Springvalley Farm

Does This Horse Look Walkable?

2011-03-25T20:01:00.001-06:00

Today I had a short session with Hunter. My plan was to take him out for a walk. Almost as soon as I brought him into the pen, the rest of the herd left to go exploring the track, so Hunter was upset. He didn't really calm down that well, and it was also pretty breezy, so I figured we needed to do something else together to get him "rideable" or at least Zone 3 Driveable. Of course I would have been safe taking him out on line, but I think he would have been too emotional to learn anything.

We started in the round pen on the 12' line. We did a few circles, mostly just doing a lap or two and disengaging. I really worked on him stopping and standing straight, giving me two eyes. He was having trouble keeping his attention on me, and also with giving me his right eye, which isn't usually much of an issue. He kept hoping to spot the herd out there somewhere, but the round pen is in an area sheltered by buildings on three sides, so there are only chinks to peek through. Once the On Line work was reasonable I took the halter off. I tried a couple of changes of direction at walk and lost him. He looked like he might trot around on a left circle for most of the day if I let him. I had an idea. I slowly worked my way toward one side of the pen, trying not to interrupt his pattern yet. When I got four or five feet from the rail I turned to face it, keeping my energy down and my eyes low. As he came through the gap I disengaged his hindquarters as if we had been playing the squeeze game. He turned and faced me. I sent him through the gap to repeat it, but he shot off on a right circle. He squirted through the gap fast as he came around again, but he wouldn't disengage. The next time, he wouldn't come through, rolled back and headed left. Interesting game!

With a little repetition I got him turning, facing and waiting every time. At first, if he didn't disengage, I just added a little pressure when he had Zone 5 to me. I then placed myself on his right and we did a couple of laps of Zone 3 Driving around the pen. It took a bit of effort from me for that to be really calm and harmonious. I decided that we still weren't ready for the big wide world (or even the pasture) so I took him to the arena, where he had his first session with some heavy poles we put down in a fan to use as cavaletti. He picked this up really well, but now he could see the herd coming in and got very bracey and pulled on the line, so it wasn't the pleasure it might have been. Oh well!

I decided to end the session with just a little walk, so we went down the driveway ( a few thresholds) and out the gate, where we had to clear some scary tumbleweeds to get through, to check the mail. He handled that pretty well. On our return trip toward the herd, he got a bit fast, and I disengaged him a number of times. I suspect, that had I been riding him, that's all I would have needed to do. I wonder?

The Scared Rabbit Club

2011-03-22T23:44:00.000-06:00

So the horses got moved to a new grazing cell recently. I knew it was going to be an interesting one, because the last two cells they've been in have opened onto the feed/water area. They had to head east to get through those gates. This month, they have to head west, and trek along the track to get in for their feed. Bruce and Iona don't have any trouble with this - it's old hat. Hunter might remember to go west if he's feeling left brained that day. But then , it's not really in his interest to "remember". After all, why would he want to leave the grass and a couple of fairly unattached mares who can't read a map? Not to mention venturing down the very scary track!! Nope, his strategy the past few days has been to come through the gate (which I need to shut for the day) with the Fells and Journey (she's always up for a trip anywhere), then when I've almost got Ranger (who dawdles) and Dove (usually just to scared to move) out the gate, he runs back in, taking as many as he can with him. So I traipse back and forth with a halter or two collecting them all.

If I'm lucky the whole herd can then be led/driven down the track to get their breakfast. Alternatively, Hunter may try to hold the others back and then there is a palaver where I have to backtrack and round them up again. Yesterday, I had a bit of a crackdown, so today they all followed me out of the cell like lambs. But every time I tried to go back up the track to shut the gate, they all turned with me and tried to run for it. Then I would turn, so they would turn. Good grief! In the end, I just walked them in, fed them, then zoomed out in a truck and shut the gate.

Hunter seems to be going through all kinds of teenage rebellions now. Rounding up the other horses (not ponies!) if he can, and trying to take as many hostages as possible. It's a real pain sometimes when I'm trying to catch the two mares. They're scared of me because I might make them leave Hunter, which they're not supposed to do - you guessed it - according to Hunter! It's like Hunter has decided to form his own little Scared Rabbit Club, and if you're a horse you have to join, and he gets to be the president of the club. The Fells are a different story, of course. They find Hunter useful. If they're trying to move other horses, he will do their running around for them, like a teacher's pet. However, he also finds opportunities to organize Club boycotts of Fell pony planned outings. These are usually outings to go eat hay somewhere. I can't see this being a popular policy in the long term, however. Except maybe with the Fells, who then get to eat SEVEN haynets! And when I bring Hunter into the yard because we want to play with him, I can just see him thinking "That's my whole day ruined! I was gonna do stuff with the gang! This is awful!" Like a teenager who has to stay home on Saturday to write a term paper.

However, on Sunday, I did invite his Hunterness to spend some time with me. He wasn't too impressed. I combed his mane, I put his bareback pad on. That's a ritual now. I still don't ride him much, but just in case! We went to the arena and worked on the FQ yields again. The facing forward thing wasn't as effective as last time, but probably still a good way to go. We moved on to circles. Lots of leaning on the rope and trying to escape sideways. Much more than he has done in a long time. I kept trying to reward any slack in the rope, but at the same time, was sticking to my guns that we would work on, or at least toward, a few canter laps. He just preferred to think about where the herd was, where he wished he was, and how truly unfair life was being to him! It wasn't long before we ended up in the round pen. I knew immediately that all that leaning on the line had been Left Brained, because as soon as we went into the pen, he stopped doing it. The pen is about 60 foot, so he had plenty of room to pull if he wanted to. I guess it just wasn't worth it anymore!

So we worked on a little Sideways. By now he was seriously sweating, as it was a hot day. He was also starting to act like a partner, and look rideable. Mark recently bought a mounting block, to make it easier to get on Ranger in the roundpen, so I pulled that in.

I've always been afraid that Hunter will just take off running with me and then I'll get tight, and it won't be a good experience for either of us. Our arena is huge. When Livia rode him, he did act green, but she was relaxed, had a ball, in fact, and Hunter did NOT run off with her. I was gonna follow up, but then I broke my wrist.

He is a really cool and talented horse, and now I am longing to do more with him. I always have this feeling that when I'm playing with him, and he's at the perfect point to get on, if only somebody was there to "help me" I would get on and do more. Often, nobody is around, but recently I have had somebody lead me around a couple of times. You know, it didn't help my nerves a bit!

I stood on the block and did a bunch of lateral flexion and stuff and hopped on. And just sat there for ages. Then I saw something that I thought might worry him, so I hopped off. Then I did a bunch more flexion and stuff and hopped on again, and just sat there. Finally, I got bored and asked him to walk. Then turn, did some indirect rein turns. Dang! I enjoyed it!

What I figured out was that I was (a) in too big a space before (b) didn't have the right height mounting block in the arena and, most importantly, (c) when you get on any horse you have to be "sure you're sure". That's actually much easier for me to do when nobody is around. I do the mental approach and retreat that I need to do, whereas I will push myself if I have somebody there, even if they are supposed to be helping me. Then I'm not confident enough when I get on. I'm hoping this will be the start of me and Hunter getting it together. It sure feels like it!

Trail Rides and Other Successes

2011-03-20T00:01:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday, my buddy, Rodney, and I managed to go for a ride in Vogel Canyon, a local riding and hiking area which is part of Comanche National Grassland. It's taken me a little time to work up to this. Although I can see that Rodney's a good horseman and his horses are well behaved, I felt that I wanted to have a little more rapport before we ventured out to places I wasn't familiar with. We've had a few little rides around my place now, and Iona and Bruce are both settling back into being ridden after the lay off with my wrist. Then it snowed, so we put the trip off for another week...

Finally, Tuesday dawned with good weather and we loaded up in Rodney's trailer for the drive to the trailhead. Rodney has a nice little slant load trailer, with no partition, which is just great for his two horses, who get along well and are very regular travelers. Iona has a history of catching her halter on stuff, so I asked if it would be okay if we traveled Iona, and Rodney's horse Shadow, loose. (His other horse, Sundance, stayed at my place while we were away.) Rodney said that would be fine, we would just give them a few minutes and observe them together before we drove off. If it wasn't working, maybe we could use our big trailer, but that would mean a lot of extra work. They seemed fine, so we set off. It was only once we got down the road that Rodney told me he found the idea of traveling a horse loose pretty worrying. I explained that I much prefer it, most of the time. Isn't it interesting how different things seem right to different people! Neither of us is right or wrong, I believe. It's definitely an "it depends" question. One we'll need to talk about again, but the trip went smoothly, anyway.

The ride itself was great. Rodney picked a really easy route, which I appreciated as Iona's foot is still just slightly stiff, and she was a little nervous. I notice such a difference in her in the past year or so, as far as how she handles herself when she gets worried. Much more willing to listen to me and to keep trying. (She would probably say exactly the same about me!) My main clues that she was worried were a high head and that she wasn't trying to eat the grass! I quite enjoyed the not eating grass part. The first part of the trail was fairly rocky and slightly downhill, but really no big deal. Most of the rest was along a trail through winter grass. We hardly saw any wildlife, but we've had some very mild nights recently, so everything must have been asleep. There are bears and pumas in the area, and I can't help wondering what a British pony would make of those smells. What would they mean to her? Happily, we didn't see any of those guys.

We stopped and ate our lunch a little over halfway around the loop, under a tree. The horses kept looking off in one direction, as if there was something they wanted to follow, like cattle or antelope or something, but we couldn't see anything. A bit further along we stopped at a windmill fed stock tank to let the horses drink. Tall, Rodney's dog, went for a swim and really didn't want to come out. We followed the old stagecoach road back to the road we drove in on. An odd configuration of fences means a bit of a detour to get back to the parking area. Naturally the horses were feeling quite forward going here, so I took the opportunity to play with a little collection, which was a great feeling, and the perfect way to do it with Iona.

Back at the trailer, Iona decided to put on a short display of "I don't want to load so I'm running off" which was only slightly embarrassing! She's done much worse, though, so I just smiled.

Rodney did all the picture taking, so I've included a couple of him from some of his previous rides.

The previous Sunday, Denise and I had a nice ride around the property with Bruce and Iona. She's still getting into the swing of Parelli-style riding, so we did direct and indirect rein turns along the rail, some Point to Point and other stuff. We had a great ride. There's nothing I love more than being out with both ponies. They behaved very well, and as usual, Denise did brilliantly without a saddle!

The wind has been a problem lately, and has curtailed my plans more than once. However today I had a nice short session with Iona and a green ball. We've been having fun with this off and on. The panel round pen comes in handy for this, as the ball doesn't blow away! Iona did a great job of pushing the ball around along the rail, then to me, and then back on the rail in trot! In positioning her from a distance to push the ball I discovered that her Sideways Toward is amazingly good from a long way off. Who knew?

I mounted up for a session to go over some Freestyle basics. Iona was now using those tall panels against me, playing the Squeeze game with her side and my leg! Neither leg yielding away or flexing her neck toward the fence was working at first, but finally with the second strategy I out persisted her! Then we had a nice little transition session. I had hoped to go on to other things, but she did some nice canter on the right lead, which has been broken (and neglected) lately, so I quit there.I was trying out some of the one rein techniques that Pat shows on the new L2 Freestyle video. I got myself royally tangled up, as it seems to be different than the way I learned it. More viewing required, I guess!

We also had a nice session earlier in the week working on Traveling Circles and reviewing some one rein basics. She was really good. The stuff is set out for Obstacles and Question Box. Now for some calm weather.

Walkies

2011-03-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

I decided recently, that as well as increasing the undemanding time I spend with the horses, they all need more trail riding. Except, since I'm not riding most of them yet, that means lots of Zone 3 Driving. This has turned out to be really interesting for me. I am learning a lot about their confidence levels and typical reactions to things, and a lot about myself, too. I already wrote about my last session with Dove. On Saturday, I took Hunter along the east side loop, accompanied by Denise with Ranger. They did pretty well. Both wanted to eat grass quite a bit. Hunter had a few thresholds, but they did really well. A few days later I took Ranger out by himself, though, and he was much less confident. He feels like such a big horse to me. I guess he's around 16hh, but after years of just Bruce and Iona, that's a monster. I didn't really have trouble managing him, but even the thought of riding him while he was a bit high was making me nervous. I really need to (a) work on myself and (b) cut myself some slack until the confidence increases. I suspect that all this in hand walking is going to be a big part of the puzzle. It's a better simulation for riding out than I realized. 

Yesterday, I spent some time with Journey. After a long grooming session in which she learned about spray bottles "Is that it? What else have you got?" I took her for a walk. Honestly, I knew exactly how it would go. She would find it very interesting and take it all in her stride. Yep! She had no problem going away from familiar areas and the herd, and really listened to my requests. There was one area where she got a bit stuck and had quite a few thresholds. I gave her a lot of time with them. I imagine that I could have asked her to try a bit harder. but especially since it was our first outing, I let her set the time line. On the way back we got to see a neighbor collecting kindling in pails, and then ventured a few yards outside the front gates to check the mail. By the time we were headed up the drive, she was turning right and left off just my focus! I was suitably impressed!  

Bruce

I also spent some time with Bruce yesterday, just brushing him, sitting with him and giving him some TLC. Something is bothering him - or bothering me where he is concerned. I can't put my finger on it. He is spending a lot of time by himself. Very close to the herd, but somehow not really with them. He is a little quiet. I don't know whether it's emotional, physical....it almost seems existential. So I tried to be quiet and listen, and feel for him and of him. I had some interesting impressions. 

One thing that kept occurring to me was to do with his sheath area. I went on a little fact finding mission, and it needs cleaning, and might be a little sore. Okay. I will deal with that. I often wonder whether he is sorry he was gelded. (Well, let's face it, he probably is!) But I had this odd thought that he thinks that this is why his "friends" don't stick with him. By "friends" I mean Hazel, Denise, Livia. I think he really misses having someone to play with more. I can't say whether the rest of that thought is my own invention or is a true insight. I also got the feeling that he has a mild tummy ache. I offered him a little bit of peppermint leaf. He liked it. It sure won't do him any harm, so I will put some in his feed for a few days, maybe longer if I manage to replenish my supply.

Hunter

 Today I played with Hunter. We started off by the trailer. My goal is to play games with him at Liberty using the trailer as an obstacle. Until recently, he wasn't ready to play at Liberty, but Mark has been introducing it into their sessions lately, so I thought I'd give it a try. Hunter and I have done nothing with the trailer for a very long time, and it showed. He wasn't happy with the unfamiliar environment, and the trailer itself worried him, too. So we stayed On Line. I wished that I'd had the 22' line, and I could have been more successful at trying to keep the belly of the rope on the ground, but as it turned out, we had to keep things pretty basic, and it didn't make a lot of difference. 

We did a little Touch It and other Friendly things, and then I played with trying to Porcupine him into putting his body against the side of the trailer. That was not easy, and in the end I settled for a slight touch, but not before I got him really listening to what I wanted. I also tried some Driving Game, asking him to back up to the trailer. Also very difficult. (Plenty to work on, then!) I stood in the doorway and played Yo-yo with him. He was pretty worried for a moment that I was going to make him come in. I didn't, of course. He didn't even like Circling past the opening, but we got there. After this, though, Sideways and Squeeze along the side were very easy. We then did a little Touch It at Liberty successfully, so I was pleased. We just need to spend more time with this.

In the arena I asked him to back on to a large piece of plywood that I recently put in there. He is pretty worried about those hind feet, and we made a lot of progress. I noticed that I didn't have much control of his hindquarters when we were at the trailer, so I thought this might help.

We then played with some forehand yields. Hunter naturally pivots on his haunches when he is just moving around. In fact, so much so, that it wears his hind hooves at a bit of an angle. Yet, when I ask him for this, I usually get a couple of excellent steps, followed by a whole lot of excess hind foot movement and stuff I didn't ask for. As far as I know! This time, I stumbled on something that helped. It was simply that I faced forward and moved with him, instead of looking at him (his shoulder or head) and trying to just drive him. The results were pretty consistent, so I hope I've hit on something. Perhaps he felt the need to disengage because I was looking at him. I will need to isolate and clarify that for him. I wonder whether this technique will transfer to other horses.

We also played with some circles. I tried canter. We've been getting it pretty well in the roundpen. Although he picked up the canter when I asked, he then couldn't maintain the circle, and spun outward, quickly followed by me disengaging him like crazy! After a couple of those we went to the pen. I decided to use the low tape and poly post pen in the arena. I hoped it wasn't a safety risk, but I like the more open feeling so much better than the panel pen. It worked just fine, however, it was obvious that Hunter felt pressured as well as supported by the pen. I was very careful to have appropriate energy, and we got it together after awhile. This is the same kind of stuff we went through when we worked on trot on the 22', not so long ago, so I'm sure it will resolve if I am persistent and consistent.

We finished up with a Zone 3 walk. Boy, going away from the yard/herd was really tough for Hunter. Lots and lots of thresholds and needing to move his feet in the first hundred yards of so. He didn't get really wild. just had some trouble, and he really tried. Once he realized that my focus was set, he seemed to get better and better. though. The herd had now all migrated quite a ways down the track. so we ended up having quite a trip getting him to them. He was nice and calm by the time we got there. 

My feet hurt.

Another Day, Another Dobbin

2011-03-06T22:50:00.000-07:00

I had a nice day today, playing with two very different horses and doing quite different things with them. I started off with Dove. When she and Journey first went out on the track, I started putting up barriers at either end of the morning feed area, just to make it easier to catch them. Journey is simple to catch now, but Dove is still pretty elusive. Today I decided to set myself the challenge of catching her without the barriers. She must have realized that she was supposed to move on the the next phase, because she let me halter her without any problems.

I decided that it was time to groom her tail, which I have never done since she came here. I figured it might be a challenge if she was feeling defensive about Zone 5, what with the recent vet exam and all. It took a bit of time to work my way back there, but once I did, she let me work with her tail at liberty, and only walked around a couple of times, and never flinched at the detangler spray, during what turned out to be a very long session. One reason I hadn't groomed the tail was that it's fairly thin and wispy (at least by Fell pony standards!) so I thought it would be easy to zip through when I had a moment. No. When I had a proper look, I found a solid round mat the size of a baseball near the end of her dock. Eek! No wonder I always felt there was something odd about the way her tail hung. It took about an hour to get it all combed out, and it was all live hair - so Miss Dove has a much prettier tail now!

I can't get over the feeling that Dove is blown away by all the positive attention, and patient handling. I can see her processing it, and almost feel her wonder, sometimes. She has her moments of being stuck or even stubborn, but I feel that she is becoming sold on the new lifestyle. I brushed her body down. She is starting to shed out her winter coat. She enjoyed that, and let me go absolutely everywhere. Nice. I wanted to do something different with her today, so we went for a Zone 3 Driving walk across the pasture and to the far side of the track. She had a little trouble with the concept of going away from the herd. I had to disengage her a couple of times, but as my focus on where we were going got better, her confidence did, too. If that's as bad as she would be ridden, it would be pretty mild. If only I could have the same level of confidence ridden that I have on line!

We collected the empty haynets, and I shook old hay out of some of them. She enjoyed picking at it and relaxed as I got busy with my work. Once I had them all collected, I decided to see it she would carry them for me. I figured they were a nice familiar thing. She had no problem with that at all, and packed them all the way back to the yard for me. We finished up with a bit of Shiatsu back in her pen, which she enjoyed once she understood what I was up to.

All this time, Bruce had been patiently chilling in the pen next door. I'm sure he was ready to play, but his tail also desperately needed attention, so I got my comb out and resigned myself to another long session. We finally made it out of the pen and I took him for a drink. Yes, he needed to play! He got a drink then played with the feed buckets that were waiting to be washed. Then another drink. Then played with the buckets, etc. He went back and forth about five times, and each time he held the last gulp of water in his mouth in case he got a chance to dump it on me. That's quite a fun game, because of people's reactions. I let him have his fun with the buckets, but I made sure I stayed dry.

I put his bareback pad on and took him to the arena for a short play. We concentrated on some Level 3 Sideways games. I started on the fence, sending him in half circles. It took a few changes of direction before he woke up and then he got really bouncy. Great! I rewarded "bouncy" and tried for some fast sideways along the fence. We finished with him cantering sideways. We also did some sideways over a low jump, and other variations on a theme. One of the interesting things about loaning a pony out to other students is being able to say "I wonder if he knows.....Sideways Towards?" and finding out that he does! It needs a lot of polishing, but he knows what it is.

That seemed like enough. We headed out for a ride around the track. Some discussions about eating as we began were probably more to do with leaving the herd than anything. Once we turned along the dreaded east side I was very proud of him, because I could see that he was really trying for me. I'm still a bit nervous riding Bruce sometimes. Just not enough hours together, I guess. I got off once. There was a gate coming up, anyway. Dratted hotwire gates! You can't really work them from horseback safely, and I never remember to turn the fence off. Once through that, I got back on and decided that if he needed to hurry back, I could probably ride it. However, he surprised me by taking his time, and not blasting through any thresholds. We did lots of walk/trot transitions. Bless him, when we got to the west side, where the neighbor has just put a herd of cows out, he whinnied at them. Well, they're mostly black. I guess there might be a Fell pony hiding there somewhere! (One of the calves sure seemed to think Bruce might be his mama. I was glad he didn't come through the fence.) Iona was waiting to welcome us as we pulled into the yard.

Journey Update

Journey loaded up easily for her vet appointment on Thursday. He sedated her pretty heavily and put her in a squeeze chute for her exam. It didn't appear to be traumatic in the least. Boy was she snoring! And SHE'S NOT PREGNANT!! Happy days! The vet is in the nearest town where any significant shopping can be done, and we had a few errands, so Journey got to visit a few parking lots and an outdoor eatery on the way home, all of which she took in her stride. She is a very cool girl.

Mark played with her for a couple of hours today, including trailer loading, just to make sure she's forgiven us. No problems and he says they had a blast. She seems to be the kind of horse you can play with all day, and she just comes back asking what the next activity is.

Well, once again I apologize, as I feel this blog must be a little boring right now. Not much problem solving going on, what with all the horses doing as they're told. I wonder whether it has anything to do with the increase in undemanding time I'm spending with them.....

A Day with My Girl

2011-03-02T23:12:00.001-07:00

While I've really enjoyed playing with our new horses, and learned some stuff along the way, it hasn't left me enough quality time with Iona or Bruce. However, now that Dove, Ranger and Journey are pretty well through their L1 groundwork, I intend to back off a bit and spend more time with Iona, Bruce and Hunter - in that order of priority. I already feel pangs of guilt that the other three won't be "progressing" enough, but I also remember having that feeling when I went from just having Iona to owning Bruce, as well. It will work out. I know that I need a break, as I was starting to think "Oh, no, not another L1 session!" and it isn't good for anybody, horse or human, if I feel like that!

Yesterday, I spent most of the day with Iona, and it was bliss! My new trail riding buddy, Rodney, came over first thing in the morning, so we headed out for a little ride around here. Iona's foot was a little stiff at first, but it seemed to get better and better as the ride went on, so we finished with some trotting and cantering, by which time we really couldn't see a problem anymore. And, Iona behaved very, very well. I think she was glad to be out doing something. I was pleased that she enjoyed it as our first ride with Rodney mostly consisted of her carting me back to the barn. (Ah, first impressions, eh?) Next week we hope to trailer to Vogel Canyon, a local nature/historic area with horse trails. I hope the weather cooperates!

In the afternoon, I decided to continue with Iona. We shared a lunchtime carrot and then I gave her a good grooming. I wanted to spend some time just hanging with her, and also do some canter Passenger Lesson if possible. I put her bareback pad on, and let her graze in the pasture while I sat on her. She worked her way toward the far corner, near where the herd were loafing on the track. I toyed with the idea of asking for canter when we were about 1/4 mile away from them, but I didn't feel I'd given her enough chill time. I made a vague suggestion, just to see what she'd do, and she wasn't keen. Eating her way toward them was preferable. I figured I might have trouble getting her to leave the corner again, but when we got there I started asking for walk, then trot and finally some canter, and she chose to head back toward the yard. The canter wasn't very enthusiastic or prolonged, and I decided that I wasn't going to pick a fight on her first day back! Instead, when she started to pick up a head of steam going home, we played with slow trot/fast trot transitions. I've rarely done this, and she did brilliantly. I was so proud of her.

When we got back, I had some obstacles set up in the arena, and we played 7 Games Freestyle with them for a little while, after practicing some basic yields. The jumping was a bit clumsy (maybe she was protecting that foot) but everything else went well. Among other things I had set a couple of barrels up for us to squeeze between. Now, Iona is an incredibly brave little squeezer, so I had set them really close together. Too close, as I discovered, as I had hardly left room for Iona, let alone my legs. So we did things like time it so I picked my legs up at the right moment, or stop between the barrels and I would stand with a foot on each barrel. Iona thought that on was really cool. Of course, I've just realized this minute that this would be an alternative way to stand on her back. I must try that next time! Yeah!

We finished by practicing taking the hackamore headstall on and off while mounted. That went better than previously, so I was pleased. The herd were still a half mile away, and I try not to just dump a lone horse on the track, to find their way to the others, so I took her bareback pad off and we headed for the mounting block a third time (each time with less tack!). Iona did look at me like "What now?" but we headed out in harmony, and it felt great! I was pretty happy walking home.

Today, I didn't have much time, so I just went out to where the herd were loafing by the shed, out of the wind. I groomed Iona and combed her tail out, then gave her some attempted Shiatsu. I'm not very sure what I'm doing with it, but I try, and it seemed to hit the spot for her, as she did some yawning and stretching. I'm trying to fit more undemanding time in as part of what I do with each horse. It's not easy to convince myself to do this, especially when I feel I "should" be teaching them things and learning things, etc. However, I'm going to try to stick with this, as I'm pretty sure I don't have a good balance. To my surprise, so far, I'm enjoying it, too.

The Incredible Journey

2011-02-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

Last week we had a visit from the vet, to find out about the status of the two new mares. Dove, it turns out, isn't expecting. To be honest, I am relieved. She's a bit thin, and we've had enough of an equine population explosion around here. Unfortunately, Journey couldn't cope with being examined, even with a sedative, so we still don't know what's up with her. The next step is to take her to the vet's facility, where he will be able to examine her in a crate or crush of some kind. Of course, the step before the next step was to teach her to trailer load.

Fortunately, we keep the trailer parked in a pen which makes it easy to practice loading. I started off by giving Journey her morning feed bucket in the trailer. First day, it was just at the edge of the opening. then a bit further in. When I got in far enough in that she needed to put her front feet in, she got stuck. I tried sending her in with a little approach and retreat, pressure and release, but she wasn't quite getting it. I did manage to pick up a front foot and just set it in, but she didn't step up. The following day, I taught her to lift her front feet by tapping them with the carrot stick and rewarding her with treats. That was easy, so I got her to stand on a few obstacles and rewarded her some more. She picked this up at lightning speed, and immediately put her front feet in the trailer when asked. The next day she put them in voluntarily to get her bucket. Then the wind blew for two days, and I hid in the house.

Today, we got back to our program. I put the bucket much further in (long stock trailer), but when I came back to check, she wasn't trying to figure this out. I played around very briefly with some friendly game at the rear end. (She's gonna need that, anyway, right? I'm hoping that I might be able to ask the vet to try once more without the crush, when we get to his place, if I can help her be ready.) Then I tapped her hind legs and asked her to lift them. I quit after some pretty vague tries, and took her to the trailer. She put her front feet straight in, but we still weren't quite making it with the hinds. She was getting out of position, so I sent her around to the side and then gave her a pretty energetic re-send. She went straight in, thought about things for a bit, and ate her breakfast in a pretty relaxed manner. Hooray!

I left her in the pen, with a hay net in the trailer, but when I came back she was hanging around outside. I put her on a 22' line and checked to see how she felt about being tied up by running the line through a ring outside the trailer. She followed the feel of this very well, until I had her snubbed quite short. No problem. I then drove her a little with the stick, just to see what she would do if she felt the pressure on her poll. I was ready to offer slack if she got worried. She thought things over and just gave to the halter easily. I reloaded her and ran the line out through the slats, so that I could keep a feel on the rope while I played with the doors. She just munched the hay and couldn't have cared less. I finally left her shut in the front half of the trailer, took the halter off and chatted to Mark for a little while. When I opened up the middle partition she stood calmly for me to put the halter back on and unload her like a seasoned pro. We are suitably impressed. She has made such huge changes in a short time, and is a very fast learner. From being untouchable, to hard to catch, to coming up to us for attention - and now this!

Fell Pony Adventures

Iona has been a bit lame for a week or so. We've been here before. Last time (last May) it passed after awhile, and again, it looks like getting better. It's somewhere in her left hind foot. Fetlock joint, I think. I haven't asked her to do much, and have given her some massages and extra TLC and essential oils. Maybe it's time to think about some herbs or a joint support supplement. Being a pony who isn't inclined to move without a good reason, I suspect that she may make things worse by letting it stiffen up, so I have walked her or encouraged the herd to keep moving a bit. Of course, I've no idea whether that's helped, but she seemed almost sound today, so fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, I've had the opportunity to ride Bruce out a bit more as as result. I feel that I'm finally getting to feel the benefits of his time with Livia. I see that he upholds his responsibilities better than he used to. Today, I thought I'd ride him and pony Iona around - probably just walk. I warmed Bruce up in the arena for a few minutes. I started with S bends (for rapport and draw). It didn't take long until they were actually willing and I had draw. Much better than the last time I tried them, when he just ran to (or maybe at) me and wouldn't change direction. When it started to look like he might try that again, I went to Falling Leaf (for respect and impulsion) and stuck with it until he was keeping his shoulder out and even offering canter. Whee!

We went and got Iona, as no way was I leaving Bruce in the arena to roll in his bareback pad again! They were acting like they'd never been led or taken through gates before, which didn't exactly fill me with confidence, but I tried to keep smiling and we made it back to the arena. I hopped on Bruce and played with Iona over some obstacles. She stood between some barrels and on a tarp - really basic stuff for her, but I figured it would catch her interest if she could do something cool and get a treat. I tried some Porcupine yields. Iona did well, but Bruce seemed to be having a hard time understanding where I was trying to position him part of the time. I'm sure he's done this before when I've ridden him and played with Hunter. Today it was a challenge, but Iona tried her heart out. We did some Touch It, which finished with all four feet on a low pedestal. Then, of course, Bruce wanted a turn on the pedestal, so I said "sure"! While he and I were up there I did some Yo-yo and Circling Game with Ony. I decided to ask for trot to the right, just to see how bad her foot was. She was a little unlevel part of the time, but wanted to keep going, which was encouraging.I sent her to the left, and she went willingly, but I only asked for about half a circle, as I figured it would be harder for her than the right circle. The next part was the best, though. We did Sideways with a fence, and they were both so cool! Really in harmony, then smoothly into Squeeze, and Sideways the other way, etc.

So we headed out for a look at the world. Or at least the east edge of the pasture. Most of the east side of the track is still closed, so they haven't been over there for awhile and it showed. We felled a tree there awhile back and there are still some huge pieces of trunk on the ground, and our neighbor seems to have dug a big hole or something, and there is a very large pile of spoil from this near the fence. In other words: IT'S A TERRIFYING PLACE TO TAKE YOUR PONIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I hadn't really thought of that.)

Sooooo - we got to work on thresholds. And grass eating. And not eating until invited. And not bolting for the barn. A - n - d b - r - e - a - t - h - e! I got off for awhile. I took them over for a look at the scary stuff. They took turns nibbling on weeds and going giraffe-necked and snorting. I finally thought they had relaxed, but when I turned them around, they dashed forward because now all the scary stuff was in Zone 5. Help! Naturally I thought I'd get back on Bruce anyway. (I know. Don't say it!) It went okay for a bit. We went back to the grass. They ate, they walked on, but I had a feeling. It wasn't that I wondered whether they would eventually take off with me, more that I wondered when they would do it. If I had only had one of them, I would have gone with the flow, but I decided I didn't need the experience with two, so I hopped off and walked back with them. That's not easy for me, but probably the right thing to have done, since I wasn't really confident.

Mark and I were talking about what a great resource the east side could be for us. We can take horses over there for walks and things to check out and build their confidence, so every cloud has a silver lining.

Tricks and treats

2011-02-18T23:05:00.000-07:00

Apologies for not writing for awhile. I have been playing sporadically with all and sundry when the weather and schedule has allowed. Today was Bruce's turn. I have been inspired by some videos of Pat I've been watching where he says that he just takes what the horse offers and shapes it, etc. Of course, he always seems to be playing with forward going horses, and while I want to use this approach, I wasn't too sure how it would translate to a pony like Bruce. Bruce can be an obstructionist! I recently "quoted" Bruce's stance as being "If I do what you ask, how is that a game?" and very often that seems to be what he's thinking.

I set a row of four barrels out, with a gap between the middle two, and a small pile of poles to make a T at the far end, then a tarp about 40' away, so that I could hopefully do some circling, a bit like Pat does with Midas in the latest version of Level 2. Midas could hardly stop moving his feet, so it was just a case of see where he wanted to go. I figured Bruce and I had better warm up a little first, or he probably wouldn't go at all. We played with a little Zone 5 Driving with one rein. He only seemed to know how to go backwards, so when I finally got him to go forward I rewarded him by changing the subject. I played with just mixing up lots of sends and draws and drives of different zones. That woke him up a little. I needed to work on the draw, so we did, and when he was more enthusiastic I gave him a treat.

We headed for the obstacles. It was windy, so I had weighted the tarp down with hunks of wood and put a few cones against the barrels to stop them blowing around. The tarp drew Bruce like a magnet and he was pretty sure that he was supposed to either stand on the tarp or the hunks of wood. I wasn't surprised. I sent him on his way and he managed to get one of the barrels of it's mooring of cones and push it with his nose for almost a half circle. (These are oil drums, by the way, not plastic barrels.) I did my best to have no opinion and just laughed, and encouraged him to push it some more.

He got the idea that I really did want him to circle. He crossed the tarp pretty well, but the barrels just needed rearranging. He pushed them into log jams and ran toward them enthusiastically only to stop and refuse to jump. Then tried the old "one leg over and stumble around" routine. I told him I really didn't care as long as he tried. I rearranged the remaining three barrels in a line again. He really didn't try, but he discovered the poles at the end and jumped them a couple of times. Fine. If he stopped at the barrels we now changed direction. He was using a bit more energy now, and wasn't he surprised when he jumped a barrel and we stopped for a rest! He went off with a better attitude the next time and put his little heart into a jump and actually kept going. Game over!

I thought we'd touch on the Zone 5 Driving again, so I aimed him at that barrel he'd been pushing earlier. He still wanted to back up at first, but I just kept focusing on that barrel, and he got it. Off we went pushing the barrel around with me directing from Zone 5. Fun! How many people can get their pony to do that!

I also wanted to do some circles, with the plan to try some simple lead changes. I could see that we might be struggling, so I decided that if all we did was practice changing direction at walk, that would be okay. We worked on that, and the draw part was awful. So was his attitude. He had his shoulder and ribs pushed toward me and his nose poked out as he dragged himself slowly around. It was the same right or left, so I knew it was attitude! At first I just ignored it and kept changing direction anyway. If he wouldn't draw I just disengaged him and sent him the other way. That got to him after awhile and he got quicker, offered trot. Now I felt I had some hope of shaping his body a bit. What I tried was giving him little rhythmic tugs on his nose and at the same time driving his ribs and shoulder out. When he got it, I would either leave him alone or bring him in for a rest. Before long he was offering canter and I was able to ask for some changes. He did four really nice simple changes in a row. Once he tried very hard to make it a flying change, which was good enough for me. Cookie! And he really enjoyed that particular cookie, I noticed.

We finished up trying some S bends, which I thought would help me with my draw. However, it was very hard to get him sent right and left, and I had so much draw that we were both tripping over the slack in the rope. Hmmm.

Just time for a couple of "tricks". I've been revisiting getting Bruce to hand me his halter, so I took it off and laid it over his favorite barrel. This was some distance away. I made sure he saw me put it there, came back to where he was standing and sent him for it. He was doing a lot of thinking on the way, I could tell, and really asking questions. He made it to the barrel, but I had to come a bit closer before he would pick the halter up. Then I learned something. If I put out my hand to ask him to hand me the halter, he will drop it! Why? Because he changes his focus to the possibility of getting a cookie. So I really must wait and ask him to offer it to me. Then I can take it from him, pause, and offer a treat. Big aha!

I thought we were done, and we did some nice Stick to Me on the way to the arena gate. But Bruce reminded me of one last thing. His roll. There's a nice soft spot near the gate. He loves to roll there, I am trying to establish this as something he does on command (and not spontaneously while wearing tack!). Bless him, he hesitated and looked at me meaningfully. "????" So I pawed the ground with my foot and said "Lie down!" and he finished with a nice roll. Next step it to get him to stay down so I can get on, I suppose!

Head in the Sand

2011-01-24T23:39:00.001-07:00

Yesterday's session with Dove gave me the opportunity to see her more Right Brained Introvert side. Previously, I thought she was more Left Brained, but simply unconfident, and that may prove to be her innate horsenality, however this time, at least, I felt her tendency was to lower her head and freeze or hide, and lock up mentally and physically.

At first I only noticed that the Porcupine Game was a little sticky. It took quite a bit of persistence on my part to make progress beyond a few steps. However, it improved and I even got some full circles of the hind and forequarters. I had been thinking of her as fairly "easy" and it took me awhile to notice that somehow, Dove wasn't quite as "present" as in the last session. Still, we successfully went through the motions of some Driving and Yo-yo tasks, so I thought I'd teach her the Circle Game.

At first the sends appeared to be understood well enough and she would set off, only to get stuck after a couple of steps. Getting a true disengagement was hard. Then the sends got more difficult, and she was just freezing up, and eventually put her head nearly on the ground and just shut me out. Okaaay... even I could read that as RBI. What to do?

I admit that I was a little short of Savvy Arrows for this. I am realising an uncomfortable truth about my horsemanship, lately, which is that I am better at technique and theory than I am at psychology. Especially acting on the psychology that I know, sometimes. However, my RBI experience is pretty limited, so I forgive myself! At least I knew to try something different. Even though she had responded to the send, I knew that she had no idea that she was supposed to circle. But I remembered the old "short range" Circling Game from the original Level 1 pack. At the time I studied L1 it had seemed like hard work to do this. (Well, I probably just wanted to see my pony run around in pretty circles at the end of a 12' line, more like!) However, it worked a treat for clarifying things. She was still very hesitant, though, and hadn't come out of her shell much, so we didn't go back to the long range game. I'll start short range next time and progress from there when we're ready.

I really don't know why Dove got up on that particular side of the corral yesterday. She has seems more positive and confident around us at feeding time as the days go by. I decided to stand on the pedestal and play some gentle Friendly and Porcupine games to finish the session. That was alright, although I could still feel her sort of holding herself apart from me. Then at one point I sort of stuck a finger in her mouth, in fun, as I was rubbing her face. Interestingly, she made a sudden change. It was simply as if she suddenly woke up and joined the party. I can't really describe it much better than that. Her eyes lost that vacant look and she looked at me more confidently. Huh! So that's were we left it.

By now, the rest of the herd were part way up the track from the arena, so I decided to walk her out to them. As we passed the water trough, she wanted to stop for a big long drink. At that point I guessed that she never got her morning drink. She lets the other horses push her away repeatedly when they congregate at feeding time, but makes her own arrangements to drink once the pressure is off. I probably haltered her and brought her in before she had a chance to drink without noticing. I can't help but wonder whether this discomfort was enough to upset her, and maybe the finger in the mouth triggered something that temporarily compensated. I'll probably never know, but I'll definitely make sure she doesn't go thirsty in future!

Jumping with Ony

I spent most of my time with Iona. First we had a really nice session with the ball. It was just windy enough that I knew the ball would leave us if I put it in the arena, so I decided to try the round pen. Last time the ball was out, Iona surprised me by being very interested in it, biting it, wanting to push it around, etc. She knows what the likely human games with the ball are, but that was the first time I saw her so voluntarily engaged with it. So I was hoping that the limited and more boring landscape of the pen wasn't going to take the shine off things. It didn't, and I managed to get her to push the ball both to me, and to a barrel that I directed her to. Neat! We also played around with a few circles and Figure 8s while we were there.

I had obstacles set up in the arena with a plan to play with the On Line and Freestyle. Among them was a tiny jump that I wanted to ride over. I haven't jumped in quite a long time, and although I'm not always that confident, I have been missing it. To help my confidence, I wanted to get Iona to jump it loads of times while we played On Line. Maybe I was a bit too focused on that. Iona sure thought so! It seemed to take every strategy in the book to get her motivated, or at least willing, and I hadn't really positioned it for ease of play, but it was too heavy to take the time to move - or so I decided - so we were squeezed in between a bunch of other obstacles that Iona kept "running into" and stopping.

We also played with the tarp and pedestals, where I spent some time asking her to to HQ or FQ yields while she was on them. And we played with some poles and jumps I had put out for Hunter's last session, which were fanned out in a semicircle. Again, it took quite a bit of experimenting to get her going over these enthusiastically, and I'm not sure that all the exuberance was really positive energy. That's something I will have to watch. I've been rewarding exuberance, but I know some of it is a bit snotty, and I probably don't want to ride that! We did have some nice moments where she would go sideways away over one pole, then forward to the next pole and sideways back toward me. That's coming on nicely now, and I don't see any sign of her trying to use it against me, as people always warn you of.

I got mounted up, and tried to play every game with at least a couple of obstacles. I'm generally not getting as much good stuff ridden as I am on the ground, and I'm going to have to think about why. Probably, I think "Oh boy! Now I get to ride around and have fun!" but to Iona it just translates to "More work, and Kris doesn't know when to quit!" However, at least she was pleasantly surprised when we got to the jump and didn't just jump it, but did things like back up to it and rest, or walk over it and turn around.

She had a couple of small tantrums, mainly about being sweet on the gate. I was riding with a stick, and she got really mad at that stick and bit it! Grrrr! We kinda worked through that and did some more interesting things, repeating some of the things we'd done On Line. I decided I didn't want my stick for the jumps, and was really pleased that it wasn't too difficult to ask for a circle which included the jump, and it was fun! I really don't know when I last jumped in a saddle, but jumping in my bareback pad seems to have helped everything. It may have only been a tiny jump, but we were nice and smooth over it and it felt great. We finished with a victory lap of the arena in canter, and I blew her mind by insisting that she gallop to the gate. Whoopee! Had the sense to take her to the middle to rest and dismount though!

Fun With Hunter - and other stories

2011-01-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

I've had a couple of nice sessions with Hunter recently. He has been joining the hard-to-catch mob some mornings, and in fact, was becoming a ringleader. We really didn't need that, so I thought a little time in the round pen might help. He didn't need a lot of Catching Game as it turned out, but it has been a good opportunity to progress his Circle Game, and we seem to have played enough with catching to improve his attitude in the mornings.

I think I have been afraid that I would put too much pressure on him in the pen, especially as it's a high sided one. However, I have more self control than I thought (LOL!) and I see that it can also be a tool to make the right thing easy. The simple fact that going in a circle becomes a given, means that neither of us has to worry about where he's going and we can focus on transitions and maintaining gait. The fact that he has now cantered some circles (not too many yet) seems to have improved his trot circles in the arena quite a bit. No doubt the work Livia and Mark have put in helped, too! I managed to teach him to do changes of direction at the walk, and immediately show him how to do it at trot successfully, the other day.

Today was cold and windy, and Hunter had spent an hour or two by himself in the yard by the time playtime arrived. We're trying to keep up a pattern of him spending a little time on his own fairly often. So it wasn't the best set up for a great session, but we had one! My goal was to work on Traveling Circles, maintaining gait, looking where he's going, and hopefully to put enough poles in his way to make him think and encourage him to use himself better. What a blast I had! He was full of go, and easy to direct most of the time. I couldn't believe this was his first session at this task! It wasn't all smooth sailing, he was bracey sometimes, worried about the tarp and certain monster poles! I don't think we have two matching poles/logs on the whole farm. What makes some scary and not others remains a mystery.

Hunter on the go with Livia in October

It was such a change for me play like that with a horse who has so much go. I could really get to like playing with this type of horse. I also believe that "horses teach humans" and that somehow, Hunter may teach me a "feel" that I can pass back to my slower ponies, that may get them moving. Perhaps in the form of new expectations.

Learning with Ranger

I had the chance to play with Ranger twice this week. Before that I hadn't done much. He is a pretty nice horse, so far. I have to say though, I'm not getting barrel racer! He's mostly a big, slightly pushy "okey dokey" sort of guy. He can be pretty reactive, but that's probably because I try to move too fast for him and forget he's new to me and the environment. So far I don't see that he has tons of go, though. Having said that, he's easy so far, and we will be moving into a little L2 stuff next time, while we consolidate L1.

I learned something interesting from Ranger during our last session, that I thought was worth mentioning. With so many horses to progress, and a lot of Level 1, more L1 and still more .... well, you get the picture, I realise that I've been a little hard on myself while playing with the newbies. Hard in the sense of thinking that I must achieve everything I try in a session. In a way, these high expectations are working for me, but somewhere in the middle of Ranger's last session I also realised that if I'm that hard on me, I'm also being exactly that hard on the horse, too. I was getting a bit "C'mon, we have to get this so I don't have to do it again on Tuesday," if you see what I mean. I'd definitely stopped playing! I will try to hang on to that!

Good weather and horseplay

2011-01-17T23:34:00.001-07:00

The lack of blog entries the past few days doesn't mean I've been idle. The weather has been incredibly mild, so we've been making the most of it. I've worked out a sort of rota for playing with the horses, which prioritizes Iona and Bruce, and then allows for working with the others to some extent. It's a bit of a horse training treadmill, but of course the weather won't always be this good, so I won't always be playing so much.

I've always subscribed to the old PNH idea of concentrating on getting one horse to Level 3 before you take on others. I've mostly done this, so the change is a little uncomfortable. Change always is, for me. However, there are lots of plusses. I think playing with the flightier horses will teach me a lot and help me to be lighter and more sensitive. Sometimes I know that I treat Bruce and Iona like tractors, and if I do, then I am to blame when they behave like tractors. It also keeps Iona interested in me, when she doesn't always get picked.

So my days have been filled with horseplay, and a lot of horse catching. The routine is that when they come in for their buckets, we box the herd in, which makes it reasonably easy (well, possible) to catch Dove or Journey. Hunter has also decided he'd rather not be caught and likes to get the other two to go on a tear. He's trying to be possessive. I don't think Dove and Journey are that impressed with him. They try to stay together and avoid being driven around by Hunter, but he only has to start running around and their adrenaline goes way up, too. Journey has become much easier to halter. Mark has spent a lot of time working on that with her. We've neglected Dove a bit, and now that's starting to show. I had a nice session with her yesterday, though. and I thought her attitude was a bit more positive this morning.

I played with Hunter on Saturday. I had hoped to have a little ride, too, but he and Bruce saw something scary off in the distance, and I couldn't manage to keep his focus, so we just played On Line. Everything went very well. I managed to work up to some changes of direction at trot, by rehearsing them at walk first, and his transitions are getting better. However, I couldn't get canter - just a fast panicky trot. Typical young horse stuff. I knew that if I pushed him he'd probably end up getting loose, so I decided to either try to develop this slowly or maybe later take him into a round pen where I could make the right thing easy (I hope).

Well, the round pen opportunity came the next day, as he caused to much commotion at feeding time, when I tried to catch Dove, that I decided he needed to play the Catching Game himself. When I took him to the round pen and sent him around, however, it was obvious that he'd played that game before. I've never done it with him in a round pen, but we sure played it in the big arena some months ago! So I'm not sure why, but he was hard to lose and hard to keep out on the rail without making him feel wrong. So since we were there, I put the line on and worked a bit on the canter thing. That went really well, and I hope I kept it relaxing for him. I finished the session by taking the halter off and sending him out and around a bit more, hoping to reinforce the catching.

Weave breakthrough!
Today I had a nice time with Iona. I took the time to groom her in a relaxed way, which she seemed to appreciate. We headed for the arena, where I had her saddle and stuff waiting. I wanted tp work on two tasks On Line: Travelling Circles and Weave. I started out doing some circles in the corner near the loafing shed where Bruce and some others were lounging. She was pleasantly surprised that I picked that spot, but I figured it'd pre-empt any decisions of hers to leave me. It worked.

Once I got her going a little, we changed to the Weave. I've been having trouble with this for ages. Especially getting her to maintain trot as she goes around the end markers. I set the markers a little closer together than usual today, as I know that my rope handling is part of the problem. I think that helped. I also had a brainstorm. Part of my problem is that I never seem to be close enough to the end marker to help her with the rope as she comes around. So today, I started off doing a Figure 8 at one end, but standing off center, almost level with the 2nd marker. She got that easily, and I kept going until she offered an enthusiastic trot. Enthusiasm is what I am looking to reward these days! That really made the whole thing much easier for me and she seemed more clear on what I wanted. Yay!!

We circle-traveled over to her saddle which she found like a bloodhound "Can we stop here?" so I tried saddlng at liberty. Easy. We played back and forth between Weave and the circles while I cinched up. We threw in the pedestal and a couple of jumps. I got her to maintain gait in trot for quite a long time. Now we just need to do the same with canter.

With the riding, my goals were a little Canter Passenger lesson, to practice taking her halter on and off while mounted and maybe some Cloverleaf. She wasn't thrilled with any of this. There was some bucking and general grumpiness - however, not from me. I'm learning. She needs to go forward/maintain gait as a priority over maintaining direction. So if she needs help to go, I don't argue about where. Just go! Then I gently and smoothly guide her back to our route. Of course, there's no route in a Passenger lesson. Iona's route was to the gate on that one, but we eventually made a little progress. After a couple of short canters I let that go for the day.

I hoped that the Cloverleaf might help her impulsion and also get her mind on X instead of the gate. She knows the pattern well, and we had been doing Question Box yesterday, so she saw the plan right away. Our arena's quite big. Normally, I think this is good for a short horse, but it also means it's a long way to X on the Cloverleaf! I figured it was much too far to trot - haha! So every time we went through X I did a downward transition to walk for about twenty strides. As soon as she got more cooperative we stopped for a rest. I took the opportunity to take the halter off and on. We changed the rein and did a few more, and again I looked for some good stuff to reward. I think we both felt pretty happy by the time we stopped.

Fells Do it Again!

2011-01-11T23:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was pretty cold, so all we did was feed the horses. I wondered how that would go. Dove is still pretty worried about being fed in the group, and now Ranger and Journey need to learn the ropes. They all made it through the gate, which currently opens near the feeding area, but it was a bit chaotic with the Fells throwing their weight around, Hunter trying to boss the new mares into sticking with him, etc. So in the end the three new horses all ran around toward the loafing shed, and we just gave them their buckets there.

I didn't want to continue this pattern, as the loafing shed spur is not a good place to catch horses. So this morning we blocked the track a bit up from the gate before I called them in. So it ended up that the three new horses had enough space, but were also contained. So far so good. Now I wanted to catch Bruce, Journey and Dove. Logically I would have gone for the easiest horse first, but Dove, Journey, and Hunter all got busy hiding behind each other, and behind the rather oblivious Ranger. They squirted back and forth past me in the long narrow space a couple of times, while I tried to get their respect, and Bruce and Iona decided that it would be a fun game to hold them at one end to help me out. It did help, and I caught Journey first, handed her out to Mark and went back for Dove.

It's so cool when the Fells do this, and I see that they are getting better at it and more obedient about not taking pot shots at the horses I'm trying to catch. I think it's amazing that they have decided to do this without any real encouragement on my part. I've written about this behaviour before (Fells to the Rescue), but even so, it felt like a fluke. It's becoming clear, though. Just like a sheepdog, it's vitally important that I can control them. If I can, wow!! It's a huge help. I am really thrilled at their desire to partner up in this way. Next question, though: does it cause the horse I'm trying to catch to respect me less?

Journey was pretty easy to catch, but she's hard to halter. She gets high headed and stiff necked. Each time I devote some time to helping her lower her head and relax. I'm sure we'll get there. We had a session together in the arena, playing the first three games. The Friendly stuff will need more work before she is as relaxed as I'd like, and I need to resist the temptation to move on to other things too quickly. However, she seems able to learn, and we also need a language, to oil the wheels of day to day life together. It seems that the act of being haltered is the hardest thing for her, so far.

I also spent some time with Bruce, although it was getting very cold by that time. We worked on Porcupine Games around his head, and he was very soft and easy to move around this way, even though he was goofing off, and not terribly attentive. I moved on to some Zone 5 Driving with one line. He has done quite a bit of this over the years, but it's been awhile for us. At first it was just rubbish and all he wanted to do was go to obstacles and he kept turning around or backing up in order to get his head near me to ask for treats. Really annoying, and it was working. I got annoyed. Oops! Initially, I just nagged and grumbled, which made him even more scattered. Ar one point he managed to swing his rear end into me and on a reflex, no doubt fueled by the frustration I was already feeling, I whacked him pretty hard on said rear. At least I had the emotional fitness to go "How interesting." NOT apologize, and have a look at his response. He lost a little confidence, but he started paying a lot more attention. We managed a Figure 8 around two half barrels without him putting his foot on them, so I was glad I stuck with it. THEN I apologized and rubbed his poor little butt.

He then did some very respectable walk-trot-canter transitions on a circle. His impulsion is sooo much better since his time with Livia. I wonder what she did!!

Everybody Out!

2011-01-09T22:52:00.001-07:00

Most of today was taken up with moving horses from A to B. I can now report that every horse we own can be haltered and led. (It's all I did all day, endlessly.) It's a start!

Our plan was to check out Journey's willingness to be haltered in a small area, and if it was possible then we would introduce both her and Ranger to the other horses with a view to turning them out. We achieved our plan!

I had some trouble catching Dove. Hunter has latched onto her, in the same way he previously did with Dakota and Scooter. He likes to have a "friend" to herd around and doesn't want anyone to touch them, and his friend is not allowed to leave him unless he says so! Hunter has been pretty easy to catch the past few months, and I think it's because it's just been him and the Fells. Obviously they won't play his games. But now that he has Dovey it's another story. Fortunately we managed to get them separated, and then Dove was much better. However, she'd lost her softness again. I was a little disappointed that yesterday's magic didn't last, but I'll get it working, I'm sure.

It only took Mark a minute or two to convince Journey that it would be okay to be haltered. He did put the lead rope over her neck first, as she was skeptical, but he wasn't sneaky. He let her sniff the halter and rope, rubbed her head for a bit and talked to her and that was that. Halter on, and here's your cookie!

Meanwhile, I installed Ranger in the arena with a flake of hay on a tarp. That's become my method for introducing new horses to the herd. I wouldn't use this method with every herd boss, but Bruce is so confident and seems to have a policy of using only the minimum force necessary to make his point. So I put one pile of hay out, and it's easy to tell when an agreement has been reached. Even so, I was a little concerned about Bruce and Ranger. Ranger is a very big, athletic boy. Playful, pushy and like Bruce, a former stud. I would be very upset if Bruce got hurt.

Ranger had a few bucks and rears while tearing around the arena, before I brought Bruce in. I let him settle a bit and find the hay. Bruce was really more interested in the hay than he was in Ranger, and ignored him a lot of the time. He even let him eat some peripheral strands of hay. After awhile Bruce drove Ranger around the arena for a bit. Ranger kicked him once and after that Bruce drove him from a couple of feet further back. They ate a bit more hay and then started playing with the hay tarp and abusing the arena obstacles like a couple of hooligans, so I guess Bruce has a new friend.

I put Iona in with them and she couldn't even be bothered to kick Ranger. Honestly, I think Bruce and Iona meet so many new horses that they just don't care anymore. I also like to think that the peaceful atmosphere here and plenty of space and Parelli helps. So I gathered up Ranger and Iona and put them in pens and introduced Journey to Bruce. Another non event, as was putting Iona back in. Ranger's reappearance started to stir things up a bit, as he now had "his" mare (Journey) to protect. So there was a bit of running around and posturing. I don't think Journey is any more interested in being rounded up by other horses than she is in being rounded up by humans, though.

Hunter certainly tried to round her up when I put him in. That set them all of on a mad gallop around. Journey was too funny, taking off with Hunter and Ranger in hot pursuit. She can really move fast, but braking seems to be limited to a series of stiff legged bounces. Wouldn't like to ride that! Bruce was wildly excited by this time, bucking and high blowing, galloping sometimes and doing fancy trots. But also conserving energy by making smaller circles further inside the arena while the big ones did laps on the rail.

Iona mostly stood in the middle and watched. Sometimes Bruce just stayed in the middle and bucked. Now Bruce and Iona don't always like to move their feet that much, it's true. But I also wondered if I was seeing a bit of learned behavior. The center of the arena being the sweet spot. The honeycomb exercises they've done on courses where you get to stop if you go to the middle. I wonder.

I put Dove in last, and she and Journey paired up, leaving Hunter without his hostage/friend. They all calmed down and I picked up the tarp and barrels that had been tossed around, so that they don't blow away in the next storm. I opened the gate. and got the Fells moving out and down the track. Everybody followed us until we reached the grazing cell gate. So we now have everyone out. I'm so happy for them. That's where horses belong.

The weatherman says we're now due for another big freeze up, so I don't know how much we'll get done with horses the next few days. I sure won't miss the constant hay net stuffing and pen cleaning, though!

Great Girls

2011-01-08T23:25:00.002-07:00

Journey

I had another little session with Journey yesterday. It started well, but having at first made a little more progress, things seemed to slip backwards. I'm really not sure why. I came away with the feeling that I should have kept the session much shorter and quit after the first bit of progress. However, as I thought about it in the evening, I also came to the conclusion that because she has such a pattern of evasion, it might be much more effective to get a rope on her. I was kind of expecting this to turn into a rodeo event. We even watched a video of Pat halter breaking a mustang after supper to get in the mood.

This morning, as I was mentally preparing for the day, I really tried to put myself in Journey's place and feel what she feels. My impression was "No, I mustn't give in...but what if is isn't so bad?" I had a strong sense of Journey's need to learn to become a "horse-man" in order to get along in life and have a bright future - maybe even some fun. But first we had to pick up a load of hay for the cows, and unload last week's horse hay. Then I played with Dove, which I'll tell you about shortly.

By this time it was late enough in the afternoon that I felt I could reasonably not bother with Journey. I admit I was having some doubts. I checked the footing in the round pen. It was okay. I got my 45' line and played a bit in the small part of Journey's pen. I could see that it wouldn't be too hard to get a loop over her head. So I set up the barriers that allow her to go from her pen to the round pen. Last time, I had to push her quite a bit to get her there, but today she surprised me by just calmly walking out of her pen and around the corner and into the round pen.

I made a couple of tentative attempts at getting the loop on. Mark was watching and declared that he could get the job done. She really is his horse, so I said "Go for it!". He took his time rubbing her head and showing her the loop, and sending her around the pen if she wouldn't let him progress, or decided to leave. His timing was really good. I know that we were both wondering what the heck was going to happen when she finally felt the pressure of that loop. Well finally Mark made his move, but so did she, and the rope ended up behind her jaw but in front of her ears. Eek! She was surprisingly calm about this (and the light began to dawn on us...) and let him put it back over her ears. We were still waiting for the explosion that never came. Instead she gave us the classic "Oh, well, you've caught me now" look, of the horse who hates to be caught but accepts the halter perfectly well once it's on. So in spite of the guy we bought her from thinking she hadn't been halter broken, it appears that she was.

I then played a LOT of Friendly Games with her. She was very tense. I rubbed her with a carrot stick. and then my hands. It wasn't too hard to get into the zones behind the drive line. I spent a lot of time rubbing her crest, as her head was very high and he neck tense. She began to relax when I rhythmically rocked her crest from side to side. I took a halter, and using the 45' as a safety net, I haltered and unhaltered her a few times. Taking it slow, trying to make it pleasurable. Giving her a treat every time I put it on. She got more and more relaxed and we began to see lots of headshaking, yawning and licking. Pretty soon, she was doing this over every little thing I offered her. We played some Porcupine Game. More yawning. She made huge changes. We finished up by seeing how she felt about Mark slipping a rope over her head again (pretty relaxed) and then me asking her to lower her head and give me some lateral flexion. I led her back to her pen and unhaltered her. I stroked her back and face, just like I'd been doing with the halter on.

We're hoping that we've made a big breakthrough with her. We'd really like to turn her out, but only if we feel she's catchable. At least catchable in a small area. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Dove

This morning's session with Dove was just awesome! As usual, I had a bit of trouble catching her, but then she decided to let me. I hope she will be catching me, soon, but for now this is okay. I left her in a pen while we moved hay around, and even though it was a small pen it took me a couple of minutes to catch her again. Off we went to the arena, where she was pretty skittish and it took us awhile to get out Friendly Game going. However, once we did, it was pretty solid, but I knew it was more toleration than true acceptance. Until I found her itchy spot. That changed everything. Wow! There it was, just behind her jaw. The change was very quick. I almost couldn't believe it. Suddenly I saw the soft eyes and sweet, relaxed face that caught my eye the day we bought her. You could just about hear her thinking. "This is nice. These people are nice. I'm enjoying myself" I felt so happy to be able to give her that.

The Porcupine Game was pretty easy after that, and we also did some basic Zone 2 driving between various obstacles. I then played around with jumping up and down next to her. That freaked her out a bit, so I got to skip and sing and jump around for awhile. It got better. I stepped up onto the pedestal. and that scared her a bit because I grew so tall! However, I was able to rub her and lean over her and stuff and have her stay calm. I had no intention of mounting her, but I thought it'd be good for both of us to have the experience.

I finished up with lowering her head and took her back to her pen. I really like this horse. There is something very sweet about her, and for awhile there I thought it was lost, but we've found it again.

Taking it easy

2011-01-06T14:01:00.000-07:00

I slipped into Journey's pen yesterday with some new ideas and feelings. She did her usual obsessive facing me. I don't like that. I don't like it because I made it, and it's not natural or nice. But I guess it's all about balance.

I had a feeling when we headed for the round pen the first time, that it would be difficult to progress. I just couldn't put my finger on why. Today, I got a little support in the form of a technical suggestion from a friend (thanks, Jeff!), who stated the obvious. If you can only get into Zone 1, try playing the Friendly Game in Zone 5. That gave me pause. Isn't the Catching Game all about driving the rear end away? In order to draw Zone 1? But of course that might be appropriate if Zone 1 is always leaving and Zone 5 might be threatening, but if Zone 1 is in your face and Zone 5 is elusive, then maybe the pendulum needs to swing the other way.

With a reminder to myself to have soft eyes, and a soft attitude, I began the dance to unwind the spiral and try to turn it the other way now. Journey's pen can be divided into two parts. I sent her into the smaller and shut the gate. She snapped to attention and spent quite a bit of time shuffling around as I tried to approach her hindquarters. I tried to keep my gaze neutral and soft, and was very mindful to keep my head, neck and body straight upright so as not to send her any signals to disengage. Occasionally she would hesitate in her rhythm . . . and I would be too slow with my release. However, I think she still noticed.

The hesitations became pauses, my timing got better, and it only took two or three clear releases for her to figure out what I wanted. Smart horse! During releases, I looked at the horizon, or watched what the cows were doing. Softly. When I was approaching or being in Zone 3-4-5 I was often "touching" her with my gaze, or touching her airspace with my hand, in the same way I will touch her hairspace when she's ready. I mixed things up by letting her sniff my hand, touching her nose and face, even scratching her neck, and also walking away to do little jobs like taking ice out of her water bucket.

I feel that it was a much better session, and more progressive than our others.

Once we finished our session, I decided to put Ranger in with her. They have been friendly over the fence all week, and they haven't been eating their hay very well. So I thought a bit of company and friendly competition for food might make a good change for both of them. That went very smoothly, and I think Ranger will definitely be the boss.

In between chores I saw the other four horses all standing nearby at the loafing shed, so I thought I would just go out and be friendly. I decided to carry a halter and rope just for fun. The Fells came over for scratches and cookies. Hunter hung back, so I made a few overtures. He tried to herd Dove away and to hide behind her. So I made a point to stay until he was more relaxed and even ready to be haltered. I haltered him, gave him some cookies and then led him over to Dove, where I was able to give her some scratches, too. Then I took the halter off and left. Tee hee.

Attitude

2011-01-04T22:47:00.004-07:00

Much of my time lately had been taken up with the Catching Game. Either playing with Journey, or trying to catch Dove. I've already touched on my "revelations" about my technique, but that stems partly from my attitude. I have just started reading a book about spirituality by Frank MacEowen. It's called The Mist-Filled Path, and so far I like it very much. I had an "a-ha!" moment today when reading this passage:

I slowly came to understand that when approaching nature and spirit, one must enter these realms with a gentle openness of heart. We cannot make demands when encountering the sacred world. It is the overly analytical perception of reality, as well as the belief that we are somehow owed an experience, that immediately exiles us from the richness of the numinous power around us, within us, and within the earth. We have to be open.

And also this one where the author quotes from a conversation he had with an Ojibway man about moving in nature:

"The Four Leggeds and the Winged Ones live to a different rhythm. Theirs is the rhythm of soft eyes and soft feet: Two Leggeds have hard eyes and hard feet. When most humans go into the forest they enter with so much of the world on them that any possibility of feeling the sacred is removed. When we go into the forest we must become soft like the animal people and the tree people."

Yes, I have been thinking a lot about positioning myself here of there, about timing, release and draw. All these things are important. But so is attitude. I would not hesitate to say that I think of Horse-Man-Ship as a spiritual practice in my life. But mostly I "have so much of the world on me" and am so direct line, that I abandon spirituality in the presence of horses, just when they most need me to have it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My relationship with Dove continues to develop in baby steps. We have now moved the herd to the next grazing cell. It opens almost directly onto the water trough area, which is where I generally offer morning bucket feeds. This has made it easy to get the horses in for feeding. Dove continues to be skeptical, and nervous of herd life. She is a bit of a loner, so far, and doesn't care for being in close quarters at feeding time. I have been going out of my way to be her guardian and protector. She's obviously taking this in with some surprise and relief, so I will keep up with what I'm doing.

Secret Life of the Herd

2010-12-31T22:33:00.000-07:00

This morning Dove was standing on the track, halfway up the drive, while the rest of the herd were eating in the grazing cell. "Poor thing," I thought. "I'd better go help her." So I grabbed a halter, with a plan to put her back in with Journey until the weather gets better. Of course, she was having none of it - didn't want to be caught. So I walked her back to the pasture, instead. Then I had a look at the tracks in the snow. It seemed like the whole herd had last been along that stretch in the early part of the night, but then Journey had ventured out for a drink of water in the morning and was simply stopping to eat weeds. Maybe she's not so helpless after all.

After breakfast I headed out to the pasture to bring them in for feed and to close the gate, with a plan to move them to the next grazing cell after they got their buckets. Bruce and Iona came easily, I shut the gate and took Hunter out next, but Dove was not up for it. Catching Game in a 10 acre field in 6 inches of snow. "Oh, boy!" An hour in, it wasn't getting much better. (I realised that I wasn't being entirely consistent with my body language and responses, though, which was a useful revelation that I'll come back to in a moment.) I stuck with it, and fortunately Mark saw my problem from where he was working and hatched a plan. He drove to the pasture gate and got out of his car, which kind of drew her that way. I'm sure she was looking for a change of pattern. (I know I was!) I helped her out the gate and we corralled the four of them in the feeding area. I was finally able to get her haltered in this smaller area.

What I could see was that she was frightened of the other horses, particularly the Fells. I don't think she likes being in close quarters with them at feeding time. Naturally their energy is a little high. I have made sure that she gets to eat in safety, but there have probably been some skirmishes at the water tank. The best I could do was to make sure I kept her safe while she ate her feed. She relaxed quickly when she saw that I would defend her space, and that the others respect me. I hope I got some leadership points, but I expect that it will be tricky to catch her off and on for awhile.

The new grazing cell gate opens almost directly onto the water and feeding area, so at least we won't have horses missing the gate when the herd leaves without them this month. Perhaps we can establish some more positive patterns.

Mark and I drove out on the track, to connect the temporary fence of the new cell to the main live fence. What a story the tracks in the snow told. It seems that the horses left the loafing shed while the storm was still blowing last night. They probably stopped off in the pasture for awhile, and then they headed on up the track! They went quite a ways along the north side, maybe to shelter from the north wind in some trees. They emptied two of their five haynets on the way back to the pasture in the morning, where they lay down in the snow and went to sleep.

I was surprised at how much they had moved around. The track doesn't currently make a complete loop, as we've had to close a section. I have had the impression that they haven't been using the north part of the track at all. But last night's activity made me wonder whether they move around a lot more at night than we realise. Or was last night different because of the storm? We only know what they did last night because of their tracks in the snow. Hmmm.

So back to that revelation. I realised that my Catching Game was wavering between putting pressure on Zone 5 and retreating when I got two eyes, and just plain trying to catch the darn horse! OMG! When did that creep into my habits? Who knows! But I think I understand now why things got stuck with Journey, too. Wish me luck!

Just Smashing!

2010-12-30T23:50:00.003-07:00

Tuesday, Dove got her feet trimmed. I had managed to pick them up a few times, and our trimmer, John Graves does a nice job with less-than-confident horses, so things went great. I decided that having passed this milestone, and now being pretty easy to catch, I'd introduce her to the herd and if all went well, turn her out. I put Bruce in the arena and took Dove in and led her around the perimeter to show her the fence. (We put a training wire, that looks just like the stuff on the track in Dove and Journey's pen a few days ago.)

Once I let her go, Bruce tried to sniff her rear end, she made to kick him with one of those long hind legs, and he whirled around and squealed and double barreled her to let her know that's not advisable. With that out of the way, they totally lost interest in each other. I put two piles of hay on a tarp for them and they ate pretty well in close proximity until the hay ran low. Then Bruce started nipping her shoulder to move her off.

While they had their lunch date I played a bit with Iona in the round pen. (I've missed using the round pen. It's been a calf hospital for ages, however, the calf is finally better and been moved in with some buddies.) We worked on our Porcupine stuff, did a few successful changes of direction and transitions, and I hopped on for a brief bridleless session. It all went well, especially the circles and riding. I can pretty well fake having the stick in my right hand now, if I use it two handed or just drag it along. However, she was pretty light and I didn't need it much. I'm afraid that I still don't have much of a program about progressing with Bruce and Iona these days, other than getting better responses with the Porcupine Game, especially where their heads are concerned. I just mess around and do what I can. Liberty is the easiest, although Iona is not bad to ride. I try to keep the sessions short and not show them too much about what I can't do.

I then put Iona in the arena with the other two. She wasn't interested in Dove at all. Just wanted to stand by the gate with Bruce. Okay then! I spent just a couple minutes catching Dove, haltered her, and we all started down the track. I encouraged the Fells to walk in front and Dove and I followed. We stopped for a drink and then headed on out to the pasture. I let Dove graze on line for a little while then took the halter off. I hung out for a bit, then made sure that I could still catch her. That took maybe five minutes of persistence. She looked pretty relieved when I let her go again!

I had left Hunter in the pen next door to Journey for company. However, he didn't have to stay there long, as Mark arrived home with yet another new horse! This is a gelding that belongs to a workmate of Mark's. Mark has him on trial. He's a sort of "been there, done that" horse, and we've heard good things about him. However. I wasn't prepared for the great big guy who stepped off the trailer. Especially as Mark had forgotten to take a halter with him when he picked him up, so I said, "Oh, don't worry. Just open the trailer door a bit and I'll throw a rope over his neck." Well, here was this big bay, about 16hh, and about 12hh wide! Talk about stocky! He's actually built a little like Iona. Short legs and a really, really deep body. How kids barrel raced him I'll never know, but it must have been something to see. This fellow currently rejoices under the name of "Smash" (part of his registered name). I'm thinking something like "Ranger" might be nice. We'll let you know.

Journey
Most of Wednesday was taken up with picking up a load of hay, but with the round pen clear, I decided it was time to try and make some more progress with Journey. I'd love to be able to turn her out, but I'd also love to be able to catch her again, get her feet trimmed, be able to deal with her (and maybe a foal) if she's pregnant, etc. On the way home we figured out how to create a corridor from her pen to the round pen, where we could open a gap in the panels to drive her in. That went smoothly and I started playing the Catching Game. I'm not surprised that she's proving a tough customer with this. and I wish I had some more Savvy Arrows. I ended up sending her around for ages. She would start to lock on to me, and would face me when I took the pressure off, but I couldn't get any forward steps. In the end I played things a little different and approached her. If she let me make a little progress (first, touch me, then let me touch her and make some progress through the zones) I'd back off. Not all these things at once, of course, but progressively. If she chose to leave, I'd send her out again. If not. we'd do a slow dance where I'd casually try to get back to Zone 5, then send her out. We had quite a long session, and she was a bit sweaty but I managed to get a little further past her withers than we had been so far. I didn't want to push her any harder as it was getting late and cold and I didn't want to stress her too much.

Today we had another session. I tried a few new things. One was backing into her space just as her Zone 5 went behind me on the circle. I watched Pat do that on the old Catching Game DVD. However, I think that scared her, so I quit. We also had a period when the whole thing took on a more playful feeling. I think that was great, but somewhere it dribbled away and I didn't really find it again. I also tried using a telescoping rod to touch her. It was a bit cumbersome and not quite long enough for the size of the pen, but I'll try it again in a smaller space. Toward the end of the session I'm pretty sure I approached too much and retreated too little. Darn! I felt that I'd taught her to keep facing me but we weren't progressing much past that. I also discovered that she really doesn't want me on her left side, so I worked on that, and when she let me touch her a little there, we called it a day. Later, when I was doing chores in her pen, I noticed that she was obsessively facing me. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing.....

I also had short sessions with Bruce and Smash/Ranger today. Bruce and I mainly worked on Game 2 at Liberty. I could tell he would like to do more, but I didn't have a plan. At least the little bit we did went pretty well.

I managed to play the first four Games with the big guy. He's been a little pushy and disrespectful so far, so we defined my space. He went along with this, but I can tell he doesn't really believe me yet. Surprisingly, his Porcupine and Driving was pretty good in all Zones. It's possible he's been played with a little in the past. I think his owners have flirted with PNH. Yo-yo was harder. He couldn't believe that Phase 1 or 2 meant anything. Perhaps my energy could have been clearer? Having given him a couple of BIG Phase 4s, I settled for some good steps at Phase 3.

It's amusing to have all these things that I can do with horses I hardly know. The first four Games one handed are pretty easy. So is most of the work with Journey. But at the same time, I can do so little with my "advanced" horses. At least the new guys are keeping me occupied.

Snowstorm
A bit of a blizzard hit this afternoon, and they say we will have some really low temperatures for awhile. Because Bruce was in, the others hung around the yard area all day and didn't go get their hay. By the time Bruce was out the storm was coming, and he was not sure whether to take them out to the pasture or stay near the shed. I knew they were hungry and needed something in their bellies for the cold night. They got halfway up the drive and stood around eating weeds with the snow sticking to them. By dusk they were still there. I decided to put a bale in their shed and walked them to it. Dove isn't well integrated yet. She hangs back and Hunter bullies her a bit. I was worried that she wouldn't get into the shed or get any hay, so I offered to catch her, and would have let her wait the storm out with Journey, but she wasn't having it, and it was getting dark and I was frozen. I felt bad, as she's a bit thin. but she's lived out all her life and I know she'll be fine. If she's looking unhappy in the morning I'll catch her and give her some TLC.

Outsmarted

2010-12-26T22:52:00.007-07:00

This afternoon I placed the tires out by the electric poles as planned. That part was straightforward, but let me just backtrack a little. What with the arm and everything, I got a little sloppy the past few months with the herd's grazing routine. The plan is that I get them out of the grazing cell first thing in the morning, and let them back in around sunset. Needless to say, there can be arguments some mornings, and sometimes they can also get a little spooked about something and not want to come through their gate and past certain areas. However, for a number of weeks we hit a nice routine and they were pretty much bringing themselves in. (They have to come in to drink.) Of course that just made me complacent, and so the rot set in.

This month, the grazing rotation brought them down near the house. That's great! Less walking and hassle to get them in, I thought. Especially in the winter weather. However, Bruce saw an opportunity and so started bringing them the short trip in to drink before we got up in the morning, and taking them straight back out to the grass. Then with little further motivation to come in, they were difficult to round up.

Bruce - 1
Kris - 0

A variation on that was that they would drink in shifts, and if they saw me coming to take the straggles out, the drinkers would run back in.

Bruce - 2
Kris - 0

Then the gate became a very scary place, and it was like pulling teeth to get them in, even though they were so thirsty their tongues were hanging out.

As I only started the hay nets recently, and they were getting a lot of grass, they weren't really bothering to walk up and eat them most days, and I didn't always notice when the nets were finally emptied. The past week, though, I noticed that Bruce was bringing them in much better on the mornings when hay was available. While they were in drinking, we would zip out and close the gate, and they would wander up and get the hay.

Bruce - 2
Kris - 1

Later in the day, they would hang out at the loafing shed, or wander around the track looking for pickings of fallen leaves and stuff, basically waiting to see us head up to open the gate to the grass. Late in the afternoon, while they were focused on the gate, I would put out hay for the next day. Perfect! Except, as I mentioned yesterday, Hunter wasn't getting to eat any.

Late this afternoon I put out the tires, and the hay for tomorrow. An hour later when I went to open the gate I saw them already stuffing themselves on tomorrow's hay.

Bruce - 3

Kris -1

I can guess that they will not be coming out of that grass willingly tomorrow morning. And I'll need to figure out a new routine. Probably put the hay out in the morning before I try to herd them out. I don't really mind. Being outsmarted by Bruce is one of the great pleasures of my life!

Game 1, Game 2 ...

2010-12-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

Dove's progress

It only took a couple of minutes to get Dove haltered today. Out of curiosity, I tried just walking up to her. That wasn't welcome, so I started sending her around. Ha ha! That wasn't welcome either. I could hardly get her to trot. She was doing stuff like going along the fence and stopping at her water bucket and looking at me like "Can't go any further. This is in my way." At that point I did throw the line at her and get her to trot a couple of laps. Halter on! I think we could be looking at a serious LBI (Lazy and Bone Idle). Interesting, since her pedigree is full of winning race horses. We'll see.

Friendly game continued. I introduced the Carrot Stick. That was no problem. I doubt that she's ever seen a whip, so it was just a "thing" to her. Rubbed her all over. A few slightly iffy spots, but nothing dramatic. Got all four feet picked up. Good, as the trimmer's coming in a couple of days. Moved on to the Porcupine Game. Surprise, surprise - the rear end was light and the front end was heavy. I decided to see if I could make the right thing a little easier, by backing her up first, to lighten her front end, and then staying in rhythm while asking the front feet to move across. I learned this technique from Adrian Heinen, and have used it on more advanced horses, but never tried it on a horse just learning this. I think it did make it easier for her to move, although I'll still need to isolate it later. My idea was that if I make it easier for her to comply at this stage, she might have a more positive feeling about it.

I fed her a bunch of treats and petted and scratched her and let her go. I can see her taking in these new experiences with amazement and starting to relax a little. It's nice to watch. I'm wondering whether we might get as far as backing her a little if the weather holds for awhile. I know that if we don't do it soon, we will probably have a long wait while she is heavily pregnant and then looking after a foal. Something tells me not to go too slow with this horse, but we'll see!

Track adjustments

The other horses are now using a grazing cell which is close to the house, loafing shed and water, so in order to keep them moving I've been putting a bit of hay out on the track during the day. They don't really need it, but they do need motivation to move. I've mainly been hanging the nets on a convenient row of electric poles that run along the west side, however they are too far apart, and Hunter is not getting to eat any hay. The Fells go from pole to pole sharing a net while Hunter stands and politely watches them dine. He's just too dependent on them to go all the way to the next pole and eat by himself. It's not a great situation since of the three horses, Hunter is the only one who isn't fat. So today Mark and I collected a bunch of tires from the east side of the track (which we've had to close for awhile due to fencing issues) and tomorrow I'll place them near the poles, ready to have hay nets tied to them. I'll let you know how that works out.

Catching Dove

2010-12-24T23:31:00.000-07:00

Dove and Journey

Two weeks ago Mark and I went to a farm auction. The owner was selling up. He was a breeder of Appaloosas and Quarter Horses of quite good quality and we came home with two mares. A nine year old gray whom I named Dove, and a three year old bay that Mark has named Journey. Dove is halter broken and probably had two or three rides put on her as a youngster. She has been used as a broodmare. Journey probably isn't halter broken, and we don't think she's been ridden. Both are probably in foal.

So far they are fairly timid or skeptical about people. Dove will tolerate being touched, but obviously doesn't enjoy it, although she's not really that scared, I'd say. Just cautious. Journey is more curious about us, but at the same time more timid. I have only touched her nose and face, so far. Mark has gotten slightly further. Journey also makes a lot of grumpy faces and occasional threats. So far she hasn't followed through, but I'm sure she could. Her eyes are always the first thing people comment on. The whites show a lot of the time. This seems to be partly conformational, but she also has that habit of arching her "eyebrows" when she's worried, which is a lot of the time. She's going to be quite a challenge, we suspect.

I've spent some time just sitting in their pen reading, and stuff like that. They do come and check me out. One day I put a haynet under my chair, which made me a lot more interesting, and that day I got to touch Dove a lot more. Then I got busy and haven't done much for a few days. However, this morning as Mark and I were standing looking at them I felt the moment was right to do a little more with Dove. I took a halter and lead rope and played an informal and low key Catching Game.

It went much as I expected. She didn't get scared, but there was no magical moment when I suddenly got lots of draw or she decided to "join up". The pen is an odd shape with lots of corners, plus a run-in area. Luckily they didn't want to be in the run-in with me (too trappy) and it was pretty easy to keep them circling. I say "them" because of course Journey is in the pen, too, and had to come along for the ride. She likes to stick close to Dove for security, and at times seemed to be trying to cut me off from her. Dove pretty much ignores Journey's insecurity, and didn't try to hide behind her at all. I tried not to put too much pressure on them, and stuck to walk and trot. Canter might have been a more effective gait, but Journey is pretty reactive, while it would have taken quite a bit to get Dove going, I think. We are in a tape pen, the ground is hard, their feet aren't that great, and they're pregnant. Lot's of good reasons to keep is low key.

How it went was that I would send her around for awhile, and she would begin to show signs of relaxing and/or locking onto me a bit, or wanting to stop at a favorite spot. I didn't have draw, so I would experiment with going over and letting her sniff me and/or trying to pet her. Sometimes I could, sometimes I couldn't. I tried to time sending her off again to her offering to leave. If she didn't offer then I would walk away and chat to Mark for a moment or two. I did feel we were reaching a stalemate at one point, and by this time Journey was getting used to the proceedings, and figuring out that this was just not about her, so I was able to up the pressure a bit and throw the line out at Dove. I got to where I could pet her and she would stand for longer, then actually rub her with the halter and rope. I walked away.

Pretty quickly after that there was a very clear change, and she let me put the halter on with no rush, no sneaking, and I felt she accepted it. We had a walk around the pen. I was very careful not to let Journey get between me and Dove with that halter on, as I feared that could turn into a wreck. I then had a look at how she felt about being touched in more provocative areas, and hand fed her some hay for awhile, and let her go. The hardest thing resisting the urge to try to touch her again before I walked away, but I knew it was the wrong thing!

If I did a good job today, tomorrow it will take half the time.

and Brucie

After this incredible feat of horse whispering, thank goodness Bruce was around to help return me to humility. I thought I might just give him a nice grooming and a bit of attention, but it was obvious that he wanted to do more. As soon as I tied him up he had to play with everything, and clown around. So we did the grooming thing and I put his bareback pad on. We headed for the arena. I thought we might work on some Figure 8s.

I started On Line. The 22' is too heavy for my wrist, so we were limited to the 12'. He pulled on me a couple of times and I decided that was a no-no, so we went in the roundpen, where we had a pretty good session recently. He did some nice transitions, but perhaps not quite as nice as last time. (Hmmm. I'd better monitor myself, or I'm going to allow him to get dull.) Then I tried some changes of direction between two cones, but he was doubtful about that. Because I know he can get a little unconfident with that I was trying it at a walk. I had no draw! It actually went better a little later when he was trotting and cantering.

Things seemed to be improving, so I tried some Stick to Me outside the pen. That was great so I hopped on. I had no lateral flexion ot the right (my bad hand). It really took some getting, and when I finally got it, I gave him a treat. I'm not sure it was the right strategy. He did one or two nice things, but I spent most of the ride dragging him away from obstacles I had not asked him to visit. Aaarggghhh! It was pretty messy and although you simply can't out-muscle Bruce anyway. having a weak hand didn't help. My little pony turned out to be too much horse for me, so I found a good note to finish on and bailed out. Probably the most harmonious note of the session was me sitting down on the ground and inviting him to roll. I'm sure it was his favorite part!

Still my Black Angel

2010-12-24T00:22:00.001-07:00

You might expect that my relationship with Iona would be damaged by our wreck. I have to say "No." My confidence is in good shape, and I don't bear her any ill will. She was just being a horse. She certainly didn't respect my space at that moment, but she wasn't acting aggressively toward me. She had no idea that pushing me out of the way would injure me. It would be nothing to another horse, after all. Let's move on.

A couple of days after the accident I thought I'd try some Liberty. I figured that losing the rope was a plus, since I only had one hand. We headed for the roundpen to try out some stuff Jena Cody had shown us. What I got was a very confused pony. My stick was in the "wrong" hand half the time! We hung in there and finished the session, but I had to stop and think about this. Did I really want to teach a bunch of new cues that would be pointless in a couple of months? No! Were we ready to go stickless? Huh-uh. Were the other Savvies going to be easier? HAHAHAHA!!!

Another day I thought I might have a little ride. It was windy, and I couldn't really warm up effectively. I dragged her to the mounting block anyway and wrestled her into position. I got halfway on and she said "Don't do this!" So I lay on her like a green colt for a moment and jumped off the other side. That was my ride.

Recently, I have been for a couple of rides around the property with friends. My arm is a little more useful, and fairly safe in the brace. On the first ride, Iona took off for the comfort of the herd twice and I couldn't stop her. However, it all felt pretty safe, and kind of got me over my worries about riding with The Arm. Sunday, I was out again with Denise riding Bruce and Sara on Sage. We did spend time warming up, and I was amazed at how responsive and connected Iona was in the arena. The ride went pretty well, too.

So today I thought I'd play for a bit. I have tried to continue to work on the Porcupine game, especially in Zone 1. Today we continued that and I wasn't thrilled with how it went. One of the things I tried was leading by the ear. We can kinda do this, but it's not pretty. This evening I was suddenly hit by a picture of me just grabbing her ear and pulling. Eek! Now, it wasn't quite like that, but it probably seemed like it to her. Shucks, I'm supposed to be doing this in the name of lightness and responsiveness. Maybe I should try to offer some. You know, go slow...reward the slightest try. Great! I think I know where I'm going wrong with this.

However, we had some good stuff, too. We were in a small pen with no toys. How to be provocative? Porcupine and Driving in the other Zones was pretty good. I tried a little Zone 5 Driving using just my hands. She is very sensitive to whether I'm asking her to go forward or back. I love that! It really does feel magical. Turning to left and right is a little harder, but if we concentrate, we can. We also backed in a circle and kept the belly of the rope on the ground. We played a fun game where I positioned her so that each of her feet in turn had to step on a piece of brick that was on the ground. We did lead by the leg with just my hand around her hock. What a cool pony I have!

I needed to pick up empty hay nets from the track. I thought we might ride part of that trip. I clipped on a set of reins. (I recently got a set of 7' ones, and what a difference it makes to have some the right length!) However, she felt a little high to me, so I sort of rode her from the ground, using the reins to cue her most of the way, and as a lead rope once I had my hand full of nets. Then we had a little ride in the arena. That went well. I tried not to use the reins at all. There were quite a few cones and barrels and stuff scattered around, and I tried to use them as markers, so that I wasn't too aimless. She was spot on with almost everything I asked her.

What Happened

2010-12-23T23:30:00.000-07:00

What happened is this: A week or so after my last post I broke my arm. A lot of you already know the story, but just in case, here it is.

After Livia left us, we headed straight into preparing for a big event. Petra, Kime and another instructor, Jena Cody, offered a day of free lessons and a tournament here. We had a lot to do to get ready, so unfortunately horsemanship took a back seat that week. The event was fun and quite a success. Then once again I started horsing around.

The weather was great that week, and I was managing to get one or two horses ridden nearly every day. So one day I took Brucie out for a ride around the track. Iona and Hunter were following us. I noticed that Iona's following had a slight air of desperation. She tends to get very hormonal in the autumn. I had put out some extra mounting blocks near some of our many gates, to make it easier to get through them (they're hotwire gates, and I don't really like to work them from the saddle) so I decided to leave the track by one of these and continue riding Bruce in the pasture. This wasn't to get away from the other horses, just somewhere different to ride.

I had decided not to take my stick. Since Bruce is the lead horse, his space doesn't really need defending, and I feel that everyone who rides him (me included) prefers the stick to the reins, since his Porcupine Game is not as good as his Driving Game. I'm trying to change this. I dismounted to go through the gate, and I was lazy, so rather than untie the mecate, I flipped the reins over his head. Iona and Hunter were about twenty feet away. In spite of how Iona had been feeling, I didn't think to check in with her or make eye contact. Things had been going great between us for weeks.

I never saw her coming. She hit me like a train. The only warning I had was a face full of black that must have been her neck. She knocked me out of her way and I watched in amazement as Bruce jumped me. Not very well, I might add, he stepped on my arm twice - but not the one that got broken. (Go figure that one out.) I'm guessing that either the hotwire hit him, or he was avoiding it. He's terrified of electricity.

I stood up a little shocked at how bad my wrist hurt, but fully expecting the pain to go away momentarily. It didn't. It just got worse. Darn! (Or words to that effect.) So I hobbled back to the house with Bruce in tow and let Mark untack him and catch Iona while I licked my wounds.

I was convinced that it was only a bad sprain, and hung onto that belief for three weeks. The pain wasn't too bad, but I finally had to admit it wasn't mending. Long story short, it was broken into quite a few pieces, and I ended up with surgery to re-break it and put in a plate and screws. This journey included a full arm splint and sling, then a splint and bandage the size of Texas, then a cast, and now I've graduated to a part-time brace. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm still on restricted activity for now. Looks like it will be fine, though!

So I've watched October, November and most of December roll by, with some of the best riding weather ever, and been able to do next to nothing. Typing, cooking, playing music were also very hard work, and mostly I didn't bother. I admit that it got me down a lot of the time. However, it sure gave me time to think. I realised some uncomfortable truths about myself. How I view horses when I'm not able to use them to pursue my dreams, how I define myself by my activities, how I use those activities as an escape from my responsibilities... Yes, it's been a lot of fun. Not! But learning is rarely comfortable. Given a choice I would have skipped this episode, but I'm glad it's given me a new view on things. I hope that I will use what I've learned for positive change!

Bruce is Back - First Session

2010-10-21T21:09:00.001-06:00

Livia returned Bruce to me, safe and sound, a couple of weeks ago. She and I spent an enjoyable few days together, playing with him, riding, and talking about some of the things she learned during her time as an extern at the Parelli ranch in Pagosa Springs. During one session, I watched her ride Bruce in the Cradle Bridle. I think both Livia and Bruce were tired, and the session wasn't great. It really got me thinking, yet again, about where I stand on bits, on so-called collection, etc.

Like a lot of Parelli students, I would prefer to ride without a bit. I'm not vehemently against them, but they aren't my ideal, either. However, I'm curions, and recently experimented a little with Iona in the Cradle, and found it pretty easy to get a "soft feel" that might just develop into something we could both enjoy. The conclusion that I've come to is that most of us don't have our Porcupine Game in Zone 1 anywhere near good enough to be messing around with contact with a bit. For sure, Bruce's Zone 1 stuff has never been very good at all. When I first started riding him, I couldn't steer him at all in a hackamore. Of course, I thought that just because we could play the 7 Games fairly well that it was time to get on and start riding him. And when that was difficult, I just fought with him as best I could.

I haven't ridden him in the hackamore since he came back from the ISC, so I don't know yet what may have changed. It is a testament to Livia that she managed some good sessions with him in the Cradle. However, I've made up my mind to make a big effort to get all our horses soft, soft, soft in all their Zone 1 yields, and to explore whether we can even make some steps into contact and collection in the hackamore before we use bits for these things.

All this is really just a prelude to telling you about my session with Brucie today, as I didn't want to interrup the flow of the description explaining all this.

The first things I played with today was yielding the forehand with finger pressure just in front of the girth. Bruce was doing well with this previously, but found it trick to keep his feet still for a complete 360 degree turn. He can do that now, and is lighter and more confident with it than before. Yay!! I also played with lowering his head, backing him up with my fingers on his nose, lateral flexion with my hand on his muzzle, etc. These things felt really good. He need a little more friendly game in his mouth, I think, and then I might try some lead by the lip.

I am still working my way through the tasks I planned with the trailer (see I Have a Plan) so I thought we'd go do that next. My plan was to play the games On Line inside the trailer. We headed to the trailer, which I keep in a roped off area. However, I didn't think I'd need to close the gate! Well, it seems that Bruce has a few concerns about the trailer. Whether he doesn't want to take a six hour trip only to find himself away from home for three months, or just didn't like the hunks of bark and stuff that were decorating the trailer floor (Mark hauled some firewood) I really don't know. I got him in on the first couple of sends, did something he didn't like, so he came out. No big deal. I re-sent him and he just left. Went to talk to the cows about borrowing some alfalfa. Okay, so he still knows how to leave. Not surprised!

Back at the trailer again, I shut the gate this time and tried a few hard sends on a circle, but of course he's too smart for that. Back to trailer loading, then. He wasn't enthusiastic, but it didn't take much to get him going in the trailer easily. He was more sceptical about me coming in, though, so we played with that, and with me playing a bit of Friendly Game with the back door of the trailer, too. In the end, we did manage to play the games inside, although I'd say there were some reactions amongst the responses. It wasn't easy enough to get him to lower his head, for one thing. However, I decided to keep things light and not make the session too long, so I wound things up, and will come back to it later.

Our last task today was circles. My goal was 5 laps of trot on the 22' line. We did this in the arena, in the corner nearest to the loafing shed. I fully expected to have trouble hanging onto him, but he never left. When we started the session my plan was to get first one lap, then three, and then five. He started off constantly breaking gait and leaning on the rope. I decided to fix the leaning first, so I asked for walk. The moment he put slack in the rope I brought him in for a rest. The next time I waited about 12 strides, after he put the slack in, and the next time he managed a full circle. It doesn't take him long to figure things out! (I was proud of myself for remembering my goal of lightness in Zone 1.)

We moved on to trot, and it really didn't take much to reach my goal of 1, 3 and 5 laps. He didn't have a lot of impulsion, and on the five laps, he leaned on the rope sometimes. But I never stopped while he was leaning! We will sort those things out, but at least he maintained gait in this simple task, and understood that slack in the rope is important.

Fun and Games!

2010-09-29T22:43:00.000-06:00

We had a fun time on Sunday. I decided to invite everyone over for a day of mad games that I thought up, based on the 7 Games and Parelli Patterns, but with a few evil twists! We weren't seriously keeping score, but Barney and Kathy Eddy's team won, just in case anybody asks!!

These were the rules - which we bent a little from time to time, along with a few photos.

ON LINE

1.Round Pen Mirror Time 3 minutes
"Leading" pair stand inside the pen, near the gateway. The "mirroring" pair stand outside the pen, at the same point. Follow the rail for one lap, doing a movement at each of the four marked posts. These movements are called out by the leader, and must be mirrored exactly by the other pair. Use HQ and FQ yields, back-up, sideways, squeeze, Driving Game, Porcupine Game, zone 3 driving or Stick to Me creatively. Do not use the same move twice in the same lap. After completing the first lap, riders pass through the open gate and trade leadership for the next lap.

Failure to mirror -1 per task Successful mirror +2 per task

2. Cloverleaf Time 5 minutes

Start with humans side by side, facing carport, one on either side of the yellow cone (X). Horses in zone 3 driving position. Humans are joined together by each holding one end of a Savvy string. Play Friendly Game (neutral, relax, reward, scratch) at X for 10 seconds. Walk one complete Cloverleaf pattern to the right. Stop at X for a 10 second Friendly Game. Do one complete Cloverleaf to the left. The second (and third if you have time!) can be done at trot, if you wish.

+20 for each full Cloverleaf +20 for good rhythm

-20 for getting lost! -10 for dropping the string

3. Pedestal Send Time 3 minutes

With horses on 22' lines, each human sits in a chair, with horse backed up and facing them. On the signal to go, send your horse to the pedestal on your right. When team members are ready, they trade ropes, and send the next horse to their pedestal, always moving to the right.

Nose touch +1 1 foot (or pawing) +2

2 feet +4 4 feet +8

Predatory behavior -10

4. Carrot Stick Hat Weave Time 3 Minutes

Team members stand at one end of the Weave pattern. At the signal to go one human picks up the hat using their carrot stick and directs their horse through the Weave pattern. The human must not pass through the cones.

When the first pair has completed the pattern, they pass the hat to their partner's stick, who does the pattern next. Neither team member is allowed to touch the hat at any time!

Each pattern completed +8

Dropping hat -3

Coming off pattern (missing a cone, etc) -6

5. Yo-yo toss    Time 2 minutes
Stand in the lane of poles, beside your horse, facing your partner's horse, 4' (length of a carrot stick) apart, with the center cone between you. One human has a carrot stick (string removed). On the signal to go, the stickless person asks their horse to back up, encouraged by the person with the stick, who moves forward with their horse to maintain the original distance. Move until the backing pair are just behind the end cone.

The stick is now tossed to the other person, distance adjusted if needed, and the other pair back down the lane to their end cone. Toss stick and repeat.

Each end cone reached +7    Dropping stick -4

Stepping out of lane -6    Not maintaining distance -3

6. Washing Line Point to Point Time 4 minutes

Move the 4 rags from one line to the other, one at a time, as many times as you can. Remember to play a little Friendly Game each time you stop at a washing line. One line must be completely emptied before you start to move the rags back again. Each person can only move one rag at a time. Team members may divide the work any way they wish, or work independently.

Each item moved +5 Dropped item - 10

Failure to play friendly game - 10 Breaking gait during a trip - 5

FREESTYLE

1.Round Pen Mirror Time 3 minutes

"Leading" pair stand inside the pen, near the gateway. The "mirroring" pair stand outside the pen, at the same point. Follow the rail for one lap, doing a movement at each of the four marked posts. These movements may be called out by the leader, and must be mirrored exactly by the other pair. Use direct and indirect reins, halts, back-up, sideways, half or full turns, etc. creatively. Do not use the same move twice in the same lap. After completing the first lap, riders pass through the open gate and trade leadership for the next lap.

Failure to mirror -1 per task    Successful mirror +2 per task
Completing a lap silently +10

2. Cloverleaf    Time 4 minutes
Riding side by side, start facing carport, one on either side of the yellow cone (X). Humans are joined together by each holding one end of a Savvy string. Play Friendly Game (neutral, relax, reward, scratch) at X for 10 seconds. Walk one complete Cloverleaf pattern to the right. Stop at X for a 10 second Friendly Game. Do one complete Cloverleaf to the left. The second can be done at trot, the third at canter, if you wish.

+20 for each full Cloverleaf    +20 for good rhythm
-20 for getting lost!    -10 for dropping the string

3. Pedestal Send    Time 3 minutes per person
One human rides as a passenger, the other sits in a chair, with teammates on 22' line, backed up and facing them. On the signal to go, send your teammates to the small pedestal. With their permission, continue to the large pedestal.

Please use the pedestal for mounting, NOT the chair!

Nose touch +1    1 foot (or pawing) +2
2 feet +4    4 feet +8

Scaring your passenger -10

Passenger uses reins (non-emergency) - 10

4. Carrot Stick Hat Weave    Time 3 Minutes
Team members stand at one end of the Weave pattern. At the signal to go one human picks up the hat using their carrot stick and rides the Weave pattern. When the first pair has completed the pattern, they pass the hat to their partner's stick, who does the pattern next. Neither team member is allowed to touch the hat at any time!

Each pattern completed +8
Dropping hat -3

Coming off pattern (missing a cone, etc) -6

5. Yo-yo toss   Time 2 minutes

Riders face one another, 4' apart, with the center cone between you. One human has a carrot stick (string removed). On the signal to go, the stickless person asks their horse to back up, encouraged by the person with the stick, who moves forward with their horse to maintain the original distance. Move until the backing pair are just behind the end cone.

The stick is now tossed to the other person, distance adjusted if needed, and the other pair back down the lane to their end cone. Toss stick and repeat.

Each end cone reached +7    Dropping stick -4
Stepping out of lane -6    Not maintaining distance -3

6. Washing Line Point to Point    Time 3 minutes
Move the 4 rags from one line to the other, one at a time, as many times as you can. Remember to play a little Friendly Game each time you stop at a washing line. One line must be completely emptied before you start to move the rags back again. Each person can only move one rag at a time. Team members may divide the work any way they wish, or work independently.

Each item moved +5    Dropped item - 10
Failure to play friendly game - 10    Breaking gait during a trip - 5

The News from Springvalley

2010-09-15T21:38:00.001-06:00

It's been another amazing summer. Fun, challenging, hot and busy. We've made new friends and spent time with familiar ones, run some successful events and made quite a few improvements to the place. I'm afraid it didn't leave me enough energy for blogging, which I often regretted, but hopefully I will do better now! So much has happened since that last time I posted that I think a catch up is in order.

Coming Events
Playday!
We need to have some fun in this cooler weather, so I'm organising a playday on Sunday, the 26th of September. I plan to organise some challenges for us, which will involve a look at some of the Patterns and 7 Games as you've probably never imagined them! Just purely for Savvy fun for our regulars and their horses. I can't wait!

More Fun!
This time with Petra Christensen (who is now a 2* Instructor), 2* Kime Conkright and 3* Instructor Jena Cody. On October 17th, they are offering a morning of free (yes, it did say "free") lessons, followed by an afternoon of Parelli Games. We hope to see lots of new local faces and make new friends at this event. We are hoping that Livia will also be around for this. More information coming soon!

And Cooler Weather

This summer was a challenge for me, and others, too. However, we are lucky to have nice autumn weather here, which often stretches into the early winter. September, October and December are usually pretty dry. (Statistically, November is a little wetter, here.) It's a great time to visit us. Why not hook a few extra days onto one of our events, like the Playday or Funday? Staying on after an event is particularly useful, as it gives you the opportunity to play with your horse and consolidate what you learned before returning to the distractions of "real life".

Of course we can't promise that any week of the year will have a particular type of weather, but there is a good chance of dry days which are mild to crisp in temperature. We are keeping our prices the same for now, with short breaks to suit even the tightest budget, money saving working holiday options or easy-going bed and board options that are still great value. For lots more information, and a complete price list click here. We look forward to seeing you!

Bruce on the Loose!

In July, Livia Meneau, from Switzerland, arrived to spend a week with us before taking Bruce to the Colorado ISC (Parelli ranch in Pagosa Springs) for 3 months while she does her externship. We were very impressed with her attitude and I feel she has potential to become a great Parelli Professional. She and I spent an enjoyable week together - playing, riding and preparing. We even managed to fit in a trail ride one day. That may sound like no big deal, but it had been almost two years since I had ridden off the property! The opportunity has been there for awhile, as our neighbor to the east has generously allowed us to ride on his 800 acres. There is a lot of great riding over there, which I'm having fun exploring.

Livia and Bruce checking out our neighbor's water hole

Livia and Bruce are doing well at the ISC, and of course Brucie is a bit of a celebrity, as I would expect. I get little snippets of news from Livia. Being and extern is not an easy road, and she doesn't have much time to write. I also hear a little about them from Petra, as she is working at the ranch and keeping her horses near Bruce. Livia will be back in October for another visit. I am looking forward to spending time and sharing Savvy with her. And I will be thrilled to have Mr Bruce home again!

Partners at the ISC

Holidaymakers

Petra spent a week with us near the end of July. She had the brilliant idea to offer lessons to anyone who wanted to stay here at Springvalley that week, and she also was a very dedicated horseman, herself, spending all the moments she could grab riding and playing with Cash and JB. It was nice to have her around, and to see "The Browns" again. Cash made some nice changes during their week here.

Toward the end of the week we were joined by Harlene and JoAnna and their two horses. They travelled up from the Walsenburg/Gardner area, a couple of hours to the southwest of us. Linda came and stayed and took lessons, too, so we were quite a party. They all had daily lessons, played with their horses and we watched Parelli DVDs together in our spare time. It was a very hot week, in a very hot summer, so a little challenging for all of us, at times. I hope we might see them again when things cool off!

The week was rounded off by the second lesson in the Summer Series with Petra and Kime. It was great to see the group progressing. I felt a little sorry for our spectators, who had to sit in the heat all day, however, Mark had a plan, and it was just a question on time...

Our Auditors Now Have it Made in the Shade!

We became aware in the spring that our clinic and lesson auditors were struggling in the summer heat. We considered various solutions, then Mark had a brainstorm. A carport! So he ordered one of those super-duper pre-fab metal ones (in green, of course!). It provides plenty of sun (or rain) shelter for auditors, and we can park things under it the rest of the time. Unfortunately it took it's time arriving, but we were finally able to use it at the last summer lesson, and what a difference it made! Just as well, too, as the temperature was 105F.

Our Big Arena

Barney and Ducky enjoy the acres of sand!

Somehow, over the summer, my "playground" has morphed into an arena. My idea of having some semi-permanant obstacles on a natural/native surface was gradually defeated by our climate and weeds. The only thing to do was turn it into a sand arena. Mark has put in a lot of time and effort to make this happen. Luckily, we are sitting on pretty good sand, so it's been a matter or hoeing out the weeds (with a tractor) then using a revolving arena harrow to fluff it up. We bought in some sand to top things up around the obstacles and near the front, where it had hardpanned over the winter, but now we wonder whether that was actually necessary. The result is great. We have an almost 300' x 300' arena. The only problem is the semi-permanent obstacles, which have to be moved every time we harrow. Well, that's the next challenge, I guess.

We have another area earmarked for a playground with permanent obstacles, but this time we will have to do some serious thinking about the surface before we start.

Grass + Cows = Beef
Up until the last four or five weeks, we've been blessed with generous rainfall again this year. The pastures are responding well to this and I have managed to do a lot of mowing for weed control. As a result, the grass is coming back surprisingly well. We still have years of pasture improvement ahead of us, but it's nice to see it paying off already. The calves are looking fantastic. They have grown and fattened up really well. So we are now taking orders for grass fed beef for local customers. We put no chemicals whatsoever on our pastures, and of course we don't give our cattle growth hormones, routine antibiotics or other nasties.

But you won't be eating Bonnie here.

We hope this heifer is going places in our breeding program!

To email me about upcoming events, holidays or beef click here

A Vistor's Story

2010-07-09T21:25:00.003-06:00

My friend, Linda, and her dad, Barney, spent a week with us in May. We had quite an agenda! It was the week that we were planning on finally getting the calves out to pasture as part of our grazing cell rotation, both Linda and Barney were getting ready to film their auditions (Barney L1 and Linda L2 On Line) and had a few rough edges to sand off, Barney is just getting back into riding after - oh - maybe 60 years, and at the end of the week....Barney's 80th birthday!

Linda recently sent me a little write-up about the first part of their visit. They literally arrived, got out of their car, unloaded their horses, and started helping us with the fence. And the next morning, the first order of the day was Trailer Loading . . . . calves! Linda is incredibly game when it comes to anything like this, and she actually did most of the loading. Talk about principles to purpose! The real fun started when we released them into the grazing cell. Typically, a couple of them decided to run through the hot wire. It was a real test of non-predatory behavior for all of us!

We formulate a plan

Making the right thing a little easier

Then it's all about watching Linda do the work!!

And work

And just a little more

work!

Then the smart Herefords almost load themselves

C'mon in! It's really not that bad!

Yay!!

Here it is, in Linda's own words:

Earlier this summer I spent a week at The Farm with my father, Barney and our two horses. Every time we come over we see the results of Kris and Mark's continuing progress with the facilities and pasture management. Our plan for this visit was to relax and make progress with our horse-man-ship without the distractions of my fixer upper home and my full time job. And all along the high point of the week was to celebrate Barney's 80th birthday and his Level 1 audition completion. Our unofficial non plan plan is always to join in the life and times of Springvalley Farm.

The first task after settling the horses and ourselves, was to help finish clipping the southern fence lines after Mark had restretched them. All five of us including Denise quickly secured the fencing. Its a first time 3 of us have hooked and looped wire to a t-post. Add that to my suburban girl rancher wannabe horsey girl tool box.

Well, that prerequisite set us up for Mark's grand entry of the weaner calves to the track system's cell grazing. I had a blast moving calves with only a carrot stick and one dvd view of Pat Parelli's tips: pressure on when they look the wrong way and no pressure when they move the right direction. Well, young calves need some support hiking up into a trailer and calming them down after release into acreage. It doesnt work to impulsively snag a 200 lb right brain calf with a carrot string and stick to finish the catching game one yard from the hotwire! Predator impulse still present ! Dad had some great fun moving the two escapees 75 yards back to cell, only to lose them with a last second phase 4. We eventually succeeded while Mark held the hotwire up, and Kris kept the small herd from scattering out the open wire.

We thought this would be the easy part.

Just let 'em go, right?

Cool, calm and collected cowgirl.

Mark and Barney round up the strays.

City Slickers redux (PNH subtitles).

More Impulsion!

2010-06-17T17:51:00.000-06:00

I spent a nice morning with Iona, mostly riding. The weather is very hot here, and it's a struggle for me to get up and out early enough to beat the heat. I just don't sleep well if I go to bed unusually early. I'm working on it! However, I have done a little better this week - played with Iona a couple of mornings and Hunter once, too. (Pat on back!)

Circles aren't going as well again. I suspect there is some "make" creeping in on my part. So the pendulum has already swung a little too far in the dominance game, I guess. Iona is playing The Eating Game with me, and the Running Off With the Line Attached Game. I am finally learning to hang on a little better, so I am grateful for the chance to learn about that. I see that my assertiveness is starting to border on aggression about the eating, though. Need to think of some Savvy Arrows quick. Maybe I just need to play the Own the Grass/Food game more, and build the distance. Yep, that should work. Okaaaaay.....it's not as much fun as making her run around, but I'll put it on the list.

I think one reason I was impatient this morning was because I had a plan about riding, and Travelling Circles on the 45' line were supposed to be the warm up. Which they were, but not that pretty. All the eating/running off stuff happened on the right rein as I was trying to increase the distance and just walk around a little, doing walk-trot transitions. We did finally get to the end of the line with some respect. I did a few trot-canter transitons on the left rein, then felt more like doing simple changes instead, so we did a few of those, which she was better with, so I stopped.

She was now all saddled up and I think she was surprised when we left the playground and headed out on the track. Part one of my plan was underway! Hunter and Bruce had obliged nicely by leaving beforehand and going about 1/2 mile or so around. So we were going to have no impulsion problems getting that far! My plan was to catch up with them, and then play with overtaking them, retreating back to them, etc. Play was the important word in that last sentence. We started down the drive at a brisk walk, and I worked on my Fluidity, which has been really lacking in the saddle, the odd time I've bothered with one recently. It really felt awful at first - a foreign object wedged between me and my horse. (Yes, I mean my beautifully fitting and seriously expensive Balance saddle.) I peddled like crazy. We did a little sitting and rising trot. That felt a bit better.We turned the first corner in walk. I decided to involve my arms in my fluidity exercises, and that was an excuse to trot. That was okay with me, but downward transitions were hard and not very long lasting, so we did some direct and indirect reins, just to resume communication. Around the next corner and I figured she was ready to canter. Yep! So we trotted and cantered most of the rest of the way, then hung out with the boys for a bit.

The going ahead and retreating went much more easily than I expected, thanks to Mr Hunter. What I hadn't realised was that he will go with Iona and leave Bruce, I still did some approach and retreat, but it turned out to be pretty easy for the next half mile or so. One place where she's always sticky she went "I'm gonna sull up and buck now." I said "Go ahead" and she said "Yeah, never mind." Hmmmm. The first time I asked for canter she wouldn't, so I just blew her mind by asking her to do a short one back toward Bruce (who hadn't bothered to follow us at all). Then I let her eat (still a long way from Bruce) and after that canter was easy. Fancy that!

When we got half way around by the olive trees we lost Hunter, and I thought we would have an arguement. Wrong. Now bugs came to my aid. I suspect Hunter knew about these, which is why he left us. However, Iona decided any direction would do as long as we kept moving, so the rest of my ride was controlled, but quite speedy. Fun! Well, except for the flies and mosquitos...

I was so pleased, I wondered whether to quit for the day, but I decided to go ahead with part two of my plan. Patterns in the playground. These went so well that there's not really much to describe. I managed to do both Figure 8 and Weave at trot, with just a few corrections at first and finished up both of them without using my reins or stick. Hooray!! I'm sure that long warm up ride helped us both.

One other thing I noticed was from a tip I had from Jerry Williams about the Theraflex pad. I've been using the sideways shimming pattern that Linda P now recommends for low withered horses for awhile, but Jerry told me to actually let the two halves of the pad splay apart at the front, and this seemed to help today with the pad and saddle going in opposite directions, Everything stayed in place better, and I think we were both more comfortable as a result.

What a great morning! I watched some Parelli DVDs in the nice cool house after that to celebrate.

Learning Frame of Mind

2010-06-11T22:52:00.001-06:00

Had a session with Iona yesterday. Even though we started fairly early in the morning, it was very hot! Think it got up to 101F or something yesteday. However, I was determined, and thankfully a breeze and a few clouds made it possible for awhile! We played with canter circles, which ended up taking some time. She's in season, and was making a fuss about being away from Bruce. There was a bit of running off, but we weren't in a very big space, so I just persevered. I was trying for six laps. Got three easily each way, but when I went for six, she would get almost to six and then break gait. This happens so often that I wonder whether there is a change in my energy when we get close. I do my best to control it, but I still wonder...

We got six on the left rein with either a minor correction from me or self correction. Then on the right she decided to run around and leave me because Bruce and Hunter were on the move on the track. We went into a roundpen and finished pretty easily there. We were both hot and sweaty, so we called it a day and I hosed her off.

I got up nice and early this morning to beat the heat, and it worked out really well. We headed out to the playground where I had set out some half barrels for a Weave and cones for a Figure 8. I wanted to work on Weave on the 45' line. This hasn't been going well. We warmed up with some Traveling Circles. Iona is still Iona, and has her opinions, but I was left feeling like "When did we get to the place where I can move you through time and space on a longer line, and you do maintain gait? Wow! This is new and cool!" (I had much the same feeling playing with Bruce the other night. Gee - maybe I'm changing...) So we did that for awhile, and she was great! Then I realised that I needed to go shut a gate out in the pasture, so I left her happily eating grass or a few minutes.

Okay, time for the dreaded Weave!! The first thing I noticed was that she had lots of go. Excellent! The next thing I noticed was that I wasn't doing a great job of directing her. She was actually trying, but when I was unclear she just made up her own stuff, like jump the half barrel, go around two, stop and eat... I bagan to sort out my timing, and in the process I realised that the further away I am the less I have to move and the easier it is to be clear, too, I think. Again, Iona did a pretty good job of maintaining gait, and really tried for me. That, in turn, made it a lot easier to be able to work on my end of the deal. It's a completely different game than when a horse is just stopping and goofing off all the time. Then it's very hard for the human to make progress. I was really pleased with Iona and I felt we made a lot of progress on this!

After a suitable break, we moved on to Freestyle Figure 8 at trot. Or tried to. Again, Iona got really distracted by Bruce and Hunter out on the track. She was actually going around with her head in the air calling to them. If she could get that big tail in the air she'd have been doing a pretty good imitation of an Arab. I thought we'd start with a little point to point just to see where we were. Did I mention we were bareback? I was gonna use tack, but discovered a HUGE welt from a bug bite just where the girth goes.... Boy am I out of shape! Haven't been riding enough, so I'm up there slipping around on her nice shiny summer coat. Yikes!

Point to point was do-able, so I decided to just go for it. Then I remembered I was supposed to be riding with my stick. Doh! Got that, and Iona took off in her punchiest, most jarring fast trot, with a big loop on the side where the boys were and completely missing X, also in favour of going toward males, then trying to just go straight and run around at the other end of the pattern. Great. I was all over the place - trying to resist te urge to use my reins for balance, frustrated by the stick and must have left my balance point at the breakfast table. Wonderful.

This whole crazy trot thing seems to surface at times when I am bareback and/or riding with the stick. I've wondered why. I'm not always that unbalanced, but have wondered if there's a lack of confidence with the stick, a discomfort with the bareback trot, or what. Still don't know the answer, However, what I learned today was that it is okay to do something about it. I think I have been sort of like a rabbit in the headlights with it. Just gamely riding it and waiting and hoping for a change. Sometimes it does come eventually.... So after 5 or 10 minutes (felt much longer!) of awful, during which I managed to stay on, stay roughly on the pattern and saw no improvement - I had a brainstorm........I sinply asked her to slow down. Not walk. We could do that. Just trot slower and relax. And then we did it. Problem solved.

I also discovered some of the same problems with my timing on asking for a change of bend, that I found earlier on the Weave. I'm really happy with what I learned today. Sometimes I feel like I'm not progressing, because I can't figure out what I need to learn. I love breakthrough days!

Oh, yes - she never bucked.

More fun with Bruce!

2010-06-10T16:55:00.001-06:00

My Beautiful Brucie

(taken in Scotland)

Denise and I have had a few sessions with Bruce since I last posted. Their partnership is improving. Denise has stepped up to take on the things I am asking her to do with him, and he is having a lot of fun playing and enjoying the extra attention. Yesterday evening was really fun, though!

We started by looking at playing Games 4-7 in a flow, and I suggested that Brucie should really be trotting 90% of the time. I played first, and I have to say I was surprised at just how well he did. I didn't need to ask him to pick up the pace much at all - he just went. Denise also had a good little session, although she needed to remember to "expect a lot" as she just didn't realise he could easily do much more for her at first.

We then had a look at tacking him up with a bareback pad. Typically, he was trying to undo the latigos and "help" her put it on. He is always impatient with tacking up. He thinks it take too long.

In the interest of continuing with the Impulsion Programs, I had to think of a way to play the Trotting Game dismounted. I decided we could try Liberty. We were in the small arena, so Denise and I each took a half and I sent him off - really to go where he liked as long as he trotted! And if he went over to Denise's side, then it was up to her to keep him trotting. Naturally, he had no idea what we were asking him to do. However, that just seemed to make it more fun for him and he was pretty expressive. Only one or two little moments of "uh-oh, I guess I'm wrong!" He mostly offered to do big circles around us, and we ended up having to sort of discuss how to get him to go to the other person's side. We all had a blast, and ended up asking him not to canter more than not to walk, by far. It would be very easy to get him to do a big Figure 8 around the two of us, I think.

Denise then mounted up to work on her lateral flexion, friendly game and a bit of Passenger Lesson. I'm not sure that too much Passenger Lesson will be a good thing for Bruce, so this may be a bit of a compromise. Hopefully, Denise can sort of get that just riding him around with me and Iona before too long.

Because of Bruce's impending trip, I thought I'd better work on his trailer loading. We haven't done much with it since the Trailer Woes thing this autumn. However, after a little initial scepticism he went on and off several times easily. I then experimented with how he felt about me coming in. No problem, so we played a little Yo-yo game and stuff in there, and I also experimented with running the lead rope through the bars to simulate tying him up. That also went just fine. I think that's where we had problems the last time - or at the next step, where I dallied the rope to something and left him - and then he panicked a little. No problem this time. I didn't dally the rope, but did get out of the trailer and go around and give him a treat through the bars from the outside. A pattern he knows from our old trailer in Scotland. I was really happy with that session, and with how the whole evening went.

Fun with Bruce

2010-05-24T23:04:00.001-06:00

Had a fun sesion with Denise and Bruce on Saturday. Denise just passed L1 with Dakota, but is currently horseless, so she's filling in with Bruce until he goes to Pagosa with and extern in July. Of course, Bruce graduated L2 a couple of years ago with my friend Hazel. My feeling is that he is not a pony who really wants to do L2 again, so the challenge is to find ways to help Denise progress and help Brucie progress, too with the time that we have.

Denise needs to learn the L2 material, I have things I want to do with Bruce, and I also feel that the three of us would benefit from having a look at the Impulsion Programs from the original L2 pack. Denise would also like to begin riding, but is pretty rusty and a little unfit. This is nothing two enthusiastic women and a Fell pony can't handle! Today we made a start!

And it really started when we went out to bring the horses in. We decided to lead them in by taking a shortcut through some pretty lush grass. However, we made sure that we owned that grass! They got to stop and enjoy eating some, but we gave well defined signals for "yes you may eat" and "now we are walking and not eating", This went really well and set us up for the day, I think.

Before we started we also talked about how Bruce switches between Left Brained Introvert and Extrovert, and that we need to see the changes and deal with him accordingly. When you get his energy UP then it's good to go fast with things and keep him engaged with lots of little changes and plenty to do. And also to be as firm as he is with other horses. Treats would just be a distraction. However, when he's quiet, unmotivated, "stubborn" treats may help to get him going again and we may need to slow down.

It was windy, so we used the small arena behind the visitors shed. It's currently full of tasty kochia weed, so I was glad we'd already had the grass discussion. We started by letting them eat while we tried some simulations from the latest L2 DVDs. Handling the 22' line in the Yo-Yo game - where to put all that extra rope, Denise did really well with this. I made some discoveries about keeping my hands more still and creating less "noise" with the rope, which was useful. Then we worked on power positions which led us to trying other things that help when a horse tries to run off, as well as those that just lean on the rope and say "NO!"

We had a little look at the backwards test from Backwards and Sideways in the Impulsion Programs. For this you try to back your horse about 30' between a lane of poles or other markers. It needs to be straight, willing, etc and you need to do it in 30 seconds. This is meant to be a ridden exercise but we adapted it and started off Yo-Yo style. I tried this first with Iona. She was pretty willing but very crooked. I improved it after a couple of tries. Bruce was really slow, so I stepped in and showed Denise what I thought an effective phase 4 would be for Bruce. I reminded her that although she is learning this, Bruce knows it well, so she doesn't need to act as though she is in the teaching phase. We had already talked earlier about Bruce's leadership style in the herd and how we might try to mirror that when playing with him. Subtle phase one ... VERYFAST!!! phase 4. We both got more interesting in his eyes, it seemed. I then hopped on Iona and demonstrated the ridden version of this with one rein, and then Denise tried it from zone three.

Denise did some bareback mounting and dismounting, and then I played with Bruce a little while she watched. We did just a little backing and drawing on the 45' line. But I didn't want to wear this out after what we had already done. I finished up by riding the Figure 8 Pattern. Bruce and I are only on the Level 1 Freestyle version of this as a partnership. It did start off a little sticky, but we were soon pretty good in walk after a few rewards at X. When I got a couple of rounds in trot I was very pleased. However, I was still using my reins more than I would have liked. So I tried again in walk and was able to use them much less. Yay!! I was pretty sure that doing the trot again in this session would result in me using the reins more once again, so I decided to trot the rail a couple of time aound the arena, then I turned him in and finished at the X we had been using in the Figure 8.

As so often happens, I felt that I did a much better job because I had someone watching me to whom I was explaining things as I went along. I don't quite understand why that improves the quality of what I do so much, but I'm sure it does. I must think about that! The other thing that I'm noticing is that when I watch Bruce objectively when Denise plays with him, I seem to see his tries much more easily and read him better than when I play with him myself.

Denise and I had another session on Sunday, which I might find time to write up later. It also went really well, and I'm sure that this can be a successful recipe for all three of us.

Auditions!

2010-05-14T22:21:00.002-06:00

On April 25th, Petra helped Denise Hosea, Kathy Eddy and Sara Williamson film their On Line auditions.
I thought I would share them here.

Denise and Dakota, Level 1

Kathy and Sierra, Level 2 On Line

Newsflash! Congratulations, Sara, on your L1++ pass!
Sara and Sis, Level 1/Level 2 On Line

Congratulations are already due to Kathy, who has received word that she passed!

Jerry's Clinic - Personal Notes

2010-05-10T17:17:00.003-06:00

Denise and I are still sorting through her fab photos of the clinic, and I hope to post some here, along with a further clinic report soon. But before I lose the feel of the weekend and the buzz of what I learned, I thought I would go ahead and write about my own perspective of the past few days.

The weeks ahead of the clinic were remarkably windy. Mark and I kept thinking that we would get started on the various jobs that needed to be done, plus we have our first weed problem of the year: mustard/flixweed to contend with, which meant I should really be out on that tractor mowing the stuff down before it goes to seed. I have done some mowing, and we did get the essential prep work done, but it felt more like a battle than a pleasure, and as I write this the wind is still blowing, the flixweed is still growing, and I am trying to remember what it's like to play with Iona.

The weekend had many personal highlights for me. Things I learned from Jerry, progress in new and old friendships and also seeing another milestone reached for Springvalley Farm with our first multi-day clinic. And I have to say - it's all been great!

Jenifer and Lily

As I wrote previously, I have been excited about finally making contact with Jenifer Morrissey, so I was over the moon when she decided to attend Jerry's Horsenality Clinic on Friday. Jenifer and Don arrived on Thursday night with Jenifer's mare, Lily. We had a nice evening together, in spite of there still being quite a few things left to do. They are both great company, and pitched in and helped while we talked, and the evening really helped to set me up for the weekend ahead.

Friday's clinic was awesome. Jerry started off by asking all of us to state our own horsenality! He then came up with a simple diagnostic tool for determining this which I found very powerful. Here it is:

When making decisions, introverts make them slowly and extraverts make them quickly. Basing decisions on facts is a left brained approach, basing them on feelings is a right brained approach.

Jerry used examples from his own life which really helped me to identify some issues in my own relationships both with horses and humans. One thing I realised is that many times we confuse feelings with facts (or at least I do!). Another thing I realised was that although I would generally classify myself as an introvert with both right and left brained tendencies, I have a lot of learned LBE behaviour, and this is particularly true in how I relate to horses. My energy is definitely higher than Iona's, which I know is a source of irritation to her. I hope that I can now figure out what to do with this realisation, which also explains why I find it so easy to blow more sensitive horses up, or create brace in horses.

Other notes from the classroom session were -

- a reminder to get in harmony with the horse first, then we can begin to ask them to get in harmony with us!

- The 5 areas of confidence: Self, Leader, Environment, Learning and Herd. I would say that that Iona is least confident with environment, followed by learning. However, it's possible that some of her bully behaviour in the herd could be lack of confidence - I don't know!)

We moved out to the playground with our horses, where Jerry asked us to play some games so he could get a look at everybody and he gave everyone some individual help as they needed it. My most memorable piece of learning from that session was the Quadrant Game. This is a version of the Circle Game for horses who already know the game but don't want to go forward. The deal is to give them a long phase one, but then you get to tag them as many times as possible within the first quarter of the circle only. It is very motivating. Of course it also motivated Iona to run off. Jerry's suggestion here was to go toward her hindquarters. I didn't really get to explore that strategy, as she didn't happen to run off again, but I will try to remember it!

Playing the Circle Game

We each had an individual session in the roundpen with Jerry. Iona wasn't sticking to me very well, and Jerry's tips were that I needed to be slower and less jerky, which made it much easier for her to stay with me, particularly on the turns. He reminded me to find her rhythm before trying to set one of my own. He played with her for awhile, and I noticed that he did a little more with the stick than I did. He explained that once he took his energy up and either forward or backward in an obvious way, that he wanted her to start moving, and if she didn't he would gently encourage her with the stick rather than leave without her. That was useful. I see that I was just walking off without her and then having to be more argumentative in the long run.

In the Roundpen

Stick to Me

He also emphasised the importance of what happens when you start a liberty session. Many humans will take the halter off, and then break the connection with the horse by walking away to where they want to put the halter and rope. This led on to some interesting topics about keeping and breaking the connection generally. For example, Jerry suggested that when breaking the connection (or leaving your horse) you walk from the head toward the tail with your nearest hand still in contact in a friendly way, rather than walk directly away from their head. This makes it more obvious that you no longer expect them to follow. He also talked about the importance of breaking the connection gracefully when turning a horse out. So doing something similar, and perhaps even taking the horse to the herd, rather than it running off toward the herd. No hard and fast rules here, but judge the situation so that everybody has a good feeling about it and you are well set up for next time being even better. He also pointed out that when you tie a horse up, in a way this maintains the connection while you are gone. "This is where I would like you to wait for me" sort of thing. I knew that, but couldn't have put it in words, and of course I see how it makes ground tying or teaching a horse to stand at it's place is a refinement of the same thing! Jerry called this keeping the conection by giving the horse a job, and used the example of how Pat will get Magic to go and stand on the pedestal while he is working with another horse.

I had what I think may turn out to be another big moment when Jerry said something about treating a horse the way they treat other horses. We were talking a lot about phases, as one of the themes of the weekend was Teach-Control-Reinforce-Refine and how this affects the use of phases. Jerry said something almost in passing about playing with a horse and noticing how he was very bossy in the herd, and using the same approach with him. At lunchtime I asked Jerry about this by asking about Bruce and Iona. Bruce has a long and subtle phase one, but the lower ranking herd members tend to be very attentive to him and move off his slightest glance. However, if they don't, he has a lightening quick and effective phase 4. Usually a bite! Iona, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have much in the way of phases. I think that I am right about this, because if she did, more horses would get out of her way in time, because she double-barrels them really hard! I have noticed that they do try to respect her space (even Bruce), but she is pretty calculated about setting herself up to get that kick in if she can.

As I write this, I don't see how it could possibly be fair to try to sneak into a position where I can just smack Iona, or what that would achieve. However, perhaps I should be really particular about my space, and see what that does for her respect. Hmmmmm. I also doubt (from experience) that I could hit her hard enough to simulate one of her kicks or that I would like myself if I did. But I think I will be looking for a more effective phase 4 again, and for better or worse, I have never really been afraid to use the stick on her. With Bruce, I suspect that making a sort of slow "I'm gonna get you" game out of things will be pretty ineffective if I don't also learn to at least follow it up with a really FAST phase 4, and make the "gonna get you" part more subtle, as the more he has to watch me to see if it is coming, the more interesting I will probably become!

An unmotivated moment

A motivating moment

A motivated moment

With all this talk of phase 4, I will just end with another important thought from Jerry, which was about setting the horse up well, so that it can at least achieve a small part of the task, so that you can reward it. I'm sure that for Iona I will continue to use food rewards quite a bit. I have taken David Lichman's statement to heart that she needs to see what's in it for her. However, I also have the idea in my mind that once you become interesting enough or significant enough as a leader, this will not be as important. But I see this concept of setting the horse up to do something that you CAN reward as the essence of what David was telling me. I may not end up breaking it down in quite the same way he described, but I will try to make sure that I set her up to both progress and succeed.

Can you see why I'm so interesting at this moment?

That's probably most of the Horsenality Clinic stuff. I will include some ideas from the Refinement clinic in the next installment.

Looking Back at Petra's Lesson Series

2010-04-28T00:39:00.002-06:00

The graduating class! Congratulations, everybody!

Gail, Sara C, Denise, Petra, Sara W, Jacque and Kathy

Petra's lesson series ended on Sunday with a great playday. I have not been writing reports as we went along. For some strange reason, I always seem to be tired after a lesson Sunday. So I thought I would write a little report now, and mostly let the photos tell the story.

The first lesson day was in February and it was c-c-c-cold! Petra sensibly decided to break everyone in easy with a horseless day of classroom work and learning games indoors, and just a few quick simulations outside for as long as people could cope! It really set the following weeks up for success.

The following weeks saw things gradually warm up, and everyone made clear progress toward their goals, having a lot of fun in the process.

By week four everybody was looking great, and so was the weather! We all enjoyed that magical combination of increasing Savvy and wearing less layers! For me it was a really special day, seeing everyone playing so successfully. It's been an amazing journey to get Springvalley Farm to this point, and I admit that I'm feeling quite pleased to have achieved this in just a year!

I had some pretty nice icing on my cake that particular Sunday, too, as we had severel extra visitors. Linda and her dad, Barney came with their horses for the afternoon play session, and we had 2* instructor Kime Conkright and her dad Ray, visiting for the weekend, too. I have known Ray through some Parelli forums like Parellinaturally for many years, but it's only recently that we got to meet in person. Plus, another friend whom I had only met through her writing about Fell ponies, also mostly through the internet, visited us for a little while on Sunday. Her name is Jenifer Morrissey. She is also a Parelli student, but I admit that she and her husband Don, and I mostly talked Fells for a couple of happy hours. I'm really pleased that they have decided to visit us again during the Jerry Williams clinic next week, and Jenifer is bringing her mare, Lily.

The pot luck lunches were a lot of fun, too!

The weekends brought a few other nice milestones, too. Mark made his first "public appearance" with Hunter, and Sara began riding Sis at home, recently. Luckily, Denise was there to snap a photo! The planets must have been in alignment, as the very same day, I finally got on Hunter and had a litte ride. Unfortunately, no photos, though.

And on the subject of photos, I would like to say thanks to Denise whose photographic skills are better than mine. She is now taking the majority of the photos on this blog. As a consequence, there are not so many photos of the "Get Started" class, because Denise had her hands rather busy during that one! I do apologise to the members of that group for leaving them out a little!

Here are some photos from our final playday on Sunday. Not only did we have a blast, but Petra helped Sara and Kathy film their L2 On Line auditions, and Denise her L1 audition! Watch this space for links to their YouTube videos, and announcements of their passes, of course!

It's Linda and Ducky!

Mark with Sara's daughter Summer

Barney and Scooter

Me and Iona

Denise and Dakota

Sara and Sis

Mark and Hunter

My carrot stick experiment

Who is that cowboy?

Petra with her camera

Lunchtime in the pens

Kathy and Sierra

Coaching with David Lichman

2010-04-08T23:24:00.002-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to take advantage of David Lichman's "Hitching Post" long distance coaching. I got Mark to film me and Iona playing the Circling Game and doing some ridden Point to Point. Right on cue, she pulled lots of grumpy faces when circling and did her little bucky kicking out thing during the riding. So I figured out how to put it on a DVD and sent it off to David for help.

Watching the DVD, and particularly thinking what to write to send with the DVD got me thinking about where I'm at in my own head as far as me and Iona go. I will share with you, with David's permission, what I wrote to him, and his replies. My email and later questions are in blue, David's replies in brown.

Hi David-

Thanks so much for offering this service. I am looking forward to your input!

I am about to send you a 12-13 minute DVD of my impulsion problems with my Fell pony, Iona.

We passed L2 in 2006. Have been rather busy, and a change of location has meant less opportunity to ride her out (she's bored with my 160 acre property already!). As you can see, she is quite short, although we have enjoyed many long canters and gallops in our time. These have been mostly, but not all, in company. The impulsion problems come and go over the years to some extent, but I never really solve them.

I am struggling with the eternal question for the LBI owner - when to go to a big phase 4 and when to wait-wait-wait. No big phase 4s on the video, but I am more of a stick person than a carrot one, so there have been plenty. Also, I guess a big part of my interest in PNH has been to improve my horsemanship, not just to progress with this particular pony. Although I am not a perfectionist, I think I have tended to be too thoroughin covering all facets of the many tasks I have been presented with in the ever-changing Parelli Levels program! The result may be that my very smart pony now feels like a child genius who has been asked to repeat the 3rd grade a couple of times...

I would like to have progressive fun with Iona, but am losing confidence in my ability to reach an agreement with her these days. Help me get the handbrake off without destroying her spirit!

I will include this link to a description of a recent session where we concentrated on circles, so that you can understand how I'm thinking, in case that is useful. If you feel it's not important, that's fine.http://pingalley.blogspot.com/2010/03/flying-changes.html

Kris Hughes

It didn't take David long to get back to me. I'm sure that it would have been even quicker if I had uploaded the video to the internet, but I found it easier to mail a DVD. Here's what he wrote -

Hi Kris,

First of all, this should be a lot of fun. Mainly because you are so close!!! You already have cantering, and with a good expression at that!!

Ok, so here are my suggestions. I'd love to have seen the running off, because I think I can help you with that also. It looked like in the early circles she made some half-hearted attempts at leaving... tossing her head as if to pull the line from your hands. I'll save that for another session; I have a suspicion it's related, and the information I'm giving you now may eliminate it, or it may be that you must address it first. I won't know until you try.

1) Try not to use the big wave down the rope as a correction on the circle. It's to much against the forward you are looking for.

2) I don't think the change of direction on breaking gait is working. Disengage and try again. Same thing for snotty look on departure. Disengage and try again. Remember #1 in there, don't put impediments to forward in any of this... meaning the wave down the rope.

3) Need to fix this NOT on the circle. Go point to point on the ground, and have a TON of food waiting at the target point. I'm expecting she will drag you there. The whole thing seems pointless to her; let's give her a big point that she'll appreciate. If Iona is not so food motivated, then do this before her regular meal, when she's hungriest. Point to point with a treat on the fence or barrel. Every time to start, and then vary the reinforcement schedule. Use "encouraging energy" as you run along side to the second point. Build up to a trot to the barrel.

4) Add in an obstacle... a pole or a tiny X jump. So that you can initiate a send... go along for the allow, negotiate the obstacle in the way and arrive at the destination point together. At a trot, same as without the obstacle.

5) Next - in your mind - substitute the obstacle with a new one... a little turn. Turn and run to the barrel. Build up to an arc to the point... then half circle to the point, etc. No stopping at the point unless she's trotting. Build up the entire exercise, over time, to a canter.

6) Fix this strong before riding. Then ride the same exercises starting at #1. If you get any resistance to forward - hop off and send and re-establish leadership on the ground. Then hop back on and try again. Also, check to make sure you aren't bracing with your legs in the stirrups.

Also... I'll throw this out there... is there a high speed internet connection anywhere you can play? I can watch live via web cam, for free on Skype, while we converse via cell phone (if you have a hands free earpiece...).

Hope this helps, and please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you further...

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to help!

dml

Whoa! A webcam and a cellphone!?! Too high tech for me at the moment, but I'm sure it could be good...

Well, when I got this we were in the middle of a big wind storm. Tumbleweeds just about pushing the fences over and there was no way I was going out to play. As soon as I read the email, I noticed that I had a lot of "yeah, but" spots. "I've done this before" "I don't want to go back to NOT doing circles" I didn't really want to think about it. However, after a couple of days in the house with the wind howling, and chatting to Mark about it, which really helped me understand that I had more questions, I sent David another email in preparation for actually giving his ideas a try. David interspersed his replies into my text this time, so I will just copy and paste it like that.

Hi David,

Thanks for your input! We are now having a spell of bad weather here, so I haven't been able to try things out yet. However, in the meantime, a couple of questions/thoughts -

1) "the forward wave" I have had my doubts about this one, as I feel it causes confusion. However, it sometimes appears to result in some very positive exuberance and play. I think this happens more when I am really assertive with it and have good timing. Perhaps it has turned into a form of nagging now.

I don't believe you need to shut down zone 1, when you are trying to bring life up. It's a mixed message.

2) Dinsegage and try again - any thought on same direction vs new direction? I am also interested in why this might have a different effect than changing direction.

It's more polite. "Nice try - let's try again." should be in your mind. The change is more punishing.

3-4) I believe I understand these instructions. Treats/piles of hay are fairly effective with Iona, and I think I do pretty well with "varying the reinforcement schedule". I think where I get stuck is how to be progressive over the medium and long term. We do pretty well building something up over the first few sessions.....it's a week, month, year down the line where I'm clueless.

You can always go back and rebuild. That's what I am seeing. Not enough positive reinforcement. The horse always asks, "What's in it for me, NOW?" The variable reinforcement schedule helps get you through the gaps when there is no primary reinforcer, but it doesn't last forever. It's the chance there might be one that keeps them motivated. And when there is an occasional jackpot - large amounts, or special treat (i.e. sugar cubes) that just elevates the desire more... like a lottery or slot machine.

5) Am I right in thinking that after the half circles we move to a full circle, then eventually laps?

Yes, exactly. You can fix it it up with a moving circle, so she doesn't have to pass the barrel on a circle very close. Move the circle so the second lap ends her there. Or if you are clever... move the circle so you are on the barrel for the second lap. Bonus = improving draw.

6) Will check on the bracing thing. Not doing longer rides for the past year, and mostly bareback, seems to have caused me to have really bad leg position/control.

I'm pretty confident on the saddle fit - it's a really wide Balance Felix fitted by their person back in the UK. We tried a bunch - this is the one Iona liked. Theraflex pad shimmed to the best of my ability. Possibly a little short for me. Ponies are always a slight compromise. However, I was a bit bigger for awhile and she wasn't bucking then - and does the same sometimes bareback. Jerry Williams will be staying with us in May, doing a clinic, I will ask his opinion...

I would like to stick to email/video for now. In order to be fair in what I pay you I will need to keep the time we spend down, anyway. I'm looking forward to going out and trying your suggestions. I'm sure the first session or two will be fun, just not sure where to take it from there!

Thanks for your time!

Be happy to have a look either way. Sometimes it's faster if I can see what you need, and offer it right away, with any corrections needed. Today I spent 5 minutes on your email. I'm reading and typing as fast as I can!

Thanks

dml

Today I finally managed to play with Iona. Not surprisingly she loved doing Point to Point on line, from one pile of hay and carrots to another. Even so, as we played I thought of a whole bunch of new questions. I will post them here, along with our progress and David's replies when I receive them.

Come and Visit!

2010-04-06T16:28:00.000-06:00

Please check out my new page about exciting new ways to visit Springvalley Farm to have fun and grow your Savvy! The special offer prices are really low, so book now, while they last!

Impulsion

2010-03-29T00:17:00.003-06:00

How it's been going...

My recent sessions with Iona have not been brilliant. Rapport, Respect, Impulsion and Flexion have all been wobbly. I seem to break one component trying to fix another. I've been doing my best to do lots of different activities and spend undemanding time, and well as trying to progress tasks I would like to improve with her. So mostly the rapport is pretty good. She will often follow me around or volunteer to help with herd movement at liberty - stuff like that. I see her acting like a partner. But we are still snarled up with respect and impulsion, and so naturally some forms of flexion (like ribs) are not happening either.

Last week I got Mark to video me. I played with some circles (lots of grumpy faces, etc) and also did some riding. Just a basic session of Point to Point. When I asked for trot there was the usual kicking out and little bucks, etc. I have sent these to 5* instructor David Lichman, to see what input he will give me.

When I sat down to write him a note to send with the DVD I realised that my approach to PNH has always been about learning stuff to further my horsemanship skills. Perhaps I have prioritised this over actually focussing on Iona's journey. I'm so interested in experiencing every task and technique from every possible angle that I sometimes fail to consider how Iona feels about that, and hold back a more linear form of progress that we need as a team. That was a huge realisation! So now I need to make some adjustments to myself to get us out of this.

And then today...

We started with some Friendly Game with the "clippers" which was actually a battery powered shaver thingy of Mark's. Well, it buzzes and it's what I have. We've had a few sessions with this before. Very sporadic and haven't made a lot of progress. My observation is that she is not much more "afraid" of it whether it is turned on and buzzing or turned off. Iona just doesn't like small unfamiliar objects, and it's easy to increase her scepticism rather than decrease it, by making too big a deal out of it.

If I were to rate her "fear" on a 1-10 scale, I would say that today we started at a 2 or 3. Probably she was only a 5-6 or something at the first session. However, with Iona it's sometimes a case of "I am sceptical. Why should I mess with that? If you ask me to then I will act agressive, or maybe shut down. I don't DO curiousity!" So it's difficult to get her to follow an object, for example. I have tried things like just leaving the shaver running beside the grooming kit while we groom or play, leaving it running beside a pile of hay. trying to play Touch It with it, rubbing her all over with it. It's often been difficult to find a good note to end on, however, the two or three sessions we've done have probably chipped away at the scepticism a little.

Today my intuition told me that a slightly more direct approach might work better. Denise was also watching us, and strangely, the fact that I was giving her a commentary on what I was doing and how I was reading Iona, actually helped my focus and assertiveness, and my flow. As usual, it was hard to get her to follow the shaver in my hand, even turned off. She just leans on the rope, so I had to keep turning and turning to unstick her feet. We weren't progressing. So I was bolder and just started rubbing her with it. As usual she's fine behind the drive line, but has trouble in front of it, especially along her crest or toward her poll and ears. This brought on some threatening me with her ribs and shoulder, but I just bumped her hard, with rhythm, in the ribs with my elbow until that softened.

At this point I was able to play approach and retreat with the areas of her neck she was okay with and expand them. She had some mildly RBI moments, but I felt that they were mild, and she wasn't going to explode, so I quietly hung in there until she would blink or breathe, and encouraged her to do things like lower her head. So the "retreat" was more like a change in my energy, rather than removing the stimulus. It worked, and I felt we made a lot of progress in a fairly short session.

We went out to the playground to do some circley things. I'm now pretty happy with the trot laps and trying to progress to more canter laps. How to make it her idea? I sent her out and she took off at a slow walk. So I decided to just leave her out there walking for quite a few laps. It doesn't require much effort from her, but there is no release/reward, either. Eventually, I asked her to trot a little, then canter a few strides and brought her in. We did that a couple of times. If it was good, I threw in a treat. Then we did a few transitions and changes of direction, but always ending with canter before I disengaged her. Her attitude was pretty positive and I was careful to look for a good canter with enthusiasm to finish with. I then unclipped the line and wandered over to help Denise with Dakota for a little while.

On the new Levels DVDs - in L2 there is a wonderful segment on 7 Games with an Obstacle, where Pat introduces the Figure 8 to a new horse. He starts with the horse just circling both markers; then he sends the horse out between the markers, but still just circles both; next he adds in a change of direction through the markers, but still it's just circling; then finally he moves from a circle to a couple of full Figure 8s and back to a circle. I knew Iona would love this, and she did. Of course, as soon as she saw the markers she started trying to do Figure 8. "I know this! I don't like it very much, either. Hey! What are you doing? Huh! You're messing it all up. I like it better this way. Look, I'm gonna do some proper ones now, okay?" It really blew her mind. She could see that I was being very particular about her going out and around those markers, but where was the Figure 8??? We really had a lot of FUN with this.

After another break we also tried mixing up Figure 8 and Weave, which is on the same DVD chapter. That wasn't as great, but I can see how it will help our success in another session.

By now I had the bareback pad on and took her out to a large odd shaped area of the pasture that is currently fenced off, to do Follow the Rail. It's 15 or 20 acres and has about 6 or 7 corners, so I figured it would be more stimulating than the playground. It also has some grass! Our last few FTR sessions have been all about bucking and throwing a tantrum. However, I decided that the bareback pad was a good choice anyway. I know I am "softer" in it, because I don't want to get chucked off! I did decide not to ride with my carrot stick, though, because if she's bucking and I'm trying to push and maybe steer or keep her head up, I just don't have enough hands. My plan was to make it a bit of a corners game, and just walk, then ask for trot shortly before each corner, then reward her with a rest. The first "side" was quite short, and she immediately saw my plan. (Smartie!) She liked the plan! Same with the next side. The third side was almost 1/4 mile long. Her impulsion was great, so I decided to play around with walk/trot/back-up transitions. No problem. We got to the 3rd corner with hardly a correction, in canter, not trot! The whole thing went like that. The only thing she wasn't up for was direct rein turns in trot. I'm pretty sure that she sensed that these would lead on to Bow Tie type simple changes in canter, which she has objected to lately. Today was not the day to pick a fight with her, when her impulsion was otherwise fabulous! If I can get the impulsion established more dependably, then we will re-establish picking up canter leads, I'm sure.

I hopped off, and we had quite a long walk back to the tack room door. I took the pad off and brushed her, gave her a drink. She just wanted to hang out there with me. I had a little sit down on a bench while she just stood by me. Eventually I suggested that I might turn her out. I don't think she really cared one way or the other.

Flying Changes?

2010-03-04T23:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy few weeks since I last wrote anything. Petra's lesson series is up and running, and I think all the students are enjoying it. I will try to get some pictures of the action up, soon. We've continued to have quite a bit of mud and snow, so playtimes have been pretty limited. However, I have spent a lot of time watching the new Parelli Levels material, and taking notes, which are already proving a big help. I've got them in a little book, so that I can take them out with me and apply them.

Today I played with Iona all afternoon. We started with the inevitable circle laps. I still believe that these are going to prove to be a key that unlocks many good doors for us. I had 10 laps trot and 6 laps canter on my list, but I decided that if I could get the 10 laps trot, that would be a good session. We played in the large visitors' pen, which is where I usually put Iona when she's in - just to groom her and maybe let her eat hay. It's a funny shape, but at the widest part is big enough to circle on a 22' line. So it gives us a little support, but still gives her some areas to run away to (!!) so that she can express herself.

So my plan was to build up the laps, with rests and maybe some other tasks in between. 1, 2, 3, 5, then 10 laps. My notes from the new DVDs only go through Level 1 so far, but I've been throwing them into my play sessions just for self improvement, and to help new ideas stick. We started off with a little driving the FQ. That went okay, so I started the circles. Lots of running off at first, however, I was proud that I managed to hang on most of the time. She likes to run into the shed. Silly, because there are two poles in there which are just great for wrapping the rope around and disengaging her, etc. My L1 notes said "Horse leaning on halter - do HQ yield." So we did quite a bit of that, whether she was leaning, running off or just looking out on the circle. It's surprising just how long it took me to get that 1 lap each way! I let her rest, and sat down on a barrel and looked at my notes.

"Pressure motivates, the release teaches" they read. My gut instinct is that I need to use an effective phase 4, or she won't get motivated, and I won't get an opportunity to release and teach. She got pretty arguementative, pulling faces and kind of halfway charging at me on the send. I persevered and we finally made 2 really nice laps left. Gave her a treat and right came a little easier. I walked away again and read my notes some more.

"For the horse, with the horse, not to the horse." Well I figure I am doing it for her, trying to help her learn to hold up her responsibilities, etc. Not so sure about "with", though, and I'm sure it feels like "to" to her sometimes. That was probably a fair assessment, as when I sent her to do 3 laps she left immediately for the shed, yanking the rope from my hands hard. So I did some HQ yields, etc and smiled and sent her off again. She then did a lot of coming in and stopping. I just stayed firm and friendly and kept sending her again. When we got our 3 laps I asked for a little bit of canter before I asked her in. The canter was very nice. Read my notes.

"Recognise the slightest try." Well, I would look for a chance to do that. Naturally, she thought cantering was probably a pretty good idea now, so I thanked her for offering and reminded her to stay in trot. I got to thinking about some of Karen Rohlf's theories about having better self carriage in ourselves improving the horse's posture, and about visualising what you want your horse to look like, rather than settling for them just doing a sloppy trot. Interestingly, it seemed to make a difference right away. There was some slight leaning toward the gate and stuff, but it went better, and again I asked for a few strides of canter before we took a little break and went the other way. Now she was a little hyped. However, the thought of cantering improved her trot. She did offer it a few times, and I think my new version of "neutral posture with better self-carriage" had a little more energy which confused her a little. However, she then went into a beautiful, very engaged trot. Nice long strides and really picked herself up. She held that for several laps before I asked her in. I gave her lots of praise and treats, and what really surprised me was that she hardly licked and chewed at all. I think this may be because she really enjoyed those laps as much as I did. After that the 10 laps came pretty easy, and we were outta that pen!

I saddled her and we headed out to the playground. Something isn't great about how the saddle is fitting, though. The pad kept squirting out the front. A problem to be solved another day, though. We just readjusted a few times and lived with it. I put her on the 45' and we did some Figure 8s. The circle session did set us up for success, I think. She cantered pretty willingly, and if I'm not mistaken did one or two flying changes. I say that because her little legs go really fast, and her leads are not terrible pronounced, so it's very hard to spot in the moment, and hard to tell whether there was a quick trot stride in there somewhere, but I'm pretty sure she did it. The uncertainty made it a little anti-climactic, but I praised her and fed her treats and got off it!

Follow the Rail was a bucking session again, though. It's about wanting to go to the gate. The herd always seem to be hanging around when we do this, and I'm convinced that this is a factor, but so be it. Since I had a saddle, the bucking didn't really bother me, but it makes me sad. I did stick with it, and things improved a little. We got several nice right leads, which have been problematic again recently. I ended on the best note I could, when we had at least done a full circuit of the playground in trot. However, what was missing was harmony and rhythm. I think when she is so under-impulsive I get a bit tight and desperate for her to just go. I don't quite understand why the groundwork doesn't improve the ridden stuff, We have been here before and I am tired of it. I need to find a way to make the ridden strategies more like the ones I used on the circle laps....

I unsaddled her and we had a little session in the roundpen. I probably shouldn't have bothered as we were both a little tired. We just did walk/trot transitions and a few laps of each gait each way. It wasn't brilliant, but probably a better place to stop than after the riding. I'm not sure. She didn't seem in any hurry to leave either the roundpen or the playground, which surprised me. Looking back, I know that I forgot to carry some of the good stuff I learned in the On Line session into the Liberty. Next time!!

Fun-demanding Time

2010-02-13T22:42:00.001-07:00

MUD. After the demo we had more snow. First we had the wet, rainy kind, then the drier powdery kind. With the ground already pretty well saturated, we ended up with really terrible mud. Yech! Except for one day when it had just snowed, I haven't been able to do much with the ponies. That one day was glorious, though. The powder snow was fun to play in, so I took Bruce and Iona into the playground and took turns with them - first doing a task with one and then a task with the other. I ended up getting some nice Liberty Figure 8s with Iona, and some great clowning around from Bruce. (I was encouraging him to clown around. Sometimes it's better to ask the question he wants to hear!)

Oh, yes, and they've been helping with the chores. The first week of each month is Sand Clear week. Bruce would rather not eat this, and not only tips his own bucket over, but then tips everybody's bucket over checking to see if anybody didn't get some. Tiresome. So he has to be brought into a pen and fed from a special untippable bucket which fits in a tire, which sits on a piece of plywood, so that if her throws the food around I can pick it up. Apparantly Sand Clear tastes better this way, as he then eats it up!

I have been finding this such an extra hassle at feeding time. and more so with the mud, as it just means another potentially muddy rope. So I decided it was time to see whether we could do this at Liberty, since he can see what needs to happen. That was no problem, so I was very pleased with that bit of progress.

I've been putting a few hay nets out on the track the past month or so, to encourage the herd to move (I change their locations around each day). With the mud, there is no way I would want to go out in a vehicle, as even if it didn't get stuck it would tear the ground up. However, seven sections of hay is heavy, so since Bruce was in the yard every morning anyway, I decided to get him to carry them. He's done this before, so it's no big deal. The first day he decided to bolt for home with the nets, about halfway across the pasture. Something in the distance had worried him. I must have had those nets balanced just right, as not a single one fell off. I think this deflated him a little, so I easily got him to come to me and we set off again. The second day he realised that once we got to the feeding station he was going to get to stand and stuff himself with hay, so he became quite motivated. Iona's taken a turn on some days, too, now. This is one job they definitely see a purpose to!

Today, I couldn't stand it any longer. The weather has been quite nice (hence the mud) and I really needed a pony fix! So I grabbed Iona's halter and line, and a stick, and walked out to where the herd were loafing under some trees. We messed around a little - I squeezed her through a puddle and over a log, then decided to get on and just hang out. I figured that it would get boring pretty quick, but the herd decided to go for a walk, so I got a half mile or so ride. Just being a passenger. The mud is pretty slippery, so being a great passenger was the thing to focus on. Iona has a tendency to trail her hindquarters and then have them slide out behind her, so I experimented with what I could do to get her to step under herself more.

I also played with whether I could get her to do lateral flexion just by thinking about it. No reins or stick. Amazingly, she did it several times. I just kind of looked down at my foot and thought about what I would do with the reins to ask for this, if I was using them. It was enough for her to feel, obviously. Gee, do you think I'm probably "shouting" at her most of the time, if she responded to that?

I did pick up the reins when we went down a small muddy bank. I watched the other horses. Petra's horses ran down it, jumping a suspicious looking patch of snow. Bruce kinda slid down it sideways. All he needed was a snowboard - he's such a goofball! I didn't really want to try either method bareback, so I asked her to line up and "do it properly" which she did.

We got to a place where there was grass to pick at. It was very interesting being part of the herd. A couple of times I saw Hunter or JB suddenly do a snappy departure for a new location and I wondered what had prompted that. Observing more closely, I realised that their movements were totally directed by Bruce. His phase one was so subtle I had missed it. It was about the equivalant of a human raising an eyebrow without even looking up at the other party. Boy, his phase four must be pretty memorable if his phase one is that effective and light! And the others have to really be paying attention to him, even though they're searching for a nibble, to notice it. I guess they must consider his thoughts to be pretty interesting! I gotta think about how to be like that.

Eventually, everybody started to turn around. I knew they hadn't been up that way for awhile, and that once they got that unfamiliar ground behind them they would probably start galloping. With the mud, I decided I would save that joy for another day, so I hopped off and let Iona go just in time to see the Browns take off with Hunter and Dakota in hot pursuit, and Bruce at the back, galloping for a bit, then stopping to do a handstand now and again. Iona soon caught up.

The Big Day

2010-02-02T23:59:00.001-07:00

What a lot of preparation our Intro to Parelli day took. Petra, Mark and I seemed to work flat out for the whole week leading up to Sunday. We got stuff printed, put up signs, took a trip to the dump, cleaned house, held a practise, picked up a port-a-potty, sent and answered endless emails, wrote press releases, drafted in extra help from Mark's son Clay, Petra's son Jani, our friend Denise....had lots of support from Sara and Linda - who also rode in the demo, of course, answered zillions of phone calls, borrowed 20 chairs, totally re-arranged the living room, groomed our horses, moved the stock trailer (and the playground fence!), dragged barrels and saddle stands all over the place, stacked straw bales on the flatbed trailer to make seating....and had a wonderful day!!

It was a slightly sedate demo, as the ground was wet and slippery. Iona did really well after all my worries. I felt that I got the rapport/respect balance better as the week went on. I tried to make every day different for her, but was very consistent about bringing her into the yard and giving her a hay net and then doing at least one session of something no matter how busy I was. That seemed to help her, and she started to look to come with me, rather than the herd, after feeding time. We didn't have as much impulsion on Sunday and we had during the last few days leading up to the demo. Maybe we just "peaked" a little early! LOL!! Or perhaps it was due to me trying to keep things extra "soft looking" for the crowd, as during the week I realised that she needed an effective phase four. Maybe I didn't really find it on Sunday.

However, we finished up with a bridle-less weave where I hardly used my carrot stick, and when I went to turn her out with the herd after we were done, I don't think she really wanted to leave me. THAT was worth more than any amount of showing off, as far as I was concerned!

As the day got closer we began to realise that we were going to get quite a few people turning out. We thought about 40. It was more like 60!!! Good thing we had thought out our parking strategy! We had people from most of the local towns and some from 100 miles or so away. I was amazed to discover that the lady down the road has a daughter (now in graduate school) who is a long-time Parelli student. Lots of people also had their first real taste of PNH, and lots have decided to sign up for Petra's lessons here, which is great! She has filled her Get Started group and nearly filled the Progressing group as well. These are scheduled for some Sundays over the coming months and it looks like they will spill over into the Saturday, too, in order to meet the demand. WOW!

After our outdoor demo, Petra showed some segments from the LIVE Celebration DVD. A few spotlights and Linda's talk on Horsenality. It was great to see people's faces as they watched these, and then were given Horsenality charts to fill out for their own horses. Petra had also arranged for her friend and student, Soraya, to give a short talk. Soraya is both a 4th Level dressage competitor and a keen Parelli L3 (or L4?) student. She was lovely and very down to earth with her presentation, and showed us some little clips of her riding both freestyle and in competition. I'm looking forward to seeing more of her, as she only lives about 30 minutes away. I could use a friend with some Finesse Savvy, for sure!

Here are some

Images from the Day

Petra and JB

Linda and Ducky

Me and Iona

Sara and Sis

Yesterday, Today and ....

2010-01-25T23:08:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking about whether I had the balance right with Iona. For years I thought she was purely a "stubborn, dominant, lazy" Left Brained Introvert (although at that stage the terminology wasn't around). When the Horsenality model arrived, I realised that some of her behavior was actually fear based "Right Brained Introvert". So I went through a period of taking care of that part of Iona, now that I knew about it. I'm sure she really appreciated my new level of understanding, but it possibly made me a more hesitant leader, and that is not what a dominant horse needs. I did a little Horsenality chart on our recent problems, and all I saw was extreme LBI behavior. Oh. I guess that's where we are again.

Played with Iona yesterday. I audited a group lesson with Kime Conkright on Sunday, and she said something that really impressed me about how there is always a chance for a new beginning when you go get your horse to play. She was suggesting to a student that playing for a bit, then putting the horse up for awhile, getting her out and playing again, etc. might be a good strategy. I thought it might be worth a try with Iona this week. Things are going to be hectic getting ready for the demo on Sunday, and at the same time I want to spend a lot of time with Iona, both playing and sharing undemanding time. So yesterday, one session was just grooming her, and the moving her around, etc. that this involves. Even that was hard work. I had no draw, she didn't want to look at me, or put her halter on or be led. Yech!! Then I left her while I did some other things.

Came back and we played the Circle game. I am trying to increase how many laps of trot or canter we can do. This may be one of the reasons we are having these big disagreements lately. I believe that Iona is "ready and able" to do this. I believe, in fact, that playing with this is going to teach each of us some things we now need to learn about Rapport, Respect, Impulsion and Flexion. However, because I'm still searching for strategies and because Iona is so dominant, this is causing her to "up the ante" and revert to some old behaviors. Like refusing to go forward, charging, threatening to kick, bucking... Yep, she did all of those. Happily, at least it doesn't scare me, and I don't get angry anymore. Frustrated, occasionally, but I do my best to manage it!

We went out to the playground and worked on Weave. This went a bit better than it has been. I think NOT doing Figure 8 and Weave on the same day helps. She finds this too predictable and boring. Perhaps if I can mix them up. I did mix some circles into the weave session, and that worked pretty well. I didn't stay at this too long, though. Too boring for her. Yes, I know it's not the Pattern that's boring, it's the way I'm presenting it. I think I try to go too fast, when actually, being more particular might be more interesting and provocative.

I left her in the roundpen while I went and did a few things. I came back with a bareback pad and hackamore. She did a great job of finding her bareback pad and letting me put it on, although once again I lacked the patience to really wait for her to sniff it. (I am beginning to suspect that this is a huge mistake, by the way!) She was very grumpy and didn't want to do much in the pen. I persisted and insisted as politely and passively as I could. I never hit her, but she did run into my stick a few times. We spent a lot of time discussing circles and Stick to Me, but very little time actually doing them. I tried to end on a good note, and decided to go ahead and ride.

That didn't go very well except as a rodeo event. I wanted to do some Figure 8 at trot around two barrels. Again, I think part of the trouble is boredom, (she could do this years ago) but the lack of respect and impulsion was not appropriate. So lots of bucking. I got to work on my independent seat and emotional fitness. Yea!! Eventually....finally....we got going and did the pattern with a nice trot and a pretty good attitude. We quit for the day.

Throughout the day's sessions I felt nothing but love for Iona. YES, I was frustrated! After all we are supposed to be riding in a demo on Sunday!!!! and I'm not sure it's going to look that good. However, I was also very firm with her. I was fair, I was friendly, but I was as dominant as I could figure out how to be without being mean. And I spent the evening wondering whether I could stand another day like that, as I didn't really know whether it had done any good.

Today my plan was to groom again, put on the bareback pad, do one short roundpen sesssion and then take her out to the big pasture for a passenger lesson-mosey-grazing-thingy! I usually bring any horses I want to play with in from the track just as they finish their bucket feed. I was trying to catch up on a few chores while they ate, and before I knew it Bruce and Iona were starting to leave the feeding area for goodness knows where. I was some distance away, but thought it was worth a try, so I shouted "Iona! Wait!" She did, and when I got there and called her she came right over and put her nose in the halter. Hmmmmm.

I was very particular with her about how she led, how she went through gates, but also particular to reward her (treats) when she did these things well. She mostly did them really well. Grooming was nice. Then I hung out my washing. Came back. Had reasonable draw. Decided to see if she would go with me at Liberty to get her pad on. We walked toward the saddle stand where I had put it. That's near a wate hydrant. She's always thirsty, so I filled a bucket and she had a drink. She found the pad and sniffed it. sniffed it again when I was in position to put it on. So far, so good.

I thought I'd just carry on at Liberty, and although she was slow, we made it into the little back yard and into the roundpen all at Liberty. I really tried to match her slow walking speed, and I think that helped our Rapport. In the roundpen session the bad stuff did come up again. However, I tried to be particular. I didn't find that I had to be as dominant as yesterday, and after a bit things went well.

We then walked through the arena, out to the track, through two gates, to a mounting block where I lined her up, messed up my mount, had to get off, reposition her, got on again - all at Liberty. All at Liberty! Nothing on her head at all, just me, my pony and our orange stick. I just let her eat for awhile, then did a bit of passenger - eat - passenger - eat, first walk and eventually trot. Her lateral flexion was fabulous, she maintained gait at the trot very well after a bit. Let her eat a bit more and we called it a day. Oh, that is, after doing the whole untacking and turning out song and dance also at Liberty.

They say you have a 50/50 chance of choosing the right strategy, and I guess that what I did yesterday must have been right, if today was anything to go by. I wonder what she'll do tomorrow.

Looking for a Balance

2010-01-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

I guess this is where I am supposed to stand back and say "Hmmmm, how interesting." My sessions with Iona seem to be really hard for both of us at the moment. She isn't a very willing partner lately, and I am really struggling to figure out how to fix it. I'm not sure whether we are stuck at Rapport or at Respect, and if we lack both (which we do) is this maybe one of those times when respect needs to be improved to actually gain rapport?

That's what I tried today. I had no draw and also had a horse who didn't even want to be led from A to B. Even in the round pen she didn't want to follow me, so we played the Catching Game, and I ended up repeating it a few times before she really stuck to me. I don't think that this really improved the rest of our session that much, however.

We have had various sessions and rides recently where not much has gone "right". I believe that some of the sour faces and refusals to do things are her version of play, and I can happily laugh about that, but I feel there are deeper disharmonies that I don't know how to remedy. My experiments with asking less or asking more, asking for more obedience or using reverse psychology, offering a purpose or just hanging out, all seem to end up in much the same place. Not much progress.

I did have one little interesting moment on Sunday. Linda and I were going to go out for a ride. I went to saddle up, and asked her to look at or sniff her saddle. She looked away. I decided to do things right and wait. It took ages with me just standing there holding the saddle, but eventually she did sniff it and I put it on. She stood there licking and licking for absolutely ages. I don't think she has an issue with the saddle, but she might have an issue with being rushed into things. Although the play session that followed wasn't all that brilliant, she was great on the ride, even though it was along a route that she has been complaining about recently. I don't know whether this is just coincidence, but I'm thinking perhaps I need to slow everything way down and wait. I know that I'm impatient. I've noticed that in my interactons with people lately, too. I think this is going to be a hard lesson for me, but if I need to learn it then I will try!

Our friend Denise took a bunch of great photos on Sunday. This picture is typical of many that she took of me playing with Iona. My energy is way up while hers is low. I'm not playing with the horse that shows up. Guess it's time to study up on Horsenality strategies, too.

Upcoming Events!

2010-01-11T22:21:00.001-07:00

Well, Petra and I have been cooking up a little plan, and we're serving it up on the 31st. We really want to increase local interest in Parelli, so we have set up a day for interested people to come along and meet PNH students, see some demos outdoors and then we'll bring them indoors for an informal chat, snacks, and DVD watching. We'll probably watch Get Started.

Petra

I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time, so I'm very excited. Hopefully we will manage to attract more local people, as that will make it so much easier to fill clinics and lessons. Petra is planning to set up a series of group lessons here at a great price, so hopefully we will get enough people signed up for that to be successful. Petra's website is here . You can read more about her and also see the wonderful flyer she made for our event.

We just started promoting this yesterday, and I already had a call this morning from someone who lives about 30 minutes from here who wants to come and bring a few friends. I'm sure we will have a great day!

AND

More excitement: I have just heard from 2* instructor Jerry Williams, and he has agreed to come here on the 7th, 8th and 9th of May to teach clinics. I think Jerry is such a great instructor, so I am really looking forward to being able to bask in all that Savvy. I had the chance to watch Jerry teach in 2008, and his great attitude and communication skills stuck in my mind. I am so pleased to be able to host him.

Jerry

Jerry also has a blog, where her writes inspirational posts aimed at Parelli students. His latest about raising your expectations, is a real gem. Here's the link Raise Your Expectations