As I wrote in the last blog entry, Debbie has come out several times during my working the horses. She has gotten to meet ZZ, who is new to her, and I have given all the appropriate warnings about the Man Eating Mare of Diomedes. 

Perhaps it is not a testament to my training, but I still don’t trust ZZ with anyone. She reacts quickly and thoughtlessly like a child, and if you are not on your toes, you could get hurt. It also reaffirms in my mind though that pursuing an idea that I had of getting an apprentice to help me would be wasted – they wouldn’t be able to help me with ZZ and if they did, I would worry that they would either get hurt by her – or hurt her in their anger and frustration with her strong minded ways.

With Debbie about though I’ve had to explain more about what I’m doing with ZZ and thus vocalization gives more planning and meaning to the ideas that I have been working on.

About two months ago, ZZ drew a line in the sand. This line was – “I don’t like you over my back and I will not tolerate it. If you persist, I might have to kick you to hell’s half acre and back.”

After doing so well with some of her other training, this was obviously going to be a bit of stumbling block. If this had been five years ago I would probably have fought it out with her, won, and then she would have retaliated when I least suspected it – that is the way of how some of these mare horses think which earns them this reputation as being marish – translated to mean – not biddable to human desires.

I pulled back and we went back with me leaning over from the ground. I found out that there were some days she was okay with it and other days, when she pinned her ears and said “I don’t f*cking think so….”

Right now I’m back in the round pen, leaning over her back, no halter or lead rope. Sometimes I get up on the mounting block and I do it on both sides. When she walks off we go do some other work – such as Whoa-Slow-Go game to help her understand the type of body movement I want – balanced, using the hindquarters, and her head in a easy position.

And some days she tells me she has had enough of that.

And so our life, and training, is slowly progressing on a timetable that is not strictly hers – not strictly mine – but with some goals that may be met — or not — as she goes bucking across the roundpen, telling me she has clearly had ENOUGH of being told to GO!

 

This last month I’ve had the misfortune of bumping into people of My Former Life. These were strange intercepts, here and there, suddenly and abruptly, that surprised me (though my face – so long schooled to show no hurt or pain revealed nothing).

This is hardly surprising as I don’t live in that big of a town  – but perhaps what does take me back is that I have shelved that part of my life – riding instructor, Girl Scout Leader, barn manager, and my everyday existence is so busy living the Now, that to be reminded of Then, seems to be like dousing my head under a cold faucet.

Sometimes, in that dark place that I have, I wonder what friendship really means to people? Since my meaning of it seems to differ from others, it has become my policy to remain guarded, removed, and distant from friendships. For the most part this prevents me from getting Involved in Sticky Situations, though occasionally my foot has slipped and my mouth opened and my hand clasped anothers – which has always been proven later to be a mistake, so is it is its own self-confirming prophecy of what my pessimist’s mind thinks of humankind.

Yes, it makes for a lonely life, but I have been alone most of my life in one form or another – usually walking a road that no one said existed or was for me. Hopefully, DH will stay long enough on this earth that I can have some company along with the horses, dogs, cats and books since my 12-year old DD has informed me that she will be too busy traveling the world to come back and read to me (!! LOL!).

Sometimes these surprises can rock me so hard back that it can make me physically ill, as in the need to vomit. I think that is the adrenalin that gets dumped into your system that prepares you to fight or flee. Since my bloodline seems more of the fighting type, it is hard when you have trained yourself not to flinch or inflect a blow – either verbally or physically on your own behalf – and to swallow it back down.

It must be a sign that I am mentally healed after being punched in the gut so much in that I only felt a mild nauseau and worry before calming myself down again. OT – I also felt no need to eat to cover up my emotions so that is a great improvement indeed.

However, there has been one bright light in all this dreariness of people, and that has been Debbie’s re-surfacing. Debbie took lessons from me for two years, riding every Sunday, faithfully meeting our obligations to each other, paying on time, learning and examining what we did together.

She was also a faithful friend to Dear One and was by us during our Darkest Hour. For that, I will not forget – and if she needed a blood transfusion, bone marrow transplant or  a kidney tomorrow, she would be able to call upon me.

In the darkness of November – which marks Dear One’s anniversary of when her life ended - I have not forgotten the traitors who did not stand by us and have the affronty to not even realize the depth of their betrayal —

Debbie and I have met up several times and last weekend I put her up on Big Guy – who can be a bit pissy with riders. They did well together and it gave me the ability to work on some training of BG that required a rider AND a groundsperson. He challenged her a few times but she was able to sit and bring him back down from his little bit of fussiness.

We shall be meeting up again, and working some of the horses’ together – playing with them – and now my role is no longer Riding Instructor so there is no pressure for me to perform or meet any expectation of a paying service. 

I can be who I am and it can be taken or left.

I’ve been absent a bit from my horse blogs primarily because my focus has been on another area of my life, however, I’m hoping this nice weekend and the next holiday weekend I can get some articles I’ve been wanting to do, as well as work on some video and photos.

- Update video on Big Guy’s progress – some liberty work and riding. He’s doing great and definitely feeling it!

- Clicker Training for standing still during mounting.

- Slow-Whoa-Go video of ZZ in the roundpen.

- Training long and low – head down - using a clicker and doing it free in the roundpen with ZZ.

- Working on BG shifting his weight back while under saddle, and Ramener. Use of a target on the ground – and the rein aid from the saddle.

- Riding with the Balance Rein and Body Wrap.

- Downward transition from walk to halt – use of balance rein, rein aid, leg stability, and weight shift.

- Some photos being of horses w/o tack being on the forehand for Common Sense Rider.

- Crookedness on the circle with Big Guy and ZZ; showing corrections to this lopsideness.

Hm will add if anything else comes to mind. I’ve got a huge chore ahead of me of sorting out video files and that will need to be done at Hubby’s work on his faster computers.

Oh and btw – shop for and prepare Thanksgiving dinner. haha

Bitter cold wind arrived today. Have blanketed Big Guy so he can graze the pasture in comfort. ZZ seems pretty furry so unless it gets’ worse she can go without. Possible snow flurries (not sticking) today but we’ll see.

Usually November is mild, after a rainy cold October, and then December we get hit again. This is only increasing my suspicion that winter is coming early and going to hit hard.

Need to root around and find my gloves… have located ear muff band…

all horses trimmed today.

After riding the Big Guy today, I stripped him of tack and put him in the dirt arena. I usually let him roll – and BTW he can now roll to his spine, all four feet in the air, but still not roll over, but this is a huge improvement and shows more muscle is coming back.

Once he got up and shook, he came trotting up to me, ears forward and stated quite clearly I WANT TO PLAY! and so then I asked him to take off, and he cantered about (lovely, lovely left lead with beautiful natural collection!) and we played some come to me – go away – and he just had a blast.

Ah it was so good to see him want to play – something we can never achieve in mind or body if we are in chronic pain.

If you know BG then you know that he frets, he worries, he tucks his head and becomes overbent (like a piece of spaghetti) and toys with the bit, especially if he thinks he has done wrong or is nervous about what you are doing. This comes from his previous training and in the past I’ve had success in training out most of the behavior – however, he has regressed so I am looking for new ideas on how to deal with it.

Buying the sidepull I want is out of the question right now – money is so tight that even blood isn’t coming from the stone at this point. So I have been improvising and it has been interesting.

I leave the halter on and attach an extra pair of reins to the side rings (this pair is brown). I put on his dressage bridle, with the noseband removed, and with it’s reins (this pair is black). This allows me to pull on the halter rein as hard as I want and it has no effect on his mouth.

It can be hard to keep BG on track, and though I would LOVE for him to be sensitive to my every whim and desire, he is rather… well… not so much. With the halter set up I can ask with a larger gesture – and what has been interesting is that he is learning that since it doesn’t effect his mouth – he doesn’t have to get nervous about the bit.

The bit remains because, quite frankly, this is not a horse, even crippled, that I would ride without some real brakes. He IS a thoroughbred and bred to race after all.

A real interesting result was that today, after riding with only the halter reins, I picked up the bit reins, and using them artificially high and a small tug, he gave me the Ramener for the very first time! He shifted his weight back without taking a backward step, and raised his neck from the mane, bringing his head in perfectly!

I practically fell out of the saddle I was so surprised!

I have a routine when I arrive to the horses. First, I let pony out to the alley so she can get some limited grass grazing and fratinize with her Arabian buddy, R. Then ZZ spots me and her curiousity drives her down the fence to come check me out. I also let her out to the alley because she is big buds with R and they only get to gossip when I do this as they are pastured separately.

I take that time to clean pony paddock, and in that time, Big Guy wanders down and decides, “well if the girls are going to hang out with this human, I guess I will do so too though it usually means work *grumble* *grumble*” And I let him out to the alley. After a bit of play time, I choose one of them to work, usually whatever horse seems to be curious about what I’m doing but lately it’s been Big Guy as his rehab is top on my list.

Yesterday, I noticed that BG had decided that he was well enough to take back his throne. He spanked the Elephants Child quite firmly and it has been long overdue.

See, I know from keeping him in a larger herd (about 9 horses) that he is Top Dog. He stakes his claim on his females and then all males need to recognize that. This was very helpful because he looked after Dear One (who was a Loner) and made sure she got her fair share of the hay pile.

He likes geldings and will happily play with them as long as no one is making a move on his girl. So if I turn them out in the back pasture, I turn him out with the girls only, or I turn only the girls out with R, or I turn BG out with R. No mixed herd because I don’t own R and BG’s protectiveness was causing him to race around like a chicken missing it’s head and considering the state of his leg I didn’t want that to continue at this point. 

When ZZ arrived, he told her how the cow at the cabbage (as my mom would say), and she got discplined and shoved off feed, desirable areas, or for my attention. When he got injured though, he felt too horrible to even bother with it, and ZZ got a bit full of herself like a child that has been given leave to take any amount of cookies from the jar, bounces on the bed till the springs break, and basically leaves a path of destruction behind without a care in the world!

I was glad to see that the Big Guy had decided that ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH! Yesterday, he firmly put her back in her place and told her to move off – and she did… so that is probably the best sign yet that he is almost fully recovered!

Awesome ride with Big Guy today. Not much, just some walking, but he felt solid on all four feet and moved out a bit. Best ride on him since the accident. Very happy!

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