Walker and Ellie

In the last couple of days, Walker and I have been playing in the outdoor arena where there is a very thick stand of trees and brush along the eastern side. Two nights ago, Walker was very unhappy about "the forest" as everyone refers to it. There were strange noises coming from within it, and Walker can be very reactive to noises coming from dark places, so it came as no surprise to me that he was nervous. Last night, the reason for the noises ventured out far enough for me to see and it was an averaged sized armadillo! They are shy creatures, so it did not stay exposed long, but Walker did take a look at it and when he did, I urged him to chase it away. He was much calmer after that. The first night, we did lots of partial disengagement of the hind quarters and small circles all along that part of the rail, and it really took about an hour before Walker got softer as he went by. This is why sometimes, it takes so much longer for us to do what I had planned, and then sometimes what I had planned goes out the window! I just tell myself to take the time it takes so it takes less time. Otherwise, we would never be playing bridle-less, or doing long distance weave patterns on the ground, or all the other lovely things we can do now that would have been impossible even two or three years ago.
One thing I am trying to figure out is getting more impulsion out of Walker on the circle game. Even when I change it up, he does not seem very interested in it. I am playing with backing him up on the circle to see how that works to want him to bring up his life, and that did seem to get him more connected to me. The bulls-eye pattern seems to help as well, so I will continue to play with it, and try to remember not to make it a job!
I also got to play with Ellie the yearling last night, and she is really getting into the program. We played friendly game as I rubbed her all over, which she is accepting nicely now. She still wants to play dominance games with her head, but we continue to play with that and I am sure it will get better with time. We played porcupine game, and she did a couple of lovely cross over steps, forehand around the hindquarters and hindquarters around the forehand, so I did not stay there long. Circle game is getting better as well as she circled once in each direction, one lap without me following her! I am not entirely confident in her draw to me yet, but it is pretty good, so I took the rope off and she followed me all over the arena and went over a series of poles, all without any rope! She no longer squeals or whinnies to the other horses, so I do think she is feeling much more confident in my presence. What fun to be able to play with a horse someone has not already ruined.

So happy to be blogging/plans can change

I just realized that I have really grown in my horsemanship since the fall, and the only way I really know that is by reading some of my posts from back then. I find myself disagreeing with some of the things I said and the filter through which I was seeing things. How funny is that? And a little embarrassing! And great, all at the same time. I so wish I would have started doing this six years ago when I first got my wonderful RBE cusp LBE Quarab.
Last night a newcomer to the barn came up to me in the arena to ask for help with her horse. I told her that she could bring her mare into the arena and I would be happy to help her with whatever was going on. She told me that she did not feel comfortable even putting the halter on her, her horse was so agitated in her stall.
So, I took a deep breath because I had had all sorts of plans about what I was going to do playing with Walker last night, but in moments like those, you have to ask yourself, what is the right thing to do? The answer, of course, was to help these two, even if it completely derails my plans (Walker, my air pad, my Parelli dressage pad, saddle, tack kit, carrot sticks, 45 foot line and mind were all ready to get started in the arena). So, I told her sure, I would help her. I gently rubbed Walker on the neck, slipped the 12 foot line from his back and put him back in his stall. I think his disappointment matched mine.
This lady is as green as grass. She is "trying out" this horse, Flicka, for a week to see if they are a good match. The problem is, she does not know enough about horses to be able to judge. Makes me sigh just thinking about it. She expressed surprise that a horse would have issues, like being afraid of the all of the things at the barn. When we approached Flicka's stall, she had her back side to us. Didn't exactly look like an invitation to me, so I asked if we could just walk 10-15 ft.away from the stall and just chat while she got used to our presence. After coming to the stall door 3 times, she finally stayed there as we approached, looking intrigued. I am thinking LBI or RBI, as she is pretty low energy at this point. It took about 10 minutes before the owner was able to put on the rope halter Flicka came with, which begged the question in my mind, "Why didn't someone show her how to do this before they dropped Flicka off at her new home?"
Then we walked down along the barn, stopping at every threshold, lots of silence between the notes, explaining what I was doing as we went. We got all the way to the arena, about 150 ft. or so, which all together took about an hour (take the time it takes so it takes less time). At this point, Walker was about to burst out of his stall when he saw me, nickering like crazy. He was definitely saying, "Me, me, see me? Let's play!" Flicka had sighed and been doing a lot of licking and chewing. The new owner asked what they should do now and I told her let Flicka do what she wants to do. She was so low energy, I did not think this would be a problem, and sure enough, Flicka just stood there, looking at everything while the new owner chatted with people that walked by. My good deed for the day was done.
Then, Walker and I played Liberty and On-Line for about 45 minutes, which was about all the time I had left after playing with Flicka. Walker was full of energy, so I matched his energy and we had a wonderful time together. He is a Liberty superstar! Even with all of his energy, he was able to gather himself and yo-yo over a pole from about 20 feet and Sideways around a pole square, all the way around, traveling circles at a trot and canter. Playing with the canter on line with the figure 8, and when my communication become more clear, he did both sides very nicely. Still amazes me how far we have come!

Secular and Sacred

A patient was curious about my Level 1 Parelli Natural Horsemanship award I have framed and mounted in my dental office, and she wanted to know what I "did" with my horse. I have thought quite a bit about this, how to tell people the depth of how I feel about this journey I am on with my horse without having to spend an hour or day or week doing it. So, I told her that our world is a secular world. When I am with my horse, I want to feel we have something of the sacred between us; an island of sacred in a sea of secular. She told me, "Wouldn't it be nice if the hold world felt that way about something or someone?" We both agreed it would.

So much to blog about, so little time . . .

Since I rarely have large blocks of time to write down my thoughts regarding my Parelli Natural Horsemanship journey, I have decided that sometimes just small tidbits would be the best. So this is one of those.
Wendy and I went to the Parelli Beaumont Event, and what a blast we had. It has really inspired us to start playing with a duel spotlight performance starring Walker, Bingo, Wendy and me to send in to ParelliTube and, who knows, that we might get to perform in front of a Parelli audience some day. Maybe we could inspire others to do the same. But first, we both committed to getting our videos done for our Levels audition so we both officially graduate to the next level, 2 for Wendy, Level 3 for me. With Walker and Bingo, we could call the duo Ebony and Ivory! We brainstormed Saturday night for more than an hour figuring out things we could do as a tandem with all of the Parelli games. Stay tuned for Friendly Game Tennis (with the big green ball :)
I also saw many of my new Parelli friends from my clinic group that I started with Kerri Joosten last month. I saw Kerri there also, and it reminded me again how blessed I am to have become part of this Parelli family, a group of people who truly put the relationship with their horse first.

Amazing fun in the round pen

I AM AT KERRI JOOSTEN'S PLACE IN AUSTIN THIS WEEKEND TAKING PART IN A THREE DAY LEVEL 3 CLINIC. HAD A GOOD DAY WITH WALKER TODAY . . . WE DID SOME THINGS REALLY WELL AND WE FOUND SOME HOLES IN AREAS, AND THAT IS AS IT SHOULD BE. BUT I am WRITING THIS ON MY iPHONE WHILE THE DAY IS STILL FRESH IN MY MIND, because the most amazing thing happened in the round pen today. ONe OF KERRI'S HORSES, TONY, DID SOMETHING I HAVE NEVER SEEN A HORSE DO. DURING A GAME THAT WAS BEING PLAYED IN THE ROUND PEN WHERE SEVERAL HORSES WERE SENT IN THE CIRCLE GAME SIMALTANEOUSLY. The point of the game was THAT ONCE THEY WERE out THERE, THEY WERE TO FIND THEIR HUMANS WHO WERE ALL STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROUND PEN, KEEPING THE HORSES GOING AT AT LEAST A TROT. TONY WAS THE FIRST OF HIS GROUP TO COME TO HIS HUMAN, KERRI. WHAT WAS REMARKABLE WAS THE FACT THAT TONY DEMONSTROBAlly PROTECTED KERRI'S SPACE FROM OTHER HORSES THAT TRIED TO COME TO KERRI INSTEAD OF THIER OWN HUMANS. The second time he did this, he was very clear about his communication. He spun around in a very small tight circle, teeth bared and ears pinned. The other horses got the message loud and clear: This is my little herd and you are not invited.
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