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.

Better day

Today was better all the way around. I first worked with Skye. He did real good and was real calm. I am sure that horses can pick up on an inner angst in a person and I think yesterday was one of those days where the inner me was out of sorts. Today was totally different. He responded calmly to everything I asked of him, even the circling exercises. So we just went through everything with a calm fluidity about it. It was the same with the Arabs. I took So Grand first and let him go in the rd pen. He showed he wasn't too interested in paying attention to me so I made him move out. We probably worked 10 to 15 minutes getting inside turns and trotting, loping around. Then when he started to facing me on his own I let him and then had a good rest with him beside me. I put the halter on him and did YH YF and backups. I even got to pick up both front feet and cleaned them out. I did it by making him really move alot on YH or YF and backup then gave him a chance to stand. Finally, after doing that 2-3 times I could pick up his feet and clean them out. Now it is on to getting him to pick up his feet on cue. We did some LR (lunging for respect 1) and he picked up on that pretty good. We quit real relaxed. Moonie, I was told, was not feeling well, not eating. So I took it easy on him. I had to practically drag him out of his stall. He was moving real good in there so I know that he was just being resistant. However, when I got him in the pen, I took the halter off him and he really followed me pretty good. So rather than put my halter on him I did everything at liberty, YH, YF, backup, desensitizing, LR 1. He did all of these without resistance. I picked up his front feet and cleaned them out. He picked them up when asked. And I picked up his hind feet with not much trouble. He gave me a little resistance when I went to put his halter back on him, so I just moved him and pulled him back toward me by YH. Then slipped the halter on and put him up. It was a real calm lesson for him too.

Uh Oh

I will tell you what the title is all about in a moment. I worked with Skye yesterday and he did fine on most everything except the sending exercise to the right. He does not like to go to the right at all. In fact, that is the side he is most pushy on. So I kept working that side until he would go in the direction calmly. I started to do the circling exercise too and going to the left he was alright on, but to the right he was really trying to push into me. So we had to work on that alot. Moonie did pretty good. I got him to canter several times for me and then went through the YH, YF, backup and even started to Lunge him for respect. It went pretty good although there were some dusty spots there where he was just trying to learn it. I picked up all four feet also. So Grand was another story. He does good at YH, backup, and is getting better at YF, but he does not want to pick up his feet. He will let me touch them so I kept working with his front ones until I could pick them up. He even let me clean out his left front, but not his right front. I haven't got to the back ones yet. He picked up readily on the lunge for respect so we did that just a bit and our time was up. Later I was cleaning out the stalls of my horses and emptying out the bucket and Skye started running around as though really scared. He went full out gallup toward my fence and ran right through it into the pen with the other horses. Well that got things interesting. Jake went after him and then Raven came to his rescue and ran Jake off. Meanwhile, I am trying to figure out how to keep them from going through my other fence and thinking what to do about the broken fence. I let them figure things out for a while, put Jake in his stall and let Raven and Skye work things out. It looked like Raven just let him right into her circle of friends. Then I put Raven up and let Jake at him. He ran at him, ran him around, bit him on the butt, kicked him. Skye just followed him around despite all that. They ran around the pen a bunch with the biting, kicking, running etc. They would settle down and then go at it again. I finally had to get on to other things and so got Skye coaxed into his stall and Jake into his and fed them for the night. I kept Skye in his stall all night, though the fence was fixed. I didn't trust that he wouldn't go through the fence again, especially now that he knows he can go through it. I guess it will be interesting today as I have fed them and left his stall open so he can get out in his paddock. They are still separated, at least, for now. The last thing I want is for Jake to run him through the fence and then for them to be running around loose.