I rode Moose for the first time with a saddle yesterday!!! I'm proud. He didn't do anything stupid at all. We just walked. I tried directing him and we did some HQ yields. It went over really well.
And I had a realization that the bucking isn't his fault. It's mine. It's his way of showing me he still doesn't trust me. So I had a very how interesting moment. Yay progress!
Friday, June 25, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Operation Horses
I've been getting Moosey prepped for riding recently. It's been going pretty well, but I'm a little finicky about saddle fit. I'm afraid to mess up because I think he'll buck. We had a day last week where he bucked all over the place. Good thing I've got a long rope. :) But I'm thinking I might try riding with a saddle on soon. Maybe within a week or two. We'll see though I don't want to push this.
Today was also quite the day. Bella kept getting attacked by giant (seriously giant) horse flies - one of them got me too - and so I got to watch her run and Moose run laps around the pasture today. Luckily, that was AFTER I snatched her halter and quick unbuckled the rope to let her run. And AFTER I decided she looked really tense and I decided I should probably do something. And that was AFTER Moose started bucking really bucking high because of either A) Fly or B) The fact that his girlfriend was outside the pasture. So, yeah. Lovely day. Needless to say I apologized to them both after that. Moose doesn't hate me though, so I think it might've been just a fly.
And speaking of Moose, he walked to me the other day. I was pretty happy with that. Quite a few steps too and he said hi. I was like sweet. Cool bud.
And I'm thinking of filming our level 1 in the next few days. We'll see how that goes. I still would rather just film our Level 2 but then that means we'd be working on Level 3 on the ground (YIKES) and we're not ready for that yet. Our patterns still need work. I think I need to get to be a better leader to show what I want. I have a feeling Moose's going to get a discussion from Farrah, so I think I should prepare him a little better. Just that feels hard to do with this friendship I have going on with him. And I don't want to ruin that.
Guess I got some more thinking to do then. As if that's hard for us intellectual people.
Today was also quite the day. Bella kept getting attacked by giant (seriously giant) horse flies - one of them got me too - and so I got to watch her run and Moose run laps around the pasture today. Luckily, that was AFTER I snatched her halter and quick unbuckled the rope to let her run. And AFTER I decided she looked really tense and I decided I should probably do something. And that was AFTER Moose started bucking really bucking high because of either A) Fly or B) The fact that his girlfriend was outside the pasture. So, yeah. Lovely day. Needless to say I apologized to them both after that. Moose doesn't hate me though, so I think it might've been just a fly.
And speaking of Moose, he walked to me the other day. I was pretty happy with that. Quite a few steps too and he said hi. I was like sweet. Cool bud.
And I'm thinking of filming our level 1 in the next few days. We'll see how that goes. I still would rather just film our Level 2 but then that means we'd be working on Level 3 on the ground (YIKES) and we're not ready for that yet. Our patterns still need work. I think I need to get to be a better leader to show what I want. I have a feeling Moose's going to get a discussion from Farrah, so I think I should prepare him a little better. Just that feels hard to do with this friendship I have going on with him. And I don't want to ruin that.
Guess I got some more thinking to do then. As if that's hard for us intellectual people.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
A Story
The hours drip by like paint, dousing the tiny trailer which is practically falling apart with a sense of wisdom beyond its years. A man chewing gum with a golf cap on is familiar to that feeling. He has a sweaty horse called Moose on a lead rope. His eyes are about wrinkled shut with age, but his smiling face gives away his mood. He stands to the left of the trailer, and puts a feel on Moose's lead rope, urging him to come forward. Moose locks his feet and his eyes go wide and starry. There was no way that 2 legged thing was going to get him on that cage on wheels. The man shrugs and keeps the feel on. 2 minutes pass. 4. Then 7. At 10, he gracefully, while keeping the feel precisely the same, sinks down onto the trailer bumper feeling content to wait there all day. At 20 minutes, Moose's eyes soften, and the man releases the feel instantly. Moose just stands there, not even noticing. The man sits still for a moment, his breath the only sound in the air for a moment while the onlookers wait patiently. He then climbs to his feet, and walks to Moose, who tenses up at his approach. The man looks him in the eye, bends down and breathes into the horse's nostrils. Moose stands still as a statue. Then, the man asks for a chair. An audience member hands him one noiselessly. He drags it back to the trailer, dropping Moose's lead rope and letting him stand where he is.
He begins to whisper, "What are you seeing right now?" His voice grinds over the words like a jagged saw cutting wood.
A girl raises her hand. The man nods at her. She yells, "I see-"
The man puts a finger to his lips, then points at the horse.
"Sorry," the girl apologizes. "I don't see anything."
The man nods, as if he hearing what he expected to hear. "Anyone else?" No one else raises their hands. The man stands, and walks to the edge of the little corral he was in. He ducks under deftly and shuffles away. The audience members are stunned. The girl runs up to him.
"Uh, sir. . ." she twirls her hair nervously.
The man looked down at his watch as if surprised to find he had it on. "Lunch break. Be back in an hour." The audience members raised their eyebrows as he hobbled to his truck and drove away. They decided to leave Moose just as he was, and everyone went back to their cars to get their lunches. It was already late in the afternoon.
An hour later, the man pulled back up and wandered right back into the pen. No announcement we're starting. No words to anyone. Apparently the only person he needed to talk to was a horse. Moose perked up at seeing him duck under the corral rail. His eyes were brighter and he took a half step towards the man. The man stopped instantly, and walked right back out. He turned his back to the horse and addresses the reconvening crowd. "Do you see the difference now?" He smiled as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the now-curious horse. The onlookers were puzzled. Just looked like a horse to them.
The man turned around slowly to see the horse staring right at him. He went into the corral, and walked up to the horse. The horse took a hesitant step back. The man did too. Then he stepped forward again, and the horse stepped back. The horse ended up backing all over the corral. One step at a time. With Moose still keeping him the same distance away. After this went on for some time, the man stepped forward, and Moose stayed where he was. The man extended out his hand toward the horse's nose. Moose lowered his face and sniffed his hand. The man smiled and walked out of the corral. "Bathroom break."
A half hour later, the trailer loading started up again. Moose had been moving freely in the interim, and had started to pace the fence. He was looking for the funny man who he was starting to trust. Just as he got worried the man wasn't coming back, he spotted him ambling towards him. In no time, the man reached him, and this time Moose relaxed as he stroked his face. He lowered his head, and cocked a leg. The man grabbed a rope from outside the ring. Moose ignored the fact that it looked like a snake, and allowed the man to slip it over his head. The man walked away and Moose followed with no hesitation. There was no drag on the rope. The man walked in a few circles and then walked right up to the trailer. Moose hesitated when he felt the man put a little feel in the rope, directing him in. The man released the pressure as he saw Moose's indecision. He walked over to him and pet him, convincing Moose again that this man understood him. The man shuffled to his spot at the left of the trailer and sat down on the bumper again. He slowly took the slack out of the rope, and Moose strode right into the trailer.
The man cracked a smile. The horse was barely small enough to fit in the lousy thing. Then, much to the amazement of the audience, the man proceeded to load and unload Moose for the next half hour until it got so good that if you put one finger under the rope and pointed he would jump in. Once the man got Moose to do that, he loaded Moose one last time and shut the doors.
He took off his golf cap to expose a balding head of salt and pepper hair. He held the cap over his chest. "Any questions?" he coughed. The onlookers were stunned beyond words. They simply started at him. "Thanks for having me then." He shrugged the cap back onto his head and moseyed back to his own truck. He fired up the engine, and drove down the gravel driveway.
"Wait!" a girl yelled, running after him furiously. The man didn't stop. She screamed "WAIT!!!!" The truck puttered to a stop. Almost out of breath, the girl skipped over to the driver's seat. The man rolled down the window.
"Did I forget something?"
"Yeah," she panted. "You did. I have something to tell you."
"What might that be?" His eyes crinkled.
The girl turned to indicate the whole audience with her arms. "We couldn't see anything."
He shrugged. "I'm sorry to hear that." When the girl didn't reply, he started rolling up his window.
"Oh one more thing!" the girl yelled, pressing her hands against the window.
"Yes?"
The girl tilted her head to the side, playing with her bottom lip. "What did you do in there?"
The man's eyebrows raised. "I gained his trust. Told him I wasn't going to hurt him." The girl pondered his answer, and turned around to leave. The man raised his window, and left. The girl skipped back to the audience. A woman with short blonde hair approached her and mistook her pondering face for a sad one.
"Oh sweetie, it's alright, none of us saw anything either. Don't worry dear," she held out her hand for her daughter to grab. The girl latched on to it, jumping around as she walked.
"Did you know he can talk to horses?" she said eventually.
"Really?" Her daughter didn't see the doubt on her mother's face.
"Yeah. Said he told him he wouldn't hurt him." The daughter bounced around some more. She stopped and asked. "Can I learn to talk to them too mommy?"
The lady's face was blank as she answered "Sure, sweetie, whatever you'd like." She herded her bouncing daughter into the truck and sighed as the door clicked shut. She did not want to ruin her daughter's dreams, but that man would now have to be paid for 6 hours of work when it only really took him 10 minutes to get that horse in the trailer. Such a rip-off she sighed.
She then hopped into the truck, and they drove Moose home. "Could he teach me mommy?" her daughter's eyes glistened.
Mom looked back in the rear view mirror. "I'm sure he probably could," she smiled to her daughter, but frowned on the inside.
The girl giggled all the way home. When they arrived home, the mother took her phone outside and called the man right away. "I'd like to talk to you about price."
"Alright,"
"That was a 6 hour trailer loading, but you loaded my horse in 10 minutes. I'm not paying for 6 hours then." The mom was resolute.
"Then I have a proposal."
"What might that be?"
"Pay me for 10 minutes, and your daughter can come work off the other 5 hours and 45 minutes."
The mother sat down in a chair, sighing loudly. She did not want her daughter associating with this man, but it would make her so happy. Eventually, she agreed to it. As long as she came with though. The man said that was fine. Her daughter was ecstatic. The mother just hoped she was making the right choice.
He begins to whisper, "What are you seeing right now?" His voice grinds over the words like a jagged saw cutting wood.
A girl raises her hand. The man nods at her. She yells, "I see-"
The man puts a finger to his lips, then points at the horse.
"Sorry," the girl apologizes. "I don't see anything."
The man nods, as if he hearing what he expected to hear. "Anyone else?" No one else raises their hands. The man stands, and walks to the edge of the little corral he was in. He ducks under deftly and shuffles away. The audience members are stunned. The girl runs up to him.
"Uh, sir. . ." she twirls her hair nervously.
The man looked down at his watch as if surprised to find he had it on. "Lunch break. Be back in an hour." The audience members raised their eyebrows as he hobbled to his truck and drove away. They decided to leave Moose just as he was, and everyone went back to their cars to get their lunches. It was already late in the afternoon.
An hour later, the man pulled back up and wandered right back into the pen. No announcement we're starting. No words to anyone. Apparently the only person he needed to talk to was a horse. Moose perked up at seeing him duck under the corral rail. His eyes were brighter and he took a half step towards the man. The man stopped instantly, and walked right back out. He turned his back to the horse and addresses the reconvening crowd. "Do you see the difference now?" He smiled as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the now-curious horse. The onlookers were puzzled. Just looked like a horse to them.
The man turned around slowly to see the horse staring right at him. He went into the corral, and walked up to the horse. The horse took a hesitant step back. The man did too. Then he stepped forward again, and the horse stepped back. The horse ended up backing all over the corral. One step at a time. With Moose still keeping him the same distance away. After this went on for some time, the man stepped forward, and Moose stayed where he was. The man extended out his hand toward the horse's nose. Moose lowered his face and sniffed his hand. The man smiled and walked out of the corral. "Bathroom break."
A half hour later, the trailer loading started up again. Moose had been moving freely in the interim, and had started to pace the fence. He was looking for the funny man who he was starting to trust. Just as he got worried the man wasn't coming back, he spotted him ambling towards him. In no time, the man reached him, and this time Moose relaxed as he stroked his face. He lowered his head, and cocked a leg. The man grabbed a rope from outside the ring. Moose ignored the fact that it looked like a snake, and allowed the man to slip it over his head. The man walked away and Moose followed with no hesitation. There was no drag on the rope. The man walked in a few circles and then walked right up to the trailer. Moose hesitated when he felt the man put a little feel in the rope, directing him in. The man released the pressure as he saw Moose's indecision. He walked over to him and pet him, convincing Moose again that this man understood him. The man shuffled to his spot at the left of the trailer and sat down on the bumper again. He slowly took the slack out of the rope, and Moose strode right into the trailer.
The man cracked a smile. The horse was barely small enough to fit in the lousy thing. Then, much to the amazement of the audience, the man proceeded to load and unload Moose for the next half hour until it got so good that if you put one finger under the rope and pointed he would jump in. Once the man got Moose to do that, he loaded Moose one last time and shut the doors.
He took off his golf cap to expose a balding head of salt and pepper hair. He held the cap over his chest. "Any questions?" he coughed. The onlookers were stunned beyond words. They simply started at him. "Thanks for having me then." He shrugged the cap back onto his head and moseyed back to his own truck. He fired up the engine, and drove down the gravel driveway.
"Wait!" a girl yelled, running after him furiously. The man didn't stop. She screamed "WAIT!!!!" The truck puttered to a stop. Almost out of breath, the girl skipped over to the driver's seat. The man rolled down the window.
"Did I forget something?"
"Yeah," she panted. "You did. I have something to tell you."
"What might that be?" His eyes crinkled.
The girl turned to indicate the whole audience with her arms. "We couldn't see anything."
He shrugged. "I'm sorry to hear that." When the girl didn't reply, he started rolling up his window.
"Oh one more thing!" the girl yelled, pressing her hands against the window.
"Yes?"
The girl tilted her head to the side, playing with her bottom lip. "What did you do in there?"
The man's eyebrows raised. "I gained his trust. Told him I wasn't going to hurt him." The girl pondered his answer, and turned around to leave. The man raised his window, and left. The girl skipped back to the audience. A woman with short blonde hair approached her and mistook her pondering face for a sad one.
"Oh sweetie, it's alright, none of us saw anything either. Don't worry dear," she held out her hand for her daughter to grab. The girl latched on to it, jumping around as she walked.
"Did you know he can talk to horses?" she said eventually.
"Really?" Her daughter didn't see the doubt on her mother's face.
"Yeah. Said he told him he wouldn't hurt him." The daughter bounced around some more. She stopped and asked. "Can I learn to talk to them too mommy?"
The lady's face was blank as she answered "Sure, sweetie, whatever you'd like." She herded her bouncing daughter into the truck and sighed as the door clicked shut. She did not want to ruin her daughter's dreams, but that man would now have to be paid for 6 hours of work when it only really took him 10 minutes to get that horse in the trailer. Such a rip-off she sighed.
She then hopped into the truck, and they drove Moose home. "Could he teach me mommy?" her daughter's eyes glistened.
Mom looked back in the rear view mirror. "I'm sure he probably could," she smiled to her daughter, but frowned on the inside.
The girl giggled all the way home. When they arrived home, the mother took her phone outside and called the man right away. "I'd like to talk to you about price."
"Alright,"
"That was a 6 hour trailer loading, but you loaded my horse in 10 minutes. I'm not paying for 6 hours then." The mom was resolute.
"Then I have a proposal."
"What might that be?"
"Pay me for 10 minutes, and your daughter can come work off the other 5 hours and 45 minutes."
The mother sat down in a chair, sighing loudly. She did not want her daughter associating with this man, but it would make her so happy. Eventually, she agreed to it. As long as she came with though. The man said that was fine. Her daughter was ecstatic. The mother just hoped she was making the right choice.
Balance and Trust
I've discovered something about balance today. Moose and Bella have recently been put into another pasture to graze, since ours is bone-dry. The grass all died and went to heaven apparently, leaving our horses with hell on earth: no food. But, thankfully, with the use of this pasture they'll be fine.
So, anyways. I was ducking underneath the electric wire, and it hit me. Balance. How I was ducking under the fence, if I needed to stop suddenly because I was running over a horse's threshold, I couldn't! I needed to put my other foot down, I couldn't stay just as I was.
Another way of explaining: you know how we all want our horses to have go = woah? Well, humans need that too! I wasn't prepared in the proper position to help my horse, and I've come to the realization that this is a pattern in my life. With horses anyways. I feel like if someone was going to yell to me at sometime in our play session "STOP!" I couldn't do it, I'd probably trip over myself. It's finding the grace of movement, I guess that's how I'd explain it. You know when you see people who do Tai Chi or some kind of slow, but powerful martial arts every movement just feels very balanced and planned. I don't feel that way. My movements are clumsy and jerky. I'm the person who moves because they have to, as in the instance I talked about above. I get myself all tangled up so I have to move, so I couldn't be effective even if I wanted to. My timing and balance is off. So with is I was losing feel. Very good to know.
And I also discovered how Moose doesn't really trust me. Bella does, we are now on very good terms, but Moose has been holding back. I really thought about him today, and figured out he doesn't trust me. Not in the terms that he's an RBI and goes introverted within himself. No, like he's being stubborn about it. He's set in his ways. He's LBI about it, he's decided that people aren't something he wants to be involved with. I don't know what made him decide this, or if he was born that way, I have no idea. But I want him to trust me. And I now that in order for that to happen, he has to decide it himself.
With Bella, see, if you get in a tricky situation, she trusts me. If I were riding her (although I don't) and she got freaked out about something, I would be saying the equivalent of (or would WANT to anyways, because I doubt I could be so calm)"Bella, calm down. Trust me, you're going to live." Because that's what she needs to hear at that time: gentle, yet firm. But with Moose, If I got into a situation where he got scared, and I did the same thing, he wouldn't relax like Bella would, he'd go "No, I don't believe you." There is nothing I have that can make him trust me.
I remember reading in one of Mark Rashid's books once about a horse that was uncatchable. They turned it into a pasture for a few months. Huge pasture, lots of other horses. Everything was fine. Until one day they needed to halter all the horses to move them into another pasture. They caught every one of them just fine, except this horse. They walked out to catch it, the horse ran away. They said "alrighty then." And came out there every half hour or every hour afterwards to ask if it still didn't want to be caught. The horse was neighing and whinnying for its buddies like crazy. Eventually, since he realized he was getting nowhere, the horse let himself be caught. And he was never hard to catch anytime after that either.
See, he learned what he needed to learn. There was no opposition here. What, the fence for keeping him in? No, that's how humans think. We would blame the fence if we're trapped somewhere, but the horse was just fighting himself. He had a way out. And that's the kind of situation Moose needs to be in. He needs to learn that he's only inconveniencing himself by not trusting me. I can't force my hand, I can't change his mind. He has to change it. I could go out there with cookies or a whip and either bribe him or force him to trust me, but neither of those work. I want to offer myself up as a friend. I want to be his friend, and then once we can be friends and we trust each other, I can pursue more levels in Parelli. Because with him not trusting me, it's not fair of me to ask.
But yeah, so I don't get direct-lined about saying "trust me now!" to him, I thought of a quote. This also goes along with a story I just wrote which I may or may not post. The quote is: "You don't need to trust me completely: you got your whole lifetime for that. Right now I just need you to trust me enough to get in that trailer."
So, anyways. I was ducking underneath the electric wire, and it hit me. Balance. How I was ducking under the fence, if I needed to stop suddenly because I was running over a horse's threshold, I couldn't! I needed to put my other foot down, I couldn't stay just as I was.
Another way of explaining: you know how we all want our horses to have go = woah? Well, humans need that too! I wasn't prepared in the proper position to help my horse, and I've come to the realization that this is a pattern in my life. With horses anyways. I feel like if someone was going to yell to me at sometime in our play session "STOP!" I couldn't do it, I'd probably trip over myself. It's finding the grace of movement, I guess that's how I'd explain it. You know when you see people who do Tai Chi or some kind of slow, but powerful martial arts every movement just feels very balanced and planned. I don't feel that way. My movements are clumsy and jerky. I'm the person who moves because they have to, as in the instance I talked about above. I get myself all tangled up so I have to move, so I couldn't be effective even if I wanted to. My timing and balance is off. So with is I was losing feel. Very good to know.
And I also discovered how Moose doesn't really trust me. Bella does, we are now on very good terms, but Moose has been holding back. I really thought about him today, and figured out he doesn't trust me. Not in the terms that he's an RBI and goes introverted within himself. No, like he's being stubborn about it. He's set in his ways. He's LBI about it, he's decided that people aren't something he wants to be involved with. I don't know what made him decide this, or if he was born that way, I have no idea. But I want him to trust me. And I now that in order for that to happen, he has to decide it himself.
With Bella, see, if you get in a tricky situation, she trusts me. If I were riding her (although I don't) and she got freaked out about something, I would be saying the equivalent of (or would WANT to anyways, because I doubt I could be so calm)"Bella, calm down. Trust me, you're going to live." Because that's what she needs to hear at that time: gentle, yet firm. But with Moose, If I got into a situation where he got scared, and I did the same thing, he wouldn't relax like Bella would, he'd go "No, I don't believe you." There is nothing I have that can make him trust me.
I remember reading in one of Mark Rashid's books once about a horse that was uncatchable. They turned it into a pasture for a few months. Huge pasture, lots of other horses. Everything was fine. Until one day they needed to halter all the horses to move them into another pasture. They caught every one of them just fine, except this horse. They walked out to catch it, the horse ran away. They said "alrighty then." And came out there every half hour or every hour afterwards to ask if it still didn't want to be caught. The horse was neighing and whinnying for its buddies like crazy. Eventually, since he realized he was getting nowhere, the horse let himself be caught. And he was never hard to catch anytime after that either.
See, he learned what he needed to learn. There was no opposition here. What, the fence for keeping him in? No, that's how humans think. We would blame the fence if we're trapped somewhere, but the horse was just fighting himself. He had a way out. And that's the kind of situation Moose needs to be in. He needs to learn that he's only inconveniencing himself by not trusting me. I can't force my hand, I can't change his mind. He has to change it. I could go out there with cookies or a whip and either bribe him or force him to trust me, but neither of those work. I want to offer myself up as a friend. I want to be his friend, and then once we can be friends and we trust each other, I can pursue more levels in Parelli. Because with him not trusting me, it's not fair of me to ask.
But yeah, so I don't get direct-lined about saying "trust me now!" to him, I thought of a quote. This also goes along with a story I just wrote which I may or may not post. The quote is: "You don't need to trust me completely: you got your whole lifetime for that. Right now I just need you to trust me enough to get in that trailer."
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Trailering Help Please
Ok, if anyone knows of any professional haulers, please let me know. I'm trying to get price quotes on hauling Moose, seeing as we don't have a trailer and our truck is currently not up to making an 8+ hour trip, I'm looking elsewhere.
I am DETERMINED to get him to South Dakota. We need this, and it's going to help out sooooooo much.
If you know of any, please, let me know.
I am DETERMINED to get him to South Dakota. We need this, and it's going to help out sooooooo much.
If you know of any, please, let me know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)