# My journey - lessons taught by a spry youngster



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

*The First Month*

I'm going to set this up like a book, with chapters and pictures, so here goes! 

The First Month 

When I first laid eyes on my soon to be partner, I knew we had something going on. He was snubbed to a post, sweating with his eyes rolling around in their sockets. He wasn’t quite what I was looking for, nothing at all what I was looking for in fact. I set out for the APHA colt, weanling age, halter broke and ready to go home. What I found myself looking at was an unhandled, unweaned nine month old appaloosa stud colt trying to kick the lights out of his owner – who was nervously wringing his hands and dropping the price even as I stood looking doubtfully at this animal – That day I did one of the most daring, blatantly stupid things I’ve ever done: I walked straight up to this horse and grabbed him by the face while my mother and my best friend (not to mention the owners) stood holding their breath, waiting to clean my remains off the ground. 

But something wonderful happened. I was never one to read Black Beauty or the Black Stallion. I always found them to be unrealistic and fictional; after all, I knew from a young age what a horse could really do to a human. But what happened when I grasped my wild colt by the face was as close to a fictional novel as you could get. He looked me in the eyes, raised his eyebrows and sniffed my face. Letting out a long sigh he lowered his head and cocked a hoof, the battle was over. My best friend smiled and shook her head, “You guys had a connection that day.” She says now, when we mull over that first encounter. 

I was sold. We looked at a dozen or so more beautiful papered, handled and friendly weanlings, but I was distracted and never caught the look in their eye that I saw in “Buck’s.” As they called him. The look I was searching for was a look of raw intelligence. The spark of fire in the eye of an animal running on instinct. In two weeks I had a trailer in my dooryard and I was slapping 5 one hundred dollar bills into the hands of my new projects former owners. We herded him into the barn, and he turned to me. “I wouldn’t go in there for awhile.” My sixteenth birthday present was in that barn, you can bet your *** I was ducking through that door with a smirk on my face and a helmet on my head. 

The first month of quarantine was hard. There were many hours I thought to myself what the crap did I get myself into now. He jumped out of the stall we made him, so my father suggested that we had no choice but to teach him to tie, and teach him now. So out came three tie rings from the wall and a 500-pound colt who was very proud of his deed. Eventually he was tied to a support beam, and the wait was on. 4 hours I spent biting my nails, wondering if this was the right thing, hoping-praying- this was for his own good. He struggled, pulled, snorted, eventually sat down against the rope and stayed there for the good part of an hour. And at last he sighed and released the pressure of the rope. He was defeated. Quietly unclipping him I got his hay, feed and water ready as he roamed the barn and explored his new surroundings. He accepted my touch without kicking or flinching away. 

After three days he found that I was wonderfully pleasant company when he behaved, and we grew to rely on each other. He handled his feet like a dream, and caught on to the release of pressure instantaneously. In a week we were backing in complicated patterns around the barn, yielding hindquarters, leading respectfully. 
28 days of quarantine was eventually up, and the big day came to show him the fence line. I was a sweating mess, nervous and trying to fight the fear in my belly. What if he takes off and runs through the fence? What if he hurts himself? The worst possible thoughts were running through my mind as my horse with no name and I quietly made our way toward the door that had been closed for the better part of a month. The day was hot, the flies buzzing, the light streaming in. And we were off to step foot outside and test our abilities in the uncontrolled world of outside.


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

Before I got him








His first days 
























Progress in the coming weeks


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

I'm going to pick this journal up! I'm feeling motivated! 

Trouble has turned three, has been gelded, and has been started under saddle full time! 

Last week we put some miles on, two to be exact. Trouble needs some work, (obviously :lol: ) and our new mare, Spirit, does too. They have opposite problems. 

Trouble is VERY VERY slow. His walk is slower than death, his trot is about as fast as a tortoise, and we haven't tried a lope yet. 

Spirit on the other hand, her walk is faster than my run, her trot is about as fast as my dog can run, and her lope, her lope is not a lope. It's a gallop. She jigs on the trail. Tries to run past us and down the trail. She's not hard to hold at all, but her previous owners ran her on trails, so she thinks that is what she's supposed to do. 

So, we've been using Trouble to slow her down, and I've made a quirt to quicken his step. I realized that the mistake I made was not asking for enough impulsion from the get go. To him, my leg means "come on, let's go soon" instead of "move and move now". So, from now on I will ask once. I will squeeze, then slap. Eventually he will know that a squeeze means business. Another problem I encountered, he's a bit confused about leg- so I must not be being consistent. When I apply pressure on his right side, he will speed up. Left side he moves off nicely. 

Yesterday he was gelded. He's quite sore and miserable today. He went down nicely and took the whole procedure very well. So he's off this week, and I'll see if he's good to go next weekend. I'll post pictures tomorrow morning!


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

Spirits turn leading, this is our view through the old Christmas tree farm. I was probably quarter of a KM behind- we did this for Trouble to remember he doesn't need to follow nose to tail with a leader, and mum would stop spirit ahead and make her wait patiently while we caught up. Trouble doesn't care at all if she disappears :lol: she's really really mean to him.


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

Spirit in her new saddle, she's much happier with a properly fitting saddle! It's not perfect and needs to be shimmed where the hollow pockets are behind her withers, but when she builds some top line it should fit perfect. The breastplate is not there to hold the saddle, but in case we encounter some steep hills.


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

The day before he was gelded I was on babysitting duty so I couldn't go far- so we romped around the pasture. Excuse the shaky video, I had my nine year old sister take it!


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

*How I got into horses- a family history*

I know my journal is all over the place, but bare with me! This is a story from the beginning, mostly about me. I feel like sharing tonight! 
--------------------------------

I was four years old when I got my own horse. My father was a horse trader, but got out of it for a few years after I was born, and he moved. 

So he built a home, built a barn and hauled some horses home. One was a draft cross mare, heavily in foal. She was a doll, and my mother and I used to double up and go on trail rides. 

The second horse was my fathers appaloosa. Her name is Topless, she came from Quebec with some questionable training. She was a nut, but picked my father as her person. She was unbelievably head shy- you could throw your hand up fifty feet away and she would flip over backward. She was extremely hot, wanted only to gallop. She was everything my father wanted in a horse. She had a heart of gold, would battering ram charge through anything if you asked her. She would dance for that man. 

The third horse was my horse. I remember the day we went to pick out the horses. It was a massive barn, with 150+ horses shoved into every possible space. There was straight stalls with five ponies in each, box stalls with four horses a piece, a tarp barn packed full of ponies. We walked into the tarp barn and my father got down on one knee and said "pick one." I was ecstatic. I ran around looking at every pony. I favoured a real rank, paint pony with fish eyes and was forbidden to have him, so I sulked around and picked out another. 

Simon was a year and a half old, beaten up, sick. He was standing with his head down in the corner, snot running out of his nose. I pulled his ears, poked his eyes, pulled on his tail and said "this one!" So we took him home. 

That was the start of my horse life. I never thought it would influence my person so much.


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

*Queen & Lady*

Queen was my mothers first horse when I was young. She was a liver chestnut draft cross, a huge old nag who would never hurt a fly. 

Her life was cut short however. She was heavily in foal when we bought her. Within a few weeks she had a beautiful, long legged, chocolate coloured filly. We were thrilled. We called the vet out, he cleared both momma and baby, and everything was swell.

The next morning, at four years old I was curious about the momma and baby, and crept outside at dawn in my bare feet to go watch from the other side of the fence. I can still remember the dew on my feet in the grass. I walked out, and noticed something was terribly wrong. There was blood clots everywhere. I followed the trail to our beloved mare lying on her side stiff and bloated. Her day old filly was whinnying, trying to suckle and running all over. I raced into the house, awoke my parents and told them matter-of-factly that Queen was dead. I remember my mother crying and my father cursing. I was confused. It was only a horse who we'd had for just a few weeks. We still had her baby. 

That was the start of raising a monster. But that monster would teach me a lot when I was older.


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

*Lady*

Lady is a special case. She was bottle raised, hand reared and turned into a monster. It was my parents first baby. My father was experienced in horses, not foals. 

At a week old she developed some problems. $2500 in vet bills later and she was much worse than before. 

The vet that came out on the call was a cow specialist. He was terrified of horses and half drunk. First thing he did was pull out the twitch and let a week old baby run him out of her stall. I was peeking around the corner of the barn door when something went wrong with an IV and she started losing massive amounts of blood. She couldn't stand. The vet gave us mountains of supplements to put her on. A day went by and she was dying. In a last ditch effort, my father called upon an older gentleman who's been dealing horses for 60+ years. He took one look at her and declared "feed the darn thing!" He took a handful of grain and she devoured it. He fed her some hay and within a few hours she was standing. The supplements and milk replaced the vet supplied was not sufficient enough to sustain her. The older man also pulled a tuft of hair out and said she was infested with lice, and said she was anemic. 

With feed and love and lice powder, she grew stronger. However, she also developed a strong hatred for humans. She began striking, biting and throwing herself on the ground and whinnying in fear. Soon enough, I wasn't allowed near her, and eventually my parents gave up hope and let her be a pasture pet. 

The rest of her story begins 11 years later, and I'll pick that up in a bit.


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

*Mom ami Topless*

Topless was a head case. 

My father bought her because that was his thing. She was hot, reactive and loved to go. She was being tormented in the barn by kids who would poke her with sticks through a hole in the feeder. She hadn't been outside in months. 

She came home, nearly tore the barn down until she was spoken to in French. My father went everywhere with her. They'd power through the woods at a full gallop, return at dusk and go out again at dawn. He managed to get her under control. She was still wild, but safer. 

I learned a very valuable lesson from that horse. I was five years old, and boy did I love to watch them run. My five year old brain put together that if I jumped out of the woods, they'd run and I could watch them. That was a big mistake. 

I was walking through the pasture, when Topless thought she'd instill some manners in me. She was freshly shod, and had a mission. She came over, turned around and planted me a good one right in the face. I was knocked out cold, and when I awoke I was bleeding out of my mouth, I had bitten my cheeks when she kicked me. One foot connected with my face, and one connected with my collarbone. Amazingly, nothing was broken. I ran into the house full of blood, and told my father that Topless bucked me. His first question was "WHY were you even on her in the first place?!" And I managed to make it clear that she "bucked" and kicked me when I was walking. 

He got up, grabbed the gun and was on his way out to put her down. I begged him not to, and let it slip that I was chasing them and she just made me stop. I was five years old and that horse taught me the biggest lesson I'd ever learned. And she taught it clearly and concisely. THAT was how I came to understand horse/herd behaviour. My father didn't even give me a licking for chasing them, because she did it for him. 

Our relationship blossomed after that. I learned throughout the years how to compromise and get along with her. She never touched me again.


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

*Simon*

Simon was my first pony. He was sick, young and didn't know a thing. We brought him home, my father fed him a few spoons of pine tar for a week, and when his health came back, his weight improved and I was thrown on his back. 

That pony was my soulmate. I took him everywhere. I learned to ride on him, bareback with bailer twine reins and a bit tied onto his halter. We used to run through the fields full tilt until it was so dark we couldn't see. We learned to jump up to 3 feet (pretty darn great for a tiny pony!) We used to barrel through swamps and rivers. He was a trickster, always looking for a way to get you off. Eventually, I learned every trick in his book. He'd run down a hill, slam on the breaks and drop his head, of course I'd go flying over his head and he'd go racing off across the field. Eventually I got too big for him, but I rode him until I was 11, before I moved on to a small QH and had my accident. 

He would step on my feet, bite me and run away, just a total crap disturber. 

When he got a little older it was time for him to earn his keep at the farm. He was put in harness and hauled logs for the better part of three years. This was totally his thing! He loved it. When he heard the harness jingle he would prance around, neck arched, come up and present himself to be harnessed. When hauling, he would dig to his chest to haul those logs. If we put a small twitch on for him to take a break, he'd walk ten feet, stop, turn and look and I swear to god he looked like he was thinking "you expect me to pull this tiny branch?" And wouldn't haul until you hooked up a heavier load. He was in the shape of his life. He would come home all pumped up, strut around the other horses and gallop through the fields until dark. 

That pony was my life. Even now we do crazy things. Last summer we loaded him in the back of the pick up and hauled him down to the Canada Day Parade, where he strut his stuff all painted up in red and white. He gave pony rides and got treats all day, when it came time to go home he hopped into the back of the truck and started whinnying to the people on the sidewalk. What a character!


----------



## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

*Lady-part II*

Lady sat, untouched until she was 11. When I turned fourteen I decided to take her on. It started with six months of gentling in the barn. It stand on the outside of her stall, touch her back and let her kick it out on the stall wall. After months of this, I could touch her everywhere but her belly. I started picking up her feet with ropes, letting her kick until she was tired of it. After another month of this, I could go in her stall (straight stall) to feed her, brush her and pick up all four feet. Her learning was painstakingly slow. Think one step forward, three steps back. Her belly was still a no go zone. When I tied her outside I would tie a safety release ten feet away in case she flipped out and I couldn't get near her. 

After we built our round pen we started working. I found out she was a beautiful Liberty horse. She was attentive, loved to please and would follow you to the ends of the earth. But to get there we went through heck. She charged me once on the lunge line and I had to whip her in the face with the loose stud shank to get her to back off. She also thought it'd be a great idea to suddenly, out of nowhere, turn and double barrel me. She got me twice that way, and eventually I started carrying a dressage crop and kept my guard up. One good correction when I saw the signs and she was done with that. 

What I found, was that when she had ropes and gadgets on she was a monster. When she was free to do as she wished at liberty she would do anything for you. I am assuming this was because of her history. At a week old she was twitched, and put through a harrowing ordeal by our vet (see previous post) so I think she started associating people and their gadgets with terrible pain and it stuck. I taught her that people weren't that bad, but I don't think she will ever get over that association with man made gadgets. 

I can even go out, touch her shoulder and she will lead anywhere halterless. If I approach with a halter she will retreat. Lunging is the same. On the line she will try to quit work, get over stimulated and lash out. Free lunging she will work all day. 

In the summer of 2014 I had to come to terms. Lady started going lame on and off. I had the farrier out and he declared that there was nothing he could do. Her knees are very crooked due to lack of good nutrition as a foal. The vet came out, said she had arthritis in both knees, and it was progressing fast. He said he usually wants horses with arthritis exercised on a regular basis, but in her case it would only make her worse. Her legs are at such an angle that any exercise apart from hydrotherapy (which we can NOT afford) will stress the joints further. I was heartbroken. He expected her to be completely laid up by 18. So now she is retired, a pasture pet, just eating and being happy until the day comes she can't get around anymore.







*MOD NOTE
This journal has been closed due to prolonged lack of participation by the author. Journals that have no active participation by the author for a period of time greater than 18 months will be considered abandoned and will be closed until the author asks for them to be reopened. *


----------

