Joey day 24

Ok,I am typing this from a phone. Joey did real well
Today. We started with a warmup then went on to doing some liberty work which he handled pretty good. So I got mounted and worked on getting him real soft. Then I had him working on leg yields, shoulders over and roll backs.  I worked on transitions with him to, although technically any change in direction, gait, speed or balance is a transition. So just about everything we did was a transition. We did alot of cantering,changing directions/leads. He doesn't like to go in left lead so that is what we worked on the most. Then more shape and leg yields with softness. Our time was done. So we finished with flexing and backups. He sure is doing a great job of learning.

Joey Day 23

Had another great day with Joey. I wanted a 'no dust' day today. So my goal was to be as soft and easy as possible and still get the right result. And we did. I circled/lunged him, put the saddle on and then worked him at liberty, disengaging, moving his shoulders and even desensitizing him with the rope this time. He did real well. I got my lariat out and swung that over him, and even threw a loop over his butt. He took off, but I tried again and again and finally he would just stand there. Then I took him out in the yard and down the road. I wanted to just work on softness and yielding his barrel to me. He is making progress here too. We went down the road, which he has been down before, but this time I kept changing direction on him to make him pay more attention to the rein and my leg. He got a bit boogery at a certain point on the road where there are woods on both sides. It seems there must a boogey man somewhere in there because he sure was reluctant and wary to continue. But we did. This offered me a chance to have him do several counterturns or moving the shoulders over. he is getting real good at those. I even had a chance to work on some rollbacks because the edge of the road and ditch offered a natural fence. We made our way back to the home ground and closed with an easy work out. Needless to say, all went very well.

Joey Day 22

Yesterday afternoon we had what I think was the best ride yet. No dust flying, no arguments, just flowing free movement. I went through our exercises for warmup and it was going so good I tried moving into liberty to get him to do them. For example, disengaging his hindquarters, I had him following me and doing that without a lead line connection. Then I worked on desensitizing to the whip and rope again. Then I decided to ground drive him. He was real relaxed throughout the task. We did circles, figure 8's, even stopping with softness and a backup. I started to work on leg yields with him, didn't quite get some good ones, but we are moving in that direction. Then I got in the saddle, flexed him for softness. We started forward, working on following his nose, using my legs instead of rein. I also had him moving his shoulders over in a counterturn. I disengaged his hindquarters and then as he began to set back on his haunches I rolled his shoulders over. We worked on the fence developing his rollback. He certainly is making progress. Then I grabbed the whip and dragged that around, flipped in front of him and behind him. I twirled it over his head and let it drag on his legs, his butt and around his ears. This will help him tremendously to handle things he is fearful of. Then I cracked it over his head. The thing is if you do this when they are standing still and they stand still many think that is great. And it is, providing they are not just froze up. Some will do this, but then the horse blows up and bucks or rears. Whoa, trouble then. The key is to get their feet moving, by walking or trotting and swinging the rope or whip. I have to be sure I do it on both sides too. Once the horse is relaxed with this on both sides then you can stop. So that is what I did with Joey. He was a little troubled at first, but I let him move his feet and he got up to a canter, but then I let him relax and slow down. The result, I could put the whip's tail anywhere on him, swing it around his head like a rope and so on and he was relaxed with it. I put the whip up and then just asked him to transition from walk, to trot and lope and back down with my seat and little rein. We did this a few times in both directions and then I let him stop and we quit for the day. As I said earlier, I think this was the best ride yet. Hopefully, several more to come.

Joey Day 21

Today we went a little slower. I got him saddled, bug sprayed went over a few reminder lessons and then lunged him for transition work. He does well at them. I worked alot on desensitizing to the crack of a whip and rustling of a bad with cans in it. He took that well. We did some leg yielding and side passing on the rail. I flipped the 22' lead over his back and down around his legs so that I could turn him around, see if he has any problems with rope on his hocks. He didn't so then it was time to ground drive him. It was like he was an old pro. He was soft and not frazzled at all with me walking behind him as many horses are for the first time. He yielded softly to the rein and stopped soft, and backed up for me. He turned real nice so after several trips around the round pen we quit that exercise. I then got on and rode around abit working for softness and did some shoulders over and disengagements. Then I picked up my whip and began to desensitize him to something following him or rubbing against him while riding. He got a little scared and wanted to really move out, so I let him and just directed his feet and kept the whip with its long tail trailing us on the ground. When he relaxed a bit I was whirring it over head letting it slap the ground and rub on his hips and around his feet. Like I said, he was scared but he handled it and when we were done I was cracking it around him and swinging it like a rope.  By this time we were almost out of time so I wanted to let him relax with no pressure so I put the whip down and just loped him around and transitioned to trot and walk and stop, backup, turn the shoulders and move off. We did this a couple times and then I flexed him at a standstill several times and quit.
Then I got Raven out. I haven't worked with her but one time since Joey arrived so I was blessed with the opportunity to brush up on some things. I worked her about 45 minutes. She was a bit rusty, but nothing a little fine tuning can't take care of. I hope to ride her again tomorrow.
Adeiu.

Paradise Ranch

First off, I got your comment Kathryn. Have fun at the Parelli clinic. Next week sounds good to meet and have a class with Joey. Just let me know what day works.

I got back yesterday from Twin Lakes, Saddle Notch Ranch, where I was teaching a group of teens from Paradise Ranch during their quest week. I was supposed to be Jaime's asst. but due to circumstances I ended up being the horsemanship teacher while Ed was the roping teacher. On Wednesday the kids split into two groups of five. I took the horsemanship class and taught disengagement of hindquarters, moving the shoulders over, and backup. After about an hour we switched groups. The horses were somewhat better than last week (same horses) so it shows the last class had worked with them some. Then after dinner we went into the arena and got horseback teaching the same three things. I had the blessing of being able to ride Chad's mustang cross, Duncan. Riding a horse with all the handles on him is like riding a breeze. It is so much fun. Anway, the kids transferred their groundwork to the saddle. It is easy to watch someone who knows do these things and say to yourself, 'I can do that.' But when you actually try to do it yourself, it taint so easy. There is so much that goes into these tasks, body position (yours and the horses), body language, movements, etc. The horse is expert at reading body language. That's why you can watch the nature channel and see zebra's or deer grazing near lions that are resting, stretched out in the shade, but let one of those lions stand up and display some kind of predatorial behavior and those zebras or deer are gone. It's the same with a horse. When you project some body language, he interprets it and moves accordingly. He is not a dumb animal, it is usually the dumb person who doesn't know horses and how they move and think. That is probably the hardest thing to teach a person-their position and energy they project is read by the horse. So he movesw in a way you didn't want him to. It isn't his fault, usually. It is your fault, or mine. So we worked on those three exercises on the ground then from the saddle. There is a little difference because you don't have the same tools or position. But both still count. They proved to be very good students and the horses very forgiving. The next day the ropers got to rope a couple heifers in the round pen from the ground and then later from horseback and their horsemanship skills came into play. We also had the opportunity to move cows around the arena. It was fun watching the kids work together, or not, to cull out a cow from the rest and drift along with him to the other end of the arena. I was able to get involved some too in between things.
I also got to do some ranch roping which is far different from team roping and much more fun, better for the horse and cow too. I roped a few, missed a bunch and was able to dally a few times.
Regarding, Joey, he had two days off. I was going to work with him Wednesday morning, but we got that bad storm. Then when I got back last night I was too exhausted to do any good with him. So today, we will be back at it. Stay tuned.
Adios!

Joey Day20

Ok this started out well and ended well. I think. I just wanted to go slow and soft with him. So saddled him and lunged him to warm him up. We did the normal exercises and worked on yielding sideways, also transitions up and down. He did real well. I took him out in the yard and got on and worked on the softening exercises then took off down the road. We cantered and trotted. Did lots of circles. I got to the place where I want to cross a ditch with lots of water in it, but he didn't want to cross. So I worked him as I would to teach him to load, only I trotted down the road, did a half way roll back and then back past the spot, stopped, did another half way kinda roll back. We did this several times then let him stop in front of the water. Then we did some circles, disengaging, shoulders over, etc. then came back to that spot and let him rest. We did this probably a half dozen times. He would put his face down to the water, almost put a hoof in. But we did not get it done today. We ran out of time and I still had to ride 1/2 mile back. We crossed paths with a consumers power truck, which he handled real well and several other cars. When we got back I had him doing collected circles and backing up with softness. Then we quit. I hope to work him tomorrow in the a.m. before I go to the clinic again this week. We have accomplished all the goals we set out to do in my training setup. So now it is just refining everything. See ya next time.

Joey day 19

We got started today late. It all went really well though. I warmed him up and we went for a ride. I thought He did well. He gets real soft and responsive. He has a hard streak about him though. I did also notice that he is a scaredy cat. He flinches sideways at almost anything. So I know that I need to get him out. All my training has to occur outside the pen from here on out. We had a good ride and then we were on our way back, got in front of the other horses and Raven whinnied, then Joey whinnied. I took him across the road into the field and we had a workout in the last ten minutes. We cantered in circles in both directions. What is odd is that he will be soft on the circle until he gets to the placed where we are closest to the place where we go home and he then locks up and totally ignores my rein. It is only when I get him to swing his butt over that he then will follow my rein. I had him doings some serious disengaging in circles in both directions then let him relax. After that he was real soft and responsive. It seems to me then that I have to really demand that level of responsiveness earlier in the training session. I had him moving his butt and his shoulders real good and backing real good. Now it is refining things with him. It's kinda like when someone is sort of listening but just blowing you off. You wanna just slap them upside the head and wake em up. But you can't do that. So you improvise and with a horse it is moving their feet. That is what we did in the last ten minutes. Thus, we made more progress during that time then we did the rest of the session. We did refine other things we were working on and that was productive too, but not as intense as that last time. The result, a real softness and responsiveness and wishing I could keep going. I have learned, though, to quit when the going is good rather than push it farther and blow it. So we quit. Looking forward the next session.