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!

Mom and Bella's Breakthrough

I'm pretty psyched for mom right now. We went out today to play with the horses, and I decided to try to help mom out a little bit. First, we stated out with simulations, me being the horse and her the human. The purpose was so that 1) I can give her feedback, and 2) she can develop better rope handling skills for the 22' line.

And then I told her that she should try hitting a barrel as hard as she could with her CS (carrot stick), and then rub it. I asked her how she felt afterwards, and she said it was interesting, because she could really feel her energy going up and down, and how quickly she needed to adjust it.

So, after doing that, she got her pony and I proceeded to give her a 'lesson' in leadership. Bell was circling, and pretty bored. She was looking outside the circle, waiting for every excuse to stop and play games and such. So, I asked mom to do a change of direction when Bella was walking pretty well. She backed up, and then pointed for Bella to go off the right, but Bella just stood there. I told her to tag her 3x on the neck. Bella swished her tail, and tosses her head, but then trotted (hallelulah! The LBI trots!) off half a circle to the right. Then, she stopped and stared a whole into mom. I told mom to smile, and then turn her back. Bella put her head down, and then licked her lips. I then challenged her to see if she could reel in the rope without looking at Bella. Bella came over, so then she did Friendly, to make sure we still have her confidence.

Then, I had her send her out again. This time Bella looked a little more attentive, but possibly a little unconfident. So, I had her stay more on the passive side, until Bella started messing around with the barrel, saying "look, even this barrel is more interesting than you!" so I knew she was confident again. Then, she sent Bella out, and Bella took about 3 steps before turning and facing. So, she re-sent her again. Same thing. I told Mom to back her up a little bit, because she was too close, and to send her like she was going somwhere, like there is a purpose to all this, because if Mom doesn't think there's a purpose, I doubt Bella's going to either. So, then she sent her out, and Bella went. I had them do a little more change of directions, and then -since Mom was conveniently standing by 2 barrels- I asked her to see if she can stand in the middle of the barrels and do change of directions from there to get Bella to do a figure-8.

I thought it went pretty well. Bella still had the druthers towards me and Moose -since me and him were chilling together- but not that big of a deal. Then, Bella started not coming in to Mom for the change. She's like "I know what happens before what happens happens!" So, I wasn't really sure if that was dominance ("I don't want to come in to you!") or unconfidence ("I can't come in"). I had mom turn her back, and then see if Bella would come in. It took a little prompting, but she eventually did, so I'm thinking it was more dominance-oriented, which will be something to fix for next time.

Then, Mom asked if we should end, but I don't think quite yet, since Bella didn't come to her, that wasn't really a good note to end on. I asked her to do something else with her for a little bit, and she thought of Stick To Me, since they haven't done much of that. Great idea! So, I had to adjust Mom's position a little bit, and give her some concepts with this game. I think this game is really going to help both Mom and Bella. Mom, because the parameters are really good for her, so she really KNOWs how to be a leader here: like she has a specific goal in her mind of what she's looking for, and so it helps her be able to assert herself. It'll help Bella, because then she can see that Mom is a leader, and so it will lend her to being able to do the Circling Game better. Also, I thought it might be good, because then if Bella feels like circles are boring, in Stick To Me, at least you're going somewhere, so there's a purpose right there. And. interestingly enough, we found a problem right away. Bella swishes her tail, tosses her head, and puts her ears back when you go from the walk to the trot. So, first I had to correct Mom's trot, because she started jogging at the same speed she was walking. It was like a human piaffe. So, I had to get the idea ingrained into her head "go somewhere!" Once she started doing that, she got Bella to trot, and then once I told her "Back her up fast" she had to stop and start backing up Bella phase 4. Really good for both of them. Bella licked her lips fast every time. After she did it twice, I noticed that Bella was putting her ears back whenever Mom walked, but I'm not sure if that was sassy or just paying attention, so I just left it alone.

So, yeah, overall a very successful day. I really hope that Mom learned today the benefits of leadership for Bella, because today was the first day she's ever truly Phase 4'ed Bella. Before, she always nagged her, so I'm hoping that this will REALLY open her eyes up to the fact that you can not possibly hit a horse with a CS as hard as another horse could kick, so it's okay to believe in yourself, and mean what you say sometimes, as long as you're not mean or mad. It'll be interesting to see how Bella's behavior is different next time Mom plays with her, and to see how their relationship changes because of it.

Fantabulous Day

Well, yesterday was just incredible. I have to gloat for a second. I bought the new Parelli Levels, and they are just INCREDIBLE! I love the way Pat explains things. They are REALLY REALLY good. I highly recommend you take a look at them if you've got the chance. I've just finished the Level 1 and 2 On Line DVDs so far, and am really liking the way this is set up.

SO>>> About my fantabulous day. Well, thanks to these wonderful DVDs, I have been re-naturalized, so to speak, because I remembered to reward the slightest try. I did it before, so that never stopped, but I hadn't been happy about it. Well, for the past 2 days, I've really been satisfied with whatever Moose has offered, and as a result he has been a confident learner. It is just WONDERFUL! These past 2 days were the first times EVER I was able to teach him with him staying engaged. Before he would either be dominant or unconfident. Whenever his confidence would rise up, so would his dominance, so I couldn't juggle that, and would accidentally knock the confidence out of him every time, so he turned unconfident again. No fun, I'll tell ya. But oh, I think these DVDs have been the missing key.

I went out with Moose yesterday, and he was in a pretty good mood to begin with. I probably was too, actually. So, I took Moose outside to play with him, since his pasture is all snowed in. I wanted to play with our Circling Game. Well, about halfway through our play-time, I decided I wanted to teach him to stop when the CS is in front of Zone 1, since we have no downward transitions on line, only upwards ones, I thought "what the heck? Let's give it a shot."

Specifically, his issue with downward transitions is that he thinks that when I put the carrot stick in front of him, that means stop, then turn and face. The stop part is great, but I don't want him to face me. (Oops, guess our HQ driving game is a bit TOO good). So, I kept repeating that to him: whenever he'd stop, if he moved his forehand over to me, I would move it back over so that he was somewhat perpendicular to me. The first few times, I was on the brink of losing his confidence, but this time he realized I was just communicating with him and saying "no, that's not what I want" because I released right away when he did what I asked. So, I re-explained to him what I wanted and made it easy for him. Then, I tried it at a little longer distance, like a 6' circle, then we worked it up to 12'.

Okay, now for the incredible part. I sent Moose out on a circle to the right, and stood in neutral like normal. Moose was at about 1 o'clock on the circle. I thought to myself "when he gets to 10 o'clock, I'm going to ask him to stop." My hand had just grasped the handle of the carrot stick. Moose is now at 12 o'clock. He stopped, PERFECTLY!!!! I was so excited, guess he read my mind :). So, I immediately brought him in and gave him a treat and was just excited about having fun. I can't wait until I have the savvy to cause every day to feel like this one. But the absolutely incredible thing about this is that there was NOOO way Moose this happened by chance. Moose read my body language and responded, and that just makes me so happy. I love my pony!

Zone 3 Confidence

I'm so proud of myself. I temporarily re-invented the Carrot Stick! I have a knock-off CS that I haven't used in a while, so I decided to maybe play with Moose with it and a plastic bag attached to it. Well, I couldn't find a plastic bag, so while doing a quick survey of our tack area, I saw an old lead rope. Hmmm. I threaded it through the CS, and so now had a REALLY long reach. It was pretty cool. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, just that I wanted to do something.

Well, I did a lot today. It was sweet. I used the CS to help Moose gain confidence in Zone 3. I asked him to circle around me, somewhat close, but far enough away that he knew it was a circle and could go somewhere. Well, I had the lead rope part of the CS on his back and he was a little unsure about it. So, when he relaxed a little, I asked him to trot, and he kicked out! "Oh boy!"

Then, I continued playing with our Circling Game with the lead rope over Zone 3. I experimented to see what scared him. I moved it when he was Circling, and that spooked him a little. When he stepped on it, he got scared, too. So, we just played around. Once he was pretty relaxed with it there, I stopped and brought him in. Then, I had the bright idea of using it as a girth. I was in Zone 3 and so we played Stick To Me from there on his right side. He did excellent! He never had an issue with it being on his belly, even when I pulled a little. So, overall it was a really neat day! I'm really pleased with both him and me.

Oh, yeah, and if you haven't seen the new Parelli.com website, check it out! They released the new levels today!!!!!! And Linda has a blog that she updates daily/every other day. It's really cool! Here's the link to the new levels: http://shop.parellinaturalhorsetraining.com/product.jsf?productId=1021.

The Power of Persistence/ Phase 3 X 3 Vs. Phase 4

Moosey and I had an incredible day a few days ago, along with my mom and Bella, too.

I experimented a lot with Phase 3 with rhythm instead of Phase 4. I don't really know what to call it, but it's the difference between Phase 4 and just a hard (in this case) Phase 3.

Because I realized today that when I do Phase 4 with Moose, he usually gets unconfident. So, that means my timing is off and that he was unsure when I got firm on him, not goofing around. So, what I did today was just do a Phase with rhythm, instead of the next phase. For example, Moose has a pretty good Yo-yo game. I do Phase 1 and he backs, but not with a lot of speed or a "Yes, sir!" attitude. So, I got a little more particular and upped to Phase 3 and asked told him to back, and then just kept repeating Phase 3 (which in this case was lightly doing that big move that's taught for yo-yo game in the Levels packs). This way I knew he was being dominant, but didn't take a chance with making him be unconfident either. I just matched his unwillingness to move, and didn't go into Phase 4 "Ka-pow", I just kept doing Phase 3 like I was until he made a change. Basically, I'm still looking for that middle ground of confident, but responsive. It seems to me like he's either unconfident or confident and unresponsive. So, I'm looking for a confident responsive horse! But I need to remember that in Moose's case, confidence comes before responsiveness.

And I've mentioned Bella's issue with trotting before. Yeah, I've been through some really bad days with her before, and came to the conclusion that we're just going to need to take one step at a time, and out-persist her. (That's going to be our biggest arrow here. I say 'our' because I'm trying to help my mom out with Bella.) So, we were first getting established in the walk. Our goal was to get 2 laps at the walk without her stopping. It took maybe 15 minutes, at a guess, but eventually she did it. So, that's great progress for Bella! I was so happy, because normally I can only get her to do 1 lap.

And I had another interesting thought (which I'll elaborate on in the next post): Moose has a Z3 issue. Remember that whole bareback pad incident? If not, it's here. Well, it turns out he doesn't have an issue only with the girth, he doesn't like things in Z3 touching him period.

I got creative today and tried to play with Moose using a broken hula-hoop -so it's like a hula-line now- and I set up a test for him. Once I had rubbed it all over him and done some Porcupine and Driving with it, I set it on his back and jogged off to play Stick To Me. He didn't go until I had used the whole 22' line, so I knew he was unconfident, but then he trotted off and kind of jolted forward and made a wierd sound and looked like he was going to kick. I stopped right away and took the hula-hoop off. Well, test failed, so I've found out a little bit more about him. Now I just have to figure out how to solve that. . . hmm. . .

The only downer about that day was that I pulled a nail back! Oops! My whole life I've had short nails, with an objection to long ones, so this summer I decided to grow them long just to see if I could. Well, I can, and now cutting them back to normal length (on the fingernail that got bent back) feels very awkward. Strange how my comfort zone has changed. But it was my fault anyways that the nail got pulled back: Moose and I were playing Stick To Me with the 22' and we turned, so he stepped on the excess 22' behind me, and I must've been holding it funny, because it bent my middle finger's nail back.