Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

I had big plans to ride Skye for an hour each day of the weekend, hoping to make great progress on the ground and under saddle. Two things got in the way. On Saturday, the boys, and today, her lameness.

The boys had a rough week in school this weekend, with lots of homework and a big project due on Friday. However, they had procrastinated wildly on the project and one of them belatedly informed that he had turned in, not one, but two homework assignments late. After years of never once missing a homework assignment, now that it counts as part of a grade, he messes up. So they were grounded from Wii or video games of any kind to help them get some perspective. I decided to take the opportunity to take them to the barn with me, since they wanted to get out of the house. So they came along.

Big mistake. They were polite enough to everyone, but once they had literally waved hello to the dinkies from 20 yards away, (Who can resist the dinkies for heaven's sake? It's just weird) and found and petted the barn cats Sugar and Smokey, they were ready to go.  They came and spoke to me when I was grooming Skye, but I don't know if they even touched her. They didn't offer to give her a treat. They just don't have any interest in horses. What is up with that? They got my blue eyes and bad temper; why not this? When I got her, I was hoping they would develop an interest and want to ride or participate in some way. 

Here they are with her the day after I brought her to the Greenway:

Boys showing the appropriate reaction to a horse

Now, that looks normal. (Except for her ribs, but we have taken care of that problem with some nice lush grass.)

But Saturday, they were just bored, so I couldn't stay out too long and really work her without worrying about them. So although I groomed her and treated the fungus rain-rot  thing on her legs with some stuff Erin gave me, I felt like a wasted a good day because I brought them with me. 

I did gain some perspective though. They are mine, but they are not me. They won't necessarily like the things I like, and they will continue to like things I don't like (i.e. video games, poop jokes, fart jokes, and peppermint), and that is just the way it is. Now I can go to the barn, and it is just about me and what I want, and I don't have to share it with them, and they don't really want me to anyway.  It also makes me feel more justified in buying Skye, who is a handful, instead of the adorable paint gelding that I was considering. The gelding would have been great for them and okay for me, but they don't really care.

I'm not giving up on Dave yet though! 

Today, Skye was in a bit of a marish mood, not happy, but even at her grumpiest, she is cooperative for the most part. I see all these videos and read books about problem horses, and she doesn't approach the problems I see.   When I worked her in the round pen, she crowded me a couple of times, then didn't want to go out, and didn't want to walk, then didn't want to stop. Just basically being a butthead. But never aggressive. An aloof butthead. An aloof gorgeous butthead.

As luck would have it, someone left their dressage whip (not a true whip, it's more like a long stick) in the ring, so I picked it up and showed it to her. I'd been wanting to bring mine in the ring with us to do some more advanced stuff, but hadn't needed it. Today I did, just to use it as an extension of my arm to push her out into the ring, and to bring her up to a trot. I showed it to her, then rubbed it all over her body. She was as bored as can be.  She did respond better to me when I had it though, and not in a nervous way. All I wanted was a walk, stop, and trot in various orders. But when I trotted her, she was definitely limping, and it was worse than the last time. I had her trot in both directions, and her head was bobbing both ways now. It didn't show up in the walk, but with it looking worse, I didn't want to get on her and force her to put more weight on it.

And yet, despite the moodiness and having to keep pushing to keep her respectful, she clearly wanted my approval in a couple of spots. For those few moments, I feel so rewarded. I've said before that I will constantly have to earn her respect, but my goodness, when I get it from her, it's something worth having. There's this particular feeling I get from her; it's fleeting, but it's precious. And as quick as it is, it beats anything I've felt from another horse. Now the trick to get it more often and to last longer. 

But for now, I need to call the vet. 

Red Mare Walking

I had another beautiful evening with my girl. She was perfect coming in from the pasture, which was a relief. On Sunday, she balked on the way in a couple of times. Only for a few seconds each time, but I let it hurt my feelings even if it didn't effect our time together. Today she came right in and was perfect once again in the cross ties.

I didn't have much time since it was a weeknight, so I concentrated on getting her clean  enough to tack up, then put her in the round pen and put the saddle on her. I showed her the pad and saddle first, but she wasn't even interested. This was only the fourth time I've put the saddle on her to ride since she pulled back like a crazy woman in August, and now she's acting like she can't even be bothered to pay attention.

My girl engaged in her favorite activity

All I wanted was a repeat performance of Saturday, ending with a nice quiet walk around the round pen.  I had walk a few circuits in each direction, then had her do a couple of walk to trot transitions on the line, and she was just perfect. She didn't stop as fast as I wanted her to yet, but I was much firmer and more clear with my intentions and I did get better results even if they weren't the ones I wanted. I called her in to me and loved on her, but her attention was elsewhere.

In the pasture behind the round pen, one of the barn members was trying to get Black, a gorgeous Friesian/Tennessee Walker gelding, to go through an obstacle that looked like a white shower curtain that had been run through a paper shredder. He was having none of it, but Skye was very curious. She looked at it, ears pricked, so I walked her to the end of the ring for her to eyeball it. She looked at intently for about 30 seconds, then looked right at me to see if I was scared. I shook my head. "I ain't afraid of that thing, are you?" She let out a long sigh, then tried to graze. A few minutes later it fell down for some reason, and her muscles twitched, but she didn't seem that concerned. I was pleased that her first reaction was to want to look at it, and she was happy to let me lead her closer to it.

Under saddle, she was just as good as gold.  I stayed on about 20-25 minutes as it was quite dark by this time, but it was beautiful, and she was so relaxed. I think she felt relieved to be able to walk quietly and not worry about having to be cowboyed around. And I'm so proud that it was my own idea that led to the breakthrough.

This weekend I will do it again, but with more groundwork to improve her listening and more riding to work on her giving nicely to the bit and backing up. I think I will move to the big ring as well, walking her around in there and then lunging at a walk as well.

It seems like a small thing just getting her to walk in the ring, but it's a big accomplishment because it's what I wanted. More importantly, it taught me that if I try, I can sometimes get into her head.

Her Excellency!

Her Excellency

Oh my goodness, did we have a good day today! My goals today were for her to have good manners, lunge with the saddle on at a walk and trot and attempt to get her to walk around in the ring without breaking into a trot. I really wanted to see if the problem was the saddle or me or her or what.  It turns out, the problem looks like it was just that she was taught the wrong things, some by previous owners and some by me and my last trainer.

It was feeding time when I arrived, so I got to bring her in to eat, which I love since it gets me the credit of feeding her.  She was pretty anxious to get to her food, but wasn't too pushy being led.  I stopped her a couple of times to make sure she would stop nicely and listen. She usually does this for me, but since she is handled for feeding by many people, I want to remind her of her manners for their sake as well.

While she was eating, I got out the saddle, pads, girth and bridle and put them on the rail of the round pen which is in front of her stall. I stopped by her stall with the tack and showed it to her, and she made a show of being nervous about it. Which I strongly suspect is a bunch of bullshit since it didn't make her move an inch away from her feed tub even though it was empty. So I put the saddle pad over her stall door to let her approach it on her own. She went and stood in the corner of her stall, but let out a big sigh. I leaned over it to speak to her, and she came forward and stuck her nose toward me.  Like she was saying, "I would come closer but that pad scares me!" Hmm. I wasn't buying it.

I turned and walked away and stood to the side so I could see her in the stall, and see the door and watch. In two seconds, she was over there giving that saddle pad a good sniff, ears relaxed. Scared of it, my butt.

Then I put her in the cross ties, and she was perfect. She seemed nervous about them the first couple of times, but I'm thinking that was all for show too now. I took a long time in grooming her,  just because it's fun for me and relaxing for her. She doesn't act like she loves it, but the more time we spend in each other's presence, the better.

I saddled her untied in the round pen, and she was fine. She did about a half step to the side when I put on the saddle, but stopped when I said "whoa." Fine when I tightened the girth, just good as gold.

But, when I lunged her with the saddle on, she wanted to trot. She didn't, and she listened when I told her to walk, but she kept looking at me as if she were confused. This goes with the behavior of wanting to trot right off the bat once I'm in the saddle. So, I'm teaching her it is fine to walk in the ring and fine to walk with the saddle on. She was more resistant to stopping with the saddle on as well, and I had to get her to stop several times before I got the speed of response I wanted, which is completely different from her behavior without the saddle.

While I was lunging her, I noted that the saddle did seem to fit her back correctly and give her shoulders plenty of room to move. She did not seem uncomfortable with it either, so I felt a lot better about that. She did seem to have a little irregularity in her gait though, so I asked Erin (barn owner) to take a look. In one direction she seemed fine, but she bobbed her head a little in the other direction (counterclockwise) and she seemed to be limping slightly on her front left leg. It was very slight though, and it could be stiffness from not being worked. I decided not to trot her anymore but to get on and just see I would have more success walking her in the ring.

I had to psych myself up for it a little, since last week she was running me into the side of the ring a little at a fast walk and breaking gait every 10-12 steps. But I was hoping as I got on that 1) she would have absorbed something about being able to walk in the ring and under saddle and 2) I would be more prepared to handle it if she had not.

I should have trusted my smart girl.  She walked like a dream the whole 30 minutes I was on her.  She has never walked so nicely with me in the ring since the day I got her. She tensed up a couple of times, and I just relaxed my body and said, very clearly "walk," and then a very calm but happy "good girl" when she dropped her head back and walked. If she sped up, I said "easy," like I did when we were lunging, and then "good girl" again when she slowed back down. Perfect. Watching us you would not have known that her walking in the ring was a problem.  I would walk her around in the ring, turning and circling every now and then, then I would let her just stop and drop her head and breathe. She was so so good, and I was so happy with her.

And, as luck would have it, a young girl (18 or so) who has a gorgeous gelding out there, came to help me get on. (I always imagine I need Skye to be held when I get on, but I don't. She stands like a statue.) It turns out her horse is an off the track Thoroughbred, and she has dealt with some of the same issues I have with Skye. She offered to help with me however I needed it!

As we were talking, I mentioned my suspicions that Skye had been barrel raced at some point.  So many things seem to point to it: she knows ring etiquette but wants to speed around, she drops her shoulder when she turns, she's well trained in other aspects like ground manners, trailer loading, etc. , and she showed a distinct interest in the barrel in the ring the first time I rode her in a ring. She is also equally comfortable in Western and English tack, but has quick gaits like a hunter/jumper, not the jog and lope of a Western pleasure horse. So while I was walking her, I tried neck reining, just to see what she did.  She responded perfectly. Beautifully. What else does this horse know?  Reining? Jumping? Theoretical physics? It's crazy.

I wanted to quit while I was ahead, so I got off and untacked her, then hand-grazed her on the clover for a few minutes and loved on her while she grazed. So so happy with that girl today.

My Good Night Girl

So tonight I got out to the barn late because I had to wait for the traffic to die down, and it was almost dark when I arrived. There are plenty of lights, and there was plenty of action around but I still decided to wait on riding and just work my girl in the round pen. The grooming bays were all full, and a farrier was addressing two different horses with hoof abcesses, so the barn itself was crowded, and I couldn't be happier. I loved the pasture at the Greenway, but I love having so many people, and nice people at that, around. My whole attitude has changed, and so my whole relationship with Skye is so much better.

She was moved to yet a different pasture (still same herd), and this is the one with mini donkeys in the dry-ish lot adjoining it.  So I got to cut through their little lot. I love them so. I call them "the dinkies," and I could eat them up with a spoon. They are rescues and still putting weight on slowly and are getting more used to people. But they let me get pretty close to them so I could admire their little stripey legs and big liquid eyes. Here is a photo I took of one of them last week:

a dinky

So I brought Skye in through their lot, and they all stopped and looked up her big self and stopped chewing, reminding me of the way the toy green aliens looked up at Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. I said "Hey Dinkies!" They then looked very bored with me and moved over to get out of our way.  I have a feeling getting upstaged by my girl will remain a pretty common occurrence.

I took her to the round pen and just stood with her for a moment, checking her feet and her body for any cuts. Once we were both relaxed, I sent her out to the end of long lead line (14 foot one I specially ordered) and just asked her to walk. She actually turned her head to look at me, surprised, if that's possible. My former trainer (as well as some of the books I've read) always told me to send her out with an energetic trot, but I wanted to try something different.  It occurred to me that under saddle in a ring I wanted her to walk nicely, but whenever I was on the ground in the ring, I was asking her for an energetic trot. If it seems inconsistent to me, it's probably downright confusing to her. And, I am always curious to see how much she knows, and I wondered did she know the voice commands for the gaits. Of course she does. She kept "earring" me as if she wasn't sure she was hearing me right, but I told her "good girl" in the same voice I do when I give her treat and she walked around at a perfect pace. She changed directions perfectly for me after a few circuits, then stopped when I told her and stayed out until I invited her in. Perfecto! I asked her to come in, and in she came and it occurred to me that I didn't have to cluck or pat my leg or anything.  Aagh! I did something right with my body language but have no idea what it was. Then I loved on her for a few minutes, rubbing her forehead. 

A nice lady at the barn asked to come into the pen to scoop some poop, so I invited her in while I stood there with Skye.  Dusk had fallen and the sky was all purple high up and periwinkle closer to the horizon, and a silvery crescent of moon was hanging just so. Skye let out a long exhale and leaned her head into me. Not pushy. Affectionate. And she just had me right there. Owned me.

When the poop was scooped, I sent her back out to practice going back and forth between walk and trot.  Almost perfect. She cut the corners a couple of times, and I had to use body language to send her back out, but her attitude was so alert and good, I couldn't let it bother me.  After another perfect stop, I rubbed on her for a while, then went to put her back as it was getting darker and darker. She got a little pushy with me about standing still when I stopped to talk but I just backed her up, and she did that perfectly too. I was just so pleased with her. 

And on top of all that she looks better than ever. That supplement the barn feeds makes her just gleam. Pretty and smart. Some girls have all the luck.

Pedicure Day

Today Skye had her hooves trimmed. Her herd had rotated pastures to the one situated near the gravel road entrance, and as I pulled in I saw her standing at the gate with the other horses. She was in front of course, as she is always the alpha. The other horses are beautiful (as horses are, to me, always beautiful), but even from a distance, she stood out to me as having a certain quality. I have so many doubts about this horse, and whether I should continue to try to get her where she needs to be, or whether I should sell her to someone who has the experience to bring out her potential. Yet sometimes when I look at her, she seems like the only horse for me. Maybe because she is so hard to get, so hard to win over completely. Or maybe it’s something else entirely.

I led her in to where her food was waiting in her stall, but she has started this new bad habit of turning in toward me, so she is curved like a crescent moon. Unacceptable. I backed her up, and she resisted, so I insisted and backed her some more. She seemed to get it and stopped doing it, but I worry that when other people, particularly the kids who help, bring her in to eat, they will let her get away with it. But I still think it’s better for her to be handled a lot, so I’ll just have to keep teaching her so at least she won’t do it with me.

But once again she was a good girl while she got her hooves trimmed. She was practically perfect last time, but she resisted once or twice today. In her defense, she wasn’t in a great position on her other three feet at one point, but overall she was still a good girl. When I led her back to the stall for a minute to pay the farrier, she did the crescent moon thing again, which sealed the deal about lunging her in the round pen - she definitely needed it. So I paid, then went back to get her.

She was a pretty good girl in the pen, but didn’t want to trot, so I really had to swing the end of the lead rope to her. But once she got going, it was just a few circuits in that she “gave me her ear,” then she stopped as soon as I asked and turned to go the other direction pretty smoothly.  She seemed a little resistant so I kept at it until she licked her lips and really had her eye on me. Then I brought her in for a rest. I rubbed her on the forehead and stood beside her breathing deeply for a minute. Then I did a couple more circuits in each direction and took her back out to her new pasture. 

Then, on the way out, I saw her from the van, so I rolled down the window and called to her.  It took a couple of calls to get her to look up, but when she did, she perked her ears up and gave me a sign of recognition. It feels like progress.

First Ride in a While

So today I rode Skye again for the first time since the first week of June. I was always alone at the Greenway pasture, and she was giving me so much trouble on the ground that getting the saddle on her and getting on her back didn't seem like a good idea. I realized as I was tacking her up today that I really had been avoiding it, but probably for good reason.

She has been a different horse since she has been moved to the new barn. She is handled twice a day by different people for feeding, so not only is she getting handled and checked on a lot, she also has come to associate coming in with getting fed. And, sad as she may be about it, she is not with the big lead gelding she was so attached to in the Greenway pasture. She has been sweet to me, walking up to me when I go to get her, and she hasn't once balked on the way in.

She has gotten a little pushy and harder to back up, so I have been backing her up when she invades my space. She is so smart she figures out she has gone too far right away, and then pretends she can't imagine who must have been crowding me in such an impolite way. She has been great in the round pen on the long lead line, but she still needs some practice listening to me.

That was pretty evident today. Though she has gone so far to pull down a hitching post at the sight of the saddle in the past 6 weeks, today she acted like an old cowboy horse when I put the saddle on her back. I let her had a good long look and sniff at the saddle and the pads, then put them on her, and she actually looked bored! She didn't like me messing with the pads a lot on her right side, and remembering that Clinton Anderson says you have two horses- one on the right side and one on the left side- I took off the pad and put it on the right side. She liked that a lot less, but she was still fine. As usual, she looked pretty sheepish when I asked her how silly it felt to be a 1200 pound animal afraid of a soft little blankie. She was no problem when I tightened the girth, and took the bridle like a champ.

She stood still when I got on, then walked around one full time around the little ring, but already started break into a trot and toss her head around. I managed to bring her down and made her stop, then asked her to go again. Because of how she tossed her head and hollowed her back, I wonder again if the saddle is the problem. It's a predicament, because if she is just being a butthead, her behavior has to be addressed - I would need to ride her longer, changing direction and circling and doing figure eights to keep her at a walk, and then maybe at a slow trot. But if it is the saddle bugging her, by continuing to ride her I'd be teaching her that being ridden is a painful business. I only ended up riding about 10 minutes, but now it has been done!

So I'm back to the horse I started with when I bought her in March. Sweet on the ground but no pushover, and way too jumpy under saddle.  I know a lot more now, and have people around me so I'm not edgy about being alone.  My next step is to try to see if it's the saddle by trying others on her and seeing how she does. This Big Pretty Something I bought has a long way to go.