My Grand Adventure

And I thought I should let you know Bella is no longer here. We sold her to a fellow Parelli student in the area and she is doing much better already. After having owned her for about 2 years and not riding much at all, her new owner rode her the 5th day she got her. We're very excited for them.

And I had an incredible horse-filled day today. Started out at 9 this morning playing with Queen. She's a LBE beautiful QH, about 15.2ish hands, 9 years old. I actually found her when I was looking for a place to possibly board Moose for the winter, and they told me she was for sale and I just loved her from looking at her. She's incredibly gorgeous. And Parelli-trained too. :) She was soooooo light it was amazing. You used your legs and the reins to turn her, but the legs were like inside your skin. Like I thought, "let's turn right," and did the motions inside my skin for turning as I wanted and she would follow right along. It was absolutely phenomenal. She blew my mind. The only thing Queen was working on was cantering. I surprised myself, I actually felt confident enough to canter on her, even though they said it needed work. Wasn't terrible though. I now feel an itch to canter on Moose! I haven't had the confidence to canter in a long time.

So I will admit I am now trying to figure out if there is any possible way I could fit another horse into my life. I am planning on going back to Farrah's for the summer but hauling 2 horses would be doubly expensive and leaving Queen here by herself for the summer with no handling would be unfair to both my parents taking care of her and Queen. And I have no money with which to pay them. If they were willing to just give her away, then Moose could stay here and have a buddy but then if she had any vet bills I wouldn't have the money to pay for them because I'd have to buy hay. So as you can see it's all a huge mess but I'm thinking on it. There is another person going to see her tomorrow, so if she sells she sells I guess. I'd be kind of bummed, but I know at this point it's not feasible to take on another horse. Just doesn't help me from wishing I could. :) More to come on her though if I think of something. Because I am thinking. . . believe me.

Also thought I should update everyone, I actually have a job now playing with horses!!!!! I'm very thrilled, getting paid for what you want to make a career out of is certainly fulfilling. So I went over there today and played with 3 of their horses: if you remember Star, from long ago, I actually got to play with her today.

Things went much better than last time, I was able to rub her all over with the carrot stick and throw it over her back a little. She got VERY worried about her friens though. Right when I took her out of the pasture I had to do some major RB pattern interrupts, and then she calmed down. I spent a lot of time on Friendly, and also tried some Porcupine and a little bit of Driving. Star was starting to get really LB and actually more pushy than scared, but then I think the horses in the pasture got too far away or something and she went off the walls again. So it was kind of a bummer. I had her at a good spot, but we lost it. It's ok though. I was actually having a lot of trouble teaching her because all she wants to do is crowd you. And I was trying to get her confidence up with the carrot stick, but while maintaining some semblance of safety and teaching her. And having her so RB was not really helping. But I definitely learned more for next time. Since it rained this morning we couldn't really use the arena so that was a hindrance but also we're going to be playing on a 22 promptly next time. This pony needs the room. She can go have her RB freak-outs over there.

Also, got to play with Lily. She was more of an introvert, but she seemed as inexperienced as Star. The only difference was Lily wanted to do nothing but eat. I was trying to teach her Porcupine and do some Friendly, and it was pretty humorous, she'd bring her head up in time to be worried or move and then dive back down again. So we're going to install a head down cue pretty quick. ;)

Lastly, I played with Dazzle today too. Dazzle was the horse you ride when you're ponying one of the more greener horses, so she kind of knew the deal. Well I was told she was pretty good at Liberty stuff, so I turned her loose in the round pen. I guess they had a different concept of Liberty than I did because she didn't really know any of the games. She knew Stick To Me walk and trot, but that's about it. And that was after playing the Catching Game once or twice.

But the really really neat thing about Dazzle is the way she rides. Oh was it magnificent! It was so incredibly similar to Queen I could've cried! (jk jk) But I felt so spoiled, 2 rides on incredibly amazing horses in one day. . . how lucky am I? Before today, I have never ridden any horses as well-trained in riding as these two were. Queen was actually the favorite because Dazzle didn't stop as lightly and it took a bit to get her to go whereas Queen was very light in everything. But it was just excellent, I felt very safe on her and she didn't worry me one bit.

And then once I got home, I headed to a stable down the road to watch my friend ride her horse for a Pony Club event. I was too late though, I arrived just in time for the last ride, but I got to see her mom ride. It went pretty well, they were going eventing and I've never watched that in person before. The horses were all very very pretty and seemed content with life.

Then I actually returned home and played with Moose. He did so excellent I can't even say. It was quite a nice break to play with an advanced horse, one that is familiar with me. The youngsters can be quite challenging on how to get a communication system set up, so I was doubly thankful for Moose. But it was getting kind of late so rather than ride like I had intended I just played with cantering. We've been practicing cantering on the Circling Game for a little while now as I want to start developing some cantering things on the ground, like Stick to Me and eventually Z5 driving. Well, Moose was very connected to me tonight. He did all his gaits with slack in the rope, his trot seemed really nice and even and not racy. It looked balanced! So I asked him to canter out of it and he did do some playful head shaking and kicking a once or twice but he knew what I was asking for so this time instead of changing direction to help him I wanted to see if he could figure it out. And he did! I got about HALF A LAP of cantering each direction. I was so thrilled!!! Before I had only been asking for 3-5 strides and then I immediately brought him in. He excelled that in leaps and bounds tonight. It was fantastic.

Overall, super cool day today. Seriously horse-filled. And I also realized how much more savvy I have  riding now than I had before I went to Farrah's. The change is astounding. My confidence level has increased quite a lot. When I first arrived at Farrah's, I was afraid to trot on Moose bareback. By the end of my time, it was no problem. I still didn't think (and don't currently) that I'm that good of a rider, but I had enough confidence to ask for the trot. Apparently, that has also translated to other horses which makes me very excited. I'm getting more savvy! Yahoo!

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. ;)

To the Edge, But Not Over

A few days ago, I tried putting ropes around Bella's legs and then putting pressure on and seeing what she'd do. I was very impressed with her reactions, she was very LB and came off the pressure easily every time! A very good start to lead backwards by hind leg. What a smart girl!

And so the day after that, I played with Bella for about a half hour since it was getting dark out and I decided on impulse to do something with her quick. And so, I decided to try experimenting with a lunging whip we have for Friendly Game. I wanted to see how much she could tolerate/accept. Well, she handled it pretty well. I had to hit it pretty hard on the ground before she had a little blow-up moment and tried to bolt off. But it was just a little one, so I held onto the rope and brought her right back to me.

And then I immediately went off to try some Stick To Me. She did really well, I mean she actually trotted to keep up with me, so that in itself was worth a treat. :)

Overall, I was very proud that I didn't push her over a cliff. Go Savvy!

Life Goes On

First of all, I thought I'd re-do our ponies' horsenalities, so you can see where they're at.



[caption id="attachment_636" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Although it may not look like it from this chart, I've been thinking lately that Bella is innately LBI."][/caption]

And on that note, we are now one pony short. After around 10 years of boarding at our house, Dancer is no longer with us. Don't worry, she's alive! Her owner always wanted to have Dancer at her house, and her dream finally became a reality this year. I'm sad to see her go, but I'm happy for her owner! :)

The After-Affects and a Well-Deserved Lesson

So, I've been playing with Moose and things have gone pretty well since Shirley was here! Jumping things is pretty much a non-issue now as long as I prepare him. We had the best circling game I've ever gotten yesterday: his transitions were almost all from a phase 1. He even reared up once, so maybe he's having some fun, too. :)

And yesterday, I got 2 steps of backing by the tail with no help from the lead rope at all! I was so impressed with him that we ended our session on that.

Our figure-8 was really good, too. Moose has done a lot better with that since I started thinking in terms of making a really BIG figure-8, and then making it smaller as we refine it. So, yesterday we did our figure-8 and it was pretty good, but he went around one time and I asked him to yield his HQ, and he didn't. So, I popped him with a phase 4. You should have seen the look on his face! His attitude became "Yes, ma'am!" after that, and he couldn't stop staring at me. It's nice to blow their minds once and while, you know?

And we've figured something out about Bella. In the new Level 1 kit, there's a scene in the Squeeze Game segment showing a girl and her black horse doing a squeeze, and Linda goes and helps the girl out because she's being too passive. Well, that girl and horse is like my mom and Bella.

So, I went outside today intending to play with Bella based on that realization, and she cooperated for a while . . . until she took off like a shot in Circling Game and ran around like a loony for a minute. Once I got her back, my brain was thinking like crazy. What just happened? Why did she do that? I only asked her to trot. . . okay, so maybe me asking her to trot is too much pressure for her, because she starts to pull on the rope when I ask her to trot. But would that cause her to take off like that? Obviously it did, so . . . WAIT. . . was she feeling unsafe? She was calm, so she must be lacking trust then. . . hmm. . .

With this episode firmly in mind (and believe me, this isn't the first time she has fled from me), I decided that I wasn't going to repeat history again. I've gotta change what I'm doing. So, might as well start with an open mind and as I recently learned, just do something. So, I decided that in that instance she lacked trust, and that throwing a phase 4 at her just blew her up.

So, I completely changed my approach by starting with the Circling Game again, and this time treating her like an RBI. "You want to come in? Oh, that's fine, come here. Good girl. Now, back out you go, so I can send you again."She started asking me questions, so that was a good sign. Her Circling Game got completely broken, though, but I just laughed at her. I mean, seriously, what horse can't WALK even 1/4 of a circle without stopping?!? Lol, she's so funny.

Afterwards, I started massaging her mouth, because she keeps her lips so tight, and today was supposed to be worming day, but I've created a program that will work her up to it instead of just being direct-line. 4-7 sessions of massaging her lips and stopping when she really relaxes. It'd be cool if she'd let me hold her tongue, too. Moose let me do that before.

Overall, I've gotta say that Bella really reminded me about the true meaning of "It's about the relationship." I could've forced her to do circles and take the wormer, but after she took off I was conscious of putting the relationship first. So, I thank her for the lesson. It was well-deserved, because horses don't lie.

I wanted to add this in here, too, quick. Other evidence that I might be on the right track: she likes my mom more than me, even though my mom is (no offense) on the passive side; on most days, she rarely licks her lips; she's spooky; she's the type of horse that trusts people easily at a base level, but is hard to get her full trust (versus a horse that won't trust you at all, but then trusts you completely when they do); and she rarely tries to be dominant.

Well, I don't know if my efforts will be successful or not, but I'll keep you posted on my progress with Moose and Bella over the next week.

Bella-Ella-Ella-ay. . .

More updates on the pony. She's acting a lot better tonight. She tried to resist the paste again, and she is even walking around more! She has not laid down most of the day either. Plus, she's acting more like her usual sassy-pants self! So, we're hoping she's going to stay as well as she is now.

P.S. If you didn't get the title, that's because you've probably never heard Rihanna's "Umbrella."

Slow Progression

Since most of you are probably wondering about Bella, I figured I'd start with her first. She's doing alright. We have some painkiller paste to give her and she tried to resist it today, which is actually a good sign! And she's standing up more often. So, she's making progress, slowly but surely. And by the way, I found more information about tying-up, so click here if you want to know more.

About Moosey, I had a GREAT play session on Tuesday. Sorry haven't written about it yet, but Bella took priority. Anyways, on one of my older posts, I talked about the April DVD. Well, on Tuesday I tried using my new found knowledge with Moose! And it was spectacular!

I tried playing the Catching Game, and it worked okay. He was not as interested in me as the LBI on the April DVD, but I wasn't expecting him to. Anyways, he followed me after a little while of moving the HQ, so then I haltered up. I decided to play the Circling Game. My focus the whole times was on keeping my energy/reactions really low/slow.  Within a couple minutes, Moose licked his lips! He followed my directions flawlessly, too, and that's been something we've struggled with. Plus, he blew behind me, too. I was thrilled! So, he did half a circle, and then I quit.

About a week ago, we put in 2 tractor tires full of dirt to be pedestals. I wanted Moosey to take a look at them. So, I started walking towards the tires, still with low energy but an intention to go there. Moose passed me up, so I turned around 180 degrees and walked the other way. He passed me again, so I turned around again. And this kept up for a little while. But then, interestingly enough, Moose started following me perfectly when we went away from the tires. I couldn't get him to pass me, so I had to cheat and start throwing in stops. I was actually excited when he went in front of me, because then I can go back to my tires! But after a little while, the stops didn't catch him up, so I started jogging making him trot. Again, he passed me a few times, but he learned the game plan pretty quick. He was preventing me from going to the tires, how interesting!

So, I trotted him a little further away from the tires, and then he started coming off adrenaline. I immediately stopped and took the halter off. This was the fastest EVER he's came off adrenaline, because I'd guess I was only with him for about 20 minutes.

Then, I went to play with Bella, but Moose followed me. So, I haltered him again and took him outside to graze for a while. Outside the pasture, Moose was actually more confident and sensitive. He was being picky about where he ate, for instance, so he was thinking. And he cocked his hind leg, which is the 1st time he's ever done that outside.

But the next day was fabulous, I went outside and Moose started walking to me. He followed me around the whole pasture! I just ignored him, and went by the other horses, and just walked around and looked at stuff. He followed me all over with ears forward! I was elated! This is the first time he's been so attached to me. Even when he decided he'd had enough (because I just wanted to spend UD time that day) and went to go graze, I walked over by the water buckets and he changed his mind and came back to me.

It was so cool, and I really learned that energy has a huge impact on horses. I hope our relationship continues like this, and I hope Bella gets better.

Ta-ta for now!

Uh-Oh Spaghetti-O!

Or, I was thinking of titling it "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto!" or whatever that line from The Wizard of Oz was.

But since this is serious, I'd better stop messing around. I'll give more details later (for obvious reasons once you read), but at the moment Bella is down for the count. My mom came outside today early in the morning and found Bella lying on the ground next to the chicken coop (it's in the pasture) shaking. Bad sign. So, she calls over one of our neighbors who is interested in vet-type stuff, so she knows some basics. She says we should call a vet. My mom does, and I arrive home at 3:30 and the vet is there.

I went outside and the vet said she thinks Bella is tied up, meaning she has a muscle disease that makes her kill muscle cells. And these dead muscle cells need to go somewhere. So, her kidneys are going to try and filter them out, but there's a chance she could die. She recommends bringing her to her clinic to put her on an IV. She's not positive about it being this "tied-up" thing, because it could be a vitamin deficiency, but most likely it's the muscle disease. Well, I hope  it's a vitamin deficiency, because it's easily treated! Also, the vet says she had a minor impaction, has worms, and has too much sand in her! Jeez!

Anyways, now Bella can barely move. She takes a few steps and that's it for an hour or two. She needs lots of fluids and we had to go out and buy extra food for her. She is usually laying down, but she gets up and stands there for a while, too. The good news is she still acts like Bella, just a more sedate version. It'd really freak me out if she acted all comatose, because then she must be really sick!

So, please keep her in your thoughts and I'll update soon as to how she's doing.

It's a girl!!

Yes, my mom got a pony! (YAY!!). Her name is Bella, she's a black 6 year old Percheron. At the moment, her horsenality is RBI. Though, it's not bad at all: she's pretty mild (it's mostly confusion), but such a sweetie, though!

Anyways, Bella was trained by the Amish to drive and was later trained to ride.  She's supposed to be 16.1hh, but she doesn't seem that tall to me. I think she's more like 15.3, but who knows? We're going to be getting her on Sunday. Unfortunately, my mom thinks it's a good idea to leave at 7am. . . whatever happened to sleeping in during weekends? Jeesh! So, it'll be about a good 2.5 hour drive to pick her up.

So, yay! Another pony, finally! Mom's a bit nervous, though. As she keeps saying, this is her first horse "in 3 years and 5 months, as of Monday." I think it's a bit ridiculous that she kept track, but anyways I'm still excited for her! I'll have more details once she arrives.

[caption id="attachment_323" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="An older picture of Bella! She's such a sweetie!"][/caption]