More riding!

My mom had surgery to clean the arthritis off a little bone at the base of her thumb, so she has been off work since last week. She can't do much with only one hand, but she sure makes a great babysitter while Wren is napping! Consequently, I'm taking advantage of having her around and this week, my mom has been coming over every morning around 9am when Wren goes down for her first nap of the day.

Then I take off and get my horse out. Sometimes I ride alone, sometimes I call my neighbors, and sometimes I don't ride at all - I trim one. I rode with a friend of my husband's for the first time earlier this week too. She has a large sorrel paint mare. I've been taking my camera along when I go out, but sometimes I still forget to take pictures. I did take this one picture of Cody after we got back from our ride.

Another wonderful thing I did this week was take Catlow out for the first time in 2 years. I'd been focusing on riding Chico and Cody more this summer because they have more riding time on them already and I figured if I had limited time, I should focus on them. Plus, Catlow can be quite nervous when ridden out alone, and I hadn't gotten the courage up to get her out and try her. But yesterday morning, the horse I was going to trim was out in the pasture out of sight, while Catlow, Cody and Chico were all in the barn keeping away from the flies. I'd just ridden Cody the day before and Chico the day before that, so I figured I might as well get Catlow out. She was due for a trim, and I figured I could saddle her up and see how she was...maybe take her for a walk in the woods (it rained a bit the night before and made the round pen base greasy, so I couldn't lunge in it). She was calm and good for her trim and saddling, but as soon as I began just asking her to walk around me in the yard, she started to get nervous and was responding to my soft slow cues very rapidly. I started leading her out into the woods. She was better than when I was lunging her (she often wants to respond too quickly to cues just due to still not being 100% comfortable with people asking her to do things). On an open spot on the trail, I lunged her again, and she was uptight at first, and concerned about being out alone, but quickly she began to pay attention to me and she settled down a bit, not overreacting to changes of direction and stopping. She was still worried though.

It probably helped that I had treats along so she got a reward every time she whoa'd and relaxed. Then I rode out around the pond. She was still nervous so she was walking fast (so fast she was "gaiting" at times but she doesn't technically "gait"), but she was responding well. Catlow has a huge motor powered by her nerves. She will push up hills without slowing and barely tiring. Because of that push and heart that she has, I enjoy riding her. I wish she could relax a little more when we are out alone, but perhaps that will come with age...or never. It is who she is. She is the lead mare and the watch mare in my herd, but Cody is above her in the dominance hierarchy. Catlow leads everyone from place to place and often is seen grazing apart from the herd. But that doesn't mean she's comfortable without them. They are always with her, except when I make her go out riding. Catlow is a totally different horse when I ride her out with another horse, either leading the other horse, or riding along. Then, she is totally calm. People who've ridden with me barely believe me when I tell them that Catlow gets nervous alone because they've never seen it and she is just so calm otherwise. After we left the pond, we came down into our neighbor's yard and chatted for a bit (Catlow had a hard time standing in one place, but by the time I left, she had relaxed considerably). Then we rode through my husband's pipe yard (very scary), and then home. It wasn't too long of a ride, but it was a good first ride out and I'm always so glad when I do something that I'd been avoiding and it turns out well.

Today, I rode Chico with my neighbors again. I was a little late getting on the trail (had to meet the dump truck with the sand for the round pen, YAY!), so I had to ride out and catch up to them. I took a few pictures of the trail on the way to where they were.

Then I popped out into the field on top of the hill. They were at the very far edge of the field. I could see their helmets gleaming in the sun, so we trotted to catch up. I didn't take anymore pictures after I caught up to them because I promptly forgot about my camera. Today, we came down out of the trails and rode along the highway for a while for something new. The highway is underconstruction and all tore up and gravel right now. There was no machinery on the stretch we rode today and the few cars that drove down it all were going very slow. So it was a good intro to the road and traffic for my neighbor's horses. Plus it was quite the obstacle course with all the signs and orange barrels. It was really good for Chico, who at first was very leary about going down the road past mailboxes today. Usually he's much braver, but today he was really bothered for some reason. Flies on his face, maybe the cinch, it's hard to say what all it was that was bothering him, but he was tossing and shaking his head a lot and getting rushy sometimes...then balking at going past mailboxes. By the time we left the road, he was much more relaxed with all the construction.

Tonight, we are going to get the drain tile dug in, then spread the sand around the round pen area, and maybe even put the panels up, but we'll see how much time we have. So excited!!!

What have I gotten myself into?

Well, we had a little mishap today. We are dealing with a very very fearful boy. He has decided that the barn is his safe place and he retreats here every time I come around the outside of his pen (I don't go inside his pen because he can't handle it). Well, then I needed to go in to feed him, so I was standing in the barn and he was snorting at me from the far corner of the pen. I was walking around in the barn and tossing hay flakes out to him. He's not afraid of the hay flakes flying through the air, but if I move to fast or toward him, he becomes extremely panicked. I was standing in the doorway by the edge and he decided to make a run for it, INTO the barn and straight into the panel. I ducked out of the barn and into the pen as soon as I saw he was making a move for it. The panel bent, but held him in.


He's fine, just a little scrape on his nose. I climbed out of the pen while he was still in the barn, then came around to try to make sure that he saw me in the barn after the whole thing was over. I didn't want him to think that his panicky flight made me go away. In this picture, he is still snorty, but as long as I stand very still, he'll come forward to investigate the hay...but he does NOT like that I'm there. At all. I have to admit that I am very intimidated by this horse, but I think now I see that he is absolutely scared to death. The problem is, how can I work with him at all if I can hardly stand on the outside of his pen without him running off and retreating for the barn? We are putting in a garden on the hill behind him, so he'll get to see us doing things around him. He's not afraid of THINGS, just people. He was intensely interested when we came out with the rototiller, but after a few minutes he was ignoring us again and eating hay. People are the bad guys.

I guess we'll just give him time working outside the pen right now...and if he doesn't settle down any more, I'm going to need some serious help with him. I don't think I'm experienced enough to deal with this kind of a fearful horse...one that can potentially get aggressive to defend himself because he feels so threatened.


In an extreme contrast is the little girl. She'll roll, eat oats with me standing on the outside of the pen and a few feet away. And today, I saw her sleeping. She saw me come closer, but didn't care. She was tired. I also heard her cough a few times today. It was really phlegmy when she inhaled between coughs. I hope it's just a passing thing due to stress, because it would really suck to try to treat her for pneumonia. I only heard her cough about 4-5 times in a row, and that was just one time. But she is sweet and has grown on me already in just a day.

I SO wish she was a little bigger. If she doesn't grow, she'll either be my pack pony, or maybe I can have her trained to pull a cart (not by me since I have no experience with that). Or she just might actually have that fabulous of a disposition that she could be a kids horse. She's really not very spooky. I can walk around in her pen and she just calmly moves to the far side. I can stand in the middle and sometimes she'll stop and look at me and think about coming closer, but she doesn't yet. Today I cleaned out the shed right next to her pen to make room for my saddles. I was banging, putting in nails for hangers, throwing stuff around and appearing out of no where, and she just watched without jumping. The only times she jumped was when she was facing away eating and I SUDDENLY appeared from around the corner. Other than that, I think the shed cleaning was a really good lesson for her. I did ALOT of moving around and working, throwing strange things on the ground outside her pen, and she accepted it and wasn't afraid. I think that being in the front pen gives her the benefit of seeing me interact with the "tame" horses. Chico and Cody always come up to the fence when they see me in the shed (they are thinking treats), so she'll come forward and stand at the fence with them, but so far, she's been too chicken to sniff the treat in an outstretched hand.

no more posts from the past, but now you get posts from the present!

So the last post ended my "Posts from the Past". That was as far as I got in my horse journal. And a few months after that, I started writing in this blog, so that takes over for the journal. So, I guess I'm caught up now! What a daunting process it was to write about all that I've done with the mustangs.

It's so interesting to see how calm and relaxed Catlow was getting toward the end of the journal...because then I went and hauled her and the other two to Wisconsin, and completely upset her. Chico and Cody took the relocating to a new place just fine. They could care less where they are as long as they have eachother. Catlow, however, was not okay with this new place...completely new. New trees, new grasses, new sounds...just altogether, NOT the west where she grew up. I was rather upset that she took it so hard back in November. She took it so hard, that all that trust that she built up in me sort of got buried in her worry. She was no where near calming down even 2 weeks later. Now, they've been in WI for 3 months and my parents say that she seems more relaxed. They don't do anything with the horses except feed them and give them treats. Catlow comes over to get her treats just like the others. I think the couple of months to settle in will have done her good and by the time I get home, she'll be ready to have a refresher and she'll be able to put some trust back in me, since she won't be quite as worried about her surroundings. She was REALLY bad though back in Nov when I took her for a ride. What a backslide she did. I really hope this isn't a permanent thing....

Speaking of getting back to my horses, I am planning to be in Wisconsin by the beginning of April! That leaves me only about 5 weeks left here! I'm excited, but torn too. I have great friends here and I really like this area. But I miss my family and my sister just had a baby!

So, back in December, my mom (who is a computer nut), wired up a web cam in the barn and using her wireless internet, she set it up so that I can access it on a link from here in ID! So, I've been logging in to see my horses most days. It's really cool! I took a few screen captures of them, just because I thought it was so neat. It's pretty much real time, although I know that it is a bit delayed (from the times my dad called me from his cell phone while he was up there and I was watching on the webcam). Here are a few pictures.







The way is looks on the computer screen is much higher resolution than what the screen captures turned out to be.

Now, the unfortunate thing is that my parents sold their house (just the house and 2 acres on the opposite side of the road from the rest of our property), and now they are temporarily renting a place a few miles away. This means that today my mom disconnected her wireless internet....so no more horsecam! I now have to go 5 weeks without even seeing them. I guess I'll have to get my mom to send me some pictures. It is of course, just not the same as being able to walk out into their pasture and touch them, and smell their wonderful horsey scent. I can't wait till to see them...

February 18th, 2008

"Post from the Past"

February 18th, 2008

Yesterday I took Catlow for a walk. We went all the way to where the creek crosses Dry Creek Rd. I figured the mileage to be 4 miles round trip. It was a good walk for me, but it was unnerving for Catlow. She was good for parts of the walk, but there were places (namely the red barn and all the way to the creek and back) where she was very nervous and snorty. She would start doing the horse sneeze thing, and when she was nervous, it was fast and bursty. A couple of times, she actually did the alarm snort, like a deer makes when you startle them in the woods. The very first part of the walk consisted of me basically pulling her. Then once she started getting nervous, she picked up the pace and I had to make sure that she didn’t get too far ahead of me. Pretty much for most of the walk, she was not very cooperative with the lateral flexion. She would do it, but it was really forceful and as soon as she gave to me, she’d whip her head back straight and stiff again. If I tried to get her to keep her head around, she just kept pulling it back till she hit the lead rope, and then flexing and pulling it back again…violently. When I wouldn’t give it back to her, she would get kind of upset and then start circling. Once, she actually tried to pull the rope out of my hands instead of flexing. When she did that, I yanked on the lead rope to ask her to back up. Actually, I had to do that a lot. When I ask her to back up, she does focus on me, but if I let her stand still too long, she starts to get anxious. She did a couple of times, refuse to back up and instead would go from side to side and try to walk forward around me (my back was facing home). I did take Cody past the places where I walked Catlow, and Cody was on edge for some of the time as well, so I guess that I can’t blame it all on Catlow. I wrestled with trying to decide if I should continue her training or give up on her today. After all, I have two other horses that progress easily when worked with, and they both need additional work too. I ultimately decided that I will continue her training, but now that she is getting better inside, I need to take her for more walks. I’ll give her a couple of weeks of walks, and if there has been no discernible improvement, then I’ll have to re-evaluate what I’ll do with her then (give up, or continue). I’d like to be able to ride her alone, but at this point I’m accepting that this might not happen. I think that I need to ride with another horse (hopefully Cody and Doni) so that Catlow is calmer. She might be able to gain confidence doing all these things with another horse, then maybe we can progress to working alone. I rode Chico alone for the first several times, but Cody spent her whole first summer riding with other horses, and they are both doing well, although I’d say Chico is more confident than Cody about being alone. So, the current plan is, keep her going on the walks and practicing all our moves out on the road, and at the same time, I am going to work her up to the saddle on our indoor lessons (this shouldn’t take long, since I have sat on her before). Then, after a few weeks, I’ll begin ponying her under saddle with Cody. Then, depending on how she does, I’ll ride her with Doni on Cody. I’d also like to continue working Chico in this time, as he is getting lonely in the field.

Catlow is getting better about trusting me in the field. I didn’t work with her today; instead I worked Cody and Chico, but I did take Catlow’s blanket off so that she could enjoy the warm air on her skin today. And she did let me put the blanket back on without haltering her later.

Today, I worked both Chico and Cody. First I worked with Chico in the round pen. I let him loose, while I picked up the plastic bag on the stick and walked around nonchalantly waving it. He snorted and ran around the pen. Tango (2 year old filly) and the two weanlings were in the barn, and Tango started snorting and blowing and scaring the babies. They all ran back and forth through the barn and Chico tried to run with them. Every time that he stopped and looked at me, I put the bag down and praised him. Finally, he walked up to me, to sniff the bag. He just needed to get a little spook out. When that was over, he ignored the bag and approached me for a treat. He was nervous about the bag a little bit, but he adjusted to it well. He didn’t like it over his head, but he accepted it by the end. The only thing that really worried him was when I was flapping it up and down on his sides. He did panic and run away. I think he partly didn’t know what I was asking him to do, and once he decided he was to stand there, he did accept it, although he wasn’t super pleased with it. This was his first time with the bag like this, so I thought he took it really well. Then we did some lunging and flexing and yielding the hindquarters. He remembered this all well. Then I tried to teach him to yield the forequarters. This took quite a bit of repetition, but I think that with continued future lessons, he’ll catch on quickly. It was all brand new to him and he wasn’t sure what I was asking. We’ll continue to work on this, because I think he will be the one to make the connection under saddle.

I worked with Cody next. First, I trimmed her feet up a bit. Her right foot was more upright than her left, so I took heel off of both front hooves, but a bit more off the right. The right front is still just a bit more upright. The left hoof had a longer toe, so I just rasped the tip of the toe off (didn’t make it shallower, just shorter). Her back hooves appeared to be too long in the toe and low at the heels, so I just rasped the toes shorter so that it’d be easier for the hoof to break over. I rasped until the hoof wall surrounding the white line was the same width on the toes as it naturally was on the side (it was thicker to begin with at the toe).

In the round pen, I did the same order of events as with Chico. Cody ran around a bit at first with the introduction of the plastic bag, but very quickly, she was stopping and staring at me to figure out what I was doing. When approached with the bag, she smelled it, and didn’t flinch at all when I touch her withers with it. All in all, Cody was not at all afraid of the bag. She was even fine with me sliding it over her head. The flapping it on her side did bother her at first, but she only flinched and made to move off, but I bumped her nose and told her to stand and she got over it really quickly, and then just stood there looking at me. I flexed with Cody, but she is really bad at it. Always has been. She’s actually pretty good when I’m out riding, but if we are just standing around and I ask her to flex, she is really heavy. I have to pull her around, and bump on the rope to get her to touch her side. She doesn’t seem to get better with repetition; she gets worse. It’s not the same thing as with Catlow, where she shuts down. Instead, I think that Cody is just testing me, and being a bit lazy. I’ll have to try getting her to really move her feet, then asking her. Maybe if I use the dressage whip, she’ll give better. I think that I should try to teach her to bow or lay down. She’s pretty comfortable with herself, so I think that she’d do it once she understood what I was asking. She remembered the yielding the hinds well, but teaching the yielding the fores was completely a new thing. She wanted to walk forward at first, and I had to really get after her, bumping the rope to prevent her from walking forward, and I had to hustle my feet to keep at her head. She wasn’t getting the girth pressure, as the cue to step across, but I think it’s because I was rushing it. I need to start from the very bottom with this step, since Cody has not done it before. We will continue more with the next lesson.

After that, I lunged her and used the plastic bag to ask her to move. Wow, did I have a breakthrough! She has always been really lethargic about cantering on the lunge line; in fact, in lessons, Katie was having me just try to get a few canter strides out of her before stopping her so I’d catch her before she stopped on her own. Using the plastic bag, she took right off into the canter, and I even had her on a fairly short rope (she wasn’t at the edge of the round pen). I was able to get her to canter in both directions. I didn’t push it too much because I want didn’t want to tire her too much (she was puffing and worked up a sweat). A couple of times, she’d face me as asked, but when I asked her to go back out, she’d just stand there and I had to really get after her. Over all, she was really hustling. She was also being a bit disrespectful, as a couple of times when I asked her to go out, she’d hump her back and kick out, and start bucking. I didn’t get upset about it because this was really the first time she’s been worked since she colicked in October. She was just testing me, and making sure that I knew that she was going, but she didn’t like it. She quit trying to kick out after she got tired. Then I bridled her, and we went off down the road for a trail ride. She did the same as always, although she was a little uncertain in some areas (same ones that got Catlow worried). I rode bareback, so after our 4 mile ride, I was pretty tired.

January 29, 2008 (really late at night…actually I think technically it’s morning)

Entry #1

Today I decided that I need to get organized and make some goals for training my horses this spring. I want to focus on Catlow, since she’s four now and has never really been ridden. She also needs the most work out of the three…she is more fearful and suspicious of humans and being alone than the other horses.

So, step one, I decided, is to write down the problems that I’ve had with her in the past (problems that have persisted primarily because I didn’t have the time to continue work with her on a regular basis), and then write a plan of action as to how I want to approach “fixing” them. Then, I will make a schedule of days to work with Catlow and stick to that schedule. I will keep a regular journal of the approaches and activities I try and how Catlow responds to them. Right now, it is really late at night, so I am just going to list the “problems” that I’d like to overcome with Catlow and some goals.

Major goal: Ride Catlow on the trail alone by summer (mid-May)

Major issue to overcome before that goal can be reached:
Catlow is suspicious of me. I can catch, handle, do anything with her, except that if I move too fast, she still startles. If I move too fast toward her in the pasture before she’s caught, it will take me a long time to catch her. I think part of that stems from her being lower on the totem pole than the other horses, and when most horses move toward her, she gets out of their way. So she’s kinda doing that with me, but I think she’s also just avoiding me, cuz being with me is stressful for her.

Manifestations of Catlow’s lack of trust:
1) If I move too fast when catching her, or act too intent on catching her, she will move away from me and avoid me. She’ll often get other horses between us, and if I keep pursuing her, she’ll run away from the “herd”. I currently deal with this by acting very nonchalant when I walk up to her…I be sure to not walk straight up to her and face her head on. I sort of walk toward her, then let her approach me. This works always…unless I trip over horse poop on the way to her and then she thinks that I’m chasing her, so she runs.
2) Desensitizing exercises never seem to stick with her. She ALWAYS reacts when I toss a rope, string, my hand, saddle blanket, anything, over her back or neck. Her reactions vary from running away and circling me on the lead rope, taking a long time before she stands still and “accepts” it to not running and standing still, but even when she is “accepting” the exercise, she has a look on her face that says she doesn’t like it or trust it (wrinkle under her eye, stiff neck and lips, head held high). Maybe I don’t do the exercises long enough, but I think I’d have to do them all day, everyday to get her bored with them. She does seem to be okay with me tossing a rope around her legs and toward her rump. She gets more upset the closer to her head I get.
3) She doesn’t like to move out in the round pen. I can get her to go at a steady trot, but if I’d like her to canter, I have to keep on her and keep on her. She’ll canter, but kind of in a scooting forward manner, tail clamped, and she wants to keep shutting down and quitting on me. I feel bad really getting after her to go because I feel like the chasing thing is one reason that she doesn’t trust me. She works really well at the trot in the round pen and on the lunge line, but cantering is harder…maybe it’s just because there’s not much room to canter and she’s unbalanced. I ponied her off my other horse several times. The first time I tried to get her to canter following us, she just trotted faster and faster and faster…never breaking into a canter. The next time, I timed asking her to break into a canter with a downhill slope, and really urged my horse to pick up the pace and that worked. She finally broke into a canter and kept it up. I really haven’t worked with her since then, but I feel like trying alternative options to get her to enjoy moving out might be worthwhile rather than chasing her around the round pen. Then again, maybe I just need to get more firm and stop feeling like I’m chasing her…maybe I’m looking at it all wrong.
4) She’ll often get really worried when I lead her out by herself (without other horses). She does well if we are on a single-track trail in the woods and ask her to follow behind me. But when we are in the open, she’ll sometimes get distracted (usually she sees the neighbor’s horses) and get really flustered. She almost forgets that I’m there with her. When this happens, I’ve been jerk, jerk, jerking on the halter to ask her to back up and get out of my space (she tends to crowd me when she’s worried). This seems to work pretty well, but it doesn’t prevent her from getting worried in the first place. Maybe I just need to give her more things to do and keep her more occupied when I lead her out. I do think that might help. It helps Cody keep focused on me instead of trying to veer home all the time.
5) So, maybe her crowding me when she’s worried is a problem in itself that needs to be better addressed.

These are all the things I can think of right now as far as problems go. For the most part, Catlow is very well behaved and she’s really good with her feet. I can even trim her myself unaided. Most of her issues seem to stem from lack of trust or respect (or maybe both), but I do think that she respects me…she just doesn’t trust that I’m not trying to eat her or do something unpleasant. So in that sense, maybe she doesn’t trust or respect me enough to be her leader, but she does respect me enough to fear me (sometimes) and want to avoid stressful situations with me. I don’t know…part of the reason I’m writing this journal is to evaluate how I am approaching her training and to figure out how I need to change it to be more effective at getting her to trust and respect me enough to be her leader so that she doesn’t have to fear me or situations that we get ourselves into (namely, trail riding alone).