Practice Makes Perfect

Ok, I wish it weren't true, but it is. Practice does make perfect. But that means I could spend a whole week on just one thing. Like Misstack is awful at flexing. She just totally leans against the halter. She is a prime example of why nylon halters can be a problem when training. She is actually the only one too. All the other horses are great at it. But she seems to think that the halter is a pillow. My goal - To get Misstack to understand that leaning on the halter is not very comfortable. How? By every time she leans against it I'm going to bump her with halter. She knows felxing so she doesn't have that excuse to hide behind. She is just being a pain. When we do flexing she looks at everything. Her mind wanders. She doesn't focus on me. I can see it in how she resists the pressure of the halter and when she does flex, she does it, but halfheartedly. 
I got after quite a bit today. She kicked at me once and she got a whack on the but with the whip for it and was all around being a general pain.
And because we felt lazy we didn't really work with the fillies. We tied them up to the trees in the alfalfa field and Aleythia just watched them. Ana was with them too. Aleythia had put Ana out back by herself Tuesday. And there is now a spot with no grass where Ana was tied. She wasn't too bad today though.
We figured out Tuesday that we need to work on having the fillies just standing there. We also need to do some desensitizing. It is really hard to find a balance.
All four fillies have now had the harness on. And Aleythia said that Frosty was doing really well in a bit.
Santana was amazing today. When I was asking him to do flexing, I would pick up the rope and he was already turning his head to the side. I loved it! I did the sending exercise with him too. Aleythia was watching and she said that she didn't like how he was disengaging his hindquarters. She said it was just too slow. When you ask your horse to do something he should do it NOW! A few more days of ground work and I'll start riding him.

And by the way... Don't try leading four horses at one time...

Learning

We've got freezing weather, you can see your breath, the top of the lakes have a thin layer of ice, and the wind is biting. But there's something missing.... oh ya... the snow! Come on if the weather is going to be this nasty could we get a little bit of the pretty white stuff to go with it?
It was probably the coldest so far and I still walked a mile to Terry's place. But then again, I've walked that mile in a blizzard too... Young and stupid? Granted I'm still young, but maybe I'm not quite that stupid anymore.
Lucky for me Terry has a heater in the trailer that I can turn on when I get there.
The fillies are doing well, but my toes are not. I'll explain a little later.
I ground drove all four of them... I'll tell you in story format just cause I think it'd be more entertaining.

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I reached for the green halter and black lead rope hanging on the nail and thought about which one of the fillies I was going to work with first. It's quite a dilemma ya know. I decided that I would work with Frosty and I told Terry that because she was doing so well in a halter I would just go ahead and try ground driving in a bit. I've taken to tying them up at the trailer and brushing them. Usually I just do whatever I plan to work on for that particular day without brushing. But I suppose it gives me the opportunity to fiddle with their feet. I had to shorten the bridle two holes to fit small little Frosty.

At first Terry led her while I drove so that if she didn't do what I asked I wouldn't have to get into a fight with her while she had a bridle on. But she was pretty good. She was chewing a lot on the bit which makes me think that maybe we should have each of them wear it for a day or so. She was bracing against the pressure of the bit too. So after a little while of her not quite figuring it out I did flexing.  And now I know that the next horse I want to put the bridle on will learn to flex in the bridle. It is much easier if they realize that getting away from the pressure is the desired response. When I asked her to stop I pulled back on the reins and held them there until she came to a stop. And then I had her back up.

I let Frosty go and caught Toffy. I figured I should work with her on driving because we didn't last time. She was confident about going forward but as with Dash and Coffie her stops were terrible. She is the kind of horse that you can not man handle into doing anything. I figured that out today. With Dash and her stopping, when she didn't stop I could use all my weight to get her to stop. Not so with Toffy. She just got messed up. So with her it's all about letting her figure it out and giving her the opportunity to respond. After I had her not so confused once more her stops improved. Every time we stop I ask for a back up but with Coffie, Toffy, and Dash they kept backing up even after I say woah. So I was asking Toffy to back up and she did it quite well. After I said woah she stopped, but slowly stepped back. She stepped right onto my toes! I promptly pushed her forward. After that every time they kept backing up after I said woah I tapped them with the end of my rope a little bit.

Coffie and Dash's stops are improving. I asked them to trot and it was fun! They did it right away and Terry was watching me trot Dash and he said it looked really nice. They trot so nice and easy. I just love it!

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So, there's my day. And I can't wait till December seventh. There's a masquerade ball that two of my sisters, me, and a few friends are going to. We made masks out of tin foil and you may think that sounds awful but it's actually really nice. You can shape it to fit your face, cut it anyhow you want, and decorate it anyhow you want. And it's not ugly either. Aleythia made a simple mask, painted it white, found a white flower stuck it in the side, painted the surface with clear shiny nail polish and put silver beads along the edge of the mask. It looks really nice. There's more than just tin foil involved to make it, but it does work. I couldn't decide what dress to wear, but I think I'm going to wear my black one with my four inch heals. Fun hey? The four inch heals aren't as uncomfortable as they sound.

Aleythia's mask. It's not quite finished.

I never did say how well Frosty did...
Let's put it this way, it's like pulling on a string and she does it...
She is confident about walking around she stops really well and if you pull an inch on the reins she backs up... perfect little girl...
Carter actually did most of the driving today. I made a few minor adjustments to his technique so that Frosty had the opportunity to respond lightly, but other than that he had fun and so did she. I think that I will put the harness on her next time and get her used to it.
...And the others were awful in comparison to Frosty. Not in comparison to her they actually didn't do too bad. They went where I told them and when I told them, without a leader. I even took Dash outside. But they were awful at stopping. I had to use all my weight to get them to stop. By the end they were doing quite a bit better. They can also back up pretty good now. The stopping and backing up needs work, but in the next few days they will get extremely better.
The only horse I didn't ground drive was Toffy. With Toffy, Aleythia had Carter get up on her and she led her around. And she was totally fine with it. She packed him around easily. As did Frosty.
And then her back foot hit a bucket and she bucked...
Aleythia took Toffy on the narrow side of the trailer. And she went through it just fine. Then about halfway through her back foot hit a bucket and she totally freaked. She bucked, hit the bucket again and bucked again. Amazingly Carter stayed on. She paused and hit the bucket again. She bucked again and that was when Carter came off. He landed on his back. Unfortunately the ground is not very forgiving. He started to complain about his back hurting after that. He'll be alright though. No broken bones. Maybe a little bit shaken, but I think that he'll be alright with that too. I told him that if he didn't get back on he would probably always be afraid to ride her again. So, after a little bit he did get back on. He sat on her and we all rubbed her and then Aleythia led them around.
One thing that Aleythia and I both noticed though was that she didn't try to run Aleythia over. She didn't invade her space even while she was panicking.

I also rode Santana. And by the way I am so glad that we have a barn that we can work in. It's not an indoor arena, but it has enough room to ride around in and do ground work in. I rode Santana bareback in the barn. It was awful weather today. I worked on his woah. After the incident with him on the trail ride when he didn't respond to that bridle at all I decided that it might be a good idea to work on it. What I did was walk a little ways stop and back up. I didn't do much trotting, because I have awful balance on him. It's like I can't find the right spot to sit on him or relax enough to do it correctly. Either he moves funny or I have major problems. But we repeated that exercise until his stop was pretty decent and his back ups were decent too. He can flex really well in the bridle too.

And I hope you all had an awesome thanksgiving. We went out to my grandparent's farm and after lunch we went out and played a really long game of capture the flag. I'm serious, it took like two hours. It was fun though. Nobody even won.

The day before thanksgiving I was over at my youth pastor's house helping add an room to his house. I was there from 10:30 in the morning to 6:30 at night. Aleythia and I learned what goes into doing something like that and we learned what hurricane straps are, what they help with, and also put them in. I learned where to stand when you have 50 mile/hr whinds and someone's cutting wood... Stupid shavings... We cut wood and framed a window and learned about the support structure. I also found out that I love the nail gun. And that guys are worse than girls when it comes to something they appreciate. They love to express it. We definetley had a good time.

Lessons

The horses were saddled and we were ready to go on our ride. H and I walked up and out of the driveway, took a left into town, and then another left at the first road. We were maybe halfway down the road when a black man pulls up and asks when he can ride

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Ya know what. Even if I don't become a trainer and just own horses (if I don't, be surprised) I will open my barn to anyone who is willing to learn how to ride and I will have the horses to do it. My siblings can't ride because we don't have a suitable horse and neither can anyone else. We have an awesome black horse who is great with kids, unfortunately she's a pony and has really bad arthritis. We don't use Strudder because he also has arthritis and is almost always lame, and he's an English horse. Stretch is too old and can't get running out of his head anyway. Ana doesn't have breaks, and Terry doesn't trust Misstack with beginners and she can be such a nut job. Santana is the most likely to buck someone off and can be a handful. The fillies aren't an option.

My personal opinion is that Misstack and Santana would be our best choices. Misstack is a really nice horse when she knows where she is. Santana won't (probably anyway) buck or become hyper if he walks and trots and check him at the canter before he gets too fast. And besides a couple rounds of letting him run gets him calmed down pretty well. And he's probably the best trail horse we have.

Terry also is wary of letting people ride his horses because if they get hurt and sue him he could lose everything. What he should do is actually put that sign up in his barn warning people that horses are unpredictable and that they could get hurt. It might be a good idea and he couldn't get sued if he had that up.

 

But I had a really nice trail ride with H today. It was beautiful weather. I'm talking 60 to 70 degrees here. And despite Santana getting hyper when we ran across a field it wasn't too bad. We ended nicely. Before we left we went into the paddock to get any kinks out and it was kinda cool, because Ana followed Misstack and me around for quite a while. She pivoted when I turned Misstack into her neck, stopped when we stopped, followed when we turned away. It was funny.

I showed H what Coffie does when you breathe into her nose. It gave us a good laugh. And because I can't remember if I told you what she does I will tell you  know. Whenever you breathe into her nose she immediately puts her nose up in the air, rolls back her lips, and puts a disgusted look on her face. Silly horsey. It's probably a trick now because we pet her every time she does it.

And I worked with one filly after our ride and H got to see the problems that are presented the first time a horse learns to drive. Does anyone else think that sentence is funny? Go back and read it... You'll understand.

Frosty did extremely well. Well, not in the beginning. A little bit of advice if you are teaching a horse anything for the first time don't have pressure that's constantly there. It makes them frustrated. I'll give you an example. The halter was snug against her nose, she bent her head, but didn't find release. She lowered her head and braced against pressure. No release. Well, maybe a little one, because that was her solution to unending pressure. So now she braces against the halter and when I ask her to turn she puts her head down low and leans against the halter. I wait. She puts her head in the right direction. She is rewarded with a little bit of a release, but she still has that pressure. I wait. She steps, I release. Some of you might understand this example better. Try taking an uneducated horse and holding his head like you would a more advanced horse just as long as you would a more advanced horse too. Please take a video. I would love to see the results.



Three-Second-Stop-Ana and Others

I love to see how my horses improve. Don't we all.
Aleythia and I were discussing ways we could teach Ana that standing still was a good thing and here's what we came up with.

• Have her run until she's begging to stop. Stop, and do it all over again until she stands still.
• Emphasize stopping on the ground
• One rein stops
• Turn her when she's going faster than wanted.
• Tie her up to the trailer, put on all her tack, get on and wait. When she stops moving and heaves a big sigh, put her away.

Now I'll tell you the stuff involved with each one.
The first one will involve hour after hour of riding, as she can run for half an hour, stop for 4 minutes and run another half hour. Another problem is that she will also just get more and more fit every time we do it. And the only pro I can think of is that it would probably work.
With the second one we figured that if we really emphasize what whoa means on the ground she may just get it in the saddle. We're actually testing this one out. Whenever we ask Ana to stop we will say woah when she stops, so that she will start connecting the word with the action, or lack of action.
As far as one rein stops go, Ana gets frustrated with them, so she rears. It's actually not that big of a deal. You just get right back to work after she rears. And Ana can do circles all the way down the alfalfa field. She'll figure it out eventually, and it will probably get to be less and less time every time we do it.
The fourth one is not really about stopping, just speed. But it's something we will probably do in the future.
The last one is the one we chose to try. But we did do the ground work one first. We got the idea based off of something we did with Flicka. We always had a problem with her walking off before we got on so we always got on her while she was tied to the trailer. Then when we were in the saddle we undid the halter from around her neck and went riding. We did this for months. Not because it took her that long to learn to stand still, but it was just the way we did it with her. So unintentually we taught her to stand still while we got on. When for some unknown reason we got on her in the paddock she stood still while we got on. So, taking this idea we made our reasons just a little bit different. We wanted her to learn that standing still was a good thing. Her first reaction to you getting on while she's tied to the tralier is to start pacing. Aleythia made a little modification to this idea by also teaching Ana to disengage her hindquarters when she turned (she was doing it anyway, why not give her a cue to go with it?) and saying woah after a little while of Ana's pacing. Ana would stop but then get going again. It was funny, cause Aleythia was telling me about the first time she tried this, she said that eventually when she asked Ana to stop, she stopped, heaved a BIG sigh, and just stood there.

Doing the same ground work stuff with the fillies, Santana, and Misstack. We try to keep the sessions with the fillies short. Running in circles for long amounts of time can ruin a young horse's legs. We did ground driving with Coffie. and after the first little bit of me walking in front of her and Aleythia behind, she did it without me in front. She did have a little trouble about Aleythia being behind her, but she was much easier to correct and she got over it pretty quick. She was better prepared. The flexing is probably what did it. She learned that getting off the pressure of the halter would give her a release so that's what she sought after when ground driving.
I have advanced with Santana to changing directions by pivoting on his back feet when I step in front of his shoulder. I'm doing the same thing with Misstack.

It Had to Come Sometime

"Aw the water's frozen in the bucket!"
This is what greeted me when I stepped outside today, along with the wind.
And no joke I'm pretty sure our five gallon bucket of water that sits underneath the gutter now has a two inch layer of ice on it.
Two hours later, I'm working with one of the fillies and my toes feel like they'll never regain their feeling. I even put on a double layer of socks!
Lucky for us if we just rearrange a couple things, and pull the flat trailer out of the barn we have just enough room to do longing. We even had enough room to get the fillies to canter!
I did it with Frosty and Toffy, and ya know what? Frosty was awesome and Toffy was... well, not.... Frosty went into the canter pretty easily. And that was all that I wanted. Just to get her cantering.
What was really fun was watching Frosty trot. For most of the time she had very little pressure on the halter. When she did reach the end of the rope she tried to fix it. She would bend her head to the inside. And I can honestly say that that is the result of flexing. It doesn't hinder your horse's ability to turn, it just makes them more willing to get off that pressure. So because she was so light I got her to canter.
And because I was a sissy and not quite ready for the cold I went inside to warm up and didn't work with Misstack or Santana.

Sunday we went over to HM's again. Yay! I rode her two other horses Ollie and Tea. And it's funny because all three of her horses have a different way of going. And I am so glad she has an indoor arena. It makes riding possible even in the worst of weather. It was not particularly nice weather on Sunday.
And we had in-gathering at my church. It's like a potluck with pies. Everybody brings a pie and everyone eats pie. We have a service before that, it was mostly music and people stood up and talked about what God has been doing in their lives in the past year. Aleythia, me, and one of my other sisters, played for it. two violins and a cello. And it didn't sound too bad. After we had gotten a piece of pie we went back and started to play, and the pastor's youngest daughter came up to my sister and asked if she could play the cello. So this six year old little girl sat on my sister's knee and drew the bow across the strings while my sister made the different notes. It was soo cute!

Did you know it was like 60 degrees today? And then it started raining around 10:00. Probably the hardest rain we've had all year. (Haha to all you people with freezing temperatures!)
Sadly it's only a one day thing. We're supposed to get snow tomorrow.
But now that I have made fun of some of you I will commense to write about my horse day and maybe indulge and write about this evening.
We pretty much did the same thing we did yesterday only adding one thing which was picking up feet. The fillies are actually not  that bad at it. With more practice they will continue to get better. I also took the longe whip and smacked that against the ground and (one of the reasons these fillies are awesome) they didn't do anything. Did it with Misstack and she about had a heart attack. Okay, maybe  not quite that drastic, because she had her heart attack the first time I did it a while ago.
Misstack is getting better at using her hindquarters to turn and still needs practice. One thing I find interesting is that when she comes out of that turn she pretty much does a leap out. It's almost like she's jumping, but with more forward propulsion. I think that might be why it's harder to stay on her when she's running the pattern. She does a leaping thingy. Maybe now that I know about it I'll be able to stay on.
I did the same thing I did with Santana yesterday too. He was a little bit better, but not by much. He still doesn't totally understand that when there's pressure on his neck he needs to move his shoulder away. He's getting it though. He's down to the third level of pressure which is tapping him on the neck with medium pressure. It used to take the fourth level. He'll get better. I also did flexing with him. And that boy is funny. When you first pick up on the halter, his first reaction is to turn, but once he stops turning he can touch his side. And he did this like the second time I did flexing, but he still was turning in a circle. I just kept doing it until he figured out that it was easier to stand still. As far as the fillies' flexing goes, they are getting better. It doesn't take too much to get them to give to that halter all the way to their belly.
As far as Ana goes, Aleythia says that she thinks that Ana's really getting the concept of all these things.

Now my indulgence time.

One of my sisters (not Aleythia) and I went on a haunted hay ride that was put on by my brother in-law. And if you knew my brother in law the "haunted" part of "hay ride" should scare you.
He totally failed though. None of us screamed or anything I mean we were talking about cheese cake factories! And how a pasta cheese cake would not taste very good. It was still fun though. I can always give my brother in-law the excuse that he had limited help and that we missed the grand finale because our driver took the wrong path. But a few highlights from the night were as follows...
We tripped a wire and nothing happened.
The white trailers looked suspicious.
The fireworks went off too soon.
Large trees were a source of worry.
We stacked a couple hay bales as a barrier to possible chainsaws, running people, and paintball guns.
We were attacked by two guys in masks running at us with clubs.
The guy on our left screamed and at first I jumped. A split second later I wondered when that college kid had gotten home.
That college kid got shot by my brother in-law. What we saw... guy holds gun up to kids head, kid falls down.... What actually happened. Guy holds gun up to kid's head, pulls the trigger, kid falls down. By the way it was an airsoft gun.
Drive home and we joke about how our driver's drunk because he's swerving all over the road.(Scariest part of he trip)
And then we laugh with the guys about the evening.