Moving Forward

We have moved on. We are now very pleased with the fillie's abilities to lead, and are now moving on to loneging. We will keep on refining their leading as much as the opportunity arises, but it won't be the main thing we focus on. We have taught them a little bit on loneging, but it needs some work. They know walking and a little bit of trotting. They know that when you yield their hindquarters they face you and stop, and they know that when we tap on their neck they step away. Our goal is to get them to stop with different commands. The first is to stop with "woah". We want them to stop on the outside of the circle without turning in. The yeilding of their hindquarters, and resting the whip on my shoulder. Another goal is to get them to trot really well, and canter. All with voice commands. I want them to be able to transiton between the gaits too. With cantering we'll only get them to go into the canter first. Then they can drop back down into a trot. When they are consistently cantering on command we will have them canter without breaking gait. We'll spend a really short time on cantering, because they are young and still growing and I don't want to put too much stress on their legs. Better safe than sorry.
I started loneging on Tuesday. While I was there MD, the person who lives were the fillies are, went and rode Josie. I loneged Coffie and Toffy, and I also desensitized them both to the saddle blanket. I had already did it with Coffie, but I reviewed it anyway. Then MD came back from her ride and I asked her if she wanted to help me with the other two fillies. She's like "sure!" Before she had told me that she thought it was really cool too watch us train the fillies and was willing to learn how. So, the whole point was to teach her a little something. I handed her the halter and lead rope and told her she could catch one of the fillies. She went up to Frosty and petted her nose. I told her she could just throw the rope over Frosty's neck to catch her. She threw it over and the end of the rope hit Coffie on the other side of Frosty. So they kinda go spooked and ran off. That's all right we just got ta go after them. We followed Frosty around and she eventually stopped and let MD come up to her. I told her that this time try just placing it around her neck instead of throwing it. It worked and she got the halter on Frosty. When MD was going after Frosty she told me that I would have probably got the halter on already. That might be true, but I think the reason they spooked when she threw the rope over Frosty's neck is because they didn't know if she was going to hurt them or not. They didn't know her. They didn't know what to expect from her so, they acted accordingly.
Then came the loneging. First I showed and talked to MD about how to longe. Then I had her do it. It was apparent to me that she had never loneged a horse before, but that's okay. It's never too late to learn. At first she couldn't get Frosty to step out real well. And I can totally see how that can be a problem. Her first set of cues is to point and kiss. next is to pull on the lead rope, then a tap on the but. Well in order for you to do all these you have to be far enough to the front of the horse and have a short enough length of rope to be able to put pressure on the halter without being in front of them. And you have to be back far enough that you can reach their back end with the whip. It would probably help if I had a longer whip, but I don't so ya work with what ya got. MD eventually got that figured out but whenever she tapped Frosty on the but she would fling her hindquarters out. I suggested that instead of tapping her on the side of Frosty's butt, try tapping on the top. That worked much better. The next problem was that Frosty kept running into MD's space. After figuring out that it is way to complicated to keep the horse moving forward and stay out of your space, I told MD that we would just work on Frosty turning her shoulder away from her. So I showed her the sequence of pressure -  tap the air four times, lightly tap her neck 4x, tap harder4x, tap with increasing pressure every four beats until she does it - And nobody likes to hit their horse so MD had trouble with the pressure thing. She would stop too soon or lighten the pressure instead of increasing it. Well, eventually she got it. Then we went back to loneging. After a couple circles MD got Frosty to go around really nice and we let Frosty go. MD understood were she needed to stand and when pressure was needed. Then we went and got Dash. I did the loneging once adn then had MD do it. She did extremely well. Dash was going around in nice circles so we quit with loneging.
We led Dash over to where the saddle blanket was and while we were leading MD kept looking back at Dash and Dash was not leading very well. I told her that she should expect Dash to follow her. If she displayed an air of confidence in leading, Dash would pick up on her confidence and follow nicely. She stopped looking back and Dash followed nicely. We got the saddle pad and I started out first. I let Dash follow me while holding the saddle pad, then let her sniff it. All the while explaining to MD why I do something. The reason I have Dash follow the blanket is because if something moves away from them it doesn't pose a threat. Letting her sniff the blanket gave her confidence that it wasn't goign to hurt her. Then I commensed with rubbing her shoulder, back, hindquarters, neck and face. I knew before hand that rubbing Dash with the blanket and then petting her would give Dash a shock (courtesy of Toffy), so when I was gunna pet Dash for the first time I told MD that rubbing her will give her a shock (that time of year). I petted Dash and sure enough it gave her a shock. I said to prevent this (I don't want Dash to become afraid of my hand) I will start touching the ground before I pet Dash. Rubbed Dash with the saddle blanket again, touched the ground then pet Dash. No shock. From there I pulled the saddle blanket across dash from head to tail. Threw it on her back,  under her belly, and on her hindquarters. Then I took the blanket and heaved it up and over her head and back again. My arm got tired but Dash was totally fine with it when I was done. Next MD did the same thing on the other side. I explained to her that the reason I do all this crazy stuff with this saddle blanket is because I don't want a horse that moves off when I put the saddle blanket on. Doing all this will creat a horse that doesn't move when being saddled. I find it really annoying when horses move during saddling. Then we were done! It took us about two hours to finish with the fillies. But it was all worth it because I got to teach someone something about horses.

Brilliance

Poor Misstack.
I was talking with H and was telling her that Misstack gets freaked out about a plastic bag being around her head. She just moves so fast that it's hard to keep up. H suggested tying a bag to her halter... That is pure brilliance.
We did just that. We poked a few holes in a plastic bag and treaded some twine string through it. Held the bag scrunched up and tied it to Misstack's halter. Took off the lead rope, undid the bag a little bit and walked quickly away. We were expecting some fireworks but for like five minutes she didn't do anything. She wasn't comfortable with it, but she wasn't scared. Then the wind picked up. She ran straight through the herd bumping into Santana and promptly got kicked at. After that she was pretty much fine. So we tied the bag inbetween her ears. It took a little while for the wind to pick up but when it did she spun around trying to get away and ran around the herd this time. Then we kinda left her be and after a while she started grazing again.
Aleythia got on Ana bareback and bridleless and first I want to say that getting on a horse without any protection or control over it is stupid. It is more than likely that you will get hurt. So aleythia and I are stupid and we got on with no protection and very little control. Ana knows a little bit of leg pressure. For being the most hyper I trust her alot more than any of the other horses. I will have to say that if the fillies were rideable I would trust them more than Ana.
Lately with Misstack I have been doing mini trail rides. She doesn't like to be in front when trailriding and her confidence is pretty much nonexistant. She's really spooky. I am happy to announce that she has started to get a little bit better with every trail ride. Every time I ride her I will ride her as far as I feal we can get. The first time it was three-quarters of the way down the fence. The second it was barely past the fence. What we will do is ride to a certain place, either as far as she will willingly go or when I feal that she has been doing really good. I'll get off, walk her at least 20 more feet, losen the cinch and give her the apple I put beneath the cantle on my saddle. We stand there a little while and then I'll lead her back to the barn. I also put extra emphasis on her staying behind me when I'm leading her. If she does get in front of me I will immediatley back her up quickly then go forward again. I will give credit for most of the things I am currently doing with Misstack to Mugwump Chronicles.
The fillies are doing well too. Well, as far as training. Now Toffy has ringworm. But we just wanted to catch them the last time we were out there and they all let us come up to them, throw the lead rope over their neck and put the halter on. I can x leading off my goals for the fillies and catching.

Funny How that Happens

We trail rode over to the fillies today. I rode Santana and Aleythia rode Ana. And I ponied Misstack on Santana. Aleythia put Ana in Misstacks bit and Ana was very good. We want to buy a couple more snaffle bits. Misstack did very well too. She followed really well.

We tied them up to some posts outside when we reached the fillies', untacked, and grabbed the two bays. We also took off the other two's halters. We had been thinking about doing this and so we worked on being able to catch them without touching their halters. We would rub their heads then throw the lead rope over their necks. I also gave them a little lesson in being led by the lead rope around their neck. One step to the left, one step to the right, back up a step, go forward a step... That sorta thing.

We walked/trotted with Dash and Coffie down to the dam. We noticed a path that led right down to the river. We are in a drought so there were patches of water, but it was mostly dirt and rocks. We got them to go through the water. Then we went back and across the bridge. They did it with just barely a hesitation. Then we took the deer trail on the left...

Those precious little horses followed us up the path that was on a slant most of the time and had a drop off right next too it some of the time. I was in the front with Coffie and I asked her to go between a tree that leaned over the trail and another little tree on the other side, with a drop off. Well she didn't want to do it, so I listened to her and didn't make her go. She had been following really well, so I trusted her judgment. Well, we couldn't turn around and we couldn't go down, so we went up!

We were on the side of a pretty steep hill and there were a bunch of trees and brush above us. Well I went up a little ways then asked Coffie to follow. She jumped up after me and I let go of the rope so that she could find her own way up, but her rope got caught so while she was trying to run up I pulled the rope loose and followed her with the rope in my hand. She didn't get very far when she stopped because she didn't think she could go any farther. So I broke a couple branches and led her up the hill. We got to a bunch of little trees and the only opening was across a group of logs and then Dash came running up the hill and Aleythia yells up, "I let the rope go because I trust her to find her way up more than me!" So I went over the logs with Coffie and tried to get Dash to follow. Then Aleythia caught up with Dash and she led her over the logs. From there we could see the bean field and followed the bean field back to the path that led directly do the dam bridge. We went across the bridge and walked home.

We put them back in the pasture with the other horses, took their halters off, made sure we could get the halters back on and walked away. We then caught the duns and put a halter on them, took it off and walked away. We did the same thing with the bays. They all did very well.

Saddled up Santana and Ana and walked home. Actually it was more like trot/canter home. Santana wanted to RUN! so I let him go but constricted it to a trot. And Misstack trotted beside him like a perfect little angel. When we got to the cement rode I got him to walk and we had a very nice walk the rest of the way home.
An old man with two little boys saw us running along the grass path and when he saw us he bent down to the little boys, pointed at us and waved. I waved back. I love making people happy with horses. I only wish that we had stopped and let them pet the horses. I love to walk down the street and look at the people in their cars. Some will ignore us, others will give a great big smile, some wave, and we have heard a little kid yell, "Horsies!"

Seriously!?

Have you ever watched people and horses on youtube and ever been like "you really don't know what you're talking about"? Yes... I should stop watching youtube videos. Question. How many horses do you know that will flip over backwards by themselves? None. Even the horses that do stuff like that when tied only have that problem because of some bad experience. If the horse fell over backwards, it was because it was pulled backwards.

The other thing I have is that two of the fillies have ring worm. I don't know where they got it. The cats there are not doing real well either. When we left the other day one of the cats had green stuff coming out of his nose and was laying on his side, barely breathing.
The fillies are also doing increasingly well on leading. I love how they stop when you say woah, even if you keep walking forward. Trotting is becoming easier and easier. When they will trot right away with a kiss, then we will move on to lungeing.

REALLY!!!!????

I took Misstack on her mini trail ride, and I got past the fence line and she did NOT want to go any further. There was a drain pipe in front of her and when she looked at it she would back up a good twenty to thirty feet. I got her going forward again after she was done backing up every single time... which was about five times until she started backing up a little less each time. Well, I got her to stand near the drain pipe and got off. I led her infront of the pipe then  loneged her around the pipe, and infront of it. Then we went across someone's driveway to the other ditch and another drain pipe. There I loosened the sinch got the apple, and gave it to her. She stood pretty nicely next to that pipe. After a little bit, we walked home.

Old Thoughts

Have you ever looked back to the beginnings of your blog and been like "why oh why did I ever post that?" or "That could be way better."
That's how some of mine are. I also noticed how a few of my ideas have changed. Like instead of making Ana do the gait we want her to, at the speed we want her to, we let her pick the gait and speed. She is a lot calmer, and she doesn't try to canter anymore. My theory is that she has always been told the gait and speed she's to go at, so she finally got so fed up with it that she would get ancy, creating the hyper horse we have now. She has improved drastically too.
I also noticed that some videos I wanted to post never got put up. Oh well.

Score!

I accomplished something today. I rode three horses in an hour and a half. This just does not happen. Usually I don't ride all three in one day, and usually it could take a couple hours for each horse.
I started with Santana. I switched out his bit so that I could start training him to listen to the bit better. I used a twisted wire snaffle (mostly cause it was the bit available).
I found out that he has a bigger hole in his bridle training than I thought. He does neck rein, but doesn't respond as quickly as I would like. He is really hard to turn at the canter, but he did get better. I also found out that he stops on whoa. I don't have to use the reins. No sliding stop, but he still stops. He can't back up real well either. I got it a little bit better though.

I rode Misstack next. All I did was tack her up, put an apple under the cantle of the saddle, behind me (it stayed), and started going up the drive. I got her almost to the end of the pasture fence, and she was walking nicely. I stopped at the fire hydrant, got off, loosened the cinch, and gave her the apple. When she was done, I led her back to the barn. I'll do it again the next time I ride. This is actually a huge improvement in her. Last year, when I tried to get her to cross the drive into the alfalfa field, it took a half hour to do less than 100 feet. And forget about going up the drive. We would either stand there for eternity, or get into a fight about it. Usually the fight. The crazy thoroughbred has improved.

And then Ana...
I rode her bareback. I almost fell of numerous times, and did an emergency dissmount once. When I tried to get back on she moved, so I fixed that and was able to jump up and hook my leg over, but I was too lazy to finish the action and she stood still, so I got back down, went to the little water trough, stepped on that and got on. Ahhh... much easier. She even stood still. I cantered her too. Ya know when I try to convince myself to kiss Ana in to a canter it's hard. The trot is worse, but somehow the canter seems worse. But once I just make myself get Ana into a canter, I am amazed by the feeling. It's like nothing I have ever experienced before. It's Amazing...


I worked with the fillies too. I worked on leading at the walk and trot. And have I ever mentioned that they can do a perfect turn on the hindquarters. It's soo cool!  Toffy was the best. She walked away from the other horses pretty good, and when we turned around, and I asked her to trot, she did it right away without me pulling on the lead rope. We trotted back to the other horses and I let her loose. I was thinking that this might make a bad habit, but right now, it's using their natural desire to get back to the heard to teach them how to trot. I think that eventually we'll just have to keep them trotting though the heard to get it so it doesn't become a bad habit.

...

I cantered Ana bareback today.
It was the best birthday present ever.
And that stupid horse has the nicest canter!
That also completed one of my goals.
And it's true that cantering is easier than trotting.

Bareback and bridleless

I rode Misstack and Ana yesterday. With Misstack I rode her over the tarp, the fence, and the tires. I didn't do the plastic bag, because by the time I got her to go over the tarp and fence consistently, we were riding for two hours. I got Misstack to always face the tarp. She could back up and stand still. I would ask her to go forward, and as long as she went forward I didn't care how far she went. I tried getting her to go over it, but all I could get was her to stand next to it, so I got off and led her across. Then I got on when she was going across good, and we did the tarp again. She did it this time. Then we went to the fence. This took a lot less time. After maybe ten minutes she was walking over it. We opened fences too.

I walked out to the alfalfa field and sat against the fence by the horses. Ana came up to me for my apple but I kicked her out of my space. My apple. When I was done I threw it to Misstack. Then Santana came and said hello, and he hung out by me for a little bit.
The horses moved to another part of the alfalfa field and I followed. I was standing next to the herd and Ana came up to me all happy faced and I entertained the idea of getting on. The most prominent thing in my mind was that two years ago, Aleythia got on her and she started cantering off, but I was like, why not? So I swung up on her indian style. She immediatley put her ears back, but she didn't move. She wanted to eat, but I wanted to see what would happen if I asked her to go. So I asked her to go forward, and she tried to bite my foot. She got kicked in the nose for that, and every other time she tried that. I got her to walk by kicking her. That's different, usually she's really sensitive. All we did was walk around the herd, and I made every direction she chose, my idea with leg pressure. I was able to stop her too. I did this twice, and the last time, I got off. It was so cool! I've said it before. Ana is the most calm with the least amout of tack... Crazy horse. (sigh)

Interesting Past-Times

It's sad really. I have been riding these horses for over three years (some longer), and I am still finding out stuff about them. Like Santana is an awesome trail horse! Another is that he doesn't respond really well to the bridle at top speeds. Misstack is a nut job. (I already knew that, I just get it confirmed almost every time I ride.) I can't get her to listen at higher speeds either. Turning... sure. Stopping... Over my dead body!
I will now explain.
Yesterday we went trail riding with a friend (H). She rode Santana, because I figured he would be the best behaved. And also because with one previous trail ride I knew he would be okay.
We trailered out to a park that is about five miles away. Well, I had H ride Santana in the paddock before we left just so she could check him out, but anyway. We got to the park we took them out and bridled them. We had already put saddles on at home. We took the dividers out so that they would fit comfortably in the trailer. And we started our trail ride.
We soon figured out that Misstack hated to be in front. We also had to cross a bridge and none of the horses would do it. I got of Misstack and tried to lead her across, but obviously her trust in me is a little lacking. So, I handed Misstack's lead to H and led Santana across (what a perfect little boy). After that Santana was our leader for most of the trail ride. He only had to be led across on our third bridge, then he was fine. I love horses that are sensible. Ana stayed in the back for a lot of the trail just because she wouldn't try to run in the back. Once when Ana was in the front she was getting all prancy so Aleythia put her in the back and Ana gave a  big sigh and started walking, resigned to her fate.
We also figured out that deer trails do not make good horse trails. In fact even the trails that were man made were not the best to ride in because the branches were too low for a rider to pass under comfortably. Mostly it was close your eyes and let your horse follow the one in front. We did see deer by the way. Three of them. One when we started, and two fawns near the end of our ride.
There was one time that Misstack was in the front for quite a while, and that was when we were coming back on the path we just traveled. It was right next to the field and Misstack wanted to go faster, so I let her. She ran down that path like the race horse she is. Actually she could have gone faster, but I didn't want her to go too fast because it was H's first ride with Santana and I didn't know how they would fare.  Well, I was trying to pull her up, and she wouldn't slow down. It was probably ten seconds of me pulling back on the reins before I was like, shoot it, she's not slowing down, so when we got to a more open area I was able to turn her. H was grinning about the run. She exclaimed that Santana could go fast! She was used to the slow easy canter of camp horses. She hadn't ridden a horse that did what you asked right away. Usually it takes some kicking. I was happy that she could experience a little part of what a barrel horse was like. We cantered once more, with Ana in the front, and that was all the cantering we did.
There are like no hills. None. I want to go somewhere were the terrain is a little more challenging.

Today I looked around the barn for whatever odd stuff I could find for Misstack to get used to. We had three tires, a tarp, a horse blanket, a couple exercise balls, a plank, some wire fence, a tin garbage can, and a horse eating monster.
It was extremely windy so we put boards on the edge of the tarp to hold it down.
I went and got Misstack from the alfalfa field and let her loose in the pen. She jumped the tires, jumped the plank, hesitated at the wire fence layed on the ground and jumped it, and I forgot the rug, she jumped that too. There was also a board layed on the ground and she stepped over that. We had the tarp more towards the center of the pen, so she just kinda ignored it. After a little while of having her running around she was stepping on the board, the wire fence, and the rug. I caught her again and led her over everything. She did very well. The tarp actually wasn't a really big issue for her. She took one step on it, I let her stand, backed her up, stepped on again and walked across. She stepped over the plank, stepped on the wire fence, and stepped across the rug.
Then came the horse eating monster... She hated it. She would freak out over it touching the air around her, and if it was anywhere near her head and she couldn't go anywhere be watchful of flying hooves. After a good forty-five minutes of waving the horse eating monster around on the end of the whip she was still freaking out if it went anywhere near her head. I was finally like, I can't get anything accomplished with this crazy wind. I took her inside the barn. I desensitized the air space around her head with the plastic ba-horse eating monster. Before this I took it off the whip because it was more of a pain than it was worth. I could rub her cheek with the bag and was eventually able to work my way over her eye, to her forehead, to her poll, around her ears, and eventually around her nose. Next time I'll do the obstacles while I ride. I'll probably review the plastic bag too.

What a Mess

We didn't ride but we did start organizing the trailer.
The trailer has a compartment with a bunch of horse stuff in it (also serves as a bench). So Aleythia and I, after taking some folding chairs and sitting in the paddock for a while, decided to organize. I have always wanted to know what was inside that, but it's so messy it's not easy to look through.
We found a bag of bits, bell boots, leg boots, jackets, umbrellas, horse blankets, a fly mask, an extension cord, clippers that probably don't work, a lunge line, latigos, some stretchy thing you put over your horses head and neck, some rope, and a green lead rope.
With the stretchy thing we plan to put it on Ana when Terry's not around. I can't wait to see what he'll say.

Terry went to the vet's today to pick up some dewormer. He ended up getting vaccines too. The vet said that she had three horses with West Nile disease. One of the three will more than likely not make it. It was caused by a misquito. Terry thought that with the fillies being out in the grove there might be misquitos out there, more than in a pasture.
He bought a vile that is less than two inches tall, and he said it probably costs around $100. There's stuff for the West Nile disease, tetanus, and I think that there is something for strangles too. I probably missed something. It's enough for ten horses, and they all get 20 ccs of it.
We fed the fillies, and when they were pretty much done we gave them all shots. They did very well.
We also did the three other mares.
Flicka was hard to catch, and she was NOT respecting our bubble space. She wouldn't stop when we stopped, and she was set on running us over. Aleythia had her and she couldn't get her to get out of her space, so... I went to get the whip, mwhahahaha!
Aleythia tried getting her to get out of her space, but she just isn't mean enough. I tried. I wiggled the lead rope, and then proceeded to wack her on the chest with the whip. She went forward, and I just kept wacking her (not very nicely either). Eventually she realized that walking forward wasn't working and stopped. Still not good enough, and I kept wacking.
And then, it happened. The unthinkable happened. My fat, lazy, bossy, unsensitized horse took one tiny step backwards.
Did I mention that when I was waking her she gave a little kick? I just kept wackin.
After a little more practice, she was licking her lips, and I handed her back to Aleythia.
She was moving her hindquarters, and she kicked. I yelled to Aleythia to hit her harder and make her feet move!
Flicka's limping. Not because of what we did. We noticed it when we called them in for food.

I have been cured. Cured of just looking at one trainer for my training. Thankyou mugwump.
"No one trainer has the complete right answer."

I have been inspired to try and see how my body language effects a horse. What I want to do is let one of the horses out in the paddock by themselves with no halter or lead rope. Then I will see what I can get that horse to do without the help of a halter. It should prove to be interesting