Re-Inspired

This was supposed to be posted yesterday, but Blogger was acting funny so I couldn't post it. Anyways. . .

I played with Moose yesterday. It went pretty well, but I got discouraged, because it dawned on me that I still don't know who to be with him. But after watching some INCREDIBLE Parelli videos (and thus becoming re-inspired) I came up with 3 things that I need to change/do:

• I need to remember it's all a game, and have more fun! Shirley said that your enthusiasm level directly relates to your horse's enthusiasm level.
  

• I need to find out who I need to be around a horse who is used to being micro-managed his whole life.

• I need to take the time it takes. If it takes 2 years before I ride him, so what? If it takes 2 years before we pass Level 2, so what? I just need to remember that it's not about the time line, and to just have fun with where we're at right now. So what if we're not doing flying lead changes or sliding stops or playing at liberty? Accept where I'm at right now, so those things will come when they were meant to. Think how much I'll learn if it takes 2 years to pass Level 2! Think how much I'll learn if I don't ride him for 2 years! It's not about the _____, it's about the relationship.

Very good advice to myself. Now, let's just see how well I use it. :)

Getting a Feel for Blogger

Okay, so in case you didn't get the memo, I just switched my blog over from Wordpress to this site yesterday. Just working on setting everything up right now. Links might not be correct yet, so bear with me while I set everything up.

Moment In History

What happened to Bella while I've been gone? She's got confidence! Woah, who knew!?!? I'd been having issues with her on line for the past few months, because I feel like she's living inside a little bubble, and the bubble is her comfort zone. And if you push her too close to the bubble, she'd bolt and leave you in the dust, although of course she warns you first. :) But I didn't see how we could get anything done with her if she'd always get so worried about things, because when she bolts, she's gone. She's a Percheron, after all.

But, no issues like that whatsoever today! I finally took the initiative to go play with her, because I usually play with her like once a month, maybe that. Moose is really my focus, sorry Bella (or rather, lucky Bella, depending on your perspective :). Anyways, Bella has been a handful for the farrier and last time she was particularly bad about her feet. So, my mom and I've done some research and gained a bunch more savvy arrows, so this time we're prepared!

For starters, the farrier is coming in 2 weeks. So, one of us is going to play with her at least every other day until the farrier arrives. Our issue specifically is that once we get her foot up, she doesn't want to keep it up. So, we're setting up ourselves for success big time. We're getting her prepared for as long as that takes until she's a nice, respectful horse. Also, we're changing the environment around. Normally, we bring the horses out of the pasture to trim their feet into a small area without a whole lot of maneuverability. We've changed our game plan. This time, the horses are going to get trimmed inside the pasture.

And thanks to Dave Ellis, we're going to have a different set of rules with our farrier, too. It's basically going to run so that if the horse is being naughty, our farrier will tell us "take it away" and drop the foot and the moment that foot hits the ground, we're off circling and backing 'for miles' (I use the quotes, because we're not going for miles, but we will go for as long as it takes. I've heard a story about horses who got backed up all the way down a mile driveway for not standing still to mount and I'll tell you he didn't try that again anytime soon.) and going sideways with as much effort as the horse put into being sassy. If Bella gets really bad, even with our preparation, then we're going to have the farrier trim Moose until she settles down, so that still keeps things efficient time-wise for her. Basically, we're going to let Bella choose if she'd rather back up for 'a mile' or hold her foot up for a minute. And we're going to play with her for a little while before the farrier gets here, too.

So, today is the 2nd session since we've started this plan. With her front feet, things went very well. I could hold her foot up for 7 seconds, and it was still my idea to put it down. Marvelous! She wasn't so cooperative with her back feet, though, but she does normally have more trouble with those than the front. So, instead of breaking my back trying to get her to understand, I switched to the carrot stick and tapping her foot to lift it. Her first thought was that I wanted her to yield her HQ. So then every time she'd yield her HQ I'd yield them fast in 2 complete circles. So, then when she started thinking a little, she tried backing, and I had her back 4 steps for her every 1 step back. So, then she started alternating between the 2, because she didn't know what I wanted. After about 10 minutes of this, she stepped back but with the foot I wanted her to pick up, so I released on that. She licked and chewed on that one for a while. Then, I tried tapping once more and it took 3 times, but then she picked up the foot again. I quit on that note, because I wanted to do some other things and then bring her out to graze for a while in case I lost any rapport today.

Today was really a "Moment In History" kind of day, so it was pretty sweet. I was very happy that Bella was left brain, because now we can make some real progress!!! And I am very happy with myself, too. I was an alpha today, that's for sure, and Bella picked up on that right away. On a comical note, Bella's yielding her HQ today was better than Moose's, (but Bella was pretty stiff/tight). And we actually got 1 lap of circing on a 12' at a walk. *Half-hearted "yippee!"* That's still pretty pathetic :), but it's progress all right. My horses are so funny. ;)

How to Fix the Bucking Bronco

I forgot to add in my last post about how I'm going to fix Moose's bucking reaction. The things I learned will definitely come into play, but I found out I am not the sole responsible party for his reaction. Moose does have a legitimate issue with the girth, not so much the bareback pad, though.

I did approach and retreat with the bareback pad to make sure he didn't have any issues with it. After a little bit, he was pretty relaxed with the pad on, so I didn't think the pad was a problem. So, I had a 22' connected to his halter, and I just wrapped part of the rope around his belly. So, I had control of his head in one hand, and his Z3 in another. I rubbed the rope all around him, to see if that irritated him. I tried getting him to yield towards me with the rope, to give him an out if he felt stuck. Then, I simulated the girth by pulling it taught, then loose, then taught, etc. None of this bugged him like it did the other day. So, with my hands on the same position on the ropes, I decided to see if I could get him to yield forward from the rope on his Z3. As soon as the rope pulled taught, Moose's eyes got huge and he got worried. Actually, he scared me, because I thought he was going to jump forward and run through me or something. I was standing in front of him at the time, because I wanted to lead him forward from Z3, so that put me in a bad position. But at least I found out what the issue is!

Now the only problem is that I can't solve it without buying another 22'. :( My idea is to have him on a 22' line in case he gets scared. And then I want a 22' around his girth area to act like a normal girth. So, first I want to see how much pressure he can take from the 'girth', and if he's out on a circle while I do this, that puts me in a safe position. I'm hoping that doing that will get rid of most of his issue. So, then I can leave leading by Z3 to a time when he's more left-brain and more prepared to follow the feel.

So, that's my genius idea, but seeing as I don't have 2 22' lines, I'm just going to have to experiment with having him on a 22' and then a 12' around his Z3. I'll let you know how it goes.

Finding Time for Time

Due to a change in my schedule, I'm not going to be updating as often as I'd like. Things just got a whole lot busier, so free time on computer will be sketchy on most days. I'm not real excited about it, but oh well. :)

Anyways, what have Moose and I been doing lately!? We've just been refreshing from vacation! That's right. Tuesday night was the last night in our longest time without playing ever: 5 days. Oh, I know. . . the horror! I wasn't very happy about it, since I thought that the 5 days off were going to make him forget everything, or something silly like that. :) But surprisingly (to me), when I played with him on Tuesday he was actually the most in tune with me that he's ever been. I wouldn't call it our best day ever, but our communication was definitely subtler than normal. For instance, sometimes when I send him out on a circle, he goes the wrong direction. So, I yo-yo him back to say 'wrong answer.' Then, I kept pointing in the direction I want him to go, and yo-yoing if he went the wrong way. After a few times of going the wrong direction, he would back up from a brisk phase 1. Normally, it's a phase 2 when he makes a mistake, because he obviously thinks that the direction he wants to go is right or he wouldn't be going there, and my suggestion of backing usually takes him by surprise. This time he was paying more attention to me. So, that was kind of cool.

Also, I played yesterday and today, and Moose has actually woken up a little bit. Yesterday, he pinned his ears back a few times when I told him that "no, he cannot come in and needs to circle." And the day before, I sent him and he took off like a lunatic and pulled me off balance. Today, he got a little revved up when I told him that I needed his HQ to yield when I ask, so he was sending with a lot of energy again. There was one other thing he did the other day, but I can't remember what it was. Anyways, I wasn't really sure what to think about all this, because I think my horse has actually found his play drive now! So, now I just have to figure out the line between play and dominance. :0

And right before our little vacation, I got my bareback pad!!! Hip hip horray! It's green and it's Parelli. I sat on it on a barrel and can already feel how the pad gives your seat almost a velcro-like feeling. Since I was so excited to go try it out right when I got it, I went out and got Moose and played some quick Friendly with it and then put it on him. Sent him out for some circles, then brought him in. Tightened up the girth a little. Then, I wanted to play Touch It on some tires we have set up as a pedestal. From there, I wanted him to jump the tires as a pre-flight check. Ready, set, go and we're off to the tires. And only 1 of us ended up getting there, and it wasn't me. Moose blew a gasket, and gallopped off bucking at the same time. He ran around the whole pasture freaking out when he finally stopped near Bella (who, by the way, when she saw Moose freaking out promptly decided the sky was falling and ran around with Moose for all of 8 strides before reaching the decision that running is too much work and stopped on a dime and ate grass like nothing happened) and let me take the bareback pad off. 2 things of note: 1) the bareback pad was in exactly the same position it was in when I did up the cinch the 2nd time. Hmm, how interesting! 2) When I took off the bareback pad the first thing Moose did was yawn about 5 times. To be expected, but I guess that just told me that I need to read my horse better. And so afterwards, I did approach and retreat with the bareback pad and he went back to being my LBI Moose. So, what did I learn from this experience? 1) Don't be direct-line. I was direct-line by going straight to the bareback pad. 2) Don't make assumptions. I assumed Moose would be LBI Moose eand not have an issue with the pad or girth. 3) There is a reason I haven't made a lot of progress with him, so I'm not just being an incompetent human. I was on to something when I pinned him as a LBI with an RBI side, and this means I'm still somewhat right by going slow with him. This proved to me that his RBI side is still in there. I had suspected so, but never proven it until this day. 4) When a RBI's eyes get even a little hard, you just found a threshold. Time for retreat.

And I'm excited now, too, because I might have finally found a saddle! A friend of mine had an old Western saddle in her tack room that was just collecting dust, and said if it fit Moose I could have it. Well, lo and behold, it's black and it's dusty, but it's a Big Horn. :0 So, I tried it on him tonight and it looks a lot better than the other saddle we bought for him. This one is going to need 1 or 2 shims to keep it off his shoulders, because the saddle is tight there, and possibly one in back to keep the weight off the back of the saddle, but it is still a lot nicer. The other saddle I had was an Abetta and it was in better condition, but it just sunk right down on his shoulders, so the saddle would have needed quite a few shims to even be level in the first place. It wouldn't have worked very well. And if this works out, then I even have enough money to buy the Theraflex pad! I love it when a plan come together.