Busy Busy Busy

August has been a very busy month. Last weekend I went up to a dressage horse show to see my friend show her horse. They did really well, and I got to use her camera to take pictures of her. Oh, now THAT was a CAMERA! If I had the money, swear to god I would’ve gone out and bought that same exact one after the show. My mom estimates that that camera probably cost around $900, so you can see why I couldn’t buy it. But at least now I know what it feels like to take really good pictures, almost effortlessly.

On another note, in an older post I mentioned that I was going to play with another lady’s horses, because she didn’t have time to herself. Well, I got to play with an RBE named Star, and she told me that I have a lot to learn about RB horses. I mean, I just realized how nicely I’ve got it with a bunch of LB guys to play with on a daily basis. No exaggeration: Star wouldn’t even let me move the carrot stick. So, forget about throwing it over her back! My starting point was to try to move it without her taking off. And in retrospect, I realized that I got my strategy wrong. I started out with doing as little as I could with the carrot stick and working up to moving it a little more, but she would still move no matter how little I moved it. So, I abandoned the idea of retreating even more (like starting out with picking it up), and upped the anty instead. I threw it over her back. She ran out of there, of course, and then I kept throwing it over until she calmed down even a little, or I stopped her with yo-yo and stopped the CS. I was treating her issue with the CS as a RBE thing, because she was being RBE, but her problem was that she didn’t trust the Carrot Stick (Trust me, trust my tools). So, if I could’ve done it over again, I would’ve gone a lot slower. But otherwise, she still did alright. After I gave up playing a broken Friendly game, I had her circle for a while, because of the consistency. This taught me that I don’t know the strategies for RBE’s very well at all. Circling was the only thing I could think of doing! But she responded well: she tried walking on their teeter-totter (I’ll take a picture, it’s SOO industrial) with little prompting from me, and even walked right over the tarp 2 or 3x. That’s a big deal, because she was forced over it the other day by a normal at their facility. Next time I go out, I’ll take some pictures. It’s a pretty cool place!

And on Saturday, my mom and I went to a speed show they were holding. It was a very good demonstration of what NOT to do. Many people were being direct-line. And there was 1 quite ironic incident. There was a litle boy doing poles on this  21 year old pony that looked a lot older than 21. My mom asked the owner: “So, how old’s the pony?” “21″ the guys said. “He looks really gentle.” “Yeah, he is. He’s not our horse, he’s my friends and all of their horses are real laid-back.” Just as he said that, the pony took off and the kid ended up flying off of him. Luckily the kid wasn’t hurt (he was wearing a helmet and chest protector), just a little shocked. But that just made me think of a phrase I heard recently: “Most people get hurt on gentle horses.” And it makes a lot of sense, too. People think that their lack of savvy can be made up for by buying an old, experienced horse, but that horse can still go Right Brain as easily as the next.

And Moosey and I are doing alright. Had a discussion with him yesterday about walking over two tires right next to each other filled with dirt. I sent him to squeeze over it, and he said “I can’t do that.” So, I had to say “try, at least try,” because his mind was totally closed to the idea. So, he’s still not real confident with it, because he’ll only jump it from one side, but I had to end early because the mosquitos were eating me alive last night.

And the horse’s hooves need to be done really bad. Moose’s are starting to chip off. We accidentally waited until 8 weeks to call the farrier, and then we couldn’t get a hold of her, so she’s coming tomorrow. Unfortunately, that’ll be 10 weeks since their last trim (there goes Moose’s halfway-nice-looking hooves), but oh well.

Round Pen

I finally got a picture for you. Sorry it took so long!

It's a 50', and the top line is 3'2", in case you were wondering.

The After-Affects and a Well-Deserved Lesson

So, I’ve been playing with Moose and things have gone pretty well since Shirley was here! Jumping things is pretty much a non-issue now as long as I prepare him. We had the best circling game I’ve ever gotten yesterday: his transitions were almost all from a phase 1. He even reared up once, so maybe he’s having some fun, too.

And yesterday, I got 2 steps of backing by the tail with no help from the lead rope at all! I was so impressed with him that we ended our session on that.

Our figure-8 was really good, too. Moose has done a lot better with that since I started thinking in terms of making a really BIG figure-8, and then making it smaller as we refine it. So, yesterday we did our figure-8 and it was pretty good, but he went around one time and I asked him to yield his HQ, and he didn’t. So, I popped him with a phase 4. You should have seen the look on his face! His attitude became “Yes, ma’am!” after that, and he couldn’t stop staring at me. It’s nice to blow their minds once and while, you know?

And we’ve figured something out about Bella. In the new Level 1 kit, there’s a scene in the Squeeze Game segment showing a girl and her black horse doing a squeeze, and Linda goes and helps the girl out because she’s being too passive. Well, that girl and horse is like my mom and Bella.

So, I went outside today intending to play with Bella based on that realization, and she cooperated for a while . . . until she took off like a shot in Circling Game and ran around like a loony for a minute. Once I got her back, my brain was thinking like crazy. What just happened? Why did she do that? I only asked her to trot. . . okay, so maybe me asking her to trot is too much pressure for her, because she starts to pull on the rope when I ask her to trot. But would that cause her to take off like that? Obviously it did, so . . . WAIT. . . was she feeling unsafe? She was calm, so she must be lacking trust then. . . hmm. . .

With this episode firmly in mind (and believe me, this isn’t the first time she has fled from me), I decided that I wasn’t going to repeat history again. I’ve gotta change what I’m doing. So, might as well start with an open mind and as I recently learned, just do something. So, I decided that in that instance she lacked trust, and that throwing a phase 4 at her just blew her up.

So, I completely changed my approach by starting with the Circling Game again, and this time treating her like an RBI. “You want to come in? Oh, that’s fine, come here. Good girl. Now, back out you go, so I can send you again.”She started asking me questions, so that was a good sign. Her Circling Game got completely broken, though, but I just laughed at her. I mean, seriously, what horse can’t WALK even 1/4 of a circle without stopping?!? Lol, she’s so funny.

Afterwards, I started massaging her mouth, because she keeps her lips so tight, and today was supposed to be worming day, but I’ve created a program that will work her up to it instead of just being direct-line. 4-7 sessions of massaging her lips and stopping when she really relaxes. It’d be cool if she’d let me hold her tongue, too. Moose let me do that before.

Overall, I’ve gotta say that Bella really reminded me about the true meaning of “It’s about the relationship.” I could’ve forced her to do circles and take the wormer, but after she took off I was conscious of putting the relationship first. So, I thank her for the lesson. It was well-deserved, because horses don’t lie.

I wanted to add this in here, too, quick. Other evidence that I might be on the right track: she likes my mom more than me, even though my mom is (no offense) on the passive side; on most days, she rarely licks her lips; she’s spooky; she’s the type of horse that trusts people easily at a base level, but is hard to get her full trust (versus a horse that won’t trust you at all, but then trusts you completely when they do); and she rarely tries to be dominant.

Well, I don’t know if my efforts will be successful or not, but I’ll keep you posted on my progress with Moose and Bella over the next week.

Honey, I need you to do this

My lesson with Shirley on Wednesday went great! I learned SOO much, it was completely worth it.

Anyways, my lesson was the first one (of 3 total). I decided that I wanted to work on our Circling Game, because Moose can’t even make it around half a lap at the WALK before calling it quits. So, Shirley had me show her our HQ driving game first off. I moved his HQ around, and it moved fine, but she pointed out that his feet don’t cross over like they should. So, our goal was to get him to cross over 3x in a row. He would do 2x just fine, but he’d cheat on the 3rd, so we ended up going round and round and round for whoever knows how many circles. We did it from both sides, so I’m sure Moose was dizzy by the time we were done.

Afterwards, I showed her our circles. And interestingly enough, Moose took off like a shot when I sent him the first time (he isn’t used to having so particular of a leader, so I think it was too much pressure for him), and ran around like a nut  for a little while. (I don’t remember the exact order of things after this, just an fyi). I also wanted to play with having Moose jump some barrels, because I could never get him to jump anything. So, while he’s running around and not really thinking, he eventually encounters the barrels. At first, he’d swerve around them, then he’d jump them unconfidently, then he’d stop in front of them and ask me a question, so it was a process.

Shirley played with him for a little bit when he was in this  mode (it’s not RBE like “I’m gonna die!!”, it’s more like “can’t think, gotta move!”), but I ran in to get some fly spray at that time. When I saw him again, she was playing with yielding his hindquarters.

Then, we did sideways. I’m just starting sideways, so he did pretty well. Then, I showed her my squeeze and we combined the two. I did sideways, and then backed up and did squeeze. Once I got the feel down, Moose did really well. Shirley commented that this exercise is great for horses to learn where their feet are, and to be a little more nimble. I could see his progress, too, because when we started with the HQ driving game, he kept tripping on himself.

Now, I think we did our circling game again along with jumping the barrels. He was circling at the trot without breaking gait, and even jumping the barrels without hesitation! It was wonderful. And he was pulling on me less than the first time, too.

Then, we did Stick to Me, and once Shirley had him go between me and our round pen fence, it got WAY better. He understood to go when I go, and stop when I stop. It was so cool to see him mirror me like that!

And I was pretty surprised by this, but Shirley told me that Moose is not an RBI. She thinks he’s actually an LBI, just a pretty mild one. She said half-way through my lesson that she hadn’t seen him go Right Brain once during this whole thing! So, I guess I do have to more forward more. I was always going slow for him, because I wante to keep his confidence.

Here’s what I learned:

• The title was the theme of all the lessons today
• It’s okay to have expectations for Moose
• I need to be a better leader and get Moose through his can’t think phase, instead of avoiding it
• Every horse needs a leader, even the self-confident/dominant ones
• It’s not rocket science!
• Your horse will show the same amount of enthusiasm that you put in.

Afterwards, 2 other friends had their lessons. Dancer’s owner Lisa went first and it was nice to see what Shirley had them do. They started out with Circling Game, too, and then spent the remainder of their time working on Sideways game. Dancer is very dominant, and Shirley had Lisa assert her leadership, but it was a gradual thing versus just fight through it. So, from that session I learned that passive persistence pays off and the importance of defending your space.

Then, another friend named Lisa had a lesson. But in this one, Shirley played with the horse the whole time, but that’s because the horse was an untrained 2 year old. The theme of this lesson was that you can’t keep babying these horses (see link). Yes, they’re untrained. Yes, some of them are untouched. But you have to move past that and treat them like normal horses. Of course, you have to be cautious, but you still have to act like the calm, confident, competent leader that they need.

And a friend took some pictures of Moose and I, so they will be added to this post as soon as I get them!

7 years ago . . . And now

7 years ago. . . I never knew Moose existed. I’ve now owned him for 10 months. And guess what happened a few days ago!?! Moose’s old owner called us! It turns out 7 years ago Moose was owned by a lady named Stephanie in Dubuque, Iowa:

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She was kind enough to tell us a little about how she got him. As I said above, she owned him since he was 7 (he’s 14 now). Technically, she co-owned him. It was her and her friend, and they both did different things with him. She did mostly dressage and eventing, and her friend was into hunter/jumper. So, he did a variety of things. She had him for 5 years . . . Eventually, her friend -and co-owner- decided to move to Florida. So, they decided to just donate Moose to a children’s farm in Prairie Du Chien instead of going through all the hassle of selling him (they didn’t want their friendship ruined over a horse).

And if all you blog readers think back far enough (or cheat and read the older posts), you’d know that I picked up Moose from Prairie Du Chien. So, I’ve got the past 7 years of Moose’s life figured out. He was at Stephanie’s, then at a children’s farm, then at his previous owner’s, and now here. And since I’m not planning on selling him anytime soon, it’s my hope that he has a forever home with me.

Now, onto other news! The round pen is completely finished. I promise I’ll put up pictures. Just got to bring a camera outside for once. Dancer and Bella have changed their attitude towards me a little bit, in a good way! They like me better now, which is always good.

Moosey and I are doing well. I’m suffering through a case of Mental Block, though. I’m running out of things to do on-line in L1, and now I don’t know how  to teach him (and myself) Level 2 On-line. So, I think I’m going to be watching the new L2 kit from the library again. Hopefully, that should help!

And I actually got to teach Moose to play sideways game for the first sucessful time ever today! (Tried in the past, and it didn’t work. He was scared of the electric fence). He’s still an unconfident learner, but if I just take it slow, he does a LOT better. And I realized another key to success with him, is to WAIT after I do anything that should make him think. I noticed a long time ago that he doesn’t lick his lips much, but I came to the realization recently that that is because I’m not providing him with enough time to think. And I got one full lap of Circling Game at the trot today! Gotta love the little successes.

Oh, and I sat on Moose today again, too. And he was relaxed about it. That’s a pretty sweet achievement for us both, because then maybe I can start getting over my unconfidence of riding him!

And something else even: I am now going to be playing with another lady’s horses, because she doesn’t have enough time to play with them herself. She does Parelli, so almost all the horses know it. And there is horsenalities abound! I went by her place yesterday to meet her, so I haven’t played with anyone yet, but it’s going to be very cool. She has Rocky Mountains, Quarters, 2 Perlinos, a yearling, one horse that is blind in its left eye, a Standardbred that trots faster than some horses gallop, a Quarter that’s smoother than her gaited hroses, a dwarf cat, and even a cat named Smokin’ 22!!  If I remember correctly, she has 13 horses. It’s going to be very fun! I’m pretty excited.

Angels and Demons

I apologize, because this post has absolutely nothing to do with horses (and this is not the post I mentioned in last post), but still. I just saw the movie Angels and Demons today, and omg: this movie is INCREDIBLE! It’s a suspense movie, and Tom Hanks is in one leading role. It’s kind of like the Da Vinci Code, but it’s WAY more intense, because in this movie the main characters are fighting to keep the 4 Cardinals from dying, and to stop Vatican City from blowing up. This preview about sums it up, so please watch:

I strongly recommend you go see it! But a note of caution: the movie is rated PG-13, so it would’t be appropriate for youngsters. And there is one scene that is a little gross (a dead guy has mice and maggots crawling on him): At 32 seconds in the preview is the start of it, so when you see that scene in the movie, turn your head if you don’t like that stuff.

Parelli Principles On the Big Screen

I’ve had two interesting occasions I want to talk about. One is watching the movie Nanny McPhee. The other will come in another post.

I want to talk about Nanny McPhee first.  Click on the link above to read more about the movie, but here’s a quick video that sums up the plot:

I saw it the other night, and I really liked McPhee. But of course, I’m thinking in horse terms: she taught me a lot about encouraging the ideas of LBEs. Here’s a good example: In one scene, Nanny McPhee told the kids that they had a half hour to get out of bed. Of course, the kids were rebellious, and decided to try to trick the Nanny. So, they painted their faces white with red dots. After the half hour was up, Nanny McPhee returned and found the kids had somehow got the ‘measles.’ Of course, she can see that they don’t have it, but she encourages their idea. Here’s her exact words:

“How can it be anything other? The chalky-white faces, the livid spots, the temperatures of 120 degrees. I’ve seen it time and again. Measles. Definitely.”

And then she makes it uncomfortable. The kids just wanted to stay in bed all day, so she makes them stay in bed until they get sick of it. And this cauzes them to realize that their idea isn’t so fun after all. The price of staying in bed means eating nasty ‘medicines’, so their idea backfires.

So, hey. I guess Parelli really does apply to other areas of our life. Horsemanship lessons can be found almost anywhere, if you look hard enough.

A SHOCKING Experience

Joy of joys, we got hay today. Around 300 bales total. It wasn’t fun, but it was for the horses, so I have no right to complain. It only took us 2 hours, so that’s close to record timing for us!

Well, my mom had swept most of the chaff from the trailer on the ground in front of our lean-to. My job was to rake it into the pasture.

We have 5 lines going around this part of our pasture: 3 barbed wire, and 2 electric that alternate (we’re working on taking out the barbed wire, don’t worry). The bottom line is barbed wire, and it’s pretty low to the ground, so when I swept the hay I had to move it out of the way. Well, while I was sweeping. . .

OH MY GOD: I got shocked! First time that’s ever happened. I jumped backwards a couple feet and screamed. That’s some strong fence. . . holy cow!

And Moose was near me BTS (Before The Shock), eating the chaff I’d just swept. Well, he jumped back a ways, too, and couldn’t take his eyes off me afterwards. I felt bad, because then he would’nt eat the hay anymore.

Switching topic: We have all the poles in the ground for the round pen. Probably will paint it tomorrow, and I’m hoping to get the whole thing finished within the week.

Learn, Learn, Learn

Haven’t updated about how things are going in almost FOREVER, because those darned Celebration reviews took me forever to write. But now that they’re done, I can try and fill you in on the things I’ve been doing.

Firstly, we’ve started our round pen: half of the posts are in the ground already. We’re making it out of wood, like the Parelli’s have theirs. But we’re going to paint ours blue!

I’ve had lightbulb moments almost every other day I’ve played with the ponies lately. From about a week ago, I went outside just to say hi to everyone. And Moose was grazing close by, so I decided to open up the pen that Bella was in when she was sick so he could eat the grass. I pulled out a handful and showed it to him, so he could come here and eat it. He looked at me very intensely, but no movement. I stayed where I was, because the alpha doesn’t move his feet very much. Then, I leaned outside further to try and entice him. Again, no movement. I had a huge “How interesting!” moment. He doesn’t trust me for some reason. So, I just fed him grass through the fence. But I have been thinking about this for a while, and have come to the conclusion that I need to focus on gaining trust in general.

And that conclusion was furthered when I tried to teach Moose do move his HQ towards me. Since he’s so tall, I thought it might be easier to teach if I was above him for starters. So, I climbed our fence and sat on it. And he changed horsenality! He was LB before, but then he got RBI as soon as I got above him. Interesting! My horse has mounting fears, lol.  So, I just had him do half-circles for a while until he calmed down a little. Then, I brought him in and tried to teach him. He moved his HQ as far away from me as he could (from fear), so after 3 unsuccessful tries, I decided I should just keep doing the half-circles some more. It’s useless to practice the problem, after all.

Oh, and my birthday was on the 13th, so I am now another year older!

And I played around with giving Moose a bath today since it was SOOO muggy out. And it still hasn’t rained, even though it’s been threatening to all day! Stupid weather . . .  I wanted it to rain because then I didn’t have to sit around all day going “Is it going to rain?” Of course, like I just said I played around with  the horses anyway, but I wanted to work on the round pen some more. Oh, well. We had a good time. I got soaked and so did Moose, and the other horses got cooled off a bit, too.

Bella hasn’t had her normal attitude lately around me. She’s not as curious and doesn’t like me as much. I lost some of her rapport somehow, so not I’ve got to try and get it back. And Dancer is her normal self. She is quite a mud puppy, so she had a good time today.

Added Video

If you haven’t looked at the Videos page in a while, check it out. I’m adding some new ones as I speak!

Day 3

To start the morning, we had more Savvy Spotlights. Then, Pat played with the rescue horse again.  I didn’t really write down much from this session, so on to Linda’s lesson with Walter.

Granted I don’t know very much about dressage, so most of this lesson was over my head, but it was still cool to watch. Here’s some things I picked up:

• Shoulders-in to remove tension from the horse
• Performance = Potential – Interference
• Go to the limit, but not over it
• “We look because we’re nosy. The horse looks because he wants to survive.”
• The walk should maintain the same rhythm  in freestyle as it does in finesse. If it doesn’t then the horse doesn’t trust the rider’s hands.
• Horses can’t learn when they’re tense
• The walk should be forward, lively, immediate and not hesitant
• Canter “up in heaven” (If I understood correctly that  means that the horse is up above you, and your focus is where you’re going, not looking at his ears)
• Horses don’t make mistakes on purpose
• When the horse gets tight/afraid/tense, you’re pushing the limit
• Dressage means the highest level of animal training
• Whatitative (what you do) + Qualitative (how well you do it)  = Quantitative (how often/much you do it)

During a break right before the Linda’s lesson, Linda did a Q&A. There was also a saddle-fitting demo going on, so we watched the saddle-fitting one. But I caught the end of the Q&A, and Linda mentioned that to ride Remmer engaged she changes her body. She explained super-quickly, but she said she flexes her thigh muscles, pulls her belly button into her spine – so her spine stretches, and pulls her armpits down. Linda was taught this by Jane Dulak.

And lastly, Lauren Barwick came in on Maile (prononced May-lee) and showed us her Freestyle routine she performed at the Olympics. Then, she told us her story about what happened to her and how she’s made it so far. She is paralyzed from the belly-button down from a hay bale -100 pound hay bale, I think- that fell on her from 10 feet up. And she talked about how at first her attitude was “Why me?”, but eventually she changed it to “Why not me?” Lauren was very inspirational, and showed that anything is possible.

Day 2

The day officially started at 9 with a few more savvy spotlights with multiple participants in each one.

Then, Pat played with the rescue horse. I realized to a higher degree that Extroverts need to run and play first before they can focus. It’s like recess before you teach anything.  Pat said that Walter had said a very good quote the other day: “A lot of people want to control something, but they don’t want to control themselves.” Very self-explanatory, and I highly agree. Also, I re-learned that Rhythm + Relaxation + Retreat = Confidence. And I learned how to teach a horse to draw their HQ to me. You  have them face a fence, then reach over their bubble to their other hip and go through your phases. This cleared up things for me, because I saw Linda teach a Hanoverian named Beau -in a Savvy Club DVD- to draw his HQ to her by holding his halter. I tried that, and it didn’t work well. I never thought to use the fence! Also, a good way to test your horse’s gas pedal and brakes is to play the Yo-yo game in Z3. In the rescue horse’s case, everything meant GO to her, even pressure in front of her. Pat dropped another phrase that I liked: “In order to reach our dreams with horses, we have to reach their dreams.”

During a break, someone from Parelli (don’t know her title or name) held a mini-seminar about the courses. She said one of the things they teach you at a course is to have an attitude of abundance, which basically means that you believe there is enough glory and fame and happiness out there for everyone. It’s the opposite of having an attitude of scarcity. This lady also mentioned that attitude ties things together, and you can choose your attitude when you wake up in the morning. Interesting. I had been frustrated for a few months there, and I could’ve changed that by just choosing not to be frustrated? Wish I would’ve known that earlier!

Then, Linda talked about Success at Liberty with Introverts and Extroverts, with. . . drum roll please. . . Allure and Remmer! This was a pretty cool session. It was interesting to see the differences between the two. For Allure, Linda has to move his feet to get to his brain, but for Remmer she had to stimulate his brain to get to his feet.

Also, Linda mentioned that we need to re-think how much we say NO to Extroverts, even when we feel like we’re not saying it that much. Extroverts need lots of “Yes, great idea! Run over there. Jump this. Run more. Oh, and backing is lovely, too.” They need you to encourage their ideas. And encouraging was actually different than I thought. It was merely adding a toss of the Carrot Stick whenever Allure had his own ideas. I thought encouraging was slapping the Carrot Stick, whereas it is actually more passive. It’s quieter, like “oh that’s a good idea,” but not jumping up and down with enthusiasm.

The opposite is true for Introverts. They need more NOs. To motivate Remmer, Linda was very particular. She did the opposite of what he expected, and then was particular about the result. For example, Linda backed Remmer to the fence. Instead of sending him on a circle- like Remmer thought she would ask- Linda decided to ask him to put his Z3 next to the fence, and she was very particular about where his feet should be. It got his mind very engaged!

So, now here’s some more little tidbits I picked up from this session. When Remmer changed gait on Linda, slap the spot, and then face yourself towards it. That way he’ll be less likely to change gait again. To start the figure-eight at Liberty, put the barrels close to the fence. Then, to create motivation for LBI’s, slap the ground right after they go through the middle of the figure-eight.

Also, for LBI’s you have to do more in the beginning, and less in the end. With LBE’s you do less in the beginning, and more at the end. But for both horsenalities, you have to begin with the end in mind, or in other words, you have to start playing with a clear picture of how you want your horse to look like at the end. Today, Linda had Remmer super-motivated, but she mentioned that she doesn’t get Remmer to look like this everyday. She usually only gets him so “up” at events like these.

More random tidbits: Obedience + Exhuberance = Dignity. Concerning sweat with the horsenalities, LB sweat is smooth, and RB is sticky. Didn’t know that! When you mount a horse, you can tell what he thinks of the saddle by what he does. If he hollows his back when you step up, that means he doesn’t like the saddle. But when he likes the saddle, he’ll usually relax and lower his head.

Then, Pat played with the Patterns with West Point who is Lauren Barwick’s new horse. He was such a GOOORGEOUS mover! I forget exactly how tall he was, but I think he was around 17 hh? Correct me if I’m wrong. And Pat said he costed Lauren $75,000! Wow. But he looked liked the spitting image of Vision, so if you’ve seen her, that’s exactly what West Point looked like except bigger. But once I was done ooing and ahhhing over West Point, it was time to pay atention to the patterns.

What stuck out most to me in this session is how much horsenality affects the way we should teach horses, and how direct-line I can be. West Point was definitely extroverted, but I don’t remember if he was LB or RB extroverted. Anyways, Pat used that extrovertedness to teach him the figure-eight by starting out with circles. He played circling game, and then would add variety by driving him around one of the barrels. So, the circles were the consistency and going around the barrel was variety. Pat kept at it until he thought West Point was doing well enough, and then he asked him to do a regular figure-eight. Then, when that was good, he took him over to where 4 cow-flavored barrels were, and did the same process as with the figure-eight, just a big quicker. It was interesting to see how Pat sets things up for success: I never would’ve thought to play circling game first! Also, it is interesting to see how direct-line I can be without meaning to. If I wanted to do a figure-eight, I would just go and start doing it. It never occurs to me to break it down even further.

Ce-le-brate Par-elli. . . Come on!

Remove Parelli from title, and then insert good times. It’s from that song, but I don’t know the name.

So, the Celebration!! Well, it was brilliant! Having only gone to one Tour Stop (last year’s), I don’t have a lot of background to compare this one too, but it was incredible to me. I would recommend it to any committed Parelli student.

And I apologize for no pictures. I didn’t bring a camera, and even if I did it would have only been a throw-away one. Oh, and I forgot my notebook the 1st day, too, so it’s mostly from memory, and is going to be really out-of-order.

Day 1:

The Savvy Spotlights took up almost all this day. I arrived at 10:30, so missed the first hour, but arrived in time to see a lady doing L4 Z5 driving with two reins. She was pretty good. I was impressed, but even more so when Pat helped her get more drive. I was surprised to see him getting so firm with a L4 horse, but hey I think he knows what he’s doing. Anyways, Pat said that to turn your horse to the left (still Z5 driving) instead of pulling on the left rein, put slack into the right rein. Also, he told her how to prepare her ropes to start driving, but I don’t think I could explain that without a picture. But I’ll find one if anyone is dying to know.

Another thing I learned is that you can start counting laps at the circling game when the horse is connected to you. You know he’s connected when his ear is on you. So, when he runs into the end of the rope, that means he lost connection. Also, if you’re circling with the 22′, it’s not a 22′ rope unless you use all of it! So, try and hold onto the very end of it.

There was another lady who Pat helped learn to post her diagonals correctly. Basically, it boiled down to when you need to post, post to the direction you’re going in time to that hind leg. For example, if I go left, then I post in time with the left hind leg. To remember this, Pat suggested that when riding Freestyle, hold on to the reins with the hand that is which direction you’re going. So to put it all together: if I’m going left, then I post with my horse’s left hind leg, and I put my left hand on the reins. So, every time you switch hands, you have to switch diagonals, too.

One of the common messages of this day – besides use all of the 22′ – was tracks. Pat kept talking about tracks, which were grooves in the arena from it being groomed. The 1st track was the one closest to the wall – in Freestyle, you should be as close to the wall as possible, but not touching it: that’s how you know you’re on it. Pat emphasized that you need to pay attention to which track you are on. When you play Follow the Rail, that’s how close you should be! Also, he said in Finesse you especially need to pay attention to tracks, because it is important to use the arena well, especially because this one was smaller than normal.

I also learned a way to use all 7 games in one ‘stunt’ (for lack of a better word). It’s hard to describe, but I’ll do my best. At liberty, Pat said if you can do this ‘stunt’, he’d give you your L4. So, say we start off going sideways to the right in front of a fence. Drive the HQ 180 degrees until the horse faces you. Then, drive the FH away so the horse is now facing the fence again. Here, you need to switch sides, so now you’re going sideways to the left. Video would work better to explain.

The last event was Pat playing with the rescue horse. She was a gorgeous QH. My first impression of her was RBI, because of how she spooked, but I then classified her as a RBE. An interesting tidbit: playing on the ground builds back muscles that the saddle kills. Hmm. Pat said that if you do the Circling game, and your horse has his body curved the wrong way, that means he lost confidence in something. Your job is to figure out what.

Now, for Day 2!

Bella-Ella-Ella-ay. . .

More updates on the pony. She’s acting a lot better tonight. She tried to resist the paste again, and she is even walking around more! She has not laid down most of the day either. Plus, she’s acting more like her usual sassy-pants self! So, we’re hoping she’s going to stay as well as she is now.

P.S. If you didn’t get the title, that’s because you’ve probably never heard Rihanna’s “Umbrella.”

Slow Progression

Since most of you are probably wondering about Bella, I figured I’d start with her first. She’s doing alright. We have some painkiller paste to give her and she tried to resist it today, which is actually a good sign! And she’s standing up more often. So, she’s making progress, slowly but surely. And by the way, I found more information about tying-up, so click here if you want to know more.

About Moosey, I had a GREAT play session on Tuesday. Sorry haven’t written about it yet, but Bella took priority. Anyways, on one of my older posts, I talked about the April DVD. Well, on Tuesday I tried using my new found knowledge with Moose! And it was spectacular!

I tried playing the Catching Game, and it worked okay. He was not as interested in me as the LBI on the April DVD, but I wasn’t expecting him to. Anyways, he followed me after a little while of moving the HQ, so then I haltered up. I decided to play the Circling Game. My focus the whole times was on keeping my energy/reactions really low/slow.  Within a couple minutes, Moose licked his lips! He followed my directions flawlessly, too, and that’s been something we’ve struggled with. Plus, he blew behind me, too. I was thrilled! So, he did half a circle, and then I quit.

About a week ago, we put in 2 tractor tires full of dirt to be pedestals. I wanted Moosey to take a look at them. So, I started walking towards the tires, still with low energy but an intention to go there. Moose passed me up, so I turned around 180 degrees and walked the other way. He passed me again, so I turned around again. And this kept up for a little while. But then, interestingly enough, Moose started following me perfectly when we went away from the tires. I couldn’t get him to pass me, so I had to cheat and start throwing in stops. I was actually excited when he went in front of me, because then I can go back to my tires! But after a little while, the stops didn’t catch him up, so I started jogging making him trot. Again, he passed me a few times, but he learned the game plan pretty quick. He was preventing me from going to the tires, how interesting!

So, I trotted him a little further away from the tires, and then he started coming off adrenaline. I immediately stopped and took the halter off. This was the fastest EVER he’s came off adrenaline, because I’d guess I was only with him for about 20 minutes.

Then, I went to play with Bella, but Moose followed me. So, I haltered him again and took him outside to graze for a while. Outside the pasture, Moose was actually more confident and sensitive. He was being picky about where he ate, for instance, so he was thinking. And he cocked his hind leg, which is the 1st time he’s ever done that outside.

But the next day was fabulous, I went outside and Moose started walking to me. He followed me around the whole pasture! I just ignored him, and went by the other horses, and just walked around and looked at stuff. He followed me all over with ears forward! I was elated! This is the first time he’s been so attached to me. Even when he decided he’d had enough (because I just wanted to spend UD time that day) and went to go graze, I walked over by the water buckets and he changed his mind and came back to me.

It was so cool, and I really learned that energy has a huge impact on horses. I hope our relationship continues like this, and I hope Bella gets better.

Ta-ta for now!