Huntington Stables, where the inner horse is fed daily

It is so wonderful to have my horses at a barn like Huntington Stables. For instance, when I play with Walker in the arena, I like to bring Bingo along with me when I can, since he and Walker like being together. But I don’t have to put a halter on them, they will just follow me where I want to go, and no one is bothered by that at all.

Two nights ago, I went to get Walker in the turnout and when he came, Bingo came right along with us, so I put him in his stall while I got all my Parelli gear I needed for the day. Walker stood in front of his stall and happily ate the cookies I offered while waiting on me. Then I let Bingo out, and we all walked to the arena where I let him graze on the other side of the fence.

You have to picture that we are going all the way through the barn, two gates, and a small pasture before we get to the arena. We all go together, no worries, no fuss, no ropes, no halters; Bingo generally goes through the gates first, as he is dominant over Walker, but only after I have asked him through. Once we got to the arena area, I led Bingo into the turnout next to the arena where he contentedly ate grass while Walker and I played bareback games in the arena.

I speculate there are very few barns in the country where you would be allowed to move horses around without halters on them. Obviously, there are times when you would want a halter on a horse to do so, but it often isn’t necessary with Parelli horses, especially those who are playing in Levels 3 and 4 the way Bingo and Walker are.

This kind of exercise is also another kind of game, a test of sorts; does my horse want to follow me? When Walker and I play together and we have started with this kind of willingness, our sessions tend to go extremely well. So well, in fact, that I can treat Walker more like a left brained horse, giving him lots of rest in between games.  Most of the time, he lets me know when he is ready to move on, usually looking back to me as if to say, “OK feed me a cookie, or let’s do something!”. Off we go to the next task. It is pure joy to have such a willing partner.

So, thank you, Lei, the owner of Huntington Stables, for creating and continuing to create such a wonderful place for horses and humans to interact with one another.

As important as it is to feed the physical horse, the inner horse of humans and horses is also fed daily at Huntington. So much of the progress that Walker and I have experienced together has been made possible because of the compatible surroundings in which we find ourselves.

And thanks to Wendy, who owns Bingo, for allowing me to play with her beautiful Paint. He is a complex and challenging left brained horse from whom I have learned a lot.

Doghouse Ranch

Wendy’s family and mine went to her family’s Doghouse Ranch hear Hallettsville, Tx last weekend. Of course, we took our horses with us, Bingo, Maverick and Walker (BMW). It’s a lot of work to travel with horses, but so worth it.

There were plenty of lovely moments during our few days there, including moonlit evenings by the fire while clouds scudded across the nighttime sky. Wendy and I shared some very good bottles of wine over those evenings, a great way to wind down after what were activity filled days.

We had some very good moments with our horses; three stand out for me. The first came after playing with Maverick all of Friday morning. We decided we would take a trail ride with Walker and Bingo in the afternoon and let Maverick rest. I wasn’t sure Mav would like being left behind, but we decided to see what would happen.

We asked John, Wendy’s husband, to hang with Mav as we left, so he would at least have some human company. He seemed fine at first, but the further away we got, the more agitated he became, whinnying and running up and down the fence line. Even Walker whinnied back to Maverick as we disappeared from view through the trees lining the trail.

We made the choice to go back to get Maverick. After talking about it for a bit, we decided we would take him with us at liberty, knowing we would not be out too long, maybe 40 minutes or so. We really could not pony him since he is so dominant over Walker and Bingo, he would just end up pushing one or the other around, not something either Wendy or I wanted to deal with under saddle.

Maverick initially followed pretty closely to us as we headed up the trail that splits the Doghouse Ranch property. It wasn’t long before he started to wonder off the trail, weaving in and out of smaller, tighter trails, live oaks, holly and scrub brush. Wendy likened it to taking a dog for a walk off leash, so that the dog ends up doing three miles to your every one.

Maverick did at least twice the distance we did on Walker and Bingo. When we got to a large open area, we stopped to let them eat a little grass, and then headed back. Maverick really wandered off trail on our return leg, getting as far as 30-40 yards away from us at one point, though we could see him clearly through the trees.

He was completely enjoying himself, ears forward with lots of energy. As soon as we got closer to the house, he joined back up with us as we walked back to the paddock. Our path took us past our cars, trucks, trailers and a stand of trees. Maverick chose to take the tightest squeeze between two tree trunks, amazing Wendy and me with his further display of bravery. What a fabulously fun outing!

More to come…

Putting people, and animals, first

I really wish I had understood sooner that it is far more important to invest my concerns, my energy, my focus and my emotions towards the people in my life rather than the things in my life. I don’t believe in fate, but I do think that life can draw you to the people you need or the people who need you.

I heard somewhere that there is no special talent to being impervious. It’s pretty easy to build a wall around yourself, protecting yourself from the pain that can come with relationships with others. Real strength comes when you put yourself out there for others, extend yourself, take the chance to care about and be cared for by others.

I think my relationship with my husband, Randy, my son, Ben, and yes, my horse Walker have all slowly, incrementally drawn me out from behind my walls. They have brought me to a place where I feel much more comfortable extending myself to those around me, knowing that those relationships could bring me pain, but also joy I would not know in any other way.

And it is in my nature to be very intensely emotional, which can be a bit overwhelming for the people around me, even when those emotions are positive ones, like my fierce loyalty to the people I love and care about. Although I am still working at it, I really have made large strides in dialing back the intensity I bring to the table.

When I was younger, I just thought everyone had to feel as intensely as I do about, well, everything! It came as a great surprise to me to find out very few people feel very passionately about anything or anyone. I now have found ways to display an emotion, like loyalty, with an energy that does not drive people away. I think I am succeeding most of the time in managing my energy in a way other people can handle.

Ben and Walker have been some of my best teachers in intensity moderation. To Ben, the force of my emotions was too much pressure, like a storm about to blow from which he would hide. To Walker it felt predatory, as though I might be a mountain lion about to strike. Whenever things aren’t working out between us, I have to remind myself that it’s probably me, not them, that needs to change approach; my intense nature can often be my biggest challenge in making our relationships work.

I don't think it is a coincidence that I am now surrounded by a wonderful group of people and animals who I care for deeply, and who care for me similarly. This makes me a very lucky woman.

Breaking down the task

We just had a lovely long weekend at Wendy's family's ranch, but before I write about that, I had some thoughts yesterday I really wanted to get down on paper.

First, sometimes the simplest instructions are the best. Maverick became lame this weekend again, so we decided to take him to Katy Equine to get checked out by their lameness expert. Both Wendy and I wanted to get a more definitive answer about his hoof issue so we can stop worrying about it.

Since I was going to go with Wendy to drop Maverick off, Randy was left with the task of taking Walker and Bingo back to Huntington Stables. Randy asked me how to unload Walker and Bingo. I told him Walker would be easy, and the most important thing would be to stay out of his way; as soon as the butt bar came down, he would likely start calmly backing right out, but if he didn’t, a slight pull on a few tail hairs would do it.

With Bingo, the most important thing would be to let him take his time, allow him to think his way through the process, again pulling just a few strands of his tail hair to ask him to back out of the trailer. Bingo's job is a bit more demanding as he gets loaded first, so he is deeper in my trailer than Walker is. He has to decide it's OK to back out rather than try to turn around to get out.

Randy was sweet enough to keep me posted as to his progress along the way back, as he knows I have a tendency to worry over things. When he got to Huntington, both Walker and Bingo backed out without any trouble at all, and Randy was amazed at how the two horses did exactly what I told him they would do.

Which is to say, Wendy and I have both taken the time it takes to train our horses and ourselves so it takes less time. Today with Randy, who knows very little about horses besides what he has heard me say over the years, he was able to complete what can be a very complicated task with two very different horses and have complete success. Thank you Parelli Natural Horsemanship.

Maverick picks up where he left off

I was pretty tired when I got to the barn today after work followed by multiple errands, so it put a smile on my face when Maverick saw me and came to greet me at the back gate. He put his head in the halter and calmly followed me to the arena. I had a plan to play transitions on the circle game.

I knew he would need the exercise, but I did not have much time, so I thought transitions would be just right for exercising his mind and body before I had to rewrap his hoof. The first two times I asked for transitions, he tipped his nose into the circle, so I gently sent his nose back out onto the circle. The next time he did a beautiful transition on the circle, so I brought him in to me.

I fed him cookies and he contentedly licked my hand for about a minute. He gave me a nibble, so I knew he was ready to move again. I sent him in the opposite direction, brought him up to the trot, asked for the downward transition again and he stayed right on the circle. Smart boy, Maverick! He had not forgotten anything we had played with from 10 days earlier. In fact, he must have thought quite a lot about it, because it was softer than when we had played with it last.

The best part was, he did not look even slightly sore on that formerly abscessed left rear hoof. That was music to my heart to see.

Wrapping his foot by myself was quite a chore. He is tired of it, and I don’t blame him. He kept moving sideways away from me every time I started to dress it, so I had to keep moving him back to where we started. That little dance lasted for at least 10 minutes. Being tired, it was hard for me to tamp down my frustration, but I managed it. Finally, I guess he decided it was easier to stand quietly than move around, and I was able to get his foot wrapped.

The wrapping takes several layers, first with a soaked Epsom salt pad (animal lintex) followed by gauze, then vet wrap. Whoever invented that stuff is a genius. The final layer is duct tape to keep the whole thing from being knocked off as Maverick walks around on it. Quite a task.

By the time I was done, I was really tired, but I still had to pick Walker and Bingo’s feet, give them some scratches and feed them cookies. Maverick followed me willingly back to his stall where his food awaited him.

Walker looked like he was full of energy and probably could have used some play time, but I had nothing left in the tank, so cookies and a rub or two on his nose was all he got tonight.

Bingo seemed very happy to see me, greeting me at his stall door with happy ears, no doubt thinking to himself, “The cookie human is here!” No cookies before hoof picking though, and he was very cooperative, so he got several.

After telling the three of them goodnight while checking to make sure they all had water and their stall doors were closed, I turned out the barn lights and headed home. What a beautiful night it was out, clear and cool. It revived me just a bit to feel the chill breeze as I hopped out of my truck to open the front gate. It felt good to be going home…

Relief!

Maverick has been suffering with a hoof abscess for the last 10 days, and it has been hard to watch him suffer through it. His physical suffering was paralleled with my own internal worry about whether or not it really was a hoof abscess, or maybe something else more serious.

However, with his history of hoof abscesses, I still was pretty sure that’s what it was. I wrapped the bottom of the hoof and the entire back of his pastern with animal lintex on Saturday, and by Sunday, he was moving demonstrably better, so despite some lingering doubt, I felt better about what was happening to him.

When I checked him on Sunday, there was heat all the way from his coronet band to the bottom of the cannon bone on the medial side of his hoof, seemingly more evidence of an abscess festering.

Despite his physical pain, he followed me all around the barn while I was readying my trailer for our trip to Halletsville with the Carpenters this week. I took a break, sitting in the observation platform adjacent to the front turnout area. Mav got right next to me and the stairs that lead to the platform, lifting his head high over the ledge to get as close to me as possible.  That just wasn’t good enough for him, so he started to try and climb the stairs to join me, and my cookie bag, up on the platform!

It sure looked like an invitation to play, I just had to decide what we could do that wouldn’t stress his hoof too much, but would satisfy his play drive. I decided that if he wanted to climb something, he could try getting on the small pedestal in the outdoor arena.

First, we did some walking stick to me along the rail, but I could tell he was getting bored fast. So I then asked him to do some circles in addition to staying on the rail, definitely more of a challenge for me to keep him connected, but he did two of them, so it was time to move on to the pedestal.

He had no problem at all with his front feet, only something that took me about 3 months to accomplish with Walker. Feeling the need to be progressive with him, I asked for the back feet up next. He wasn’t sure what to do. First, he started pounding the pedestal with his left front hoof. I gently asked him to back up slightly to let him know that wasn’t the answer to the puzzle.

I then gently asked him forward with the rope and tapping him gently on this back leg until he moved ever so slightly forward. Then he walked over it without stopping, a good effort that I rewarded with scratches and cookies and a licking break. I led him back around to start over again.

Pounding with the front hooves, gentle backwards pressure on the rope, slight movement forward, then, one back hoof lifted on the pedestal, but without standing on it, great progress! He was really thinking his way through. Cookies in hand, of course.

Then, full weight on the back hoof momentarily, loss of balance and falling off the side, still a good effort, more scratches and cookies. Back around to start again…

And then, pounding on the pedestal with a front hoof, slight pressure backwards, asking with the carrot stick for the back hoof up on the pedestal, and, yes! a third hoof with full weight on the pedestal. I asked him ever so slightly forward with the rope, and yes again! all four feet on the pedestal; big “Whoop!!” in my heart, and a big grin spread all over my face.

I think, “I have to get a picture of this, quick, get my iPhone out of my bag, activate the camera, feed Mav a cookie, drop the rope, back up slowly…” and there it is:

What a smart, calm, brave horse, and just a four year old; already a good puzzle solver. And our partnership is well on its way.

When I got the news that his abscess had blown today, my emotional relief was palpable. It was obvious when I saw him today that he was feeling so much better, his spark was back. It will be fun to start playing with him full tilt again soon.

Getting Fitter, Being Provocative

Now that Wendy and I have Maverick, a very athletic, alpha horse, I have made the decision to get back to my wedding weight, 135lbs.  It should make it easier for me to keep up with him! It’s a pretty big goal since I haven’t seen that weight on the scales in about 10 years, but I am not going to be in a hurry, I need to do it in a way that makes it possible for me to maintain. So no crazy diets, no artificially adjusting my metabolism, just more exercise and less food. I have already dropped about 5 pounds this month, so I figure if I can lose another 2-3 per month, I will be there by June.

I’m lucky because although my left knee has not allowed me to jog for the last several years, when I tried again over the last month, it hasn’t bothered me at all. Maybe it’s all the rest it’s gotten, maybe it’s the Juice Plus that has helped it to heal finally, but whatever it is, I am grateful. There’s nothing like hitting the road to get weight off.

Randy and I went to visit my Mom this weekend, and since she lives on a golf course, I got up early and headed out the back door for a jog around holes 3-7 on Saturday morning. It was about 46 degrees and the winds were blowing at about 25 miles per hour. I was happy for it though, since you burn more calories in the cold, and no golfers were braving the weather that morning.

As I started out, I was thinking about a DVD I watched last week with Linda Parelli showing how you can be provocative with your horse while riding. So I thought, “How can I make this more provocative for me?” Jogging is useful, but I don’t find it much fun.

I decided to take advantage of the layout of the course, jogging up and down the natural drainage areas, making circles around the trees, going over all the bridges and up and down the swales along the fairways and greens. A few of the swales were quite steep; some walking was necessary! I learned a long time ago from Covert Bailey that you don’t burn fat if you are breathing too hard to talk, so that is my yardstick when I exercise. It’s far easier than taking my pulse all the time.

I had a gas figuring out where I would go next! Anyone watching me might have thought I was a bit whacked, wandering all over the course with a big grin on my face, but it was fun! It made me think how easily bored a horse would become just walking a trail for miles on end. It would be like me never getting off the cart path.

When I did my circles around the trees, I tried to pick ones with uneven terrain around them, focusing on the tree, making my circles really perfect. It was more challenging than I thought it would be, making a perfect circle, not looking at the ground, focusing on the tree, and then alternating making small circles and bigger circles. But it also made my exercise session a lot more entertaining.

It really helped me to realize how challenging it must be for my horses to do all the things I ask of them. And how being particular about my riding will make their jobs a lot easier, otherwise how do they know what I want?

Never-ending self improvement…

Highs and Lows...

I got to tape Wendy's Level 2 Freestyle assessment last Sunday, and I think it went really well. So well, in fact, we only taped it twice, and I think either one would have gotten her that blue string. We should find out in about 2-3 weeks what the official word is, but for what it's worth, I believe Wendy is now clearly a Level 3 student. 

She and Bingo have come so far, it's been fun to see their progress. He is such a challenging horse, always testing the human for their level of leadership, but I don't think Wendy would have had as much fun or progressed as far with her horsemanship with a less provocative horse. Now she gets to apply her knowledge to Maverick, which is great for him and me.

Unfortunately, Maverick developed another hoof abscess, which bummed me out, but as Wendy is good about reminding me, things could always be worse. Of course, she's right every time she tells me, but it's always good to be reminded.

So we are back to a regimen of wrapping the hoof with animal lintex every day until the abscess resolves itself. Last time took three weeks, but I am being optimistic in thinking this one won't take as long. 

The great thing about the Parelli program is that even when your horse isn't 100%, there are always things you can play with that aren't stressful physically, but still challenge your horse emotionally and/or mentally.

With that in mind, I started asking Maverick to back up by the tail, a form of the Porcupine game. We played with it for the third time today, and he is really getting it fast. It only took one minute of playing with it today for him to get it with the rope completely slack from both the left and right. 

We also are playing with walk/trot transitions on the circle, and this task is taking a little longer, but what I noticed today was that he was not reactive to the carrot stick coming at him. At first, he still thought it meant to go faster, not slower. Today, I still needed the rope to remind him to slow down, but he did it much more quickly and calmly. Again, we didn't do much as I did not want to stress his abscessed hoof, but he's getting a little better every time we play with it. 

Having said that, I can't wait to ride him again. We had such a wonderful passenger lesson at the walk and trot before the abscess, I am looking forward to seeing how he improves when we do it again.

Progressing with Walker

It’s been a week of highs and lows with my horses, but to be fair, more highs then lows.

Last Friday, Walker and I started with liberty play with his saddle on. Sarah told me about a pattern she saw Karen Rolf do with one of her horses, a figure eight and circle game combined. I thought that sounded like fun, so we did it once last week, but we refined it, and it was really soft. Then we moved to something more challenging at liberty for Walker, the four-barrel weave.

Walker has trouble understanding the draw around the third barrel, but we played with it for about 10 minutes, he got it and we moved on. We will need plenty of refinement there.

When we started out under saddle, he voluntarily went straight to the pedestal and put all four feet on it and stopped. He looked back at me with what appeared to be a mixture of satisfaction and “Where’s my cookie?”

To top that off, we started with a ten minute trotting passenger lesson, and he trotted over the pedestal twice and over a small jump several times. I rubbed his withers a lot during that passenger lesson.

Despite the trouble we have had getting his left lead over the last week our two, I never fail to be grateful for how hard Walker tries to please now. If natural horsemanship is judged in great degree by our relationship, I think ours is pretty good.

I went back to simple bow tie lead changes on Friday, and just like that, he picked up his left lead again. It proves again that going through the levels makes a lot of sense because when you have a problem, you can break it down yourself and get it fixed, at least most of the time.

We then played the cantering yo-yo game for the third time in a row. It’s a lot of fun, because it brings Walker’s life up, which is getting more challenging to do with his increasingly left-brained behavior. If the passenger lesson wasn’t enough proof of that, one day last week, I’m not sure which, he ran me into the rail when I upped my phases asking him to move off my leg! I had to laugh, because even though that is not something I want to encourage, it showed me he is really thinking now, even if at times it’s naughty thinking.

And something I just realized on Friday was that I don’t worry at all about Walker spooking under saddle in the arena anymore, which makes playing games with him a lot more fun. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t’ ever spook, it’s just no big deal anymore, I play with it, he blows and we move on to something else.

Playing the cantering yo-yo game makes me thankful for an athletic horse. Walker was a little worried at first being asked to stay on the rail, stretch at the canter, then collect, then stretch, then go faster, then go slower, stretch, collect, faster, slower.

But in this session, he really started to understand, and about the third time around the arena, he blew and blew and blew some more! I immediately asked him to collect then stop with a rub and a cookie.  After walking to cool off, I hopped off, fed him more cookies and as it was a pretty hot day, gave him a nice hose down. Of course, the first thing he did when I brought him back to the turnout was roll!

Transformations continue

One of the things I love about playing with my horses is you never know what surprises they may have in store for you. 

Today, I got to the barn and was welcomed by gorgeous clear blue skies and a light cool breeze. After chatting with Wendy who had an interesting day with Mav and a fun liberty session with Bingo, I got Walker and tacked him up. He seemed his usual cheeky, cheerful self, so I thought we would probably do some more cantering yo-yo game again today. We started along the rail, and he was completely blowing off my leg, so I decided I would pick up my carrot stick so I could more effectively up my phases. 

That is when Walker deliberately jammed me into the arena fence! My right brained extrovert had turned completely left brained! I laughed out loud, and now that I have had a chance to think about it, next play time, I am going to let him do what he wants to do before I ask him to do what I want to do.

That lesson was reinforced for me when Wendy let me play with Bingo, her left brained, introvert/extrovert, handsome Paint, at liberty on Sunday. He was much more willing to play a good stick to me game when at first I allowed him to go where he wanted to go. When I felt him soften, I knew I could ask for more. Thanks again, Wendy, for allowing me to play with your horse.

Can't wait to apply that to Walker next time. Today, we also did lots and lots of cantering. Walker is having trouble picking up his left lead again, so we did that until he was able to do it three times in a row, which took awhile. Once we had it, I played the yo-yo game at the canter, and wow, does that bring up the life in my horse. He really seemed to enjoy it. I know I did. 

At the end, I did a walking passenger lesson to allow him to cool off, and he walked around that arena like he owned it, a long, relaxed but energetic walk with his ears focused where he was going. Wherever he was going, it seemed as though it was with real purpose. Not once in our play session did he spook at anything, and there were lots of horses and riders in the arena when we first started, so he could easily have been distracted. He chose not to be. 

My horse is becoming a real partner and a joy to be with. It's been a long, steep, rocky journey, and we still have plenty to accomplish together, but with a partner next to and under me, the mountain doesn't look so tall anymore.