Mouthy Mondays

This post is from the Shanster, it is a little sad and she told me she is worried about becoming whiny....I didn't see it at all.

I had a regular blogger and contributor say she has fun with the open discussions. If you guys think it's a good idea I'll get one started once in a while on Mouthy Monday.
I'll throw out a topic and we'll all run with it. What do you think?
Anyway, here's Shanster....

My first horse experiences were really solitary. My parents were divorced and my mom moved to CO after custody was awarded to my Dad in NE. That was a really weird thing in the 70s especially because my sister and I were 3 and 5 yrs old respectively. It was a particularly bitter and angry divorce and we lived in two different foster homes while it was decided which parent we'd live with.

We were in suburbia and I was a horse crazy. I watched The Lone Ranger religiously every Sunday and I loved Silver. I checked each and every book from the library that had anything to do with horses over and over and over and over. Reading and re-reading and re-reading again. Horses were my escape.

No one I knew had horses or rode horses or even liked horses all that much. It was a very, very rare treat to be near horses, see horses or touch horses. I had mostly books, pictures and my imagination. I didn't have a bike but I had my legs for "riding" all through the neighborhood.

Mom promised me a horse when I turned 13. I was hopeful but not at all sure it would happen.

Miracles can happen as it turns out. I was 13 and I found myself with a palomino paint pony named Pal. Mom somehow found him, bought him unseen and boarded him at a stable, also unseen in NE because she lived in CO.He was a GREAT first horse and a GREAT escape from the anger and violence that filled my childhood. Dad would grudgingly drive me out to this stable 40 minutes away once a week and leave me there for the day. I brought food, drank out of the hose and hung out all day.No one taught me how to ride. I just did. It was enough to climb on and go! I learned the very basics from a group horse class with other kids I went to when I visited Mom in CO over the summer.

No one in my family could do anything to me when I was with my horse and no one would dare hurt my horse, he was too big! Which makes me laugh now because he was small, but to my Dad, he was big enough. Horses offered me safety. They offered me escape. Even in the cold NE winters, I would still spend the day at the stable where I would hunker under the heat lamp hanging by baling twine in the tack shed with several barn cats while I waited for my ride home. I was happy.I couldn't talk about my horse at home because it was a huge sore spot between two warring parents. None of my friends understood why all I wanted to talk about was this horse either. They made fun of me for it in grade school and complained how boring I was because my horse was all I ever talked about. I'd bring friends to ride with me every once and awhile but it didn't always go very well. Horses are big and scary to other people, even the small ones! No one ever seemed to have as much fun as I did. They would fall off and instead of getting back on, they cried and told their parents. I was terrified Pal would be taken away from me.

I didn't understand why nobody else didn't want to ride them or how they didn't enjoy everything about them like I did. The furry coats in winter, the smell or Repel-X in the summer, the manure, the hay, the leather, the soft noses full of whiskers....

I learned to guard my horse habit like a little jewel in my heart. Or maybe like gollum with his ring.... yessssss my precious!It was against the norm in NE to ride English where my horse was stabled. There were a lot of older men who rode Western and gave me a hard time about riding English. I'm not sure why I decided to ride English? The very first lessons I took were on my second horse, an Appaloosa named Macintosh, with the money I earned from a paper route. I had outgrown Pal. My legs were too long and it was out of the question to own two horses.

I would ride Macintosh over the dirt country roads to a saddle seat barn I found miles away from the stable. I learned about leads and diagonals and posting. I bet the instructor was wondering what in the world this girl in a hunt seat saddle on an Appaloosa was doing in her barn full of Saddlebred horses! I didn't know Saddle Seat was a different kind of English riding at the time. I thought English was English.

As I got older, I earned money from an after school job and I could drive. I paid for lessons from this woman named Nancy who was from WV and had studied under Danny Emerson. I'm not sure what she was doing in NE or how I found her? She didn't stick around that long and moved back East after a year. She worked with me teaching hunter/jumper lessons and a teensy bit of cross country jumping.While she was around, I basked in her knowledge and my riding improved. She was of the school that didn't use artificial means to make you or your horse correct - it was you, the saddle and the bridle. You worked it out. No artificial training devices allowed. I practiced jumping cavelletis piled together in a corn field with stubbly corn stalks sticking out of the ground over and over and over.I went to a few local NE shows with Nancy. I did well. I won ribbons and I was even complimented! It was wonderful.I broke my leg in a bad car accident just before going on an organized mock fox hunt with Nancy so I never really did officially get to experience cross country jumping. It was a Sunday when I broke my leg. I remember because I was busting my hump to get home from the barn in time for church when a drunk driver ran a stop sign behind a hill. I didn't have a stop sign and I hit them head on. I was flown in a Flight for Life to the hospital. I woke up in a hospital bed naked with an oxygen mask, a neck brace and a cast from my left foot to the middle of my upper thigh. I had no recollection of the accident. My clothes had been literally cut away from me and were resting on a chair next to my bed. My first thought was "Oh! They cut my boots!" The tall, black boots I'd just finished lay away payments for. They cut them right down the side... not even on the seam!

I was in the hospital for 4 or 5 days and I was desperately trying to figure out exactly how one might ride in a full leg cast. If I could just figure it out, maybe I could still go on the mock fox hunt? I left NE and moved to CO when I graduated high school to be closer to Mom and to go to college. CSU had an Equine Science program and I was wild with the disbelief there could be such a thing and my Dad was allowing me to go.

By then, the habit of hiding my horse love was ingrained. I would bring one or two college friends who were more horse oriented out to see or ride my gelding occasionally. (He's the gelding I still have who is now 30+ yrs old.) Mostly I listened to their stories of pony club, and about all the horses they rode, the shows they'd been in, the lessons they'd had since they were tiny, their family ranches full of horses, their friends with horses who they'd ride with, the ribbons they won and the knowledge they had. They all knew so MUCH! I knew so little. Each person told me how I should be riding. Then they'd get up on my horse and ride him the way they thought he should be ridden and it wasn't always right.... but I wanted people to like me and I came from a home where you did NOT voice your opinion, you were NOT contrary and you simply did NOT EVER rock the boat. EVER. shrug. Sometimes I had a lot of fun and other times I wished I hadn't brought anyone out to see my horse.
I met a woman I'd heard was a good trainer when I came to college. She taught Dressage. I sort of knew was Dressage was ... the more I learned, the more I really enjoyed it. There were no artificial training tools, she helped to increase the natural ability of each particular horse. Never mind what type of horse you rode... you didn't need an expensive horse or a fancy horse. You worked with what you had and she let me clean stalls in exchange for lessons. Today, I'm 38 and I train with the daughter of the woman I first found in college. I have horse-y friends and we go to local shows together. We support each other. We console each other when a horse is injured. We meet to watch horse videos and talk horses while we drink Colorado microbrews. We go to clinics together. We cheer each other on in our victories. I'm married and my husband unconditionally and completely supports my horse habit. He doesn't ride but he is always, always ready to help from the ground. I have a big, wonderful, supportive, horse-loving family!

Riding and Dressage was always more of a private goal for me. Even now I compete against myself and I try to improve my riding for myself and my horse more than any other reason. I suppose I'm not very competitive because of my solitary start, but I'm absolutely giddy and grateful to be a part of this happy horse filled life I'm in now. I wouldn't have it any other way.

My horses bring me joy. When I have a bad day, they sooth my soul. I don't know what I would do without horses. Even now, I worry about a day when I am too old to ride. What will I do when I'm in my 80s?!

Training Experiments Continued

I've told you about my experiment with Pete.

This is the next phase of my horse-training experiment. Leland. Leland is my little buckskin colt. Because he is mine and I'm not in a hurry anymore, I've been trying a philosophy out that I've only discussed with my dressage buddy, Michelle. And then, we were just speculating, not truly serious. But I've been chewing on this for several years and am finally in a position to try it.

Somewhere, somebody said, or wrote a theory on horses that picks at me endlessly. The idea is that horses don't ever forget any experience, good or bad. They assimilate it into their mind and it becomes part of their instinctive reactions. This thought alone kept me busy for months.

Going a step farther, the idea is if you truly understood what your plan was and were able to communicate this correctly to your horse, you would only have to show him something once and he would have it. No repetition, no drilling, he would get it.

Mind blowing concept isn't it?

I'm trying this theory on Leland.

The key, (I'm guessing) is every experience has to be related to the one before it. And he has to completely understand the previous step. I also need complete confidence in myself, my horse and the decision I made.

I started this from day one with little Leland.

When Leland was born I made it quite clear to everybody he was to be left the hell alone. The ranch manager was a master at spoiling horses, dogs, kids, you name it, rotten.

I first physically entered his life when his mother had a severe colic the night after he was born. I was called at home and came to see her. As it often goes when a horse you know intimately is hurting, Loki wanted me there. She nickered when I came and took a moment to rest her forehead against my chest in between her painful spasms. The little baby peeked at me from behind his mama.

Worried as I was, I thought, "This is our first moment."

I knew the little baby was watching and absorbing this night. He had to feel his mother relax when I came.

The vet had me catch Leland to give him an exam. I held him close with my arm around his little chest and his wispy tail in my hand. I felt his heart beating and realized he could feel mine. I released him and he ran to hide behind Loki. He peeked around her and looked at me.
So we had covered four things. I gave his mother comfort. I could hold him and I could let him go. Mine was the second heartbeat he had felt beating slow and steady.

The first time I had to worm him I simply cornered him, held him and wormed him. I held him the same way I had the first time and let him feel my heart for a few seconds before I had my boss slip him his wormer. It wasn't as wild as you would think. His first lesson had stuck.

Every time I had to handle him I added one more step. In his first year he learned if I wanted to catch him I did. He learned to let me pick up his feet. He learned to stand still and earn a release. He learned my farrier could catch him and trim him. He learned to give his nose and back a step when I put my hand across it and added pressure.

I had handled him five times. My farrier had him twice. The vet once.

As a yearling he was penned with the other stud colts. I began stopping by his corral once or twice a month. I simply stood in the pen until he looked at me the first day. Then I stepped toward his hip and moved him until he flicked an ear at me. Then I moved him until he looked.

See where I'm going?

When I halter broke him I did it in one day. He didn't lead particularly well, but he gave to pressure and let me halter him. It took about twenty minutes.

Then I needed to move him. So that day he learned to stand tied, get in a trailer and we got a little further on his leading. He was calm, quiet and curious. I was pleased.

He has been out on pasture running like a doofus since then.

I got on my yellow mare and used him as a cow a few times.

The first time I drove him from the hip. He threw a quick cowkick so I sped things up and turned him hard a few times.

Leland learned to give to pressure from a different source. He learned neither my yellow horse nor I are tolerant of cow kicks.

The next time I worked him until I could rub on him standing next to my horse.

The third time I worked him until I was able to halter him from my horse.

I let him be again.

In the course of this time he got shots and wormed and trimmed.

I always assumed he knew what it was about and he didn't fail me

This last week we had a big test. Leland is a bilateral cryptorchid (both testicles were undescended). Or I guess I should say, was. I hadn't gelded him yet because I kept waiting for a miracle. Two testicle sized miracles.

Even though he was sterile, I was getting reports that he was getting studdy and rude. And he kept leering at his mother. Ew.

So I started shopping around for a vet to do this surgery. I got estimates in the range of $1.200 to $2,000. Gulp.

I stalled a bit and worked him in a bonified round pen twice.

The first time we drove, turned, stopped and got the halter on.
He learned to stop and wait for me when I asked.

The second time we did the same and I rubbed and patted him all over to desensitize the poor thing a little before he went to the vet.
He learned I could feel him up anyway I wanted.

Through all this he was quiet, mannerly and calm.

No session lasted more than fifteen minutes.

I found a vet I knew and could still afford, made my appointment and came and got him.

He was loaded for the second time. This time he was alone.

He walked in behind me, cool as a cucumber.

We went to the vets office, 100 miles away. He unloaded well.

The vet took him and he went with, leading as if I had taught him to. He walked through a dark, narrow doorway and across concrete floors into the surgery. He didn't fuss.

When I picked him up I was complimented on how well behaved and easy to handle he was.

He's fine, he's now a gelding and he's staying at my barn by my house while he heals.

Leland has learned to pony and he's been getting pet on by the BO and her help. He has been polite and mannerly, but not afraid.

Now don't get me wrong. Leland has had things repeated, I mean I have to put his halter on and move him etc. He also is not a sweet little angel. He has had opinions, decided not to be caught, typical baby things.
I always keep thinking, I know he understands what I want, he just doesn't want it. So I hang in until I get the last step, not by retraining, but staying with the last maneuver until he responds. Then he gets the new one.

I really think through each step before I proceed. I spend weeks thinking about the next step, how he'll perceive it and what will make the most sense to both of us. Which makes from some slow training.

I assume, without fail, that he understands the last step we took and I won't have to teach it again. I'm watching him begin to understand how each new task is built on the one before. I love seeing him pause to think through whatever particular problem I've set in front of him. I really like how he watches me, from the second he sees me.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't for a minute think I have the ability to keep this up throughout his training. But I'm going to keep it up as long as I can. It's fascinating.

I have the luxury of thinking through each step before the next one. The only expectations are my own. I'm thinking what I haven't done is as important as what I have.

Crazy idea huh?

Rearers and Bolters and Boogers, Oh My - The Sequel

So now we tackle Jess's problem, her rearing horse.

I am really glad Jess didn't whack her horse over the head or flip him over.
I strongly suggest Jess stay away from the boneheads who offered this as a solution.

I went back and carefully read her description of what her horse is doing and how old he is.

I also asked HOC to describe a horse in front of her leg.

There truly is method to my madness you see.

I want to point out some of the things I got from her comment before we get into her horse's criminal activities.

This horse is only four years old. He has been out on two trail rides in his life.

So I'm going to start with a little story and then my basic approach to trail riding on a young horse.

When my daughter started walking we began to explore the world around her. As a baby we went on long hikes with her in the backpack. Once she started walking our pace became hers. I crawled like a snail behind her as she toddled from interesting rocks to pretty flowers or crawly bugs. I waited as patiently as possible while she crouched over a grasshopper eating a leaf or poked a stick into the creek behind our house. She had a little apron my mother made her with rows of tiny pockets and she would fill it with her treasures as we poked along. It was long, slow and boring. I resigned myself to the fact I would be watching the ground instead of looking ahead for at least the next few years.

When I first take a young horse out I go with a trusted, older, experienced trail horse who has a rider with a lick of sense. I tuck my little colt at the hip of this trail wise horse and we stay there at first. I plan on going at a leisurely walk, allowing my young horse to gawk at the new world as much as he wants. I plan my trail ahead of time and avoid too many traumatic elements for my horse to deal with.

I will periodically gather my reins and push my youngster into a fast walk, I look ahead, ride with an active seat and get going, but only in an area where I can see ahead and judge the obstacles we'll be dealing with.

My colt can jump a little and take a quick look at something, but I am much more interested in keeping his feet moving than I am in proving he doesn't need to be afraid. I'll let him give that horse eating tree stump a wide berth as long as we get back on the trail and on our way.

I never stop and have him sniff things, or make him approach things we could easily walk around. It impedes our forward motion.

I keep the ride short. I usually dismount at the halfway point, loosen his cinch, slip the bridle (my rope halter and lead are underneath) and let him graze for awhile.

Then we rebridle, tighten the cinch and walk home.

As we ride out more I play leap frog with the other horse. I lead a little, my friend leads a little. I get my horse used to being in front.

I start to trot in the places we used to gather and walk out in.

I begin to tackle scary obstacles, like a bridge. I have my friend go across first. If my colt follows quietly after I say "Yipee!" because that doesn't happen all that often. If he's stuck at the other side squalling for his buddy I sit back and get ready to wait.

I get my friend to sit on her quiet trail broke horse on the other side. I sit quiet and loose and keep directing my colt's head, he has to keep looking at the bridge. I make absolutely sure I only direct him one rein at a time. I don't make him do anything except keep looking at the bridge. The buddy on the other side has all of the pull I need. I let him sniff, put on foot on it and back away, whatever. Eventually he'll cross. I've never had one not. This is a lot like trailer loading, crossing water, any of those things that make your horse say "What the hell? You want me to go where?"

So what I'm trying to say is, slow down, keep it short and plan ahead.

On to rearing. Rearing happens when the feet stop. Feet stop when the forward is lost.

Really think these sentences through. It's everything.

Here we get down to why I walk, trot and lope my colts before I do anything else. I want my base to be forward motion. I want my horse to freely travel with me on his back. I want him to understand this is his primary job.

I work on my forward all of the time. I take my horses face last because I want to push their hind end into the bit.

As the years have gone by and I've really ironed out this philosophy, I have had zero rearing or refusal issues. Not that I haven't had horses say, "Oh no, I don't want to do that," but because I understand I want forward motion, I can impart this onto my horses, I have always been able to resolve my problem.

Horses rear because they are having their faces hung onto.
They rear because their rider is kicking them forward and pulling them back at the same time.
They rear because the rider is kicking them forward and what the horse is afraid of or mad at is in front of them.
If I can keep those feet moving I will eventually get them forward. If I'm pulling with both hands I can't move anything.

If my horse rears I loosen my reins and lean forward so I don't die. Right as he comes down I start to kick the crap out of him and yell whatever nasty thing comes to mind until he goes forward. Because I'm still off his face we normally go forward.

If he doesn't want to go through a gate I might rollback away from the gate, kick him hard and mean, rollback to the gate, kick, away, kick, back, kick and finally get him in there. Then I sit quiet for a few minutes and take him out of the arena. Obviously it is best to practice this when a show isn't going on.

When I worked for the big K we would trot, lope or gallop (depending on the mood) our colts into the arena with a lot of forward energy. We would stop in the middle of the arena and just sit. We would stay in the middle anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes. But they were always hustled in and they always got a relaxed rein rest. We had no balkers at the gate.

I think Jess has to slow down her rides and ease up on her expectations. This is just a baby. I think she needs to work on her forward, in the arena, until she can count on her horse moving out as soon as she asks. I think she needs to check and re-check her hands.

I would work on getting my horse to move to the left with the left rein, to the right with the right. I mean the whole horse needs to go, not just the head back and forth.

That's all I got.