observations from the horse

I haven't been able to work with my horses lately, but I thought I would record some observations I have made in the past week. Probably, things that you may already know, but they still are interesting. 1. Horses live in the moment. They don't hold grudges. If another horse is in their space they either move away themselves or make the other horse move. They don't nag them or keep after them. Once the other moves away they leave it alone. Each time becomes a new time for them. If they were just standing there relaxing, they immediately go back to standing and relaxing. They are not thinking about what happened 10 minutes ago or yesterday or last week. They are not thinking, 'man, I can't believe that idiot did that.' Nor are they thinking about what is going to happen later today, tomorrow or next week. They are not fretting about the future. They are only interested in what is happening right now and in the next moment they react to whatever stimulation is going on due to their survival instinct. When they are fretting about something it has to do with what is going on in the moment. Maybe you walked in to their space with a halter or you have a noisey bag in hand that is scarring them. That is why they fret. But as soon as you take that away, they go back to relaxing. I think that is a good healthy way to live for us to. We cannot do anything about what happened in the past. We can only get it right with others and with the Lord if we have been wrong. Holding grudges will only cheat ourselves out of living to the fullest now. In addition, we don't know what is going to happen in the next 5 minutes. We are not in control of that. We don't know what a day holds. We can only plan our day and live it out letting the day unfold as it will. Jesus said things like "forgive and it shall be forgiven you" and "take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow shall take thought for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Matthew 6:14,34 So take a lesson from the horse today: don't hold grudges and live in the moment making the most of the moment you have.

Yesterday had a good time with Moonie and So Grand. I am almost done with my work with them so I wanted to go through everything they know to this point. I have worked through all the fundamentals level of ground work with them. That is 13 exercises that they know. So I got So Grand out first. He met me at the door like usual. He likes to come out and play. I left their web halter on because that is what they are wearing. Because I used the rope halter to teach, the web halter was just fine with both of them. I took him through the round pen (the only thing he won't do to my satisfaction is follow me off lead around the pen)Then to desensitizing to lead and stick and string. He Yields hindquarters and forequarters real good. His backup is pretty good, although he will think I want him to go around me if I back him too fast. His lunge for respect is at the stage 2 level where I only have to look at his butt and he disengages and faces me and backus up. His flexing is real soft. He sends nice and smooth and even does an Intermediate level move of c-pattern nicely. His circle driving is pretty good. He leads fine, in fact I took him out of the round pen and around the indoor arena with no problems. He is not bad on fundamental desensitizing while moving forward. I also picked up his feet and cleaned them out on 3 different occasions. Moonie, gave me no trouble coming out of the stall. I brushed him and then took him through the same thing that So Grand did. He is much better at following me and picking up his feet to clean out than So Grand. I think overall he is about the same maybe a little above So Grand in the exercises. Both are real friendly, although Moonie takes a little longer to warm up to you. I took him out of the pen too and he actually did better than So Grand handling the new environment. They should both be ready for the farrier.

Hoof cleaning

Yesterday and today went pretty good with both horses. I am moving along in teaching them the exercises and they are getting it. The sending exercise where I point in a direction and they move their shoulders and go then YH and YF and turn and go in the other direction they seem to have caught that pretty good. So Grand is getting much better at picking up his feet and letting me clean them out. I even got the rasp out and did that. The one problem with him is he leans when I pick up his hind foot. So I have taken to moving his butt over until his near foot is just right then I pick it up and stretch it out like a farrier would. That is working much better. Moonie is much better about coming out with me to the pen. I found that he just needs to relax with me in the stall and I rub on him then ask him to follow me. He comes right along. Today I worked with both of them on leading and finding those spots or movements that make them uncomfortable and working them through those until they are relaxed. They are two interesting horses. So Grand is very friendly and likes to be near me. Moonie is a bit standoffish, but once I get through to him he likes to be with me too. Neither one follows me off line very far, but at least they are not running away from either.Progress is Progress.

Good lesson

Alright, I had a good time with the horses today. It's amazing how going into a lesson with a hard and fast agenda of what I want to accomplish seems to put a damper on accomplishing a 'no dust' kinda session. I have had those kind of rigid agenda's before where I think 'I gotta get this done.' and they usually go sour. However, today I went at it with these guys at a slow and easy pace. I got So Grand out first and he was eager to get started. I did all the exercises with him and even got to the point of the sending exercise. I gave him lots of rests, some longer than others, in between. My goal was to be able to pick up his feet and clean them out a couple times during the session. Mission accomplished. He didn't even resist me, though he did lean. I solved that problem by stretching his hind leg out farther behind him. I did that once and then worked him through some exercises and then did it again. Then right at the end I did it again. Moonie, was real pacey in the stall. I waited til he relaxed and then walked up and rubbed him and backed off a couple times before putting the halter on him. Then I rubbed and brushed him in the stall. When I did ask him to follow me out of the stall I went real slow and easy and when he felt pressure he came off it. We got to the pen and I rubbed and brushed him again. Then did a few exercises with lots of rest in between. I did teh Lunge for respect 1 & 2 with him. He is pretty good at all the exercises. I even had him sending and did fine. I then worked on leading him around and coming off the pressure to follow me. He was actually pretty good through it all. I had a little trouble desensitizing with lead, which was strange, since he has been real good with this. However, it didn't take long for him to stand relaxed. I cleaned out his feet a couple times.

Catching up

I need to catch up on what has been happening with the horses. I missed the last three sessions with them. I have been making steady progress with So Grand regarding picking up his feet. He does pretty good at the other exercises designed to teach him to respect my space. I run through those then have been concentrating on picking up his feet. He picks up his front feet after some coaxing. In fact, yesterday I finally was able to clip the clown toes off of him. I didn't trim him, just got the two inches of toe off. The back feet he will let me pick up, but he leans on me on the left side, not so much on the right. And he lets me clean them out. I also have him lunging pretty good and am starting to work on sending him. Moonie had some issues with coming out of his stall. So one day I worked him in his stall and then let him stand in the pen. I had to really work with him to get him to follow me to the pen though. I think he just didn't want to go work in the pen and doesn't respond well to heavy pressure. So Wednesday I just stood in his stall with the lead rope and for almost an hour he would pace, then stop and look at me, then pace and stop and look at me. I wanted to let him know that just because I show up with a lead rope doesn't mean we are going to work. I wanted him to come up to me. So in that hour he came up to me 5x and each time I just let him smell me and stand next to me. I let him move away when he wanted but I didn't put the lead on him. I only rubbed him between the eyes. Then yesterday I went in his stall and stood there til he came up to me and put the halter on and slowly with light pressure we walked to the pen. I brushed him, cleaned his feet out and moved through all the exercises at a slow calm pace. I let him rest alot in the center. I know that I need to work him, but I also know that I would rather have a willing partner than one who has shut down and only does what I want because I make him do it. I lunged him as well, but had good rests between them. Then we went back to his stall. I can see his attitude changing.

good time

Another day with the arabs was rather interesting. So Grand wanted to get in the pen, but didn't want to play. So I had to make him go so that he would let us move on to other things. About 15 minutes and a bunch of turns later he finally, decided standing was a better option. I went through all of his exercises and then asked him to pick up his feet. WE got his right front cleaned out and then not much trouble he picked up his hind leg. I didn't clean it out but he was letting me hold it for a length of time without leaning on me or trying to get it away. The left side was even better. I finished him up by flexing him on both sides. Moonie, didn't want to come out at all. He was moving all over his stall when I went to get him out. But as soon as I put the lead on him he got sticky feet. So I moved him in a bunch of YH and YF and asked him to follow me out. Nope. We kept going through this and finally, he came out with me. It took about 15 minutes but we got into the pen. I think he knows it is work in the pen. So I purposely took it easy on him in there. I went through the exercises softly and slowly. I picked up and cleaned out all four feet, which was one of the goals. I flexed him and then took him back to the stall. I didn't let him quit though. Instead, I YH YF alot. I made him work in his stall. Next time he won't think staying in his stall is such a good idea.

got their feet up

Today went pretty good with all three horses. Moonie didn't really want to play with me today, but I coaxed him out of his stall. I had to move him around a bit in the pen to get him to quit being lazy, but once he got on board things went ok. I was able to take him through all the exercises to this point and clean out all four of his feet without much resistance. I worked with him LR 1 and he is already at the stage 2 level where I can send him around then just by my body language he will YH and give me two eyes. Then I just send him in the other direction. He did give me a little trouble putting his halter on at the end, but we resolved that in short order. So Grand met me at the door, and we got busy. I didn't work him too hard at first. I wanted to see where his mind was at. We went through the exercises and he did really good. Then while he was resting I wanted to pick up his feet. He did ok with his front ones, letting me clean them out. So I thought I would try the back. He wouldn't stand so I YH 10x 360 degrees then let him stand and he was a little more willing. When I picked up his foot though he would lean almost falling over and I would drop it. A couple times he kicked out and ended up kicking himself in the cannong bone/shin. I had to YH a couple more times before he started to pick it up and hold it for me. Then I went to the otherside and repeated the whole exercise. I had to YH a few more times because he was doing the same thing about leaning and kicking out. Finally, though when he let me pick it up and hold for a few seconds without leaning or trying to get it away from me. I quit him. Put his halter on him and led him back to his stall. he has all weekend to think about it. Skye was pretty good too. I took him through his exercises. I had to get after him a few times when he resisted wanting to go forward on Lunging but that was it. Then when I was just leading him around he would hang back, so we worked on leading the last few minutes of the lesson.