Back to school

Today, Griffin learned some new things in the round pen.  First, we lunged, did desensitizing, yielding the hind quarters, yielding the forequarters, lateral flexing and backing.  He's done all that before, although it has been a long time since I've consistently asked him to do any of it.  But we worked on perfecting his response to all those cues. We also learned to back up with a wiggle of the rope today rather than just the lead signal.   Then, I used a small lightweight saddle blanket to desensitize him and get him used to wearing it on his back.  He did great with this.  I expected that since I've put a fleece cooler on him before without any problems.  Then I got out the surcingle.  I wasn't quite sure what he'd do with it, since the rings on it were very jingly, and there were strings hanging off it, but after the blanket, apparently the surcingle was absolutely no big deal.  I practiced pulling it tight without buckling it first (no reaction, he got a treat reward for standing), then buckled it up snugly, but not tight.  He paid no attention to it, even through flexing and lunging.  And he's now becoming more comfortable with lunging.  He's finally starting to understand that I'm not just chasing him around (he responds by snorting at first, whenever I begin asking him to lunge).

Griffin says "What do we do now?".

Friday was my first day of classes.  Silly, I know, since then we got a 3 day weekend.  But both Wren and I made it through, although not without tears on my end!  I'm really dreading the next 3 years.  It's going to be so hard to sacrifice my time with Wren to school.  But I'm focusing on the end.  We'll make it...I hope.

In the meantime, I really love blogging (posting what I'm doing and reading other's posts), but it takes a lot of time.  Now my schedule is even more packed and to keep up with all the things I want to do, I think I'm going to have to let the blogging slide.  I will still check in once in a while (probably once or twice a week), and I think I'll still post, when I actually get to do things with my horses (which I plan to try to do every weekend), but my posts might be more brief...and I might let the photos do the talking more than me.  We'll see.  I am just letting you know that I'm not going to dissappear forever, just become a lot less present. 

In the meantime, you can see more of my horses in the pasture, since that is the view that I will miss the most while I'm down in Madison during the week in school.  Well, that view and my daughter's beautiful face, but at least she is coming with me to Madison so I get to see her every evening and we'll be together all night long.  Daddy is the one who will be missing out the most.  He only gets to see us on weekends now.  And now, I must go and enjoy my long weekend home.

The herd heads back toward the barn...probably for water.

Griffin lags behind.

But the herd is lolly-gagging so he easily catches up.  He shows Kachina he's her boss by pushing her forward in front of him.

February 17th 2008

"Post from the Past"

February 17th 2008

Doni did not end up coming out with me yesterday. It was such a nice day, partly cloudy, sometimes sunny, and melty, that I couldn’t bear working in the round pen in the barn. Instead, I worked Catlow for just a few minutes in the barn, then took her out for a walk. We went north out of the driveway, down to where the loop joins Dry Creek Rd, then back. The gravel was saturated with water and nice and soft and squishy. I liked that Catlow was curious and comfortable enough about her surroundings to drop her head to investigate the footing whenever it changed. And she walked through puddles with no problem.

This lesson consisted of me leading her, then stopping every once in a while to ask her to yield the fores and hinds, and back up. She came along well, but going away from the house, she did her usual barn sour stop, and I’d have to pull on her head until she decided to follow me again. She’s quite stubborn. She did get nervous when we went past Harriet’s pastures as she could see the other horses and she wasn’t sure what to do. I just tried to keep her occupied with flexing and pivoting. She flexed every time as asked, and we really only got into one disagreement where she was stiff and decided to spin around instead of flex, but she did eventually stop and flex. When she was nervous, her flexing was rapid, she touched me with her nose rather firmly, then pulled her head back straight to stare out across the field. I tried to ask her to keep her head flexed, and she would flex, then start to pull her head back, find that I was still holding her head, flex again, then again, then again…trying to pull her head back straight. I kept her flexed until she started to be less resistant about it. She didn’t completely calm down. But it was obvious that the flexing we did in the round pen helped her. She’s a bit more automatic about it, and understands what I’m asking of her. And she did calm down after the first initial freak about seeing the other horses. On the way back from our walk, she didn’t stop once (a little barn sour). Since she was walking up much nicer, I took advantage of this and asked her to trot alongside me, which she did immediately, then “whoa” and back up. She was catching on pretty good, although I’d like her to listen to the “whoa” a bit more instead of only relying on my body language. That will help once I’m in the saddle.

After I was done with Catlow, I pulled Todd (who had a mild flu) out of the house to take a few pictures of her (hence the grouchy expression). Then I put my new bridle (got the loop reins and slobber straps!!! Yay!!!) on Cody and we went for a quick bareback ride down the road and back. I do think that the molasses is negatively impacting Cody. She’s not lame right now, but she has super obvious bulges in the hoof where there has been new growth since December. It’s scary. I’d like to have the vet out or show it to someone other than Todd's mom so I have an unbiased opinion about what it was caused by and how severe it was. I just don’t want my horses to be injured. They do not NEED the molasses lick. They are all fat, so I’d rather not take the risk if they could possibly hurt my horses, even if they were not the cause of the weird hoof growth or wearing.

A pic of Catlow on this day. Notice the brown smudge across her nose from licking the molasses/protein bin all day.

February 15th 2008

"Post from the Past"

February 15th 2008

Yesterday, I went out to Todd’s with the intention of us spending Valentine’s day together (making beer and playing with horses), but Todd didn’t feel very well, so I played with horses myself.

I had spent the previous week making rope halters with the new rope that I bought from D&B. I got a reddish brown with a tan tracer, and a bright purple with a white tracer. I thought the brown would be a perfect color to complement Catlow’s color. I ended up making 12 halters (also with some other leftover rope I had). I caught Catlow (feeding at the molasses licks which had been replaced in the pasture, much to my dismay, since last weekend). I took her in the round pen, then proceeded to try every halter on her. She was very patient. The halters are going to fit perfectly once they’ve been on a horse and the knots have tightened up…as is now, the unused ones seem too small around the nose, but really, they are perfect. I ended up using a dark neutral colored halter that Todd said was his favorite color, but he didn’t end up coming out to check on me until I was done working with her.

Since I started trying rope halters on her, I had her flex in a few of them. She actually flexed to touch me very quickly…hardly any wait period today! Either a break of 4 days did her good since our last session, or she likes that I didn’t do any desensitizing with her.

I did not do ANY desensitizing with her, and the difference in her attitude is amazing…I think that I may have to do a few experiments. Sometimes I need to do desensitizing first, and check her willingness to flex, then I also need to just start a lesson with flexing, and see how she acts. I think that perhaps she is shutting off a little bit when I do the desensitizing exercises and it really shows when I ask her to flex so that she will choose to hang on the halter instead of giving to me. She is much more willing when I do not make her uncomfortable by throwing the rope around. Maybe I need to stop “annoying” her with the desensitizing stuff…she’s not really afraid of the rope tossing, but it makes her uncomfortable.

The primary exercise that I worked on with Catlow was yielding the fores and the hinds and some side-passing. She remembered that she was to step across in front with both the fores and hinds when yielding. She pivoted very nicely, but I noticed that she was tending to get a little bit lazier with the hinds. I think mostly because previously I hadn’t asked her to do very many steps, so I worked on asking her to take more steps and quicken up her feet a bit. She really did quicken up fast when I poked her, and she stayed relatively calm throughout the whole process. When I would praise her and let her stop, she’d immediately look at me to see if she was going to get a treat for doing well. Sometimes I did give her treats, but I was trying to save them for when she did REALLY well. I was extremely pleased with her yielding the fores in a complete circle. She is really consistent about rocking back on her hinds and stepping around with her fores. She caught onto that very quickly. The only time she became confused was when I first started asking for a 360 degree pivot…she’d step across several times, but then when I kept pushing her, she’d start to step back…I had to just keep with her until she stepped across in front again and then reward her big. She did great today. It was calm and pleasant to work with her, and my overall impression was that she was trying for me.

She was also a lot more relaxed overall. When I let her go, she walked over to investigate my halter pile, and she even picked one up and tossed it a bit (which is not her personality at all…she’s the quiet hang back and watch horse). Then I let her eat hay with the weanlings in the barn after our lesson, and I laid down in the hay. She actually approached me to sniff at me, then continued eating. She usually doesn’t approach me when I give her the choice. I have been rewarding her with a treat when she walks up to me on request in the round pen. That’s probably helping her to be more interested in approaching me.

Well, I’d like to work with her again tomorrow. Doni might come out with me again. Hopefully, she’ll want to work longer than she did last weekend. Maybe I’ll see if she wants to work with Cody. I’d love to take both Cody and Catlow to the clinic at Katie’s in March. Actually, I’d love to take all three of my horses, but I’m not sure I want anyone else to work with Chico because he hasn’t been worked by anyone else yet, and he still needs quite a bit of work.

February 7th, 2008

"Post from the Past"

February 7th, 2008

The weather today finally warmed up. We got lots more snow last night and it was really windy today, but upper 30s and around 40 degrees in Moscow today. Tonight I worked with Catlow for 2 hours. I caught her outside. Even though it was windy and very difficult to walk (I was stumbling through the snow), Catlow let me catch her and showed no interest in moving away. Not that she usually does, but sometimes I feel like I have to be careful how I approach her.

I worked on lateral flexion and dropping her head first. She remembered pretty quickly from last time. She responded to me pinching her poll immediately, which pleased me. She is still not as good at dropping her head with pressure from the halter. We’ll have to work on that more. I bet that if I move the halter up closer to her ears she might respond better. She is getting really good with pinching her poll. I don’t even have to pinch very hard.

Her lateral flexion is getting better. She is still better with flexing to her right side, than to her left. She is actually stretching back much better from both sides, so I’m asking more of her. I’m asking her to reach farther and farther each time. She is beginning to attempt to touch me, or her side (whichever is closer), and she’s doing it with just pressure from the halter now. She is bringing her head around nicely and I just need to apply direct pressure when she gets all the way around to ask her to reach further. She waits a second or two, sometimes several, before she actually reaches back, but she’s actually doing it. Last session, she was really lax about reaching further and it took quite a wait, with shuffling around to make her uncomfortable, before she’d give slack in the rope. She’s improved quite a bit.

I also brought treats this time, and gave her a treat when she would approach me, or look at me, in the beginning. I gave them out more and more sparingly toward the end of the lesson, but they peaked her interest. I think that treats, combined with only trying to win her trust (by not chasing her around yet), is what is helping her to want to work with me and do what I ask. She is definitely more willing this time than she was last time. Her wall is coming down just a bit.

I played “jump rope” with Catlow and the lead line (basically, I just stood back and swung the 14 ft lead line as though she was holding onto the other end (with her head) for an invisible person to jump over). She did really, really well with this…it didn’t faze her at all, even though the rope would slide around her nose and tug at her halter. I progressed to tossing the rope around her head, and also snaking it at her body so that it touched her on the chest. She didn’t even flinch, jump, move, or give me that suspicious hard look. This was my biggest surprise, and it made me feel very good…she’s improving. She seems to do better when she’s looking at me with both eyes, than with just her left eye…her right eye makes her trust me. Her left eye doesn’t quite trust me fully.

I also did a bit with asking her to yield her forequarters. She is getting more forward and stepping across in front more consistently now. I think that is also a factor of trusting me more, and also me having better position when asking her. Our communication is getting better; she’s understanding what I’m asking. She’s funny, cuz when asking to yield to the left, she will try to pivot on her forelegs and walk around with her hindquarters. I have to tap her on the shoulder to loosen her up and get her shoulder to move. I didn’t work with her much on this, but I will need to more in the future.

I also attempted to spook her by unexpectedly jumping and hissing. She only raised her head the first few times. She’s caught on with that, and she’s not overreacting anymore. I danced like a crazy person, waving my arms around and jumping, and she raised her head and eyed me suspiciously at first, but didn’t move away. I alternated doing stressful things like jumping and spooking at her, with asking her to flex and drop her head. She went with both exercises well. She would raise her head up when I jumped around, but would drop it immediately when I asked her to. I was pleased. She was altogether much more relaxed this session than last session. She wasn’t raising her head suspiciously with that hard look in her eye every time I moved to do something else. That’s a big step.

I worked a lot with desensitizing her to me tossing the rope over her. I stood on her left side, and started with her rump and hind legs. That’s no problem for her, although the first few tosses, she was bobbing her head up and down. She will cock her leg when I stay behind her withers, but when I move up to her neck, she bobs her head, raises it up, looks around to the other side…anything to avoid actually accepting me tossing the rope. I tossed over her neck repeatedly, until I was getting bored with it. She just doesn’t relax. I was trying to watch her really closely and see small signs of slight acceptance or relaxation, and that’s all I got. She kept her head up high, but she would actually look at me once in a while (because once I stopped tossing when she did that, so she tried it again). Her eye wasn’t quite as hard, so I decided that was a good stopping point on that side. Then I moved to her right side, and what a difference! She had her head lower, and was totally accepting me tossing the rope up on her neck. It wasn’t because I had just been doing it on the other side, because she hadn’t really accepted it on that other side. She’s just really lopsided. I was shocked, but I guess that really illustrates that she has this wall built up on her left side, for whatever reason. I’m glad I started with her hard side, because I worked much longer at it than her good side. After the rope tossing, I went through the motions of jumping up on her back from both sides, and she really accepted that. It doesn’t bother her at all. If only I could jump higher, I’d jump up on her back and hang over her. After that, I let her be, and played with the dogs. She was a few feet away from a salt lick, and moved over to lick salt. I spent about 10 minutes with her while she licked salt (I don’t think they have a block in the pasture right now because of all the snow). She continued to lick while I messed with her and jumped around her. I took that as a sign that she’s more comfortable with me.

She’s doing really well. I think that I need to continue with the desensitizing for many more sessions, until she responds automatically with dropping her head and lateral flexion. I think that I should also wait to start lunging her until she completely accepts the rope tossing on her neck. I want her to trust me before I start driving her away from me, so that she isn’t confused. We need to build up our communication before I ask her something that she might mistake for me chasing her.

February 3nd, 2008, 8:30pm

"Post from the Past"

February 3nd, 2008, 8:30pm

I worked with Catlow for about 2 and a half hours today. I did not end up round penning her because I focused mainly on desensitizing. I had planned to desensitize her, then round pen her, then desensitize again, but as I started working with her, she was not responding well. She was doing okay with me tossing the rope at her (after the first attempt when she skittered all over the round pen). She settled down pretty quick though. The problem arose when I started asking her to flex laterally. She was really heavy. When I would pick up on the rope, she would respond and turn her nose toward me a bit, but I had to pull her head all the way to the side…well, I didn’t pull it all the way, just around to encourage her to flex to me and touch me or her side. But she wasn’t into flexing. She would just sit there and lean on the halter. Sometimes she would give just a bit, creating less pressure on the rope, but not slack. I’d reward her for that, but it didn’t encourage her to try harder the next time. The next time, she was just as heavy and would just hang there on the rope. She felt like she could hang there forever. I got sick of standing there and holding her head around, so I started moving around, kicking my feet, or waving my other hand. That actually seemed to make her want to find relief from the pressure. I’m not sure why she was okay with just standing there and hanging on the rope forever. My theory is that she doesn’t quite understand that I’m trying to ask her to cooperate with me. I think she might think that I’m just subjecting her to “torture” and that she needs to just put up with it until I quit. Giving her the reward of relief from pressure (like releasing the rope when she gives me slack) just wasn’t getting through to her as a good enough reward. But after I started making it more uncomfortable for her to just hang there (when I started moving around and waving my free arm around her face), she actually sought the reward because it was a greater reward then. Then she seemed to realize that I was asking her to give to me and try. After that, she would reach toward me and give me slack in the rope without me having to wiggle around. But it really took quite a while to make that happen. I feel bad that she doesn’t want to try with me…like I’m subjecting her to “torture” by working with her. She’d be perfectly happy if I just pet her once in a while and left her alone. But I think that what this means is that I just have to be more creative to find ways to show her that it will be more fun for her if she tries to do what I ask. As it is now, I’m asking (or rather, telling) her to do things, and she is only obliging because she has to, not because she wants to.

She is so different from working with Chico. I worked with Chico before I worked with Catlow. Working with Chico is like cutting butter with a hot knife, where as working with Catlow is like trying to cut frozen meat. Chico wants to be with me. He likes getting messed with. He is very willing. He also felt good today, not having been worked with in so long. I turned him loose in the round pen, and then I just stood in the middle. He started off and began cantering around immediately. I wasn’t asking him to do anything. He just went round and round. I ignored him and messed with my rope and he continued to alternate between cantering around and coming in to see what I was doing. (Catlow just stands by the side and watches me, not interested in moving or coming to investigate me). When I finally did begin working with him, he went easily, listened to what I was asking him to do, making trot-canter and canter-trot transitions easily. He also turned in and changed direction with vigor. Chico is a little bit one-sided so he likes to come off the fence when traveling to the right, but not as easily when traveling to the left (he needs a little bit more encouragement to come in and if he’s pushed too hard, he’ll turn to the outside). He came into the center when asked and I flexed him. He did not even need me to pull on the rope to ask him to flex and touch his side. He did it all with slack in the rope. He yielded his hindquarter when asked and also his forequarters, but he needs a little more work on the forequarters. I tried to spook him, and he did jump but only the first time. He’s not afraid of me. Then I did a new activity where I ran up the rope toward him. He looked at me like I was crazy and backed away, but only a few steps and he didn’t attempt to run away. It was fun. I would back away from him, and if he made an attempt to follow me, I’d just hold up my hand and say “whoa”. He’d stop and wait watching me as I backed up. Then I’d run toward him, sliding the rope through my hands as I went. He’d watch me intently, and back away as I got closer…mostly because he didn’t know what I was doing. We’ll have to work on that some more, but his first few times were okay. He was awesome for not having been worked with since last October. The thing that I liked the most was how when I would relax, he’d come right in to me. I’d love on him a bit. Then when I pointed out to the rail, he jumped to attention and headed the direction I pointed. I’ve never had to be harsh to get him to respect me like that. It’s a good feeling.

Okay, back to Catlow. I also asked her to drop her head just like I did yesterday. Yesterday’s lesson wasn’t so good. It took her a long time to “get” the drop head lesson. I asked her using two different cues. The first cue was a downward pull on the halter that puts pressure on her poll. I’ve done this before, but I’ve never consistently worked with her, so most of these lessons have been tried before, they just don’t stick with her. The second cue was pinching her skin on her poll. She seemed to understand both cues almost immediately, but then after a while of practicing, she seemed to not understand anymore. Maybe I was not giving her enough reward time before I started asking her again, so she didn’t think she was doing the right thing? Or maybe she got bored and didn’t want to play my game anymore. Or maybe it just wasn’t uncomfortable enough for her to want to find a way to relieve the pressure and she wasn’t interested in willingly cooperating with me. Whatever the cause, I tried to end on a good note yesterday, but she wasn’t being very consistent. Well, today when I tried both cues, she got them right away. She didn’t drop her head all the way to the ground, but she did drop it when asked. I didn’t try these cues until after I had been working on lateral flexion, so maybe that helped.

A really good thing that I noticed was that after she started flexing consistently and dropping her head when asked, she got really relaxed. That is a really good thing because if I can get her to respond immediately to those cues, then when I ask her to do that under pressure or when she gets worried, it will help her to remain calm. I think that will be a very important thing for this horse.

The thing that I really didn’t like about our lesson, and something that I think will take a lot of work to “fix” and is really just the manifestation of her lack of trust, was that every time I would move to do something else, or just move in general, she immediately raised her head up, got stiff, and got that hard look in her eye. Even after I’d ask her to drop her head and relax, the next move I made would elicit the raised head response and the hard eye. I hope that this is something that will go away as we continue our work and she learns to trust me.

So, today we worked on relaxing and not responding to random “spooks” and stimuli such as swinging ropes and stick and string. I was pleased with how the session ended. I gave her a few handfuls of grain as a reward at the end, and I think that I would like to do that next time, too. Just a little “thank you” for putting up with me. I’ve decided that I need to once again revamp my outline to work with Catlow. I think that I need to keep her on a line, and keep her with me. I don’t want to drive her away in the round pen without any control over her. I think that the line will keep her looking to me for direction instead of feeling like I’m chasing her. So, the next time I work with her I will do the desensitizing exercises again, and if there is time, I will move onto some lunging on a small circle. The lunging exercises will basically be geared toward getting her attention, listening to cues, and changing directions lots. I plan to stick with doing desensitizing first thing every lesson, then if there is time, we will progress beyond that. I expect that desensitizing will continue to take a long time in the beginning, but as she actually improves, I will have time to move onto other things. Lateral flexion and dropping the head will be part of the desensitizing routine that will turn out to be really important for keeping her calm.

I think that it will work, but it will take time, and I’ll probably have to revise my approach multiple times.