The Boys and Their Antics

I've been having a lot of fun with the boys lately, partly because they're spending a good part of the day in paddocks close to the barn due to Pie needed to be off grass for the month of June.  Pie's now up to 30 minutes of grazing and Red did almost 2 and 1/2 hours today, so they're starting to get some herd time.  Red is much happier - Pie isn't yet as he's not getting enough but he's a pretty laid-back guy so it's not too much of an issue for him.

My routine right now is to go to the barn in the early morning - the boys are already in their paddocks - and turn them out for their grazing time with the herd.  The grazing pastures are probably at least a quarter mile away, so off they go - lately at a fairly sedate canter.  Then I bring in Pie after his short time out - he's been a very good boy, coming with me immediately without complaint - and ride him and put him back in his paddock.  Then I bring Red in and ride him later.

Red's very funny when I bring him in - he wants to graze with the herd but he's also really concerned about Pie.  The minute I halter him in the pasture and start to lead him in, he's totally focussed on getting back to the barn and Pie.  He'd like to go there as fast as possible but leads nicely for me, calling for Pie the whole way - and sometimes he does these "half whinneys" - strangled little calls - very funny.

Earlier this week, on the first days Pie was getting out a little, the boys did some mad running at racehorse speeds - the pair of them running flat out from one end of the pasture and back again several times before they settled down to graze.

And one day last week - after a rain when the ground was pretty muddy - I committed the error of wearing (decent, clean, not stained) "real people" clothes to the barn to turn Red out - in fact my husband and I were planning to go out to lunch.  As I let Red go at the gate, he bolted off, throwing huge gobs of mud into the air with each stride - and a lot of that mud landed in my hair, on my glasses, in my teeth - I had to floss to get the grit out - and all over my front - I was plastered.  There went the lunch plans - and the clothes went into the wash.

In the p.m., when I'm not riding, I sometimes take Red on a "walk around" to satisfy his need to get out and around.  I lead him up and down the barn aisles, allowing him to touch noses with all his herdmates.

One benefit of our current schedule is that the boys are getting used to coming in and being ridden at all times of the day and now find this perfectly normal.  I'm currently not riding Pie on the trail - I want to see what the eye specialist has to say first.  I've had a couple more instances indicating that Pie's eyesight may not be all right.  One day, we were riding in the arena and water buckets were being cleaned in the wash stall next to the arena - oddly, the entrance to the little barn (where we live) to the arena is through a small wash stall.  There is a drain in the floor of the wash stall that is covered by a large shiny, silver aluminum plate, and this was removed and resting against the wall of the wash stall.  Now Pie walks willingly across this plate every day coming and going from turnout, but it was vertical and very shiny and reflective.  He saw it as we came around the arena, stopped suddenly and then did the skittering sideways/backwards thing until he got to a safe distance - I was prepared and in a defensive position with a hand on the horn so I didn't come off.  Once he'd looked, I asked him to slowly approach, which he did willingly, snorting the whole way.  Once he'd approached, he was fine with it and we went on with our ride and he ignored it.

Then a couple of days later, I was bringing Red and Pie in together.  When I do that, the door to the washstall into our barn is too narrow for both horses, so I send Pie ahead - he walks through and into his stall.  When we do this, the lights in the back barn - which is otherwise quite dark - and washstall are normally on.  That day, the lights were off.  Pie went through willingly ahead of Red and me, but once he got into the dark barn aisle he got confused and couldn't find his stall and ended up down the aisle by the door to the tackroom - luckily he didn't go in.  When I went to retreive him, he was startled by my approach.  Poor fellow - I hope the eye doctor has some answers.  The good news is that he navigates fine and seems to see OK except in very bright or very dim light or when there are reflective surfaces.

And today, I got to ride Dawn for the first time in two weeks.  The cuts on the right hind from the kick seem to be healing just fine, and the swelling on the inner upper side of the lower left hind, while still there to some degree, is no longer sensitive or soft.  Since she's been off for two weeks, I'd take two weeks anyway to bring her back into full work even if she's 100% sound, and today we just walked under saddle for 15 minutes.  I didn't ask her to do too much, just relaxed walking in straight lines and on large turns.  She was a peach - completely relaxed and willing - sweet Dawn mare.

First Principles

I had a discussion with another boarder at the barn yesterday where I was trying to briefly summarize how I approach working with my horses.  This prompted me to try to briefly put in writing my "first principles" of horsemanship - I didn't invent any of this, but try to follow these principles.

Here goes - I could say a lot more (and often do) - but it's a good exercise to try to boil it down:



Always ask: what does the horse feel/understand about this?

Give the horse the opportunity to choose, and reward each small step towards the choice I want.  Set things up so the horse can succeed - each time the horse succeeds and is rewarded, this builds trust.  The reward is the consistent soft place I provide for the horse to find and stay in.

Provide leadership and direction.  Dominance and coercion are not leadership.  Do I want a horse that is a slave, or a horse that is a willing partner?

Be clear and precise about exactly what it is I want - build the chain by shaping/directing behavior in small steps.  Expect to make progress in small increments and be delighted with that.

Pay attention to what I do want and ignore what I don't want - just keep asking for what I do want.  Even "wrong" behavior can be directed and shaped towards what I want.

Horses always have reasons for their behaviors. Horses aren't devious or out to get us: they act out their feelings/emotions/reactions with their bodies.  Horses with learned “bad” behaviors have almost always been taught those behaviors by people, and they can learn new behaviors to replace them.

Blogger Problems - Anyone Else Having These - May Move to Wordpress . . .

I wanted to check if anyone else is having issues with Blogger recently.

The two issues I'm having are, first, huge amounts of referrer spam.  This is showing up in stats and causing my page views to go way up.  There are a lot of questionable links in the log, and most of the servers appear to be in Germany, although that doesn't mean a lot as the spammers could be anywhere. This problem, while annoying, doesn't bother me that much, since I don't care about the stats and never click on the links so the spammers are wasting their time.

But there's a second problem that's worse.  Recently, I've started getting a huge amount of spam email to the email address I use for Blogger.  I know it's a Blogger issue because I only use this email address for Blogger.  I've posted on the help forum to see if anyone has a solution - there used to be an option in the profile setting to remove your email address from public view, but that option doesn't seem to be there anymore - more Google/Blogger stuff I expect.

Anyone else?  I could take the blog private, but I expect that wouldn't solve the email issue.

Also, I'd be interested in people's experiences switching to a different blogging platform that doesn't have the Google issues, including privacy issues.  I'd be interested in what platform you use, how you like it, and how the export process went.

Please post replies here in the comments - I bet there are more than a few of us who'd be interested in the answers.

Peaceful in Red: Grazing Photos

For a Sunday, here are a couple of peaceful grazing photos of Red.  I like this one because of the contrast between him and the Clydesdale behind him:

And I love how he gleams in the sun:

Have a wonderful Sunday, and with some luck maybe it'll include horses!

Fire-Breathing Dragon to Pussycat

It's supposed to get pretty hot this afternoon, so I went to the barn early this morning to ride Red and Pie.  Dawn's still on break until her leg heals.  It had rained hard all morning, so both boys were pretty wet in their pens, huddled up and not too reluctant to come into their stalls.  Pie just needed to be toweled down, but Red had rolled and needed a rinse off first.  Red stood nicely in the wash stall for me on a loose lead - he seems happiest when I don't put him on crossties to rinse him.

Red was up first.  I could tell he was pretty amped up.  Both he and Pie get ridden almost every day, and both are very fit, but being in the pens is harder mentally on Red than on Pie - Pie's pretty happy so long as he's got something to eat, and he's basically a lower-energy guy.  This week I'll be lengthening Red's turnout time gradually - Pie will still be limited to a shorter time in the afternoon until July.

Red could barely contain himself as I mounted up.  We were by ourselves at the barn, and had a freshly dragged arena, which was very nice. It was also still fairly cool, which felt good to us. I could have done some groundwork first to settle him down, but neither he nor I enjoy groundwork very much so we just went for it.  His walk warmup was very energetic - I tried to let him move while giving him some figure work to keep his mind busy.  He did a good first walk/trot transition without springing into canter.  He shook his head vigorously a couple of times to show me his energy level, and he felt at first as if he were on springs, but he was otherwise very, very good.  We worked continuously at a forward trot for about 20 minutes before he began to relax a bit and settle down, but he stayed soft and responsive throughout.  The fact that his work ethic is so good and he's able to hold himself together so well, despite having excess energy, is a great tribute to what a willing horse he is.  I've found that one important thing with a horse like him when he's full of beans is to let him move and not try to constrain him too much, but continue to ask for what I want in terms of quality of gaits - trot work like this tends to settle him down mentally.

After Red settled down and relaxed, we went on to do some more really nice trot work, including some very good shortening and lengthening.

Then Pie and I had a very nice ride, too - there was still no one at the barn so we had the arena to ourselves.  His trot just gets better and better in terms of its quality - he's round, and soft and carrying himself very well from behind, and his ability to lengthen his stride is improving.  Yesterday afternoon when I was riding him, we tried something different at the canter and repeated it this morning.  We did our canter work on a loose rein.  This wouldn't have been possible until recently, in terms of his ability to carry himself well at the canter instead of falling on the forehand and in on the turns - he now stays pretty round even on a loose rein and easily goes deep into the corners without "motorcycling". I pretty much don't have to do anything now but sit there quietly and keep my eyes and focus up on where we're going.  It was just plain wonderful - lovely, rhythmic, forward but not rushed canter on both leads, with deep corners just off my steering with my core.  We went around and around and it was hard to stop, it felt so good.

Now that's what I call a good Saturday morning!

Pie's Eye: Spookiness Explained, Dawn's Leg and Red Runs Me into the Wall

If you're interested in my initial thoughts on horses #1 through #4, see the comments on the prior post.

Mammoth vet visit today.  First I sat through another owner's multi-hour visit, involving nerve blocks, x-rays, etc. - horse has ringbone and some other issues and the options are somewhat limited.

Then Dawn got a look-see - she'd been kicked in the inner upper thigh about a week ago - not too bad and seems to be healing well.  Her left hind came up swollen at about the same time - hard to tell if it's related or something else - swelling is below the hock on the inner side.  Some sensitivity and she's slightly off - looks to be a not too serious suspensory strain.  She'll stay in turnout and heal as fast as she heals.  She's happy to walk on it and doesn't rest it, so that's good.  Could be weeks, or months, until she's rideable again.

Then the vet took a look at Pie's eyes.  He appears to have healthy retinas and optic nerves, which is always good news in a horse that's had Lyme.  His left eye, however, as I'd already noticed, has a good sized cyst growing from the posterior margin of his iris.  The vet said that, even in shaded light, the cyst was shading/blocking a good portion of his retina, which meant his vision in bright light was probably severely limited - he can detect motion but not much else, which explains the recent spookiness, and perhaps even our big accident back in 2011 - he can detect a moving object to his left but can't really figure out what it is.  The next step is a consultation with the eye specialist, and then perhaps we'll take action to have the cyst deflated by laser surgery (which can now be done with standing sedation).  The take away from this is that any horse with unusual spookiness, particularly if it comes on suddenly or is out of character for the horse, should be evaluated for vision issues.  Just think about how hard Pie has tried to always be a good horse for me, and take care of me, and how hard this must be when his vision is compromised - think about how many good horses there are out there that always try their best.

After all this, I had good rides on Pie and Red.  Red was pretty distracted by all the commotion at the barn today - vets, and lessons and other things - and at one point when he was distracted he actually ran my leg into the wall at the walk.  It was rider error - his front and hind end became disconnected and I didn't ride him "through" and didn't use appropriate aids when his head started coming in and shoulder out.  We ended up having a pretty decent ride after all, and then after my ride on Pie, I got Red out again and rode him bareback to recheck our forward and throughness - bareback would allow me to easily get my leg out of the way if we had a steering/throughness issue.  No problems, and he seemed happy to get out again.

Pie was excellent in our ride, although it was hot and buggy.  Excellent trot work, including some nice lengthenings, and his canter work was very good - we did a number of sets of loose rein canter - he rode into the corners beautifully and his canter was very relaxed and engaged, even on a loose rein.

Good horses all . . .

More Fun with Horses for Sale . . .

Now for some fun . . .

Based on what you can see in these sale ads - none of them really have enough info - which horse would be your preference?  Which horse do you think would be my preference? - they're all horses I'd consider worth an email or a phone call to start, although I've already got my biases based on what's in the ads.

New truck and horse trailer arriving in July . . . (just saying) . . .

Horse #1

Horse #2

Horse #3

and you may remember this guy, Horse #4.

Have fun!  I'll give you my thoughts/questions on these horses in the comments when we're done.