Boring as Watching Paint Dry

I saddled two of the fillies today. Dash and Frosty. I put the saddle on the fence and got them used to the noise of it (it's an old saddle), and after that I had no problems. I took it off the fence and swung it beside them on both sides, then took it on and off. I made sure they would be okay with the cinch by pulling on it then releasing it. Tightened the cinch and got them used to the flapping of the stirrups. I put weight into the stirrups by pushing down on the stirrups with my hands and they did nothing. Jumped beside them with my foot in the stirrup and they cocked their hind foot. Loneged them at the walk and trot and Dash did nothing. Frosty kicked once and I hit her for it because she was kicking at the pressure of the whip hitting her butt, not the saddle. Then I stood up in the stirrups on both sides, then swung a leg over. Frosty did nothing.
It gives you a sense of accomplishment when you first sit on a horse you started.
I sat on Frosty with just a halter and a lead rope. Ya know what? I would probably not do that with any of the older horses. Well, maybe Ana.
MD watched me get the saddle on Frosty too.
I think the most important thing with a horse's first saddling is to make it as stress free as possible. This requires that you prepare your horse for that experience. It also means that you take the saddle on and off gently. You tighten the cinch slowly and make it snug. Enough to keep the saddle in place without making it uncomfortable with the horse.
Ya know what else? I saddled Frosty without even holding onto the lead rope.

Toffy

Toffy

Frosty

Frosty

Frosty

Dash & Aleythia

Dash & Aleythia

Coffie

 

I know these aren't pictures of them with the saddle on, but I didn't have the camera with me. I will take pictures the next time we saddle up.

Gunna' be Fun!

We were able to go to the fillies today and it was a good day. We put a bit in Toffy's mouth and when she stopped chewing for even a second, we took it off. If we would have had a snaffle bit I would have left it on and let her deal with it by herself, but sadly, we didn't. We had a bit with shanks. Grrr. Ah well she was doing okay. I did the rope around the belly thing (in imitation of a cinch) too. Aleythia did that with Frosty too. Then I sat on her. Like actually sat normally on her. I crouched on her back too. We caught Coffie next and did the Jeffrey's Method with her. Aleythia started it out while I went in to see if I could find a bigger halter. Coffie either has a big head or she's growing. When I got back Aleythia was jumping and after a little bit she was trying to get on. After watching her do this and watching Coffie try to run, I asked Aleythia if she had put her weight on Coffie by putting her elbows over her back. She hadn't... It is important that you don't miss a step in that method. There is a reason for every part of it. Since Aleythia had missed that part Coffie wasn't used to weight on her back at all, so she freaked. After a little while Aleythia just had me do it. Her stomach was hurting after trying to jump on for so long. To help her get used to me jumping onto her back I took the end of my lead rope and flipped it over her back. Not nicely, but not really hard either. After that I just started the method from the beginning and did both sides. I got on on one side and I quit when I was actually laying on her with my feet by her tail. Then Aleythia did the other side. Little tip. If you are having a hard time getting on your horse and are too lazy to go get something to stand on, uneven ground is really helpful. Stand on the higher part of a little divot and try to place your horse lower than yourself. And your horse will probably move and ruin it, but it does help. Then with Dash we reviewed the method and I flipped the rope over her back too. Then the other horses left and I discovered she has a little problem with being alone. She wasn't too bad though. Even with the horses gone I was able to get her to focus on me and I did get on. By the end of the session she was calmer and I was able to lay on her back.
I am excited for tomorrow because if everything works out and we got to the fillies, we will saddle up Frosty! Yay! We're doing it tomorrow because MD wants to watch us saddle the fillies for the first time. We're using Frosty because she is the furthest along. And also because we move them back to the other place on Saturday. There just isn't any grass out there. It got cold:(

Crusin' for a Bruis'n

I guess you could say I have had a fun week. Aleythia got on Dash a few days ago. She moved around a lot more than Frosty did and when Aleythia was laying on her back I think she stayed on a little longer than Dash was ready for so she bucked. It didn't do any harm because all the buck does is push you upright and you land on your feet. We bought a headstall, so the next thing we need to do is measure for a couple of snaffle bits. I took the rope and desensitized Coffie and Toffy to pressure where the sinch would go. We will do the Jeffrey's method with Coffie and Toffy pretty soon here and then we will put saddles on them! Wohoo!
Then a couple days ago I went to the horses and was petting Ana and she just put her head down and I rubbed her with both my hands on either side of her neck, with her nose down by my knee. Then yesterday I went over there and Ana pinned her ears at me when I followed her because she walked away from me when I went to say hello. So I got after her for pinning her ears at me. This resulted in her kicking at me, and me being the kind of person I am-likely to get myself killed-was not in the safest position and her hoof got me right beneath my collar bone... Now before you freak out, I didn't even get a bruise. She was running away from me and I had enough time to notice she was going to kick to slow down a little bit, so I got very little of the force behind the kick... Lucky me... After that Aleythia offered to go get the whip, but it was all the way up in the barn, and I needed something now! There was this handy dandy stick just laying there in the alfalfa field so, I used it. She didn't kick after that. But that got Santana and Misstack running too. What can I say, they got in the way. Ana and Santana had their tails flagged and they were really running. Eventually they figured out that they could run into the paddock and when they were all in, I locked the gate and commenced my work in there. The end result-Ana was facing me and I went to say good job to Santana and Misstack and she rotated her back end away from me when I moved past her head, so that she was always facing me. So cool. Santana eventually learned to face me when he stopped and so did Misstack. I also taught all of them to move their hindquarters over when I approached. It's a work in progress, but they do understand a little bit. I'll just have to make it a priority.
Later Aleythia said that the reason Ana might respect me more than she respects Aleythia is because "your not afraid to get kicked." When Aleythia tried to chase Ana around she just trotted and didn't take her seriously. Ana was constantly looking away. Not with me. She cantered and she didn't look away. I wasn't even using the stick and I got that response out of her. Now don't be stupid like me and put yourself into a position to get kicked. It is a very bad idea. And I am pretty sure you will not like the results of that action. If it's avoidable, avoid it.

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.