15 Minutes of Awesomeness

So I got the second video up. Click this to see it. I especially liked the video because it showed that Ana is still hyper. You can see she wants to go, but she still stands. We have basically taught her a different way to stop and she has learned it quite well.
If there is anything on the video that doesn't make sense please ask me about it. Sometimes I'll explain something to Aleythia and she gets what I mean even if it doesn't make sense to the rest of the world.
I rode Santana and it was an extremely short ride. I'd say less than 10 minutes. I just worked on getting him to do one reign stops while walking. He was doing really good and I was getting a little cold so, I called it good.
I ground drove Toffy and Frosty out in the paddock.
Toffy was pretty good she is shaking her head less and her back ups are awesome! I'll pick up on the reins and say back. She'll tuck her nose and back and I can't really feel the pressure on the reins.
Frosty though wasn't very good. She started out fine and then after a few times of stopping she refused to back up. It was getting dark and I spent the next half hour working with her anyway. I did flexing with her and she took forever to stop leaning on the bit. When she finally did get it it wasn't too bad after that. The other side wasn't bad either. So I did some more driving with her. And she really didn't want to go beyond a certain point in the paddock when I pointed her towards the pasture fence. She did to better after that. Her stopping was better than when we began and so was her backing up. I led her back into the barn and she kept looking behind her towards the pasture and running in front of me. I couldn't see anything, but it might have been why she didn't want to go towards the pasture.
Aleythia worked with Dash and Coffie and she just did ground work with them. She thinks that once a week we need to go back and review the ground work. I think that would probably be a good idea. It will help them to get better at the ground work.

Ana's Improvement

 

Ana in the summer of 2011... I think...

 

Aleythia is riding Ana in this video. Ana has two gaits. Canter and Trot. I think we got her desire to canter out of the way so now she just wants to trot. And now she has one more. WOAH!!! It's great.

I'll get another video on this post, but I just wanted to see if the video worked.





Finally. Here it is!

 

Love it!!

Do you know how happy one thing of doing nothing makes me? Yep, it's pretty awesome. Ana stood still...
I caught Ana in her stall and led her to the trailer. I brushed her with a metal curry comb and then a hard brush. Every time she moved I moved her back. I put Misstack's bridle on her and her black saddle with a blue saddle pad, and swung up. She layed her ears back at me when I moved around so, I moved around more. Eventually she stopped pinning her ears at me so I undid the halter around her neck. And we just sat there. After a little while I asked her to walk. When we were in the more open section of the barn I asked her to flex her head to the side. A few times of that and I knew that she was just gunna stand there. So I let her. Whenever I thought she was even remotely close to moving I pulled her nose to my foot. So I probably rode her for 15 min and we moved twice. And each time I had asked her to.  Once to get her away from any wall and another to figure out whether or not she was faking me out. Perfect little girl.
I think I will cross out getting Ana to stand still in my goals.

The other horses didn't do to bad either.
I'll  start getting Santana to flex to a stop from walking and trotting and Misstack's a little better with her flexing, but I'm going to perfect it a little while more before I start riding.
I desensitized Frosty to a cat food bag while driving and I just used a halter for that.
Dash had some bridling issues and I fixed those, Coffie didn't want to stand still, so I worked on it. She needs quite a bit more work.
Toffy is still flinging her head when she feels the pull of the bit, but stops pretty good and does a really nice back up.
So, I am proud to say that I worked with all seven horses today.

Stupid Titles...

So, my first thought is.... What do you do with a horse that has been abused, and doesn't take real well to round penning? So, my real question is to round pen, or to not?
I think that if you take the time to get that horse used to people like doing quite a bit of desensitizing to objects, round penning shouldn't be a problem.
This isn't for me, just something I read in uncatchable number 257
I think there's a bird stuck in my window... yep, I suppose I should fix that...
It was stuck between two glass panes. It did get out again, and we pushed up the window pane so that there wasn't a gap.

Well a little filly update. I drove Dash in a bit, or rather Terry did. She wasn't too bad for the first time. I had her flex in the bridle first so that she knew to give to the pressure and she was getting it.
Toffy is doing really well in the bit. She still does a little bit of the head flinging when she feels the pressure of the bit, but it's not too bad. Her stops are beautiful. I have a feeling that she will have a great sliding stop. Backing up is getting better. She'll fling her head maybe twice, tuck her head, and back up a few steps. It doesn't take much.

Then Ana... Well yesterday Aleythia spent more than half an hour just putting the bridle on. She didn't like it when Aleythia put her hand under her chin or over her nose, so she worked on that. After that when she got the bridle on she did one reign stops. Aleythia stopped when Ana stood still for almost 20 seconds. Woot woot!!!

Misstack is getting better with flexing, but she still has problems paying attention to me. It is getting better. She flexes a lot better on her right side than her left. Her right side is almost like what Santana does. Once she gets flexing down consistently I will ride. She's got everything accomplished other than that. Which reminds me I should look on that DVD on barrel racing as to what I am supposed to do after they can do everything on a loose rein.

Just so you know I did make it to the horses' yesterday.
I also made it to the horses' today.
Oh, did I tell you that Terry's brother got another horse. It's a white quarter horse, and is about 16 years old. I don't know the gender. Unfortunately I haven't seen the horse yet.
I worked with Misstack today and she is getting better with her flexing. I decided that another reason she isn't real good at it is because she is focused on everything else but me. So I made it a little more uncomfortable to not listen to me. When I wanted her to flex and I saw that her eye wasn't looking at me I took the end of my lead rope and made her move her hindquarters over really fast. After a few times of that she was listening to me a little better and was also flexing a little better.
I didn't work with Santana and Ana ;(
And Toffy didn't do too bad with the bit. She didn't like the pressure, so once again I went back and did flexing with the bridle and that helped. She still has a problem with stopping. When she feels the pressure of the bit pulling back she flips her head up until it stops. And I just have to live with it. It's not like I can really do anything to fix it. It will get better with practice anyway.
Coffie still needs practice in a halter. I think I got my point across with stopping though. I did one rein stops whenever she started to go after I had asked her to stop. That is not an easy task when you have to hold six feet of driving lines, and your lines have to go through rings on the harness. Oh, and you're standing behind your horse.
We're going to move Dash up to a bit too. And with all four I think I want to start making noises behind them.
It should prove entertaining.

Improvement is Welcomed

I wish I woulda worked with Misstack. I did everyone else, all six, except her. And she's the one who probably needed it the most. But I will go work with them tomorrow. I never go on Wednesdays. I have church, my student leadership meeting, and my quintet practice. And on top of all that I have school to go to. And tomorrow I have to be at church at 3:30 to help decorate a few signs for our Christmas play. So, I worked ahead in school. I have to skip the student leadership meeting and my quintet practice. And I will go to Terry's around 11:30. By the way I am home schooled, but I have one class at my high school, which is FFA, and I do plan to go back to the high school. So, if you want to know what's involved with homeschooling just ask.
I am actually really happy that I was able to work with Ana today. When I first got her out when I wanted her to back up, she was s-l-o-w. So, I grabbed the whip and whacked her a couple times. She backed up pretty nice. I made her move those feet as quickly as she could. After that I saddled her up, got on, and did one rein stops the entire half hour that I rode her. And she wasn't really good at it.
While I was riding I explained to Terry why we did one rein stops. And that was kinda fun. He likes to know why we do what we do.
Near the end of my training session I would flex her head to one side, let loose when she did it, then dare her to move. I just sat there and then right before I felt she would move I would flex to the other side and repeat. She was really good at flexing by the end. She leaves her head vertical to the ground when I flex her head from side to side. And she does it right away. Beautiful girl.
Frosty is getting extremely good at driving in the bridle. She stops really well. One problem I have come across in driving these fillies, is that when we start walking outside they don't listen to me very well. So, I either get them really good at driving in the barn and then go out or drive outside anyway and get them used to driving in unfamiliar places. Hmm. I think I like the latter better. Oh and I'm thinking that Toffy could probably be put in a bit and that Frosty could pull something. The other two need a lot more work.
With Santana I think that I will start riding him and only do one rein stops for a while. And I'll keep working with Misstack on the ground until she gets better at flexing. (sigh)

Go/Dream BIG or Go Home

First, I am totally bumbed that I haven't worked with horses sense Thursday of last week. I am feeling horse deprived. Talking about horses with somebody helps though.

Turns out my brother in law (married to my oldest sister), we'll call him N, has my whole life planned out for me.
I'll go live in Montana close to Yellowstone National Park on a ranch. He'll get an eight hitch team of Clydesdales and drive them. He doesn't want to deal with them other than driving, so I'll take care of them. He'll build my barn, bale hay, make feed, and even take out the manure. I can even have my own operation with horses in another half of the barn. I'll have a guest bedroom just for him (and his wife/my sister) and hey, I'll even label the bedroom as his.
And then we started talking about how at one time we had planned the perfect Christmas... and the Clydesdales would help with that. We would have a cabin in the middle of nowhere, hitch up the Clydesdales, and go for a sleigh ride to the cabin. (N's going to build that too). We'll invite everyone over to my place and as my youth pastor put it "We'll double the population of Montana."
The reason for living near Yellowstone is so that he can go snowmobiling there. He loves his snowmobile.
Oh, and N will build his own wagon too. And it will be big...
I love this dream. And who knows, it might just happen.

The other cause for being not so bumbed out about not working with horses sense Thursday is that we had our first official FFA meeting in our little town. It has been about 25 years sense the last one. And it is kinda awesome because the whole community came together and donated money to get the FFA program up and running.
And just so you know this is not totally unrelated to horses (I've been doing that a lot lately). The main reason I joined FFA is that it is possible that I will be able to ride in the fair under the FFA name. So, I'm kinda excited bout that.
And I also signed up to be an officer for our chapter. I am what ya call a Parliamentarian. And I am not quite sure what my duties entail right now. I plan to be one of the officers until I am no longer able to be in FFA.