me to get somewhere. So that morning...
I haltered the older one first, shoved my way past him, and haltered the other one. He's prefected the art of using his head as a weapon, and it took me a few tries of blocking to not move my feet. Finally got the halters one them, now to get them both through the gate separately. They had other ideas. I opened the gate as far as the sand would allow, and tried to send one out. Riiiiight, normal horses don't get being sent. They both went the other direction. Just dandy. Take two. I walk out with one next to me, hoping the other would stay behind. Nooooope. They both were quite convinced that the world would crumble if they couldn't come out at the same exact moment in time. I I got sandwiched between two big horsey shoulders and scrambled to keep up with them. There's about 50 feet between the barn and the arena. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to take them just into the barn. They were ripping me in two directions as they each tried grass diving in opposite ways. Then one would get too far away, and the other would freak out and jump on top of me again. Finally we got in the barn. I tried to send one into his stall. Right, that doesn't work. Okay maybe I'll tie one up and come back to it.... 5 feet away and they both go right brained, brilliant. Ugh! So I decide to shut the one barn door that I can reach, let the 30 year old stand there, and escort the other into his stall. The moment he gets all the way in his stall, he feaks out, screams for his buddy, and dart right back out the door! Just as I'm wondering how many repititions of approach and retreat this will take, I turn around to see the 30 year old waltzing right out the barn!!! GAHHH!!!! The one I'm holding absolutely loses it, and it takes my whole body strength to back him up off of me to relieve my squashed self from between the door and him. Yeah, that was fun. Slam the door, leave him there dragging his rope, chasing after the other one "HORSIEEEEEE, please come baccckkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Comedy of errors! I just need a video camera following me, I could be tv hit lol! So I cought him, dragged his reluctant butt back inside, and showed him his room. I had to remove the other one's halter while he was eating his grain so he would hold still.
I escaped with only minor bruising, a sore foot, and strained something or other lol. And a new appreciation for all that Parelli has done for the smallest things with my horses. I can lead 5 minis at the same time perfectly fine from the arena to their barn, send each one under my arm between me and the gate I'm holding, separately, and they are perfect little angels. They respect my space when I'm haltering another horse, and they each happily put their noses in the halter for me. And even though they live together, I can take any one of them out and tehy behave just fine. +3 points for the squeeze game, it really does make life easier! Oh, and the porcupine game, if they accidentally step on my foot or I've had a savvy bypass and cornered myself somewhere, the slightest reminder gets them away... as opposed to having to go all sumo wrestler jedi on them lol!
Some people will argue that there's no diffference between a "parelli horse" and a traditional one, as they all understand the same langueage. I beg to differ only because... although they will all understand savvy... Parelli horses are used to being handled naturally, and responding as such. Traditionals, in varying degress, are not. The next day, just because I could, I played with Mesa with just a bale string. Got her out of her stall, she stood perfectly in the barn aisle. I brushed her, fly sprayed her, cleaned her feet, cleaned her eyes, and she stood there while I was darting in and out of the tackroom for different thigs. Then she followed me just like that into the arena. I read in one of the Savvy Times' something Linda experienced with the Savvy Team while on tour. She was asking them if they could do anything really cool or interesting with their horse. Nobody seemed to think so. She asked... can anyone back their horse by the tail? They said of course they could do that. What about mounting from the ground bareback? They nodded. She had to remind them how COOL that is, and how many people can't do that!! Sometimes we do get too critical I think, on trying to do fancy things. But really, the small things that slowly integrate into our daily lives are so important. I love my Parelli horses. <3
We got two new horses boarding here. Very traditionally trained, rather large, ridden English and used to show jumping. One is the spittin image of Remmer, built just like him, same color, pretty similar horsenality! He seems more LBE though. His buddy is a LBI Appaloosa. They are 23 and 30, but they don't look OR act it! They are so sweet and cute. But since getting my own place I've only dealt with my own Parelli horses, and my friend's gelding to whom I have full creative licence to play with lol.
We left them in the arena all night together until we could get the pasture fixed. The first morning after, I had to bring them into the barn to give them their breakfast before rotating them to the other pasture. By myself. My friend had helped me all weekend. I can't take one at a time out of the arena, because they are sooo attached to each other that they go totally right brain, and the 23 year old freaks out and screams. Whether there is a person connected to him or not. (1 month later, 23 year old still acts like this, he has separation issues haha.) The 30 year old isn't as worried, but he has next to no respect for my space and will shamelessly barge right past me to get somewhere. So that morning...
I haltered the older one first, shoved my way past him, and haltered the other one. He's prefected the art of using his head as a weapon, and it took me a few tries of blocking to not move my feet. Finally got the halters one them, now to get them both through the gate separately. They had other ideas. I opened the gate as far as the sand would allow, and tried to send one out. Riiiiight, normal horses don't get being sent. They both went the other direction. Just dandy. Take two. I walk out with one next to me, hoping the other would stay behind. Nooooope. They both were quite convinced that the world would crumble if they couldn't come out at the same exact moment in time. I I got sandwiched between two big horsey shoulders and scrambled to keep up with them. There's about 50 feet between the barn and the arena. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to take them just into the barn. They were ripping me in two directions as they each tried grass diving in opposite ways. Then one would get too far away, and the other would freak out and jump on top of me again. Finally we got in the barn. I tried to send one into his stall. Right, that doesn't work. Okay maybe I'll tie one up and come back to it.... 5 feet away and they both go right brained, brilliant. Ugh! So I decide to shut the one barn door that I can reach, let the 30 year old stand there, and escort the other into his stall. The moment he gets all the way in his stall, he feaks out, screams for his buddy, and dart right back out the door! Just as I'm wondering how many repititions of approach and retreat this will take, I turn around to see the 30 year old waltzing right out the barn!!! GAHHH!!!! The one I'm holding absolutely loses it, and it takes my whole body strength to back him up off of me to relieve my squashed self from between the door and him. Yeah, that was fun. Slam the door, leave him there dragging his rope, chasing after the other one "HORSIEEEEEE, please come baccckkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Comedy of errors! I just need a video camera following me, I could be tv hit lol! So I cought him, dragged his reluctant butt back inside, and showed him his room. I had to remove the other one's halter while he was eating his grain so he would hold still.
I escaped with only minor bruising, a sore foot, and strained something or other lol. And a new appreciation for all that Parelli has done for the smallest things with my horses. I can lead 5 minis at the same time perfectly fine from the arena to their barn, send each one under my arm between me and the gate I'm holding, separately, and they are perfect little angels. They respect my space when I'm haltering another horse, and they each happily put their noses in the halter for me. And even though they live together, I can take any one of them out and tehy behave just fine. +3 points for the squeeze game, it really does make life easier! Oh, and the porcupine game, if they accidentally step on my foot or I've had a savvy bypass and cornered myself somewhere, the slightest reminder gets them away... as opposed to having to go all sumo wrestler jedi on them lol!
Some people will argue that there's no diffference between a "parelli horse" and a traditional one, as they all understand the same langueage. I beg to differ only because... although they will all understand savvy... Parelli horses are used to being handled naturally, and responding as such. Traditionals, in varying degress, are not. The next day, just because I could, I played with Mesa with just a bale string. Got her out of her stall, she stood perfectly in the barn aisle. I brushed her, fly sprayed her, cleaned her feet, cleaned her eyes, and she stood there while I was darting in and out of the tackroom for different thigs. Then she followed me just like that into the arena. I read in one of the Savvy Times' something Linda experienced with the Savvy Team while on tour. She was asking them if they could do anything really cool or interesting with their horse. Nobody seemed to think so. She asked... can anyone back their horse by the tail? They said of course they could do that. What about mounting from the ground bareback? They nodded. She had to remind them how COOL that is, and how many people can't do that!! Sometimes we do get too critical I think, on trying to do fancy things. But really, the small things that slowly integrate into our daily lives are so important. I love my Parelli horses. <3
Friday, August 27, 2010
Popsicles and carrots
It is HOT!!! It's fun to stay cool in the barn with the horses though!
Yesterday I got on Xena with my friend's saddle. It actually fits her rather well, so I'll borrow it till I get the shimming on mine figured out. We warmed up hard so we could ride soft. Even though it was hot. We played with a plastic bag, which I tied to the end of the savvy string. She hasn't seen one of those in a while. She was skeptical at first, but lots of approach and retreat later and I played extreme friendly game with it! She let me swing it above her head and over her back into the saddle. :D I got on and for the first time asked for some steering while playing point to point with carrots on buckets. She was.... well she was a little sticky. I wasn't surprised though. Turning before she was mine never was her strong point. But we've done loads of porcupine and following a feel on other parts of her body.... tail, legs, neck, etc. Just not from on top of zone 3. Insert proverbial to-do list!
I had two buckets out there, and a pocket of carrots. And for those of you who read how I nearly lost my finger from feeding her a carrot in April, I still don't feed her from on top of her. So I was chucking carrots on to the buckets hoping that she'd find them. She got most of them. Her back up was still incredibly light, so I stopped her by lifting my one rein after she had eaten all the carrots to be found. She enjoyed that game for a while. Then we both got a little too hot so I brought her back into the barn.
She wasn't perfectly light on the lateral flexion rein, so after this ride I decided that because sh'es so good with her driving game, I'd start riding her with the carrot stick to back up my ideas.
The rest of the day I gave her some carrots in the barn aisle while I sat on her back and ate popsicles to cool off. It was a pretty nice bonding experience.
Yesterday I got on Xena with my friend's saddle. It actually fits her rather well, so I'll borrow it till I get the shimming on mine figured out. We warmed up hard so we could ride soft. Even though it was hot. We played with a plastic bag, which I tied to the end of the savvy string. She hasn't seen one of those in a while. She was skeptical at first, but lots of approach and retreat later and I played extreme friendly game with it! She let me swing it above her head and over her back into the saddle. :D I got on and for the first time asked for some steering while playing point to point with carrots on buckets. She was.... well she was a little sticky. I wasn't surprised though. Turning before she was mine never was her strong point. But we've done loads of porcupine and following a feel on other parts of her body.... tail, legs, neck, etc. Just not from on top of zone 3. Insert proverbial to-do list!
I had two buckets out there, and a pocket of carrots. And for those of you who read how I nearly lost my finger from feeding her a carrot in April, I still don't feed her from on top of her. So I was chucking carrots on to the buckets hoping that she'd find them. She got most of them. Her back up was still incredibly light, so I stopped her by lifting my one rein after she had eaten all the carrots to be found. She enjoyed that game for a while. Then we both got a little too hot so I brought her back into the barn.
She wasn't perfectly light on the lateral flexion rein, so after this ride I decided that because sh'es so good with her driving game, I'd start riding her with the carrot stick to back up my ideas.
The rest of the day I gave her some carrots in the barn aisle while I sat on her back and ate popsicles to cool off. It was a pretty nice bonding experience.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
OH HAPPY DAY!!!!!
Dad called the Parelli office yesterday. WE'RE SENDING IN MY FAST TRACK APPLICATION TOMORROW!!!!!!!
We weren't sure if the flex pay option had to be 4 months in a row, or if you could pay whenever, and they said whenever you're ready as long as it's payed in full 30 days prior to start of class. How exciting!
Pictures came in the mail of the new horse! It's so funny how these things work out ya know, these gift horses. And not knowing what she looked like before agreeing to take her. I think I lucked out and got one good trail horse here! I'll be able to go exploring with her before having to teach Xena the ropes.
Her sire is a Doc O'lena grandson. She's so pretty!! She gets here next Friday, I won't sleep for a week!!!
Oh speaking of riding Xena, I got on her the other day and after a short passenger ride, gave her my first attempt at any communcation from on top of zone 3... I asked her to back up. She responded at phase 1!!! I asked a few more times, and just by slightly lifting my pinky finger, she backed right up for me. What a sensitive horse. She really is my perfect partner! I can just tell, if I take the time at takes she'll be the perfect calm, curious, sensitive, dignified partner for me. And now with the new girl on the way, I don't need to rush it.
Bouncing off the walls!! Life is just too exciting!
We weren't sure if the flex pay option had to be 4 months in a row, or if you could pay whenever, and they said whenever you're ready as long as it's payed in full 30 days prior to start of class. How exciting!
Pictures came in the mail of the new horse! It's so funny how these things work out ya know, these gift horses. And not knowing what she looked like before agreeing to take her. I think I lucked out and got one good trail horse here! I'll be able to go exploring with her before having to teach Xena the ropes.
Her sire is a Doc O'lena grandson. She's so pretty!! She gets here next Friday, I won't sleep for a week!!!
Oh speaking of riding Xena, I got on her the other day and after a short passenger ride, gave her my first attempt at any communcation from on top of zone 3... I asked her to back up. She responded at phase 1!!! I asked a few more times, and just by slightly lifting my pinky finger, she backed right up for me. What a sensitive horse. She really is my perfect partner! I can just tell, if I take the time at takes she'll be the perfect calm, curious, sensitive, dignified partner for me. And now with the new girl on the way, I don't need to rush it.
Bouncing off the walls!! Life is just too exciting!
Monday, August 23, 2010
Importance of details
Just got back in from another breakthrough session with Xena!
She teaches me something new every day. I love her so much!!
It was raining all day today, up until about 7. Nasty rain with thunder too, not the kind you go outside to play in. So I was stuck inside most of the day, answering every topic on the SC forum and looking at some Quarter Horse pics, trying to look up the new mare's lineage. (Wait, new horse!?! Bottom half of my last post, there's a story!) It's such an exciting feeling, you know that bounce of the walls anticipation! Hard to get anything done anyway. So I was looking through the SC vault videos for direction on what to do with Xena first. I've seen every single one of them on there, many multiple times. But there's always things I forget, so even the fifth time they are still fascinating lol!
The one that took me a few views to sink in was actually a seemingly simple tv episode called "Go Get Your Horse." It was centered on respecting thresholds, and not just taking your horse from a to b. Which, in a stalling situation, I can get pretty bad about. Side note: the next project is getting the back pasture living-safe with a shelter so the big horses can stay out there all the time; confinement sucks. I have/had a bad habit of just haltering the horse and dragging it out, there wasn't much communication/catching game to do in a stall right? Or so I thought. ;) Tonight it hit me when I went out to put Xena in the round pen - planning to leave her there and let her entertain herself while I went back inside - but her head was out her back window, her butt towards me, and she didn't come over when I called. How interesting! Outside was more interesting than me, how to fix that? Okay I'll stand here with the door open for a while. No response. *Close door, run into tackroom, return* ...Correction, I'll stand here with a cookie! So I held my cookie hand out and she did a bit of a double take and then came over. She ate the cookie quite happily, and when I went to halter her she put her nose in it. YES i did the right thing!
I took her to the round pen after some grazing detours. She still had a RBI unconfident expression, so I didn't want to leave her and abandon her with her fears. Played all the games online, trying to keep her attention and focus and get her to think down to her feet. I really love when she's more RBI because I understand her thought process so much better, and when her emotional changes happen it means a lot to me. So I took the line off when she asked a question going over the pole, rather than blindly bursting through it, and she stopped with one leg over it. I had some cookies in my pocket so I played some more with getting her used to noises she can't see outside of our solid round pen. I banged on the side with a stick, only up to the point that she froze, but not explode. Then I made myself visible, and when she came over I gave her the cookie. I did this first on either side of the gate, then made my way around it like I have been doing on this pattern. It's been helping so much, she rarely cares about noises she can't see anymore. Once I ran out of cookies, I went to go back into the barn and clean up before puttin her back. I looked back out the barn door and saw her doing something she'd never done before - she was walking around the edge, eating the tops of some branches that had grown over the side of the round pen! It wasn't that she had been particularly scared of the round pen walls, but now she knew she could reach over them and investigate and get food, she was munching away.
It shows how she's not an innately curious horse. She is usually just kind of complacent within her environment. The wallflower. But thanks to Parelli, I can inspire that confidence and curiousity in her, to where she can feel like she can explore even when I'm not around. Like the Katie Drake song goes, "With my hand in yours I can take on the world." Since she has both LBI and RBI days... and is pretty food motivated when she is comfortable enough to take food, my next plan of approach is to routinely take her into new and trying situations, and give her cookies any time she chooses staying LB, and getting curious, over having a RB moment. If I use her LBI side to my advantage and reward her being brave, I'm gonna have one confident horse!
New Quarter Horse gets here in 10 days. Oh boy oh boy! Another partnership in the making.
She teaches me something new every day. I love her so much!!
It was raining all day today, up until about 7. Nasty rain with thunder too, not the kind you go outside to play in. So I was stuck inside most of the day, answering every topic on the SC forum and looking at some Quarter Horse pics, trying to look up the new mare's lineage. (Wait, new horse!?! Bottom half of my last post, there's a story!) It's such an exciting feeling, you know that bounce of the walls anticipation! Hard to get anything done anyway. So I was looking through the SC vault videos for direction on what to do with Xena first. I've seen every single one of them on there, many multiple times. But there's always things I forget, so even the fifth time they are still fascinating lol!
The one that took me a few views to sink in was actually a seemingly simple tv episode called "Go Get Your Horse." It was centered on respecting thresholds, and not just taking your horse from a to b. Which, in a stalling situation, I can get pretty bad about. Side note: the next project is getting the back pasture living-safe with a shelter so the big horses can stay out there all the time; confinement sucks. I have/had a bad habit of just haltering the horse and dragging it out, there wasn't much communication/catching game to do in a stall right? Or so I thought. ;) Tonight it hit me when I went out to put Xena in the round pen - planning to leave her there and let her entertain herself while I went back inside - but her head was out her back window, her butt towards me, and she didn't come over when I called. How interesting! Outside was more interesting than me, how to fix that? Okay I'll stand here with the door open for a while. No response. *Close door, run into tackroom, return* ...Correction, I'll stand here with a cookie! So I held my cookie hand out and she did a bit of a double take and then came over. She ate the cookie quite happily, and when I went to halter her she put her nose in it. YES i did the right thing!
I took her to the round pen after some grazing detours. She still had a RBI unconfident expression, so I didn't want to leave her and abandon her with her fears. Played all the games online, trying to keep her attention and focus and get her to think down to her feet. I really love when she's more RBI because I understand her thought process so much better, and when her emotional changes happen it means a lot to me. So I took the line off when she asked a question going over the pole, rather than blindly bursting through it, and she stopped with one leg over it. I had some cookies in my pocket so I played some more with getting her used to noises she can't see outside of our solid round pen. I banged on the side with a stick, only up to the point that she froze, but not explode. Then I made myself visible, and when she came over I gave her the cookie. I did this first on either side of the gate, then made my way around it like I have been doing on this pattern. It's been helping so much, she rarely cares about noises she can't see anymore. Once I ran out of cookies, I went to go back into the barn and clean up before puttin her back. I looked back out the barn door and saw her doing something she'd never done before - she was walking around the edge, eating the tops of some branches that had grown over the side of the round pen! It wasn't that she had been particularly scared of the round pen walls, but now she knew she could reach over them and investigate and get food, she was munching away.
It shows how she's not an innately curious horse. She is usually just kind of complacent within her environment. The wallflower. But thanks to Parelli, I can inspire that confidence and curiousity in her, to where she can feel like she can explore even when I'm not around. Like the Katie Drake song goes, "With my hand in yours I can take on the world." Since she has both LBI and RBI days... and is pretty food motivated when she is comfortable enough to take food, my next plan of approach is to routinely take her into new and trying situations, and give her cookies any time she chooses staying LB, and getting curious, over having a RB moment. If I use her LBI side to my advantage and reward her being brave, I'm gonna have one confident horse!
New Quarter Horse gets here in 10 days. Oh boy oh boy! Another partnership in the making.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Insane weekend! Addition!!
Okay so if I wasn't so tired that I probably look narcoleptic right now, I would think I'm lucid dreaming and need to wake up.
Enjoying level 3 liberty with Xena. She is so smart! On friday, I played with Ghost and some zone 5 driving. I read Linda's "Ambassador of Yes" article and it was SOO inspiring. I took Ghost's ideas wherever she wanted to take them, and we ended up doing some finesse type stuff from the long lines! She loves sideways and halfpassing, this time she offered completely on her own to go sideways over a log with me in zone 5. It was really one of our greatest play sessions ever. Ghost looks SO good right now, shiney, slick, calm, confident. I'm just going to tape my audition this weekend while she looks so amazing, and if it takes me months to figure out how to upload it, then so be it!!! LOL! I'd love to get assessed before I turn 18 though, sheesh its been long enough.
Saturday, had a fun time at the shelter I volunteer at. It's right next to a fairgrounds that holds lots of horseshows. As I was walking the dogs, I was being a fly on the wall into the trailer/warm-up area, like I tend to do. I can pick out the good, the bad, and the ugly of the way people handle their show horses. This weekend, I don't know what was going on, but every single person there except 1 had a rope halter on. One girl as I walked by, I noticed had her horse outfitted in a parelli halter and rope. I watched as she played each of the seven games with him, changed direction on the circles to get his focus, stopped when he got left brain, and made sure he was calm before he got on. It made me SOOO happy to see that... as opposed to the lounging with whips and chains that usually takes place there. It gave me hope for the future, maybe we really can change the world. Wait, no. Maybe we really ARE changing it!!!! :D
Today, I don't even know where to start. I can hardly keep my eyes open. Got up at some ungodly hour to go to the shelter. Had an awesome time spying both at the horse show and a dog behavior class. I just love working with the problem dogs there. Anything for a cookie! Came home, played with Mesa and my friend's gelding. Then I get a basically life changing phone call. Not the first time I have gotten one of these, but I certainly didn't expect anything to become of it.
Well.... my family from Iowa called, dad's cousins, too tired to know what that makes them to me. They have been big into horses since before I was born I'm sure. I used to love to go riding at their ranch when I was little, before I even got Mesa (she was my first). I have pics of me in 5th grade going through a parade with them. They brought their horses out to CO this year to go riding/camping actually. Anyway, they are gettin older and started downsizing their horsey involvement. Earlier this year she fell off a horse, and had a concussion, which nobody wants to get, let alone at their age. So after some speculation, they are getting out of horses 100%. Said its time to enjoy retirement. When they came out earlier, they just loved our barn and our facilities. So in case you couldn't tell where this exposition was going, the phone call I got this morning was that they want me to have the one horse they have left. They love her and just want her to go to a good home, and boy is that ever an offer I can't refuse!! It's how I got the last 2 minis we got, my dog, and of course Xena!
She's a solid bay, 7 year old papered AQHA mare. She's one they trailered out to go riding in the mountains this year. She's perfectly trained, SOUND, young, well bred, experienced trail horse. You know it's funny, I never thought I'd own an already perfect plain brown quarter horse. But right now, with so many projects and animals with baggage (physical or mental), she's actually exactly what I need right now. I need to keep myself in riding shape, with a horse who I don't have to worry about sane or soundness with. She couldn't have come at a better time... this way I can explore trails, get my confidence back in the saddle, but not have to pressure Xena into being that perfect trail horse yet. I've been doing bareback passenger lessons with her and she's doing great, but now I can quit giving myself a headahce over "I have 8 horses in the barn and can't ride!!!!" (For those that don't know, 6 are minis cuz minis are addictive lol.) OH and best part, she'll be here a week from Friday. :D :D :D
Xena is of course still my main girl, and the one I'll be taking to Fast Track (fingers crossed it works out) next year. But the assurance of a good calm, YOUNG AND SOUND trail horse takes all the pressure out of Xena's timeline. Now I can take the time it takes to get her good and confident in riding so she'll have a perfect foundation for next year. Yahoo!!!!!!
Okay I'm sure I have more thoughts on this but I'm going to go sleep for 4 days now. Good night everyone! Hug your horses!
<3
Enjoying level 3 liberty with Xena. She is so smart! On friday, I played with Ghost and some zone 5 driving. I read Linda's "Ambassador of Yes" article and it was SOO inspiring. I took Ghost's ideas wherever she wanted to take them, and we ended up doing some finesse type stuff from the long lines! She loves sideways and halfpassing, this time she offered completely on her own to go sideways over a log with me in zone 5. It was really one of our greatest play sessions ever. Ghost looks SO good right now, shiney, slick, calm, confident. I'm just going to tape my audition this weekend while she looks so amazing, and if it takes me months to figure out how to upload it, then so be it!!! LOL! I'd love to get assessed before I turn 18 though, sheesh its been long enough.
Saturday, had a fun time at the shelter I volunteer at. It's right next to a fairgrounds that holds lots of horseshows. As I was walking the dogs, I was being a fly on the wall into the trailer/warm-up area, like I tend to do. I can pick out the good, the bad, and the ugly of the way people handle their show horses. This weekend, I don't know what was going on, but every single person there except 1 had a rope halter on. One girl as I walked by, I noticed had her horse outfitted in a parelli halter and rope. I watched as she played each of the seven games with him, changed direction on the circles to get his focus, stopped when he got left brain, and made sure he was calm before he got on. It made me SOOO happy to see that... as opposed to the lounging with whips and chains that usually takes place there. It gave me hope for the future, maybe we really can change the world. Wait, no. Maybe we really ARE changing it!!!! :D
Today, I don't even know where to start. I can hardly keep my eyes open. Got up at some ungodly hour to go to the shelter. Had an awesome time spying both at the horse show and a dog behavior class. I just love working with the problem dogs there. Anything for a cookie! Came home, played with Mesa and my friend's gelding. Then I get a basically life changing phone call. Not the first time I have gotten one of these, but I certainly didn't expect anything to become of it.
Well.... my family from Iowa called, dad's cousins, too tired to know what that makes them to me. They have been big into horses since before I was born I'm sure. I used to love to go riding at their ranch when I was little, before I even got Mesa (she was my first). I have pics of me in 5th grade going through a parade with them. They brought their horses out to CO this year to go riding/camping actually. Anyway, they are gettin older and started downsizing their horsey involvement. Earlier this year she fell off a horse, and had a concussion, which nobody wants to get, let alone at their age. So after some speculation, they are getting out of horses 100%. Said its time to enjoy retirement. When they came out earlier, they just loved our barn and our facilities. So in case you couldn't tell where this exposition was going, the phone call I got this morning was that they want me to have the one horse they have left. They love her and just want her to go to a good home, and boy is that ever an offer I can't refuse!! It's how I got the last 2 minis we got, my dog, and of course Xena!
She's a solid bay, 7 year old papered AQHA mare. She's one they trailered out to go riding in the mountains this year. She's perfectly trained, SOUND, young, well bred, experienced trail horse. You know it's funny, I never thought I'd own an already perfect plain brown quarter horse. But right now, with so many projects and animals with baggage (physical or mental), she's actually exactly what I need right now. I need to keep myself in riding shape, with a horse who I don't have to worry about sane or soundness with. She couldn't have come at a better time... this way I can explore trails, get my confidence back in the saddle, but not have to pressure Xena into being that perfect trail horse yet. I've been doing bareback passenger lessons with her and she's doing great, but now I can quit giving myself a headahce over "I have 8 horses in the barn and can't ride!!!!" (For those that don't know, 6 are minis cuz minis are addictive lol.) OH and best part, she'll be here a week from Friday. :D :D :D
Xena is of course still my main girl, and the one I'll be taking to Fast Track (fingers crossed it works out) next year. But the assurance of a good calm, YOUNG AND SOUND trail horse takes all the pressure out of Xena's timeline. Now I can take the time it takes to get her good and confident in riding so she'll have a perfect foundation for next year. Yahoo!!!!!!
Okay I'm sure I have more thoughts on this but I'm going to go sleep for 4 days now. Good night everyone! Hug your horses!
<3
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Bursting at the seams!
Wow was yesterday ever the best day!
So I'll admit I had been feeling STUCKER than STUCK with Xena these past few weeks. Knowing that I won't be able to do much this winter when we're inevitable snowed in without an indoor arena. And even now I've been focusing on present-day limitations: our fences suck. The round pen is the only place I can play with her that she won't jump the fence just because she can. Our footing in the round pen and arena is COVERED in goat heads (terrible little stickers with sharp spines ALL around them, when picked up by hands will rip up your skin), and it makes rope savvy absolutely IMPOSSIBLE!!!! You try being athletic with a rope that has 5 goat heads per square inch. And then every other place on our property is grass grass grass. Xena loves grass. Not easy to play with her on it. Then there was the big scary subject of riding.... which I feel comfortable doing with her, but didn't really know how to go about it with her. Oh and then there's the fact that our place is occupied by some BIG DOGGIES that are suspected coyote-wolf hybrids, that live behind the round pen. So all playing must be done before they come out at sunset. That's hardly enough time to do chores let alone enjoy the horses. Anyway....
Yesterday my friend who is going to college at CSU came to visit me and talked me into going trail riding with her near Estes Park. Usually I don't like taking that much time away from our place with so much work to do. But I agreed, figuring I needed to get back in the saddle on something calm like a rental trail horse. Considering this time last year I was galloping windy nearly vertical slopes on an OTTB, and had only plodded around bareback since, I needed it!!!
The drive up there was absolutely stunning. It looked just like Pat's place in Pagosa Springs. BOY OH BOY I can't wait till next summer. The horse I was assigned was absolutely perfect for me - a short, fat, little dark buckskin that reminded me of Xena. Even a little shorter than her. Her name was Cisco, which I found absolutely perfect because it's the name of the buckskin from my favorite movie Dances With Wolves, and I've always wanted a buckskin named Cisco. I'm thinking years in the future when Xena is L4+ I'll get a BLM buckskin gelding and that's what I'll name him. My friend got a spunky little Arab. She likes spunk.
Our ride was up and down steeeep mountains, by beautiful lakes, and through the forest. The trail was just narrow enough for one horse, and 90% of it was rocky terrain. Sometimes huge bouldrs blocking most of the path, sometimes just smaller stones, and other times huge flat rocks going up/down the hill just like a staircase, where the horse had to navigate exactly where to place her feet. I had never ridden anything other than the smooth manicured trails of L.A., so I really had no idea what to do. I gave Cisco a loose rein, sat in passenger position, and let her figure it out herself. I thought... you know, this is a smart animal that knows her job, she's going to know where to place her feet better than I do. And, being able to tell she was a Left Brain Introvert, I knew that she'd pick the path of least resistance wherever possible, as opposed to the Arab behind us that was enjoying playing with trees we passed and I heard slip multiple times.
Even through the tight up and down rocky slopes, I was confident in giving Cisco literally 100% responsibilty for carrying me where we needed to go. It was such an AWESOME feeling, being carried up the rock steps by a calm, confident, willing horse that new her pattern. The entire last half of the trail I was speculating on how honestly, this ride gave me the push I needed to find with Xena. And the others, too, actually. RESPONSIBILITY!!!!! Even though that's a key of PNH I try so hard to focus on... there was this traditionally trained horse taking full responsibilty for her every move. I noticed how much I've been mocromanaging my horses while trying to teach them to act like Cisco. I think when I played with them, I knew in the back of my mind that they wouldn't maintin that gait, or keep that direction, or look where they were going, or stay on the circle. I had truly lost my neutral while trying to improve it! After that ride, I think I have a new inderstanding of the "Trust that they'll respond" part rather than just being "ready to correct."
When the ride was over, and I was probably so introverted in thought that I looked catatonic, I got off of little Cisco and thanked her for being such a good horse, and showing me what I want for Xena to be. I haven't known where to keep going with her, I was really stabbing in the dark. Now I have a clear image of the partner I know she can be, and I'm just bursting at the seams with inspiration! My new goal is for Xena to have that degree of responsibility, for her to be that solid of a partner, to where maybe next summer I can trailer her up to some trails and be confident exploring the Colorado mountains with her. While my friend was talking to the guide, I was staring at the rest of the horses in the pens. They were all so colorful, and pretty, and I loved watching them play and interact with each other, trying to see if I could guess a horsenality. I haven't been around that many big horses (owner of 6 minis here remember lol) in quite a long time. Friend came over and was pointing out conformation flaws of this and that horse, guessing at the mixed breeds' lineage, contemplating genetics. I just looked at every single one and thought... Oh what a beautiful horse! I love them all. Breeds, colors, age, sizes, horsenalities. I'll need a thousand acre ranch one day, because I just love every single horse I see, I want one of everything!!! For now I've just got a Bryer collection of every breed/color imaginable in my room. Hey we're all entitled to be 4 years old on the inside, right? :P
Overall it was a wonderful experience to keep me on track with my goals of being a Parelli Professional, and awaken that serious love of all things equine that my roadblocks had been hiding from me.
As soon as I got back home, I took Xena to the round pen for some liberty. Focusing on RESPONSIBILTY! For the first time ever, I got one full lap of calm, cool, collected canter from her, without getting all emotional. She was asking tons of questions! And a bunch of trot laps, with me totally neutral. AND an exhuberant, happy trot draw! And best of all, when it started getting dark and I disengaged her to bring her in, she threw in a few playful bucks in on her way to me, and came to me with her ears forward. This was huge for her RBI self. I couldn't be happier! I just LOVE my horse!
:) Savvy on everyone! And hug your horses for me!
So I'll admit I had been feeling STUCKER than STUCK with Xena these past few weeks. Knowing that I won't be able to do much this winter when we're inevitable snowed in without an indoor arena. And even now I've been focusing on present-day limitations: our fences suck. The round pen is the only place I can play with her that she won't jump the fence just because she can. Our footing in the round pen and arena is COVERED in goat heads (terrible little stickers with sharp spines ALL around them, when picked up by hands will rip up your skin), and it makes rope savvy absolutely IMPOSSIBLE!!!! You try being athletic with a rope that has 5 goat heads per square inch. And then every other place on our property is grass grass grass. Xena loves grass. Not easy to play with her on it. Then there was the big scary subject of riding.... which I feel comfortable doing with her, but didn't really know how to go about it with her. Oh and then there's the fact that our place is occupied by some BIG DOGGIES that are suspected coyote-wolf hybrids, that live behind the round pen. So all playing must be done before they come out at sunset. That's hardly enough time to do chores let alone enjoy the horses. Anyway....
Yesterday my friend who is going to college at CSU came to visit me and talked me into going trail riding with her near Estes Park. Usually I don't like taking that much time away from our place with so much work to do. But I agreed, figuring I needed to get back in the saddle on something calm like a rental trail horse. Considering this time last year I was galloping windy nearly vertical slopes on an OTTB, and had only plodded around bareback since, I needed it!!!
The drive up there was absolutely stunning. It looked just like Pat's place in Pagosa Springs. BOY OH BOY I can't wait till next summer. The horse I was assigned was absolutely perfect for me - a short, fat, little dark buckskin that reminded me of Xena. Even a little shorter than her. Her name was Cisco, which I found absolutely perfect because it's the name of the buckskin from my favorite movie Dances With Wolves, and I've always wanted a buckskin named Cisco. I'm thinking years in the future when Xena is L4+ I'll get a BLM buckskin gelding and that's what I'll name him. My friend got a spunky little Arab. She likes spunk.
Our ride was up and down steeeep mountains, by beautiful lakes, and through the forest. The trail was just narrow enough for one horse, and 90% of it was rocky terrain. Sometimes huge bouldrs blocking most of the path, sometimes just smaller stones, and other times huge flat rocks going up/down the hill just like a staircase, where the horse had to navigate exactly where to place her feet. I had never ridden anything other than the smooth manicured trails of L.A., so I really had no idea what to do. I gave Cisco a loose rein, sat in passenger position, and let her figure it out herself. I thought... you know, this is a smart animal that knows her job, she's going to know where to place her feet better than I do. And, being able to tell she was a Left Brain Introvert, I knew that she'd pick the path of least resistance wherever possible, as opposed to the Arab behind us that was enjoying playing with trees we passed and I heard slip multiple times.
Even through the tight up and down rocky slopes, I was confident in giving Cisco literally 100% responsibilty for carrying me where we needed to go. It was such an AWESOME feeling, being carried up the rock steps by a calm, confident, willing horse that new her pattern. The entire last half of the trail I was speculating on how honestly, this ride gave me the push I needed to find with Xena. And the others, too, actually. RESPONSIBILITY!!!!! Even though that's a key of PNH I try so hard to focus on... there was this traditionally trained horse taking full responsibilty for her every move. I noticed how much I've been mocromanaging my horses while trying to teach them to act like Cisco. I think when I played with them, I knew in the back of my mind that they wouldn't maintin that gait, or keep that direction, or look where they were going, or stay on the circle. I had truly lost my neutral while trying to improve it! After that ride, I think I have a new inderstanding of the "Trust that they'll respond" part rather than just being "ready to correct."
When the ride was over, and I was probably so introverted in thought that I looked catatonic, I got off of little Cisco and thanked her for being such a good horse, and showing me what I want for Xena to be. I haven't known where to keep going with her, I was really stabbing in the dark. Now I have a clear image of the partner I know she can be, and I'm just bursting at the seams with inspiration! My new goal is for Xena to have that degree of responsibility, for her to be that solid of a partner, to where maybe next summer I can trailer her up to some trails and be confident exploring the Colorado mountains with her. While my friend was talking to the guide, I was staring at the rest of the horses in the pens. They were all so colorful, and pretty, and I loved watching them play and interact with each other, trying to see if I could guess a horsenality. I haven't been around that many big horses (owner of 6 minis here remember lol) in quite a long time. Friend came over and was pointing out conformation flaws of this and that horse, guessing at the mixed breeds' lineage, contemplating genetics. I just looked at every single one and thought... Oh what a beautiful horse! I love them all. Breeds, colors, age, sizes, horsenalities. I'll need a thousand acre ranch one day, because I just love every single horse I see, I want one of everything!!! For now I've just got a Bryer collection of every breed/color imaginable in my room. Hey we're all entitled to be 4 years old on the inside, right? :P
Overall it was a wonderful experience to keep me on track with my goals of being a Parelli Professional, and awaken that serious love of all things equine that my roadblocks had been hiding from me.
As soon as I got back home, I took Xena to the round pen for some liberty. Focusing on RESPONSIBILTY! For the first time ever, I got one full lap of calm, cool, collected canter from her, without getting all emotional. She was asking tons of questions! And a bunch of trot laps, with me totally neutral. AND an exhuberant, happy trot draw! And best of all, when it started getting dark and I disengaged her to bring her in, she threw in a few playful bucks in on her way to me, and came to me with her ears forward. This was huge for her RBI self. I couldn't be happier! I just LOVE my horse!
:) Savvy on everyone! And hug your horses for me!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
2 new successful rides!
One with Xena, one with Charm!
So yesterday, I had Charm ground drive a little, played some maintaining gait games in the round pen, then I hitched him up and ground drove him all around with the cart attached. He was doing SO well (okay, once he realized that running into the shafts didn't turn it lol). Once he mastered bending around the turn the proper way, I drove him through the barn aisle, picked up a shavings bag, and chucked it in! He did wonderful with his little passenger, he didn't mind the extra weight at all. Even when it got stuck on some long weeds, he just pivotted out of it and thought his way through it. Now THAT's my prior and proper preparation paying off! I'm so proud of him. Here's the only pic I got yesterday, of his shavings bag passenger. It's somewhat hard to steer a green horse with one hand, take a pic with the other, and make sure you get his face on camera LOL.... but you can see the important stuff.
His voice cues are really awesome! I wasn't sure how he'd take weight in the cart on the breeching with his first downward transition, but I asked him to trot... off he went, said woah, and he slammed on the brakes AND backed up a step like we practiced with me pulling on the breeching. Sure beats a horse that wasn't introduced to it jumping away from it. Been there done that!
Another awesome "first" of today was I got on Xena in the new saddle this morning! She didn't mind at all, and she let me fiddle with shims before I got everything right. We pretty much just grazed and walked around, but it was fun. Nice to know I have something that fits her.
Got lots more horseys to play with before I'm outta daylight!
So yesterday, I had Charm ground drive a little, played some maintaining gait games in the round pen, then I hitched him up and ground drove him all around with the cart attached. He was doing SO well (okay, once he realized that running into the shafts didn't turn it lol). Once he mastered bending around the turn the proper way, I drove him through the barn aisle, picked up a shavings bag, and chucked it in! He did wonderful with his little passenger, he didn't mind the extra weight at all. Even when it got stuck on some long weeds, he just pivotted out of it and thought his way through it. Now THAT's my prior and proper preparation paying off! I'm so proud of him. Here's the only pic I got yesterday, of his shavings bag passenger. It's somewhat hard to steer a green horse with one hand, take a pic with the other, and make sure you get his face on camera LOL.... but you can see the important stuff.
His voice cues are really awesome! I wasn't sure how he'd take weight in the cart on the breeching with his first downward transition, but I asked him to trot... off he went, said woah, and he slammed on the brakes AND backed up a step like we practiced with me pulling on the breeching. Sure beats a horse that wasn't introduced to it jumping away from it. Been there done that!
Another awesome "first" of today was I got on Xena in the new saddle this morning! She didn't mind at all, and she let me fiddle with shims before I got everything right. We pretty much just grazed and walked around, but it was fun. Nice to know I have something that fits her.
Got lots more horseys to play with before I'm outta daylight!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Look who's driving!
This is Charm, my 31" tall mini boy. He turned 4 this year and met the harness. He has been doing amazingly well!! We've been playing with lots of prep work, standing still, zone 5 driving, voice cues, friendly game with the cart, and pushin into the traces.
Today he pulled it around the outside of the round pen, around the barn, and to the front pasture. At first he was confused that he could push into the shafts to move it, but before I hitched him, I connected him to a drag I made of 2 carrot sticks and some small wood pieces, he got the concept much quicker.
Tomorrow our next step is to start adding weight to the cart, and then me getting in!!
Today he pulled it around the outside of the round pen, around the barn, and to the front pasture. At first he was confused that he could push into the shafts to move it, but before I hitched him, I connected him to a drag I made of 2 carrot sticks and some small wood pieces, he got the concept much quicker.
Tomorrow our next step is to start adding weight to the cart, and then me getting in!!
Friday, July 30, 2010
Hot stuff!
Been an interesting few weeks. Xena's pretty chill with mounting now. Haven't done much though... 2 weeks ago we lost a kitten to some strange disease that took exactly one day to completely wipe her out. So the rest of that week was taking care of the others, one went to the hospital with a fever, but they are all doing just fine now. Then the mama Pheonix dissapeared for a while, I was actually losing hope that she'd come back as I've also been dealing with some nasty run-ins with coyotes. The coyotes here are freakin HUGE. The pipsqueaks in LA have nothing on these guys. Anyway yesterday Pheonix came back.... very pregnant. Oh goodie, more kittens to take care of! We're locking them all in the tackroom at night now, hopefully the next batch will stay safer.
Also been busy BREEDING! We've got 3 mini mares bred to our stallion for 2011 babies. I am so excited! My friends and I had a lot of fun with that this month, what with daily teasing and marking heat cycles and fun stuff. We'll try to pasture breed them next year, he was pretty well behaved with them.
My little mini gelding Charm turned 4 this year, so I've started him to harness. He's SO smart, it's remarkably easy! Have a pocket full of cookies and that LBI will do everything. So we've done lots of squeeze games, reinforced the cart as a good place to be, zone 5 driving, etc. Also done a bunch of liberty work with the cart in the middle of the round pen, getting him to maintain gait and direction without having a line on him. He'll maintain trot or canter for about 5 laps now, and come in, and back into the shafts as his reward. He's really loving it! He's now dragged around milk jugs, logs, and pushed stuff around backwards with the breeching.... next step is just putting it all together! Hopefully sometime next week I'll actually get in the cart with him.
Did a similar thing with my little RBI that was "professionally trained" to drive that I've posted about before. She used to be driven without breeching, show style, and was incredibly tense. All winter of squeeze games later, and teaching her to push into things with her tail, she no longer freaks out when people get behind her, and she knows to push back into the breeching. The first time she ever wore it she hunched up like a holloween cat lol! So many friendly games later, she's totally comfident.
It's hard to find time to ride in the HEAT, or drive for that matter, but I try to get as much done as I can. I've discovered that since that breakthrough day, Xena's new favorite savvy is Liberty. Did some level 3 liberty patterns with her last night, and had it not been for the mosquitos we woulda kept playing. She now looks to me when she's scared, and she doesn't even pay attention to outside noises or other horses calling for her. I'm so proud. Now we just need to explore the trails!!
Also been busy BREEDING! We've got 3 mini mares bred to our stallion for 2011 babies. I am so excited! My friends and I had a lot of fun with that this month, what with daily teasing and marking heat cycles and fun stuff. We'll try to pasture breed them next year, he was pretty well behaved with them.
My little mini gelding Charm turned 4 this year, so I've started him to harness. He's SO smart, it's remarkably easy! Have a pocket full of cookies and that LBI will do everything. So we've done lots of squeeze games, reinforced the cart as a good place to be, zone 5 driving, etc. Also done a bunch of liberty work with the cart in the middle of the round pen, getting him to maintain gait and direction without having a line on him. He'll maintain trot or canter for about 5 laps now, and come in, and back into the shafts as his reward. He's really loving it! He's now dragged around milk jugs, logs, and pushed stuff around backwards with the breeching.... next step is just putting it all together! Hopefully sometime next week I'll actually get in the cart with him.
Did a similar thing with my little RBI that was "professionally trained" to drive that I've posted about before. She used to be driven without breeching, show style, and was incredibly tense. All winter of squeeze games later, and teaching her to push into things with her tail, she no longer freaks out when people get behind her, and she knows to push back into the breeching. The first time she ever wore it she hunched up like a holloween cat lol! So many friendly games later, she's totally comfident.
It's hard to find time to ride in the HEAT, or drive for that matter, but I try to get as much done as I can. I've discovered that since that breakthrough day, Xena's new favorite savvy is Liberty. Did some level 3 liberty patterns with her last night, and had it not been for the mosquitos we woulda kept playing. She now looks to me when she's scared, and she doesn't even pay attention to outside noises or other horses calling for her. I'm so proud. Now we just need to explore the trails!!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Another interesting ride...
Got on Xena a bunch of times yesterday. Took probably 15 minutes for her to let me lean against her left side, but she didn't mind at all on the right. Lots of approach and retreat..... but I really can't decide if I think its a physical problem or not. I know that last trainer she went to said that her back or ribs or something was out of alignmnet and that was his excuse for her bucking. Seems like quite the coincidence that it happens to be on the side you mount from, and she didn't have that problem last summer before she got sent off to him. So either
1. She's anticipating a bad experience during riding, which is easily fixable with friendly games.
2. She actually was in physical pain, (I thiiiink I heard they "fixed" whatever "it" was), and now she's anticipating pain. Fixable with friendly games and good experiences, not quite as easy.
3. Hope it's not this... she actually has something wrong with her, which is going to take $$$$$ I-mean-a-chiropractor, to fix.
I'm sincerely hoping that it's just a fear of mounting problem, not a back/rib issue. My glimmer of hope is that I think if she were in pain, she wouldn't buck and roll and jump for fun as often as she does, and that it would be equally bad on the other side.
Anyway, I took her to some grass, and mounted from both sides. I'm confident with getting on her now, so at least some good became of it. She had absolutely no reaction to my jumping on her while she was eating.... you'd think if her back hurt she'd at least flinch.
So.... my game plan for right now is to do loads of friendly with zone 3 and maybe for a week, mount while she's grazing after we play and just sit there for a while. After that, I'll try mounting in the arena again... if she still has a bad reaction to it, I'll hunt for a chiro. I need a job. >.<
(Random interjection - I was playing zone 5 driving with little Ghost the past few days, and I got her to trot half-pass on the sideways box pattern! I REALLY gotta figure out my video camera, I'm itching to audition.)
1. She's anticipating a bad experience during riding, which is easily fixable with friendly games.
2. She actually was in physical pain, (I thiiiink I heard they "fixed" whatever "it" was), and now she's anticipating pain. Fixable with friendly games and good experiences, not quite as easy.
3. Hope it's not this... she actually has something wrong with her, which is going to take $$$$$ I-mean-a-chiropractor, to fix.
I'm sincerely hoping that it's just a fear of mounting problem, not a back/rib issue. My glimmer of hope is that I think if she were in pain, she wouldn't buck and roll and jump for fun as often as she does, and that it would be equally bad on the other side.
Anyway, I took her to some grass, and mounted from both sides. I'm confident with getting on her now, so at least some good became of it. She had absolutely no reaction to my jumping on her while she was eating.... you'd think if her back hurt she'd at least flinch.
So.... my game plan for right now is to do loads of friendly with zone 3 and maybe for a week, mount while she's grazing after we play and just sit there for a while. After that, I'll try mounting in the arena again... if she still has a bad reaction to it, I'll hunt for a chiro. I need a job. >.<
(Random interjection - I was playing zone 5 driving with little Ghost the past few days, and I got her to trot half-pass on the sideways box pattern! I REALLY gotta figure out my video camera, I'm itching to audition.)
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
AMAZING day - RIDING!
I am so ridiculously happy right now I can't even describe it. Xena and I played our first real live LIBERTY sessions AND I RODE HER!
I'm quite certain that today is so far our most significant play day we've ever had. And I thought it was gonna be pretty bad. I went out to do something with Xena. Took her to the round pen. I could tell she woke up on the seriously right brained side of the bed. She was kind of blanking out, staring at things off in the distance, flinching at little things. She rolled and jumped around a bit, but that was it. I could tell she was an "un-exploded bomb" just ticking to go off. The boards on the round pen are still up, she can't see out. Recipe for disaster right?
I guess playing with her directly after I've finished my coffee is a good thing, because I had a wonderful idea. I KNEW she needed to run around, but I didn't want to be connected to the explosion on a rope, yet she tends to crowd to me when she's spooking while loose. So.... upon noticing she makes quite an effort not to cross the ground poles most of the time, I made a square of 4 poles and a trash bag right in the middle of the pen. I got in it, and sent her off running. Our send is gettin pretty good, although it's probably because she was full of pent up energy, but she took off at a trot on phase 1. Cantered if I picked up the stick. Then she spooked at something, snorted, up went her head, and she was galloping around me every time a cricket chirped. Literally. So I said... you know what, keep running! And she came VERY close to me... but she didn't cross the poles! I was out of harm's way (out of her hind legs' way!) inside my little safety box. Every time she'd lose focus on the circle and try to look over the corral, I started with my phases to ask her to keep going, eventually making this a quick 1-4 to get her attention. She quickly got the "I gotta keep and eye on that nut" game. Then she did a funny sort of escape attempt I believe where she'd do 1/4 of a lap, then dart past me to the gate. No changing directions Xena, I added more pressure for her to speed it up if she wanted to go to the gate. After a minute of that, she was spinning little circles at the gate, not knowing where to go... I mirrored that until I got her attention, and then calmly asked for a circle. I'd only come out of my box if she broke to a walk or looked at the invisible monsters on the other side of the fence. Eventually she was doing lap after lap of good, solid trot, without paying any attention to anything else. Which was impressive because at that moment I noticed there were 2 of the neighbor's dogs running loose right outside, but I kept her focus through it!
Once I was confident that she was good and calm, I invited her in. She came, put her head down, sighed, licked, chewed, and relaxed. I think I just officially became more important than the fear. Then I was enjoying not worrying over her stepping on the rope, so we started some liberty. She backed away for a second and rolled, AGAIN! She was REALLLY coming off the adrennaline, she has actually never done that in the middle of a play session before, so I felt great that my strategy worked. Once she got up, I gave her a carrot, and we had our first real all 7 games liberty session. 7 games in 7 minutes! Even sideways with no fence!!!! I figured out our sideways problem - when she's against a fence and I yield zone 1 first, she just thinks I'm turning her that direction. But without the fence, z1 then z4, she went sideways beatifully! I even got 2 steps from zone 1!!! Couldn't be happier. I squeezed her between the fence and the trash bag, and she yielded perfectly both directions. She was a little skeptical of standing on it, but after a bit of friendly, I could put it on her back and she'd stand on it just fine.
I felt amazing about that session, like she's never so much surrendered to the idea that she doesn't have to take care of herself when I'm the leader, that following my suggestions is the way to save yourself rather than acting like a looney. Sooo.... I grabbed a bareback pad!!
I put it on her at liberty. I didn't want to make her hold still, I wanted to test myself to see if she really would accept it. She was less than willing in the beginning, but lots of retreat and reapproach, and I could throw it on her from any angle. Cinching was another story. She threatened to bite each time I messed with it, so it took a while to finish that politely. But I knew it was the threshhold that she NEEDED to be pushed over, the "look I'm doing this politely, and biting me won't make it stop." I checked out lateral flexion, good from both sides. I walked her up to a bucket, leaned over her for a while. If I went too far too fast, she let me know and was out of there. But I could tell this was the perfect opportunity to just push myself to get on her for real. More than just standing while she's eating, a real ride. I kept putting her back by the bucket, leaning, then getting off when she relaxed. Soon I could jump on the bucket, swing my leg, and put my whole weight on her. All I had to do was that final step of actually sitting on her. First time I think I forgot to breathe, jumped up there, 3 seconds later bent her and got off. *Whew* I'm alive. And she still hasn't moved. Okay... I can do this. If I back away from the edge of my comfort zone now, I'll just make it smaller, I know how to keep myself safe here, I can do it. Threw my leg over and got on.
I went right into the pushing passenger position, and just sat there, half expecting her to put me in the dirt straight away. Breathe. Her ears were locked back in the RBI frozen stance. I think I looked the same! The longer she stood without moving, the more my fear level dropped, dropped, then eventually left. Life is timeless with her, but I'm sure we stood there for a matter of minutes. Her ears started moving around the longer I sat there not asking her to do a thing. The beauty of our partnership is we have similar thoughts on threshholds... once we're there, it gets boring really fast. "You bored yet?" "Yep." "K lets do something." So she walked off, and I sat there letting her march me around. I haven't actually sat on her while she moved since California, and I believe that was August, so nearly a year. I forgot how SMOOTH she was! It's like riding a sail boat.
She stopped at the gate and we stood there for another matter of minutes, both keeping one eye open towards the other's actions lol. She slowly left the gate, lots lots lots of licking and chewing and sighing, and started meanderring around the pen. She put her nose on the ground like she was looking for another place to roll, and then decided against it. We went back to the gate to watch the kittens play for a bit, then I bent her and got off.
BEST.DAY.EVER! We both crossed about a million of our most important threshholds today... together. I'm proud of us.
I'm quite certain that today is so far our most significant play day we've ever had. And I thought it was gonna be pretty bad. I went out to do something with Xena. Took her to the round pen. I could tell she woke up on the seriously right brained side of the bed. She was kind of blanking out, staring at things off in the distance, flinching at little things. She rolled and jumped around a bit, but that was it. I could tell she was an "un-exploded bomb" just ticking to go off. The boards on the round pen are still up, she can't see out. Recipe for disaster right?
I guess playing with her directly after I've finished my coffee is a good thing, because I had a wonderful idea. I KNEW she needed to run around, but I didn't want to be connected to the explosion on a rope, yet she tends to crowd to me when she's spooking while loose. So.... upon noticing she makes quite an effort not to cross the ground poles most of the time, I made a square of 4 poles and a trash bag right in the middle of the pen. I got in it, and sent her off running. Our send is gettin pretty good, although it's probably because she was full of pent up energy, but she took off at a trot on phase 1. Cantered if I picked up the stick. Then she spooked at something, snorted, up went her head, and she was galloping around me every time a cricket chirped. Literally. So I said... you know what, keep running! And she came VERY close to me... but she didn't cross the poles! I was out of harm's way (out of her hind legs' way!) inside my little safety box. Every time she'd lose focus on the circle and try to look over the corral, I started with my phases to ask her to keep going, eventually making this a quick 1-4 to get her attention. She quickly got the "I gotta keep and eye on that nut" game. Then she did a funny sort of escape attempt I believe where she'd do 1/4 of a lap, then dart past me to the gate. No changing directions Xena, I added more pressure for her to speed it up if she wanted to go to the gate. After a minute of that, she was spinning little circles at the gate, not knowing where to go... I mirrored that until I got her attention, and then calmly asked for a circle. I'd only come out of my box if she broke to a walk or looked at the invisible monsters on the other side of the fence. Eventually she was doing lap after lap of good, solid trot, without paying any attention to anything else. Which was impressive because at that moment I noticed there were 2 of the neighbor's dogs running loose right outside, but I kept her focus through it!
Once I was confident that she was good and calm, I invited her in. She came, put her head down, sighed, licked, chewed, and relaxed. I think I just officially became more important than the fear. Then I was enjoying not worrying over her stepping on the rope, so we started some liberty. She backed away for a second and rolled, AGAIN! She was REALLLY coming off the adrennaline, she has actually never done that in the middle of a play session before, so I felt great that my strategy worked. Once she got up, I gave her a carrot, and we had our first real all 7 games liberty session. 7 games in 7 minutes! Even sideways with no fence!!!! I figured out our sideways problem - when she's against a fence and I yield zone 1 first, she just thinks I'm turning her that direction. But without the fence, z1 then z4, she went sideways beatifully! I even got 2 steps from zone 1!!! Couldn't be happier. I squeezed her between the fence and the trash bag, and she yielded perfectly both directions. She was a little skeptical of standing on it, but after a bit of friendly, I could put it on her back and she'd stand on it just fine.
I felt amazing about that session, like she's never so much surrendered to the idea that she doesn't have to take care of herself when I'm the leader, that following my suggestions is the way to save yourself rather than acting like a looney. Sooo.... I grabbed a bareback pad!!
I put it on her at liberty. I didn't want to make her hold still, I wanted to test myself to see if she really would accept it. She was less than willing in the beginning, but lots of retreat and reapproach, and I could throw it on her from any angle. Cinching was another story. She threatened to bite each time I messed with it, so it took a while to finish that politely. But I knew it was the threshhold that she NEEDED to be pushed over, the "look I'm doing this politely, and biting me won't make it stop." I checked out lateral flexion, good from both sides. I walked her up to a bucket, leaned over her for a while. If I went too far too fast, she let me know and was out of there. But I could tell this was the perfect opportunity to just push myself to get on her for real. More than just standing while she's eating, a real ride. I kept putting her back by the bucket, leaning, then getting off when she relaxed. Soon I could jump on the bucket, swing my leg, and put my whole weight on her. All I had to do was that final step of actually sitting on her. First time I think I forgot to breathe, jumped up there, 3 seconds later bent her and got off. *Whew* I'm alive. And she still hasn't moved. Okay... I can do this. If I back away from the edge of my comfort zone now, I'll just make it smaller, I know how to keep myself safe here, I can do it. Threw my leg over and got on.
I went right into the pushing passenger position, and just sat there, half expecting her to put me in the dirt straight away. Breathe. Her ears were locked back in the RBI frozen stance. I think I looked the same! The longer she stood without moving, the more my fear level dropped, dropped, then eventually left. Life is timeless with her, but I'm sure we stood there for a matter of minutes. Her ears started moving around the longer I sat there not asking her to do a thing. The beauty of our partnership is we have similar thoughts on threshholds... once we're there, it gets boring really fast. "You bored yet?" "Yep." "K lets do something." So she walked off, and I sat there letting her march me around. I haven't actually sat on her while she moved since California, and I believe that was August, so nearly a year. I forgot how SMOOTH she was! It's like riding a sail boat.
She stopped at the gate and we stood there for another matter of minutes, both keeping one eye open towards the other's actions lol. She slowly left the gate, lots lots lots of licking and chewing and sighing, and started meanderring around the pen. She put her nose on the ground like she was looking for another place to roll, and then decided against it. We went back to the gate to watch the kittens play for a bit, then I bent her and got off.
BEST.DAY.EVER! We both crossed about a million of our most important threshholds today... together. I'm proud of us.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Mirror, mirror, on the wall
This is from last week, but I finally got around to finishing it. It was such an amazing experience I figured I'd post it!
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Just got in from playing with Xena. I'll be licking and chewing over today for quiiiite a while!
I know Parelli says horses are our mirrors, I never quite understood the multitude of how much that meant until now. Exposition: I guess I've been a touch "difficult" to be around the past few days, stressing over random things, and taking it out on my friends, trying to not care and just keep moving forward with the horses. There was somewhat of an issue with one of my friends... it probably can be described as a B**** fight, but at least on my end, more a LBE fight where I was participating for the sport of winning (LOL! Only teenage girls capable of that?)and not really caring about the outcome. Ended up friend was still pretty mad at me by the end of it. What I'd usually do with that is forget it and go jump on Mesa to gallop around bridleless for a bit. That isn't happening, so I try to use the cool part of the morning to accomplish another saddle lesson with Xena. You know, calm and therapuetic like. HAH!
So I take her to the round pen, she seems calm enough that I don't need to let her jump around before playing. So I try to move her around before thinking about the saddle, probably the only savvy idea I had all day!!!!! I have my head in the clouds, a headstrong attitude, and am still humming Pink's I wanna get in trouble, I wanna start a fight. Funny how horses pick up on things. I go left, Xena goes right. I say stand still, she moved. I say cross the pole, she says karate kick the pole. Although I constantly conciously know that everything this horse does is an affect of something I do, I am wondering why she's trying so hard to be bad. She was "spooking" at invisible objects. I could literally see her jumping around pretending to freak out, but staying surprisingly left brain, almost LBE on adrennaline. Not normal for her at all. I try to focus her random bursts of energy, but she runs to the end of the line and blows herself up, then stands there calmly with a funny cheeky look on her face. I said outloud to her "It's almost like you're trying to start a figh---OHHH!!!!"
I stood there for a minute, shocked at my new revelation, staring at my horse who was staring right through me. She was mirroring me! She had the same dominant moody playfulness that I was experiencing, and it was equally abnormal for both of us RBIs. Everything started suddenly making sense.... like why sometimes this one very playful Arabian I used to ride would constantly engage in bucking fits with me, no matter the tack I used, and she didn't do it for anyone else. She'd pin her ears and crowhop each time I asked her to do something, but her expression was otherwise playful, not right brain or angry. And why when my friend first discovered that her dad got a new girlfriend and was steaming, the normally calm school horse she rode reared, spun, and tried to dump her. And why some days little arthritic Mesa would leap in the air at her own shadow, and leave me flying that kite all over the trails. Awesome!!!!
So I unhaltered Xena, and went in to the barn to go chill with the kitties and figure things out. It was funny because I wasn't angry at myself or the friend, but I had to get rid of the "bring it on" energy I was toting. It was getting hot, so I probably shoulda cooled off in the house, but I stayed in the barn and pondered the situation. Heat makes everyone lazy. Once I had come to a place of being much more calm about everything, wanting only to have a nice quiet session with my introvert, not a big dusty fight, I went back over to the round corral.
I must have been quite obviously thinking about how I didn't want to do much moving around in the heat... because I couldn't get her to move!!! AT ALL!!! She was solid as a rock and I felt like I had to keep waking her up to talk to her. Mind you, this is maybe 15 minutes after she was running around like a mad woman. I laughed at this and grabbed some carrots and did a little walking stick-to-me. Perfectly in tune with me, whaddyaknow.
Even if we don't always get the horse we expect, we always get the horse we need, huh! I'm sure once Xena's taught me the proper path to emotional control, my friends will thank her.
Till then, I probably oughtta meditate every day before playing with her LOL!
------
Just got in from playing with Xena. I'll be licking and chewing over today for quiiiite a while!
I know Parelli says horses are our mirrors, I never quite understood the multitude of how much that meant until now. Exposition: I guess I've been a touch "difficult" to be around the past few days, stressing over random things, and taking it out on my friends, trying to not care and just keep moving forward with the horses. There was somewhat of an issue with one of my friends... it probably can be described as a B**** fight, but at least on my end, more a LBE fight where I was participating for the sport of winning (LOL! Only teenage girls capable of that?)and not really caring about the outcome. Ended up friend was still pretty mad at me by the end of it. What I'd usually do with that is forget it and go jump on Mesa to gallop around bridleless for a bit. That isn't happening, so I try to use the cool part of the morning to accomplish another saddle lesson with Xena. You know, calm and therapuetic like. HAH!
So I take her to the round pen, she seems calm enough that I don't need to let her jump around before playing. So I try to move her around before thinking about the saddle, probably the only savvy idea I had all day!!!!! I have my head in the clouds, a headstrong attitude, and am still humming Pink's I wanna get in trouble, I wanna start a fight. Funny how horses pick up on things. I go left, Xena goes right. I say stand still, she moved. I say cross the pole, she says karate kick the pole. Although I constantly conciously know that everything this horse does is an affect of something I do, I am wondering why she's trying so hard to be bad. She was "spooking" at invisible objects. I could literally see her jumping around pretending to freak out, but staying surprisingly left brain, almost LBE on adrennaline. Not normal for her at all. I try to focus her random bursts of energy, but she runs to the end of the line and blows herself up, then stands there calmly with a funny cheeky look on her face. I said outloud to her "It's almost like you're trying to start a figh---OHHH!!!!"
I stood there for a minute, shocked at my new revelation, staring at my horse who was staring right through me. She was mirroring me! She had the same dominant moody playfulness that I was experiencing, and it was equally abnormal for both of us RBIs. Everything started suddenly making sense.... like why sometimes this one very playful Arabian I used to ride would constantly engage in bucking fits with me, no matter the tack I used, and she didn't do it for anyone else. She'd pin her ears and crowhop each time I asked her to do something, but her expression was otherwise playful, not right brain or angry. And why when my friend first discovered that her dad got a new girlfriend and was steaming, the normally calm school horse she rode reared, spun, and tried to dump her. And why some days little arthritic Mesa would leap in the air at her own shadow, and leave me flying that kite all over the trails. Awesome!!!!
So I unhaltered Xena, and went in to the barn to go chill with the kitties and figure things out. It was funny because I wasn't angry at myself or the friend, but I had to get rid of the "bring it on" energy I was toting. It was getting hot, so I probably shoulda cooled off in the house, but I stayed in the barn and pondered the situation. Heat makes everyone lazy. Once I had come to a place of being much more calm about everything, wanting only to have a nice quiet session with my introvert, not a big dusty fight, I went back over to the round corral.
I must have been quite obviously thinking about how I didn't want to do much moving around in the heat... because I couldn't get her to move!!! AT ALL!!! She was solid as a rock and I felt like I had to keep waking her up to talk to her. Mind you, this is maybe 15 minutes after she was running around like a mad woman. I laughed at this and grabbed some carrots and did a little walking stick-to-me. Perfectly in tune with me, whaddyaknow.
Even if we don't always get the horse we expect, we always get the horse we need, huh! I'm sure once Xena's taught me the proper path to emotional control, my friends will thank her.
Till then, I probably oughtta meditate every day before playing with her LOL!
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