A Lesson in Herd Dynamics

In studying with Farrah, one of the things that she really emphasizes is to examine herd dynamics, and how the horses have to communicate with each other to get a message across, and then compare the similarities with how your communication is going. For example, with Prin, I've struggled recently with her taking what I say (no matter what it is) very personally. In watching her interact with Caesar and Wesley, Farrah's two horses, they'll be very polite to her, and she'll act pissy and offended. Hmmm...how intersting.

Anyway, recently, I've really tried to tune in to how horses will interact, and have really started to try to mimic those discussions, and read the super-subtleties that could be the difference in a polite or a rude response. The results have been fantastic, and my levels of communication and awareness with my horses have deepened 10-fold since returning home from Madison.

Last night, all that newly-found stuff was put to the test. I have recently decided to start playing with Richard's Morgan mare, Belle. Belle is a very interesting case because in short, she's RUDE. She's like an 8 or 9 on the Body Condition index for equines, a poster child for laminitis, a LBE, the daughter of the lead mare, and hasn't been handled in a training scenario more more than 50 hours in her 8 years. See why she might be a little rude?

Anyway, I've basically decided that I don't even want to put a saddle on Belle's back until she's lost a substantial amount of weight. What I decided is to do a couple weeks of intensive hill therapy, coupled with ponying her on any trail rides I go on (up and down hills and long distance are sure to happen). Yesterday I started on the hill in the pasture. It's a pretty gentle slope, great for beginning both under-muscled and over-weight horses because it's not a huge challenge. Here are photos of how it started out:





See how resistant she was? Even though her movement looks really nice, if I were to let go of the rope, she'd have taken off. She's got a VERY broken porcupine game. Unfortunately, it didn't take Belle long to figure out that I was on a bad foot (she's NOT dumb, just rude), and she also figured out that I couldn't stop her if she took off. So, she waited until LB distracted me (little horse was attacking my equipment), and she took advantage of it, and made a run for it. I had to let go.


Look, fatty can run!

To make matters worse, she took our entire herd with her. So not only is one horse running around like a crazy loony, they all are! I followed at a distance for a while(they were only in a 3 acre paddock, so it's not like they could just have their way and leave), before I realized how badly my foot was hurting me. "Dang, I could REALLY USE another set of legs right now..." I thought, somewhat incredulously. As SOON as I thought it, I got a small taste of true unity. No sooner did I think the thought, Prin peeled off from the herd, and came RUNNING to me. Richard was there to see all this, and would later say that it was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. Prin sidepassed up to me, almost begging for me to get on, and so I did.

What happened next was really neat. On her own, Prin cut Belle from the herd, cornered her, and then played approach and retreat until I could reach out and grab her lead rope. Once I got her, Prin set her up next to the fence so that she couldn't pull anything silly.



We proceeded to play with some online things for the next 1/2 and hour. Belle had this great resistant behavior going on, she'd blast out on the circle, and say "I'm LEAVING!" and like a good girl, Prin would follow with just enough drift to stay out of her way, but enough closeness to keep from ripping my arm off. Soon, Belle was getting curious as to what this new game was, but she wasn't about to give up her leadership to me.




Her next attempt was to actually take Prin, "My herd", so to speak, away from me. If you'll notice in this next photo, Prin is resisting her leadership, and trying to stick with me.




That behavior is a lot like walking up to a couple on the street, taking one half, flipping the other one off, and leaving. It's rude, mean, and NOT something a considerate individual does. So, two things, firstly, Belle's doing that is really not acceptable, and secondly, the fact that Prin resisted her and stuck with me says a ton for our partnership.

The session continued, and Belle began to realize she was running out of options. Oh no, it meant she might have to actually...give to my leadership? OH NO! She reluctantly started asking me questions. I could tell she wasn't thrilled with the idea, but asking a question is huge for a LB horse.





I started giving her the option of coming in and checking in with me. However, she didn't want to come to me, she wanted to come in and hide behind Prin. How interesting!
If you think about how an interaction would go between two herds that are first meeting, the leaders of the herds would most likely go meet up with each-other, check in, introduce themselves, and have a conversation. By coming in and hiding behind Prin, Belle was sort of coming in and trying to sneak into my herd without having to talk to me, the leader.

I didn't take it personally, but started getting a bit more insistent. The game was now "If you want to be in this herd, you come in and talk to ME, or you get kicked out...hard..."



Here, she resists that idea. I've invited her to walk with us as a herd, and she says "No, don't touch me.".

I kept playing with it, getting firmer and faster, until finally, Belle let out a HUGE exhale, and asked a question. I allowed her to come in, and she came right to me, touched my hand. End of session.



Thank goodness Richard was there to capture the entire thing on film, otherwise this story would sound far-fetched. It was a fantastic experience, and I came out of it with a TON of ideas on how I can more effectively communicate with Belle, and turn her development into a more positive thing.

I also came out feeling extremely touched and proud of my partnership with Prin. Not only has she proven herself as a friend, but she also showed that she upholds her responsibilities in the relationship. She went through this entire thing with me totally bridless. I didn't once have to ask her to do something, she just knew what I needed. That is what I call a partner!

I'll keep you posted as this time with Belle progresses. It should definitely be interesting!

Please leave me some comments, I'd love to hear what you think!

Advancing Porcupine, Bareback and Bridless

Tonight was a night for the Crest-myster, and a VERY interesting evening indeed! I decided to try a little more in the round pen, since it was a rocky thing the other night, and boy, things were different.

Started out a little RB again, very reactive and flighty to every little thing, but that got better as we kept playing. Started building up to some extreme friendly game again, since that seems to be his biggest issue at liberty (which is funny, because online, when mommy's holding his hand, he's FINE). Anyway, played some friendly and did some sideways, cutting and circling. Once he got moving around, Crest was feelin' fine, because he was tossing his head around, and kicking and playing. It's always fun to watch him be exuberant.

So then,(don't ask about my motivation) I decided that we needed to do some new things to advance our porcupine game. During the spring/early summer, Crest learned how to back by the tail, which was very cool, because he used to not let me even touch his zone 5. But anyway, back to this advancing porcupine. Tonight I decided to re-approach teaching Crest to follow a feel and back up by his hocks. This was kind of a gamble, and I knew it going into it, Crest is still unconfident with ropes and things around his back legs, but I figured that at least we'd get some good friendly in. In the past, when we've played with this, he's kicked, panicked and run off, started spinning, etc. So with that in mind, tonight I friendlied him up REALLY good, then, when I felt he was confident enough,I just asked him back really lightly, and much to my suprise (and satisfaction!) he was like..."mmmokay..." and just started walking backwards. Well, you can imagine how pleased I was!

After finishing up on the ground, I took a really HUGE leap of faith in my horse. Let me give you a bit of back story here. Some of you know this story already, but for those who don't, about 18 months ago, I had a pretty intense riding accident with Crest when we were riding bridless. There were some pretty raw emotions flowing through my mind, and Crest, being sensitive and 10x more RB than he is now, got scared, vaulted a 4.5 foot fence from a standstill with me on him, didn't quite clear it, got hung up, flipped, and landed on top of me. He crushed my knees physically, and mentally damaged my confidence hugely, not only in riding him, but riding in a round corral, in jumping any horse in general, and especially the idea of riding him bridless.

Tonight, for the first time successfully since that accident, I rode Crest bareback and bridless, and for the record, it was in a round corral! It wasn't like we just took off into the sunset, I assure you it was much lower key than that, but it was bareback and bridless. We were under control, LB (LBI to be exact...grass-diver!) and we did transitions! Walk-halt-back transitions, and we also turned, both yielding HQ and FQ. All this without even a rope around his neck! Of course, through the entire ride, I was trying not to start crying(mainly because, to be totally honest, I was scared shitless), but after I got off, I let out a big sigh, a laugh, and started crying and giggling into Crest's shoulder, while repeating (Dane Cook fans, see the Crying Sketch) "I survived, Cresty!!". That was HUGE for us! HUGE! AH! So excited!!

Confessions of a Finesse Addict

Haha, yep, you read right.

It's taken years for me to fall this head-over-heels in love with the fourth and most difficult savvy, but now, I'm addicted! Let me share some much needed humor about my new found addiction. There are many pros and cons, which I'm finding, much to my great amusement, and the slight irritation of my horse.

First of all, the difficulty in going back to the "old ways". No matter how much I want to, I can't help but think about finesse when I'm doing anything else. Tonight, for example, I was playing with Prin, very much at liberty in the North Paddock. And as we're running around and playing (OMG, my horse has gotten so LBE it's scary!) I'm watching her, thinking "Holy cow, she's REALLY USING HER TOPLINE WELL tonight!" ARGH! I'm sorry Prin! You're gorgeous, that's all!

Secondly, readjusting to new movement. I've been riding in a saddle mostly for the past week or so. There's been a large gap in the amount of bareback I've done (curse my fluidity saddle?) recently, and boy did I feel it tonight, not only in the sense that it's been a while, but also that my horse has built new muscles (YAY!) and her movement has changed...again! So, big, bouncy, HQ driven movement, combined with lack of bareback riding=BAD! So, I'm back to freestyle for a while...I've got to, for both my and my horse's sanity!

Thirdly, lack of response to turns with the Carrot Stick. There was a time earlier this summer when Prin was headed towards reining quality spins using just the CS. Yeah, not so much anymore! We spent about 10 minutes this evening just doing 180s on the fence, simply because we needed it. She did great though, I'll give her that.

Fourthly, Doesn't Parelli say somewhere, sometime (or, erm...A LOT, ALWAYS) to ride finesse like you don't have reins, and to ride freestyle like you've got them? Since WHEN has it been the other way around?! I've become somewhat overzealous with using my reins. *Slaps hands* BAD FRAN! And it's subtle too, it's not like I'm pulling her head around, I just found myself going to use reins, and not having them tonight. Must start using my body more in my finesse.

All in all though, really, I'm THRILLED with how the finesse is going. But there are 4 savvies for a reason, and despite my addiction, I'm losing focus on the other three. So I guess the point of this is, GET BACK ON TRACK FRANNIE! (But keep up with the Finesse)

So that's my little confession. I'm amused.

Great playday!

I had a GREAT evening play session with Mickey, Prin, and Knightly last night. I was kind of insistant with Mickey that she play with a horse, because the past few sessions, she's come down and watched me and asked questions, which is GREAT, but she needs to get some play time in where she APPLIES the knowledge too-haha. I didn't get to watch much, I played with Prin mostly (more on that in a sec) but what I saw was really great. Mickey started out with Knight, who she's absolutely in love with. They warmed up playing on the 12' line, playing games with cones and working on refining the yoyo game. Knight's got personal space issues, which is hysterical, because he's such a little horse and Mickey's so tall, that it's a bit like a Shetland pony trying to shove over a tree. They did really well on that though, from what I saw.

I played with Princess on getting her to lighten up and be snappier on her transitions and send on the 45' line, and then did some liberty. She's getting more and more extroverted by the day. What's REALLY funny is that last weekend, Linda told me Remmer was getting the same way, so COOL!

I swear, even 6 weeks ago, I never would have dreampt of having THIS MUCH FUN with Prin, and that's saying something, because we always have fun. It seems like we've all of a sudden hit another breakthrough period, and things are just GREAT now. She's becoming more of an extrovert, and we're starting to blossom.

After the ground stuff, we hopped on and I did some bridless riding, and Micky and I played follow the leader (Princess did all the leading, we just sat back and let 'er rip) and then we switched horses.

Knight and I tore around causing trouble (LBEs need something to DO!!!!) and Micky experienced her very first bridless ride!! I was SO PROUD of her. She kept marvelling over how LIGHT and RESPONSIVE Princess was, and almost how comforting it was to not NEED the reins. They walked and trotted, turned, changed directions, did some circles and some backing. I was really impressed with how well Micky did, and also, how great Prin was. She was REALLY responsive to what Micky asked, and took it slow at first when she felt Micky's unconfidence. I'm SO proud of my horse, and of my "little sister" :)

So that was my great session last night. I expect I'll blog again later today about today's sessions. I have a lesson lined up in 1/2 an hour, so I'll talk about that for sure! Thanks for reading.

Fear, Frustration, Fluidity issues, and oh, some FUN!

Interesting day today. First let me start out by asking everyone to tell me to GET SOME SLEEP when I complain about being cranky. It's been almost 2 weeks since I've gotten more than 9 hours of sleep, and it's reflecting in my patience and tolerance for silly things.

First of all, my frustration. My theraflex pad has decided that it needs to slip forward when it's being used under my fluidity saddle. Fortunately, as wonderful as the the saddle is, it doesn't follow the pad, but it results in a mess on the back of the saddle when it actually slides OFF. GRR! Here are some of the options I've gone over in my head:

*At first I thought that I might have been driving with my seat without knowing it (I noticed this after playing with the collected canter).

But I ruled that out, because I sat on my thumb, and it came out in one piece and pain free. Also, when I took the saddle off, there was very little ruffling on her back.

*So, is it simply because the pad is dirty?

*Is my horse just getting that uphill?

*Or am I over shimmed?

I'm perplexed. Fortunately, I emailed LP about the problem, so I'll post what she says when she responds.

The FUN in this came in when I decided to eliminate the "dirty" option for the pad, and cleaned it. It was about 85 and humid today. Humidity (and sweat-ICK!) makes my grouchy, and I know from experience that a theraflex pad is best cleaned a tub of water. So, see these photos of what happened next. It's GREAT fun, and it does a surprisingly thorough job of cleaning it!


Feet are better than ANY scrub brush, and you get a good massage while doing it...Win-Win situation!


Doin' the twist-that's the best motion to loosen all that stubborn dirt and hair.


That water has been changed 3 times, and it's still scuzzy.


And of course, finish with a rinse :)



Okay. Now. Fear and fluidity issues. Bear with me, this may be a bit scattered. I have come to the conclusion (temporary or not, hopefully the former) that I CANNOT ride Crest. Or actually no, let me rephrase that, I cannot ride Crest WELL. It is disgusting and sad for me to say, but I'm terrified of him. He's getting more and more LBE every day with a rider,(yay?) but has a tendency to get scared when I'm not fluid with his antics, which is a cataclysmic situation. See, Crest has HUGE bouncy gaits (particularly in trot), and likes to crow hop in the canter. I'm a very naturally balanced rider, and am fairly fluid too. I come from the hunter/jumper realm where the horses have big strides, so I'm used to that a bit too. But this is just...strange. I SOLIDLY refuse to ride Crest in a saddle until I'm somewhat fluid on him bareback. The reason I'm being so stubborn here, is because I don't want to use my stirrups as an excuse to not become a stronger, better rider. But the problem comes in when Crest breaks the trot. I have a really healthy respect for what this horse is capable of since my accident (shouldn't even THINK of that, but it did do some damage) and so when he gets going big, I get tense, whether I want to or not. Now riding in a bareback pad recently has helped IMMENSELY, but still...I KNOW Crest is not offering a nice easy trot for me either. I've seen it on the ground, and experienced it when he's in a good state of mind, and for some reason (probably due to my recent developing fear) I can't get it. So anyway. That's my fear issue. I'm hating it, today we went for a solid HOUR, were both dripping with sweat, and I was almost in tears because I was so mad at myself. I just need to learn to trust him again, and I just kept thinking "What would Linda Do? What would Farrah say?" and that made it worse, because I KNEW I was wrong...so ACK... I know it's me, and of course that's a step in the right direction, but GAH! Mental development in it's finest. I WILL get this eventually!

Savvy out, wish me luck!