Gypsy - what a star!

I had a great day with Gypsy and it was actually beautiful out too, so I took my time and really enjoyed myself. For the first time EVER, Gypsy came up to me when I came out to the pasture with the halter. She even reached her nose around and into the nose piece when I put my arm over her neck! WOW! What a feeling! Off to a great start. She immediately started grazing the lawn once I had her out of the paddock (there's no grass in the paddock, and I have them locked out of the pasture until my grass gets a good start). So I let her graze for a bit. Definitely want to give her positive consequences for letting me catch her. Then I groomed her and did some friendly game with the carrot stick and string. She popped her head up a bit when I swung the string over her neck, but other than that, didn't move. That's also a first.

Then we did some circling, squeeze, yoyo and driving games. Then I did the squeeze game between two barrels -- absolutely no issues, then I used the two barrels to yoyo her through them (photo). Again, no issues. What a star!!

So I took her back to the shed and saddled her up. She didn't back up when I brought out the saddle pad and instead reached out to sniff it. Another first! I swung it up on her back, pushed it up on her neck and down over her haunches a few times, brought it up to her ears and porcupined her head down with the pad and the brought it over her head. Again, no reaction like before. Next was the saddle. She shifted back a bit with that, but didn't leave. With my back to her I swung it back and forth in front of her, walked away and re-approached. Then with her permission (licking lips), I swung it up on her back and did up the girth. Then I moved her around a bit before tightening it up.

I took her out to the corral after that and did some circling and squeeze game over a jump. Another first and again, no problem! Then we did some sideways game -- no problem, so I decided to try bending her head from zone 3 (behind the withers). This is the first time she had trouble today. She doesn't bend! To her moving her head means move her feet. I could not get her to just tip her head. We went around and around and around in circles with me holding the line with steady pressure until she would bend her head. She didn't... she just kept moving her feet and I was getting dizzy. So instead of getting her to bend from zone 3, I tried from zone 1. After releasing with just the slightest twitch of a bend a few times, she slowly started to just bring her head around and amazingly kept her feet still. Victory! Then we did the same from the other side. She's about equally resistant on her right, but eventually I got a bend on that side as well.

After that I decided to try mounting and dismounting. She still had problems with me getting on her right side and tried to move off every time I put my feet in the stirrup. So that took a while before she'd stand still. The left, for a change, was no problem; she stood very nicely while I got on and got off. When I had her standing quietly for a couple mounts/dismounts from the right, I stayed on and rode for about a half hour doing "pushing passenger" (photo taken from her back, since no one was home to take pictures for me today). Pushing passenger is essentially putting both hands over withers and pushing yourself into your seat on your balance point and allowing the horse to choose where to go. The only cues I gave her were when she stopped, I slowly increasing the squeeze in my seat and legs until she moved again, and as soon as she moved, I released. We did this at the walk to start, then at the posting trot for about 15-20 minutes. She did awesome and seemed to really enjoy herself.

Then I just played with swinging the rope over her head back and forth. She's not too crazy about that and tossed her head quite a bit and trotted off each time I swung it over. So I just kept at it and turned her to stop each time. I also just swung the end of the rope beside each side of her head and neck and over her head until she stopped fussing. She never stopped moving her feet though. Will have to work more on that later.

All in all, I would say a very successful day. I thought Gypsy did just awesome!!

IndyAnna

I worked with Indy yesterday for a change. I haven't done much with her as I've been occupied working through the level 1 stuff on Gypsy.

I started just by bringing my brush out to the pasture and started scrubbing the mud and fur off whoever was closest. It wasn't long before they started jostling for position under the brush - again, everyone but Gypsy, who still keeps her distance.

Eventually I brought out the halter -- not planning on catching anyone specific, but since Indy was in my face so much, I decided to start doing some Parelli stuff with her.

One thing I learned is that Parelli presents the games in the order they are for a reason! I think I really startled her when I was trying to get her to lead better (stay up by my shoulder and not lag behind) by swinging the stick and savvy string behind her. Of course she jumped sideways and tried to run off! "Hmmm," I thought as I skiid behind her attached to the end of the line, " ... perhaps we should work on the porcupine game and driving game first!!" Poor Indy.

So we did some Friendly game - no issues at all with that --- even after "the incident" with the stick & savvy string that scared her sideways. Gypsy could take some pointers from Indy in this game.

Indy tends to walk all over me, so we worked a fair bit on Driving game and blocks. Then we did some yoyo which she was fairly good at (consistent phase 3, occasional phase 2), but she tended to back up like a banana - rarely straight. We'll get there eventually though, she's off to a good start.

She's great with the porcupine game using my hand, but still resists pressure from the halter. Will keep at it. A pretty good day.

Then I spent some time trying to catch Gypsy by not catching her. I went up to pet her and she left, so I helped her leave until she turned to face me. I stopped and when she licked her lips I approached her again, pet her head and backed up again. Gypsy decided to leave, so I helped her leave again until she turned and faced me. She let me approach again and I rubbed her head, neck, and walked around her. Then I left her alone. Will try again later and see if she leaves next time.

Lots of Friendly Game

One of the things that I always have trouble with is the friendly game with Gypsy. Not so much rubbing her all over -- no problem with that, but as soon as I start swinging the savvy string around, or any rope for that matter, she starts backing away, or trotting around me. So I started spending a lot more time doing just that. I started with just the carrot stick and rubbed her all over with that, then I dropped the string (which is attached to the end of the carrot stick) and let it bump her side. She immediately backed away. So I started swinging it on to her back and she started trotting. I kept doing this in the hopes she would eventually stop - at which time I would stop. But she didn't stop (maybe I just didn't keep at it long enough... I am not that patient!). So then I tried swinging the string slowly from side to side with my back to the fence and let her trot back and forth until she stopped. When she did, I stopped. I started swinging it back and forth again, she started trotting back and forth again, then stopped and looked at me, so I stopped and she walked toward me. Lots of petting. While she was close I started rubbing her face with my hand and then swinging the savvy string over her neck at the same time. She seemed OK with that as long as my hand was on her face. As soon as I took a few steps away from her and swung the savvy string onto her neck, she'd back away again. I followed and when she stopped I let the string drop. And started again with my hand on her face. We did this for a while, then left it alone and started doing circling, driving and sideways games (in the next 3 blogs) before coming back to the friendly game with the savvy string.

At the end of my session when we came back to the friendly game, she was standing very quitely while I swung the string up on her neck -- from both sides. I also swung it around behind her withers and around her back legs... all very quietly received. Hopefully this will continue in the next session as well!

Parelli Games: Driving Game

The driving game is essentially getting your horse to yield to rhythmic pressure. But the intent is to not touch your horse, but rhythmically pump the air to yield away from the pressure. Gypsy started out not paying much attention to my swinging the carrot stick in the air, but did pay attention when it started touching her. After a few more attempts, she yielded very nicely - both her hind and front ends and from both sides.

The first photo shows her yielding her front end, but only after whacking her on the head first. The second photo shows her yielding her hind end at a much lower phase (well, the photo's not so great, but she really did yield nicely!).

Parelli Games 5-6: Sideways Game

The sideways game starts with a circling game that only goes halfway. I start with my back to the fence, the circle her toward it and as she approaches the fence, I then drive her sideways down the fenceline. The first few times I tried this Gypsy started backing up. In the DVDs they tell you to just keep walking forward, but when I did that, she just ended up following me, not driving sideways. Probably had the line too long? Anyway, the next 5 times we did it, Gypsy did great. The second time was better than the first (ie. she actually went sideways), but she was not relaxed about it. So the next two times were a bit more controlled and the last two times were almost perfect (well, in my books anyway), and she had her head down and she stopped and chewed and licked at the end. Left-brained... perfect!

Photos show her going sideways towards the camera as well as sideways away from the camera.

Parelli Games 5-6: Circling Game

Gypsy is getting great at the circling game. Today however, she tended to circle once, then come back in. So I'd bring her in, give her lots of love, then yoyo her backwards and send her around again. I had to do this 3 times before she would go the entire 4 rounds without stopping.
The send is awesome. I've never had to pick up the stick. Well, once I did because she started in the wrong direction. But she's been awesome at the yoyo, the send, the yield and bring back. Both directions are great. Next game: Sideways game.
Photos show Gypsy circling behind me and then yielding her hindquarters before I bring her back.

De-worming Day

Had a PERFECT weekend for working with the horses, but I was locked up inside working at a gymnastics meet. Sunday was finally a day off and it was also time to get all the horses dewormed. In addition we got a new border - a chestnut thoroughbred gelding named Rein (1st photo) and all the horses were all wound up vying for his attention and to see who could stay above him in the pecking order. I have him in the adjacent pasture so they can get acquainted over the fence for a few days before putting them all together in the same pature.

Anyway, since they were all a complete mess (snow melting, lots of mud, plus shedding), I spent 2 1/2 hours out there -- about a half hour with each of them. For each of them I gave them their worming paste, some oats and then spent the rest of the time grooming. MAN was there a LOT of hair flying around! And it all seemed to want to stick to me! I used the shedding blade most of the time along with brushes and then picked out everyone's feet as well. They all stood quite nicely for me while I grooomed them -- everyone but Indy. Indy just kept walking into me. Took me a bit of time to get her to respect my space and keep her feet still. Lots of blocking and yoyo-ing her away from me. Skittles was the best for me -- she practically fell asleep while I was brushing her. Looked like she was really enjoying it. She started out flying around me on the lead since Rein was galloping up and down the fenceline in the other pasture making all kinds of fuss. But eventually Skittles settled and decided he wasn't worth worrying about. My daughter and nephew were also driving around in a little electric jeep which I thought would freak her out, but didn't. Again, very impressed by my little Skittles.

Gypsy was the last horse I caught -- mainly because she stayed at the other end of the pasture, not interested at all in being caught (but LOTS more interested in the handsome gelding across the fence!). However, once all the other horses were out of the pasture and she was alone, she figured being caught wasn't so terrible. I waited by the gate until she approached and then came up to her with the halter, then waited until she brought her head in close before putting the halter on her. She's never been very good at taking the worming paste, so I squirted some on a couple of cookies which she took, although wasn't pleased about the taste. So I mixed the rest in her oats, and carried on grooming her like the rest.

They all looked almost pretty once I was done with them (photo 2 shows Skittles, Indy and Yarrow and photo 3 of Gypsy)... at least until they - one by one - got down and rolled in the mud again. Sigh...

No Parelli work today ... except for porcupining Jake and Gypsy to move them away from the fence while putting the halters on, yoyo-ing and blocking Yarrow and Indy from getting on top of me and yielding Skittles hind end away from me while she was trotting around on the lead.

But they all got the royal treatment and seemed to have smiles on their faces after being groomed.

Revisiting saddling

Well, I managed to get out with Gypsy twice this long weekend, despite the fact that the weather predictions for a warm weekend were completely WRONG. What a miserable cold, windy weekend AGAIN. I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever see spring this year. Both days I worked on getting Gypsy to stand relaxed while being saddled. One of the main Parelli messages is that people rarely if ever ask permission from our horses before we do the things we do with them - including saddling. As horses progressively get worse and worse from objecting to being saddled, their owners get more and more frustrated, start tying the horses up, and ignoring their objections as "being bad". I'm as guilty as everyone else on that one.

So this weekend we started from scratch. Lots of friendly game with the savvy string and stick, followed by some driving game, circling game (she's getting really good at the driving and circling games), squeeze game and then circling/squeeze around my saddle on the ground and then we picked up the saddle pad. But instead of facing her, I started swinging it from side to side and walking away from her, asking her to follow. We did this for a while and then with my back still to her, I started swing it closer before I stopped and turned toward her. She stopped and backed up and started swinging her head around, pawing the ground, so I turned and walked away again and asked her to follow. We did this a few times until she didn't shake her head, back up or paw when I approached her with the saddle pad. Then I just stood with it under my arm until she reached out to sniff it. Then I started rubbing her neck with it, her back, her legs, her belly, etc. Then I opened it up and with my back to her right shoulder swung it to my left (in front of her head) and up on to her back, then off and to my left again and on to her back, and kept repeating for a few minutes, then left it on her back and walked away.

Then I took it off and did the same thing on her left side. Whole different story. All her life whenever there was "activity" on her left side, it meant business: I was going to ride her. So starting to work on her left was quite a bit different. She wasn't interested in standing still at all. Lots of approach and retreat with most of my "approaches" being blocked or her moving back and away from me. More retreating and walking away with me swinging the pad again. She's better when I have my back to her. I was able to eventually swing the pad up on to her back so long as my back was to her. As soon as I turned to face her, she would move away. So I just forgot about the pad and started scratching her whenever I faced her. Swinging the pad on to her back from the right side: no problem. So I swung the pad up on the right, moved over to her left and started scratching her. Then I left the pad up there and picked up the saddle. Then walked away and asked her to follow again. No issues. So I stopped and let her get closer to me, and let her sniff the saddle under my arm. Again, I was able to swing the saddle on to her back from the right side without a problem. Not so easy again with the left side. But we worked it out and eventually -- with the repetitive swinging it up and on then taking it off, she settled down. And we left it at that. Took off the saddle and let her back in the pasture.

Today I started out with playing "find the cookie" using the driving game. I tried driving her -- by making her walk slightly ahead of me with the carrot stick behind the drive line (withers/shoulder) to keep her moving forward and aimed her at places where I had strategically left some horse cookies for her to discover. I hid about 6 of them, and after some struggle getting her to the first two, she started to figure out what I was doing and was eager for me to head her toward the next one. The last one was on the trampoline which she was reluctant to get too close to, but she overcame her fear to get close enough to grab the cookie. That was really kind of cool.

Then we moved on to more friendly game with the carrot-stick/savvy string. She really has issues with any rope swinging around her (savvy string or lead rope) and I'm not sure how long it's going to take before she stops thinking it means "MOVE". Will keep at it. Again, she's better when my back is toward her while I swing the string over her neck. Better, but not great. Anyway, will have to work more at that at every session with her until she's relaxed and OK with it.

We repeated the saddling routine again today. This time I started on her left side. She still moved away at first, but I would say it took about half the time for her to stand still. Right side - no issues. And that was it for today. Didn't do any mounting yet. Will save that for another day when she stops having issues with the saddle.

I have noticed that she crowds me a lot when she gets upset about something (eg. saddling) which means she's insecure. I never really thought that about her before. I always just thought she didn't respect my space. Interesting! As I learn more and more about what her body language means, my thought processes really start to change. So now when she crowds me, lots of backing/driving her away - then "friendly game".

It's been WAY TOO LONG

I can't believe how much time has passed since I last spent any productive time with the horses. I've spent some time visiting them from time to time, but nothing I could ever call "training." After that last entry, I was out of town for work, then we were gone for a week during Spring Break with the kids. And since we've been back, the weather has been just brutal. Winter came back with a vengence: -15C followed by 3 days of snow.

Easter weekend starts tomorrow. I will DEFINITELY be spending some time with the horses tomorrow. This is nuts. I'm never going to make any progress at this rate! I did spend some time watching more Parelli videos. I'm almost to the end of the Level 1 pack. One thing that is apparent - based on the advice and simulations in the videos - is that I haven't spent enough time with Gypsy getting OK with the saddle. Might have to spend some more time on that. Jake too, but I need to get Gypsy through all the level 1 stuff first to be prepared for the assessment at the clinic on June 3. Then I can get the rest of them up to speed.

Skittles (photo) was a bit aloof with me the other day when I went to say hello. But she eventually came around and welcomed me in -- especially when she realized all I was going to do was scratch her. Then she settled in and really relaxed and got her lip sticking out when I hit a sweet spot. Her leg is really starting to heal nicely. Still a big hole in it, but it's definitely shrinking.