7 years ago . . . And now

7 years ago. . . I never knew Moose existed. I've now owned him for 10 months. And guess what happened a few days ago!?! Moose's old owner called us! It turns out 7 years ago Moose was owned by a lady named Stephanie in Dubuque, Iowa:

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=dubuque+iowa&sll=42.187883,-91.881592&sspn=175.05107,360&ie=UTF8&ll=42.795401,-90.43396&spn=1.410774,2.334595&z=8&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

She was kind enough to tell us a little about how she got him. As I said above, she owned him since he was 7 (he's 14 now). Technically, she co-owned him. It was her and her friend, and they both did different things with him. She did mostly dressage and eventing, and her friend was into hunter/jumper. So, he did a variety of things. She had him for 5 years . . . Eventually, her friend -and co-owner- decided to move to Florida. So, they decided to just donate Moose to a children's farm in Prairie Du Chien instead of going through all the hassle of selling him (they didn't want their friendship ruined over a horse).

And if all you blog readers think back far enough (or cheat and read the older posts), you'd know that I picked up Moose from Prairie Du Chien. So, I've got the past 7 years of Moose's life figured out. He was at Stephanie's, then at a children's farm, then at his previous owner's, and now here. And since I'm not planning on selling him anytime soon, it's my hope that he has a forever home with me. :)

Now, onto other news! The round pen is completely finished. I promise I'll put up pictures. Just got to bring a camera outside for once. Dancer and Bella have changed their attitude towards me a little bit, in a good way! They like me better now, which is always good.

Moosey and I are doing well. I'm suffering through a case of Mental Block, though. I'm running out of things to do on-line in L1, and now I don't know how  to teach him (and myself) Level 2 On-line. So, I think I'm going to be watching the new L2 kit from the library again. Hopefully, that should help!

And I actually got to teach Moose to play sideways game for the first sucessful time ever today! (Tried in the past, and it didn't work. He was scared of the electric fence). He's still an unconfident learner, but if I just take it slow, he does a LOT better. And I realized another key to success with him, is to WAIT after I do anything that should make him think. I noticed a long time ago that he doesn't lick his lips much, but I came to the realization recently that that is because I'm not providing him with enough time to think. And I got one full lap of Circling Game at the trot today! Gotta love the little successes.

Oh, and I sat on Moose today again, too. And he was relaxed about it. That's a pretty sweet achievement for us both, because then maybe I can start getting over my unconfidence of riding him!

And something else even: I am now going to be playing with another lady's horses, because she doesn't have enough time to play with them herself. She does Parelli, so almost all the horses know it. And there is horsenalities abound! I went by her place yesterday to meet her, so I haven't played with anyone yet, but it's going to be very cool. She has Rocky Mountains, Quarters, 2 Perlinos, a yearling, one horse that is blind in its left eye, a Standardbred that trots faster than some horses gallop, a Quarter that's smoother than her gaited hroses, a dwarf cat, and even a cat named Smokin' 22!!  If I remember correctly, she has 13 horses. It's going to be very fun! I'm pretty excited.

Parelli Principles On the Big Screen

I've had two interesting occasions I want to talk about. One is watching the movie Nanny McPhee. The other will come in another post.

I want to talk about Nanny McPhee first.  Click on the link above to read more about the movie, but here's a quick video that sums up the plot:



I saw it the other night, and I really liked McPhee. But of course, I'm thinking in horse terms: she taught me a lot about encouraging the ideas of LBEs. Here's a good example: In one scene, Nanny McPhee told the kids that they had a half hour to get out of bed. Of course, the kids were rebellious, and decided to try to trick the Nanny. So, they painted their faces white with red dots. After the half hour was up, Nanny McPhee returned and found the kids had somehow got the 'measles.' Of course, she can see that they don't have it, but she encourages their idea. Here's her exact words:

"How can it be anything other? The chalky-white faces, the livid spots, the temperatures of 120 degrees. I've seen it time and again. Measles. Definitely."

And then she makes it uncomfortable. The kids just wanted to stay in bed all day, so she makes them stay in bed until they get sick of it. And this cauzes them to realize that their idea isn't so fun after all. The price of staying in bed means eating nasty 'medicines', so their idea backfires.

So, hey. I guess Parelli really does apply to other areas of our life. Horsemanship lessons can be found almost anywhere, if you look hard enough.

Learn, Learn, Learn

Haven't updated about how things are going in almost FOREVER, because those darned Celebration reviews took me forever to write. But now that they're done, I can try and fill you in on the things I've been doing.

Firstly, we've started our round pen: half of the posts are in the ground already. We're making it out of wood, like the Parelli's have theirs. But we're going to paint ours blue! :)

I've had lightbulb moments almost every other day I've played with the ponies lately. From about a week ago, I went outside just to say hi to everyone. And Moose was grazing close by, so I decided to open up the pen that Bella was in when she was sick so he could eat the grass. I pulled out a handful and showed it to him, so he could come here and eat it. He looked at me very intensely, but no movement. I stayed where I was, because the alpha doesn't move his feet very much. Then, I leaned outside further to try and entice him. Again, no movement. I had a huge "How interesting!" moment. He doesn't trust me for some reason. So, I just fed him grass through the fence. But I have been thinking about this for a while, and have come to the conclusion that I need to focus on gaining trust in general.

And that conclusion was furthered when I tried to teach Moose do move his HQ towards me. Since he's so tall, I thought it might be easier to teach if I was above him for starters. So, I climbed our fence and sat on it. And he changed horsenality! He was LB before, but then he got RBI as soon as I got above him. Interesting! My horse has mounting fears, lol.  So, I just had him do half-circles for a while until he calmed down a little. Then, I brought him in and tried to teach him. He moved his HQ as far away from me as he could (from fear), so after 3 unsuccessful tries, I decided I should just keep doing the half-circles some more. It's useless to practice the problem, after all.

Oh, and my birthday was on the 13th, so I am now another year older!

And I played around with giving Moose a bath today since it was SOOO muggy out. And it still hasn't rained, even though it's been threatening to all day! Stupid weather . . .  I wanted it to rain because then I didn't have to sit around all day going "Is it going to rain?" Of course, like I just said I played around with  the horses anyway, but I wanted to work on the round pen some more. Oh, well. We had a good time. I got soaked and so did Moose, and the other horses got cooled off a bit, too.

Bella hasn't had her normal attitude lately around me. She's not as curious and doesn't like me as much. I lost some of her rapport somehow, so not I've got to try and get it back. And Dancer is her normal self. She is quite a mud puppy, so she had a good time today.

Wordle.net

Saw this on the SC Forum. Looked interesting. Click to enlarge.

My photography skills

I just thought I'd share a little bit of the pictures taken in the past few months of horse adventures. Not that I'm a good photographer or anything, but I think a few of them turned out really well!!

[caption id="attachment_343" align="alignnone" width="499" caption="This picture is of Junior, my ex-horse. We asked his new owner Barbara how he was doing a little bit ago, and she actually told us that he is up for sale!! So, Junior is currently in need of a home.  But, man . . . he looks SOOOO pretty in this picture! He never got that clean for me, lol! (all credit for this picture goes to Barbara)."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_344" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Here's Stella (name sound familiar? I wrote a post about her before)."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_347" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="What do you think? Good . . . bad . . . ugly?"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_348" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Here is Indianna, the Friesian that was one of the runaways we 'rounded up'."][/caption]

Recent Going-ons

Sorry about the non-updates. I just haven't got around to blogging lately.

Currently, Moose is the alpha in our pasture. So, interestingly enough, Dancer is at the bottom!! And if you know Dancer, that's extremely unusual: shes a very dominant horse. Yet, I can't say I blame her, for she probably feels like a midget around the other two. Hehe. Oops.

But now Ms. Bella!! She's definitely a hungry girl, holy cow!! The other day I caught her standing on some planks of wood next to the barn eating weeds. I guess drafts really do eat more. . . anyways, some observations:

1. Bella goes on adrenaline quickly, especially when taken away from her buddies.


2. She is pretty herd-bound, though that might change in the coming weeks. As of now, if her buddies are out of sight, then that's cause for concern.


3. She doesn't like the carrot stick. I'm guessing that's because she was trained by an Amish man to drive. (no offense intended if anyone's Amish. On second thought, if you were Amish you probably wouldn't be reading this right now. Never mind)


4. She's comfort-oriented, though when she is comfortable, food becomes a priority.

Okay, enough about Bella! Moosey's doing well, too. I'm still a little lost about what to do with him, exactly. But at least I've realized that if I get confused, or don't know what to do in a situation 'Stick to Me' really helps. I'm not good at it, per say, but the rules are simple and easy to grasp! So, Moose is going to get quite good at that! Anyways, I've still been spending a lot of undemanding time with him. I wanted to take him out and let him graze the other day, but it's hard with more horses here. They all want to get out, since 'the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.'

And I just had a real 'yahoo!!' moment. Our library has Parelli Level 3!! (Not that I need it anytime soon, it's just nice to know!!)

Elusive Moose

Well, I've been trying really hard recently to only spend undemanding time with the ponies (hehe). And it's going well, so I don't really have anything new to report. I'm a little impatient with the progress, but as they say "do less sooner rather than more later". Besides, he's improving!! Just not at the speed I want, lol. Anyways . . .

I realized there's a  predator in me, and that' s a little shocking! I always feel the need to just put the halter on and go, so I ended up forcing the halter onto the ponies (when they'd actually let me play with them, ah the good ol' days). I guess I found the right teachers then, lol. Neither Moose nor Dancer will let me get away with that!! :) Especially Dancer, she's made it clear she won't be forced into anything. *Nervous laugh*

On another note, we went to see a horse for my mom yesterday. She was everything she was looking for and then some!! I mean, she even costed more! So, yeah bottom line is we're not getting our hopes up. Mom wants her, yeah, but she costs too much. So, she made an offer, but we'll see. If it all pans out, I'll certainly give you more details!! Plus pictures (stupid camera didn't work at the time).

Lastly, I found another Parelli instructor!! Well, not a PP, but an instructor that does Parelli that lives about 20 minutes away from me! Fine by me!! So, we're going to go see her this weekend and if we like her I'll have a new riding lessons instructor! Which would be great, considering that the ones I currently attend are capitalizing on some of my progress-killing talents. Lol, lessons are great and all, it's just that I ride school horses and the ways I treat them are different than how I can treat the horses at home. So, I'm developing habits that aren't what I'd like to have (including, but not limited to: using a concentrated rein during Freestyle, over-analyzing, nagging, and expectations over principles). So, I'm hoping that I can downplay some of these 'talents' and learn how to get better results with a 100% Parelli mentor. Maybe there's hope for me yet! ;)

Lesson learned

Okay, so when I get up in the morning (and when I go to bed at night) I always listen to my radio. That's just how I am. Well, over the past few months my radio has been working less and less consistently. In the mornings and nights, it usually always works. But in the middle of the day, if I try to turn it on it won't work.

I've had this radio for about 4 years now, so I was just thinking it's old. Lately, it's been getting quite erratic and it's really annoying. I'll go in to clean my room and I want to listen to music. I can tell you that's very difficult if the thing is not going to turn on!!!

Well, I woke up this morning, and my mom happened to mention to my brother that the lights had to be on in order for the radio to work. I was astounded!! I had been thinking I was going to replace it now for about a month or two, and suddenly it makes perfect sense. It works in the morning and night, because it's usually dark and so we turn the lights on. So, my mom had just caught onto the pattern that I had completely missed!! And sure enough, I checked the wiring and the radio is plugged into the circuit that turns on with the lights. "How interesting!!"

But I guess I can relate this to horses in that we tend to see the behavior and not the reason behind it. For instance, most people who have a horse that rears will say "My horse rears. How can I make him stop?" instead of asking "Why does my horse rear?". Maybe that horse is in pain, maybe he's not confident, there's thousands of reasons! So, in order to fix the symptom, you have to get rid of the cause!

The Day I got my dream horse!!

Yeah, you would never believe it. Woke up this morning and bam, we get a phone call. Three horses were running around town and one of them was a Friesian!! And if no one claims her she's mine!! Yes!!!

Oh, how sweet dreams are! If only, if only. . .

The Actual Story:

Ok, well I was SUPER tired. I got back from Noah's Ark last night at about 11:30. Slept like a rock, no problems there. So, it's about 11am, and I'm still 'sleeping'. My mom gets this phone call, and I have no idea what it's about. I only caught " A Friesian!!" and "I'll be right there!" So, I get up and my mom tells me that there's 3 horses loose about around the block and one's a Friesian. Oh, boy were we excited!! I grab some halters and lead ropes and my mom, Jake (my little brother), and I pile into the car.

So, we stop at this house and see 3 strange horses inside the pasture. I was wondering how in the world they got in there, but whatever. Then, Jeanie (the lady who called us about the horses) arrives. She tells me that she let the horses inside, because she didn't want them wandering the streets. I take a closer look at the horses. One is definitely a Friesian, she was gorgeous!

[caption id="attachment_104" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Friesian being cute"][/caption]

One was a gray Arabian cross, and another looked like part Thoroughbred. The Arab and Friesian had halters on, so we thought that they must've belonged to someone. The Friesian's feet were really bad though, so I was thinking maybe we would end up keeping her! We put different halters on them, and then started leading them towards our house (we had an extra pasture we could put them in). I took the Friesian, mom took the Thoroughbred, and Jeanie took the Arab. We were already discussing who was going to take the Friesian, lol!

Well, we had just turned onto my road when a car drives by and then stops. Two people get out, and they tell us that these are their neighbors horses. So, we start walking them back the way we had just taken them. Some other boys come up and start leading the horses back to their homes. We drove home to get a quick drink and then headed to the horses' home.

[caption id="attachment_105" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Lippy!"][/caption]

The Arab was walking really fast, so it got home first and started freaking out, since her buddies weren't there. She actually kicked my mom, but SO LUCKILY the kick hit her phone instead of her. Well, her buddies arrived momentarily and she obviously calmed down.

The owners were away on vacation and they came home about 10 minutes later. I got a lot of information and learned more about the horses. For one thing, we were wrong! The Thoroughbred was actually a rare breed called Ahkal-teke. I forget her name, though. And the Arab cross was actually a purebred Lipizzaner named Lippy (unfortunately fitting, lol). Basically, we had just walked about $50,000 dollars down the street. Wow, was that one a shocker!!

And also, I found a nice exercise to do with Arruba that the lady who owned them suggested. I don't really feel like explaining, but basically it's supposed to help with the circling game. Lastly, I got another shocker that this lady was part owner of Ots Sunrise Farms.

Oh, and here's 2 more pictures. :)

[caption id="attachment_106" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Here's the Akhal-teke! I can't remember her name, argh!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_107" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Indiana eating. My is she drafty!"][/caption]

About me

Well, my name is Erica. I live around horses, though they're mostly peanut-pushers and such. Umm, I do Parelli, but seeing as I haven't even passed Level 1 yet, I shouldn't really say that (lol). I just sold my first horse about a month (or 2) ago, and his name is Junior. He was a LBI (left brained introvert - go to www.parelli.com and click on Horsenality for an explanation). I didn't think it would be a big deal selling Junior. I still don't really. But I am starting to miss him a tiny bit, because I'm getting sick of being horseless. The reason I sold him, is because of rider error after rider error after rider error which eventually turned into fear.

Basically,

he could've worked perfectly for me, but because my mom and I kept making mistakes our relationship suffered. But since this post is about me, I won't go into too many details about him at the moment. Here's a quick pic.

Cute picture of Junior

Hmm, I checked my horsenality and I would say that I am a RBI/LBI. I have a passion for horses, and I love to read. I am quite partial to the fantasy genre, though I have read almost all of the horse books in our library, not kidding!! I also have a thing for psychology, so horses and psychology fit very well together. Another interest of mine is writing fiction stories. I have yet to complete one, but hopefully someday! Well, I'll keep you posted!!