# A Rascal and a Hero



## gottatrot

If you follow this journal you will also often hear about my other horse, Amore.

Amore is my Arabian mare. She has been retired for several years now due to back arthritis, and will turn 30 years old in several months. She has Cushing's disease, which is being treated with Prascend and she is doing very well. She is a bit tottery, and far quieter than she used to be, due to her age. Amore remains very sweet, loves to walk down the road to find good grass, hangs out with Hero and likes being scratched all over. 

There is an ebook on Amazon about Amore called "Round Pen, Square Horse." I wrote it to chronicle my experiences training my first horse, who turned out to be a very tricky one. When I bought Amore as an untrained adult horse, she was extremely reactive and spooky. She taught me thousands of things about horses, and helped build the foundation that has helped me work with other difficult horses. 









She is still a beauty in her old age, and never had a mean bone in her body - towards humans. She has always detested small animals that came into her space and would try to maim or kill them.


----------



## AbbySmith

Yay! I'm so glad you started a new journal! 
I started reading your old journal and still do whenever I'm bored/have time, but I've only gotten to like page 6. I will read this whole one though! I'm so excited! You have made so much progress with Hero! He sounds amazing!
Also, do you speak some Spanish? Cause Amore in Spanish, is love. You probably knew that though...lol!


----------



## Destiny M Jones

Hi Friends....!!!

I will read this whole one though! I'm so excited! You have made so much progress with Hero!


----------



## gottatrot

I don't know how good the rest of you are at trimming hooves, but I'm so good I can do two horses in 28 seconds.
It helps to let them eat, makes it go faster.


----------



## AJ Yammie

gottatrot said:


> I don't know how good the rest of you are at trimming hooves, but I'm so good I can do two horses in 28 seconds.
> It helps to let them eat, makes it go faster.


Haha nice. I’m not that good, I can do it in an emergency but then I’d still have to call the farrier back to neaten it up


----------



## ACinATX

gottatrot said:


> I don't know how good the rest of you are at trimming hooves, but I'm so good I can do two horses in 28 seconds.
> It helps to let them eat, makes it go faster.


LOL. I can do two horses in 2.8 hours. Not quite that bad, but almost. But my guys are learning patience at least.


----------



## Barrelgirl123

AJ Yammie said:


> Haha nice. I’m not that good, I can do it in an emergency but then I’d still have to call the farrier back to neaten it up


Yeah same here!!!


----------



## Kalraii

Subbing. Finally. Not gonna lie your other thread was intimidating to scroll through on a mobile (especially when it sometimes would go back to the top or where I started!)  I love the timeline thank you for doing that for those of us needing it xD Beautiful pictures. Your previous thread and this one already is an inspiration to not give up when the rough days come by.


----------



## All About Hope

I'm gonna agree with @Kalraii. You're old journal was intimidating, but amazing! I learned so much from it even though I'm only on page eighty or ninety something (need to figure that out). Beautiful pictures and horses!


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks, glad to hear moving the journal will make it easier.

Today was a bit of a "perfect storm." I'm continuing to push out Hero's comfort zone with progressively longer ridden forays into the unknown. 

When I arrived at the barn, I kept hearing a high pitched squeal. At first I thought it might be an elk, but then thought someone might be weaning a foal.

The barn owner drove by and stopped to say hello. Both she and her husband often scold/tease me about working too hard. They want me to know they don't expect me to keep the manure picked up on all the field, none of the other boarders clean more than just the sheds, etc. 

I asked if someone was weaning a foal. Apparently an 8 month old Mustang colt just moved in to one of the lower corrals. He was hand-raised after his dam died, and just adopted by (I'm sure you can guess...) someone who has never had a horse before! Of course. Well, I told the barn owner I was available if they needed help. Of course I am imagining a new horse person with @Knave's little Queen. Bottle fed no less.

Walking Hero down the road was fine. We passed by the colt who was quiet for the moment. Hero stopped to stare at the little guy who seemed very tiny. We pushed a little farther into new territory, turning around at a field of (friendly? Squealy) horses. Hero displayed himself from all angles, as he does, showing how buff he is. I don't mention to him that the winter fluff does not appear to be all muscle this year.

Heading back up the road, a UPS truck sat idling. Dark was settling down and it was a scene from Hero's worst nightmare. The monster growled and no less than ten lights (monster eyes) pierced toward us through the night.

It was impossible to ride past. The monster held Hero mesmerized in its gaze. I got off and led Hero. He was in a state of shock. Instead of turning around, the monster came roaring past us. 

Foolishly, I remounted. Hero thought trotting might help. For some reason I thought it might too. We caught a glimpse of the truck in the far distance and Hero dropped back to a walk.

At this critical juncture, baby colt started crying again. Amore up the hill decided baby was crying for her and came tearing out of her shed hollering. I say holler because Amore has a very deep and loud voice. I've thought she could work at a 1 (900) number for horses. Amore's outburst sent Mocha, the next horse over galloping around his field. 

Hero lost his grip and spooked hard; left, right, up, sideways. I was riding a big hump. The hump stopped for a split second and I scrambled off. Hero blew a snort to raise the dead. I quickly walked him up toward Amore, who was still hollering and running. The UPS truck rattled back down the road. 

Two minutes later everyone suddenly stopped hollering, squealing and running. Hero lipped at me and lowered his head, and I proceeded to walk him the rest of the planned route. A peaceful calm dropped down around us, and we moseyed along, then back to the field. Within moments it was all quiet except for the chewing of hay, creaking frogs, rats scrabbling in the rafters and the plop-plopping of manure.


----------



## gottatrot

I'm working on a book about training and working with problem horses. Well, this is my idea of fun.

Since a book doesn't allow for discussion, I want to get thoughts on some opinions I have.
I've talked about how people commonly use the term "holes" in the training of a horse. It is something I dislike, because I believe when I first started working with horses it led me astray. I'm not saying someone should go out and train a horse without experience or knowledge. If you don't know how to handle a horse or ride, you will have no idea what you want the horse to learn how to do. If you don't have a good knowledge of horse body language and communication, the horse will end up frustrated.

But I think talking about training holes implies there is a single way to train a horse, or certain things that all horses must learn. Horse training has always fascinated me, and I've always been a sort of "rail monkey." Everywhere I've been, if someone is training a horse or giving a lesson, I'm drawn to the rail where I'll stand for long periods of time, just observing. I've had the advantage of being at a few barns where various trainers worked horses. Plus I've known quite a few people who trained their own horses.

These experiences have given me the opinion that there are very many ways to train horses. I think if a person assesses that a horse has holes in their training, it is because the horse does not know how to do something that they would expect a horse to know in their style of handling or riding. But does that necessarily mean their style is "the" way or the correct way? What I dislike is the impression that leaving out teaching a horse something that you believe they should know is what leads to problem horses. But I've met a lot of very well behaved horses that were trained in very eccentric ways.

An example is a friend of mine who has trained about a dozen horses. When I've ridden with her, she has had to explain to me how her horses are ridden. She rides on a loose rein, and does not contact the bit. Her horses respond to rein cues, meaning when you pick up a rein, that is the signal for turning rather than bit pressure or neck pressure. She also does not put the leg on the horse below the knee, and the horses move through gaits by voice commands. They turn when you pick up a rein and change the weight and/or squeeze with your upper thigh. These horses don't shorten or lengthen gaits, and they never gallop. But when you say walk, trot or canter, they will immediately transition into that gait either up or down, and will stay at a consistent rhythm in that gait until you say otherwise. The horses do not know how to move away from your lower leg, but they turn fairly sharply and easily when you pick up a rein, and if you pick it up higher they turn faster and sharper. The horses can lead, tie, be groomed, bathed, trailered, all the usual stuff.

So do these horses have holes in their training? They certainly don't know how to move their shoulders or hindquarters away from your leg. They wouldn't appreciate it if you pulled on the bit or tried to push them forward by squeezing your calves. Yet they are very good citizens, not problem horses, and all the ones my friend has had so far she's kept until they died. I believe if she had to rehome a horse, they would be confused by other riders but would easily learn a new system.

Another trainer I know uses bitting rigs to train the horses to always carry themselves with their head and neck in a certain posture, which she adjusts based on the aesthetics of the horse's conformation. These are show horses. They learn to always move into soft bit pressure, but to pull their head back with muscle tension so the pressure remains minimal. They are ridden with hands holding the head at the proper level for the horse, and if the horse moves out of the right position, small jerking motions on the bit signal the horse to pull back farther and then the horse is let slowly back out to the correct position. 

The horses learn how to turn with both direct and indirect rein cues applied subtly at the same time, along with supporting leg and weight cues. They know how to lengthen and shorten gaits, do sharp transitions, make nice circles and reverse. They will tolerate having the insides of their ears shaved, power tools used on their hooves, and hot shoeing.

Do these horses have holes in their training? They win at horse shows. If you take them out on a trail and end up in a situation where they are overly nervous, if you apply more bit pressure they will pull their heads back as they've been taught, until they can't see where they are going. Since they are used to working through bitting rigs and such, they will sometimes just keep pushing through the pressure if they get confused or frightened. They are less able to do a sudden turn in an emergency from a direct rein because their turns in the ring are more anticipated and are supposed to look smooth. 

Another friend bought a horse, and we put a snaffle in and took her on a ride. She just plowed through the bit and turned awkwardly through her neck. We thought perhaps she did not have a lot of training. Except there was a photo of her online doing reining maneuvers. We put a curb bit on her and put her in the arena, where she would gallop down a line and slide to a stop if you shifted your weight back, lean back and spin if you put the rein against her neck, and lope in perfect circles. 
So my opinion is that you can teach a horse anything you like. You can teach them to move off your leg or not, to direct rein, neck rein, to accept bit pressure and move into it or avoid it completely. Well trained means that the horse does what the person using him daily needs him to do. Missing certain things in training does not make horses with problems. It can be a problem if you need a horse to move away from bit pressure and they don't know how to do it. But they still may be well trained in other things, and a well adjusted good citizen. 

I've known horses that were only used under saddle and did not have any groundwork done at all. The owner would catch the horse, throw a saddle on and ride. The horse know how to lead, but probably hadn't been tied in years. This was on many acres of land and the owner just ground tied in the open when handling the horse. Still a good citizen, an easy to ride horse. 

Many people never lunge their horses, never teach them to sidepass or turn on the haunches or forehand. 
If you skip a necessary step with a horse, you will not be able to use the horse. For example, if you skip teaching the horse to wear a saddle, you will not be able to ride with a saddle. So how can a horse even have holes in their training, if the necessary steps necessarily build on one another? Those are thoughts for the day.


----------



## All About Hope

So essentially it's what point of view you have -- the owner thinks their horse is well-trained, but someone else might believe the horse has a lot of holes in the training. Kinda like the quote "Evil is in the eye of the beholder" but not.


----------



## ACinATX

I suppose to a certain extent that you are right. Some "holes" are only holes if they affect the discipline you ride. If I am a trailer rider it's not a "hole" that my horse can't piaffe. But there are other holes that are just holes, and I don't think you can argue otherwise:

Horse can't lead
Horse can't be tied
Horse can't trailer
Horse doesn't pick up feet for picking
Horse can't handle the vet or farrier
Horse doesn't stand still at mounting block
OK fine, you can be like, well, a horse doesn't have to lead because I trained it to just follow me; or a horse doesn't need to be tied because I will always hold it; or I don't care if my horse doesn't stand still at the mounting block because I ground mount or I just like to jump on real fast or whatever. But IMO those are basic things that every horse should just be able to do.

You are a much more experienced person than I am, so obviously feel free to disregard. But I do think they are holes. Maybe I'd even go further, like, horse can't canter with a rider. Again, maybe you will never canter so you don't care, but that seems like a hole to me. Horse can't canter both leads. If you're going to be only trail riding maybe that doesn't matter?

And then I suppose there are things that some people consider holes that most wouldn't. I would consider it a hole to have a horse that didn't come when called. Horses being horses, of course they won't always come when called, but a horse should know my voice and come most of the time. I know a lot of people who have had horses a lot longer than I have, and they still go out to the pasture and catch their horse every time; I have to admit I don't understand why they do it. Maybe some horses just will never come? Man, there's nothing like calling your horses and having them come cantering up to you! Well, not so much when the ground is muddy and you're worried maybe they can't stop in time LOL.

I'll stop talking now...

ETA: Actually, no I won't stop talking. I taught my chickens to come when called. If I can teach chickens to come when called, surely most people can teach their horse to come when called. I really don't understand why they don't.


----------



## bsms

Mia took years before she'd stand still when tied. But you could do anything with her with the lead rope tucked into your back pocket. Hole? To someone who valued tying, yes. I didn't give a rat's rear and who is someone else to tell me it is bad?

After 12 years, I'm working on getting my horses ready to trailer. They have all trailered at some point in the past, but I didn't (and still don't) have a good trailer, nor a truck rated to haul a 2-horse trailer (with horses). If I had a 3 horse stock trailer, I think all three would be fine. My trailer, however, is short enough that Bandit can reach food at the very far edge without bringing his hind feet inside...so I'm a bit stymied at the moment.








I guess I'd call that a hole, but I'm pretty sure Bandit just thinks I need to get a bigger trailer....








A friend of mine bought and trained horses for 50 years. People who had one told me they were awesome horses. Desert trail horses. Only bit ever put in their mouths' was a solid, low port curb:







People rode them the rest of their lives, off trail in the Sonoran Desert, using that bit alone. Hole? Why? Horses and riders were happy. I'm told they were "Go anywhere, Do anything horses" - IF YOU RODE IN THE DESERT. Of course, they'd suck at a Dressage test. Unless someone took the time to teach them the skills for that.

From my perspective, Bandit is a horse I trust to ride without a helmet. He sometimes likes some light contact but would resent it if it was all the time. He's sensible and sane. Like Mia, he cannot sidepass in an arena. Like her, if there is a reason to do it, he'll do it at a tiny nudge. Seems to me what is important is that he likes people and is pretty willing to do things they ask. As long as a different rider didn't bully him, he'd take that cooperation ethic with him into dressage training, or polo training, or jump training, or reining.

PS: I stink at basketball and can't stay upright on ice skates. I have "holes" in my athletic training. I'm just....devastated.🤣

PSS: My horses don't come when called. They've trained me to go to them....


----------



## ACinATX

Not too long after we got Moonshine, she was living on a 150-acre ranch, maybe 200 acres. It had a creek that was lined with trees and another big pasture behind that, a big mesquite thicket, a small forest, and lots of small hills. We had gone to meet the vet out there. It took us over an hour, in 100+ temperatures, to find her, and that was with us split up. At that time, she would actively run away from people, I guess because she had some bad associations. I had brought a big bottle of water that was mostly frozen solid ice, and by the end of that hour the water had all melted and been drunk, and I was feeling a little light-headed. I said, Never Again. I will train this horse to come when I call, so I did.

But I don't want to hijack this thread. Maybe I'll start my own, asking about it. Who has their horses come when called and who doesn't?


----------



## knightrider

All my life, my horses came when I called them. I felt like @ACinATX , if the horse didn't come when called, then that was VERY BAD. But then we moved to 40 acres of lush grass, and they didn't come when called. When my husband and I got older and keeping cows and mending fences and mowing pasture was too hard, we moved to a smaller 10 acre place. My horses sometimes do come when called, when they feel like it. In the spring, when the grass is lovely, they won't even come up to eat. I have to go down with a halter to bring them up for meals. So, it just goes to show. Ya live and learn.


----------



## gottatrot

ACinATX said:


> I suppose to a certain extent that you are right. Some "holes" are only holes if they affect the discipline you ride. If I am a trailer rider it's not a "hole" that my horse can't piaffe. But there are other holes that are just holes, and I don't think you can argue otherwise:
> 
> Horse can't lead
> Horse can't be tied
> Horse can't trailer
> Horse doesn't pick up feet for picking
> Horse can't handle the vet or farrier
> Horse doesn't stand still at mounting block
> OK fine, you can be like, well, a horse doesn't have to lead because I trained it to just follow me; or a horse doesn't need to be tied because I will always hold it; or I don't care if my horse doesn't stand still at the mounting block because I ground mount or I just like to jump on real fast or whatever. But IMO those are basic things that every horse should just be able to do.
> 
> You are a much more experienced person than I am, so obviously feel free to disregard. But I do think they are holes. Maybe I'd even go further, like, horse can't canter with a rider. Again, maybe you will never canter so you don't care, but that seems like a hole to me. Horse can't canter both leads. If you're going to be only trail riding maybe that doesn't matter?
> 
> And then I suppose there are things that some people consider holes that most wouldn't. I would consider it a hole to have a horse that didn't come when called. Horses being horses, of course they won't always come when called, but a horse should know my voice and come most of the time. I know a lot of people who have had horses a lot longer than I have, and they still go out to the pasture and catch their horse every time; I have to admit I don't understand why they do it. Maybe some horses just will never come? Man, there's nothing like calling your horses and having them come cantering up to you! Well, not so much when the ground is muddy and you're worried maybe they can't stop in time LOL.
> 
> I'll stop talking now...
> 
> ETA: Actually, no I won't stop talking. I taught my chickens to come when called. If I can teach chickens to come when called, surely most people can teach their horse to come when called. I really don't understand why they don't.


@ACinATX: I really like discussing things, so thank you for your comments. No worries about derailing the thread, it rambles where it will. I could call it "Down the Rabbit Hole of Horses." 

I should clarify, and that's one reason why comments help me. I think it's great for everyone to have things they think their horses should know how to do. In my mind, the horse does not have a hole, but has not been trained in that area. So what you are saying is that you believe horses should know some basic things, and I agree, although I will say that does vary depending on the individual use of the horse. 

What I am debating is the idea I've heard many times that mysterious "holes" in the training are the reason why a horse is behaving a certain way. I do not believe that even if your horse has not learned any of the important things you listed, that this in any way correlates to other behaviors. So for example, if a horse is spooky and jiggy under saddle, a person will look at the horse and say he has holes in his training, so he needs to be brought back into an arena and restarted from scratch. The prevalent idea is that if a step is missed, the horse will not be a good citizen. My point is that a horse can be solid in one area of training without needing other things to be in place first. A horse may be able to turn on a dime with the lightest cue from your leg, but not respond well to the bit. These things are not a ladder. The horse learns each one in turn. 

If @bsms' horses do not know how to load into a trailer, that does not mean they do not lead well or respond well to bit cues. 
I like the list, but was laughing to myself about the horse needing to stand still for mounting. I've trained and untrained this skill to horses. It used to be on my basic skills list, so I'd work on it with the horse. Then, because I don't actually like to have a horse stand and wait before taking off, in practice I quickly train the horse a different way. The way my horses are trained is that they stand still until the moment my seat is in the saddle, and then immediately walk off. 

It is very nice to have horses come when called. Many people train their horses to not come when called, by only catching the horse for work and not giving enough rewards. Other people don't train the horses to come just because they are in a small enough area and they don't need them to. My horses come when called, but sometimes they come in veeerrrryyy slowly so I go get them instead. If I do this, then they begin to expect to be waited on like that. So I untrain it if I'm not careful. Halla very rarely came when called. Since she came to me as a horse that could not be caught, and could not even be tricked into getting caught, it was huge progress for her to eventually learn to stand and wait for me to catch her. Even then, about once a year or so she would have a day where she'd revert back to wanting to run away again for a bit. She didn't recover enough psychologically to convince herself to come to a handler, and I think a tiny part of her still wondered if it something bad would happen. But sometimes she would come if Amore or other horses decided to gallop in and she got caught up in the mood.


----------



## AbbySmith

Wow. I totally agree with all of that! Everything you've said so far! I always thought that people referring to "holes" in training was an odd thing. I really liked what @bsms said...


bsms said:


> PS: I stink at basketball and can't stay upright on ice skates. I have "holes" in my athletic training. I'm just....devastated.🤣


I totally agree! I'm not bendy so I would suck at ballet, does that mean I have a "hole"? No, it just means I can work hard, and lift heavy things unlike some people. That doesn't mean those people that can't lift things have "holes". What are we comparing those problem horses to? What is the perfect horse? What does a horse with no "holes" look like? Nothing. They don't exist. Every horse has some sort of problem, or issue. And while some people may call those "holes", the owners may just say they never took the time to teach them! 
Back to my example, some people may say I have a "hole" because I can't stretch, when in reality, I just haven't taken the time to "train" myself to be bendy!

@gottatrot, you _need_ to tell me when you publish this book and where I can find it, because I _need_ to read it! Lol!


----------



## knightrider

@AbbySmith, gottatrot has written a bunch of books already, and you _need _to read them, only because they are super well-written and super great! You can purchase them on your tablet from Amazon (am I correct, gotta?), and one is embedded in her journal.


----------



## AbbySmith

Really?! What are the titles? Can I buy them in hard back or paper back? Or just ebook?


----------



## knightrider

Her pen name is Evelyn May. There may be more, but these are ones I know of: The Glass Mountain, Bluebeard, Horse on Fire, Labyrinth, Round Pen, Square Horse. I believe they are only ebooks, but I hope @gottatrot chimes in and clarifies.


----------



## AbbySmith

Yay! I am totally going to look them up! Thank you!


----------



## gottatrot

Aw, thanks @knightrider! I have that problem @SueC talks about called hypergraphia. Hey, I'm in good company. I think people like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling have it too, judging by the thickness of their books and amount of writing they do. But @knightrider is a great writer too, some of her writings are in the stories section of this forum. Well worth reading. She needs to be forced to turn them into e-books at least, along with some other great storytellers on here such as @Knave and @Foxhunter. 

The stories I've written are for fun, but if I finish one on horse training it will definitely be free because if anyone can use anything I've had pounded into me by the excellent horse teachers I've had, they are welcome to it. Even if it makes people think about how and why they disagree, that at least gets them wondering about why the horses are like this and what better ways they have to work with them.


----------



## gottatrot

The weather was very nice here today, sunny and mid-50s. Got Hero out for a ride along the same route as last time, but went a little further. On the way back home there was a huge blue heron lurking in the water on the side of the road.








They come out of the water with such a loud sound and make the hugest shadows. I've had horses almost lie down in surprise. Luckily, this one stayed where he was.
Hero spooked a few times on the long, straight scary part of the road that goes through the woods and the swamp where the heron was. 

On our way down the road I took him over to peer over the corral at the mustang colt. The colt thought about coming over to touch noses, but decided against it. Apparently the owner has not been able to touch the colt yet. Cinco's owner thinks he may not have actually been bottle fed, because he is so leery of humans. She brought Cinco down in the hope that the mare could be turned out with the colt to give him a companion and also help teach him manners. However, Cinco seemed to dislike the colt and he is far too tiny to risk turning them loose together.

Hero looking at his friends, Cinco the "appaloosa," who to me looks genetically thoroughbred and Smoky (on the right), who looks like a real appy. The two appys seem to like each other. 









Hero is sporting his flower hackamore. We did more trotting today, which I have been waiting until he was not feeling spooky to see how he did. He did not take off in the hackamore, which is what Halla would have done. I think he likes it.










Around the corner, we were going into the sun. Later when I put both horses in the arena, they stood in the sun and dozed. I had to wake Amore up to bring her back to their field. Sweet old lady. When we got to where the RV is, Hero jumped out of his skin at a peacock that came running out from behind the shed.









Taking a break to eat. His Scoot Boots seem to be working really well on the hinds. I haven't put the blue toe straps on them yet because I need to buy some lock tight to make sure the screws don't slip.


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> Aw, thanks @knightrider! I have that problem @SueC talks about called hypergraphia. Hey, I'm in good company.


I wouldn't call it a problem, if it's quality writing - I'd call it a gift, perhaps a borderline obsession, and sometimes an affliction! 😜

Happy New Year to you, and Happy New Journal. 😎


----------



## gottatrot

Yesterday I put some hay pellets in Hero's feeder. He put his nose in and started chewing with a happy expression. Suddenly I realized...wait, when did this start happening?

From the time that I got Hero he was always food defensive. When you put out hay or grain, he'd always pin his ears and make threatening faces. I've met many horses that did this, many of which were well adjusted so I've always ignored it as long as they didn't crowd or directly threaten the handler.

Now I can't remember the last time I saw him do those behaviors. 

To test it again, I threw more hay. Happy face. It used to be he would look grumpy. Hmm. Wonder how that happened. Somehow he feels secure about food now. Well, he is fatter.😄

Another bridge we've crossed...I realized the other day that I can ask Hero to go forward when he is scared. It used to be if he was frightened, he'd think he had to go when I asked even if he was too scared. So he'd rear or buck. 

Now if I ask him he will try, and if he walks a step but is too scared he stops again. I can ask several times. If he won't keep going I know it is too scary so I get off and lead him past it. 

If he's already moving he will still spook sometimes. But this is a sign to me that he is learning to communicate better and knows I am listening. He is definitely learning how to tone down his reactions.


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> Now if I ask him he will try, and if he walks a step but is too scared he stops again. I can ask several times. If he won't keep going I know it is too scary so I get off and lead him past it.


Done this what seems like a million times with Bandit. Except....it rarely happens now. Compared to 3-4 times a ride a few years back.....


----------



## gottatrot

I know it will get better with experience, as @bsms says.

Today had a very nice ride. For some reason I thought I wouldn't need to chatter constantly when riding a TB out alone...some I've ridden have been so courageous.

But my guy is a Hero because "Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway." He is scared but he is trying heroically. It helps him if I talk nonsense, just like I had to do with the arabs.

Today I discussed with him how the horses were probably not out in the swampy fields because of the standing water, and they probably hadn't all been eaten by bears.

We talked about how the mustang colt was as small as a newborn at 8 months old. We wondered why Amore was calling after us when she had all the hay to herself.

I also told him I was not allowed to get off on the scary part of the road because I just wasn't. He listened very well and tolerated the shiny headlights of a couple cars. Only one small spook.

The supplement called 4cyte arrived (recommended by @Acadianartist) so I tried giving a dose to Hero. Unfortunately, he really hated the taste. I tried mixing with treats but he wouldn't eat the treats. Amore thought it was fine. I syringed a dose into Hero. Since I don't have anyone to dose him for me I'll have to try an experimental regimen with a bigger dose every three days. If it doesn't work, oh well, that's the best I can do.

The barn owner said a couple days ago another boarder called her, worried Hero might be colicking. He pawed and then rolled, several times. She watched him all day but saw nothing abnormal. I felt bad they were worried, and told her Hero often paws and rolls three or four times in a row for good measure.

I was reading an endurance book called "But it wasn't the horse's fault!" by Julie Suhr. Fun read but some sad parts too. 

One thing that really interested me was that she gave a few examples of horses that got lost on rides. If horses are near home, they will go home. If they are away from home, they will run and hide. I guess my friend's horse was really smart because when we lost her she ran back to the horse trailer.

Scared horses do not feel comforted by strange horses, sometimes not even buddies. They will hide in bushes and not make a sound even when other horses pass by 50 feet away. You really have to hunt to find them, and on their own they will soon die if not found. Sad but a good thing to know.


----------



## Acadianartist

I mix the 4Cyte in Harley's food. He hated it at first too (it really does taste awful - I accidentally got some on my fingers and tried it), but now he doesn't care. Initially, I would sprinkle cinnamon on his food with the 4Cyte, so he thought it was a treat. He loves cinnamon on anything. It's messy stuff too... but it has made such a difference in Harley that we will likely keep him on it forever.


----------



## gottatrot

Acadianartist said:


> I mix the 4Cyte in Harley's food. He hated it at first too (it really does taste awful - I accidentally got some on my fingers and tried it), but now he doesn't care. Initially, I would sprinkle cinnamon on his food with the 4Cyte, so he thought it was a treat. He loves cinnamon on anything. It's messy stuff too... but it has made such a difference in Harley that we will likely keep him on it forever.


Maybe if I keep syringing it to him several times, he'll get used to the flavor. I will give it a try. I'd really like to give it a good trial. Great reviews online.


----------



## gottatrot

Poor Hero. I took him out in the rain yesterday, and although I tried to tell him it was only sprinkling, it really was raining (i.e., sit on the saddle and feel like you wet your pants). He was extra spooky, so I rode very little and mostly led him. We went farther than before, over a scary bridge with no railings, and I wanted to make sure nothing happened if I rode that detracted from the courage building of the experience. Such as me falling off and him running back home. I'm not sure why it was more frightening than usual, but it might have been the sound of the rain on the various tin roofs of the shelters we passed by. Or the gloom that made the other horses in their various fields seem like lurking monsters with glowing eyes. Still, he mostly walked nicely and there were long periods where he seemed relaxed. Progress.

I'm just finishing a book I'm surprised I haven't read yet. "Horse People" by Michael Korda. I've seen the book before, but for some reason thought it was a fiction book with a deceptively horse-related title. Such as "All the Pretty Horses." It's actually non-fiction and is all about horses. It was in the horse section at a used book store, which is why I finally looked inside.

It has some interesting stories, and had some good quotes I liked. In particular it is quite funny when the author goes hunting in New England and I'm sure he is exaggerating, but makes it sound like he's just hanging on for dear life while his horse hurls himself over massive jumps, and meanwhile everyone praises him for being a daring rider.

Here are a couple quotes:


> "It's hard to describe the intense camaraderie that develops between people who ride together in all kinds of weather, sometimes soaking wet, or numb with cold, or close to heat-stroke, or the kind of closeness that comes from watching somebody you know get bucked off a horse, or seeing them fail to negotiate a jump with disastrous consequences."


I can relate!



> "Most horses (there are exceptions) are not ill-natured, but any animal that weighs over a thousand pounds and can put an iron-shod hoof down on your toes without noticing it, or kick you out of sheer indifference or annoyance, or pin you against the wall of its stall with its full weight, or give you a good, hearty bite when you're least expecting it, is not to be treated carelessly, or looked after by people who don't know what they're doing. And, on the whole, a great many horses _are_ looked after by people who don't know what they're doing, to the detriment of both species."


----------



## egrogan

I have that one on my shelf and enjoyed it.

I am a wimp, can’t stand riding when I’m going to get wet. Confession: I always blame it on not wanting my saddle in the rain, but really I just hate being soggy!


----------



## gottatrot

Lots of people who live here don't like to get wet either. It's hard to be a true outdoors person on the coast without tolerating rain.

Great ride on Hero today. There was a big storm that blew through and cleared away all the rain, so we had a dry ride. We went farther than ever and he was much less spooky than the last time.

Hero cracks me up because he walks at the exact same methodical pace going away from home or back toward it. An unusual trait in my experience.

The mustang colt was following his owner around his pen (she was carrying food) so that seemed good.

I used the kimberwicke on the ride. Hero prefers the flower hackamore, but he is harder to turn in it so it gives me less confidence. I also prefer the Renegade boots on him. The Scoot boots have great qualities but require a more exact fit. I might like them better on another horse, but they slip around a little on him and he could not go any smaller. He just has weird TB hooves.

My field is still looking great so I'm proud. There is only a small area of what I call "poup" in front of the horse shelters. It is what the last boarder created by not cleaning up manure, which meant it mixed with the sand put down there and decomposed. When it rains enough it creates a soupy slurry.

Many people have told me over the years that if they turn horses out here in the PacNW when it is raining hard it will ruin the fields. Now I see that is not true, if certain things are done.

My two horses on an acre have lots of green grass and no mud except for the 10×6 poup area they walk around and avoid. 

What is needed is not that difficult. First you have to feed enough hay so the horses don't eat the grass down. You have to feed the hay under shelters with rubber mats so the horses don't make mud. You need to put the water trough somewhere away from the hay on ground that drains. You also need to pick up the manure several times a week. I'm not sure why people are willing to clean all the poo when they keep horses in stalls but not clean paddocks. It is the same amount of poop.

Anyway, I am pleased it is not an impossible task here.

A big secret to healthy hooves in the constant wet is avoiding filth such as manure or mud mixed with urine and manure.

Other boarders do have muck and mud.


----------



## gottatrot

I've "finished" my book on training problem horses. I wanted it to be a free ebook, but Amazon won't let books be listed completely free, so the cheapest I could go was 99 cents. I believe it will be free for some people who have KindleUnlimited.

Of course this book is merely some thoughts on training that are a snapshot of this moment in time. The more time we spend with horses, and the more horses we know, the more we learn and revise techniques. This is more a discussion of philosophies and strategies rather than a step by step book. 

In my opinion, what people train horses to do will be very different depending on what they do. @DanteDressageNerd may be training a difficult horse to do dressage, while @Knave might be teaching how to be a working cow horse, and @knightrider could be bringing the horse on trails. Just some examples of some on the forum who have experience working with difficult horses, but use them for very different things. 
So to me it wouldn't be helpful to give a step by step process on how to teach a horse skills, because horses can be used for entirely different things. Rather, I believe there are certain things that can help when working with any difficult horse, no matter the discipline or what you are thinking of doing with them. 

This book may have ideas that could help someone with less experience, but if a person does not have a baseline of working with horses they will not be able to attempt training a problem horse with any degree of safety. My thought is that it will be fairly boring to most, around 30,000 words, and mainly the information might help a niche group of horse people. 

It doesn't illustrate concepts, and only has a few pictures of my own horses. Perhaps at some point I could find a way to be more illustrative. 

I am always open to criticism, debating of ideas or concepts, etc. That is one way I learn and grow. As well, when I've read books written by the most wonderful and skilled horse people, I've always disagreed here or there. Not because of arrogance, I just believe everyone's experiences are highly individualized and we all work with unique horses, in different environments, and with different skillsets. Something that might work perfectly for you might not work at all for me. Please feel free to disagree with my opinions wholeheartedly. But if you have good reasons for the disagreements, I would appreciate you bringing those up as a catalyst for my own critical thinking. 

I wanted a rearing horse for the cover, but am not a good enough photographer to get a nice photo of Hero rearing, although I am sure getting him to rear could be arranged. My first cover I thought was fine, but DH thought it needed improving. The horse was rearing in a forest, and my DH thought on grass with a blue sky would be better. LOL. That is the extent of help I get with editing, so please let me know if you see any problems. If anyone could benefit from my experiences, I want to share, just as I learn from others. It can be hard to spot grammar issues or other strangeness that might detract from the text. 

Training Problem Horses, May, Evelyn - Amazon.com


----------



## bsms

"*It did not occur to me that if these so-called easy solutions could change horses’ behaviors so dramatically, then why were these horses being passed around from owner to owner, and why weren’t those who were giving the advice just fixing all of these horses..*." - May, Evelyn. Training Problem Horses (pp. 4-5). Kindle Edition.

The problem of expert advice with simple solutions extends well beyond horses. The problem of people BELIEVING in those same experts is also vastly larger than just horses. The older I get, the more value I see in trying different things - informed, but not controlled, by other peoples' experiences - and then discarding what fails and trying something else - for that particular horse, etc. A friend of mine controls his weight as a vegetarian (although he'll eat meat if visiting someone). I use Keto. My sister does neither, but controls her portions. Why would any sane person expect one size to fit all? But we do....

I just found out I can get a kindle app for my laptop to read kindle books. Not sure I'll use it much. I confess to a strong fondness for the look, weight, feel and even SMELL of an old, hardback book! I've got a copy of *The Seven Pillars of Wisdom* that is 80 years old. Not something you leave for the grandkids to mangle, but the binding is tight and it just _*feels*_ like a portal into the past. Same with my copy of *Born Free*, which is nearly as old as I am. But when I open it, I'm transported into Kenya in the 1950s....

"*The other rider explained to me that if I could stay calm myself and relax, my mare would soon mellow out as well. She told me that horses sense nervous riders*..." - May, Evelyn. Training Problem Horses (p. 5). Kindle Edition.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't count the number of times I heard that from other riders or people on HF! My favorite related story:

When I first took up riding, a lady was working with a very hot Arabian. She was obviously struggling. Afterward, I asked her how long it took to get a horse to settle down. She glared at me. "_*She's 25. I've had her since a foal. Give me your phone number. I'll CALL when she "settles"!*_" She then stomped away while I tried to find a rock to crawl under.


----------



## gottatrot

Great comments! 
Ha ha, Amore is getting pretty mellow at nearly 30 but she still gets snorty now and then. It helps a lot if you're a spooky horse when the cateracts obscure the vision and your hearing goes...pretty soon all those things that used to spook you go away and the world becomes a safer place. 
Hero is very gentle and sweet to the old girl. When they are away from their field Amore follows him on his tail and he never kicks her. He does nip her at times, but never enough to break the skin. 

I prefer real books too. I don't have a Kindle either, but look at ebooks on my laptop. Mostly if I like an ebook I try to buy the actual book so I can read it while holding it in my hand.


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

gottatrot- I would love to purchase your book! I am very excited to have a read. How much time I'll have I dont know but I purchased  maybe when I get my ADHD meds I'll have focus and time.

You are one of the insightful people with the experience and willingness to take on something challenging and unconventional. And as you say, regardless of discipline we come across difficult horses. The ones people condescendingly assume it is a matter of quick and simple fixes or they could just fix them. I usually find those people to be ignorant beyond their awareness. They have limited experience and havent truly come across a challenging horse who those "conventional" methods or medical or whatever doesn't address the issue. Most trainers cannot really deal with truly challenging horses and they can come in a very wide variety of unique and interesting challenges.

I've also found the more experienced I've become, the more distance I feel to most people because they can't understand or relate. Here talking to professionals, yes but in general no. It means a lot to me when someone understands and can relate because it feels nice to be understood. Honestly there is NO extra credit with a challenging horse. You just get more flack, criticism and insults from people who don't know anything. If they did, they wouldn't make narrow minded assumption and would realize some horses you need to have hands on time with to understand. What you see isnt the reality. 

I dont really care what discipline or what someone does with their horse, so long as everyone is safe and happy. We're not better or worse than one another, so long as we have basic respect and appreciation for one another. Where I get annoyed is people who are condescending with a holier than though, self righteous dogmatic attitude. Or people who have nothing constructive to say and just put other people down to bolster their ego. I hate that.


----------



## gottatrot

DanteDressageNerd said:


> I dont really care what discipline or what someone does with their horse, so long as everyone is safe and happy. We're not better or worse than one another, so long as we have basic respect and appreciation for one another.


Agree!!

Hero was very forward on most of our ride today. I'm noting this because he's been on the 4Cyte supplement for a couple weeks now. It could be that the weather was dry and it was a bit cool today, or he might be feeling extra well. He ran around the field quite a bit before the ride. 

I was a little frustrated because we walked through some mud and I discovered that the cables I'd recently replaced on one of the Renegade boots was not truly screwed in and so it came loose and the boot came apart. I'd just posted on here that I prefer the Renegades, so Murphy's Law was in full effect yet again.
I'd spent at least an hour fiddling and trying to get that cable in place. That is one thing that is very difficult on Renegades or Easyboots with cables. Those dang things. If I were rich I'd have tons of boots all over the place so I never had to try to fix parts.

When we were almost back to the field, something bothered Hero. He is quite funny because if he gets worried, he'll decide he can't continue forward. Even toward home, even if we're almost within sight of it. He smelled the elk, but couldn't see them. So he decided he would just not be able to make it home tonight. He thought we should just head back down the road, the way we came. I wonder what he would do if I left him. Would he eventually get up the courage, or just go find somewhere else to live? 

I told him he could do it, and that it was fine, and after a short time was able to coax him forward. Once he saw the elk were in the field, he was fine. 

The feed store employee was feeding some horses in a field I passed, and asked if Hero was a cautious horse. Apparently a couple visiting the feed store had walked across the road to try to get Hero to come over to the fence, and called to him, but he'd been suspicious and kept his distance. I thought that was interesting. Apparently he still doesn't trust strangers.


----------



## gottatrot

I found an article about the 4cyte supplement that sounds favorable.
Www.equimanagement.com/articles/biota-orientalis-as-an-equine-joint-treatment


----------



## gottatrot

There is a discussion on another thread about a horse that is an explosive fear reactor like Amore was, that a trainer is working with. I wanted to save my comment here so I can remember it for the future, for working with other horses like this:

"It is a good concept. Warwick Schiller calls it "too many rabbits." I think whether you call it trigger stacking, a worry cup, or too many rabbits, it's important to understand. But I don't think the solution is desensitizing to rabbits or various triggers. As this article says, it's teaching the horse to calm down after one "rabbit," or one worry. To teach the horse that whatever scares him, whether it is rabbits, saddles, horse trailers, etc, he can calm himself quickly and not get to the point of exploding.
Along for the ride: How Much Worry Can Your Horse Handle? - Warwick Schiller

If this horse truly did not show any sign of worry until the explosion, then the trainer may not know she is thinking about rabbits. That is not common, but was the way my mare was. In that case, you can't even start with the rabbits, but you have to begin with finding calm after the big explosion faster, and work your way all the way back to the rabbits.
If the horse seems to be handling things fine, walking calmly, not snorting or tensing up, etc, then all you can do is assume there are no rabbits. But then boom, the explosion. So there were rabbits but the horse wasn't telling you about them.

Improvement is getting to the point where the horse spooks in a more reasonable fashion, and begins to tell you she is thinking about rabbits. Unfortunately, this means for some horses they have to show you this fear reaction a few times to learn not to do it, otherwise it will be always lurking there waiting to happen.

It's not always that horses are taught to be shut down and not show signs of fear. It seems to be a natural although more rare type of response that the freeze/flight or fight response begins with the horse having a sort of "freeze" response externally, not showing fear until they suddenly blow up. It would be beneficial in nature, if a horse was being stalked by an animal, to show no signs of fear at all until suddenly reacting violently."

In my opinion, it's actually quite a bit better to have a horse that actively shows signs of anxiety rather than hides it until reaching the explosion point. Better to have them kicking and biting with nerves than to appear calm and then suddenly blow up. That is how I feel after working with both kinds. Otherwise you simply cannot avoid the big explosion, but you have to go there in order to help the horse stop doing it. 

My friend's horse Brave is a horse that shows no signs at all of fear until suddenly he reacts. He was considered difficult to train, but my friend worked with him very slowly and painstakingly over a long period of time, always ponying him with a very courageous horse and building him up little by little. Because of this she only had to deal with him having serious reactions several times, and by the time he had them they were toned down from what they would have been if he had been truly in a panic state. 

I was there once when he flung her off, and he was just standing there and then turned into a whirling dervish and she simply and immediately flew out of his vortex. However, he was able to calm quickly and those responses have lessened even more over time. When I was first riding him it was to help with his initial rides outside of an arena. His first times trotting and cantering with a rider outside, etc. He spooked once or twice and I realized this was a scary horse, because there was no way to tell he felt any worry. Still, the way my friend worked him helped put miles on him without serious issues, and he gets more solid all the time.


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> So there were rabbits but the horse wasn't telling you about them....Unfortunately, this means for some horses they have to show you this fear reaction a few times to learn not to do it...Otherwise you simply cannot avoid the big explosion, but you have to go there in order to help the horse stop doing it.


That describes Mia and Bandit both. Mia threw in an added wrinkle: Her "Surprise!" reaction was a 180-360 degree spin. Got her to where she would THEN listen to me, but never got her past that violent "What the heck?" reaction. The solution, as best I can see, was for her to live in a place where she could see for miles in all directions. and therefor just not be startled by something suddenly appearing:






I don't think ANYONE could get her to stroll through a neighborhood or anywhere with limited visibility. My frustration was (and with Bandit, still is) all the people who insist she just needed proper training in an arena. Holes in her training, you know. Needed to learn in a snaffle - as if she didn't have YEARS of riding in snaffles and even bitless. Or that I was at fault, and my nervousness made her tense.

And people KNEW this even though they had never met her, let alone tried to ride her!

Bandit has become quite good in places he knows. But if I took him into a strange section of desert, or if we move to a different place....we'll have some issues. And to many, that proves *I'm* a failure. After all, if I was just a "leader", or would take time to learn to control my horse's body. Then I could "insist" my horse stay still, facing any threat, and even move forward at The Great Leader's command!

I felt guilty for years. I eventually started to think, "_How about YOU try tossing YOUR leg over her and see how it goes!_" You cannot solve these sorts of issues in the arena. You have to ride to "Where There Be Dragons" - and survive, and eventually convince your horse you both will survive...until, at least, you find a NEW place with dragons! Then the training begins again.

PS: Agree on teaching a horse to lower their temperature faster. But that is like strength. It has genetic limits. I could live in a gym and never look like a bodybuilder. And some horses will never stop caring about what is around them, and some will always take longer to cool than others. *You do the best you can in the time that you have in the place where you live. If you do that, you are not a "failure".* Merely mortal. And Mia and Bandit had/have no problem with reminding me of my mortality.... ;>)


----------



## QHriderKE

gottatrot said:


> There is a discussion on another thread about a horse that is an explosive fear reactor like Amore was, that a trainer is working with. I wanted to save my comment here so I can remember it for the future, for working with other horses like this:
> 
> "It is a good concept. Warwick Schiller calls it "too many rabbits." I think whether you call it trigger stacking, a worry cup, or too many rabbits, it's important to understand. But I don't think the solution is desensitizing to rabbits or various triggers. As this article says, it's teaching the horse to calm down after one "rabbit," or one worry. To teach the horse that whatever scares him, whether it is rabbits, saddles, horse trailers, etc, he can calm himself quickly and not get to the point of exploding.
> Along for the ride: How Much Worry Can Your Horse Handle? - Warwick Schiller
> 
> If this horse truly did not show any sign of worry until the explosion, then the trainer may not know she is thinking about rabbits. That is not common, but was the way my mare was. In that case, you can't even start with the rabbits, but you have to begin with finding calm after the big explosion faster, and work your way all the way back to the rabbits.
> If the horse seems to be handling things fine, walking calmly, not snorting or tensing up, etc, then all you can do is assume there are no rabbits. But then boom, the explosion. So there were rabbits but the horse wasn't telling you about them.
> 
> Improvement is getting to the point where the horse spooks in a more reasonable fashion, and begins to tell you she is thinking about rabbits. Unfortunately, this means for some horses they have to show you this fear reaction a few times to learn not to do it, otherwise it will be always lurking there waiting to happen.
> 
> It's not always that horses are taught to be shut down and not show signs of fear. It seems to be a natural although more rare type of response that the freeze/flight or fight response begins with the horse having a sort of "freeze" response externally, not showing fear until they suddenly blow up. It would be beneficial in nature, if a horse was being stalked by an animal, to show no signs of fear at all until suddenly reacting violently."
> 
> In my opinion, it's actually quite a bit better to have a horse that actively shows signs of anxiety rather than hides it until reaching the explosion point. Better to have them kicking and biting with nerves than to appear calm and then suddenly blow up. That is how I feel after working with both kinds. Otherwise you simply cannot avoid the big explosion, but you have to go there in order to help the horse stop doing it.
> 
> My friend's horse Brave is a horse that shows no signs at all of fear until suddenly he reacts. He was considered difficult to train, but my friend worked with him very slowly and painstakingly over a long period of time, always ponying him with a very courageous horse and building him up little by little. Because of this she only had to deal with him having serious reactions several times, and by the time he had them they were toned down from what they would have been if he had been truly in a panic state.
> 
> I was there once when he flung her off, and he was just standing there and then turned into a whirling dervish and she simply and immediately flew out of his vortex. However, he was able to calm quickly and those responses have lessened even more over time. When I was first riding him it was to help with his initial rides outside of an arena. His first times trotting and cantering with a rider outside, etc. He spooked once or twice and I realized this was a scary horse, because there was no way to tell he felt any worry. Still, the way my friend worked him helped put miles on him without serious issues, and he gets more solid all the time.


One of the horses I'm riding right now has a history of being an explosive spooker and a huge worrier. She gets herself worked up into a big panic over little things and then it's not a matter of if but when she will snap. 

For her, and some other horses I've rode, it's a confidence thing. Whether it's that she doesn't have the confidence to go and be brave on her own or she doesn't have the confidence in me and what I'm asking, the solution was the same. If I rode her like I had full confidence in her, and nothing we were facing was anything to get worried about (they definitely know when you are waiting for them to spook at something), she learned to go through stuff confidently. 

With her previous owner, she was scared of ropes to the point she had stopped trying to rope off of her, so I messed around with her for a few minutes and then confidently went ahead and roped calves with her because I knew she was capable as the guy who started her did some roping with her. And she was calm, steady and acted like a seasoned pro. Didn't do a single thing wrong. 

I've approached a lot of other obstacles with her the same way, just consciously trying to not make a big deal out of things. It's like she thinks that if I'm not concerned or nervous about a thing, then she doesn't need to be either. I've rode her through forestry looking for yearling steers in the middle of hunting season (quads, people everywhere, hunting camps, shooting - I wore hi vis for sure!), and her only spook was at a fallen tree she stepped on under the snow and the branches jumped out of the snow 15 feet away. And even so she just jumped and planted her feet and blew at it. 

The real trick is acting like everything is fine and it's nothing to worry about but still being ready for a spook lol!


----------



## bsms

I've seen no correlation at all between my confidence and my horse's. It apparently works for some horses. But I've been on some massive spooks - and flat out bolts - that started with me feeling utterly confident.


----------



## QHriderKE

bsms said:


> I've seen no correlation at all between my confidence and my horse's. It apparently works for some horses. But I've been on some massive spooks - and flat out bolts - that started with me feeling utterly confident.


I didn't explain very well. It's not the same confidence that you feel when riding a good horse that you trust. It's saying "I am confident that this is not going to be a problem for you" or "I am confident that you know how to handle this because we've done it before/I've prepared you"

The mare I was talking about knew that her previous owner didn't trust her one bit, and they couldn't manage to get along because of it. She just needed that little vote of confidence.

For some reason, my horses have always spooked at big rocks, and I've learned that if I'm riding by a big scary rock and don't even acknowledge it myself, sure my horse (especially a young one) is going to side step and wiggle around and blow at it, and it might do that 3 or 4 times that day or that week. But they seem to figure out that if you arent making a big production out of things like that, that it's nothing to worry about. 

I think that sometimes we create more anxiety and worry by always making a big deal out of spooky things - making them take a step closer, reward, another step, reward, some bouncing around and another step or a sniff, reward, we've all done it. I think horses learn to anticipate and get anxious about the whole ordeal of us trying to convince them to get closer to the spooky thing rather than the spooky thing being spooky.


----------



## bsms

I partially agree. We can reinforce their fears if we make a big deal out of something scary. If I am freaked out about something, I can transfer that. Sometimes.

But most of the spooking I've encountered has involved stuff that I had absolute confidence about because it never occurred to me a horse would object. Things like a Palo Verde tree that had just blossomed. A few weeks later, the same tree after the blossoms fell off. Bandit and garbage cans - he'd go past 20, 30, 50 in a row without objection. I'd feel like they were no matter - and then he'd SMELL something in one that looked identical to me to the previous 50 he passed calmly. So HE would freak when I was utterly confident we had no issue. A lady walking on the street - with a BACKPACK! OMG! Really?

The worst spook Bandit did was with a rider who was 6'2" tall, lifelong rider, young man who was certain there would be no problems. He was riding with the other 2 horses in a group. Bandit saw...what? None of the 3 riders knew. Was it a sight? A smell? No one knew, but Bandit bolted across three neighbors yards, ducking beneath trees and swerving around walls. Then acted like his rider should be grateful Bandit saved him.

I've also experienced the flip side. A swarm of migrating bees,, thousands of them, flying low enough that I ducked down on the saddle to avoid them. I was SCARED. Bandit lowered his head and kept walking steadily. "_Nothing to look at, bees. Just a horse taking care of his rider!_" Once in a while - rarer now - I'll have a Mia flashback and get very tense on Bandit. When that happens, Bandit...cocks an ear. Then he takes care of me.

I think some horses are just more independent minded. Bandit doesn't give a rat's rear if the other horses walked past X without concern. If HE doesn't trust it, then he figures the other two are just fools. Treats me the same way. Over years of time together, I can sometimes give him the confidence to press on. I think that is what you are referring to: The ability of a rider to read, understand, and then give confidence to a horse who is less than thrilled!

I think Bandit now understands I have excellent eyesight. If I see something, and tell him it is safe, he usually goes fine. Now. But the flip side is he understands his hearing and sense of smell are vastly superior to mine. So if it is a smell that bothers him, I cannot give him confidence. Because he knows I don't know. And how can you trust the guy on your back if he can't smell the scary thing? To include both javelina and rattlesnakes. So he has justification - real world experience - where I have blindly tried to get him to do something that truly was not safe!

I suspect a confident rider could ride Cowboy anywhere. Maybe Trooper. But not Bandit. And not Mia. And I honestly prefer Bandit and Mia to Trooper and Cowboy.


----------



## QHriderKE

How long have you had Bandit? How old is he? 
There comes a point where explosive spooking and bolting is just plain unacceptable, even if it's something new or "justifiable", but that is just my opinion. Once a horse gets enough miles on them, like Penny who is 8 and has been lots of places and seen a lot of stuff, bolting and big spooks are just out of the question. She's old enough and broke enough now that she should be thinking before reacting. She can blow at stuff and side step and ask questions, but potentially dangerous spooks are a thing of the past. 

Even if it's things that would justify a big spook, like chasing up a bear right in front of us or bulls fighting or being chased by a cow. She knows from her real life experience that she can keep herself safe without bolting or big reactions, even in seriously dangerous situations. I think that's what makes a horse into a reliable and enjoyable mount. 

We had one cow that was so nasty, my SO had her roped and it was all he could do to just slow her down (he had the cow roped deep so didn't have a lot of control) a little while she chased my horse and I a quarter mile at a run all the way into the corral. I can assure you that Penny was way more okay with the situation than I was.


----------



## bsms

QHriderKE said:


> How long have you had Bandit? How old is he?


Had him since 2015. Prior to that, he was frequently raced in relay races, running 10-15 mile legs on the Navajo Nation. He's 12-13 now.


QHriderKE said:


> There comes a point where explosive spooking and bolting is just plain unacceptable, even if it's something new or "justifiable", but that is just my opinion.


So...if a horse can be ridden in rural Oklahoma, the same horse ought to be able to face NYC without reacting? Because he's learned to trust his rider?

I have a fundamental disagreement with much of the horse world: I think some horses are independent thinkers and WILL evaluate things using their own criteria. Forever. I've never seen any sign Mia or Bandit would ever give all decision-making over to a human. On the flip side, I've met a number of horses who wanted the human to make all the decisions.

I think intelligence plays a factor. Bandit has learned he can detect threats I physically cannot. He's too smart to believe I know all and am able to protect him from all threats. Unlike Trooper, who has little imagination or thinking power. Trooper is happy having the rider decide everything. Bandit never will.

When racing, Bandit did learn he would be severely punished if he didn't go. And I was told, when I got him, "_If you can ride out the bucks, you can make him go anywhere!_" When he got here, he suppressed his fear until he couldn't. It took WORK to get him to express his fears and learn I would work with him to find a solution we BOTH found acceptable. It meant riding out spooks until he rarely spooks. But could I ride him tomorrow down the streets of Tucson? Not hardly!

Most of us ride in a particular environment. Mine is the Sonoran Desert. Tough teaching it to Bandit, but he's now OK with the Sonoran Desert. But if I rode him into a rodeo arena? I'd better be prepared for a rodeo.


----------



## QHriderKE

bsms said:


> Had him since 2015. Prior to that, he was frequently raced in relay races, running 10-15 mile legs on the Navajo Nation. He's 12-13 now.
> 
> So...if a horse can be ridden in rural Oklahoma, the same horse ought to be able to face NYC without reacting? Because he's learned to trust his rider?


Within reason, yes. I can take Penny to a busy branding pen, out on her own be it in the hills here or flats to the east, I can pony colts off of her in any situation, I can take her to town along as a buddy for my barrel horse, and expect her to be solid and level headed in every situation that I'm likely to get her into.


----------



## gottatrot

Yes, some horses are very in tune with their rider's confidence. Others are not. I rode one Arab gelding that I honestly felt like I could have taken him through anything in the world, dragging him behind my confidence. He didn't know me very well, but he definitely recognized that I was not afraid and it made him very bold too. You could feel it going all the way through to his hooves, the impact you had on him. 

There are horses that have good experiences with riders and it builds them up more and more over time so they become extremely confident in any situation. Some of these believe so strongly that the world is a safe place based on their experience, that they can face anything without spooking. 

I don't expect that this is achievable for every horse, because I've known a lot of horses. I completely understand how it can happen with the horse that didn't like roping. A person with fears can reinforce a horse's fears. It can be a very small fear at times. For example, my horse Amore would not jump sometimes if you had the tiniest feeling that you would rather not. If you were in it 100%, she would do it. Still, if the right thing scared her, there was absolutely nothing you could do to make her feel better about it.

A great forum member named Smilie used to post a lot about how a horse should never have an issue, once trained. I remember discussing with her that I thought every horse had a nemesis. My friends had an amazing horse named Beau. He was super calm and would spook at nothing. You could ride him in traffic, bareback and in a halter. There was only one thing in life that he feared, which they discovered one day, and that was umbrellas. Someone opened an umbrella, and he went out of his mind. No matter what, they could never get him over his fear of umbrellas. So I have a belief that every horse has an "umbrella," even if you haven't met it yet. Just like some of us have a phobia of spiders or bridges that we just can't get over. 

I live off that confidence that horses need, and believe it has saved me quite a few times. Obviously I can feel fear or nerves if something really bad happens, but 99% of the time I don't, no matter what. I don't believe that confidence will cure every nervous horse, because I've also met spooky horses that just kept spooking with the most confident riders in the world. Even after all the experience I've had, my mare Amore remains the spookiest horse I've been on. She could spook multiple times on every ride. 

The great thing is that over her lifetime, the spooks dwindled down to tiny startles most of the time, rather than explosive bucking or bolting. I was so used to this that I would simply laugh when she spooked. But no person could have possibly cured my mare of it. She spooked even when my great trainer friend rode her, who swears she never feels fear on a horse and I believe her. One of our members has a spooky horse named Phin, and I am certain his rider does not have confidence issues. She has ridden all kinds of horses in many situations, for thousands of miles.


----------



## bsms

I don't know if Trooper is afraid of cattle or not. He was used on a sheep ranch with sheep because he preferred working sheep. The ranch has a couple hundred cattle but Trooper didn't work well with them. My friend loaned him to a ranch with the provision they would NOT use him with cattle. So he arrived at the ranch and...they tried to make him cut cattle. He was returned to my friend's ranch with bloody holes in his sides, which had started to scar over when this photo was taken:








He still has the scar tissue on both sides, although it is worse on one side than the other.

I suspect we all agree that trying to spur a horse into doing something he just cannot take is NOT the right way to get him to learn to do that job. But his riders at the Colorado ranch were obviously not afraid in any way. Trooper...afraid of cattle? I don't know. He grew up around them at times. He'll ride past them okay. But certainly a confident rider was not the answer to making him more forward. Not even supremely confident riders equipped with spurs. He was 7 at the time and had been ridden thousands of miles by that time. And he has the least imagination of any horse I've ever met.

Once we were riding in our little arena when the neighbor's kids started playing on a trampoline in their back yard - behind a fence. All Trooper could see was kids being tossed in the air. Screaming kids! Trooper froze. I couldn't get him to budge. Dismounted. Couldn't lead him a single step. He didn't move a single hoof a single inch for 20+ minutes. Then he sighed, looked at me....and I led him back to the corral, his head at my shoulder. He never blinked an eye at the kids playing there again. 99% of the time he's a point and go horse. But screaming, flying kids? That was his "umbrella" moment!

PS: Mia had an umbrella moment. Literally. A lady walking along the road with a pink parasol. Mia threw it into reverse and we went backwards at high speed until we had cactus on three sides. Then she stopped (thankfully). By that time we were working much better together. But she stood, shivering, panting, staring. As the lady got closer, she heard me screaming at her. She finally folded her parasol. Mia stared for 10 more seconds, then turned and stared at me as if to say, "_Why in the HECK did she do that to me?_" Then we walked past her, Mia shouting silent mental curses at the uncaring woman. I had complete confidence thru the entire episode. But MIA did not.

PSS: Bandit still has times where he'll turn and look at me as if to say, "_I like you boy. But your fellow monkeys are first-class, undeniable JERKS!_" I mean, who puts a 6 foot tall inflatable PENGUIN in their front yard in southern Arizona? Who can blame Bandit for thinking humans lay awake at night, trying to think of ways to torment innocent horses who just want to walk through the neighborhood....


----------



## gottatrot

I was thinking about defensive riding. It made me realize that the degree of forward lean I have when riding a horse directly correlates to how much I trust them in that place and time. 
I have come off a horse backward twice. It places you near the kicking end of the horse, rather than in a nice fetal-ish position near the side of the front legs, which is where you end up if you stayed ahead of the motion, even if you were ditched. 

People will say to lean back, relax. It reminds me of the cartoon with advice for riding that says, "Relax! Your horse will sense if you are nervous. Never relax! Your horse can react suddenly at any time." It is very true. You have to relax and you can never be so relaxed that you're left behind.

I believe that if you are going to err, go on the side of leaning forward rather than too far back. If you're in a nice western saddle, most things the horse will do won't cause you to fall off. But I've seen people in western saddles on the beach when the horse bolted, and seen them trying to recover to a neutral position after having their weight swept back. Your lower back isn't super helpful for fighting yourself up against the force of a horse running forward. Better to be in a slight forward lean when something crazy happens, and then you'll at the worst end up at neutral or very slightly behind.

Of course you don't want your leg to slide back, if something happens. That is the trick, bending at the waist while keeping your leg forward if something bad happens. This will help you stay on during a rear, a buck, a bolt, etc. The first instinct if you go forward is to let your leg slide back, which will dump you onto the horse's neck. 

It's not only english riders that use a forward defensive position when riding. If you look at a reiner in a moment in time, you might think they are behind the motion. They absolutely ride with a forward and defensive seat, with a torso angle that matches what the horse is doing in the moment.



__ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=369020417300513


----------



## gottatrot

No ride today. It has been raining so much that I haven't been able to find a break long enough to get hay. Today there was finally going to be a break, so brought DH along to get some hay from the feed store. I was down to half a bale, so if the rain hadn't let up I would have had to use tarps to just keep the hay as dry as possible. We timed it perfectly. The guy at the feed store marveled, because it had not stopped raining all day until the moment we showed up. 

Whenever we get hay, the horses in the nearby fields get excited. After DH cleans out the truck bed, he always brings a handful to throw over the fence to each of the horses nearby. Mocha follows him down the fenceline when he goes to fill our horses' water trough, because he also gives him a handful of grass now and then. It's pretty cute, he has a fan club.

Amore is like a bad roommate. She eats all the hay in her shelter, and poops all over in there. Hero is conscientious and poops outside, keeping his shelter clean. Once Amore's hay is gone, she comes into Hero's shed and eats hay in his clean shed. Then she starts the process of fouling his up. She's like the slob who gets their own apartment dirty and wipes out the fridge, so then they come over to dirty up your place and eat all your food.

DH wondered why Hero lets her in. I've watched the process. If there is food involved, she is so persistent there is no stopping her. I've seen horses drive her out over and over and over and over, but she keeps trying, ducking under a neck, squeezing through a tiny space, until finally they just give up and let her eat their food. Even if she grabs a bite every ten tries, she'll just keep coming. 

Although it was getting dark, I conscripted DH into taking the horses for a challenging walk. We took them into the deep woods trail which Hero finds rather terrifying. I haven't made him try it on his own. It is fairly steep in some areas. He was mildly upset once we were about ten minutes along the trail, and stayed antsy until we came back to safe territory, but he calmed immediately once we exited the woods so that seemed good. We were laughing because Amore wasn't nervous, but I said she can't see or hear well enough to get scared most of the time anymore. She's a very old person with diminished senses, and her world getting smaller and smaller. 

I love spending time with my old girl, especially knowing our time together is getting shorter. Another member was mentioning how she has her horses tolerate hugs because it makes her feel good, I think that is sweet. Amore, however, seems to be the rare horse that actually enjoys hugs. She will close her eyes and lean into it. It's quite adorable really. She also really likes head scratches. She rubs her head on things a lot, so having a person find the right spots is enjoyable.


----------



## gottatrot

Mustangs...
Tonight I am thinking of how they have been romanticized and all the problems I've seen related to that.

I am all for someone like Knave getting mustangs, as many as she wants. I'm also for the several cases I've seen where trained mustangs (not just started, but trained) were placed with new horse owners.

But I think mustangs are the most common horse I've been asked to help people with. 

The biggest problem I see is that people who are not even confident cantering on a well trained horse expect they will be able to ride a green horse. 

In most cases I've seen, the most experience a mustang gets before going to a new horse owner is 30 days of starting. That means the horse is very green. But many try to start the horse themselves.

The early gentling and learning to be handled is the easy part. Where I see the most problems are with hoof care and riding. 

I've had to help a lot of mustangs learn to have their hooves trimmed, because the owners were afraid of handling the hooves. A farrier is not going to come try to trim a mustang that doesn't know how to pick up his feet. The owners often try the rope trick to teach the horse to lift. But at some point you have to get in there and actually hold the hoof in person. That is where any bobble or mishap can scare the owner.

But riding is a big problem. Two mustang owners I know got their geldings after 30 days training. Both broke bones falling off, after spending months on groundwork before riding. In both cases, the horses had minor spooks riding out of the arena. Not bucking or bolting, just a quick dart away from something scary. 

In both cases it was a big deal for the owners. One took over three years to do about thirty rides, only several of those outside the arena. All that time was before falling off. 

The other one thought something was wrong with the horse, and I told him he simply did not know how to ride very well, which he took without offense.

These two had a good ending, because they went to a very good trainer and paid for many months of work to learn how to ride and handle their horses.

Recently I visited a barn and saw two sorry looking horses in stalls. The owners who did very little riding had bought them from a TIP trainer and hoped someday to be able to ride them, because they liked the idea of riding mustangs. However, they admitted they were afraid to handle them and perhaps they needed more help.

The only mustang I started for friends was called green when they sold her, but had over a year under saddle. She was quite unflappable, just was not super light yet but headed that way. She wasn't ready for a beginner owner yet.

Most of the mustangs I've ridden for their owners were doing great for green horses. They just needed someone to ride them for a while who wouldn't tip off if they made a sudden stop or cut a sharp corner. Every green horse will lurch into the canter at first, and struggle to find balance with a rider. 

It's kind of sad so many are left without guidance when beginning under saddle. I suppose it is not just a mustang problem, but in my area it seems common that if a person wants a young horse, they'll get one with some good training. If they want a mustang, they'll get an untrained or very green horse. Or a foal even. Just because of the romance of getting a "wild" horse.

I hear people wanted wolves after game of thrones came out. I'm sure that has gone well too.


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> Both broke bones falling off, after spending months on groundwork before riding. In both cases, the horses had minor spooks riding out of the arena. Not bucking or bolting, just a quick dart away from something scary....It's kind of sad so many are left without guidance when beginning under saddle.


The last part was written about the horses, but I guess I feel some for the riders. One of my pet peeves is that people can take lessons for years and then fall off a horse who squirts 20 feet sideways, or drops into an "Oh My Goodness!" Crouch. I think there is something seriously wrong with riding instructors who don't teach defensive riding.

Pure "Good Riding" is different. It's goal is to make things easier for all when performing on a well-trained, obedient horse. What works best for that isn't the same as what works best when a horse might spook or suddenly throw things into reverse. You wrote here about defensive riding:



gottatrot said:


> I believe that if you are going to err, go on the side of leaning forward rather than too far back. If you're in a nice western saddle, most things the horse will do won't cause you to fall off. But I've seen people in western saddles on the beach when the horse bolted, and seen them trying to recover to a neutral position after having their weight swept back. Your lower back isn't super helpful for fighting yourself up against the force of a horse running forward. Better to be in a slight forward lean when something crazy happens, and then you'll at the worst end up at neutral or very slightly behind.


I disagree because I learned defensive riding on Mia on ATV trails. Her startle reaction was 180 degrees of spin. Sometimes 360, which puzzled her. Sometimes more than 360 degrees. But 95% of her spooks involved the OMG Crouch - a sudden stop, dropping her shoulders as she spread her front feet far apart, plus dropping her head down to her knees, *OR* a 180 degree spin followed by a bolt.

I think defensive riding depends on the horse. If a horse loves the OMG Crouch, being a little forward was....not helpful. If a horse likes to do a dropped shoulder spin, being forward can be a very bad thing. If the horse is likely to jump an invisible fence or explode into a forward bolt, then being forward helps a lot.

Bandit is most likely to squirt forward about 60 degrees off from the original direction of travel, or to simply slam on the brakes. Both of those are reasonable to ride out with nothing more than a deep leg - and maybe not that. Being "with the horse" is enough with Bandit. Being "behind the horse" could be a life-saver with Mia.

A western rider who falls behind the horse and then can't catch up needs to learn basic defensive riding, western style. "_Put your free hand on the horn. PULL YOURSELF FORWARD. Now resume riding!_" One hand on the horn in a violent spin helps a lot too: If you keep your shoulders above the horse's back, it is almost impossible to fall off. Horse suddenly drops to his knees? One hand on the horn prevents your shoulder from going forward. No amount of "core strength" can match a brace from the horn to the shoulders for stabilizing one's shoulders.

Doing that is frowned on by the western riding instructors I've met. My farrier was a bull rider in his youth. He says he puts one hand on the horn when things get dicey. He'd rather take a blow to his ego than a blow to his back - or head!

But....riding instruction. The lessons I took were variable in quality, but she did something I liked. She had all her new students canter on her best horse in a round pen, under her voice control - on their first lesson!. And she'd have the horse canter and stop. Or walk and then do a canter transition. Told the student to hang on if needed and just feel the movement. Her thought was that any horse can spook or bolt unexpectedly but a rider who knew the feel had a better chance of staying on.

Lessons ought to include riding over uneven ground. Practice zig-zagging. Walk to canter transitions ought to be a staple. I think riding two point while doing sharp turns and staying in two point at a canter ought to be taught - and taught early, not 3 years down the road! I think a pseudo-Aussie saddle is ideal for learning:







For Mia, that was an ideal defensive position: Slightly behind, one hand on the horn, heels down and weight in the slightly forward stirrups. It wouldn't be ideal for an explosion forward but that wasn't on the books that day. There was a huge moving van about 300 feet ahead of us and she was NOT going to run TOWARD it! The poleys probably saved my life more than once. Nothing wrong with cheating when it can save your life!

By rights, learning on Mia should have killed me. I still have flashbacks at times. Getting rare now after nearly 6 years with Bandit. But riding instruction ought to prepare you to stay on a horse who squirts sideways, or suddenly stops, or who does a dropped shoulder spin. If the movement is violent enough, then sure - there are just times one is screwed! But I've watched both of my daughters fall off a horse (Trooper) who was NOT doing anything very wrong. He moved a little bit, they got a bit off balance - and then gave up. My youngest, in particular, was already too good a rider to just slide off a horse who was merely a bit bouncy.

As for getting an unbroke mustang and starting from scratch for the romance of it....people have watched FAR too many Disney flicks!


----------



## QHriderKE

I can see where you are coming from when saying to lean forward to ride defensively, but there is a lot more to it. 
When I suspect things are going to go sideways (figuratively or literally), I want to crunch my abs, tuck my pelvis forward and sit square and then go from there on how I'm going to stay in the middle. Oftentimes, it does mean bringing the shoulders forward if Im going to be grabbing my rope as an oh sheet handle.
But, if things are going to get wild, you have a better chance if you ride shoulders back. I've been sent out the front door enough times to learn that lesson. 
Best visual I have is turning a barrel.


----------



## knightrider

Recently I lost the folks I took riding regularly, some due to covid, some children due to growing older and losing interest, one to getting married and moving away. So, I found some new riders, and both happen to be adult beginners. One of my new adult beginner riders thinks she will soon get a horse of her own because she likes it so much. Yesterday, she showed me a photo of a free quarter horse that she was considering acquiring. The horse was drop-dead gorgeous, seven years old, green broke and free. Biiiiigggg red flags to me. I warned her that getting a green broke horse when she has very little experience is probably not a wise thing to do. Also, the horse is free most likely for a reason, especially one advertised as free. I think that @gottatrot and I are offered free horses from time to time because people know we can manage their problems. But a free horse on Facebook? I don't think so.

This new rider thinks she knows how to train horses. She told me a few weeks back that she would train Isabeau for me. When you don't know very much, you don't know that you don't know very much. I felt like answering, "I'd like to see you try," but I didn't want to be rude because she is a nice person and I have enjoyed riding with her and getting to know her. I know with a year or two of rides with me, she will discover she doesn't know nearly as much as she thought she knew. Fortunately, she is getting riding lessons with @4horses as well as riding with me, so she is learning more and more every week.


----------



## gottatrot

@knightrider, laughing so hard over the offer to train Isabeau! Lol!

Talking about defensive riding, I do not mean adopting a seriously forward lean. When I am not two pointing or riding a fast speed, I have been teased for focusing on my posture or holding myself upright. Although I just sit naturally.

























Versus a more defensive position.








On Nala, a very good horse at sudden spins.








The barrel racing photo illustrates a very good principle, which is that part of having a following seat is following with the hip angle and torso. If the horse drops down, ideally you drop while your upper body stays oriented with the sky and ground. The fetal position will not help, but staying upright will.

When jumping or on a rearing horse, you "close the angle" of your hips while your legs and seat ride the horse. It doesn't require a great deal of flexibility, because I am not a flexible person. 

But following...for horses that drop and spin out, I don't think for me personally the key is having the torso leaned back, but my legs are always ready to push down into the stirrups and any time the horse drops away that is my reaction. It is the same for a bucking horse, when the head drops away.

In this pic I was caught cueing with my leg back when the head dropped down. My leg is on the way forward to at least the girth line and I may need to push down more and even stand a bit if this turns into the hind end kicking up behind me or a twist away. This is how far he's pulled me forward, but using my core I did not have to start with my torso behind vertical. 








Dropping down a steep hill or bank, if a horse bucks in that situation I may go behind vertical to be safe. That is not easy to ride. 

But I do believe that erring on the side of staying in front of the hindquarters is safest. If you've seen what happens when people get really behind on a jump, that is far worse than diving over the shoulder. 
My poor friend broke her back years ago. The horse jumped big and she got way behind. When he landed she was on the hindquarters and he threw a big buck, sending her sailing over his head and into her back.

I'm also a believer in using your hands as @bsms said. I don't have a horn but in loads of my videos a horse will spook and my camera takes a sudden shot of my hands that are on the horse's mane or pommel as I react.


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> I don't think for me personally the key is having the torso leaned back


I think we agree. I don't LEAN back. Ever that I know of. The difference is primarily in my leg position. For a horse likely to drop a shoulder and spin, my feet come forward. I also slouch a little in my hips: my pelvis rotates slightly under and my shoulders go lower as I relax my back. And then, even if using two hands, I'll bring my hands closer together. Maybe let my thumbs touch so I can bounce them off my horse's neck if I don't have a horn or just don't think I need to be defensive enough to hold the horn.








Your picture of Nala is what I'd call a good defensive position - at least for a possible spin. Stirrups well forward of your waist, heels down, I'm guessing weight in the stirrups and thighs. Your center of gravity is over your heels. Weight in the stirrups creates muscle tension in the legs and you don't want floppy legs if a spin suddenly starts! The Cavalry manual used these draws at a halt but elements of my idea of a good, all-around seat are there:







"_Rider's weight, due to body's forward inclination, is on the crotch, thighs and stirrups._" As I get more defensive, though, my back would relax and my spine would move - while remaining vertical - back about an inch. His heels are under his belt buckle.

During the last year I've starting thinking that maybe it isn't so much about center of gravity over the base of support - which is what the cavalry taught - as it is about having weight in your stirrups and thighs, thighs down and not forward - down as in your picture of Nala not angled forward like in the cavalry drawing of the wrong seat - with...pre-tension? Not sure what word to use ...in the legs because they are already carrying much of the weight? And when my weight is in my thighs instead of my rump, my weight and balance are around the horse instead of on top of the horse? I don't want to grip with my knee as much as with my entire leg and I want my weight in my thighs and stirrups and not in my buttocks. I want the muscles in my leg already activated. Not "braced" but involved BEFORE any spin or swerve sideways. Firm but not hard or rigid.

And I think riding instructors owe it to their students to discuss HOW to deal with spins, swerves, sideways jumps and a sudden shift of gears and acceleration forward as part of the normal "seat". I'd really prefer to get rid of the word "seat" entirely although I don't know what to replace it with.

PS: The wrong seat of the cavalry drawing wouldn't be improved, IMHO, by bringing the heel back under the hip. The problem is in the thigh, not the lower leg. Folding the leg would put more emphasis on the knee not the lower leg.


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> I think we agree. I don't LEAN back. Ever that I know of. The difference is primarily in my leg position. For a horse likely to drop a shoulder and spin, my feet come forward. I also slouch a little in my hips: my pelvis rotates slightly under and my shoulders go lower as I relax my back. And then, even if using two hands, I'll bring my hands closer together. Maybe let my thumbs touch so I can bounce them off my horse's neck if I don't have a horn or just don't think I need to be defensive enough to hold the horn.


Yes. People think the leg should not be forward or you will be in a "chair" seat. Your diagram is a good one. In either diagram the leg is at the girth. There is not much difference in that position. Yet in the first illustration, the rider is ready to fall off backwards if the horse takes off. In the second one, he will stay with the horse. That's why I disagree when people say you just need to stay relaxed. 

My friend here is not riding in a "chair" seat. Her leg is forward, and that is appropriate for what is going on here. A forward leg does not mean you are behind the horse.









Here is how my hands changed on a video during a spook. We are cantering. Before:










After: Holding on to neck and mane or a saddle horn is a good strategy. 









I like that word "pre-tension." There is muscle tension, but it's difficult to describe because you are relaxed, but there is a difference between a muscle that is floppy and one that is sort of loaded and ready if something unexpected were to happen. It's really hard to describe. When I'm walking down the road on a very spooky horse, I don't have my legs pushed down hard into the stirrups, but they are certainly not relaxed. They are in this state of just enough tension that creates a readiness so if the horse goes "blam!" my body will follow and not flop. Maybe I'd call it a "half" push into the stirrups. 

When a horse does something unexpected, my feet press down and forward. My friend described it as "feet on the dashboard." I like that mental image. If the horse starts skidding like a car that has the brakes put on suddenly, you can think of it as putting your feet on the dashboard. 

In the photo on Nala, it is hard to see but my heels are really low. That is not because I am pushing them down _or _lifting the toes_,_ which I've heard people say to do. I don't think about my heels at all. When I was showing, I used to try to put my heels down and was discouraged because I didn't think I was that flexible. But my heels get very low at times when I have that correct muscle tension down through the thigh and into the stirrup. It is the thigh, but it feels like the lower leg because that is what connects your thigh to the stirrup. But applying the correct amount of pressure down through the quadriceps into the stirrup while keeping your lower leg against the horse to connect the balance. 

Just like you said:


bsms said:


> During the last year I've starting thinking that maybe it isn't so much about center of gravity over the base of support - which is what the cavalry taught - as it is about having weight in your stirrups and thighs, thighs down and not forward - down as in your picture of Nala not angled forward like in the cavalry drawing of the wrong seat - with...pre-tension? Not sure what word to use ...in the legs because they are already carrying much of the weight? And when my weight is in my thighs instead of my rump, my weight and balance are around the horse instead of on top of the horse? I don't want to grip with my knee as much as with my entire leg and I want my weight in my thighs and stirrups and not in my buttocks. I want the muscles in my leg already activated. Not "braced" but involved BEFORE any spin or swerve sideways. Firm but not hard or rigid.


I agree.
Your base of support is not your "seat." It goes around the horse. Down and around between your upper thigh and the stirrup. That doesn't mean you have to have short stirrups. Even bareback, I have that same weight down my leg.

Not to pick on DH here, but you can see a beginner rider posture versus a ready for anything posture. I have obviously just backed the horse into the right position for a photo. We are both relaxed. If the horses spun out to the right and flipped 180 degrees, one of us would be riding away. My stirrup is pushed forward, which is wrong and means I probably have it too far forward on my foot so it's not under a part I can put weight on. Most likely due to not feeling from the thick socks I was wearing in Iceland. If I attempt to two point I'll feel that it is unstable and wiggle my foot forward..









I do feel for beginner riders, and how difficult it is for them to learn how to be secure and ready for anything. There are things you just are not going to be able to ride. But people don't need to be breaking bones for silly things like a horse stopping suddenly. It's not a priority for DH to learn because he doesn't ride young horses or green mustangs, and that's not because he is at all nervous to ride. It just wouldn't be smart for someone who has not developed a good seat to ride horses like that. He has fallen off a horse once, because I thought Amore was calm enough for him in her older age. Which she was, but a deer ran out right in front of her nose and she spun a 180. He didn't get hurt. But on vacations he rides the horses that are beginner safe, and has no problems.


----------



## gottatrot

Correction: Thinking it through, I don't believe you really push down into the stirrup with your quadriceps (front of the thigh), but with the hamstring muscles (posterior thigh).


----------



## egrogan

For awhile I disliked this photo of me on Fizz despite the pretty scenery because of where my legs are.







But one day I was talking to M about that ride and she reminded me how strong Fizz was crossing that open field when she knew we had turned around to go home. I didn’t really think she was going to take off or start bucking as in some of the examples you’ve given, but shifting my weight back and deep in the saddle helped keep her at a walk while we waited for M to catch back up with us. My legs a bit forward like this shifted my butt back where I wanted it.


----------



## gottatrot

egrogan said:


> For awhile I disliked this photo of me on Fizz despite the pretty scenery because of where my legs are.


That is not a chair seat, that is "feet on the dashboard." LOL.


----------



## weeedlady

gottatrot said:


> So he decided he would just not be able to make it home tonight. He thought we should just head back down the road, the way we came. I wonder what he would do if I left him. Would he eventually get up the courage, or just go find somewhere else to live?


This made me smile! Well written.
@gottatrot I just found your new thread last night and I've been reading, catching up. I always enjoy hearing your thoughts. I'll be ordering your Ebook today


----------



## gottatrot

weeedlady said:


> This made me smile! Well written.
> @gottatrot I just found your new thread last night and I've been reading, catching up. I always enjoy hearing your thoughts. I'll be ordering your Ebook today


Thanks very much! Let me know if you have an opinions, criticisms, etc.


----------



## gottatrot

I really wanted to ride today. It has not stopped raining for more than five minutes at a time in the past several days. Today looked promising.

But, it was important to trim the hind hooves on both horses today. I had trimmed the fronts several days ago. 

Well...we had taken the horses for a walk in the woods a few days ago. I remember now that there were some bigger rocks here and there on the gravel road. Hero at one point seemed to take a couple bad steps like he stepped on something. I didn't have boots on him, and the hooves are pretty soft with all the wet.

So when trimming, I noticed a dark spot in the sole next to a bar on Hero's right heel. It seemed a tad sore so I scraped it a bit with the hoof knife, and suddenly it opened and a lot of blood came pouring out. 

At first I thought it was an abscess, but it didn't smell foul and no pus. So now I am thinking I drained a hematoma from him hitting a rock on the trail. Dang thoroughbreds, I just need to put boots on for any rocks.

He wasn't lame before, but it obviously made some pressure go away because he stopped reacting to my touching the sole. Obviously, having a bloody hole in the foot negated a ride, but he did walk around briskly out in the arena with boots on when I turned him out with Amore.

Amore was right in the shelter with us while I was trimming Hero, but when he started bleeding she went to the other side. She didn't like the smell. But then she had no qualms about me bringing her back to get trimmed herself. 

I thought, why doesn't she wonder if I made him bleed, maybe it might happen to her? But apparently if I wished to do some blood letting on Hero, that was no concern of hers. Perhaps she thought he deserved it.


----------



## gottatrot

Oops, guess the thread I started on negative punishment got shut down. Well, maybe I'm doing pretty good because I've been on here since 2011 and only had one other thread shut down...it also was a great thread in my opinion, about horses being inverted versus round. Both of those threads I thought were very educational for myself personally. I'm a strange one though, I enjoy debate quite a bit. My dad is a great debater, and he and I would stay up late sometimes when I was young and throw out counter points to each other. It was frustrating sometimes, because if I made really good arguments, he'd end up switching sides on me and next thing I knew, I'd be arguing_ his_ original points, because he had changed my mind. But then he'd convince me back the other way again! 

What he taught me though was that a) It's not worth having a belief if you're unable to defend it against opposition. b) A belief is only defensible if you can use logic and indisputable evidence to support it rather than vague ideas or emotions. c) Not every belief has enough information available to support it one way or another. d) If there is nothing to support an argument one way or another, it is fine to have opposing views. c) If you hold a view despite clear evidence to the contrary, you're unwise. d) Always be open to learning you are wrong and changing your mind.

Just a couple of comments...on the thread I posted about a mustang named Chance that was being trained by new horse owners. I've been watching training videos on Youtube and so looked at several more from the same people. Mustangs are just a terrible tragedy all around. Similar to OTTBs. You can get a mustang, decide you're doing OK, and then get yourself two or three more!! In the same year no less. In one of the last videos, Chance is terribly lame, and the green horse owner decides that means he is Spanish, so the uncoordinated movement of his hind end means he has gaited blood. Arrgh. Apparently only the training brought this trait out, since he did not display it beforehand. So either the mustangs live in holding pens, and don't get health care, or else they get farmed out to clueless people who want cheap horses and think they can somehow afford three, because they're also not planning to spend money on health care. They can't even recognize when a horse does need health care, and ignore those who tell them the horse is lame.

If you listen just to the three minute mark or so, you'll just die when you hear the description of his terrible lameness.





Anyone can say they are a mustang trainer, but without being able to produce a horse with a level of training on the ground and under saddle that would make the horse actually usable. It makes me worry about the future of these horses, when the people who obviously are not horse obsessed like most of us, but joining a fad, will tire of having their entire life revolve around horses. I seriously doubt these people are planning for the next thirty years of life with these horses. Including moving, life changes, financial issues, etc. 
It reminds me of the woman at a previous barn who adopted a mustang but also had several other horses. She was living on welfare, and she was observed stealing hay from various barns in the area. She was the one whose mustang was impaled jumping out of a round pen. 

On a positive note, I was watching a video from this lady, and I think she has a great balance of negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement. To me it is mostly about the attitude of the trainer and their ability to read and get a real feel for the horse. You can use a variety of tools very humanely, as long as you are fair and communicating well with the horse. It's easy to see in some of the videos on Youtube when some people are trying to be gentle, but are doing more harm and creating animosity with the horse from just their body language. Versus other trainers are using ropes and lunge whips, but even if the horse gets slightly frightened at times, they know when to back off the pressure and let the horse learn. 






Am I ever afraid around horses? Definitely. It might sound strange, but mutual fear is by necessity part of the human/horse partnership. I'm not sure, but maybe fear is part of every good relationship. If you really love someone, there will be an element of fear that you might lose them, or they might die. Parents have a lot of fear over their children. Children have fear of their parents. Even if it is only a fear of their disapproval. A proverb says that fearing God is wise. 

Our natural first response to being close to horses is fearful. We overcome this to a point, but it crops up again if we do things like gallop, jump, fall off, or ride through spooking. Horses fear us too. If a horse does not have any fear, that is what horse trainers talk about as "no respect." It will soon not be a strong emotion anymore, but perhaps a mild discomfort that is somewhat instinctive, that we are a predator and we can make them do things if we wish to. Just as we have at least a mild discomfort that will manifest if the horse runs toward us and part of us is not sure if they will stop. 

This is all very natural and good. If a horse does not fear me at all, and does not think I can make them do anything, I will be forced to show them that yes, I can. This may not be a popular thought for some, but it is true. If a horse realizes, hey, I can turn around from over here and kick you, and you can't stop me, that is when I show him that I am all powerful because I can bounce a wooden brush off his butt and reach him from clear over here. That is not about a power trip, that is a life-saving measure.

Someone mentioned we shouldn't fight with a horse. Sometimes you might be standing there and the horse will decide to pick a fight with you! That is not a good time to say, "hey, why don't you move your nose to the left," when you are facing a big butt and two powerful hooves. You'll not get a chance to give a cue before the horse smashes you. When we are in a bad mood, we might toss something on the ground for no reason. If a horse is in a bad mood, he might decide to give you the double barrels. Might not be about you, but just a general comment on the state of horse politics. When you face that situation, it's nice to have a clear idea in your head that it is fine to punish a horse for those kinds of behaviors. The horse will truly expect you to, just as any other horse would if they did the same thing to them.


----------



## gottatrot

I'm not sure if I have shared the picture of Nala's rider's new mustang yet. His name is Pro. He seems pretty cute. One of these days I'll head up there and ride him. He'll have a good home at least! 
Also, I heard that after Nickel's crash with his new owner, he went to a good dressage rider, which he excels at. Yay for happy endings.


----------



## egrogan

It was frustrating that thread got shut down, but I was not surprised. This is not really a place where people are interested in, as you said, debate and being asked to defend ideas. Ironically, it’s a little like pressure and release-you state your perspective, get pushed to the edge of your ability to create an argument, and then if you’ve done that well the other person backs off a bit to reflect. For whatever reason being asked to defend a position makes a lot of people uncomfortable-and even makes people not involved uncomfortable just as observers. I think our collective ability to tolerate being a little uncomfortable is nil at this moment in time.

I was really enjoying following the thread but not posting as I really don’t think of myself as having enough training experience to have a well formed opinion. At a lot of points in reading the discussion, I wanted to hear people apply what they were saying to real situations. Like the people saying you treat your way out of spooking and bolting-how do you apply that to a horse spooking in the direction of oncoming traffic, down a rocky embankment full of loose gravel, into a hot electric fence? Unless you’re sitting on top of your horse like a floppy stuffed bear, surely there are times when you apply negative reinforcement in the form of redirecting your horses body in a particular direction?

Anyway, hopefully “they” will open the discussion back to as it was interesting to follow.


----------



## Knave

Okay, I completely forgot you created a new thread!! Oops. I knew I should have commented the first time. Now it’s going to take me a bit to catch back up.

I’m currently in the holes discussion. I completely agree with you. As long as a person is happy with their horse I don’t think other people’s opinions of “holes” is relevant. Yet, people get caught up in things other people say and it adds this sort of pressure for them....

@phantomhorse13 (I use her because I know she follows along) has horses who are extremely successful. I don’t think I could brand on them though. Big “hole” for me. I probably couldn’t convince them it was a good idea at this point in their lives either. Many people in my culture would feel the same way.

Yet, she could borrow Cash for an event and feel exactly the same way. There would be things he lacked in training in her environment. (And although he is fit he wouldn’t have the speed to be successful for her I believe.)

Hero would probably have a heart attack here, but my horses may tip over dead if they saw the ocean. Lol.

How is the baby doing? I wouldn’t want a leppy colt unless it was raised exactly how I wanted it to have been. I’ve rarely seen them work out well...


----------



## Knave

Now I’m reading backwards. Lol. I see you tagged me too a couple times! I am not a fan of the new format yet.

ETA- I’m sorry I forgot! I must have seemed a terrible friend.


----------



## bsms

It isn't just HF. Debate on most forums and on most issues becomes problematic. Much is now rooted in emotion: I feel, therefor I don't need to think. Others are supposed to "affirm" your feelings, not challenge them. I've battled weight issues my entire life. I'm extremely sympathetic to anyone struggling with their weight. But I draw the line at "affirming" someone who weighs 500 lbs is perfect just as they are. I'm not "fat-shaming". I'm not being hateful. Just....logical? But logic is hated and resented by a lot of people now. Debate used to be a taught in school. Now it's evil. 

My closest friends challenge my opinions all the time! My wife has no trouble challenging my opinion and we've been married 34 years. I learn far more from those who challenge me than from those who "affirm" me!

I was frustrated with that thread. It was time for me to leave it regardless. When phrases like "child abuser" get tossed into a thread on training horses, not much good will follow.

Also: While I'm not a Clinton Anderson fan, at least I know he rides horses! I can watch him ride, and train, and decide what I think. If someone is going to instruct others on how to ride/train a horse, I'd like to know they've been on one.


----------



## egrogan

bsms said:


> It isn't just HF. Debate on most forums and on most issues becomes problematic. Much is now rooted in emotion


I think that's probably right. I am so grateful that I had the chance to go all the way through school for a PhD, because the entire premise is all about questioning, exploring, learning, changing direction. Sure, there are some PhDs who couldn't find their way out of an open box because they have no common sense, but for me, it was an opportunity to think, debate, ask questions, debate some more- that was the point. You don't get that experience a lot of other ways, except around the dinner table like @gottatrot described with her dad. I have a relationship with my dad like that too. Rather than avoiding politics, whenever we talk we just jump right in, and we couldn't really be further apart on the political spectrum. Sure, we know how to push each other's buttons, but if I want to understand what "the other side" is thinking about something in a rational way, I'll try to figure it out by talking to him.



> My closest friends challenge my opinions all the time! My wife has no trouble challenging my opinion and we've been married 34 years. I learn far more from those who challenge me than from those who "affirm" me!


Totally agree. Most people would think we're pretty weird and boring given the long, rambling debates we have, but I wouldn't have it any other way.


----------



## Knave

It sounds to me like I’m glad I never read the thread. I’m all about tolerance of other opinions. I think there are lots of ways to skin a cat. However, when people start throwing such emotional extremes in, as @bsms said comparing horse training to child abuse, I draw the line.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> Now I’m reading backwards. Lol. I see you tagged me too a couple times! I am not a fan of the new format yet.
> 
> ETA- I’m sorry I forgot! I must have seemed a terrible friend.


No, of course not! I appreciate comments when they come, but we're all working with horses, fighting winter, dealing with concussed kids, illnesses, etc. Or avoiding trimming that bush that's grown too tall outside the window, putting up curtains, paying bills, doing the taxes early...just the thought makes me want to get on the forum. 

Thanks for the great comments, everyone. 

@bsms, I just met someone who was on a tv show I'd watched before, relating to extreme weight loss. She didn't think positively about being that heavy in the past. I've run into a few people now who have previously been that overweight, and they are kind of scary patients. Because if they're young, and at a fairly normal weight now, it is natural to feel comfortable with them having a small problem. But we don't realize that internally, their bodies are suffering from the effects of having all that weight in the past. Their joints have problems, and internal organs as well, such as they might have heart failure. Plus they can have serious nutritional issues from the surgery effects.


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

gottatrot said:


> What he taught me though was that a) It's not worth having a belief if you're unable to defend it against opposition. b) A belief is only defensible if you can use logic and indisputable evidence to support it rather than vague ideas or emotions. c) Not every belief has enough information available to support it one way or another. d) If there is nothing to support an argument one way or another, it is fine to have opposing views. c) If you hold a view despite clear evidence to the contrary, you're unwise. d) Always be open to learning you are wrong and changing your mind.


Exactly, I also enjoy debate and never mind people approaching me with INFORMED OPINIONS, what I can't stand and have no respect for is back talk without any discussion. And also basic respect for different opinions, not simply you dont think exactly as I do, so therefore you are stupid or less than. I dont get that mind set. So many people with strong opinions and no knowledge or any kind of cognitive flexibility or respect for different points of view. It drives me insane, so I had to learn to just accept some people will forever remain small because they refuse to expand or be open to differences.

However I never really got to read the thread, I've been so busy. I'm just catching up now.



egrogan said:


> It was frustrating that thread got shut down, but I was not surprised. This is not really a place where people are interested in, as you said, debate and being asked to defend ideas. Ironically, it’s a little like pressure and release-you state your perspective, get pushed to the edge of your ability to create an argument, and then if you’ve done that well the other person backs off a bit to reflect. For whatever reason being asked to defend a position makes a lot of people uncomfortable-and even makes people not involved uncomfortable just as observers. I think our collective ability to tolerate being a little uncomfortable is nil at this moment in time.
> 
> I was really enjoying following the thread but not posting as I really don’t think of myself as having enough training experience to have a well formed opinion. At a lot of points in reading the discussion, I wanted to hear people apply what they were saying to real situations. Like the people saying you treat your way out of spooking and bolting-how do you apply that to a horse spooking in the direction of oncoming traffic, down a rocky embankment full of loose gravel, into a hot electric fence? Unless you’re sitting on top of your horse like a floppy stuffed bear, surely there are times when you apply negative reinforcement in the form of redirecting your horses body in a particular direction?
> 
> Anyway, hopefully “they” will open the discussion back to as it was interesting to follow.


I agree 100% however I did not get a chance to read the thread. I think people want blind agreement and do not know how to accept challenge, discussion or working through ideas. So instead of developing a mature response and seeing it as impersonal discussion, they see disagreement as confrontation and a threat to their being.

But how the F- do you treat a horse out of spooking or bolting _face palm_ real life, you handle that in the moment and no amount of "treats" or "turnout" can magically fix that. I've worked with a lot of problem horses, some created from their situations or pain, some are genuinely something not right with the wiring in their brain or some trauma. I honestly don't bother with those discussions because if you are very experienced, no one wants to hear it or show any respect because they dont understand and dont care to. I've worked with a very wide variety of horses, under some world class trainers in hand, on the ground and undersaddle and I'm proud of my experience but I generally find sharing that is seen as "boasting" where as to me it is simply a fact of my life and those experiences shade my perception.

I find a lot of people are very defensive of their perspective, especially if it is not one based in reason or experience. These kind of people take different opinions as a threat to their being because they base their existence by trusting their perceptions and if those perceptions are challenged, it's a threat to their being. So they take it personally. A person like that cannot be reasoned with. They cannot separate the difference of thought from their person.

Explaining anything, no matter how reasonable or logical or evidence supported is deemed evil by some.



bsms said:


> It isn't just HF. Debate on most forums and on most issues becomes problematic. Much is now rooted in emotion: I feel, therefor I don't need to think. Others are supposed to "affirm" your feelings, not challenge them. I've battled weight issues my entire life. I'm extremely sympathetic to anyone struggling with their weight. But I draw the line at "affirming" someone who weighs 500 lbs is perfect just as they are. I'm not "fat-shaming". I'm not being hateful. Just....logical? But logic is hated and resented by a lot of people now. Debate used to be a taught in school. Now it's evil.
> 
> My closest friends challenge my opinions all the time! My wife has no trouble challenging my opinion and we've been married 34 years. I learn far more from those who challenge me than from those who "affirm" me!
> 
> I was frustrated with that thread. It was time for me to leave it regardless. When phrases like "child abuser" get tossed into a thread on training horses, not much good will follow.
> 
> Also: While I'm not a Clinton Anderson fan, at least I know he rides horses! I can watch him ride, and train, and decide what I think. If someone is going to instruct others on how to ride/train a horse, I'd like to know they've been on one.


I agree. I have a lot of friends who regularly challenge me and my perspectives, it's mutually beneficial and leads to a lot of growth. What needs to be taught is how to maturely and respectfully handle disagreement, rather than avoiding it outright. That is essential for us to grow and become more well rounded and knowledgeable, we need to be free to disagree and debate ideas rooted in reason and evidence. It is absurd how much science denial goes around for the sake of feelings and catering to opinions. I dont get it.

It's something I strongly prefer Denmark to the US for, people are taught how to respectfully disagree and you can have open discussions and mature exchanges of ideas. It's strongly encouraged! The freedom to free speech and free thought and exploration in science.


----------



## phantomhorse13

Knave said:


> @phantomhorse13 (I use her because I know she follows along) has horses who are extremely successful. I don’t think I could brand on them though. Big “hole” for me. I probably couldn’t convince them it was a good idea at this point in their lives either.


I have a lot of catching up to do, but got the alert about this mention.. and now I am picking myself up off the floor from my hysterics.

Phin doesn't even like cattle from a distance with a fence in between. I cannot even fathom trying to rope off him, as he isn't a fan of a plain rope dragging on the ground (tho he can now tolerate that without bolting, though its with much suspicion and worry). If that rope was attached to a COW.. no way. I never say never regarding training, but I think it would take a LOT to ever get him to the point he would be usable branding.


I love this topic already so hope to have a moment to get caught up this week.


----------



## bsms

I love @Knave 's example. I think it makes the point beautifully and pretty much incontrovertibly. Although I suspect some posters would argue that with positive reinforcement training, ANY horse would quickly work cattle. 

More to the point, lots of horses who could learn to work cattle would need to learn it slowly, a bit at a time. And would never enjoy it. While others would take to it like a Border Collie meeting sheep. I think my three could pick it up quick enough but I know for certain that if I tried it tomorrow morning, all three would try to shove me somewhere in the bovine that would be anatomically impossible! But it would be a huge hole for a ranch horse.


----------



## gottatrot

When I got to the barn today, Amore came quickly over and Hero walked slowly. I thought uh oh, bet his abscess has walled itself off again. When I got to that hoof, he gave me a look before I picked it up. Yep. All I had to do was remove the mud pack from the bottom with a hoof pic. That had been sealing it off, so just removing that caused a big gush of blood and this time some pus to flow out. It was obvious this was a relief again. It seems very superficial, which is good.

I let it all flow out, and then brought him over to the hose. Yeah, he wasn't real excited about having me pressure water against the hole in his sole. I got it clean, and then came back with the bottle of betadine. After the first squirt, he put a betadine print on the leg of my jeans. It was a very light tap, I was rather proud of him for holding back so well. The abscess obviously really hurt. I soaked it good with betadine, put a boot on, and then an hour later covered it with betadine again. I just touched the spot with a hoof pic, and it was soft, but he was not going to allow digging around or anything so we called it good. I told the barn owner to let me know if he appears lame so I could come check on it sooner. She told me they thought Mocha had an abscess several days prior also. 
Guess they're shooting up together. Well, that's why my patients get abscesses anyway. 

Of course it was a gorgeous day, sunny and 55 degrees. I was wondering where my back up horse was to ride. It sure is nice to have two riding horses, since one is bound to be injured at some point in time. I'll have to get to know the other boarders better as the weather gets nicer, so they can offer to let me ride their horses. LOL. It takes a little while to get to know people at a new barn. Everywhere I've boarded people have offered to let me ride their horses. I'll have to keep that tradition going. There are a few nice ones around that are never being ridden.

The barn owner told me something I didn't realize, which is that the buzzards aka turkey vultures migrate south for the winter. She said they had seen some in the area, which is a sign that spring is nearly here. After the buzzards return, the spring Chinook start running, and the daffodils bloom. I noticed Hero has started shedding as well. 
I was wondering who cleans up the dead bodies during the winter when the buzzards are gone.


----------



## gottatrot

Something funny occurred to me, thinking about how Hero hoof-tapped me while I was working on his abscess. Some people try to hold horses to higher standards than humans. I was thinking of what some people say, "It doesn't matter what I am doing to him, he is not allowed to hurt me."

I was imagining a doctor getting ready to drain an abscess. "Now I want to remind you that it is a crime to hit a health care professional. But I expect you to be able to control yourself. Looks like a big abscess here, yep, I'll just drain it out. Not going to numb it or anything, yes it will hurt very much. Now remember not to hit me..." 

Hmm...horses must be nicer than humans. Probably 90% of horses don't kick when we drain abscesses. Probably 90% of humans would hit the doctor if they tried to drain an abscess the same way.


----------



## Knave

Lol! That’s one I’ll have to tell my husband. He threatened a dentist that if he hurt him he would return the favor. I probably wouldn’t, but I’m pretty held back with humans.

He would lose his temper if a horse kicked at him hard without good reason, but not in the case of Hero. Especially considering he kicked softly. When something hurts they are given a bit of a pass.

I spanked Cashman yesterday. First I was off of him, so I didn’t get after him more than yelling when he kicked a baby calf for no good reason. Then he kicked at another while I was on him and I wapped him with the romal. I know he gets cranky, but he can’t be mean to little babies.

ETA- I laughed about the shooting up. I was thinking that no one in my town has ever done that, but maybe I am naive... our abscesses are few and far between. I think everyone just would drain their own though. Lol


----------



## egrogan

I got behind on your journal @gottatrot and am just now reading about the abscess. I have never seen one where you poke it and it empties like that- sounds very dramatic! I hope Hero heals up quickly.


----------



## QHriderKE

Knave said:


> I spanked Cashman yesterday. First I was off of him, so I didn’t get after him more than yelling when he kicked a baby calf for no good reason. Then he kicked at another while I was on him and I wapped him with the romal. I know he gets cranky, but he can’t be mean to little babies.


Lol! I didn't know what I was missing before I started riding with a quirt or romal! The slap of the popper on a shoulder or hip that needs to move over is way more effective that having to get after them with a spur. We have lots of bush where we are and I'm not as cool as my SO who packs a bull whip to make noise but my quirt slapping on my leg does a great job of spooking cows out of the trees! 

Also, I've had little baby calves think my horses are mom when I'm out checking, so that's always entertaining! And almost too cute to handle 🥰


----------



## Knave

I always think it’s cute too @QHriderKE . That’s why I get so irritated when horses aren’t kind to them. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ridden a horse that would tolerate it! Last year I was at a neighbor’s branding and a little guy mothered up to Cash. I knew he might kick a calf, so I was literally running away from this baby all over. Everyone was laughing at me when I was begging someone to come and take him from me. Hahahahaha

(I couldn’t just jump off and pick him up because it was kind of chaotic, and Cashman isn’t above running someone over when things go wrong.)

ETA- Lady is my grandpa’s old mare. She’s at the sheds where we take the heifer calves when we wean. Last year this heifer weanling was in with her for a bit and went to sucking the mare. It was cute and funny and I don’t think the old mare minded the company and love. Lol


----------



## QHriderKE

@Knave I think it just depends on the horse whether they will allow a calf to get all up in their business or not. I've thankfully always had the good ones that tolerate calves in the legs and under their bellies, which is really something because Penny is pure evil towards bigger bovines.


----------



## gottatrot

Aww that video was so cute!! That's the way I am when tiny dogs try chasing the horses on the beach. I'm like, don't step on him, don't kick him, somebody grab him...


----------



## QHriderKE

When we get help (often just one friend that comes) with cows, there is up to 7 or 8 working dogs involved and it's really interesting how the horses know what dogs are "theirs". Our 4 dogs can literally run through my horses legs while we are working and none of them pay any mind and try not to step on a dog, but if a strange dog comes too close, my horses aren't very keen about it. I don't think they would boot a dog that runs by too close but they definitely watch the strange dog more closely. In the pasture, my horses don't like the dogs, some of the horses will even chase the dogs out! It's just really neat seeing how they seem to develop a working relationship with each other.


----------



## gottatrot

The barn owner did not notice Hero favoring his leg while I was away. Today I was pleased to find a very shallow and open depression next to the bar. It did not seal off again after draining the last time. The area was very tender still, and the new sole underneath is soft. 

Today Hero told me a few times that he wanted to kick me when I cleaned the area, hosed the sole and applied more betadine. But he didn't do it when I told him not to. He is quite funny. He pulls up his leg and flexes it toward me. "Can I kick you?" I say "No." Verbally, just the word. Then he doesn't do it. 

Horses are so amazing. They truly have a desire to please us and try hard to find out what we want. They do this even when they have other drives such as self-preservation competing against it. 

This is really the only reason we are able to successfully use horses for so many things. They do a great deal of the work for us, by meeting us in the middle. Horses will do many things for us without any other incentive than their good will, even without reward or punishment. Gotta love 'em.


----------



## Knave

Very true statement!


----------



## phantomhorse13

I am finally catching up! I saw this on the book of faces the other day and it seemed appropriate to put here:










I did laugh very hard at it.. but at the same time, it's rather depressing that its so true. I am another than enjoys a reasonable debate where emotion is not involved. It can be a great way to learn.


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

phantomhorse13 said:


> I am finally catching up! I saw this on the book of faces the other day and it seemed appropriate to put here:
> 
> View attachment 1110210
> 
> 
> I did laugh very hard at it.. but at the same time, it's rather depressing that its so true. I am another than enjoys a reasonable debate where emotion is not involved. It can be a great way to learn.


OMG That made me crack up. Freaking facts right there. I almost never comment on anything horse related on facebook. The loudest people usually have minimal experience but think their way is the only one right and true way and I'm like pull your head out of your butt and realize there are many "right" ways. You adjust to the horse and what works for the horse, not ideology. Sometimes the ideology just doesn't suit the horse. You have to work with what is in front of you, not a textbook.

I want to understand why the people who know the least are the most obnoxious and rude, while people who are informed usually stay quiet and dont get involved. I wish there was more reasonable debate but most people in turns into an ugly emotion fueled argument of ego fanning, rather than getting down to brass tax and focusing on what is substantial and real. 

For me anymore, I just go to the experts I know when I need advice, help or suggestions.


----------



## gottatrot

phantomhorse13 said:


> I did laugh very hard at it.. but at the same time, it's rather depressing that its so true. I am another than enjoys a reasonable debate where emotion is not involved. It can be a great way to learn.


OK, that just killed me!!!


----------



## knightrider

Just wanted to say I finished your _Training Problem Horses _and loved it so much. I wish every new horse owner would read it. Such a well-written, down to earth, easy to read book. I hated for it to end. By the way, are you working on another one????? Hope so!!!!


----------



## Knave

I’m thinking I didn’t know about _Training Problem Horses_... I will have to look and see if I’ve read it.


----------



## AbbySmith

Okay, I finally got the book! I had to pay $1.27 for it, which has to be the cheapest I've ever paid for a book before lol! I'm totally gonna read the whole thing, it looks so good!


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks, @knightrider and @AbbySmith! I'm always working on a book, LOL. Writing is very addictive. 

This video is not super clear and my finger got on part of it, but I thought it was funny because Hero was attempting to be an Arabian today. Arabs look graceful with their tails held high, but he just looks awkward. At one point he spun back on his right hind, so apparently the old abscess area is not very sore anymore. I still plan to give him at least another week before officially working him on it. I just looked at it today and applied thrush medicine, but didn't poke. 





I didn't want Hero walking on the gravel with his tender hoof, so put boots on for the turnout, risking they might come off in the wet field. I was very pleased when I went back to bring the horses in to see them standing at the far edge of the field, and Hero still had all his boots on. So I called, "Amoreeee," which for some reason caused Amore to spin and come galloping across the field, which Hero immediately copied. While galloping, he stepped in guck over his pasterns and I saw two boots get sucked off. Oh well, at least I saw where they went so it was easy to retrieve them and put them back on. One Renegade, one Scoot with mud straps on. Silly boy.

The barn owner said that a delivery man had asked if Amore was just a colt. She told him Amore was a thirty year old colt. She also said that Hero makes her laugh because he doesn't make any faces or bother about her putting his feed out in the mornings. But if she doesn't leave and stands in the shed talking to him, he bares his teeth at her. She said it cracks her up, because she thinks he is saying, "Shut up, I'm trying to eat." She said she's fed a lot of horses over the years, but Hero is the only one who has ever told her to shut up.


----------



## Knave

Lol, that’s funny. He did almost look graceful when he spun away. It is funny that he is that big compared to her though. It reminds me of Cash next to the others.


----------



## gottatrot

I'm musing over another thread that turned sour. Other than my journal, when posting on the forum, I make every attempt to write in such a way that a person could read in monotone and it would sound appropriate. Meaning, no emotion in the words. I really try not to be offensive, or personal. 

It brought up something, however, which I don't think I've discussed in my journal. Basically the mental journey I traveled to get where I am regarding how harsh or gentle to be with horses.

When I first was around horses as a child, I was taught by a relative who presented me with a dichotomy. She believed in being extremely gentle under saddle, and used voice commands rather than rein or leg cues. When riding her horses, she would explain that you should only barely touch the reins when turning, and not use them at all for changing gaits or slowing the horse. She also did not touch a horse with her legs below the knee. Oddly, she treated horses differently on the ground, and would literally kick a horse in the stomach at times. As a child and teen, I agreed with the gentle treatment and disagreed with the rough.

For a few years I was only around gentle, well trained horses, which meant correction did not really come up. When I finally began taking serious lessons and was around horses a lot more in my late teens and early twenties, many of those I was around presented me with rougher treatment of horses than I was used to. Especially those involved in serious showing would use a "whatever works" method, and be very harsh with horses in order to get them to comply. Some of the less harsh, "gray" areas, I thought at first might be fine, such as tying a horse's head in one direction as they lunged, in order to develop muscles, or twitching them in order to get things done, but soon I decided this was not a good or kind way to work with horses. 

After that, there was a period of time where this poor treatment of horses left me with a bad feeling and I looked into going as far away from harsh methods as possible. This was just before the Parelli movement became very popular, and not many had heard of using hoof boots or riding bitless, except in a bosal or western sidepull. I began hearing of those who were promoting more natural and positive methods of working with horses, and for a time I went "all in," to see how I felt about it. 

Not many have heard of Alexander Nevzorov, but I actually joined his forum and discussed what I consider now to be a very extreme view of using horses. Here is a quote from his website:
NHE news
“_No” simply means “no.” It doesn’t mean “try again.” It doesn’t mean that the horse just doesn’t get it, or that he’ll learn it’s not a big deal, or that he’s being difficult or naughty, or that he will be okay with it in the end. If this sounds like quotes from sex offender education it does for a good reason. There are a lot of parallels when one is forcing oneself on another._
“_No” means the freedom of choice for any reason or no reason whatsoever. It means that if he doesn’t want to stay with you he’s not going to be chased. It means that if he doesn’t want to be touched (groomed, hosed off, etc.) he won’t be. It means that if he’s not engaged in whatever you might think is fun he doesn’t need to participate. It means that his own understanding of what’s better for him at the moment is respected. And if he doesn’t have this essential right then he’s never going to come to you because he’s deprived of the very essence of what it takes to connect, to make friends, to build trust. It also means that you can make him do what you want but you cannot make him like you. That he can only do on his own accord and not because you have a notion of what he’s supposed and not supposed to do or feel in response to your actions, care, love, or tokens of affection._

In this view of horsemanship, riding a horse for any sport is considered abuse. Using treats is mental coercion. I believe the rule was that you could sit on a horse without a saddle for about fifteen or twenty minutes, and anything more than that was more than a horse could tolerate without being aversive. 

Once I decided that the Nevzorov ideals were unnecessarily rigid, and began hearing of other facets of natural horsemanship, I read many books and went to some clinics, trying to figure out better ways. Parelli's ideas were not better received by many horses, I soon realized, and ended up dealing with some horses that had become nervous and developed problems with handling due to people using those methods. 

I stopped putting shoes on my horses, and tried many bitless options. I've ridden in nearly every bitless bridle available, on a variety of horses. I believe I have a good working knowledge of their positive aspects, as well as their limitations. I've used at least four brands of treeless saddles, and used many styles of hoof boots. 

Being a somewhat brave or crazy person, I literally did try seeing how very hot horses might do when ridden out in spooky places in a sidepull. I honestly believe many who think things will be fine have not actually put themselves out there and tried it, which I actually have. I've done things like gallop horses in equipment that was far too gentle for them to respond to, and when I say what might happen, it's because I've tried it to see what does. 

My point with all of this is that everyone has a journey to decide how they want to work with horses. Those who do not use the most gentle methods available may have already experimented with those methods and come around full circle to deciding what is kind and fair versus too harsh. It is a bit simplistic to look at people where they are and decide it is from lack of understanding that there are better ways to do things. 

My ideal is to understand a variety of methods, but I've been disillusioned too many times from thinking that one trainer, one guru, or one method can have all the answers. That is why I approach every training idea, old or new, with some healthy skepticism. Anything worth looking into can and should be dissected, evaluated, and criticized to see if it is worth experimenting with. Although I may not have studied every training method or style down to the gritty details, that does not mean this is due to ignorant bias, or a desire to hold onto what I feel more secure with. I am willing to change methods, and frequently do adjust what I am doing with horses. There does need to be good evidence, however, to convince me it is worth doing so.


----------



## bsms

The article the "gone bad thread" started with essentially said that while aversive training could get good looking results, maybe better than what some experienced using only positive reinforcement, that was only because the people using it hadn't learned how to TRULY understand and work with a horse:

"_We need to recognize first that these are not the horses’ problem, this is something caused by the person. The person handling the horse may be better at using R- or not willing to take the time to retrain known R- behaviors or to retrain new, gentler tools so then the horse doesn’t understand these new tools or forms of communication. So the horse seems to prefer the “devil they know”, but in truth they just don’t know what gentler tools mean or how R+ could be wonderful if done right._"






Why Would a Horse Prefer an Aversive? – Empowered Equines







empoweredequines.com





"_But our pleasurable experiences, riding, agility, driving, or any sort of training that is not necessary to the horse’s wellbeing, it would be unkind to mix aversives into the scenario._"






Choosing the Tack – Empowered Equines







empoweredequines.com





So the writer framed their argument in terms of positive works better and anyone who disagrees just isn't good enough or experienced enough or hasn't REALLY tried it. And if that means you can never ride a horse, that is OK. Because you are there to make the horse happy, while the horse has no "need" to provide you with anything. And while that might make the writer happy, it isn't real. It is expensive to keep horses and very few would be willing to pay for decades for a horse who doesn't have to give anything back except companionship. And maybe not that, since plenty of horses just aren't that thrilled by humans!

In many places, a horse who is never ridden is going to be in poor shape, just as a human who never gets exercise is. My three are out of shape right now because they aren't being ridden enough.

But it is fundamentally unfair to frame an argument in such a way that anyone who has a different experience disagrees because they are stupid, ignorant or just plain mean. I can point to a lot of horses, including my own, who seem very happy even though I expect things out of them. But the writer frames the argument so that merely means I don't really know my horses - even after up to 12 years with them! While the writer, who hasn't even met my horses, knows the real truth! Framed that way, no honest discussion can follow. To disagree is to be inferior at best and possibly malicious as well.


----------



## egrogan

Again, I'm feeling like the constant closing of threads and name-calling that leads to that is a really frustrating example of how "we" (the global we) can't engage in thoughtful debate and discussion. Every closed thread just reinforces the idea that if you disagree and make a counter-argument, it's bad and scary and impolite and has to stop. Talk about positive reinforcement  

I personally enjoy reading threads when people are sharing their previous experiences about trying things, failing or succeeding (or failing AND succeeding when the same method is used with different horses), but I dislike blind adherence to any single perspective. Since I haven't been able to ride for a month now because of the weather, I'm reading these threads and thinking through scenarios of what Fizz might do if I tried to use x, y, or z strategies that I'm reading about on these threads in our own, real-life sticky situations (passing cows, riding away from home down the hill of despair, rating our speed when riding with our friend Coalie). I have some hypotheses about what she will do, and can't wait to test them out. My point is that these "contentious" threads, and the examples- both theoretical and practical- are making me really _think_ about my own horse and approach, which is far more interesting than threads by random teens that don't have horses asking about how to convince their parents to let them get one...But those threads are allowed, even though the educational value is zero.


----------



## Knave

I keep missing out on everything interesting I guess! Maybe I will be able to find it.

I don’t see anything I disagree with in either of your statements though Gotta and @bsms. It just isn’t practical. Although I don’t mean to be comparing to child abuse , we couldn’t raise our children that way. “Whatever you want,” would lead to dire consequences.

I’m trying to think what I believe about what you both said. I guess I would think that being kind and gentle is the way to go about things, but sometimes firmness is required. I think one can be gentle in bitting even with a spade, and gentleness and kindness is a general way of being.

I think that when”animal abuse” came about there was a story about some young men overworking these horses terribly and then getting drunk and racing them down the street and one of them dying. It was something like that, and they decided abuse was hard to describe and something you know when you see it.

Such an open ended thing, which is definitely true and I think we can all related to, doesn’t really work well in today’s society. We seem to have such extremes, like those you discussed, that are just impossible to reason with.


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> ...But it is fundamentally unfair to frame an argument in such a way that anyone who has a different experience disagrees because they are stupid, ignorant or just plain mean. I can point to a lot of horses, including my own, who seem very happy even though I expect things out of them. But the writer frames the argument so that merely means I don't really know my horses - even after up to 12 years with them! While the writer, who hasn't even met my horses, knows the real truth! Framed that way, no honest discussion can follow. To disagree is to be inferior at best and possibly malicious as well.


Yes, I should know better after some of the pointless discussions I've had on the book of faces. Something I have noticed is that some who are the most insistent (thinking of FB), who say that their way is correct and yours is wrong because you don't understand or know horses - when you get down to it, they'll admit they have very limited experience trying out their "correct" ways. Or this is still theory to them, but they'll defend it completely. 

Then there are those who have supposedly used a method successfully on many horses, and never failed. Well, that doesn't matter if you're explaining online how frustrated you are because other people simply can't do it right, which is causing all these problems in their horses. If something is a method only you and a handful of other select people can successfully use, then selling it to the general public as a solution to all problems is simply wrong. 

Especially this idea of always being right based on a theory applies on bitless sites to the idea of horses only running because bits give pain and adrenaline. You can never convince people you know what you are talking about. Because if you say perhaps a horse enjoys running, they'll say it's been conditioned into them by the use of a bit. If you say the horse ran and was unstoppable in the sidepull, they'll say the horse needed more training in it. If you say the training was done and the horse still ran off, it's because the horse either remembered negative associations from the previous bit training that kicked in, or else you did not have the perfect understanding of how to train properly in the bitless. Otherwise the horse would obviously stop off your weight cues, because really a person does not need to use reins at all. If you're a really good trainer, that is.

Then you get called a horse abuser and things like that ("you're saying you've used _leverage _on a horse?") That's when a person wishes they could simply put one of these people on certain horses and say "be my guest." Here, take Hero for a walk in the woods when he's scared. Have fun! Why don't you hop on Cheyenne in a bitless bridle. First try her out in the arena to get your confidence up. I assure you, it will make you very brave. Now go out on the road and let her trot for a minute...see you in a few miles! Be sure to remember to duck and try to avoid the highway!



egrogan said:


> ...I personally enjoy reading threads when people are sharing their previous experiences about trying things, failing or succeeding (or failing AND succeeding when the same method is used with different horses), but I dislike blind adherence to any single perspective....My point is that these "contentious" threads, and the examples- both theoretical and practical- are making me really _think_ about my own horse and approach...


Right, which is why we're on here, to learn and stretch our perspectives. It's true, hearing how people fail teaches a lot. If someone says "X is always successful, so just do that," I don't trust it. 

Nala's rider had a huge, somewhat excitable OTTB before Nala. I never rode him but went out a few times with her when she rode him. He could gallop very fast, get excited, and was a good jumper, but was also quite easy to stop in a classic crossunder bitless bridle. He also was a great lesson horse for kids, in an arena. She really liked using the bitless bridle because of these good experiences. She tried it briefly on Nala, but her new horse had a different mind and that was never going to work out.

I've seen the gamut: even a hot horse responds well to something very gentle in all situations. A horse responds well to something very gentle, but only in an arena or unexciting situations. A horse does not respond well to something very gentle in any situation. 



Knave said:


> ...I guess I would think that being kind and gentle is the way to go about things, but sometimes firmness is required. I think one can be gentle in bitting even with a spade, and gentleness and kindness is a general way of being...
> ...they decided abuse was hard to describe and something you know when you see it.
> 
> Such an open ended thing, which is definitely true and I think we can all related to, doesn’t really work well in today’s society. We seem to have such extremes, like those you discussed, that are just impossible to reason with.


This is very true. I've also seen people who are the most adamant about one way of being gentle with horses and completely failing the horse in another way. My friend who rode her horse in a neck rope and bareback, thinking she was the most gentle person in the world. Her horse suffered so much, because her chronic laminitis had destroyed her hooves beyond recovery. She had a type of barn blindness, because she could not recognize that her horse was limping since she was lame on all four hooves. She wanted to believe that her horse was always lying down because of old age (but old people sleep more, don't they?) of 21 or so. When I said Amore was older but rarely went down, that was because she was an Arab and not a QH. 

She felt sad that she couldn't always be with her horse, since people told her the horse perked up more when she was around. This was true, as the horse was terribly depressed from chronic pain, and when the owner arrived with treats and brushing it distracted her and made her briefly feel better. The owner could not wrap her mind around any other idea than horses need to have access to hay 24/7. The horse was obese, and the owner thought cutting back feed was cruel, but exercising a horse more to lose weight was fine, even though the horse gimped around on her terribly sore feet.


----------



## Knave

Yes. I have seen that too. It’s odd, but sometimes someone claiming gentleness and requiring something like bitless riding is over there pulling hard on that horse and kicking him big with their spurless feet. That same person manhandling a kind sort of a horse will claim abuse at the person riding a horse super light handed in a bit with spurs on that barely ever make requests to a hot little fancy horse.

It’s so odd that they cannot see the difference in the horse himself. Or, like your friend, that a horse is lame or starved or something else one would see as actual abuse.

None of us are by any means perfect, but we should learn to be a less stiff necked people.


----------



## AbbySmith

@gottatrot, I think I say this way too often, but I love your journal! Even though I don't always post in it, I do read everything you have to say. I love how carefree, and non judgmental everyone that posts on it is. Like, I also follow along with some of the other threads, and I had been reading the thread that got locked down, and then I come to your journal, and you guys are able to have a legit conversation with each other. You respect others opinions, while stating yours, and the other actually listen to what you all have to say! It's awesome! I love reading what you guys say cause you have so much more experience, and you share actual real life stories that _prove your _points, instead of just _derailing others_ _. _I also much prefer reading threads about people's experience, and the way train, rather than listen to someone ask how they should talk to their parents. Well, go research it, read some training threads, read awesome journals like this, gain experience, and learn how to talk to your parents! I know that might sound hypocritical seeing as I don't have a horse of my own, but I'm not posting threads asking what I should say to my parents. Instead I am going outside and doing chores and helping my dad and showing that I am responsible, and I can take care of a horse.
Everything you guys say makes so much sense, and I love the information you share! Thank you! Also, sorry I don't read all your guy's journals. I have started reading a couple of them, and I have loved them so far! 

Anyhow, just had to pop in and say thank you for writing journals, and for letting me read about your experiences!! 😉


----------



## gottatrot

@AbbySmith, thanks and please know you are always welcome to share thoughts. Interesting perspectives do not always come from longer experiences.

I was watching a video about leading on QHriderKE's journal, and this reminded me of something else I wanted to mention.

I think some of the really excellent trainers out there would rightly be offended to have what they do called aversive, when they are having a horse "follow a feel."

If you've watched this, or tried it yourself, it is why I say that negative reinforcement training does not necessarily involve pressure, then harder pressure, until the horse earns a release. Horses can quickly and easily learn to follow a feel, and once they know how to do this, can apply it to learning many other things. 

I've taught horses to follow a feel without using the method of more and more pressure until there is a response, because horses are extremely sensitive to our body language. I've seen horses learn by "pressure and release" or negative reinforcement when all the trainer did was raise their hand, which the horse understood as a type of mental pressure to move away. This is no different from using a lunge whip that the horse is not afraid of, having been thoroughly desensitized to it, in order to cue the horse to move parts of their body.

This video is a good example. Where is there an escalation of pressure for non compliance? It is not necessary.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Yv2pCrhf8

If a horse responds to mental pressure that does not involve fear in pressure and release training, how is this any different from responding to mental pressure that does not involve fear to do something in positive reinforcement? Meaning, I can pick up a lunge whip, and ask the horse to move sideways, not touching him, and he does, and then I give him a treat. Versus I hold a carrot and ask the horse to stretch his nose to one side of his body (probably the form of positive reinforcement training most people have done, "carrot stretches"), and then give him the treat. The horse might not want to stretch his body quite as far as we ask, but that would still be considered positive reinforcement although we do use mental pressure (you'll get it if you go just a little further) to get a treat. That is where to me it becomes "my way is not coercive and yours is," without any real evidence of that. If I can get horses to do things without even touching them, or by having them "follow a feel" that is the lightest touch on the lead, it is still technically negative reinforcement, but then I give a treat. How aversive can that be?


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

egrogan said:


> Again, I'm feeling like the constant closing of threads and name-calling that leads to that is a really frustrating example of how "we" (the global we) can't engage in thoughtful debate and discussion. Every closed thread just reinforces the idea that if you disagree and make a counter-argument, it's bad and scary and impolite and has to stop. Talk about positive reinforcement
> 
> I personally enjoy reading threads when people are sharing their previous experiences about trying things, failing or succeeding (or failing AND succeeding when the same method is used with different horses), but I dislike blind adherence to any single perspective. Since I haven't been able to ride for a month now because of the weather, I'm reading these threads and thinking through scenarios of what Fizz might do if I tried to use x, y, or z strategies that I'm reading about on these threads in our own, real-life sticky situations (passing cows, riding away from home down the hill of despair, rating our speed when riding with our friend Coalie). I have some hypotheses about what she will do, and can't wait to test them out. My point is that these "contentious" threads, and the examples- both theoretical and practical- are making me really _think_ about my own horse and approach, which is far more interesting than threads by random teens that don't have horses asking about how to convince their parents to let them get one...But those threads are allowed, even though the educational value is zero.


I very much agree. I don't understand why people can't civilly disagree and discuss with basic respect. I think people who expect blind agreement are protecting their egos and perceptions than to grow. I am finding more and more as I learn more about how we build perception and how flawed it is why some people are so protective. I think it is their source of validation, confidence and assurance and some people are just too afraid to face that that self assurance is an illusion. I think that is why they sometimes fight so violently, it becomes self protection from their reality not being what they think it is. Some people cant handle that.

I also left some comments in the quote below, I'm figuring out formatting and experimenting


gottatrot said:


> Yes, I should know better after some of the pointless discussions I've had on the book of faces. Something I have noticed is that some who are the most insistent (thinking of FB), who say that their way is correct and yours is wrong because you don't understand or know horses - when you get down to it, they'll admit they have very limited experience trying out their "correct" ways. Or this is still theory to them, but they'll defend it completely.
> 
> Then there are those who have supposedly used a method successfully on many horses, and never failed. Well, that doesn't matter if you're explaining online how frustrated you are because other people simply can't do it right, which is causing all these problems in their horses. If something is a method only you and a handful of other select people can successfully use, then selling it to the general public as a solution to all problems is simply wrong.
> 
> *Especially this idea of always being right based on a theory applies on bitless sites to the idea of horses only running because bits give pain and adrenaline. You can never convince people you know what you are talking about. Because if you say perhaps a horse enjoys running, they'll say it's been conditioned into them by the use of a bit. If you say the horse ran and was unstoppable in the sidepull, they'll say the horse needed more training in it. If you say the training was done and the horse still ran off, it's because the horse either remembered negative associations from the previous bit training that kicked in, or else you did not have the perfect understanding of how to train properly in the bitless. Otherwise the horse would obviously stop off your weight cues, because really a person does not need to use reins at all. If you're a really good trainer, that is.*
> 
> My response: I agree. I dont entertain that kind of thinking, behavior is a lot more complicated than Pavlov and classical conditioning. Not all horses love to run, I mean look at how many thoroughbreds end of racetrack rejects despite attempts to condition them to love it. In science we have the falsification principle, if one example can falsify than the theory is no longer valid. I also roll my eyes at people who think all horses belong in the same equipment. I may sound snobby but I can't take those people seriously. Because to me they just havent met the horse to show them what they think know isn't all there is to know. I think I've encountered, so many horses that have challenged my ideologies that I'm kinda like yep, so let's see and adjust.
> 
> I also get frustrated by people who think if someone is really good that they can change horses and fix all problem over night or within a month _face palm_ I mean sure sometimes but sometimes issues are a lot deeper and you're going to look more into "deep time" over the months and years than short run.
> 
> I also think people who only work with one breed or type or a few types but not many reduce their scope of knowledge. It really broadens your perspective when working with a friesian vs an arabian or qh for example.
> 
> Then you get called a horse abuser and things like that ("you're saying you've used _leverage _on a horse?") That's when a person wishes they could simply put one of these people on certain horses and say "be my guest." Here, take Hero for a walk in the woods when he's scared. Have fun! Why don't you hop on Cheyenne in a bitless bridle. First try her out in the arena to get your confidence up. I assure you, it will make you very brave. Now go out on the road and let her trot for a minute...see you in a few miles! Be sure to remember to duck and try to avoid the highway!
> 
> 
> Right, which is why we're on here, to learn and stretch our perspectives. It's true, hearing how people fail teaches a lot. If someone says "X is always successful, so just do that," I don't trust it.
> 
> Nala's rider had a huge, somewhat excitable OTTB before Nala. I never rode him but went out a few times with her when she rode him. He could gallop very fast, get excited, and was a good jumper, but was also quite easy to stop in a classic crossunder bitless bridle. He also was a great lesson horse for kids, in an arena. She really liked using the bitless bridle because of these good experiences. She tried it briefly on Nala, but her new horse had a different mind and that was never going to work out.
> 
> *I've seen the gamut: even a hot horse responds well to something very gentle in all situations. A horse responds well to something very gentle, but only in an arena or unexciting situations. A horse does not respond well to something very gentle in any situation.*
> 
> Important point. Part of choosing equipment is not what is safe when everything is well but when things go wrong. You can't anticipate for every condition but you need to have the equipment you need to address the issue at hand and think on your feet. I actually think being an eventer and learning how to gallop and balance horses in gallop and through obstacles and different terrain was very advantageous for dressage and thinking fast. Wonder would have killed by now had I not learned those skills. I think some people have been in situations where it has really gone wrong and if you don't negotiate it well, you will get really hurt.
> 
> This is very true. I've also seen people who are the most adamant about one way of being gentle with horses and completely failing the horse in another way. My friend who rode her horse in a neck rope and bareback, thinking she was the most gentle person in the world. Her horse suffered so much, because her chronic laminitis had destroyed her hooves beyond recovery. She had a type of barn blindness, because she could not recognize that her horse was limping since she was lame on all four hooves. She wanted to believe that her horse was always lying down because of old age (but old people sleep more, don't they?) of 21 or so. When I said Amore was older but rarely went down, that was because she was an Arab and not a QH.
> 
> She felt sad that she couldn't always be with her horse, since people told her the horse perked up more when she was around. This was true, as the horse was terribly depressed from chronic pain, and when the owner arrived with treats and brushing it distracted her and made her briefly feel better. The owner could not wrap her mind around any other idea than horses need to have access to hay 24/7. The horse was obese, and the owner thought cutting back feed was cruel, but exercising a horse more to lose weight was fine, even though the horse gimped around on her terribly sore feet.


I'll admit it makes me cringe when people say book of faces, I don't know why it is just cringey to me lol. Not a criticism just a thought lol.

I also agree. The people I see who are the most opinionated, rude and talk sh-- about other people are often the most inexperienced and mediocre with the biggest egos. I do not understand. I think it is to protect their narrow perception of the world because they can't face their reality might not be true. I find people who are the most obnoxious know just enough to think they know something but the lack the experience to understand the message from those with experience.

I VERY seldom comment on FB because I have a lot of experience, I've trained with some top people and find my input isn't understood, appreciated or welcomed. So I don't bother. My goal is to help someone or provide new perspective but most people it's about satisfying their ego or hearing what they want to hear and I'm not into that. I also don't have the time or emotional energy. I've pretty much learned to stop caring about much. What's the point in engaging or spending energy on things that don't matter? Time and energy are limited resources spend it wisely.

I'm also extremely skeptical when someone says this fixes everything or the "one right and true way" well there isnt a one right or true way. What is true for the warmblood isnt right for the lusitano, what is right for the dressage horse isnt right for the gamer, etc. I think there are so many right ways that anyone who says there is only one, I know doesn't know anything. Someone who knows is open to hearing other ways or different ways.

I really don't care if people aren't super experienced or don't know or have only trail rode or just ride low level dressage or whatever, I don't see someone as "less" of a person or diminish their efforts or growth. It makes me happy to see people happy in their progress, no matter what phase they're in. I don't need to feel superior to anyone to enjoy my horse or my life, in fact I would hate myself if I had to diminish the worth of others to feel good about myself. But I get annoyed when people are rude, condescending and disrespectful about things they know nothing about and lack the qualifications to assess. Like have some basic respect for people and maybe some dignity but I find that can be a high price for some.

I've gotten a lot of nasty back talk comments in regards to Wonder and how I've worked with him. I still find it hilarious. None of the people saying those things even had trainers qualified who could have successfully worked with something like Wonder. I would have loved to have watched them try to even post Wonder's trot, forget steering or getting him "on the bit" or even trying his canter. I've seen FEI riders unable to steer or get him on the bit at all, get bolted off with, etc. And I think it has a lot to do with their mental attitude and approach. I think they got on and thought we'll I'm a great rider with all these qualifications and I'm going to show you how it's done and Wonder was like yeah, no. Not going to happen and fought every aid and every tell because they didnt know how to use their mind and ask. Wonder is also very strong, so he will use his intelligence, quick thinking on his feet and strength against a person. I've also seen riders good with their mind but can't ride him because of the technical skill and strength it takes and they were very good riders but he's really difficult. I dont even know how to explain it, I try but it's something someone would have to sit on and work with to get. It's totally unique. I think it is so easy to criticize when not in the driver's seat.

My point in this is food for thought about riding and details, just using Wonder as an example of something that doesn't fit the mold and takes adaptive, flexible thinking and approaches. I don't realize how much Wonder takes to ride until I put someone else on and have to walk them through with like 10-15 different things every step (in position, foot placement, where to look, where to put weight in each seat bone or in stirrups, how to use the bridle, how to move his ribs, how to use the core and the timing because if the timing isnt perfect it's a mess, how to use mental and emotional energy, etc). Or when I get back on and have to get him to let go of the bit or how to move his shoulders or re-train the reaction. Then I also address it in the body work to get the release. You can't address the bridle to get his head "down" the more someone holds the more he bares down against. it has to come from how effectively someone organizes their aids and his body. Same in aids, cannot ride him strong. The stronger the rider is in an aid, the more he pushes into the pressure. Cant see saw or widdle him or hold. If you actually saw my contact, it is between my index finger and thumb. A lot of times in the kandar, I put my snaffle rein under my middle finger and my curb under my pinkie. The trick is in knowing when to hold and when to release. There is a lot about getting him to ride more evenly left to right, which I always have to address after someone else has been on and too and he feels even more uneven. It's super hard to explain, sometimes I have to be very strong, sometimes very light with a general expectation of making him lighter and lighter.

How I address Wonder through the spook, he was genuinely startled and he thought I was mad at him and felt like a barrel of nerves. A horse like Wonder needs to be soothed and comforted, another thing this kind of thing doesnt shake me up - I become very calm and gentle, so I can bring the horse's back to an emotional state of comfort much quicker. I actually worked for a driving trainer/natural horsemanship/saddleseat, etc trainer for a bit. And I learned a TON from her because she is a master horseman and working with unconventional horses, learned a TON. I used to hack out horses bareback on the road to condition them for driving because I was very good at keeping them in a good emotional state. So I'd go up and down road bareback just getting horses used to all the sights and dogs. She also used to basically get the rejects from all kinds of disciplines that people gave up on and had to figure out the problem and how to develop them. She was really innovative and it was such a beneficial experience. She had a lot of ideas for Wonder but Wonder is really an anomaly.

Wonder is also very brave, even though he was scared. He still had an attitude of I want to go have a look and there wasn't hesitation. But he is also the kind of horse where if a dog comes to threaten us, he will threaten and attack the dog. He wont think to run away.





Horses really look to us when they are in a fearful and emotional place, if they are fearful I want to soothe. If someone were to rough him up because he spooked and think the way was to get his attention, he'd become a ball of nerves which would then escalate to aggression, resistance and fighting every aid. Changing Wonder to be a team player took a lot of work because he didnt trust. However if it were pushy, bully stallion type personality I'd say pressuring and getting their focus and being bossy is best. People have to address the horse they are working with, not ideology. You have to be willing to do what it takes to communicate effectively.




gottatrot said:


> do use mental pressure (you'll get it if you go just a little further) to get a treat. That is where to me it becomes "my way is not coercive and yours is," without any real evidence of that. If I can get horses to do things without even touching them, or by having them "follow a feel" that is the lightest touch on the lead, it is still technically negative reinforcement, but then I give a treat. How aversive can that be?


I think I agree with you, it isn't all positive reinforcement, sometimes there is negative reinforcement and I don't know. I've never really sat and thought on it that way. I just read the horse and felt their needs and thus far have been fairly good at it. Wonder takes both and it depends on the mental state he is in. He can be very stallion-like pushy, dominant and aggressive but he can also be very sensitive, anxious and nervous. It just takes reading him and realizing what he needs. However I have worked with people who have poor instincts and yet are trainers on the international stage. I actually think my autism is why I can read horses and work with something like Wonder or Ranja or Pinkie or countless others. I think the broader range of horses you work with, the more tools you have in your tool box and more basis for comparison.


----------



## egrogan

DanteDressageNerd said:


> just using Wonder as an example of something that doesn't fit the mold and takes *adaptive, flexible thinking and approaches.*


This stood out to me, because it's so counter to a lot of the popular training "programs" that are out there. Some which even literally say "you must progress through this book page by page, step by step, or you will fail." I do a lot of research in (human) teacher preparation and training, and what's so clear is that what distinguishes the most effective teachers from the least is that they can predict the myriad ways a student might misunderstand a concept or make a mistake in their practice, and are prepared to join the student in that moment of misunderstanding and confusion and work from there to guide them towards clarity. So sitting around with examples of student work, or videos/observations of student conversations, and working with examples where students come up with the WRONG answer is one of the most powerful teaching tools for teaching teachers. If a teacher can't look at a piece of student work and correctly assess why a student might think 3x3=6, they have no idea how to productively correct that student and get them to a place where they understand not just that the right answer is 9, but WHY it is 9, instead of 6.

But back to horses...As an adult re-rider with questionable "feel" and timing, I appreciate the allure of a promise that if you take a stepwise approach, your success is guaranteed. But I'm not sure how anyone could believe that guaranteed success could possibly be true. If you start with a "good egg," e.g., a very low-key, agreeable QH or drafty type that's happy to go along to get along, I definitely see how you can increase your odds of succeeding with a scripted program. But when so many people want a mustang or an OTTB or a "rescue" kill pen horse of unknown background, and then think this linear approach is going to work, I just don't get where that magical thinking originates from. Really, what people should be coached around is horse selection, and ensuring a horse with a foundation and temperament that suits their needs, but that seems to happen less often than it should. And if it doesn't turn out that they have the right horse, then they need to get help in not only asking why a horse is doing something- the wrong thing- but then what to do to explain to the horse what they meant instead. There's a simple protocol in decision making called the "five why's"- and it's literally as simple and straightforward as it sounds. You start with a problem, and ask out loud "why is this happening." You offer an answer, and ask "why" again, and again, and again. You try to drill down to something fundamental that's within your control, and start there. Identifying something not in control isn't helpful, so sometimes you have to get much more basic or fundamental than you want- it takes longer to start at the root cause. But to borrow a cliche, sometimes you go faster by going slower. Or, to use where you started from @DanteDressageNerd , people need help developing the skills to bring adaptive, flexible thinking to problems, whether we're talking about horses or anything else.


----------



## gottatrot

DanteDressageNerd said:


> I'll admit it makes me cringe when people say book of faces, I don't know why it is just cringey to me lol. Not a criticism just a thought lol.


I agree, funny. Not sure why I've copied that term. I think for me it's because of the Game of Thrones and there was a creepy part where they could put on dead people's faces...yikes. 



DanteDressageNerd said:


> I'm also extremely skeptical when someone says this fixes everything or the "one right and true way" well there isnt a one right or true way. What is true for the warmblood isnt right for the lusitano, what is right for the dressage horse isnt right for the gamer, etc. I think there are so many right ways that anyone who says there is only one, I know doesn't know anything. Someone who knows is open to hearing other ways or different ways...


That was quite a spook and nicely ridden! I'm the same about reassuring a horse after a spook and providing stability. The only time I sort of "punish" a spook, is if (using flexible thinking) I can read that the horse is kind of stuck in a way of thinking and needs a different focus. 

That was something that was never appropriate for either of my last two horses, but for Hero sometimes it is. It's not that he's faking anything, but he'll be more nervous than frightened, if that makes sense, and his focus will be outward, which is making him notice everything worrisome. So then I'll say "Hey now," "Knock it off," or some such, and it will bring his focus back to me, which will help him be less jumpy. These are not actual startles that he is doing, not spooks like the one Wonder did in the video, but rather he'll be looking around somewhat thoughtfully and doing little rushes forward or hops, thinking about how maybe he should get home faster to be safe. 

When you talk of how the different horses need different approaches, yes, this is so interesting. I've never ridden a Lusitano or PRE, but it's been educational to read your posts about them. About the type of body management and mental processes they require, and how to organize them. I think the closest I've come is with Friesian crosses I've ridden, and they have a very different way of thinking and going than for example a TB. 
In my opinion there is no end to the differences an individual horse's particular blend of mental and physical tendencies might present you with. 


DanteDressageNerd said:


> ...And I think it has a lot to do with their mental attitude and approach. I think they got on and thought we'll I'm a great rider with all these qualifications and I'm going to show you how it's done and Wonder was like yeah, no. Not going to happen and fought every aid and every tell because they didnt know how to use their mind and ask. Wonder is also very strong, so he will use his intelligence, quick thinking on his feet and strength against a person. I've also seen riders good with their mind but can't ride him because of the technical skill and strength it takes and they were very good riders but he's really difficult. I dont even know how to explain it, I try but it's something someone would have to sit on and work with to get. It's totally unique. I think it is so easy to criticize when not in the driver's seat...
> 
> ...I just read the horse and felt their needs and thus far have been fairly good at it. Wonder takes both and it depends on the mental state he is in. He can be very stallion-like pushy, dominant and aggressive but he can also be very sensitive, anxious and nervous. It just takes reading him and realizing what he needs. However I have worked with people who have poor instincts and yet are trainers on the international stage...


Very good comments. And I don't know how people can get by without reading horses. To me it is a similar mystery to how people can be jumping horses fairly high but not have a secure seat for many situations. I'll think a rider can handle a horse because of their competition level, but then they struggle.

When I work with horses, I think of them as teaching me. They teach me how to work with them and ride them, which is a two way communication process. As @egrogan said, it cannot be step by step because every horse is different, and you need to know when the progress is not happening because of how the horse perceives what you are doing.

That is why I believe the key is the trainer reading the horse, because even though you can believe a process will be positive for the horse, I've found that is not always the case. And sometimes my gentleness has been something the horse did not appreciate. It is the same with people. I've found that some people don't care for "sweetness." I'll go in to a patient, and what I mean as kindness or a listening and caring approach, they find offensive and condescending. Some people want you to be very "clinical" and straightforward rather than sweet, which they mistrust as trying to put something over on them. Horses are definitely the same. After Halla's experiences with being tricked, she at first much preferred me to be straightforward and firm because she did not trust bribes and was always looking for the "kicker" that came along with it such as a rope thrown over her head. 



egrogan said:


> ...But back to horses...As an adult re-rider with questionable "feel" and timing, I appreciate the allure of a promise that if you take a stepwise approach, your success is guaranteed. But I'm not sure how anyone could believe that guaranteed success could possibly be true. If you start with a "good egg," e.g., a very low-key, agreeable QH or drafty type that's happy to go along to get along, I definitely see how you can increase your odds of succeeding with a scripted program. But when so many people want a mustang or an OTTB or a "rescue" kill pen horse of unknown background, and then think this linear approach is going to work, I just don't get where that magical thinking originates from. Really, what people should be coached around is horse selection, and ensuring a horse with a foundation and temperament that suits their needs, but that seems to happen less often than it should. And if it doesn't turn out that they have the right horse, then they need to get help in not only asking why a horse is doing something- the wrong thing- but then what to do to explain to the horse what they meant instead...


Very excellent points and analogies. I've thought a lot about how a person could help others find the right type of horse for their own personality and needs. My horse teachers have shown me how the idea of horses as blank slates we can mold into whatever we wish is completely false. I guess it's sort of like people who think their kids can do anything, but actually everyone has limitations based on many factors.


----------



## Knave

Lucy is like that Gotta. Gentleness is not something she appreciates in many situations. Oh, sometimes she does, like in grooming and a lot of her ground things, but when you ride her she will push your buttons until you are very stern and serious. Then she’s plain happy. It drives me batty about her.

In my head it doesn’t add up. She moves so pretty, bouncing around like a dressage queen, and running pretty reining patterns and cutting beautifully. She spooks quite often and just gives this appearance of what one would assume is a hot horse. Maybe she is a hot horse, but that sensitivity and emotional behavior one expects from a hot horse isn’t there at all. She’s rude until you are stern. Then, her feelings are not hurt at all, and she deems you a worthy rider.

Even Cash, who I would think of as a colder horse, would get his panties in a twist over what she seems to require to give any respect to you at all. It blows my mind.


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

egrogan said:


> This stood out to me, because it's so counter to a lot of the popular training "programs" that are out there. Some which even literally say "you must progress through this book page by page, step by step, or you will fail." I do a lot of research in (human) teacher preparation and training, and what's so clear is that what distinguishes the most effective teachers from the least is that they can predict the myriad ways a student might misunderstand a concept or make a mistake in their practice, and are prepared to join the student in that moment of misunderstanding and confusion and work from there to guide them towards clarity. So sitting around with examples of student work, or videos/observations of student conversations, and working with examples where students come up with the WRONG answer is one of the most powerful teaching tools for teaching teachers. If a teacher can't look at a piece of student work and correctly assess why a student might think 3x3=6, they have no idea how to productively correct that student and get them to a place where they understand not just that the right answer is 9, but WHY it is 9, instead of 6.
> 
> But back to horses...As an adult re-rider with questionable "feel" and timing, I appreciate the allure of a promise that if you take a stepwise approach, your success is guaranteed. But I'm not sure how anyone could believe that guaranteed success could possibly be true. If you start with a "good egg," e.g., a very low-key, agreeable QH or drafty type that's happy to go along to get along, I definitely see how you can increase your odds of succeeding with a scripted program. But when so many people want a mustang or an OTTB or a "rescue" kill pen horse of unknown background, and then think this linear approach is going to work, I just don't get where that magical thinking originates from. Really, what people should be coached around is horse selection, and ensuring a horse with a foundation and temperament that suits their needs, but that seems to happen less often than it should. And if it doesn't turn out that they have the right horse, then they need to get help in not only asking why a horse is doing something- the wrong thing- but then what to do to explain to the horse what they meant instead. There's a simple protocol in decision making called the "five why's"- and it's literally as simple and straightforward as it sounds. You start with a problem, and ask out loud "why is this happening." You offer an answer, and ask "why" again, and again, and again. You try to drill down to something fundamental that's within your control, and start there. Identifying something not in control isn't helpful, so sometimes you have to get much more basic or fundamental than you want- it takes longer to start at the root cause. But to borrow a cliche, sometimes you go faster by going slower. Or, to use where you started from


I quite understand. And I agree. If you keep following the same route with a horse that doesn't understand, then you have failed as a teacher imo as well. A good teacher is willing to understand what isn't being understood and figures out how to adjust, so they can understand.

I also agree with the whys, I often explore why is this happening? Some people call it "excuses" I call it seeking answers in the real world and looking at what you have right in front of you, rather than a check list in some program.

I also agree, it is a lot easier with a horse who is willing to follow the program and is basically a "good egg." then one with questionable background. Psychological and emotional issues are the hardest to work through and take the most time imo and sometimes they aren't fixable. If a horse learns certain habits, it can be impossible to unteach it. 

I also agree. People need to find a horse that is suitable to them. I remember a lot of clients at the stables I've been to really over horse themselves because they wanted a really flashy horse but the horse was way too big moving and powerful for them to manage. They would have been better off getting an arabian or morgan or something without the gaits or power that they can successfully ride and enjoy. That's what this is about, find something to ride and enjoy! I had a client who switched to arabians as she got older because she didn't have the strength or body to handle warmbloods anymore. She said my body just cant take it, arabs are sensitive but they aren't strong and no power in the gaits so they dont hurt my back. And said more adult amateurs should consider getting an arabian or morgan or something that doesn't have the gaits or power that they can ride. But people often want what is trendy and impressive, rather than what they can ride. I think temperament is one component but also conformation, size, etc. A horse can have a fabulous gold star temperament and be too much for someone because the horse itself is hard to organize and ride. The bigger a horse moves and the more power they have, the harder they are to organize, manage and ride.

I also agree, more needs to be done in regard to critical and flexible thinking. I think it starts with education from elementary school on. In Denmark the education is centered around critical thinking with the knowledge as supplementary and necessary to analyze and critically assess. I think it leads to a culture of people where they are more flexible and able to critically assess vs a one-size fits all, step by step methodology in thinking. 



gottatrot said:


> That was quite a spook and nicely ridden! I'm the same about reassuring a horse after a spook and providing stability. The only time I sort of "punish" a spook, is if (using flexible thinking) I can read that the horse is kind of stuck in a way of thinking and needs a different focus.
> 
> That was something that was never appropriate for either of my last two horses, but for Hero sometimes it is. It's not that he's faking anything, but he'll be more nervous than frightened, if that makes sense, and his focus will be outward, which is making him notice everything worrisome. So then I'll say "Hey now," "Knock it off," or some such, and it will bring his focus back to me, which will help him be less jumpy. These are not actual startles that he is doing, not spooks like the one Wonder did in the video, but rather he'll be looking around somewhat thoughtfully and doing little rushes forward or hops, thinking about how maybe he should get home faster to be safe.
> 
> When you talk of how the different horses need different approaches, yes, this is so interesting. I've never ridden a Lusitano or PRE, but it's been educational to read your posts about them. About the type of body management and mental processes they require, and how to organize them. I think the closest I've come is with Friesian crosses I've ridden, and they have a very different way of thinking and going than for example a TB.
> In my opinion there is no end to the differences an individual horse's particular blend of mental and physical tendencies might present you with.
> 
> Very good comments. And I don't know how people can get by without reading horses. To me it is a similar mystery to how people can be jumping horses fairly high but not have a secure seat for many situations. I'll think a rider can handle a horse because of their competition level, but then they struggle.
> 
> When I work with horses, I think of them as teaching me. They teach me how to work with them and ride them, which is a two way communication process.
> 
> That is why I believe the key is the trainer reading the horse, because even though you can believe a process will be positive for the horse, I've found that is not always the case. And sometimes my gentleness has been something the horse did not appreciate. It is the same with people. I've found that some people don't care for "sweetness." I'll go in to a patient, and what I mean as kindness or a listening and caring approach, they find offensive and condescending. Some people want you to be very "clinical" and straightforward rather than sweet, which they mistrust as trying to put something over on them. Horses are definitely the same. After Halla's experiences with being tricked, she at first much preferred me to be straightforward and firm because she did not trust bribes and was always looking for the "kicker" that came along with it such as a rope thrown over her head.


The spook kinda makes me laugh, Wonder was like what was that? Ok let's go check it out. Then he was still a bit rattled but calmed quickly. But you can see the cat in the polls, that is what spooked him. And yes definitely. I can understand that kind as well, some (like Hero or Ranja) need the distraction and quickly need their focus set on something than it is no longer an issue because they need a leader with clear direction to calm their anxiety. Then others need to be re assured. 

And thank you, I LOVE PRE/lusitano. They are a different kind of experience but well worth a try if you have the opportunity! And I understand on Friesians/Friesian crosses, they are probably my least favorite to work with. I think a lusitano may be my favorite type of horse, they are so intelligent, quick thinking/reacting, sensitive, and good work ethic but reasonable.

I also find some of those riders/trainer with the huge list of accomplishments, it is just superficial awards. I think as I've met more people and seen more the accomplishments mean less and less to me. I've seen riders who did U25 and were international-world ranking totally useless riding anything not made for them or not of a certain base quality/ridability. It really depends. Some ride GP and are world rankings and can sit anything, others bought their place. And if you see them ride something not in the thousands of euros they are not capable. 

Same in US, a USDF bronze, silver, gold medal means little to me. I've seen riders who can barely ride get their gold. I've seen people buy it with a trainer polishing the horse and them just getting in the ring and getting scores. So in terms of actual skill and ability, you can't base it on placings or credentials. I look at the skill a rider shows on a variety of horses and how horses progress under that rider over a period of time. And what they look like on a horse who isn't 100,000€ or who isn't made by somebody else. Almost anyone can look good and polished on a really high end horse who is well trained while in a lesson. When I was less experienced those "accomplishments" really awed me, now that I've had a behind the scenes look I realize it's just fluff and doesn't really mean much in terms of ability. I also look at how a rider adjusts and addresses and fixes an issue. I'm not blinded by superficial polish, I can see the timing and organization and skill under that. I see who really has it and who just sits on top basically posing. But the posing riders always think they have it all figured out and look down their nose at others.

I understand about different interpretations of behavior as well and can see how that effects you as a nurse. I imagine you get exposure to all kinds of people with different expectations. I've heard stories from people I know, it sort of amazes me the extent of entitlement people have and lack of respect for medical staff. 

I relate and try to connect to people or connect ideas by sharing experiences or perspective (this is very common with autism). To others that is viewed as self absorbed and conceited vs to me it is a way to connect to people. I've mostly stopped caring what people think because as I dive more into understanding perception and the brain, culture, etc I see how much people's perceptions are based on their own projections and experiences, as well as to protect their biases/ego. Human's are very poor at judging reality but I find most people do not question themselves, they just blindly assume their version is the one right and true way. I know for myself, I worry a lot about being accurate, truthful and stress if I don't feel I've been truthful enough or if my perception is off base. I try not to exaggerate or understate but meet that line of exactness. I'm constantly challenging my perceptions and self narrative. However, I've also found when dealing with people it is very unwise to show doubt, second guessing, insecurity or that sort of thinking or people perceive you as indecisive, incompetent, unreliable, etc and so to me it is better to be seen as conceited than incompetent. But internally I'm always challenging myself, my perception and trying to meet as close to a neutral, objective zone as possible like a Vulcan. I think that's how we can be more accurate and truthful.

Equality bias in groups is one where we tend to view others as equal in ability to ourselves, regardless of if they are better or worse. Human's have so many biases and it is all of us that have them but I think it helps to be mindful of them and self critical. And I think in debate part of why there are so many misunderstandings and heated spots is where people can't return to a neutral base and be reflective, as well as critically analyze and assess what someone else is saying without the ego getting in the way of the argument. That is something I think has to be taught from young and in today's age feelings are given way too much power and authority and not enough discipline or healthy strategies to cope and assess. 










I also agree about learning from the horse, the horse will tell you what they need if we take the time to learn to listen.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> Lucy is like that Gotta. Gentleness is not something she appreciates in many situations. Oh, sometimes she does, like in grooming and a lot of her ground things, but *when you ride her she will push your buttons until you are very stern and serious. Then she’s plain happy. *It drives me batty about her.
> 
> In my head it doesn’t add up. She moves so pretty, bouncing around like a dressage queen, and running pretty reining patterns and cutting beautifully. She spooks quite often and just gives this appearance of what one would assume is a hot horse. Maybe she is a hot horse, but that sensitivity and emotional behavior one expects from a hot horse isn’t there at all. *She’s rude until you are stern. Then, her feelings are not hurt at all, and she deems you a worthy rider.*


I understand completely, because my friend's horse Booker was just like that. He would be so offended if you didn't check in with him before cantering or galloping that he would take the bit and run. He would never do this if you gave a strong half halt first to let you him know you were in charge. My friend said he needed his "daily beating." That was meant very facetiously, but you really did have to get stern with him in order to make him happy when you rode. Maybe it is a type of insecurity? They want to know you're really on board today?

I took some photos and video of the little mustang to show you. Unfortunately it was almost dark and my phone doesn't perform well in low light. I'm not very knowledgeable about how size happens in growing colts, but to me it looks like he'll end up a pony, considering he is about nine months old. 

Today I didn't have to turn sideways to get him to eat grass out of my hand, and he let both horses sniff noses with him, which was a first. I thought Hero might be rough, but he was very gentle and didn't try to bite or anything. Amore said hello, and then gave him a little nip on the nose. 





























Something I thought was very hilarious. I've mentioned that Hero is more vocal than other horses. He has a friend named Smokey, who has heaves, and Hero often stands at the fence near Smokey's field, and they loaf together from across the road. Hero will post sentry for Smokey's naps. Today when I walked the horses past Smokey's field, Hero stopped and looked at Smokey, and then gave a big cough. At first I thought, "Oh no, why are you coughing?" But then I realized...I've never heard Hero cough in recent memory. He seems to think Smokey has a way of talking that is different from other horses (cough, cough) and so he was saying hello in Smokey language. I've noticed when I speak in a high voice, Hero will talk back with a high whinny at times, so he's kind of a copycat. I've met dogs like that, that will try to copy your voice, but never horses.


----------



## bsms

Mia was a hot horse but also extremely willing. If she understood what you wanted and liked you, she'd try very hard to give it to you. Unless her emotions overwhelmed her, in which case she bordered on dangerous. Bandit is NOT a hot horse. He also likes to feel he is in control. But he seems to want to know you are willing to take charge. Willing and ABLE. If he thinks you are not, he may bully the human. Might be a difference in how they were raised. Or genetics. Or both. Bandit seems to do best with someone who can say, "_If you want a fight, I'll give you one! But....how about we just go out together?_" I think he feels insecure with a rider who isn't willing to rise to his challenge. But once he knows you will, he has no interest in fighting. It is more like, "_Are you tough enough to take care of me?_"

He doesn't need a skilled rider. He doesn't need or want a harsh rider. But he needs a determined rider. But not TOO determined!

I have no interest in what awards someone has won. I want to know how someone's horse changes over time as the person owns and rides him. Is the trend your friend, regardless of what sport or activity in riding you like to do? Is the horse becoming more willing to engage and interact with you? Or not? To use one of my favorite analogies, do you beat down the locked front door or are you adept at finding an unlocked side or back door?


----------



## Knave

He definitely looks more like what you would expect from a mustang, doesn’t he? I bet he was happy to sniff noses. He behaved good! Dad’s new little one does too. He clacks his teeth at everyone new. Dad let him and Queen sniff noses, and I was worried she would break the little dude, and she squealed and struck, but he went right to clacking with her! As soon as he did she was appeased. It’s a rule to not be rude to a clacker right? Lol

Have they decided to work with him yet?

ETA- I forgot. I love that story about Hero! Partner, one of the horses at mom and dad’s, a rolly polly little bay, is the talkingest horse ever. He sings songs as you ride. It’s hard to explain his noises. Talking animals make me happy.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> It’s a rule to not be rude to a clacker right?... Partner, one of the horses at mom and dad’s, a rolly polly little bay, is the talkingest horse ever. He sings songs as you ride. It’s hard to explain his noises. Talking animals make me happy.


Me too, they are so funny. Our cat Kikko talks a lot too. If you say his name he always replies like,"Yes?" 

Today when I was playing the violin, he strutted across the floor in front of me, complaining all the way. He makes sure to always let me know he doesn't appreciate my playing. He enjoys cello playing, and sleeps nearby when my DH practices, even though my skill level is more advanced. 

The way their hearing is, it seems dogs like violin and cats hate it. When I was living with my parents, three dogs would come lie down at our feet when my brother or I played. Cats run away.

It's funny when adult horses use the baby clacking to get other horses to lay off. Like dogs that roll into the submissive puppy belly up.

Sometimes I think about the horse I'll be getting after Amore passes on. She's like a 90 yr old lady now, and I want to be prepared so Hero isn't alone too long. 

It will have to be a mare, since he is too much trouble for other geldings. Most likely an Arab, but I haven't decided on an age. Although I think it would be fun to have a very young horse, I can't do that with an Arab because I do not want to end up with a 14.1 or 14.2 hand horse for 30 yrs. People always say they'll end up taller than they do. 

Amore is sweet but it is difficult to balance a petite and tiny horse even at my size, especially at speed. Around 15 or 15.1 hands is perfect for me. A stocky small horse is different - their weight helps with stability to make up for size.

So I guess I'll be looking for a 4-10 yr old Arab mare, at least 15 hands with very athletic movement and conformation. Temperament and training not a factor. We'll see in the future if that is what I really end up with lol.


----------



## gottatrot

I wanted to quote most of a post @bsms added to another thread:

"We have no obligation to the horse to make everything positive for the horse. No human to human interaction is purely positive. No horses I've seen interact in a purely positive manner. I've never seen a child raised purely positive, although those who push for it often end up with horrible kids. LIFE is not purely positive, which is why all animals understand punishment, rebuke, negative consequences, etc. My horses provide ME with negative consequences, which is part of how they train me - which they do, all the time. And that is fine. Horses have no obligation to teach me using artificial rules and I have no obligation to use artificial rules in training them."

I was thinking about how there are different levels of importance with horses and other animals. Before making things positive, we have a responsibility to make or keep the horse safe and this includes their physical health. I've seen where people avoid doing very critical things like taking care of hooves that are seriously affecting the horse, because in order to get them trimmed, it would involve a negative experience such as running the horse into a chute in order to administer sedation. Of course we might feel bad about scaring an animal that has ended up needing care, such as a deer hit by a car, or another wild animal that has wandered out of its habitat. It is the same with horses that feel negatively about being handled. We first need to ensure their safety, even if that means scaring them while getting them out of a bad situation. This is something I have had to do a few times, with horses and other animals. 

Then with training, I was thinking about how the horses train us about what will work for them. There are many people who attempt to use ineffective methods because of not wanting to be negative, and for certain horses you can go wrong in either direction; whether too light or too harsh. It is as much of a mistake to be too harsh with a very sensitive horse like Amore as it is to be too gentle with a horse that demands you prove to them that you are able to back up what you say. 

I was thinking about how @QHriderKE was discussing on her journal how keeping contact in the bosal was making a horse feel better. This is how horses teach us, if we are open to that kind of two way communication. Some horses do feel better with that feeling of knowing the rider is there, and keeping the lines of communication open. A loose rein is not always best, and not always reassuring with some types. In this manner, it can also cause a horse to be insecure if we are not firm enough with them. Some horses that seem too aggressive or loud are trying to get you to back off pressure, but some are trying to get you to reassure them that you will be a leader and will give some parameters for them. I believe this can be the same as some children, who act out because they are not given boundaries, which makes them feel insecure. Herd and pack animals seek boundaries for security also. 

For a horse like Hero, he needs a fine balance of being gentle and listening, but along with that a feeling of having a strong leader to give him parameters for behavior. With either of those missing, he does not feel safe. 

Continuing the quote:
"When people like Buck and John Lyons are treated like rank amateur trainers by someone with no known track record in training, who cannot discuss specific training he has done with horses and the outcomes that followed that training, who has never demonstrated to the public the results of his beliefs...well, the Internet is that kind of place. Me? I have far more confidence in John Lyons, Buck, the trainer I hired to work with Lilly, Trooper and Mia or ANYONE with a proven, demonstrated track record in producing horses. I've been vocal about some things I dislike in Clinton Anderson's methods, but they DO WORK for many horses. And when I criticize Clinton Anderson on HF, I try to add that he has helped a lot of folks with a lot of problems.

Bandit was trained by someone trying to follow Clinton Anderson's training methods because those methods are so much GENTLER than traditional Navajo methods. And while I'm not happy with all the results, the truth is that Bandit, from the day I met him, has been certain humans do good things for horses. The two big training issues I had with Bandit were not rooted in Clinton Anderson's methods but in how he was ridden during relay races."

I was thinking about how easy it is to give advice, when your only investment is "take it or leave it." These trainers who also give clinics, and interact with people in person take things to an entirely different level. I can't imagine trying to work with fools, whose horses are obviously having problems simply due to their owners' stupidity. That is where a casual observer can just walk away, or wash their hands of the matter saying it is hopeless. But these trainers are being paid, and they also have an image to uphold, so they must at least try. How frustrating that must be.

More quote:
"The horse's obligation to us is smaller than our obligation to him - defining obligation as 'a duty to do something with negative consequences if it is not performed'. Having a greater awareness of morality, I have a greater obligation, under God, to try to treat Bandit and Trooper and Cowboy in ways that will keep them safe, secure, healthy and content while also using them. Because I'm going to be honest and admit I use horses to derive pleasure. A friend has a horse she never rides. She takes him for walks in the desert and spends an hour a day just being with him in the corral. That is the "use" she wants from a horse. If her horse insisted on biting her, he'd soon be a dead horse. So in that sense, she imposes an obligation - a duty to perform - on her horse: "*Thou shalt not bite without VERY good reason!*"

The horse doesn't get a say in that. He can perform or die. And like the vast majority of horses, it never comes to that. Horses are incredibly subtle and can respond to much lighter negative (or even positive) consequences. And they do, and they do not resent fair, proportional negative consequences.

And I reject imposing my minimum acceptable behaviors on other people. A ranch horse or a dressage horse may have different duties required of them if they want to stay around. I have very low standards compared to some, but more demanding standards than others. I have had no divine revelation validating my standards above anyone else's. From the beginning, when I bought Mia, I've been learning and adjusting based on feedback from my horses. I'm not in any way joking when I say they train me daily, and have for 12 years now. That is part of the fun of horses IMHO. I love finding out what they expect of me. So far, I've seen ZERO indication that the training methods of John Lyons, Buck or even Clinton Anderson "ruin" a horse. My own experience is that it is HOW one does it, more than WHAT one does, that affects the horse's response.

Perhaps my moral obligation TO horses is this: *To listen to them, to be willing to be trained BY them and to adjust my behavior as needed to optimize their responses and their future life in case I die today.* If I do that, then my horses seem pretty willing to meet the obligations I put on them."

Lots of thoughts there that were really good. Yes, we have a much bigger responsibility toward our horses. We can have obligations or expectations for them too. They may not meet those right away, or ever, but we can have goals. I want Hero to be rideable. He might not always think that is a wonderful idea, but as long as he has the physical capability, I will ride him. 

I tend to not think about making horses acceptable for just any owner, if I were to die, but I do have good friends who have agreed to take my horses if something were to happen to me. I like my horses to have sort of "godparents" lined up, because they deserve someone who knows about their particular needs. I think you either should have your horses well behaved enough to have a good future, or if that isn't possible, have a plan for them if something were to happen to you.


----------



## gottatrot

I think people who are inexperienced with horses worry too much about having a bad experience, session or day with a horse. Horses are very forgiving, and you can err on the side of being much too harsh or unfair or letting them get away with outrageous behaviors at times without "ruining" them. All you need to do is adjust and do things differently on another day. Something I've learned is that horses react in the short term, but they definitely take the long view of things. If you're 95% awesome and 5% annoying/unfair/unpredictable, the horse will think very positively of you. Occasional inconsistency is not a big deal at all. Their own herd-mates can be a bit moody or changeable at times. This they accept. However, a herd-mate that harasses or bothers them consistently they find very stressful. 

Body language is also a huge part of working with horses. This is sometimes an unsaid factor that appears somewhat magical to people who think training relates mostly to cues and responses. They'll watch a trainer and see very little happening, but somehow the trainer will have a big effect on the horse. I was looking at videos of a couple of trainers, and noticing how different their body language was. Something I think is very important is being able to adapt your body language to the response of the horse. 

But language is very fluid and changes moment to moment. That's why it's not a big deal if you over face or scare a horse sometimes, because if you are reading the horse, you can easily back off. It's also important to be big enough with your body language to say the right things to the horse. You can ask a horse to do things but your body might be saying, "I am cowed by you," which may lead to the horse doing whatever he wants. There was a thread recently that discussed a trainer who emphasizes exaggerating body language to be clear to the horse. It's not necessary if you're able to read how you're coming across to the horse, but some could find it useful I am sure.

These are captures of moments in time on training videos. In the first, the body language is too intense for the horse. The trainer, Karrasch at this moment in time has tense muscles and an upright, aggressive posture. Shoulders back, arms stiff at sides. To horses, this is a loud posture, one that would indicate an imminent attack or readiness for a sudden action. The horse is responding strongly to this posture. Reading the horse, it would be time to change to a more neutral posture.








This trainer, Schiller, has appropriate body language for the horse at this moment in time. If the horse were to begin to react strongly, he could tone it down even more from somewhat neutral by slouching and turning to the side. If the horse began to move aggressively toward him, he could straighten up and move his arms out, making eye contact. 








I think it is interesting to watch trainers and see if the conversation they are having with the horse with their body language is matching what they say they are doing. Sometimes these things are quite opposite. Those who post lots of videos actually working with horses can teach us quite a lot, even if sometimes it is what not to do.


----------



## QHriderKE

Agree 150% with these last 2 posts!

Horses are unbelievably forgiving, I started the Squigg when I was 13 or so. 13. Did all of her training myself and almost always rode by myself. I couldn't count the number of mistakes I made with her. But, I fumbled and struggled and cried a lot and we made it. 

A horse isn't going to hate a person for having poor timing with a reward a few times or spanking his butt with a lead rope, and I agree, I think someone who doesn't have a lot of experience making mistakes and then fixing them may not understand just how much a horse will forgive. I think that stems from lots of people never talking about where they went wrong or what mistakes they made, or the times they've betrayed the horse, they only talk about the successful times. 

As for body language, I've lately been trying to see how much I can accomplish with how little. If I simply pick up my hand to give direction, does the horse change her posture in preparation to be asked to move? If they are trotting in the roundpen, how small of a movement will they pick up on to stop or change direction? 

If you're always screaming at the horse with your cues and body language when you don't need to, then it's going to be hard to make the transition to just speak quietly with your body language. 

Just a couple small thoughts to add!


----------



## bsms

When I first got horses, I asked how much to feed them. Yep, that was my level of knowledge! The lady I asked - the one who had been trained by John Lyons - gave some base amount. I forget what. But then she said, "_If your horses start losing weight, feed more. If they start getting fat, feed less. And they'll need more food in the winter, so be ready to adjust depending on how much work they do, temperature, etc._" If you underfeed or overfeed a horse for a few weeks, not much harm done. The harm comes when you don't adjust as needed. Seems training is the same way. It isn't about the beginning point, but how you adjust based on how the horse is responding.


----------



## Knave

I really liked those posts. Back a few though, when you talked about what kind of a horse you will get:

You know, if you want a baby, but you are worried about her being small, you can string test her. If you go from the soft spot of the knee to the center point where the hair starts on the hoof, lots of people believe it will accurately swap from inches to grown up hands. It measured correctly on my adult horses, and then said that Queen would be 16 hands. I kind of believe it will work.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I really liked those posts. Back a few though, when you talked about what kind of a horse you will get:
> 
> You know, if you want a baby, but you are worried about her being small, you can string test her. If you go from the soft spot of the knee to the center point where the hair starts on the hoof, lots of people believe it will accurately swap from inches to grown up hands. It measured correctly on my adult horses, and then said that Queen would be 16 hands. I kind of believe it will work.


I've heard of that, but does it have to be done at a certain age? It would not surprise me if Queen ended up 16 hands. She looks like the type of mustang that gets big, like Cash. It's something to consider...hmm, I'd would like to have my own baby. So much easier to make a good horse. 

The last time I was at the barn, it was absolutely pouring sheets of rain, so I left their rain sheets on. Of course it cleared off for the next couple days soon after, so today I felt bad when I took the sheets off and saw Amore had a bit of dried sweat around her neck. I think I'll have to leave it off of her now even if it's wet, since she hasn't begun shedding yet due to her Cushing's. 

I decided to ride Hero in the arena tonight since he hasn't been ridden since the abscess. His sole felt pretty firm so I knew with hoof boots on he'd be fine. He was feeling pretty spunky on the way down to the arena, and I turned the horses out for an hour while I did chores. Then I lunged Hero about ten minutes, and he didn't feel like settling into it, but instead kept turning back and rearing when I sent him around one direction. It is rearing, but he kind of sits down and holds it like when Dantedressagenerd's Wonder does the Levade. Well, he thinks it's cute but I tried to get him to focus. 

The cats have been acting a little goofy, and the birds, so I was trying to keep in mind that spring can be a tricky time. A peacock jumped off a nearby fence, which sent him running and bucking. I led Hero around the arena couple times to make sure he wasn't going to be too spooky about it, but he made the grin he does sometimes and grabbed one of the reins in his teeth, and I couldn't get it back so we just walked around like that. 

Then I got on him and rode, and he did pretty well. After a few times around he spooked pretty big at a deer that shot by. The three deer that hang around the barn are always jumping out from behind buildings. When I was carrying my saddle out to the arena, I walked by one that was standing in the road, only five feet away and she didn't even move or bat an eye. I wondered if she wanted me to try to ride her. 

After the spook he decided he didn't want to trot any more, so I got after him until he did. Then we walked for a whle, and then I asked him to trot again, and he picked it up immediately, so after a short time I walked him and then got off. He was sweaty for the first time in a while, so that was good. We trotted for a while after the spook because I was thinking maybe this was one of those times I shouldn't push things, but then that thought aggravated me a little and I decided that I was not going to remember all the crazy things he'd done on the lunge, but would just ride him until he settled. 

When I got off and took Hero's tack off, I swear I've never seen him so happy. His entire posture was relaxed and pleased, and his eyes bright. It was almost like he enjoyed our little struggle and then getting past it. I think he really needed to get some of that energy off, and it made him feel good. But also, he seems to feel happy sometimes about having an "opponent" almost, as if the game is fun, like fighting geldings over the fence until they get upset with him and bite. Then he's like, "Whew, that was great." 

I'm going to confess finally: I don't like Scoot Boots. There, I've said it. Everyone likes them, I wanted to like them, but I actually don't. Without the mud straps, the hinds don't stay on Hero well. So I use the mud straps, but those are the darndest, fiddliest things. I cannot imagine even attempting to put them on with chilly fingers on an early morning ride, or if a horse was in a new and exciting place. You have to squeeze part of the plastic strap through a tiny hole, which only goes with a lot of hard pushing, while kneeling in front of the horse. The toe fasteners also only go in one direction for both feet, so you have to decide which leg will be the least dangerous to lean across to fasten it on the inside. There is also an open area near the bottom where the horse will pull the boot off if he steps on the boot. It's for drainage, but I think it's one reason the Renegades stay on better for horses that trip or get clumsy. I find them much harder to put on and take off, so for me the Renegades are just much easier and nicer to use.


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> When I got off and took Hero's tack off, I swear I've never seen him so happy. His entire posture was relaxed and pleased, and his eyes bright. It was almost like he enjoyed our little struggle and then getting past it. I think he really needed to get some of that energy off, and it made him feel good. But also, he seems to feel happy sometimes about having an "opponent" almost, as if the game is fun, like fighting geldings over the fence until they get upset with him and bite. Then he's like, "Whew, that was great."


Exactly! Lilly and Mia were NOT like that. Trooper is not like that. Cowboy isn't. *But that's a good description of how Bandit sometimes acts!* Now sometimes Bandit just decides he wants to take over as The Boss - and we argue over that. But sometimes....he just seems to enjoy a heated discussion. He needs it. For him. And I'm pretty sure he's be an absolute PITA if his rider refused to rise to the occasion. Your description is...Bandit. Not every day, but sometimes. Although some folks can't imagine it.

And if I hadn't met Bandit, I'd just have to take your word for it. Because I have had at least enough horses to accept they aren't all the same. And I've come to suspect folks with a One Way program of training and riding because it doesn't match what I've seen.


----------



## Knave

That’s funny. Zeus could be like that, but he’s a little different. He can get into an argument about something and think he’s hilarious, and yet he never does anything dangerous to you or him. Then he can have you so mad, and yet almost laughing at his silliness. I understand when little girl is almost crying, “he’s being so frustrating!” Lol. It makes me laugh. He’s so stinking smart that he can find ways you simply cannot beat. Roping, occasionally he ducks just so perfect that you cannot dally without being swiped off, and it’s this big production of almost losing your rope, getting everything back together, and then him ducking it around you again.

He’s there and his eyes are bright and happy, and you just know he’s laughing while you are whacking him and he’s still just laughing. I think we are lucky he is so kind and usually willing to do his job.

As far as the string test goes, I’m not sure it matters. We did it on the two weanlings, although Dad’s is probably two or three months younger than Queen. I don’t know that it would work on a baby baby... hmm... I will say it does require that the youngster is broke enough for you to get the string or soft tape up against her leg. That’s more of a thing than you might think. Lol


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> . I will say it does require that the youngster is broke enough for you to get the string or soft tape up against her leg. That’s more of a thing than you might think. Lol


I love hearing about different horse personalities. Many have strong similarities, and yet each one is unique. 
That made me laugh about the tape. I remember once I thought I was going to measure something on Amore with an actual tape measure, you know, the kind that makes a rattling/zipping sound when you're using it. Ha ha ha. Quick, try to read the numbers while chasing the dancing horse!

Yesterday after my ride, I had the saddle off Hero, and thought I'd set it on Amore to have her carry it back to the horses' field. It's about a two block long walk. When I set it on her, it was like she had the memory of being saddled, so tolerated having me put it up there, but then all of a sudden she was like, "There's something on my back, there's something on my back!" She kept thinking she was going to spurt out from under it. I was thinking, "How many years were you ridden again?" But this is Amore, and she hasn't had a saddle on for a couple of years. I was thinking if I wanted to cinch her up, I'd probably have to teach her how to do it again, LOL. In the end, I did get her to carry it, just because I was too lazy to lift it up on Hero.


----------



## knightrider

DanteDressageNerd said:


> The trick is in knowing when to hold and when to release.


This is from way back on page 4 or 5, but this quote is true for EVERYTHING--raising kids, getting along with co-workers, family, spouses, friends . . . and horses. Good thinking, DDN!!!!


----------



## Knave

It is funny to me some of the things old horses do. Pete was different of course, because of his Alzheimer’s type behavior... but I like remembering some of the times old horses acted like that.

I remember the horse I rode to work a lot as a tiny kid. I’ve told you about her; her name was Nuisance. Nuisance was a very good horse of my grandpa’s. She was retired when I was little except for to me, and I got her in tons of bad wrecks because she never would tell me “no.” Eventually I was banned from riding her, which pleased me to get a younger work horse because I was so young and dumb myself.

Anyways, fast forward around ten years and that old mare was still alive and doing well! I have two cousins who are girls about ten years younger than myself (they have younger brothers, but it was just them back then). My grandpa wanted them to ride, and so he brought down Nuisance for them to the farm.

They were in our yard when dad put the old mare into the round pen saddled, and she bucked around that pen as good as an old horse could. As my father tried to explain to those little girls that she wouldn’t buck with them up on her they stood their ground.

“No!” the oldest yelled. I was sitting in shock watching preschoolers stand up for themselves. I can’t remember if it was the oldest or the youngest that my uncle picked up and tried to put on that horse, but she kicked and screamed and clawed like the world would be ending. It was a little funny, because that old mare certainly had them convinced she was a bronc.

They never did ride her, and that was kind of the end of that. Nuisance went back to the ranch and the girls did little riding growing up. One of them wanted to ride so bad she could taste it. The prettiest girl, and super smart, she dreamed of being a cowboy.

She went through college and got her pre vet, and then she got a job cowboying. She worked hard to get a cheaper and difficult mare broke and now she has a few in her string. When I told her the story of why she didn’t ride here recently she was so mad! “Stupid baby Morgan!,” she proclaimed.

So now, whenever my girls do something dumb or we look back on a mistake we make we always say that.


----------



## gottatrot

Great story, @Knave!

An interesting thing happened to me last night. At work I was supposed to be training a nurse that was just hired for ICU. Turned out she has been a nurse almost as long as I have, so there was no training, just chatting. I met her briefly the previous day and told my DH that I thought they had hired my twin. She was my height and age (exactly), and had a similar low-key, friendly demeanor. 

Last night, before the previous shift left, the new nurse told another nurse she was a horse and dog person. Turns out she grew up between an Arab and a TB farm in Florida. Considers herself an experienced rider because she started out on Arabs and has done endurance. She's been traveling a while and doesn't currently have a horse. Just moving into the area, and it wasn't long before she was trying to ask me about whose horse at my barn she might ride. 

By the end of the night we were looking at horses for sale, and if she was serious, she might go look at this adorable Morgan. She was dismissive of the idea of him bolting in the ad, because she thought he has had too little training to know anything like that yet. I don't know her at all yet, but she was talking like she might get a project like this and would be happy to have us both work on him. I thought @egrogan might think he was a beauty, since I do. 
Gorgeous registered Morgan gelding - farm & garden - by owner - sale

Needless to say, it sounds far too good to be true, but wow if I had someone at my barn who was also an excellent rider, with a project horse to play with...how awesome would that be? I am imagining us swapping out horses if she could handle Hero too, and having lovely jaunts down the road, and if I get a trailer by the summer, heading out on the trails for some good conditioning rides. She was saying, well maybe in a year the Morgan would be up for some stuff, which makes me believe she actually does have some experience. Her guess is that this horse is older and just being started because he was a stud, and is perhaps has just been gelded recently.
I told her I have an extra endurance saddle I am positive would fit the Morgan...most likely most of my tack would fit him.


----------



## weeedlady

I think he's gorgeous! Having a barn friend would be great for you! I miss my barn friends (well, a couple of them anyway).


----------



## Knave

I think he’s gorgeous too, but I’d bet that when they say he runs off it is a bigger issue than you’re thinking. I’ve had only two serious run aways, one a mare I rode through high school. We had a lot of dramatic experiences, but it never bothered me too much. Then there was Keno, who ran into things if you remember. I wouldn’t take another like him ever, although I’d like the mare back. I remember a run away of my dad’s that everyone was in love with. He was such a beauty, but the running away was pretty unstoppable.

Like the mare, when he ran he was gone for a good distance, but unlike the mare, he would still run with his head in any direction you put it. I guess like Keno, but not so much like Keno because he wasn’t intentional about running into objects.

Anyways, this ranch bought him probably thinking the same thing. They’d seen him at work and brandings, and he was stunning and a doll to be around. After he was sold, every time we saw him out pushing cows his rider was leading him. guess the cowboys would take him, but they wouldn’t ride him. Lol

I just tend to take anything like that and imagine the worst.

I am super excited though that you made a friend! How cool would it be to get along at work and ride together?! That is awesome!


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I think he’s gorgeous too, but I’d bet that when they say he runs off it is a bigger issue than you’re thinking. I’ve had only two serious run aways, one a mare I rode through high school. We had a lot of dramatic experiences, but it never bothered me too much. Then there was Keno, who ran into things if you remember. I wouldn’t take another like him ever, although I’d like the mare back. I remember a run away of my dad’s that everyone was in love with. He was such a beauty, but the running away was pretty unstoppable.
> 
> Like the mare, when he ran he was gone for a good distance, but unlike the mare, he would still run with his head in any direction you put it. I guess like Keno, but not so much like Keno because he wasn’t intentional about running into objects.
> 
> Anyways, this ranch bought him probably thinking the same thing. They’d seen him at work and brandings, and he was stunning and a doll to be around. After he was sold, every time we saw him out pushing cows his rider was leading him. guess the cowboys would take him, but they wouldn’t ride him. Lol
> 
> I just tend to take anything like that and imagine the worst.
> 
> I am super excited though that you made a friend! How cool would it be to get along at work and ride together?! That is awesome!


Yes, you're right about being overly optimistic or dismissive. Murphy's law always strikes me, so if I say "it's probably nothing," then this would end up being the most dangerous, eye-rolling bolter ever. So I'll say it's probably a terrible problem. My only justification for thinking this was that the horse was so newly under saddle, and I've known a few horses that spooked into a run when scared, when first started. Anyway, the gal texted and she's going to look at the horse tomorrow, so hopefully she is wise enough to ask some detailed questions about what training he has had, what methods, and all of that. Plus, I also don't want to be overly optimistic about a riding friend yet, because people are not always what they seem at first, and she could be completely aggravating, a horse abuser, totally nuts, who knows what.


----------



## Knave

I have this stupid feeling always that when someone says an older horse, 6 or more, is just started that they are lying. It kinda gives a free pass to if he ends up bucking you off, or running off. I don’t know if it’s true. I know there are older broke horses. The pony Moon was one, and Amore too of course. @SueC started several I believe late in life.

It just would be uncommon around here for an older gelding to have not been started. People have all these standard lies for selling things. I would hope I am wrong though.

More so, I just hope the girl really is amazing and that you do become great friends!


----------



## SueC

Really lovely-looking horse. Best way to know more is to go have a groundwork and riding session with him - and not just in the arena.

The horses I have here were all started as yearlings into harness training (and I participated in their training back then too) - the one I'm riding, I saddle trained when he was 11, and as is usually the case, it's much easier than starting from scratch with saddle training. I trained my Arabian mare from the time she was a yearling, like @Knave is training Queen, except I was a kid about the same age as her youngest daughter starting her pony, back then - she got lunge work, ground driving, saddle training and harness training, and was in full work at age 4.

Julian had the preliminaries of saddle training before I broke my foot a couple of years ago, and between recovering from that and the backlog of farm tasks this caused, and Sunsmart getting Cushings and me therefore wanting to focus on him while I can, Julian's saddle training stalled. Having said that, I'm thinking this (Southern) autumn I'm going to spend two weeks working with him every day to gradually get him used to a saddle and rider. Once they learn that part, they keep it for later - whether or not I actually start riding him seriously at that point. He's 20, but that doesn't make any difference - he's already spent 14 years working harness, he's in great shape, has a super work ethic like Sunsmart, wants to do interesting things, and is 4 years younger than Sunsmart.

Re spooking, Sunsmart was terribly spooky when I first took him off the place he was harness trained and brought him down to Albany - he'd never seen a cow, emu, Appaloosa, etc etc, and executed amazing 180 degree turns in mid-air when confronted with any of these "monsters" out on the trail. Lucky I never fell off him but I really couldn't because if he'd run home without me, he'd have crossed roads with motor traffic, and the horrible thought of that was enough to glue me to the saddle. He was really difficult for a couple of months about that, but gradually got desensitised by just keeping at it. If he was super-spooky, I got off and led him. He was in a Spanish Snaffle (which you guys call Kimberwick) and that's been an all-round great bit for spooky horses for me - mild curb, no direct shock to the jaw like a snaffle, and horses tuck rather than elevate their heads when responding to pressure from it, which keeps the contact going, and gently - bits that are liable to cause pain in the fracas around spooking will in my experience always exacerbate the spook...

I don't see why one can't desensitise the vast majority of horses to "bogeymen" with persistent exposure and tactful handling - although you occasionally get totally nervous, "headless" horses which may not be worth your time. You can usually tell in the paddock and I think maybe they have some kind of inbuilt genetic generalised anxiety, although of course it's also possible to produce such horses with terrible "training"...


----------



## egrogan

He is gorgeous, and looks especially classic in that last saddled photo (though the saddle looks all wrong for him). Funny they talked all about is amazing bloodlines but didn’t give his registered name. If she gets his name I might be able to give you some thoughts on temperament in his lines (of course every horse is an individual-but he looks long and lanky so maybe show vs foundation breeding).

The only thing I’ll say possibly on his favor about the late start is that this seems to be a common thing in the breed right now-many Breeders are elderly and getting out of horses, which their kids were never involved in, so there’s this large group of horses that were bred in the last 10-15 years because of the “amazing bloodlines” of these old Breeders, and then nothing was done with them because the owners were not physically able. Makes me cringe every time I see an ad for an 18 yr old halter broke mare. It’s so unfair to the horse


----------



## knightrider

I'm going to be the optimistic one and say that I've known a bunch of horses that just click with certain people. I really like the Morgan, and I'm going to hope for the best all the way--that the new friend turns into a true friend, and that you have lots of great adventures training him, and was meant to be that nurse's horse.

I gotten horses that were terrible for other people but just fine for the person who ended up with them. Last week I went with my neighbor to look at a horse, and the horse acted really badly. The seller was mystified and said, "She never has done any of that." I believe that horse just didn't want that man to buy her. 

That same man had a horse, appropriately named Angel, that he sold to an extremely experienced, kind, easy riding friend. She buys kill pen horses as a hobby, gets them going nicely, and sells them to people that want them. She loses money on just about every sale, but it gives her pleasure to find good homes for good horses. So, she bought Angel, and the day we took her to that farm, Angel was horrible. Nobody could ride her. They kept her for two months, and she did all kinds of terrible things. We went and picked her up and she was fire breathing dragon.

We took her back for someone here on Horse Forum to try her for a week, and she was lovely. Never had a moment's problem with her. That person ended up not buying her, but someone else on Horse Forum bought her and used her for riding lessons. There was something about that friend's farm or something about her that Angel just didn't want to be there.

I think if it's meant to be, the horse will tell you. But until then, I am going to be excited for you. The Morgan is lovely and the new nurse friend might be just the one!


----------



## Knave

@SueC I did realize they had been started at the correct time, I just figured it could be said they were just saddle broke.  

@knightrider has a much better attitude than I do, and I believe she is right. I will be positive and hopeful about the horse and drop my negativity at the door.

I was positive about the human from the get go at least. Lol


----------



## knightrider

My mother always used to say, "Don't get your hopes up, now." When I was in college I decided, "Why not get my hopes up? I'm not so fragile that I can't live with disappointment." And I decided to enjoy hoping for things rather than walking around thinking nothing will work out.

One of my favorite quotes is by Barbara Kingsolver.
*"One of the very first things I figured out about life...is that it's better to be a hopeful person than a cynical, grumpy one, because you have to live in the same world either way, and if you're hopeful, you have more fun.”*


----------



## SueC

A few years ago, I used to read this blog where a woman was starting a mature mustang from scratch with a non-standard training method. It's a really interesting blog; she got a really calm and responsive horse and taught it all sorts of tricks before beginning saddle training.

The actual saddle training:









Starting under saddle


It’s been a while since my last post. I had a busy couple of months and knew I wouldn’t have much time for Augustus, so I sent him to to start his saddle training with Elisa Wallace. El…




augustusthemustang.wordpress.com





But the preliminaries were really "wow"... 









June 2014 – Augustus the Mustang


10 posts published by Pure Balance Equine during June 2014




augustusthemustang.wordpress.com





...you can dig around the archives if you want to see everything in chronological order!


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> My mother always used to say, "Don't get your hopes up, now." When I was in college I decided, "Why not get my hopes up? I'm not so fragile that I can't live with disappointment." And I decided to enjoy hoping for things rather than walking around thinking nothing will work out.
> 
> One of my favorite quotes is by Barbara Kingsolver.
> *"One of the very first things I figured out about life...is that it's better to be a hopeful person than a cynical, grumpy one, because you have to live in the same world either way, and if you're hopeful, you have more fun.”*


That is a great quote!! I love it. 

Unfortunately, there seems to be something fishy with the Morgan. My friend was going to go see the horse today, but has been getting the runaround. She said the information isn't adding up, so it might not be worth pursuing. But she is serious about looking at horses and may be going to see a Rocky Mountain horse soon. 

I was able to meet and talk with another boarder at the barn today. I've seen her driving by, but have never done more than wave. She has been keeping her mare out in one of the lower fields, due to a new and mysterious respiratory issue. It seems to be a little like COPD but is coming and going in a strange way so the vets say she needs to bring the horse in for a bronchoscopy. She's had the horse since she was a foal, and she's eight now, so no unknown history. 

The mare is a really cute Quarab, and in our conversation it came up that the owner has not felt safe to ride the horse out, and has not ever been able to get her to trot inside the arena. Although she said this is a gentle, calm horse that was able to do things well for a past trainer. She said she might need to try to find an experienced rider to see if they could try to get the horse to trot. Happily, at every barn I'm at it only takes a little talking to people before they are asking me to ride their horses. So we have a date now, after the horse is breathing better, so I can get her horse to trot and do some things for her.

The woman with the Quarab parked her truck next to the road by the fields, and her dog was inside the cab barking. I could not get Hero to walk the last twenty feet by the truck, so I literally left him standing in the middle of the road alone while I brought Amore past, and then went back for him. This sparked our conversation. 

But then that goofy horse. After being out for an hour in a field next to the mare, when I brought the horses back up it turned out Hero was going to die if he had to leave that mare. He whinnied and called, and then when I saw Mikey's owner and stopped to talk about her ride the day before, Hero started jumping around and rearing, cutting our conversation short. I had to take him firmly in hand, and then whack him with the lead rope on the neck to get his head out of outer space, where he was contemplating spinning and running away to live with his new girlfriend. Mikey's owner probably thinks I'm nuts to have him. 

After I put the horses back in their field, Hero continued to cry for the Quarab for ten minutes. She never called back. I think he will be disappointed to find out their relationship was built on a lot of empty promises on her end.


----------



## bsms

To the extent I can remember life before I married, I sympathize with Hero. ;>)


gottatrot said:


> and then whack him with the lead rope on the neck to get his head out of outer space


How cruel! You didn't just offer a sugar cube or carrot to distract him? You must not be enlightened! Although....I've punched Bandit in the neck and he barely notices. If he is wound up enough, he won't notice at all. People like to say "_A horse notices a fly landing on him_" - which is true, IF the horse is bored. I can hear a whisper, but not if I'm next to a jet engine. When Bandit goes on alert, a blow with a 2x4 might get a "_Don't bug me boy! I'm busy!_"

It is part of why I like riding him in a curb bit. Sometimes he's sensitive enough to respond to tiny changes in my balance or seat. Other times...well, yeah, I like riding him in a curb bit. And he may still ignore it. I know from experience that pulling as hard as I can on a Terrible Tom Thumb won't get him to raise his head if there is one more nibble of grass he wants....


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> To the extent I can remember life before I married, I sympathize with Hero. ;>)
> 
> How cruel! You didn't just offer a sugar cube or carrot to distract him? You must not be enlightened! Although....I've punched Bandit in the neck and he barely notices. If he is wound up enough, he won't notice at all. People like to say "_A horse notices a fly landing on him_" - which is true, IF the horse is bored. I can hear a whisper, but not if I'm next to a jet engine. When Bandit goes on alert, a blow with a 2x4 might get a "_Don't bug me boy! I'm busy!_"
> 
> It is part of why I like riding him in a curb bit. Sometimes he's sensitive enough to respond to tiny changes in my balance or seat. Other times...well, yeah, I like riding him in a curb bit. And he may still ignore it. I know from experience that pulling as hard as I can on a Terrible Tom Thumb won't get him to raise his head if there is one more nibble of grass he wants....


Yes, the thing is, horses like Hero or Bandit aren't really into that touchy feely stuff. 😁

Seriously, horses are more complex like humans and maybe you might feel like a hug or a comfort snack in one moment, but that's not an appropriate response in others. If you've ever tried just being positive with someone who is all worked up, even if they love and trust you, they're not going to just agree with your positivity and calm down. Sometimes you have to be firm and harsh with them. 

That doesn't mean we smack people, but for people our main language is words, and harsh words are the most meaningful to us. For horses, body language is the most meaningful, and things we might not do to a human do not come across the same way to a horse. 

If you have managed to never say a harsh word to another human you may be able to avoid reprimanding a horse. Never met anyone like that yet. 

It is pathological for a human to threaten their babies but it is normal for a mare to threaten her foal with harsh body language and even get physical, although not to the point of harm. This is why reprimanding a horse physically, but not to the point of real pain or harm is well understood and responded to. This does not traumatize a horse whatsoever. 

But mares and other horses don't do certain things to each other. They push each other around, but they don't march aggressively and keep pushing for several minutes at another horse whose body language is saying "I give, I give!" That is traumatizing. 

Horses use their body language as a warning, which we can do too. It's not nagging to say "Stop," or warn with a look or movement. That is giving the horse a chance. But as with a horse that keeps coming back to eat another horse's hay, if a couple of warnings are ignored, swift punishment is in order. 

But horses finish the punishment quickly if the culprit horse moves and shows signs of ccompliance. That is where humans go wrong, we go beyond the natural punishment with a prolonged response, and do things like back a horse for a half block when they've already agreed to stop or comply. Or we punish them for being confused or frightened.

Like Wonder, Hero is a horse that has been handled a lot, but if he feels like dragging me down the road for some reason, he will. People might believe there is one kind of relationship that is good to have with a horse, one where they calmly and meekly communicate with you and the respect is very balanced both ways. 

Like humans, some horses have more difficult temperaments than that. Some absolutely require that you prove to them that they can't just go ahead and do whatever it is they're thinking about. Even more fun, some require that you do this very often. 

It is pretty much against my nature to be harsh with horses. I had to learn how to respond appropriately after learning how the gentle response was perceived by horses when they felt they had a need that drew their full attention. It is completely ignored. What are you going to do, let the horse run off down the road? 

Even horses that are difficult to handle aka dangerous for inexperienced handlers require being handled. They can't live behind a fence, but need exercise, hoof care, vet care, grooming, checking. So there is a need for the horse to listen and tone behaviours down to a safe level, even when they have drives far stronger than a nice feeling about their handler.


----------



## Knave

I love that @knightrider. It has taken me a long time in life to do the same thing. It’s odd, but it’s like I feel a pressure to make sure everyone can see I can see the bad possibilities. Like, if I’m excited, I know they are thinking about how I am not seeing reality... 

Gotta, that is too bad that there is something fishy there. I love the color of the Rocky Mountain horses though! I am obsessed.

I am glad you made a connection at the barn! Maybe once the mare feels better you will be able to ride out together. She (human) might feel a lot more confident with you there.


----------



## egrogan

@Knave, I relate to that. I am definitely more of a cynical that optimistic person. People would say I'm too serious. At work, my old boss used to joke that I was always the "Debbie Downer" voice in decision making- though she meant it as a compliment, since we tended to work with people who had an overly positive view of the impact they could make. I think because I work with data, I'm usually the one saying "even though you might have a positive anecdote or two, if you look at the bigger trend, things really aren't getting better." Maybe it becomes self-reinforcing- if people expect you to tell them no, you start expecting to tell them no...

Anyway, after the past year feeling so negative and out of whack, even I'm looking for reasons to be optimistic


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> Even more fun, some require that you do this very often.


Ha ha ha ha ha. This is why I love your books so much! I wish everyone would/could read your Training Problem Horses. It is written so clearly and sensibly!

@Knave, I don't think my way is necessarily the best way. But my mother was an angry, upset, sad person, and I decided I didn't want to be like that. I often go into things expecting the best and get slammed. But I think I'd rather be slammed than be worried, sad, and angry like my mom was.


----------



## Knave

I agree with you @knightrider. Unlike @egrogan, I think I’m actually more naturally inclined to be that way, but conditioned for the other. I too am a statistics kind of soul though, so it is a confusing mesh to be me. Lol

I was feeling that way about Queen. Like I needed to acknowledge that her aggressiveness and intensity could go in a negative direction. I like her so much though, and I am enjoying it and also think it could go a very positive (for a cowhorse) direction. Anyways, I finally told my husband a while back that I was simply going to be excited about it. I will deal with it if it goes wrong, but I should enjoy the joy it is bringing me now.

The puppy feels the same way to me. Oh, she could end up being a bad dog. I realize this. Instead though I want to just fall in love with her and have fun with the excitement of what she could be.


----------



## bsms

Knave said:


> I will deal with it if it goes wrong, but I should enjoy the joy it is bringing me now.


Exactly! We need to find that balance point between being aware bad things might happen (and have a Plan B or a Plan H if it does) while being at least equally aware of the good that can come. And balance is a process, not an end point. We balance in the present and must adjust constantly as the future changes. It is like VS Littauer's comment about riding, something to the effect that '_I can teach anyone perfect balance on a horse who isn't moving, but once the horse moves...._.'


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> Exactly! We need to find that balance point between being aware bad things might happen (and have a Plan B or a Plan H if it does) while being at least equally aware of the good that can come. And balance is a process, not an end point. We balance in the present and must adjust constantly as the future changes. It is like VS Littauer's comment about riding, something to the effect that '_I can teach anyone perfect balance on a horse who isn't moving, but once the horse moves...._.'


This is especially true with training. The balance is different for each horse and situation. That's why you can't just say apply XYZ and end up with these results. 

I'm learning as I get older to find more balance between optimism and practicality. It seems to be quite necessary for many things. For me, it seems to help with fear. Sometimes fear will come because a person has been too positive and then the thing that happens is a big shock and surprise they can't mentally handle. I see this a lot with people who think just being positive will solve everything. Being aware that bad things can happen and planning for them can actually give a person a lot of confidence. 

I just watched the movie Sully, which I hadn't seen before. The pilot apparently might have seemed negative to a lot of people at times, because he had thought through many things that might go wrong and about what he might do if they happened. I am guessing based on my experience with horses, this was because he had flown for so long that he knew about a whole lot of things that _do_ go wrong. 

When you have an unrealistic mindset, things going wrong will throw you for a loop, erode your confidence or give you a fear of horses. In the moment you'll make bad decisions because you've never considered what to do if something happens outside of the optimistic ideas you have. But if you see many things go wrong, and see how they end up realistically, you know the risks and take measures to avoid them. Then if something does happen, it becomes just a part of reality and you move on. 

We deal with things like this at my work. A new nurse will be completely amazed, "She hit me!" Experienced staff just look, unimpressed and say "Yes, patients hit sometimes. Now grab her arm and restrain it. Go get drugs." In other words, don't be impressed by the danger of a situation, make it safer. It can get very dangerous sometimes. Sometimes people get delirium and there is no rule such as massive ex-military men or well trained, experienced fighters don't go out of their minds and see you as a threat. Horses can be even more dangerous than that. Positive thinking doesn't change this. But yet you must go into dangerous situations with strong optimism, believing that you will figure it out, will handle it, and turn things around. Otherwise you'd just give up or run away. 

The balance between reality and optimism is everything. 
I get very strong impressions of this from those of you who have commented.


Knave said:


> *I will deal with it if it goes wrong, but I should enjoy the joy it is bringing me now.*


This is probably the best explanation I have for why it is rewarding to work with horses like Hero. It is about not avoiding the joy because of the problems that crop up now and then. To me it is unbalanced to throw out everything because of some negative things. There are so many positives mixed in. Granny in the hospital might clock me on the chin, but later, after rest and medications, she might sing me a nice song and give me a hug. Such is life.


----------



## gottatrot

My coworker friend told me she really would like a gaited horse, so I sent her this link to a Kentucky Mountain horse. The horse is a little older, but very cute I think. I bet Hero would like riding out with her. 
Bitsy (Bitsy) - DreamHorse.com Horse ID: 2193207


----------



## gottatrot

I never thought about using my feet for training an older mustang. Check out this video at around the 3 minute mark. I was thinking it should be called, "When a horse trainer escapes the retirement home." Also I was thinking about how @SueC says the horses think she is their monkey, and this horse is thinking a very crazy monkey got a hold of him.


----------



## Knave

Wow! That was kind of badass wasn’t it?! I couldn’t hold my legs up so easily. I found him impressive. Maybe a bit crazy, but impressive in his ideas and his fitness level.


----------



## gottatrot

I agree, @Knave, very impressive.

Yesterday after DH put a few bales of hay in the shed for me, he agreed to walk along on a ride and take video. I was thinking it might be nice to get video of myself trotting along the road where the cherry trees are blooming. But he filmed a lot of the ride, so I got quite a bit. 
Someone read my book about Amore and said they didn't believe it LOL. I guess it can seem like I am exaggerating. The video from a rider's perspective doesn't show behaviors as well, so it might be interesting to see some of what Hero does.

I knew Hero would be a bit spooky since this was the first time riding out of the arena since his abscess several weeks ago. He walked out very nicely, and went quite a distance feeling quite calm. I was amazed at how steady DH was able to hold the camera when he was running fast in front of us while we were trotting. 

We ended up going farther than Hero had gone alone, so just before we turned around he lost his cool for a bit. At 1:00, Hero does some of the things he does when he is upset. I manage to keep him out of the ditch, but after a couple of minutes I decide to try to lead him. Mostly that was because of the bridge we had to cross, which I did not want to attempt riding over if he was skittering sideways. 

In this situation in the past, he would have barged through my cues and also have his teeth clacking toward me every few seconds, so the fact that he only thought about getting bitey a couple of times, and stopped when I backed him up for a moment and refocused him is very good progress. Also, I am able to contain his energy fairly well under saddle, and keep him from putting his head down to buck. 

After the bridge I let him graze for a minute, and then he seemed pretty calm so I rode for a while. At about 3:00, he spooks and you can see why he's not yet ready for a beginner rider. Then at about 3:30, the horses in the field next to the road take off galloping and bucking, which made Hero think he should probably do the same, but I managed to thwart that idea. I wasn't sure what the horses were going to do, they appeared like they might come roaring by again, so I got off to walk again for a bit.

At 4:30 I did not see Hero load up and kick toward DH, which is why he did not get reprimanded for that. He soon starts kicking again, which I did reprimand him for. After that he settled pretty well, and soon I got on and rode the rest of the way back. Everything ended very calmly. 

I'm not lame, even if it looks like it. Apparently one leg is thinking about managing the horse, while the other leg is thinking about walking down the road, so it gives me an odd gait. For those who think I am cruel, my other spooking video I made recently demonstrates that I only reprimand and get harsh with Hero after a spook because that is what helps him calm down and focus. This is something I do not do at all on other horses who do better with a soothing voice and reassurance. 

It's not super easy working with a horse that has had issues like Hero. It might not look like progress to you, but he's really doing quite a bit better, and having long periods of the ride and walk where he is behaving well. We have had many times in the past where he did not have more than a moment of behaving well on the entire outing.


----------



## bsms

Hope you don't mind but I bookmarked the last post for future reference. Great video. Impressive job done by your husband, too! It is VERY much like Bandit his first two years with me. Amazingly so. And if I start riding Bandit out more along paved roads and more in neighborhoods, I expect him to be more like that again. The hoppy, twisty, toothy thing is what Bandit is like - maybe at 80% of what Hero does. And likewise....Bandit needs a rider to respond with confidence and even control. He wants to know someone is there who will deal with things, including him. Different from Mia, IIRC.


----------



## egrogan

Oh, Hero!! Watching the action from your husband's vantage point is actually a lot like sitting on Fizz while on a ride with Coalie. I think they'd be very interesting out on the trail together. It's like there's just something inside him that bubbles and bubbles and needs to come out...and then there are very nice moments in between. Those galloping horses would have really set Coalie off too. Horses like this really need a special person to help them manage that energy productively and still get to experience the freedom of riding out and about in the world. Good thing Hero has you!


----------



## Knave

I can’t believe people said that! How rude. Lol. I guess if they couldn’t do it they might assume you couldn’t.


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> Hope you don't mind but I bookmarked the last post for future reference. Great video. Impressive job done by your husband, too! It is VERY much like Bandit his first two years with me. Amazingly so. And if I start riding Bandit out more along paved roads and more in neighborhoods, I expect him to be more like that again. The hoppy, twisty, toothy thing is what Bandit is like - maybe at 80% of what Hero does. And likewise....Bandit needs a rider to respond with confidence and even control. He wants to know someone is there who will deal with things, including him. Different from Mia, IIRC.


Of course, if anyone can learn anything, even what not to do, that is great. What exactly are horses thinking when they do that stuff, I wonder? Like I was wondering what Hero thought kicking and backing into the bank would do for the situation. And then when he was doing his little galloping-crow-hop, that was just funny. They say horses can be trained to do anything they do naturally. We should invent a showing style that involves the things these talented horses do such as skittering sideways for a good distance. I'm pretty sure Hero would do pretty good in a competition where he was required to kick out on command, or hop up and down. 



egrogan said:


> Oh, Hero!! Watching the action from your husband's vantage point is actually a lot like sitting on Fizz while on a ride with Coalie. I think they'd be very interesting out on the trail together. It's like there's just something inside him that bubbles and bubbles and needs to come out...and then there are very nice moments in between. Those galloping horses would have really set Coalie off too. Horses like this really need a special person to help them manage that energy productively and still get to experience the freedom of riding out and about in the world. Good thing Hero has you!


Nala's rider went on a fine gallop once when the horses in a field bolted off and Nala went with them from outside the fence. For some reason I always think Hero is like Coalie too. Their butts look the same in photos, LOL. With Hero the bubbling doesn't take more than a moment though, because he does not hide his emotions like some horses. They just are always on the outside, and he's trying to learn how to not express every feeling he has with a big action such as kicking out. 

What I think is helpful is that every horse has their own issues, but they don't have them all. Meaning, if Hero had the energy of Halla, and the testing mind to see what I was able to prevent her from doing, I'd be sunk. It's very helpful that he's just a bundle of emotions, but not calculating. If he had the speed of Amore with the panic, I'd also be sunk. Hero comes back down to earth without panic, so you can hold his energy and he doesn't escalate. Whew.

ETA: I forgot to say that it bothers me when people post fantasy videos with horses being trained and ridden and everything goes exactly according to plan, and that's all because of their wonderful abilities and methods. That's a load of bunk. 

I could easily have made videos of Halla and Hero through editing, that only showed them doing beautiful things. Even easier, I could have videos of all the simple and straightforward horses I've worked with, the gentle ones that just did what I asked 99% of the time. Then I could say I'm a great trainer and can fix anything. Yep. 

But I think it's important for people to see that not every horse will end up being easy. Hero is doing more riding out alone than he's done in a while, so after three years of consistent riding he's still having some moments. But in earlier videos from when he was used to being ridden a lot on the beach, he was doing extremely well when out on trails with other horses in the environment he knew. Now things get shaken up again. That's normal. As @bsms said, he expects Bandit to have some issues again if he takes him into new environments. 

People need to hear these things, see these things and understand what might happen. They need to be very careful choosing a horse that suits their needs, but then also understand that new things can be difficult for many horses.


----------



## QHriderKE

Holy my goodness good for you for sticking with that horse! He's got a lot of attitude doesn't he? Good for you for sharing the other side of things that we all have been through.

I think some of the kicking must be a reaction to him getting "stuck" and knowing he shouldn't try to run off but also doesn't know or want to walk with you? 

Personally, I have different expectations on my horses when we go to new places. It's fairly often that we go to new places to help brand, help someone move cows, gather, or sort out strays/pairs. Usually the horses are thrown in the trailer saddled and then eventually rattled down a rough trail and then we head off at a trot most times. I don't have room to mess around with my horse being on edge cause it's a new place. This is how things are from the time I think they are broke enough to use for such things. Usually, my horses work better away from home anyways.


----------



## gottatrot

QHriderKE said:


> Holy my goodness good for you for sticking with that horse! He's got a lot of attitude doesn't he? Good for you for sharing the other side of things that we all have been through.
> 
> I think some of the kicking must be a reaction to him getting "stuck" and knowing he shouldn't try to run off but also doesn't know or want to walk with you?
> 
> Personally, I have different expectations on my horses when we go to new places. It's fairly often that we go to new places to help brand, help someone move cows, gather, or sort out strays/pairs. Usually the horses are thrown in the trailer saddled and then eventually rattled down a rough trail and then we head off at a trot most times. I don't have room to mess around with my horse being on edge cause it's a new place. This is how things are from the time I think they are broke enough to use for such things. Usually, my horses work better away from home anyways.


Have you ended up with horses that weren't suitable for your work, or do you just select them carefully in the first place? Have you run into a horse that was too afraid of cows to do the work? Several people on the forum have mentioned having horses that would not get over a fear of cows. 

I'm sure it is also very helpful to raise a horse in the environment where they are expected to work, and then start using them in that environment too. Something that is interesting about Hero is that he's pretty easy about working in an environment that is asphalt, vehicles and people, which is similar to the track. But he's still pretty nervous about the woods and "nature."


----------



## QHriderKE

gottatrot said:


> Have you ended up with horses that weren't suitable for your work, or do you just select them carefully in the first place? Have you run into a horse that was too afraid of cows to do the work? Several people on the forum have mentioned having horses that would not get over a fear of cows.
> 
> I'm sure it is also very helpful to raise a horse in the environment where they are expected to work, and then start using them in that environment too. Something that is interesting about Hero is that he's pretty easy about working in an environment that is asphalt, vehicles and people, which is similar to the track. But he's still pretty nervous about the woods and "nature."


No, I haven't encountered that yet. I usually buy horses under the age of 2, so they have seen a lot of the sights by the time I'm riding them. I've had horses unsure about getting in close quarters with cows, yep, but they learn to enjoy sorting or pushing cows and get over it. Penny used to be "scared" of cows in certain situations (running toward her general direction) but now she just pins her ears and wants to eat em. 😉


----------



## bsms

Trooper liked working sheep and hated working cattle. Hated it to the point that when loaned to a ranch on condition he NOT work cattle, when they tried to make him anyways, he ended up with bloody holes in his side - still without working cattle. A forum member named Cherie has a sticky posted on how to train a trail horse. I wrote her a couple of private messages asking about Mia. She told me they were selective in what horses they bought, and that her approach to training a trail horse wouldn't work with Mia. From her ranch perspective, a horse like Mia wasn't worth the time it would take to get her usable - not that she was recommending I get rid of Mia, just that her ranch couldn't afford the time.

The ranch Trooper came from thought Mia's issues could be solved but that it would take a bunch of 50-100 mile days to get her working right. Maybe that was true (or not), but I wasn't up to it. My life long friend laughed when I told him and said at his age, he wouldn't be up to it either.

I think environment plays a huge role because horses will learn an environment and then behave fine - but that doesn't mean one could drop them into downtown NYC and have a good ride. I also think a huge part is how unnatural a certain environment is. Mia, bless her heart, was USUALLY good once we were in the desert and 1/4 mile or more from the nearest road. Bandit likewise. If I'm going to start riding him more in neighborhoods, we'll face some challenges until his experience starts to build up. His relay racing days left him pretty solid with trucks, trailers, big vehicles - but he'll get nervous over a tricycle. Handles a semi better than a tricycle! Because that is what he experienced when young.

The ranch Trooper came from had a good policy, I think. They used to raise their own horses and then have the foal accompany mama when mama started working sheep - following the dam thru forests, mountainsides, open desert, etc. By the time the foal was ready to be ridden, it had been exposed to all the normal work environments needed by the ranch.

I see no reason to expect Bandit to put his trust in me. He doesn't trust ANY horse's judgment. He only trusts his own. He's learned to listen to me, but not to automatically assume I know all - because he has also learned he can smell and hear things I cannot. So it is perfectly reasonable for him not to trust me too far.


----------



## weeedlady

@gottatrot I'm glad to see you are willing to get off and walk when you feel you need to do so. It's something I started doing last year when I changed barns and all my rides became solo rides. Knowing that I always have the option to get off helps me to stay calm. Both of my horses can get a bit wound up sometimes.

Hero is a handful, isn't he? He is lucky to have you.


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

Progress is progress and when you have a horse who challenges you like hero, when you make the steps - no matter how small they may seem to anyone else. It is a win AND it IS a big deal.

The thing I know about having a challenging horse is people (unless they've gone through it themselves and they actually know what they're looking at) don't appreciate the amount of patience or skills it takes. I've also learned most people, even trainers are not horseman and they don't appreciate horsemanship. I have a heck of a time in dressage finding one who really understands horses. They can be brilliant, very skilled riders but not good horsemen. And with these challenging, unconventional horses you really HAVE to have someone who can read horses well and has good instincts.

To be a good horseman, I dont think someone needs a list of credentials. It's an instinct and talent people either have and develop or they don't. And I often find people who do not have the skill or talent that way are the most judgmental, condescending people who always have something petty to say. Especially when they see a challenging horse, their minds can't wrap around it.

You did a good job negotiating and convincing Hero, horses like that are difficult. I can see where you really have to be tactful and negotiate to move through. It isn't a simple refusal or disobedience, it is something deeper and he has a Wonder-y element of having his own opinions and it quite determined to stick to them. He's like Wonder, he gets to that point and he doesnt let you into his head - he puts up a big mental wall and his only thought is no. And with these guys with psychological and emotional problems it takes working through the problem head on, day after day over an extended period of time. I think the difference is Wonder is very brave, bold and daring vs Hero is more fearful and anxious. The rebel in them comes from different sides of the coin.

I think you did the right thing with the right attitude. Redirect his behavior and don't make it negotiable. One way or another he will complete, it isnt a negotiation. Also agree with correct and redirect the bad behavior, then when he is good - being neutral. I entirely agree. That was a lot of what I did with Wonder. These guys there arent "quick fixes" it's day after day, after day addressing the same things until one day it finally clicks. Hero seems one you have to be firm with. I think of it as, if they are rude with us for a reasonable demand. We can be equally demanding to their rude. Horses are too big of an animal to always play "nice horsey." As you did, you read him really well. It was also nice to see my homeland (I'm originally from the Cascades). And the dressage person in me was like oh look at that, Hero has talent for collection.




gottatrot said:


> ETA: I forgot to say that it bothers me when people post fantasy videos with horses being trained and ridden and everything goes exactly according to plan, and that's all because of their wonderful abilities and methods. That's a load of bunk.
> 
> I could easily have made videos of Halla and Hero through editing, that only showed them doing beautiful things. Even easier, I could have videos of all the simple and straightforward horses I've worked with, the gentle ones that just did what I asked 99% of the time. Then I could say I'm a great trainer and can fix anything. Yep.
> 
> But I think it's important for people to see that not every horse will end up being easy. Hero is doing more riding out alone than he's done in a while, so after three years of consistent riding he's still having some moments. But in earlier videos from when he was used to being ridden a lot on the beach, he was doing extremely well when out on trails with other horses in the environment he knew. Now things get shaken up again. That's normal. As @bsms said, he expects Bandit to have some issues again if he takes him into new environments.
> 
> People need to hear these things, see these things and understand what might happen. They need to be very careful choosing a horse that suits their needs, but then also understand that new things can be difficult for many horses.


I also agree with this, however a lot of pros don't show it because people are so vindictive and nasty online. I've worked in international stables with world class people, I've seen what goes on behind closed doors vs what is seen in the show ring. It isnt pretty. It's not rough or unkind either, just normal training phases and a real part of training. But you can't show that or the phases of development. A loud minority of people hold others to an unrealistic standard of perfection and are very nasty, so most people don't show that.

The people who can't with no particular talent or ability of their own are always the most critical, condescending and judgmental stuff to say about other people. They are the ones easily threatened by people and have to belittle, marginalize others to fuel their delusion ego and sense of self. For them their sense of self is at someone else's expense. I think they end up mediocre because they waste time dragging others down, rather than focusing on their own plate and actually building skills. I find reasoning with those people is a complete waste of time.

I used to show the struggle as well but then people were very nasty and I learned you can't show reality. Same as I NEVER show my friends riding Wonder because people would be nasty. I have friends on the Danish national team who are amazing riders but if I showed video of them on Wonder. To a superficial viewer they'd think that rider rode like a potato. Not knowing the skill of the rider they're viewing.

Most people don't appreciate what goes into producing a horse, so people don't show it. Carl had an awesome video I love to watch with the development of NIP Tuck and Valegro where he talks about training and development that I think is now private. But it was super helpful and useful. I think it's such a shame people are so nasty and condescending because a lot of knowledge and reality is hidden because of those a--holes.

But I will say the surest way to know someone is utterly clueless and doesn't know anything is when they hold others to an unrealistic standard of perfection, who think difficult horses dont exist and training is perfect all the way through. I worked for an olympian and watched them ride horse after horse and helped him with piaffe/passage and different things. It is not perfect, there are many many phases and what is appropriate at each stage changes. Just a shame people dont appreciate reality or that perspective. It is helpful.


----------



## gottatrot

weeedlady said:


> @gottatrot I'm glad to see you are willing to get off and walk when you feel you need to do so. It's something I started doing last year when I changed barns and all my rides became solo rides. Knowing that I always have the option to get off helps me to stay calm. Both of my horses can get a bit wound up sometimes.
> 
> Hero is a handful, isn't he? He is lucky to have you.


Definitely I believe in walking when necessary. That's something I was forced to learn with horses that were explosive, and making the wrong decision about that sometimes. I'd have a chance where I could have hopped off for a minute, but then I thought I'd stay on and work through it, and that's when they went over the edge of what they could handle and there was a rodeo. Not the type you can tamp down, but the kind where you go flying. The way I see it, sometimes it is avoiding problems. Such as if the horses that were galloping got Hero running, and then I might have more trouble calming him down than if I just got off for a minute. 

A lot of times I make decisions based on a scenario I can imagine. Such as the bridge we crossed with no railings just after Hero was doing a lot of sideways stuff. I thought about if he backed and lost his balance, and went over the edge. We can both swim so falling in would not be a big deal. But there is probably deep muck at the bottom of the water, and he might get stuck. So I'm thinking about trying to haul him out, and tendon injuries, and what might happen to my saddle, plus I'd probably irrevocably lose all of my hoof boots, and then I think walking across might be a good idea for today. When he was in a different mood going out, I rode across. 

"He's lucky to have you." That's good feedback, about the stage we're in, LOL. People used to say that about Amore for the first several years. It was a good thing when we got to the point where we'd be out riding and I'd talk about how she'd been, and they wouldn't think she'd really been a bucker or had issues. Then they'd say she was cute or pretty.

It was funny, I didn't really get much "She's lucky to have you" about Halla. People would just go, "Oh my." When I first met Brave's owner, we rode up to meet on the beach. After a few minutes, she was like, "Oh wow. Are you going to be OK?" She told me she was just watching to see when I would get flung off. Halla just looked like a handful all the time. I'd always ask people if they wanted to ride her, really good riders I mean, and other than my best friends, they always said no thanks. 



DanteDressageNerd said:


> Progress is progress and when you have a horse who challenges you like hero, when you make the steps - no matter how small they may seem to anyone else. It is a win AND it IS a big deal.
> 
> The thing I know about having a challenging horse is people (unless they've gone through it themselves and they actually know what they're looking at) don't appreciate the amount of patience or skills it takes. I've also learned most people, even trainers are not horseman and they don't appreciate horsemanship. I have a heck of a time in dressage finding one who really understands horses. They can be brilliant, very skilled riders but not good horsemen. And with these challenging, unconventional horses you really HAVE to have someone who can read horses well and has good instincts.
> 
> To be a good horseman, I dont think someone needs a list of credentials. It's an instinct and talent people either have and develop or they don't. And I often find people who do not have the skill or talent that way are the most judgmental, condescending people who always have something petty to say. Especially when they see a challenging horse, their minds can't wrap around it.
> 
> You did a good job negotiating and convincing Hero, horses like that are difficult. I can see where you really have to be tactful and negotiate to move through. It isn't a simple refusal or disobedience, it is something deeper and he has a Wonder-y element of having his own opinions and it quite determined to stick to them. He's like Wonder, he gets to that point and he doesnt let you into his head - he puts up a big mental wall and his only thought is no. And with these guys with psychological and emotional problems it takes working through the problem head on, day after day over an extended period of time. I think the difference is Wonder is very brave, bold and daring vs Hero is more fearful and anxious. The rebel in them comes from different sides of the coin.
> 
> I think you did the right thing with the right attitude. Redirect his behavior and don't make it negotiable. One way or another he will complete, it isnt a negotiation. Also agree with correct and redirect the bad behavior, then when he is good - being neutral. I entirely agree. That was a lot of what I did with Wonder. These guys there arent "quick fixes" it's day after day, after day addressing the same things until one day it finally clicks. Hero seems one you have to be firm with. I think of it as, if they are rude with us for a reasonable demand. We can be equally demanding to their rude. Horses are too big of an animal to always play "nice horsey." As you did, you read him really well. It was also nice to see my homeland (I'm originally from the Cascades). And the dressage person in me was like oh look at that, Hero has talent for collection.
> 
> I also agree with this, however a lot of pros don't show it because people are so vindictive and nasty online. I've worked in international stables with world class people, I've seen what goes on behind closed doors vs what is seen in the show ring. It isnt pretty. It's not rough or unkind either, just normal training phases and a real part of training. But you can't show that or the phases of development. A loud minority of people hold others to an unrealistic standard of perfection and are very nasty, so most people don't show that.
> 
> The people who can't with no particular talent or ability of their own are always the most critical, condescending and judgmental stuff to say about other people. They are the ones easily threatened by people and have to belittle, marginalize others to fuel their delusion ego and sense of self. For them their sense of self is at someone else's expense. I think they end up mediocre because they waste time dragging others down, rather than focusing on their own plate and actually building skills. I find reasoning with those people is a complete waste of time.
> 
> I used to show the struggle as well but then people were very nasty and I learned you can't show reality. Same as I NEVER show my friends riding Wonder because people would be nasty. I have friends on the Danish national team who are amazing riders but if I showed video of them on Wonder. To a superficial viewer they'd think that rider rode like a potato. Not knowing the skill of the rider they're viewing.
> 
> Most people don't appreciate what goes into producing a horse, so people don't show it. Carl had an awesome video I love to watch with the development of NIP Tuck and Valegro where he talks about training and development that I think is now private. But it was super helpful and useful. I think it's such a shame people are so nasty and condescending because a lot of knowledge and reality is hidden because of those a--holes.
> 
> But I will say the surest way to know someone is utterly clueless and doesn't know anything is when they hold others to an unrealistic standard of perfection, who think difficult horses dont exist and training is perfect all the way through. I worked for an olympian and watched them ride horse after horse and helped him with piaffe/passage and different things. It is not perfect, there are many many phases and what is appropriate at each stage changes. Just a shame people dont appreciate reality or that perspective. It is helpful.


I really appreciate all of your comments, they are valuable to me. You have experience to see that with Hero it's not a simple naughtiness I can just push him through a couple times and then he'll get over it. It really is a long process, because he has strong mental barriers. Yes, you are so right, it is not simply fear, because otherwise I could just give him courage and he'd be fine. But he won't accept my courage or my word for it, because of the history of deeper psychological problems. If I did not have a history with a lot of other horses, I'd be discouraged, because from the outside it looks like with the correct timing or approach Hero would just settle down. The thing is, he is settling, but it is requiring a long process to get there. 

It's interesting to hear about why people don't show the difficult parts of training. That's one real benefit to just doing things on your own and not having to worry about the image you portray. But I can sympathize with those who are out in the public eye, and especially with social media a bad photo can be very harmful to someone who competes at a high level. In many of the training videos I watch, the trainer is having to explain one sentence they said that people took the wrong way. There's not a lot of common sense out there. 

In one video I edited out where my friend said I could kick her horse hard, and then laughed. She was totally joking, and that was something well understood between all of us, because we joke sometimes about getting after horses. It's sort of a dark humor. This is because she, her mom and I have ridden some very difficult horses through some seriously dangerous scenarios. We've sort of "been through the war" together, and have this real trust and understanding. We've all watched each other getting bolted away with, in situations where the horse was completely out of control bucking or panicking, and seen each other landing on the ground or getting injured. So we'll joke but with the understanding that if we ever saw each other do something to reprimand a horse it was absolutely necessary. And none of us just "kick hard." I've been saved before due to something one of them shouted out that I was able to apply in the moment while out of control, and save the situation. 

We're riding right in the environment where you used to ride, so I'm sure you recognize it. That's interesting. 
Yes, Hero can offer me a few steps of collected trot. He can get back pretty well on the hind end now, but I'm never sure how much to do with it because of his stifle issues. My thought is that they have improved very much, but I'm still trying not to push things until I am sure they are quite strong.

That's something about developing a horse, which becomes a big factor. The physical issues that Hero had were a big obstacle. The mental issues are one thing, but we've had to work against the physical problems, and to me those are as important to develop as the mental. This is probably the biggest reason his progress has been so gradual, because I had to spend so much time working on his physical problems first of all.

The hind end weakness and tightness from the stifle issues meant he really could not use his body. This photo from early on shows how he really could not connect his body together in a meaningful way. This is the start of me trying to ride him from the hind end, but it is a long process to develop a horse this unbalanced and tight. He really was weak everywhere: hindquarters, back, neck. It sort of felt like he was falling away in front of me. No connection. And you can't just ride a lot, because they compensate so much. We had to work on everything, hooves, nutrition, balance, and then he also had to have the mental acceptance of work, to be willing to use his body. But he couldn't get that mental acceptance at all until his body was working better.










You can see how now he has the ability to use his body, which he did not have before. Which means we can make more progress on the mental issues. Using his body was not something I could just make him do by pulling on the reins and driving him, but it had to develop slowly. And this is how you know if your work and interventions are correct. Is the horse getting better or worse? Better might be a very slow process. But the horse's body and movement should look better over time. If it looks worse, then something is wrong. 









I was laughing a bit though when I watched the video, because another thing that makes Hero a little tricky is that he will try to kick up the hind end, but then sometimes he'll switch and rear. So I could see that my leg was sometimes coming back because I thought we were going up, but then he never did. He's not really trying to trick me, or oppose me, thankfully, because he's not so much of an opponent as he is trying to save himself. These are his attempts to help himself rather than fight me. Halla was very different because she was always thinking about how she could outsmart me.


----------



## gottatrot

I just ordered myself a pair of new Renegade Vipers. I also bought a new heel captivator to see if I can get a little more life out of one of my broken boots. This set of four boots is the first that I've had break before the soles are worn off. That used to be what happened, I'd get holes in the bottom and then it was time for new boots. Those were the days of riding long distances on gravel roads with the Arabs. 

These boots were Halla's, and they outlasted her since we spent her last time riding on the sand, mainly barefoot. Now I'm getting Hero out on gravel roads again. But the boots are at least seven years old, and it seems the plastic after that amount of time starts to get brittle, and the cables break. I changed out the cables but the little discs in the front are getting stripped out, so I can't get the screws to hold. Then the other day the plastic part of the heel captivator that holds the strap broke off. They're just breaking down in general, and I definitely deserve new boots. So I bought a pair, and when the others break I'll get another. The Scoot Boots might be useful for my new friend's horse, or a future horse. 

I haven't had my new friend out to the barn yet, but will soon. We've been looking at lots of horses online. She texts me every day. She put in an adoption application for a Morgan/Arab mare, but she won't be available for a few months from a rescue because she's about to have a foal any day. She's 7, not saddle trained, but has a wonderful temperament and enjoys handling. I think she'd be a great little horse. In other photos that left front leg does not look off so I think it is an illusion in this pic. There is a video on the rescue site of her running around while very pregnant and she seems pretty athletic. 









She's also asking about this Rocky Mountain mare that has a lot of trail experience.









This girl is quite obviously a horse nut and has a lot of knowledge, so we're getting along fine.  
My latest idea is to try to bribe one of the boarders at the barn. She can't afford a saddle right now, so can't ride. My thought is my friend and I might buy a saddle and let her use it as trade for riding her horse sometimes. It just so happens that both the boarder and my new friend want an Aussie saddle. If the boarder liked the saddle, she could buy it off us later. 

I'm reading up on Aussie saddle fit. I need to put my saddle on the mare to see what type of back she has. From what I've seen, it appears she has a typical TB back so I am quite she she would not fit my saddles. I'd rather talk her into an endurance saddle, if possible, because I think I could get a nicer one for a better price than the Aussie saddles I'm seeing, which are either high quality/expensive or very cheap.


----------



## bsms

I like Aussie-style saddles, but with DownUnder "gone under", I don't know of any decent traditional Aussie type saddles. Except real ones, which IIRC start at $3000 and go up fast. I'd recommend trying an Abetta as having a similar feel, but Abetta has gone under too. Maybe someday I can get mine re-flocked by someone and use it again.


----------



## egrogan

@gottatrot, I need to replace Fizz’s size 4 scoots-if yours are that size and you want to get rid of them, please send me a message! 

Happy horse shopping!


----------



## gottatrot

egrogan said:


> @gottatrot, I need to replace Fizz’s size 4 scoots-if yours are that size and you want to get rid of them, please send me a message!
> 
> Happy horse shopping!


They are 3 slim, isn't that crazy? That's how tiny the hooves are that they breed onto these big TBs. When I got him his hooves were flared out because the farrier was trying to make his hooves look better for his size. But when they are healthy and tight, they are very small.


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> I like Aussie-style saddles, but with DownUnder "gone under", I don't know of any decent traditional Aussie type saddles. Except real ones, which IIRC start at $3000 and go up fast. I'd recommend trying an Abetta as having a similar feel, but Abetta has gone under too. Maybe someday I can get mine re-flocked by someone and use it again.


Thanks for the info, that's what I'm seeing online too. I've ridden in Abettas, and the closest I think you can get now are the Big Horn saddles. My friends like their endurance model. I might suggest one, if I can figure out what tree would work. Some bad screen shots of the Big Horns they use. They like the weight distribution for bigger riders and the ease of tying things on. Plus the synthetic fenders and wide stirrups are easy on the knees. The twist is not too wide, and two pointing is pretty easy.








ETA: Looking at the above photo: Maybe why it's easy on the knees is this strap my friends may have added to the fender? It looks like there is a strap so the stirrup faces forward instead of sideways.


----------



## bsms

That is a stirrup straightener like the Cashel EZ Knees:






I prefer to let the fender wrap around my lower leg for more security. I think the narrow twist and mostly cloth fender are already easy on the knees, compared to leather ones :


----------



## gottatrot

Uh oh, my friend just bought a six year old Arab mare. The owner can't catch or handle her. She wants me to go help figure out how to get her home next week. LOL.


----------



## bsms

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enjoy....;>)


----------



## gottatrot

I am not joking, they find me!!! These horses hunt me down!!! She is very cute.


----------



## weeedlady

lol, oh goody! I can't wait to hear all about her! A great project for you and your new friend.


----------



## gottatrot

weeedlady said:


> lol, oh goody! I can't wait to hear all about her! A great project for you and your new friend.


She doesn't have a name, can you believe that?


----------



## weeedlady

Awwww she needs a name.


----------



## egrogan

That was fast! Looking forward to the adventure


----------



## knightrider

This is going to be so fun! What are your plans for getting her in the trailer? My neighbor has put many an untouched colt in a trailer. Also, they get the mustangs in for people (although they have specialized equipment to do it). I once delivered two unhandled donkeys in my trailer for someone. They got them in by moving panels closer and closer to my trailer that was backed up to a narrow space.


----------



## egrogan

bsms said:


> I like Aussie-style saddles, but with DownUnder "gone under", I don't know of any decent traditional Aussie type saddles. Except real ones, which IIRC start at $3000 and go up fast. I'd recommend trying an Abetta as having a similar feel, but Abetta has gone under too. Maybe someday I can get mine re-flocked by someone and use it again.


Funny, I just saw a post come up on the FB page "Addicted to Endurance Tack"- so if anyone is really looking for one of these DownUnder saddles, here's an option. I don't know the seller, but the name of the saddle company was stuck in my head after reading this earlier.


----------



## gottatrot

egrogan said:


> Funny, I just saw a post come up on the FB page "Addicted to Endurance Tack"- so if anyone is really looking for one of these DownUnder saddles, here's an option. I don't know the seller, but the name of the saddle company was stuck in my head after reading this earlier.
> View attachment 1111092


That saddle looks like a good deal! The lady I was thinking about bribing probably needs an 18 inch. But now with the little Arab, I have two extra saddles that should fit her plus bridles and such so at least we can get her training going for now. 

I was thinking we would need to use a stock trailer and slowly drive her in, as @knightrider mentioned. However, my friend says that even though the owner cannot handle the horse, she was haltered and led down the road from a ranch she was purchased from. So she believes if we spend some time we may be able to halter the horse and lead her into the trailer. She thinks the horse and the owner are scared of each other. I think it would be good to plan for either scenario.


----------



## QHriderKE

I've loaded lots of animals (cows and horses) just backed up to whatever gate was available. Takes a little patience and a flag but I've never been unable to load something that way. 

Good luck!


----------



## gottatrot

@bsms, you were very right about the stirrup straighteners my friends were using. But they said they have taken them off their saddles because there was metal that would rub the leg on long rides. 
In case anyone is interested, these Big Horn saddles with center fire rigging have proved comfortable for a few different horses they ride over long distances, and the horses backs do better for them with heavier riders than english type saddles.
15" 16" Big Horn Center Fire Endurance Saddle 117 118 119 120











The plot thickens...little Arab mare name consideration might be Estelle, after one of the Golden Girls. 

Most likely a lot less trouble than it first appeared, because more info has come out. The owner had the horse one week before posting on Craigslist for $200, which made my friend worry about a meat buyer, so offered more to hold the horse. A QH person, for some reason trying an untrained Arab mare because she was free or cheap. 
The ranch owner/older breeder wanted to get rid of the mare because she is a daughter of their stallion so couldn't be rebred to her sire. These people are neighbors, but once the horse was sold the ranch wouldn't take her back. The new owner decided the horse is "too much," after one week of being unable to get close or handle her. 

It appears her hooves have been done in the not too distant past, which means at 6 she has definitely had some handling, probably halters, leads, ties and can have hooves done somewhat. That was something I worried about, a three hour trailer ride with very long hooves and then trying to get her trimmed right away. My guess is she is at a very similar state to where Amore was when I got her, although much younger and by description more mellow. Still too much for the new owner though. When she goes to see her tomorrow she will attempt to halter her. 

My new friend has a diabolical plan, she has applied to adopt the lovely green Morgan/Arab mare also. This adoption will take months, since the mare has to have a foal and wean it also. She has this idea that the Arab mare will be slower paced, and the Morab who we saw racing around her field in a video while heavily pregnant is a fireball. Something I didn't realize is that the Morab was introduced to a saddle and rider already on the lunge, before her pregnancy was more advanced. My friend says that Hero is not going to do real endurance since he has stifle issues, and so if she gets the Morab after we train the Arab, then her second horse will be a faster endurance horse for me. LOL, I quite like the way she thinks. I don't know if you can see this video if you don't have FB:



__ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1379437795768764


Her baby will be a lovely 3/4 Arab, 1/4 Morgan. The breeder had a few horses seized. 

My friend really wanted an Aussie saddle, so I showed her the one @egrogan posted, which was great and apparently the exact saddle she used to love that she used on her old horse. But that one was in Canada, which would have been expensive shipping, but somehow last night she found the same saddle except synthetic on Ebay for $200, free shipping, so bought it. I think if it doesn't fit the Arab, she could sell it to the Appaloosa lady who is looking for an Aussie saddle too. 

Funny how things change. There's always excitement in the horse world. I've been looking at horses for sale and Aussie saddles, Nala's rider is taking cowboy dressage lessons on her new Mustang, Pro. I saw a video and he looks very cute doing it. I've rarely if ever seen her ride in a western saddle before. Her second mustang is in training for 90 days. Rowan, 5 yrs old, looks like a nice leggy girl.


----------



## bsms

Actually, that saddle looks kind of tempting. I'd like to try a center rigged saddle, although I'm not sure how to convince The Wife that we need one!


----------



## gottatrot

Yesterday we did the drive up to our old house we are getting ready to sell. It's pretty much ready, except we just need to get up one more time and do a little yard work. This time we drove the 5 hrs, watered the two trees that are in the sun room that luckily haven't died yet, checked for leaks and such, and got half the stuff out of the gardening shed (hoses, potting soil, wood) into our pickup. 

We had a little time to visit DH's mom at the nursing home, and then my parents and sister out at my sister's farm. That was good because we got fed for the trip home, and got to feed the Highland cows which are rather hairy and cute, and I helped my sister trim some quail toenails and beaks. Her cows inhale carrots. Made it home about 1:30 a.m. Saw an elk and an opossum, but didn't hit anything. 

I think my sister is doing well with her Australian Cattle Dog. He's 11 months now, and controlling himself very well most of the time, although she put him away when my dad had coffee in his hand, for example. Such a high energy dog could be a real mess without some good training and boundary setting. He didn't fuss with my Papillon. He barked when Gilligan had one of his chew treats, but didn't try to take it away. 

I didn't know roosters were protective of their hens from strange people. My sister had someone feed her chickens that her chickens hadn't met, and the rooster attacked with his spurs. 

Estelle's rider (this is my friend's new name) went and visited Estelle and paid for her yesterday. She let her new owner touch her face, and seemed sweet and gentle. Her hooves look good, and she has a nice, floating trot apparently. Her coat is rough and she is thin. She has been trailered before, and led, so we should be able to put a halter on her and get her in the trailer.
We'll go get her a week from Friday. I'm excited to work with her. It is annoying that a small horse, her age is thin. 























Estelle's rider is serious about getting Khalila, the Morab also after her foal is weaned. She is getting pictures of her from the rescue frequently. She is due to foal any day. I thought they knew what the foal would be, but she was bred on a feed lot so they plan to DNA test the foal to see what it is.


----------



## gottatrot

Don't tell anyone...I'd pay people to let me train their horses. 😃

After spending the first 20 years of my life just dying to be around horses, I've not adjusted yet to having horses all around me. An old friend texted to see if I was still at the barn up north. She's moving back into the area and wants to adopt a rescue, so was hoping I would help with training. 

In my head I know training takes so much time and can be dangerous. People who have the skills either want to spend the time on their own horses, or else get compensated. Still, I consider it such a privilege to meet new horses and learn things from them. This new Arab will have a unique personality and learn things in her own way, and it will be so interesting to find out what she's like. It will also be fun to look at her hooves and get her trimmed up nicely. I know people getting horses are quite pleased to get horses that are not ready for a farrier trimmed for free, and to have help with training. But I just love it so much. If I was wealthy I'd just wander around looking for horses to meet and learn from. Teach them how to have their hooves trimmed and go for rides.


----------



## egrogan

I can't remember if you mentioned it, but will your friend's mare also be boarded where you are? Would be so nice to have someone to trade off chores when you need it!


----------



## Knave

I’m happy you are that way! It does a lot of good for a lot of people! Myself, I don’t prefer riding other people’s horses. It’s alright of course, I don’t mind helping out, but I’d rather be focusing on my own.

It’s also the reason I don’t want to take in outside horses. I even get the occasional great offer! It’s just, if I get paid to ride a horse, I feel like I will have to put my own on the back burner. I guess I think they would suffer for it.


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

gottatrot said:


> Don't tell anyone...I'd pay people to let me train their horses. 😃
> 
> After spending the first 20 years of my life just dying to be around horses, I've not adjusted yet to having horses all around me. An old friend texted to see if I was still at the barn up north. She's moving back into the area and wants to adopt a rescue, so was hoping I would help with training.
> 
> In my head I know training takes so much time and can be dangerous. People who have the skills either want to spend the time on their own horses, or else get compensated. Still, I consider it such a privilege to meet new horses and learn things from them. This new Arab will have a unique personality and learn things in her own way, and it will be so interesting to find out what she's like. It will also be fun to look at her hooves and get her trimmed up nicely. I know people getting horses are quite pleased to get horses that are not ready for a farrier trimmed for free, and to have help with training. But I just love it so much. If I was wealthy I'd just wander around looking for horses to meet and learn from. Teach them how to have their hooves trimmed and go for rides.


I'm on the same page as Knave. Different reasoning but good for you to have that energy and willingness to still give to others. I think there is a lot of experience and knowledge gained from taking on whatever you can. I understand your reasoning, I get it and if people are decent than go for it. Enjoy all the horses! I hope this new arab is a blast! I definitely dont regret the horses I took on but anymore I'm like, either pay me or the answer is no. I love the horses but the people I could do without. To me it is very important to treat every person with the same level of basic respect and dignity but I find most people aren't like that. They have an inner hierarchy.

I've given so much to people who give nothing back, then they expect more and more. People take as much as you're willing to give and it isn't worth it. They aren't grateful or appreciative, the amount you give just sets the new standard of what they expect from you. I also find some people are super disrespectful of those who give and view them as "less than" or as being in "servitude." 

In my experience good intentions and genuine kindness, compassion often leave us paying the price. Anymore I'm like not my problem and I know to a lot of people will think that sounds harsh but you get to a point where you cant anymore because it takes too much to care so deeply. Givers HAVE TO HAVE boundaries because takers never do.


----------



## gottatrot

egrogan said:


> I can't remember if you mentioned it, but will your friend's mare also be boarded where you are? Would be so nice to have someone to trade off chores when you need it!


Yes, and this is really important since we have not had anyone to help out if we want to take a trip. 



Knave said:


> I’m happy you are that way! It does a lot of good for a lot of people! Myself, I don’t prefer riding other people’s horses. It’s alright of course, I don’t mind helping out, but I’d rather be focusing on my own.
> 
> It’s also the reason I don’t want to take in outside horses. I even get the occasional great offer! It’s just, if I get paid to ride a horse, I feel like I will have to put my own on the back burner. I guess I think they would suffer for it.


I'm different too when I have a serious horse. Like when I had both Halla as my main horse and Amore as my secondary, it took most of my time to keep them both fit and in training. So I rode for others very casually, maybe every two or three weeks. But when I have a retired horse and a horse like Hero with some physical limitations, it is not really enough to fill the horse fix. At least I'm not as bad as @phantomhorse13, look how many horses it takes to keep her occupied (LOL). You've got several to work with, and young ones too. 



DanteDressageNerd said:


> I'm on the same page as Knave. Different reasoning but good for you to have that energy and willingness to still give to others. I think there is a lot of experience and knowledge gained from taking on whatever you can. I understand your reasoning, I get it and if people are decent than go for it. Enjoy all the horses! I hope this new arab is a blast! I definitely dont regret the horses I took on but anymore I'm like, either pay me or the answer is no. I love the horses but the people I could do without. To me it is very important to treat every person with the same level of basic respect and dignity but I find most people aren't like that. They have an inner hierarchy.
> 
> I've given so much to people who give nothing back, then they expect more and more. People take as much as you're willing to give and it isn't worth it. They aren't grateful or appreciative, the amount you give just sets the new standard of what they expect from you. I also find some people are super disrespectful of those who give and view them as "less than" or as being in "servitude."
> 
> In my experience good intentions and genuine kindness, compassion often leave us paying the price. Anymore I'm like not my problem and I know to a lot of people will think that sounds harsh but you get to a point where you cant anymore because it takes too much to care so deeply. Givers HAVE TO HAVE boundaries because takers never do.


I agree. This is why for me it's a "friend" thing and if I'm boarding with or know people who are nice, I work with their horses but not with people who are trouble. I feel really bad for horses with bad owners, but there are many, many of those out there and you just can't do anything about that. For me also I don't think people are entitled to having my help. I've known a lot of nice people who were super grateful and even though I refuse payment, they've done many things like buy me a new hoof knife and rasp, trailered my horses, or loaned me their horses to use. Those have been some great perks for me.

There is a great lady at my barn who is loaning us her very nice trailer to pick up the Arab next week. She barely knows me but says it's nice to help out another horse person.


----------



## SueC

I'm actually still on the previous page and just wanted to say that I've had that problem with the threads stripping in the discs that hold the cables in the Renegades too, when they get old (and because I have a tendency to overtighten screws, which I'm working to reduce). So I ordered a few new ones a few years ago, along with various other bits and pieces, because everything is replaceable on these boots, which gets them high environmental credentials from me (plus they perform so well for us). It might help to lubricate the threads with WD-40 or bicycle lube before fitting screws and then regularly thereafter - this will also reduce corrosion, which makes the screws stick to the threads and obviously damages both.

Enjoy your new boots! 

Lots of exciting stuff going on in your horse life I see - that poor Arab mare is going to need some patient feeding up and conditioning. I can't believe people let horses get into those sorts of states and yes, I know there's far worse as well. 🤬

That Khalila looks like a lovely horse, and great fun... 😄

And isn't that Rocky Mountain mare a stunning colour, plus a nice-looking horse!  How do animals like this end up in rescues? Is it because most people should stick to rocking horses?


----------



## phantomhorse13

gottatrot said:


> At least I'm not as bad as @phantomhorse13, look how many horses it takes to keep her occupied (LOL). You've got several to work with, and young ones too.


Lol. I am not sure that catch riding is really the same. It's not that I am not doing anything (as we all know, any time you interact with anything you are training or untraining it), but somehow riding something once in a while doesn't really count as _training_ in the same way a horse you are working with regularly does.

Estelle is super cute! Can't wait to see how she progresses.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks for the boot advice, @SueC!

Hoof trimming day today and I did something really stupid.

Hero has never pulled back, and not even shown the slightest sign of worry
when tied, ever (so now you have an idea of what happened). 

It was raining pretty hard, so I wanted to trim inside the horse shelters. I looped Amore's lead around the metal hay rack and trimmed her first. Then I looped Hero's lead around the metal hay rack and trimmed him. 
That was all well and good until he started rocking his foreleg forward and back, which he does when he is bored and is rather aggravating. So I stood up and gave his lead a rattle. 

Well, he stepped back and then the metal hay rack, which apparently whatever hardware attached it to the wall had rotted away, responded to a taut lead by giving slightly. That always for some reason makes horses lean back a bit, and then the whole hay rack came flying off the wall. 

Those things are heavy, and when it flew through the air and struck my lower back I was thinking it must be what it would feel like in the movies when people get hit across the back with a metal pipe. Somehow, miraculously I'm rather thin but my padding seems to be in all the right places. The strike seemed to hit meat, and landed below the kidney, so although I can't say it felt good, it didn't injure me. Of course it could have hit me in the head, so all in all I was not too unhappy.

Hero, not being an Arab, stopped just outside the shed, ground tied to his hay rack. So I untied him from it, and brought him back into the shed.

Then, not quitting while I was ahead, I made another stupid mistake. There was an eye bolt high in the wall, and I tied him to that. Of course he was not quite ready to be hard tied again, so when the wind blew against the metal shed, he went to the end of his lead, and then set back and pulled, breaking his leather halter. Thankfully leather breaks very easily, especially leather that has been cured in an Oregon winter for a while. But the roof of the shed is not very high, so he bumped it and scraped a line of fur off his face, poor thing. Not skin, at least, just hair.

Well then Hero was like, I am DONE and ran out of the shed, and then he charged around his field cantering and bucking, and then got down and rolled in the dirt a couple times for good measure, and then stood and pawed the ground with both front hooves. 
When I thought he was calm, I went to go bring him back in the shed and he was like, "I'm never letting you touch me again, lady," and galloped all around the field again. I stood there and noticed he was looking quite beautiful, actually, with his neck arched and muscles rippling while he cavorted in anger and frustration.

Of course he settled eventually, and so I brought a carrot and he decided he would be haltered and ate it. It took me a few minutes to convince him to get him back into the shed, but then I just threw the lead on the ground and finished trimming him, and he was rather tired and docile after that. I'll never tie him in there again. Just a dumb idea. Poor boy. 

The good news is that the hooves are looking pretty good, considering the winter we've had.


----------



## SueC

This is typical stuff - doing the things you normally wouldn't because your horse hasn't done XYZ before... and then one day it does XYZ...

Sunsmart's last bridle was the casualty of a similar situation. It was just over a year ago when he had his Cushings crisis - in fact, it was coming back from the ride where he got so worn out going up his usual hill and sweated and hyperventilated so profusely afterwards that I led him all the way home, thinking something was really wrong here because usually he doesn't even break a sweat going up our little hill and he never, ever walks like an old man etc - so that was the day I called the veterinarian to get his blood re-tested (and sure enough, the ACTH was through the roof and no longer controlled by his then-dose of medication, so we tripled it and he slowly got better over the next 6 months and now he's pretty normal again etc etc).

Anyway, we got back to the tie rail and the horse was heading past it for the water trough like a dehydrated camel. I took his bridle off so he could drink more easily but it was caught by the reins in the rope that runs across his chest, from each side of the girth (that you regulars know all about). So I laid the bridle on the ground next to him, explicitly thinking, "Now normally you would never do something like this in case the horse runs back and drags the bridle, but he's never pulled back here before and if I lay the bridle down I can take his saddle off and then the bridle will be free and I can get his reins over his head."

And then for some unknown reason, my horse stretched out his head, sniffed the electric fence and got zapped (he must have had a brain fog from his Cushings crisis because he has total respect for electric fences and knows not to touch them) - and then he was shooting backwards at a million miles an hour. I dived sideways so I wouldn't get knocked down, and he took off at a gallop, of course stepping into the reins in the process, and into the headstall, and tearing both to smithereens. The saddle was off pretty immediately as I had unbuckled the girth and thankfully didn't get stood on, it just hit the ground, but the bridle was total cactus.

One of the many reasons I was glad Sunsmart recovered well enough from his Cushings crisis to go back to being ridden is that the whole ride was such a disaster both out there and then coming back untacking that it would have been a very sad last ride to have on a horse who's meant the world to you. I would have felt bad about it ever after.

And of course, when I broke my foot a couple of years back, that was the result of not paying enough attention and being too comfortable - after all, Sunsmart was just walking around the house and what could _ever_ happen at the start of a ride _walking_ on a route we've done a hundred times and so close to home? Well!

I hope you don't get too sore from the hay rack. Lucky impact point, apparently... and lucky Hero isn't an Arab, because we all know what happens when an Arab gets loose with a hay rack... 

My last trimming injury was the second last time I trimmed Don Quixote - this fellow:



...butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. 😇 He's about 200kg and very strong when he wants to push sideways. I was trimming him and he was twitching his front foot around so I growled at him. Then he shoved sideways suddenly, nearly knocking me down - and I put my back out. It's a pre-existing lumbar injury from a riding accident when I was 21, and occasionally, when I make a wrong move under load, it goes "pop" and then I don't look normal for two to three days as the nerve gets trapped and throws the back into spasm until it gets free again etc. And I was on the first hoof when that happened, but you can't give up, can you, the job needs doing and you've got to teach that bloody animal that his dirty tricks won't put a stop to you, so of course I finished the trim, and then felt sorry for myself for a week.

And _when_ was this? Well, it was the Wednesday morning that was Brett's last day at work when he was about to have 2.5 weeks off work and we were both taking that as a _holiday_. Of course! Typical Murphy's law that I dragged myself around looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame for most of the first week. But alas, I did learn from that one - now I start growling at Don Quixote if he so much as bats his eyelashes at me when I'm trimming, and if he starts trying to take his feet back off me and/or apply sideways pressure on me when I've got them, I whack him across his amply padded (with muscle and excess adipose tissue AND wool like a Yeti) backside with the smooth side of the hoof rasp and curse him roundly. 👹 👺 👾

It's amazing how much his behaviour has improved since I've taken a hard line with his unnecessary shenanigans. In case any of you feel sorry for him, I'm not hurting his feet when he does various nasty little tricks to try to get them off me again, he just does stinky behaviour because he's his own boss and can think of a hundred better ways to spend his time than being manicured - and most of them involve roaming the countryside eating. He's the same donkey who tries to untie other donkeys when I'm trimming them, or to bite their bottoms...

No, don't feel sorry for him, feel sorry for me, because I have a pre-existing back injury and arthritis in various places including the finger joints and I'm recovering from thumb tendonitis, and I can't afford to get knocked around - I've got a bunch of animals to care for, never mind I don't think us humans should walk away injured from encounters with animals, even if it's our idea to trim their feet and not theirs, because we certainly don't trim them for our own entertainment...


----------



## bsms

SueC said:


> It's amazing how much his behaviour has improved since I've taken a hard line with his unnecessary shenanigans. In case any of you feel sorry for him....he just does stinky behaviour because he's his own boss and can think of a hundred better ways to spend his time than being manicured....


I dunno. I've read on this forum how traumatized a horse is if one so much as squeezes with the legs to cue him forward. How horses live lives of terrified submission unless positive reinforcement is used exclusively. Surely the Internet couldn't be leading me down the wrong path..... ;>)

Happily, our horses all stand for trimming with the lead rope in my back pocket. Got used to doing it because Mia freaked when tied and we didn't have anything strong enough AND tall enough to teach her otherwise. But it is also luck of the draw. I doubt I'll ever own another horse, but if I do, she may be that XYZ horse you mentioned! And of course, it is the XYZ horses who teach us about horses. And humility. I was going to write that horses and learning humility go hand in hand, but then I realized some of the most arrogant people I've met own horses. They don't LISTEN to horses, but they OWN them!

I hurt my back every time I give one even a small trim, but that's because being hunched over while trying to hold a hoof between my knees doesn't match up well with my mid-60s back. The horses also assume I do it so they can rest their weight on me. I may be an abusive owner who uses negative reinforcement at times, but they don't seem so intimidated that they can't enjoy a rest while I'm holding 1/4 of their weight up.....

For 3 abused horses, they sure SEEM to think I'm their servant!


----------



## SueC

bsms said:


> And humility. I was going to write that horses and learning humility go hand in hand, but then I realized some of the most arrogant people I've met own horses. They don't LISTEN to horses, but they OWN them!


...and they'll be exactly the same with their children, and any people at work hierarchically under them. That's just their general modus operandi. I don't like people like this. Maybe I'm not Zen enough or compassionate enough but when people are in that mode of operating I want nothing to do with them, and neither do my animals. I personally think there's choice in the matter, although some people think it's mostly about the environment you grew up in. But I think to a large extent people will go where their heart wants to go. I didn't copy the horrible attitudes around me growing up, not from my parents or from strangers or from some classmates or from the TV - I emulated the way of going about things of people I could respect, and I could like. And likewise, some people are brought up by lovely families and end up falling far from that tree...

But of course, that's just my personal hunch. I wonder how you all think about this.

By the way, I think JK Rowling wrote her hippogriff scenes very much with the idea in mind that here were things similar to horses, except they would fight back and refuse to have you unless you approached them with humility. But if you did, they would carry you.


----------



## QHriderKE

@gottatrot

What happened to you is exactly why I avoid tying to work on feet 😬 
Since my accident last year, I'm extra aware of things that can go wrong and I don't want to be under a horse if something spooks it and it pulls back. These days, I always drape the lead over their wither on the same side I'm working on.


----------



## Knave

Wow! That is an awful story, and it just shocks me he stopped! My quarters and mustangs wouldn’t I don’t think, but Zeus probably would never have even pulled it after it broke. lol. No matter the wreck he stops and thinks it through. There is a lot to be said for a horse who will stop. My grandpa told me he liked a horse with thoroughbred in him because he tended to think more. That’s such a surprise for me, not having been around many of them.

I am worried about your back though! Did it start hurting after time went on?


----------



## knightrider

Wow, @gottatrot, I hope you are feeling better. That was an accident that could have gone really badly. I had a foxhunting friend who bought the horse of her dreams. This mare was everything my friend had longed for, very expensive, and she was over the moon. A few weeks after getting this lovely mare, she made the mistake of tying her to a fence rail. The mare pulled back, yanking big chunks of fence with her, galloping crazily with bits of fence banging into her, and injuring herself so severely that she was never rideable again. A terrible price to pay for one person's momentary mistake.

I have to laugh at myself while examining your photograph, @SueC. I kept saying, what is that mark on Don Quijote's forehead? I've never seen a donkey with that mark. What is that? And then I realized what it was. Ha ha ha ha ha!


----------



## Knave

Lol @knightrider, I did the same thing with @SueC ‘s picture. I didn’t study it until now though. I thought maybe the glass was dirty. lol 

I owned this spectacular mare. I later showed on her and won a lot. She could excel at anything. However, when I first got her, I tied her to this rotting post. I didn’t worry about it because she was broke. I got a grain bag out and poured it, and she broke off that rotten post and ran quite a ways. She tore herself up pretty badly, enough that she was out for a long time. I think she required daily doctoring for six months or something like that!

I felt awful, and I would like to think I wouldn’t make the mistake of tying to anything rotting again. (Right after I got her sound I ended up blowing a tendon on the mare, and she was out another 6 months or so. When she came back into work she was outstanding, and then after about two years she ended up with nevicular. She did not have the best of luck, and I regret showing her so hard.)


----------



## gottatrot

SueC said:


> This is typical stuff - doing the things you normally wouldn't because your horse hasn't done XYZ before... and then one day it does XYZ...


Yes, and I've had a few people who thought I was paranoid and nervous because I mentioned a few times about not doing this and I wouldn't do that... It's something that those who have not seen a lot of accidents don't think about. 
Even though I still mess up sometimes, I do have this sort of "pre vision" that often kicks in, which is my brain imagining a scenario that might happen. It's almost like a movie, seeing someone getting on their horse with the reins loose and draping over the horses neck, dangling down by their knees, and I can almost play the movie in my head with the horse taking a step, putting the leg through the rein as the rider is mounting, then the bucking and running that happens, and the rider bouncing away like a rubber ball. Then I feel compelled to ask if they wouldn't like to just pick up the reins in their hand as they get on. It's why I like to mention things that go wrong, because so many times you don't think about what might happen, or you take a risk, and then regret it. 



SueC said:


> ...And I was on the first hoof when that happened, but you can't give up, can you, the job needs doing and you've got to teach that bloody animal that his dirty tricks won't put a stop to you, so of course I finished the trim, and then felt sorry for myself for a week.
> 
> And _when_ was this? Well, it was the Wednesday morning that was Brett's last day at work when he was about to have 2.5 weeks off work and we were both taking that as a _holiday_. Of course! Typical Murphy's law that I dragged myself around looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame for most of the first week.


Oh yes, probably the trait I've seen most with people who are successful with horses is pathological stubbornness. Sometimes it gets in our way, but most often horses are worn down by those who outlast them. Horses are just not as stubborn as some of us. 

That's what always gets me. The timing of these things. That time Hero kicked my knee, it was the day before we were driving down the coast to look at this town we ended up moving to, so I was surviving a long car ride where I couldn't elevate the leg, and almost couldn't get it moving again once we reached the end of the drive. Then we were looking at horse boarding places, and also I was meeting with the manager at the hospital, and appearing like someone who would not be able to physically do the job. But I tried looking very energetic when I was sitting talking to the manager, LOL. 



SueC said:


> No, don't feel sorry for him, feel sorry for me, because I have a pre-existing back injury and arthritis in various places including the finger joints and I'm recovering from thumb tendonitis, and I can't afford to get knocked around - I've got a bunch of animals to care for, never mind I don't think us humans should walk away injured from encounters with animals, even if it's our idea to trim their feet and not theirs, because we certainly don't trim them for our own entertainment...


Agree! And some of these critters enjoy finding ways to entertain themselves while we are working with them. Hero is getting better about the rocking thing, but I have to reprimand him. Sometimes it is kind of funny, but I can't let him do it. The one he still gets away with slightly at times is that when I'm holding the front hooves, he likes putting his knee slightly forward more and more as I trim, until his hoof is a foot or so away from where I want to hold it. This is just a silly trick to amuse himself. But the rocking I don't tolerate, a nice trick he must have thought funny to pull on a number of farriers. On the front legs he'll start rocking forward and back with the leg, but he waits just until you're either rasping an area or have the nippers sunk in, so you feel obligated to try to finish that spot, rather than get after him. So you're trying to work with a moving target. But if I drop the leg and reprimand him, he'll stop. When I first got him he wouldn't stop, he'd just pick it up again when I got the hoof up again, so I know he got away with this a lot. He also used to lean, but he doesn't do that anymore. When horses do that (except for Amore, because she's so old she'd probably fall down), I drop them suddenly and hard, which they don't care for so they will stop. When they try to grab the hind legs away (which he also used to do), I also will throw their body sideways and then chase the hip over, which unbalances them and they don't like it.



bsms said:


> And humility. I was going to write that horses and learning humility go hand in hand, but then I realized some of the most arrogant people I've met own horses. They don't LISTEN to horses, but they OWN them!


Which I can never understand...how can you not learn humility from horses? I always feel like they are some of the best teachers in my life at showing me how much I don't know, and how my ego needs to always remain a tiny little thing. My work can teach me humility too, and so can interactions with people where I am put in my place, but horses never fail to put me in my proper place. There is nothing like splatting into the mud due to a misjudgment or being one of three people getting battered around inside a barn because we thought we were going to use clippers on a small and apparently docile donkey, to let you know you're not so smart and skilled, and the experience you thought would help you can just get thrown out the window because this equine ain't buying what you're selling today.



QHriderKE said:


> What happened to you is exactly why I avoid tying to work on feet 😬
> Since my accident last year, I'm extra aware of things that can go wrong and I don't want to be under a horse if something spooks it and it pulls back. These days, I always drape the lead over their wither on the same side I'm working on.


It is a good practice. At my last barn there were a few places where I could just throw a lead around something to keep the horses from walking away. Here if I put the horses outside their field, they tend to realize they're not tied and begin grazing and wandering off. What I need to do is get a blocker tie ring, which solves many problems. The horse isn't hard tied, but it keeps a person from having to keep going to get the horse and bring them back. Hero is not one to say, "Oh, did you want me to stand here while you trim?" He's more like, "Tie me or I'll leave." 



Knave said:


> Wow! That is an awful story, and it just shocks me he stopped! My quarters and mustangs wouldn’t I don’t think, but Zeus probably would never have even pulled it after it broke. lol. No matter the wreck he stops and thinks it through. There is a lot to be said for a horse who will stop. My grandpa told me he liked a horse with thoroughbred in him because he tended to think more. That’s such a surprise for me, not having been around many of them.
> 
> I am worried about your back though! Did it start hurting after time went on?


Yes, so many TBs I've been around are real thinkers. But sometimes they are thinking "Forget you, you're an idiot." I really thought Hero would take off with the tie rack, and I was envisioning it hitting his legs and a really bad accident like @knightrider described. The one time many years ago when I tied Amore to a fence rail that she pulled off, I couldn't believe she didn't get any nails in her legs, because the board was bouncing around all around her legs as she ran. Another time I watched a person grazing an Arab close to a metal ladder leaning against the side of a building. Suddenly he sniffed it, and then spooked forward and put his head through one of the lower steps, and then he was panicking and running around with a ladder on his neck. Which almost took out his handler before she let go of the lead rope. I thought we would never save that horse but at one point he stopped suddenly with his head low and it shot off over his head. He only had a couple scrapes.



Knave said:


> I felt awful, and I would like to think I wouldn’t make the mistake of tying to anything rotting again. (Right after I got her sound I ended up blowing a tendon on the mare, and she was out another 6 months or so. When she came back into work she was outstanding, and then after about two years she ended up with nevicular. She did not have the best of luck, and I regret showing her so hard.)


That photo was very funny, it took me a minute to understand it too. 
Me too, I always think, "I'll never make this mistake again." But then somehow in the moment, like with @SueC's bridle, we will think that something will be fine for "just a second," but I'm learning more and more not to gamble that way with horses. I'm actually glad to have a reminder right now since we're going Friday to pick up the Arab, and I'm sure we could misjudge her in all kinds of ways if we're not very careful. 

I have a large bruise on my lower back and it is sore, but it is definitely all soft tissue and nothing that will prevent me from the usual activities. When I was young, I didn't use my back muscles much and my spine was pretty much raised on the outside of my back. All the horse work over the years and riding strong horses has given me more of a channel between the back muscles, which is a very protective thing I appreciate. DH's spine sits in a deep groove from all the years he spent weight lifting, and having back muscles mean you have a rigid support structure for your spine. It's a very good thing if you plan to use your back a lot or fall off horses, or get hit with flying pieces of metal.


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> So you're trying to work with a moving target. But if I drop the leg and reprimand him, he'll stop. When I first got him he wouldn't stop, he'd just pick it up again when I got the hoof up again, so I know he got away with this a lot. He also used to lean, but he doesn't do that anymore. When horses do that (except for Amore, because she's so old she'd probably fall down), I drop them suddenly and hard, which they don't care for so they will stop. When they try to grab the hind legs away (which he also used to do), I also will throw their body sideways and then chase the hip over, which unbalances them and they don't like it.


I am taking notes. 🎥

Looking forward to trying these out. I'm trimming this morning, but Julian doesn't usually do anything like that. He's just a bit nervous (partly because he used to get _seriously_ thumped when being trimmed, in his prior life), and sometimes moves rapidly when something scares him in the general environment when I am trimming. He's paranoid about biting flies (with good reason) and it's biting fly season. Bot flies turn him into a catapult...




> I have a large bruise on my lower back and it is sore, but it is definitely all soft tissue and nothing that will prevent me from the usual activities. When I was young, I didn't use my back muscles much and my spine was pretty much raised on the outside of my back. All the horse work over the years and riding strong horses has given me more of a channel between the back muscles, which is a very protective thing I appreciate. DH's spine sits in a deep groove from all the years he spent weight lifting, and having back muscles mean you have a rigid support structure for your spine. It's a very good thing if you plan to use your back a lot or fall off horses, or get hit with flying pieces of metal.


When you said in your last post you didn't get injured, I thought, "Ha, the bruise just isn't showing yet!" 😛

I think you meant "seriously injured/incapacitated"...

By the way, what changed my mind about being less gentle with trimming shenanigans was this: I started thinking about what it would be like if an animal I trimmed couldn't walk straight for a week, or was bleeding from torn skin, or if their arthritis was constantly made worse from it. It would be enough to make you call the RSPCA. But that animal is me! 😬 

So I'm now thinking about the me-animal more.

Oh, and yesterday's beginner rider said, "I can't believe what a core/lower back workout it is just to ride a horse at a walk!" (Because she was actually riding, not being a bag of potatoes.) 😎




knightrider said:


> I have to laugh at myself while examining your photograph, @SueC. I kept saying, what is that mark on Don Quijote's forehead? I've never seen a donkey with that mark. What is that? And then I realized what it was. Ha ha ha ha ha!


Bwahahahahaha! 🤪 😚 😋 😇 🤓 🥳

And the striations on his nose are my stripey PJ bottoms! 🦓


----------



## gottatrot

SueC said:


> When you said in your last post you didn't get injured, I thought, "Ha, the bruise just isn't showing yet!" 😛
> 
> I think you meant "seriously injured/incapacitated"...


Well yes, even if something cramps my style a little I don't consider it a real injury. Injuries are things that make you sit down and take time off.  That's horse people.

A nurse I worked with a while back told me she had banged her leg and thought about calling off work. She lifted her pant leg and I'm not joking, the bruise was the size of a half dollar. I showed her two bruises I had at the moment that were bigger, and I didn't even remember how I got them. Somehow I presented this in a way that wasn't ridicule, but still...wasn't exactly going to get sympathy from me. I mean, limping a little at work or having to compensate a bit for a hard workout or injury is not that uncommon for me. After a long, hard ride I'll have to be careful because if I sit too long at work I'll stiffen up and come out of my chair walking like a robot for a few strides. 
Don't want the patients to suspect they've replaced all the nurses with robots.

What always gets me is when I get injured and it is unrelated to horses. That frustrates me. It's almost like I have this idea that horse injuries are inevitable at times, but other injuries are just stupid. So I don't like to "waste" an injury on something unrelated to horses.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> t's almost like I have this idea that horse injuries are inevitable at times, but other injuries are just stupid. So I don't like to "waste" an injury on something unrelated to horses.


This is me exactly. I had to smile when I read this.


----------



## SueC

knightrider said:


> This is me exactly. I had to smile when I read this.


Bwahahahaha, @knightrider! 😜 ...and I know this is coming from the person who nipped to the barn and rode with a broken bone against medical advice, hee hee! 🤪




gottatrot said:


> Well yes, even if something cramps my style a little I don't consider it a real injury. Injuries are things that make you sit down and take time off.  That's horse people.


Which is my Achilles heel, but I'm learning. The way I got thumb tendonitis is trimming the tagasaste hedge last summer - I mean, over a year ago. It was overgrown and I was dragging large branches around one-handedly, one by each hand, to the burning stack. Got a bit strained between thumb and forefinger but you know, just kept going. A week later, when the hedge was finally done (it's 1,000 tagasaste plants), it was so sore. But I was obviously still in young-person mindset, when things like that tend to repair themselves while you're not looking. And between the usual farm work and trimming eight equines (five of them mercifully small but one of those full of tricks as previously mentioned and the very smallest a rodeo when the mood is upon her) on a regular basis and using secateurs in the garden, the injury (two, both sides) just never had a chance to heal properly, and then I discovered that the sore flesh between thumbs and forefingers had knots in it...😱

Which meant I was doing soft tissue damage that was now scarring. I got on YT and found a few physio and massage tips for this problem and now it's actually getting better, slowly. Now it only hurts when I do the massage, and only in the middle bit of a massage when I'm putting deliberate pressure on the knots to loosen them up... which they do, a bit. I doubt this is ever going back to 100% but 90% is better than 50% and at least I can now use my hands pain-free for all but really silly things which I'm learning to do differently...

I am now getting to the stage in my life where I can't let anything like that go anymore without risking it becoming chronic. The main thing I have to work on for this is my brain... 🙄

I've just done Julian's front hooves and they look wonderful now - he's got really good feet. Then the milk came and I decided to give him and me a break, so I'm having a drink and writing this while sitting in front of a fan. I have a hoof stand now, thanks to a neighbour welding something for me to specifications and he only asked $60 for it. It's an old tractor plough disc with an upright on it for resting the hoof on, and the upright even has a dome over it because this guy thinks of everything. 😎 I'd looked online before that and only found dodgy-looking things, or super-expensive things with features I didn't want - $300 upwards for a hoof stand? Give me a break. It doesn't need to make me an espresso!

Brett back then was saying, "You know, $300 is a bargain compared to back surgery!" This is true, but for what it was, it was extortion, and it's because they know the cost of back surgery probably... I'm super happy with my hoof stand, it's so much easier than holding the feet on my knees in front of the horse's chest when mustang rolling them! Made trimming much less exhausting. I'll take a pic sometime! 

Julian got a hoof crack a few months back because of the new driveway with the gravel on it that the horses cross to go in the big Common every morning. It chips their feet around the front and sometimes if there's a weakness, which with older horses can be the case, they've got vertical lines sometimes like we do on our fingernails, they get a hoof crack from it. Most of these trim out OK first trim and more rigorous mustang rolling prevents much of the chipping etc. But Julian got himself a good one just from that mechanical pressure in the wrong place when stepping on a bit of gravel late last year. It was a good inch up and I superglued it. I've re-glued it regularly and it's growing out - without the glue the risk would be that he steps on gravel at exactly this weak point again and it would split the whole thing further - and we all know Murphy's law, and if you let these things go and they go really high up, you've got a long-term management problem. So, a stitch in time...

With this trim, the crack is now mere millimetres long and all of it is in the rounded-off area now, and looking good. I've re-glued it and next trim it should be entirely gone. Contrary to the trumpeting of someone on this very thread a while back on the subject of hoof cracks, it was not started by any kind of microbial infection, these particular ones in my scenario are purely mechanical, although you do have to watch that the crack doesn't become a site of such infection. Interestingly, microbes don't seem to like the solvent in superglue very much. At any rate, I'm not using anything specifically anti-microbial to treat the cracks as they grow out because visual examination has shown that to be unnecessary - and the mechanical protection very much necessary for our situation. (Which again goes to show that there's no one-size-fits-all solution for complex problems - only the necessity to observe well and apply your intelligence to a problem within the particular set of variables you are encountering.)

By the way, I don't mind good debate and discussion and different points of view, and it's OK for us to be wrong and come around to other viewpoints when the evidence is with it etc, but I do mind trumpeting, bleating and preaching, and attempts to sell one-size-fits-all solutions - and no longer waste my time looking at posts from people who do that a couple of times in a row. I discovered an "ignore" option in the control panel and I've only used it once so far, but it's a handy one I think, because it's so pointless reading stuff like this, or responding to it... all part of useful time management online.









Now I'm going to do those rear hooves before it gets too hot!


----------



## gottatrot

I heard a crazy horse story from the barn owner today. I told her about my mistake with Hero. She was mentioning other scenarios, and also was saying how once some kids had left open a pasture gate. I said I wasn't too worried since we were quite far from any busy roads. Then she told me this story.

Apparently they once had a boarder with a nice, gentle horse. The owner decided one day to work on desensitizing to plastic bags. For some unknown reason, she tied a plastic bag into the horse's mane. Then the wind blew...

After the horse ran through his own fence, he ran about a mile straight through the neighborhoods surrounding the barn, up a steep hill, and then jumped over the barrier fence that led to the highway. After that he turned and ran straight down the highway. It happened that two semi trucks were going along, and saw the horse. There was a narrow turn off, and one trucker went ahead and turned his truck to block the road while the other came behind the horse and cut off his escape route. Another man driving a car stopped and jumped out, caught the horse and took the plastic bag off the horse, at which point he immediately calmed down. Poor horse. He was going to run across the state, with the devil chasing him just above his neck. 

Pretty amazing he didn't get killed.


----------



## SueC

OMG, @gottatrot, how can our species be called _Ho'mo *sapiens*_? Tying a plastic bag to the mane of a horse not desensitised to plastic bags...

Brett says that this was not a very successful desensitisation!

And yeah, amazing story that the horse survived. I suppose three people in that scenario were actually acting like _Ho'mo *sapiens*_ that day...

How's your bruise doing?

PS: I can't believe I had to put an apostrophe in our genus name. These screening tools, like the Microsoft spelling dictionary and thesaurus, are robbing us of our genuine language. Just because some people with IQs below room temperature use that word as a slur... we're deprived of its genuine use???


----------



## Knave

The things that blow my mind @SueC...


----------



## bsms

Home Oh Sapiens? Home Oh Ridiculus is about as kind as I can get nowadays. Maybe Vainicus. Maybe substitute Hubris for Home Oh. *Hubris Vainicus* seems fitting. And the software won't try to screen it out. We think we're the cat's meow (or the bees' knees) but I just don't see it. Not in me and not in others.


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

That story is really incredible, Jesus. I hope the horse came out of it okay! I mean we _**** sapiens_ do some stupid sh-- all of us. I mean tying a plastic bag to a horse that hasn't been properly desensitized isn't real bright but I hope otherwise they are loving and compassionate owners and the horse otherwise has a good life. Despite an unfortunate event.

As for humans in general, the general lack of compassion is what saddens me about humans. The lack of authenticity or genuine compassion. There are a lot of really great people in the world and many insufferable ones too that just make life difficult.


----------



## SueC

bsms said:


> Home Oh Sapiens? Home Oh Ridiculus is about as kind as I can get nowadays. Maybe Vainicus. Maybe substitute Hubris for Home Oh. *Hubris Vainicus* seems fitting. And the software won't try to screen it out. We think we're the cat's meow (or the bees' knees) but I just don't see it. Not in me and not in others.


I'll add _Hubris vainicus_ to my substitution list for _Ho'mo _allegedly _sapiens_, thank you! And _Ho'mo ridiculus! _😎
Other possibilities I'm playing with: 
_Ho'mo excrementum _(or _Ho'mo stercus_, look it up)
_Ho'mo insufferabilicus
Ho'mo vacuosa
Ho'mo odiferus_


----------



## gottatrot

We're heading out to pick up Estelle today. Wish us luck!


----------



## Knave

Yay! Good luck!!!


----------



## egrogan

Lots of pictures please 😀


----------



## weeedlady

What @egrogan said ^^^^^^


----------



## knightrider

Good luck!!!


----------



## SueC

Good luck, and yes, photos please!


----------



## gottatrot

Sorry, no pics yet, will get some today. We didn't have any casual time...left at 8 a.m. and got home at 11 p.m.

A big factor was that we were also helping Estelle's owner bring a huge old RV that had just been fixed near where we picked up the horse, all the way back to park here in the town where we live. DH drove it for her, but the part of the freeway we were on had very steep hills and the RV topped out at 30 mph on some portions. We also had to coordinate leaving the RV in a couple of different parking lots so we could go to the farm where Estelle was, and then to drop her off at my barn.

I was thinking we could have won some kind of contest. Long story short, in about 2 1/2 hrs we put an unhandled horse into a horse trailer, without the benefit of chutes or a safe setup.

We showed up and found an unhandled mare, and I mean as completely unhandled as a wild mustang. The old owner did not show up at all, but Estelle was already paid for. The little mare, who is probably only 14 hands, was even skinnier, and in a pen with no food at all and very little water. 

The good news was that she would eat pellets out of our hands. However, that did not mean you could get close to her or touch her at all. It wasn't a case of a horse that had learned to not get caught, it was a case of a horse completely unhandled. My guess is she was put into a stock trailer via some kind of chute, and released into the corral.

Unfortunately, we did not have a chute, and I spent the first half hour trying to see if she'd trust me enough to get a rope around her neck. She was in a large corral, so when it was obvious she would not allow us to catch her, we backed the trailer up to the gate and attempted to drive her into it. We probably spent the next hour and a half seeing if we could either drive her into the trailer, lasso her (we did not have any kind of stiff rope), or guide her in with long ropes making a chute. She did not think of the ropes as barriers, and just pushed right through them and ran away. There was a lot of space, so she could always get away. 

Leaving her was not an option. She has some kind of skin condition going on, matted mane, hooves that have obviously only worn down naturally with no trimming, and hips, ribs and spine showing. 

DH was a saint. It was a very hot day and we kept asking him to try standing here or there, or hold the end of a rope, or block a door. We kept trying to not overwork the horse, to get her to drink, and calm down frequently. She did get sweaty but her eyes never rolled, and she has just a dolly temperament. She knocked into people a couple times but never threatened us in any way, even when scared and with pressure put on. 

We finally tried something that was rather scary, and took apart some corral panels and moved them closer to the trailer, so the pen was much smaller. This was very risky because as we moved them there was a chance of her escaping, which we tried to minimize by keeping her away. 

At that point, we were able to reach the ropes across the pen, and we realized we could throw the rope back across to each other so both ends were around her neck. These I quickly threw a slip knot on, and then we had her on a loop so I got in and she allowed me closer with a lot of hay pellets and nowhere to run. Once she allowed me to touch her and flinched a few times, she realized she wasn't going to die from being touched, and it wasn't long before I was able to sneak a halter onto her. 

On a lead, I gave her a quick lesson in pressure and release. She made it several steps, and had treats. She had never had a carrot, so didn't know what to do with those. Unfortunately, the gate of the corral had a pipe across the bottom, and she did not realize it was possible to cross this. Eventually I looped a long rope through one of the tie loops inside the trailer, so I could hold the end taut, attached to her halter. Then her new owner and DH put pressure from behind but she would not step over the pipe. Finally with a lot of pressure, she took a flying, rearing leap and I pulled her across. 

Then she was stuck in an impossible space, standing between the pipe and the trailer step in front of her. I had taken out the slack again, so we tried the same strategy for a while, and soon she took another flying, rearing leap and landed in the trailer. I held her steady and yelled, "Shut the gate!" a few times. Her new owner was frozen, thinking I had been squashed. My DH was frozen with happiness she was in the trailer. I envisioned Estelle rushing back out, so risked scooting forward and pulling the slant load divider off the wall with a bang, and shoved her back, while DH finally mobilized and jumped up to help me close it. 

She was so short, I realized she could easily duck under the divider, so I threw the ropes down and jumped to get the outer door closed. Once she was secured, I put her lead on a tie blocker ring and took off the long rope. 

Estelle rode fine, although it was freeway, mountains and twisting roads for 4 hrs. I'm sure she was absolutely terrified, stuck in a box with no experience. 
At the barn, it was again risky because we couldn't get the trailer all the way to her gate, so there was an open space between. I attached a very long rope to her halter and tried not to let her notice the escape route, especially since now it was 10 pm and pitch dark. Not a good time to lose an unhandled horse. 

She came out fine, but froze once she got off the step, and I turned her toward the gate, ran in and pulled her forward while DH scared her with a light. She ran in, he closed the gate, and she let me get close enough to unhalter her. 
It could have gone wrong in a hundred ways. But it didn't and now she is safe and in a place with lots of food, buddies nearby and a better life ahead.


----------



## SueC

It's the middle of the night here but I happen to be up and read this - well done! 😎 Didn't envy you the task and glad nobody got hurt - this stuff is always risky, and stressful because we know it. What a long, long day. Hope you get a good rest and glad the horse's life is looking up.


----------



## Knave

I can’t wait to see pictures of the poor girl! The rope is exactly what I would have done too. Good job, and she sounds like she wants to be kind, so that is a great thing too!


----------



## egrogan

I was holding my breath at the end of every paragraph. Glad it ended well enough for all involved. What a story that little mare must have to tell...


----------



## knightrider

Whew! What a story! I am so looking forward to reading about her training sessions.


----------



## gottatrot

Here is a photo of Estelle's bony hips and hindquarters.
You can see in this video how thin she is:





Today I brought Amore down to spend some time with Estelle, and it was a non-event with Amore attempting to sniff Estelle while she moved away, and then Amore settling down to eat the hay on the ground. She didn't mind sharing with Estelle. Hero sniffed noses with her too, but I didn't put him in with her just in case.

While I fed Estelle hay pellets, she let me scratch her neck and touch her side and even hindquarters. I showed her a rope and touched her with it, but then just dangled it over my neck while feeding her since she was pretty nervous about it. 

There was something strange though. I don't know what I was thinking yesterday. I guess the new owner told me that the horse was about 14 hands, and with her thinness it was an optical illusion, plus she was a real moving target. Today I immediately realized she was not even thirteen hands, and when I brought Amore down she looked large next to Estelle, and I'd say she is more like 12 hands. So this is not going to be a horse this gal is riding...I'm really not sure what she was thinking. Her new owner is probably thirty pounds heavier than I am, and I'm way too big to ride this pony. Possibly she might make a fancy little driving pony. 

The plot thickens, however. Let's just say I'm happy to help the pony, but it might not work out so well with the owner. There was an element of having us do all the work, and she didn't even help unload the pony. I chalked it up to her being tired, but then today I was the one who cleaned out the horse trailer, and what ticked me off was that she didn't show up at all to check on her pony. She knew I was going to be at the barn, but she didn't contact me at all to ask if I would feed or check on Estelle. Which of course I did make sure her horse was fed, but she should be super excited to have a new pony, she should be worried about how the horse was doing after the long trip, and it is just a very bad sign to me about our ability to get along. 

My thought is to work hard on gentling and getting this pony able to lead and be handled, so she has a chance to have a better home if things don't work out with her new owner. 

After such a long day yesterday, I just exercised Hero loose in the arena. He's been on the 4Cyte a while now. It has been helping him feel really good, and he is moving very well. The only problem is he is feeling super. And he's been rather hot. So I've been having to really manage his energy, but as usual I feel great about getting him to this point.


----------



## weeedlady

wow. Perhaps new friend is not what we were all hoping for? That's a disappointment if so. Estelle is lucky to have you taking an interest in her.


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

gottatrot said:


> Today I brought Amore down to spend some time with Estelle, and it was a non-event with Amore attempting to sniff Estelle while she moved away, and then Amore settling down to eat the hay on the ground. She didn't mind sharing with Estelle. Hero sniffed noses with her too, but I didn't put him in with her just in case.
> 
> While I fed Estelle hay pellets, she let me scratch her neck and touch her side and even hindquarters. I showed her a rope and touched her with it, but then just dangled it over my neck while feeding her since she was pretty nervous about it.
> 
> There was something strange though. I don't know what I was thinking yesterday. I guess the new owner told me that the horse was about 14 hands, and with her thinness it was an optical illusion, plus she was a real moving target. Today I immediately realized she was not even thirteen hands, and when I brought Amore down she looked large next to Estelle, and I'd say she is more like 12 hands. So this is not going to be a horse this gal is riding...I'm really not sure what she was thinking. Her new owner is probably thirty pounds heavier than I am, and I'm way too big to ride this pony. Possibly she might make a fancy little driving pony.
> 
> The plot thickens, however. Let's just say I'm happy to help the pony, but it might not work out so well with the owner. There was an element of having us do all the work, and she didn't even help unload the pony. I chalked it up to her being tired, but then today I was the one who cleaned out the horse trailer, and what ticked me off was that she didn't show up at all to check on her pony. She knew I was going to be at the barn, but she didn't contact me at all to ask if I would feed or check on Estelle. Which of course I did make sure her horse was fed, but she should be super excited to have a new pony, she should be worried about how the horse was doing after the long trip, and it is just a very bad sign to me about our ability to get along.
> 
> My thought is to work hard on gentling and getting this pony able to lead and be handled, so she has a chance to have a better home if things don't work out with her new owner.


It sounds like you went through quite the adventure to bring this pony home, I hope the work will be rewarding and you will gain from it what you hope to. I'm sorry they lied about the height as well. I mean sure plans change but maybe the new owner will need to sell her after she turns around and get something her size, unless she wants to drive. I know she'll recover and flourish under you. I hope she doesnt have too much mental baggage and is just a very green, inexperienced pony that will happily take once she gets going.

I'm really sorry about the owner. That has been my experience with people too. They seem so genuine, so kind and caring and then they show their true colours. It is really disheartening. It hurts the same every time. I'm sorry  every time I think someone is legit and genuine, they prove to me why I need to stop moving mountains for people. The people you help the most are often the people who stab you in the back the hardest. I really hope this will not be the case. I really hope something came up and they had to attend to that or something. I hope they'll at least say thank you and express some gratitude! 

I think it hurts so badly because we desperately want to believe people have the same heart we do and it hurts something fierce when we get tricked and fall for the deception. I think we fall for it because we want to believe in humanity and believe others have the same heart we have. The good thing is this horse will benefit so much from your kindness. The animals deserve the compassion and effort, I think at the end of the day animals make up for humanity and give us hope.


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> There was something strange though. I don't know what I was thinking yesterday. I guess the new owner told me that the horse was about 14 hands, and with her thinness it was an optical illusion, plus she was a real moving target. Today I immediately realized she was not even thirteen hands, and when I brought Amore down she looked large next to Estelle, and I'd say she is more like 12 hands. So this is not going to be a horse this gal is riding...I'm really not sure what she was thinking. Her new owner is probably thirty pounds heavier than I am, and I'm way too big to ride this pony. Possibly she might make a fancy little driving pony.


If someone can't tell the difference between 14 hands and not even 13 hands when buying their prospective riding horse, that does indicate either they're not as knowledgeable as they're projecting, or that they've got a situational blind spot here - people can believe all sorts of crazy things to support their objectively insupportable ideas about something - we often see it in religion and politics and also with abused people's views of their abusers, and vice versa ("He's not that bad," vs "It's all her fault, she _made_ me do it!" etc).

Having had my own blind spots for long periods of time, and presumably still having unidentified blind spots (as everyone has), I thought I'd bring this up. There's a difference between wishful thinking and reality.




> The plot thickens, however. Let's just say I'm happy to help the pony, but it might not work out so well with the owner. There was an element of having us do all the work, and she didn't even help unload the pony. I chalked it up to her being tired...


Sometimes people can be like that because they are happy to let the expert friend take charge. Sometimes it's laziness, a sign of things to come etc. But you know, I think when we ourselves are happy to do something - like you wanting to help train a horse - we can also be susceptible to wearing rose-tinted glasses when looking at the people we're wanting to work with, help etc. Humans tend to make projections onto new lovers, new friends etc, of what they would like that person to be, instead of seeing who they really are (that takes time, and a determination to be as objective as possible when meeting new people) - and it doesn't help that all of us tend to present ourselves to new people with our best foot forward - show the "chocolate side" as they say in Germany.

Classically we get a honeymoon period where new friends are excited about the projections they've put on each other, but haven't actually seen the true faces. When you start to notice that the person wasn't what you thought they were, the disappointment sets in, but it's usually both people who have contributed to the misunderstanding/misperceptions. I'd say you probably saw this new friend more as the kind of person you wish to have as a new friend than what she really is, and she probably sees you as a keen expert who's happy to work with horses and people out of the goodness of her heart (and probably thinks you're wanting to take more responsibility than you actually do). And of course, another possibility is that she is a bit lazy - but I'd say compared to hyper-achievers like you and me and a lot of our circle here, a lot of people are going to look a bit lazy - at least to us, but of course maybe more widely too.

A lot of this stuff is also subconscious, and people may not be aware of the things that drive them or aspects of what they are like. So while conflict - and this sounds like a situation of conflict to me, where two people are perhaps realising they are wanting different things when they thought they were on the same page - is really uncomfortable, it's also something that has the best chance of being successfully managed when you realise it early, and talk about it early, before each side gets emotional and the blame and defensiveness begin (because then it gets really tricky). And...conflict teaches us about ourselves and how we respond to people, and sometimes gives us insights into things we didn't see or want to see about ourselves (but sometimes, people are also happy to use other people, full stop).




> ... but then today I was the one who cleaned out the horse trailer, and what ticked me off was that she didn't show up at all to check on her pony. She knew I was going to be at the barn, but she didn't contact me at all to ask if I would feed or check on Estelle. Which of course I did make sure her horse was fed, but she should be super excited to have a new pony, she should be worried about how the horse was doing after the long trip, and it is just a very bad sign to me about our ability to get along.


Assuming that she didn't have a genuine emergency and couldn't get back to you, then yes, that's something I would be troubled by as well. Was the horse's new owner somehow under the impression you'd do all the work? At this stage, you may still be able to sit down and have that conversation, or if more comfortable, put your ground rules for what you're prepared to do and not in writing, to her. (Of course, it would be so much better to do that beforehand, but so often we assume incorrectly that people will act like we would.)

I've had a curly situation myself, and it's still curly because I've put the ball in a friend's court. I'm going to tell you about it so you can take comfort in the fact that all of us still haven't got everything worked out, and so maybe you can offer your own opinion and suggestions on the matter (and other people's thoughtful perspectives are valuable things).

So here goes - and warning, very detailed scenario.

A while back a very good friend asked if she could bring friends to stay at our house when they were all coming to visit the South Coast. She said they didn't have much money and she would pay for a farmstay room for them, since they were her friends and she really wanted to treat them (and because she is my friend, I offered her a very generous discount). But when she had to change her initial date because of a local lockdown in her region, for her new proposed date one of the two rooms was already booked. So I said to her that if she still wanted to come, then her friends could have "her" room instead of her (i.e. no charge) as long as she would be prepared to bring her own camping mattress and bedding and sleep in our office - our only other private space - we still haven't finished our attic. This she agreed to do.

I was very clear that she'd need to bring her own bedding as we had no spare with both guest rooms full, in two separate emails. And she turned up without any bedding, just a camping mattress. Which kind of miffed me inside, but people make mistakes and I found her a sleeping bag from our camping kit, and an old pillow, and didn't make a fuss about it, other than to mention I had actually asked her to bring her own bedding because we didn't have proper spare bedding. It was a winter-rated sleeping bag, but she was complaining about being cold at night the next morning (in a house whose temperature doesn't drop under 20 degrees Celsius) and asking if I had any more spare blankets, when actually I didn't - I told her though that she could see if her friends were using the spare blanket that's part of the equipment of the room they were staying in. And she ended up with that blanket, but one of her basic problems was she actually wasn't using her sleeping bag correctly - not zipping it up, which is how it keeps you warm. And by this time I've got a house full of guests and situations to juggle and my animals to look after, and I'm kind of thinking, "Hey, aren't you a grown-up, can't you work this out for yourself?"

Also problematic was that both her friends were vegans, and we're not, and I'm not prepared to eat vegan more than once a week (vegetarian I can do five times a week, that's fine, but vegan is rather extreme and I personally need to be a proper omnivore to feel physically good). So on the first night, I made spinach and feta pockets and salad for us and our normal farmstay guests (who thankfully were old favourites back on their third visit), and then realised the vegans would object to the feta and made Peruvian fried rice (without the usual egg topping) as well to last a couple of days - and I was just flat chat with lots to juggle. The friends were a bit irritating because they kept barging into my kitchen asking me questions when I really really had to concentrate when I was multi-tasking making different meals and running behind schedule, so I ended up saying to them, "I really can't talk to you at the moment because I'm busy, please go back to the dining table!" - since they couldn't seem to read the situation.

The next morning at breakfast, I was a bit surprised that my friend's friends seemed to expect me to cater for them the same as my farmstay guests - even though they were staying for free - and that they had made no effort to bring some of their own breakfast materials. Complicating factor was I'd told my friend not to bring lots of stuff that needed refrigerating because our fridge is usually really full with leftovers etc - but that wouldn't have precluded them bringing some cereals etc and whatever it is that vegans eat for breakfast and snacks. They did bring their milk replacer but I think that was just my friend. Her friends seemed to have brought nothing, and just sat there expecting to be served; and that's after they got up late, well after my normal guests are scheduled to have breakfast and had already eaten and I had gardening to do, and this really really miffed me - I'm always miffed when I get the impression that someone thinks it's my job to cater for them - because 95% of our farmstay guest don't actually assume like that even though they pay to stay and breakfast is officially included - but _everyone_ is clear dinner is something I do as an extra and it's not something they've paid for, and many guests will bring a bottle of wine or some nice cheese etc, or offer to cook a meal for everyone another night (once, we had a Spanish guest who won third prize in a national Paella competition make us and another set of guests a proper competition-standard Paella, and OMG did I feel spoilt, it was fantastic - she even made the stock from scratch - and she smiled and said it had been the same experience for her with us cooking).

...which is why I was really irritated that my friend's friends contributed nothing to the table, even symbolically.

I suppose a vegan isn't going to present you with a nice Brie. 😁 But I was just having all sorts of alarm bells going off in me and starting to feel used. They weren't paying and were more trouble than paying guests, and contributing absolutely nothing materially to the common table, and it was just the way they were apparently always expecting to be served.

Next morning I made waffles, with the substitute milk for the vegans and a separate batch that didn't fall apart because it actually had _evil_ free-range egg in it for my regular guests and ourselves. Making the two separate batches made us about 15 minutes late for an agreed hiking time, and I was cursing myself for doing that at this point.

That evening my friend and her friends ate out (and nobody asked if we might like to join them, which we could have). Next morning - the morning they were all going back home - they turned up late again at the breakfast table after we'd already eaten, sat very obviously waiting to be served, and I went really cold inside, thought, "Fvck them!" (rare expletive) and just completely ignored them - because it actually wasn't my job to cater to them, and because, and Brett and I had been discussing this already for the last 24 hours, we ourselves would never have behaved like that staying with the friends of friends. I said goodbye to my friend but not to her friends - I was livid with them inside, at this point.

I'm never hosting friends of friends as a favour again. They can come as ordinary farmstay guests on their own accounts or not at all - then we all know where we stand. My friend let me know she was home safe in a quick email and a couple of days later I emailed back to say I hoped she wasn't working too hard, and that's the sum total of the correspondence since that really uncomfortable stay which is now a month ago. Eventually we'll have to talk about it, and that's OK, but it's her turn to email, at the very least. Meanwhile it's contemplation time. Feel free to offer your thoughts, everyone, if you've made it this far!

We actually have a radio programme here on Radio National called the Too-Hard Basket, where people bring up difficult situations and get different perspectives from various different people like philosophers, psychologists, etc. Here's an example of the curly things they discuss:









Too Hard Basket: to gift or not to gift when there's family unrest - ABC Radio National


For years your sister-in-law hasn't given your three daughters birthday or Christmas presents. Every year you thoughtfully select gifts for her children without even a thank-you. Do you buy them something for Christmas or not?




www.abc.net.au





Because dealing with other people is always going to bring up difficult issues sooner or later...


----------



## egrogan

I think that's why most horse people prefer animals to people @SueC  I guess I tend to see both sides of a situation, and I can offer a couple of perspectives. @SueC , to your scenario, I could see the friends of friends being told by the original friend, "hey, I'm taking you on this wonderful farmstay vacation," showing them the website and the delicious meals that you prepare, and just assuming that the friend had "paid freight" for them and they got the full experience even though money hadn't changed hands. Being fussy and demanding is annoying, for sure, but I wonder if they just didn't understand they weren't paying guests? Now...all that said...I think sometimes I embarrass my lovely husband because I tend to go overboard with wanting to bring little treats and gifts when we go to someone's house for dinner or a longer stay, and not much makes me happier than to be able to share a dessert or special bottle of beer or fancy cheese with someone who might not know about it or typically treat themselves in that way. I almost always end up paying for dinner and drinks if I've asked someone to go out and do something. That kind of stuff just genuinely makes me happy, but I've learned over time that it can be off-putting or even embarrassing to other people if it somehow implies a sense of obligation on their part to reciprocate in the future...But if I was showing up to your place as a favor to a friend, I sure would have shown up with something delicious or offered to take you out for dinner one night!

For @gottatrot's maybe-new-friend, the first thing I wondered was if she was paralyzed with a sort of buyer's remorse and feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to act. I mean, this horse is feral, is most likely not at all suitable for her intended purpose, took a rodeo to handle...and now, the friend has to figure out what to do with it. I personally can't imagine not being out there first thing the next morning to visit with the horse and try to put together a plan, but I _can_ understand avoidance as a strategy for a person who is very overwhelmed. Similar to above, I'm not making excuses exactly, but trying to see her perspective. At the very least though, I would agree with the advice to have a sit down conversation now to be very clear about roles, responsibilities, and expectations. I know @gottatrot you said you don't want to be paid as a trainer and you want what's best for the horse, but time is valuable too and I sure wouldn't want this person expecting I was the horse's caretaker.

Good luck to all unraveling their tricky situations!

[email protected], the _New York Times_ has a Thursday column called "Social Q's," which sounds similar to the radio show you linked. I am oddly drawn to reading it every week and seeing how my reaction lines up- or doesn't- with the "expert" advise. Social Q’s


----------



## Knave

Happy Easter everyone!

Is it possible Estelle looks shorter because she is in such terrible shape? I found myself wanting to walk into your video to clean her up and see how awful it really is. Ick. If she is 12 hands, she is nice looking if she were brought back into shape, so I think you could get her gentle and broke and sell her as a kids pony for some decent money (if you could get her nice of course).

I saw the cutest little appy pony, and he looked just like a horse too, but was probably 13 hands. They rode him in the process of getting him broke, and did a lot of ranch work on him. I’d have ridden him too without much guilt, but he was sturdy and tough. I hope Estelle becomes sturdy.

As far as the owner of Estelle goes; I don’t like that story at all! I am sorry. I am always so leery of making friends. I’m so socially anxious that I think I tend to rarely ever even make that step towards an actual friend. I have no excuses for her behavior or anything, and wonder if you are now stuck with the feral pony...

@SueC I actually had the same feeling as @egrogan reading that. I wonder if your friend lied to them. They don’t sound like people you’d want to host anyways, but I wonder if they were told they were in fact paying guests...


----------



## SueC

I've got to say, I really like your thoughts for both tricky scenarios, @egrogan. For @gottatrot's scenario I was also thinking, "What if the new owner has some kind of mental/emotional health issue?" ...not as an excuse, of course, but to explain why she's not coming up to scratch, particularly now she's perhaps seen she's not made a wise decision buying that horse - or really any horse, without the money for a saddle etc (if I remember correctly) - and I've got to say that would have set off alarm bells in me about working with the person, because then they're not just going to be a time drain (perhaps of something I love to do), but a money drain as well...

For my scenario, yes, possibly my friend didn't actually tell her friends they were staying for free and were under the impression they were all paid up (and had they been, I'd have taken them aside and referred them back to our house rules, which they never signed as they weren't a full booking, and probably never even read). But even if they'd been paid-up guests, I still wouldn't have been particularly comfortable with how they behaved - e.g. repeatedly late for breakfast without prior mutual agreement to serve outside of the normal breakfast slot - without prior agreement, my paid-up guests have then simply missed breakfast and need to have it in town instead. Telling me when I was coming back into the house mid-morning after the morning garden tour that they were now ready for a garden tour, and I said, "Well, the rest of us just did that, we started an hour ago and now I've got other work to do." Bringing large quantities of organic wastes back from various picnics and just wanting to dump it in my indoor organic collection bucket which I would then have had to take outside and dump in the compost in the middle of cooking dinner when I actually needed the space in it myself - without asking, so I said, "No, you can't fill up my kitchen bin with your scraps, please put them in the compost bin in the garden, let our friend show you where." Coming into the kitchen when I was busy to "helpfully" bring me one spoon nobody needed and wanting to know where to put it so it wouldn't have to be washed up, when she had her fingers all over it in a pandemic and therefore it needed to be washed anyway, and I had already asked people to stay out of the kitchen. 👹

And just this general sense of entitlement that seemed to be coming off them and that I am highly allergic to... no thank-you for the extra work of separate cooking for their chosen lifestyle (veganism is not the same as a food intolerance, for most of them; and some get as self-righteous about it as a really annoying religious cult, and anyway, why are they coming to a beef farm? - perhaps they should stay in the middle of a soy monoculture instead - which might also teach them something...👺)

More than that, I'm actually thinking back and recognising on reflection that this particular friend isn't actually the sort of person that offers me a helping hand when I'm overrun with something when she visits, but is pretty happy to have me give up my time in lieu of work to do things for her - and that's 50% my fault - if she's like that, I have to stop offering her extras and just get on with my own work. I've had _paying_ guests spontaneously offering to help me with stuff around the garden etc and have declined, but not this friend of mine. Partly it's a cultural thing - she says thankyou by bringing really nice, thoughtful gifts when she visits. I think when she gets in touch again it's time to have a broader conversation.

The problem is, and for @gottatrot too, if you're generous, people may take advantage, and not necessarily realise it - and you have to make sure you don't let people take more than what you're happy to offer.

@Knave, I just saw your post, and agree with your comments on both situations too. 😎 🤠

G'night, all. House full of paying guests who are all lovely just now. Zzzzzzzz how did it get this late?


----------



## Kalraii

Yay for happy ending in the move... aww coz you sound taken advantage off. It's gotta be great and exciting to be part of this but sheesh. I can understand being anxious... I asked my instructor/yard manager to load/unload for me the first few times but I still tidied the box :O I wonder if she's realised this pony isn't what she was hoping for and already quickly disconnected? Or maybe seeing how much effort it already was (despite sounding fantastic given everything) was off putting? I've also seen people, past "Friends", that quickly lose interest in an animal or hobby when someone comes along and connects/does better. Of _course _the more experienced horseperson is gonna probably do better but the whole point is to learn from the challenge and share the reward :< Maybe a more hands off approach letting her be in full control would help? A real shame but it tells you everything you need to know and I wouldn't be trusting her with very much. After the ordeal you described I'd probably be up there at 3am making sure the horse wasn't colicking and on my knees thanking you for being there! It is a real downer. I am finding each year I am becoming more jaded and losing faith in people. Glad the mare has you and hope the new owner steps up. She's gonna be a real pretty mare once fixed up!


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

SueC said:


> we can also be susceptible to wearing rose-tinted glasses when looking at the people we're wanting to work with, help etc. Humans tend to make projections onto new lovers, new friends etc, of what they would like that person to be, instead of seeing who they really are (that takes time, and a determination to be as objective as possible when meeting new people) - and it doesn't help that all of us tend to present ourselves to new people with our best foot forward - show the "chocolate side" as they say in Germany.
> 
> Classically we get a honeymoon period where new friends are excited about the projections they've put on each other, but haven't actually seen the true faces. When you start to notice that the person wasn't what you thought they were, the disappointment sets in, but it's usually both people who have contributed to the misunderstanding/misperceptions. I'd say you probably saw this new friend more as the kind of person you wish to have as a new friend than what she really is, and she probably sees you as a keen expert who's happy to work with horses and people out of the goodness of her heart (and probably thinks you're wanting to take more responsibility than you actually do). And of course, another possibility is that she is a bit lazy - but I'd say compared to hyper-achievers like you and me and a lot of our circle here, a lot of people are going to look a bit lazy - at least to us, but of course maybe more widely too.
> 
> A lot of this stuff is also subconscious, and people may not be aware of the things that drive them or aspects of what they are like. So while conflict - and this sounds like a situation of conflict to me, where two people are perhaps realising they are wanting different things when they thought they were on the same page - is really uncomfortable, it's also something that has the best chance of being successfully managed when you realise it early, and talk about it early, before each side gets emotional and the blame and defensiveness begin (because then it gets really tricky). And...conflict teaches us about ourselves and how we respond to people, and sometimes gives us insights into things we didn't see or want to see about ourselves (but sometimes, people are also happy to use other people, full stop).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Assuming that she didn't have a genuine emergency and couldn't get back to you, then yes, that's something I would be troubled by as well. Was the horse's new owner somehow under the impression you'd do all the work? At this stage, you may still be able to sit down and have that conversation, or if more comfortable, put your ground rules for what you're prepared to do and not in writing, to her. (Of course, it would be so much better to do that beforehand, but so often we assume incorrectly that people will act like we would.)
> 
> I've had a curly situation myself, and it's still curly because I've put the ball in a friend's court. I'm going to tell you about it so you can take comfort in the fact that all of us still haven't got everything worked out, and so maybe you can offer your own opinion and suggestions on the matter (and other people's thoughtful perspectives are valuable things).
> 
> So here goes - and warning, very detailed scenario.
> 
> A while back a very good friend asked if she could bring friends to stay at our house when they were all coming to visit the South Coast. She said they didn't have much money and she would pay for a farmstay room for them, since they were her friends and she really wanted to treat them (and because she is my friend, I offered her a very generous discount). But when she had to change her initial date because of a local lockdown in her region, for her new proposed date one of the two rooms was already booked. So I said to her that if she still wanted to come, then her friends could have "her" room instead of her (i.e. no charge) as long as she would be prepared to bring her own camping mattress and bedding and sleep in our office - our only other private space - we still haven't finished our attic. This she agreed to do.
> 
> I was very clear that she'd need to bring her own bedding as we had no spare with both guest rooms full, in two separate emails. And she turned up without any bedding, just a camping mattress. Which kind of miffed me inside, but people make mistakes and I found her a sleeping bag from our camping kit, and an old pillow, and didn't make a fuss about it, other than to mention I had actually asked her to bring her own bedding because we didn't have proper spare bedding. It was a winter-rated sleeping bag, but she was complaining about being cold at night the next morning (in a house whose temperature doesn't drop under 20 degrees Celsius) and asking if I had any more spare blankets, when actually I didn't - I told her though that she could see if her friends were using the spare blanket that's part of the equipment of the room they were staying in. And she ended up with that blanket, but one of her basic problems was she actually wasn't using her sleeping bag correctly - not zipping it up, which is how it keeps you warm. And by this time I've got a house full of guests and situations to juggle and my animals to look after, and I'm kind of thinking, "Hey, aren't you a grown-up, can't you work this out for yourself?"
> 
> Also problematic was that both her friends were vegans, and we're not, and I'm not prepared to eat vegan more than once a week (vegetarian I can do five times a week, that's fine, but vegan is rather extreme and I personally need to be a proper omnivore to feel physically good). So on the first night, I made spinach and feta pockets and salad for us and our normal farmstay guests (who thankfully were old favourites back on their third visit), and then realised the vegans would object to the feta and made Peruvian fried rice (without the usual egg topping) as well to last a couple of days - and I was just flat chat with lots to juggle. The friends were a bit irritating because they kept barging into my kitchen asking me questions when I really really had to concentrate when I was multi-tasking making different meals and running behind schedule, so I ended up saying to them, "I really can't talk to you at the moment because I'm busy, please go back to the dining table!" - since they couldn't seem to read the situation.
> 
> The next morning at breakfast, I was a bit surprised that my friend's friends seemed to expect me to cater for them the same as my farmstay guests - even though they were staying for free - and that they had made no effort to bring some of their own breakfast materials. Complicating factor was I'd told my friend not to bring lots of stuff that needed refrigerating because our fridge is usually really full with leftovers etc - but that wouldn't have precluded them bringing some cereals etc and whatever it is that vegans eat for breakfast and snacks. They did bring their milk replacer but I think that was just my friend. Her friends seemed to have brought nothing, and just sat there expecting to be served; and that's after they got up late, well after my normal guests are scheduled to have breakfast and had already eaten and I had gardening to do, and this really really miffed me - I'm always miffed when I get the impression that someone thinks it's my job to cater for them - because 95% of our farmstay guest don't actually assume like that even though they pay to stay and breakfast is officially included - but _everyone_ is clear dinner is something I do as an extra and it's not something they've paid for, and many guests will bring a bottle of wine or some nice cheese etc, or offer to cook a meal for everyone another night (once, we had a Spanish guest who won third prize in a national Paella competition make us and another set of guests a proper competition-standard Paella, and OMG did I feel spoilt, it was fantastic - she even made the stock from scratch - and she smiled and said it had been the same experience for her with us cooking).
> 
> ...which is why I was really irritated that my friend's friends contributed nothing to the table, even symbolically.
> 
> I suppose a vegan isn't going to present you with a nice Brie. :lol: But I was just having all sorts of alarm bells going off in me and starting to feel used. They weren't paying and were more trouble than paying guests, and contributing absolutely nothing materially to the common table, and it was just the way they were apparently always expecting to be served.
> 
> Next morning I made waffles, with the substitute milk for the vegans and a separate batch that didn't fall apart because it actually had _evil_ free-range egg in it for my regular guests and ourselves. Making the two separate batches made us about 15 minutes late for an agreed hiking time, and I was cursing myself for doing that at this point.
> 
> That evening my friend and her friends ate out (and nobody asked if we might like to join them, which we could have). Next morning - the morning they were all going back home - they turned up late again at the breakfast table after we'd already eaten, sat very obviously waiting to be served, and I went really cold inside, thought, "Fvck them!" (rare expletive) and just completely ignored them - because it actually wasn't my job to cater to them, and because, and Brett and I had been discussing this already for the last 24 hours, we ourselves would never have behaved like that staying with the friends of friends. I said goodbye to my friend but not to her friends - I was livid with them inside, at this point.
> 
> I'm never hosting friends of friends as a favour again. They can come as ordinary farmstay guests on their own accounts or not at all - then we all know where we stand. My friend let me know she was home safe in a quick email and a couple of days later I emailed back to say I hoped she wasn't working too hard, and that's the sum total of the correspondence since that really uncomfortable stay which is now a month ago. Eventually we'll have to talk about it, and that's OK, but it's her turn to email, at the very least. Meanwhile it's contemplation time. Feel free to offer your thoughts, everyone, if you've made it this far!
> 
> We actually have a radio programme here on Radio National called the Too-Hard Basket, where people bring up difficult situations and get different perspectives from various different people like philosophers, psychologists, etc. Here's an example of the curly things they discuss:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Too Hard Basket: to gift or not to gift when there's family unrest - ABC Radio National
> 
> 
> For years your sister-in-law hasn't given your three daughters birthday or Christmas presents. Every year you thoughtfully select gifts for her children without even a thank-you. Do you buy them something for Christmas or not?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.abc.net.au
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Because dealing with other people is always going to bring up difficult issues sooner or later...


I think a lot of misunderstandings arise between people. A lot of unspoken things and misinterpretations of behavior. I know I lost a friend from a misunderstanding, where I reached to her by phone because I thought it was more personal and appropriate and I didnt know her phone had been lost, so she didnt receive anything. I interpreted it as she was mad at me for something and took distance, she saw it as I let her down in her hour of need and that I didnt actually care about her. Neither of us were right but those kinds of misunderstandings arise often. I think things happen that neither are aware of or speak to one another about but assume the other knows what they have done. It happens a lot in Denmark, people are so scared of confrontation. If they are mad, they simply ignore you and do not tell you what is going on or why they're upset. Which to me is simply childish, adults use words - not assumptions but it is cultural. They dont know how to handle confrontation, things are handled with diplomacy. Example a Dane will never say to you, dont park there - they will just put something in the way, so you can't park there. 

In general, humans presume and project a lot. I think it is very easy to misinterpret behavior, we only have our own goggles to see from and some people mean well but dont always say what we want them to or show it in how we think they should. Conversing with some people requires a great deal of diplomacy and tip toeing on eggshells. I find people who are easily offended or expect others to cater to them or say exactly what they want are often quite immature. Emotionally healthy, balanced people can hear different perspective and opinions and handle them with grace. Unfortunately, there are a lot of childish and emotionally immature people in this world who think their projections are facts and take difference of perspective and opinion as a personal insult. To me it's generally a sign that individual is toxic and keep clear.

As for the vegans, it's hard to say. Maybe they did in fact not know they were staying for free, maybe they didnt consider their behavior rude or entitled. But repeatedly missing breakfast than expecting to be waited on, not meeting the time slot designated for certain things - that is their choice and responsibility. They cannot expect special considerations for existing - that is entitlement and rude. 

I find there is also a great divide in people who care about "what is said" vs "how it is said." Some people are very sensitive to mannerisms and word choice, while other care more about the substance of the matter. For myself I care about what is said, not how it is said so long as it is done with basic respect and objective honesty. It is interesting how poor we are at perceiving ourselves, I think that is something my study has taught me. To not trust our perceptions and challenge our assumptions because even when we think we are right, we are often wrong. Humans are very strange and complicated and I think we assume we are right more often than we actually are as a form of comfort. 

I don't know. People confuse me. I study them and I think I've only become more confused because there are so many variations. The more I've learned, the less sure I am. Hard to be confident or certain when there is so much variation in behavior. I think you have to know someone very well and know their heart, character and general intentions - else it is too easy to project ourselves onto others, rather than judging them as they truly are.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks for all the great perspectives. People are difficult and confusing for sure.
With @SueC's situation, it sounds like you were taken advantage of, but discussing it with your friend would be the part I would struggle with. It does sound like it's her turn to contact you, but I would find it difficult to bring up the subject. 

Today Estelle's owner texted to ask if I would go out and feed her horse "when I was out there." When I texted and said I was not going out today since I went out yesterday, she said she would try to get out tomorrow. No one is checking on her horse today. She said at work tonight we will need to "discuss schedules." I don't mind feeding her horse every third day when I'm at the barn, but I just can't fathom having a skinny horse in a new situation and not checking on them every day for at least a week or two. It's a half hour drive. I would do that twice a day if I was worried about a horse. 

I am understanding now that I met this person not to have a great riding friend, but because she was going to impulsively buy this horse and I would need to help save her. DH thinks it will be a matter of time before she bails out, and says we can keep the pony for a while to get her healthy if that happens. It will be tricky setting limits without creating too much conflict...


----------



## egrogan

I "liked" your post, but that is very disappointing. I am totally with you on this one- if that was my horse, I'd probably be set up there for most of the day at first, just observing, feeding, cleaning up. Without being dense, how does she think her horse will eat, drink, and get human interaction without her being there?? Uggh, I am annoyed on your behalf...

You did make me think about Fizz being delivered to the boarding barn when I first bought her- that whole first week, I wanted to be there multiple times a day to see how she was settling in to a new place, how she was getting along with Izzy, how she did with being worked a little in the indoor and outdoor. And she had no health or training challenges, just a new horse adjusting to a new place. Plus, I also felt like a little kid who got a pony for Christmas- how would she know how much I loved her if she didn't see me every day?  🦄 💘


----------



## SueC

Awwww, @egrogan!  This is why I like all you lot, because you're good to your animals instead of treating them like bicycles, manservants etc.

@gottatrot, that's very disappointing - is the horse relying on hand feeding daily? If she's not getting a bucket feed today, does she at least have a roundbale in her paddock and a reliable water supply?

Discuss schedules, indeed... discuss responsibilities, I should think.  Not fun but necessary...

Goes from texting all the time about buying a horse to not showing up for the horse for _how long_ after she actually arrives at the barn? Doesn't come the first day, and not on the second one either?


----------



## knightrider

Wow. What a mess.


gottatrot said:


> It will be tricky setting limits without creating too much conflict...


No kidding!!!! My heart goes out to you. I had such high hopes for a new friend and a new horse to interact with. I am so sorry.

I listened to the Christmas present radio broadcast and disagreed with the presenters. I would not give gifts to the children. How cold is that? Some people are overwhelmed at Christmas and just would rather not fool with the whole thing. Do kids really need piles of gifts anyway? Maybe it's just kind of unspoken, "Let's not give gifts." That has NOTHING to do with @gottatrot's situation; I just thought it was curious that I was completely opposite of the presenters. I wonder if I am opposite of most people? 

I get along with just about everyone. I have had some riders I have invited to ride get presumptuous. I usually find reasons for them not to come out. They come out fewer and fewer times until it just gently fizzles out.

I wish both of you had not had those experiences. I did a farm stay once and I expected to help with the farm chores--that's part of a farm stay, I thought. I fed and took care of the chickens and sheep and helped with the laundry. It was fun.


----------



## SueC

I disagreed with the presenters too, @knightrider - I'd not be giving presents in that case.

And to be honest, we don't do Christmas presents or cards anymore anyway except some presents to each other - everyone already has so much stuff. But that's regardless of that I disagree with the presenters anyway!

Interesting thoughts about the farm stay!  At the moment, I've got fairly good uptake of donkey brushing by guests...


----------



## weeedlady

"discuss schedules'? wtf???????


----------



## SueC

@weeedlady! My ears! 😜 🤪 🥳


----------



## gottatrot

Today was not a normal barn day but we decided to go out in the evening to check on the pony. Secretly we have renamed the pony from Estelle, which doesn't seem to fit her to Aria. She seems not like a cranky old lady but like a graceful little song. She also looks like a tiny Amore, and the names seemed similar to us. 

DH and I had a bet about whether Aria's owner had gone to see her today. She had asked me about what kind of hay to get this morning. So I bet she had finally gone to see her horse. DH bet she hadn't. 
DH won the bet.

The barn owner came down to talk to us and said she had received a text yesterday asking her to feed Aria, but the owner had said she would come out today. Obviously she hadn't been there. No manure had been picked up and her horse had no hay. So she hasn't been to see her horse since Friday night when we dropped her off, and this was the third day. She also had only asked someone to feed one of those days. 

As DH said, what made it worse was that Aria's owner had said on the way home that she thought Aria had injured her leg. I said maybe, but had noticed that when she had mentioned it while we were trying to catch Aria, she had referred to what I saw as a horse resting her back leg. I had seen no signs of injury or unsoundness, and of course checked her out well the next day. However, this was something her owner has not asked me about, or even if I have been to look at her horse. I have not mentioned that I have fed her. So as far as she knows, her horse might have an injured leg, which she has not checked on. 

She also told me the horse was grinding her teeth, and so I had imagined either a horse grinding from ulcers, or else with some kind of misalignment. But when we went to get the horse, and were feeding her, she asked if I heard the terrible sound, and said that it really bothered her, and what Aria was doing was simply chewing with her molars as all horses do. 

Of course I had fed Aria a lot on Saturday, enough for a couple days, and the barn owner Monday, and today I also fed her. She is eating great and settling in well. We had a good discussion with the barn owner about the situation. She might actually know an older lady who would want a gentle companion pony if she was trained to be handled and led. I told her I was putting a fast track on gentling her.

DH and I spent a long time in with Aria. She is at least twice as gentle as the last time I visited. She came right up to the gate to greet us, and was searching our hands right away for food. While DH fed her I was able to pet her all over while holding the halter in my hand, and put my hand over her neck, and touch from head back to tail on both sides for much longer than before. Maybe after another couple of sessions I will be able to put a halter on. I took a lot of the shedding hair off, but her mane detangling will have to wait until she has a halter and lead rope on. 

It was quite funny when she really wanted grass from DH's hand but had to let him put his other hand on her cheek to reach it. In the end she always overcame her worry to get the food. She also soon would walk between us and let us walk all around her without trying to leave. If she ever began to rush off, of course I would turn and pretend I had been planning to go another way, which always works for horses that think you want to chase them. As long as they're not terrified, they seem to feel silly when you rush in another direction and they believe they misread you. It just makes me laugh to see them stop so quickly and look puzzled.


----------



## SueC

Aaaargh, aaaargh, aaaargh, aaaargh. 👺👹👾

It sounds to me that the best thing would be if the animal was sold to you before you take any further steps, because to work with her while you've got someone who doesn't know enough, or do enough of what she could actually do, and can veto everything, looking over your shoulder isn't likely to end well... and is a recipe for heartbreak for you. Be really careful here, legally she belongs to another.

Isn't it typical though... your last post so reminds me of when I was a teenager and my 20-something at the time brother, who actually went around saying he hated horses, simply having to have one when I bought my yearling Arabian filly. So someone who'd never ridden or even handled a horse or previously wanted anything to do with them and knew sweet FA about horses went to the same place and bought a weanling Arabian colt, not gelded, but halter broken. He bought a show halter and led him around on it and talked about "My Arabian stallion!" - and did precious little grooming or foot care, and left all the feeding up to my parents (on whose farm all this took place).

The poor horse spent most of his life from then on in a small lunging yard, with a shelter attached. Because my brother refused to have him gelded, he was taken away from communal runs of fillies, mares and geldings when he was around 18 months old and never put back in with another horse while he was on that farm, for most of the rest of his sad life.

I used to feel sorry for the horse and chide my brother about it. "Why do you keep a horse when you have no intention of riding it? Why do you keep a stallion when you're not a breeder, and your horse is dying for companionship?"

He said, "I might breed him one day. And I can't ride him because he's not broken in."

I said, "You personally can't ride - you've never had lessons, etc - and until you can, there's no point discussing you riding an inexperienced horse."

He said, "Well, you seem to have done OK with your filly..." (who was now 4 and I was starting to ride her in endurance etc after years and years training her to do all the usual things, and saddle educating her on my own - his horse was 3) ..."...can't you help me with this one?"

I pointed out he had done none of the many preliminaries you should do with a horse, and he could have done had he read up about it and learnt from others, taken lessons etc. He was only walking him around in a halter once in a blue moon.

He said, "But why can't we just put a saddle on him and ride him like they do in the Westerns? I don't care about lunging and ground driving and groundwork. Just about riding the horse, nothing fancy." ...he actually wanted to shortcut like a movie cowboy, and have _me_ get on a horse's back unprepared and ride it out. Bwahahahaha. So I said, "Do you want to see what's going to happen if you just put a saddle on him without preliminaries?"

I got an old saddle that was no longer fit for riding in and put it on the horse, who had been brought to the tie rail. And then put the lead rope in my brother's hand and said, "Now walk with him." Which he attempted to do. And predictably (with this horse, and this handler), the horse took a couple of steps, got frightened, and took off, buck-jumping madly, getting free of the unprepared handler, and then quickly disappearing into the sunset.

By the time we got the horse back, the old saddle was broken and the horse lathered, and my brother never bothered me again with his ridiculous ideas on teaching his horse to ride. Nor did he want to ride him after seeing what a horse can do if it's panicking. I did explain to him that the his horse could be educated, but no shortcuts, and it was up to him to do all the preliminaries, or pay someone else to do it and the general saddle education for him. But he lost whatever marginal interest he had in the first place, and the horse spent 20 years in this small sandy lunging yard without equine company, bored to tears and shocking himself on the electric fence for something to do. It always broke my heart to see it, but I couldn't do anything about it - not my horse, not my farm, and not something the RSPCA would have bothered with, since the horse wasn't starving or lacking a water source.

When the horse was around 20, after a life like a canary in a cage, he briefly had a better life when he was leased out for two years to a person who wanted to breed their old mare to him to make a pony for his kids (another questionable project, if you ask me - horses live how long, kids have interest for how long, how many excess horses are there already etc etc). He spent those two years in an actual grassy paddock with a mare. And then he returned to his previous existence. Eventually my brother bought a small acreage and my father got sick of feeding and mucking out his horse and doing his feet, so he was asked to collect the horse. He then spent his late 20s in a grass paddock, again without company, and when too many teeth had fallen out, he was put down.

Worth breeding horses for this? I think not. A good idea for very casual people to own horses? I also think not. And I seriously think it's better for many animals that they be shot, than that they end up in the wrong hands and having horrible pointless existences like this, with neither social life nor grazing nor exploration of the world. 😢


----------



## weeedlady

@Sue C I do not "like" you post, but wanted to acknowledge it. Your post makes me sad.

@gottatrot I don't like your post either and it also makes me sad. Estelle/Aria's owner is not what we had hoped. Poor girl. This may turn into a mess I'm afraid.


----------



## Knave

I see their worries too Gotta. If you don’t get attached to the mare and don’t care about losing the time to the work with her though, then I guess it wouldn’t be awful if she suddenly became interested in her or decided to sell her.

At least she sounds like a decent little mare. You might have a lot of fun with her! I’m sorry the human didn’t work out.


----------



## gottatrot

Today I met up with the pony's owner at the barn. She put several bales of hay in, and then we talked. She does not seem to be a very sensitive person, so while I began very gently about my concerns, I realized soon she did not require handling with kid gloves and so I gave her a good scolding. This she tolerated without much push back. 

My DH says that what my family considered harsh words when I was growing up, most families would consider dinnertime conversation. So there is that. But I was very clear about being worried she had buyer's regret, that she perhaps did not want a pony she couldn't ride and that I was willing to help find a new home if necessary. 

She did lie and say she had checked on the pony, but when I told her I had been checking up and this was not true, she took it back. I told her it was very concerning she had not arranged to have anyone feed the pony when she could not make it out, and she said she had contacted the barn owner. I told her that was only one day, and the other days she had not done so. 

She kept reiterating that she wanted the pony, that she was responsible, and that she would be out every day to care for her. I'm not sure if this is true or not. I would like to hope so. She said she had to take care of herself too, and I told her that her horse was a helpless animal, and that should come first. I said I was feeling used because she seemed to think somehow I would fill in the gaps to make sure the horse was cared for, but I had only agreed to help with training and the horse was her responsibility, and if that was too much for her or she wasn't interested, then she should find a new home. At least the idea has been introduced, if she does lose interest.

At first she argued with me about whether she could ride her pony, and I was adamant that the pony was too small, and there was no way she could even find a saddle that would be short enough for the pony and also fit her. I told her possibly the pony could be driven, if she had the right temperament. She said Arabs are ridden by men sometimes, and Icelandic ponies are small. I said if the pony was even 13 hands I could agree with her, but that I'd never ridden a 12 hand pony and would never agree to. I told her that even when well fed, her pony would probably top out at 600 lbs. Then I brought my horses down so she could see how they compared in size. Amore is very large compared to the pony, and Hero looks gigantic. 

When we left, she still seemed to think we were friends, and texted me later to say she thought the pony might be able to pull an adult in a cart. Obviously the pony is large enough to pull quite a bit of weight, so I agreed. We will see if she ends up offended by my interference, but she has involved me quite a bit, and if you get my free help you get my opinions also.

Today I was able to really feel Estelle's coat (if she keeps the pony I guess she'll remain Estelle), and all the rain rot scabs down in there. I began introducing a rope, which made her more nervous, but soon she ignored me walking around and swinging it in her general vicinity. I was able to touch her with it a few times, and made her put her nose through the halter nose to eat pellets. I was able to touch her legs and under her belly, briefly, and put my hand over the top of her neck for a moment. She runs to the gate now to greet people, beginning to think we are coming to give her special treats.


----------



## Knave

I wish you would take a picture of her next to your horses. It blows my mind that she is that small. I do know a family here who starts ponies like that though. They are fancy looking, like regular horses but 12 hands. I was looking at them, when little girl was starting Moon, and kind of thinking the same thing. Moon looked much stronger than them. I could help little girl with Moon just a little and not feel guilty, but of course I would have felt guilty if I was on her much. She was built super strong though, and those ponies looked dainty and beautiful.

I thought they might be a struggle, because to get them well started to sell would take at least a year or two, and the old enough kids would grow over that time frame. I wondered how you could actually get them broke enough for a small child so they could last until that kid was 10 or 11.

Maybe they would work good for a family with many kids, so the older ones could start them and they could be handed down to the smaller ones as they got more broke.

These ponies were super fine though. They were bred interestingly too, with some cutting lines in there so they were athletes, and probably tended to be hot.


----------



## egrogan

I "liked" that a direct, honest conversation was possible and she didn't blow up defensively. But it still seems ridiculous it needed to happen. What does it even mean that "she needed to take care of herself too?" What did she think would happen when she put a horse into self-care board? 

I guess what matters now is what she actually does to care for _her _horse...


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

It's a shame you had to have a direct conversation but good that you did it. I've never been able to get on with people who need a firm hand or want to be bossed around or told what to do. Some people really need a boss and will follow a bossy person around like a puppy and be entirely compliant, while they walk all over someone who is more passive. I also observe a weird phenomena of people pleasers, where someone is genuinely accepted - they put no effort and pour their effort into someone they have to please. People are so strange. 

Like you, being bossy isn't my nature. In my mind relationships arent hierarchy, to me no one is superior or inferior. They're simply them and you stand on equal ground of give and take, just a shame people seem to so seldom be capable of that. Or basic decency a lot of the time. 

I hope she actually follows through and it isnt just words. Most of the time with people, it is nothing but empty words and promises that mean absolutely nothing. My feeling, based on what you have said is it likely will be a re-homing project but let's hope her words means something.


----------



## gottatrot

I do need to get a picture of the pony with my horses. It's very funny to see them together.

Dear Horse Forum,

Thank you for listening, I really need you right now to vent and for the great advice.

LOL

I had barely posted that earlier post this morning when the texts started coming in.
"You are right, I am listening to your advice." What happened is that the Morab at the rescue had her foal, and she says "I want him." Her idea is to adopt the mare and foal. And now she says I am right, the pony is too small, she thinks "we" should get her green broke and then rehome her "to a kid." An unhandled pony. The pony would not be ready for a kid owner for at least...two years? Now the artful part will come. How to extricate an unwanted pony from her owner and also deter her from attempting to get a green mare with a foal. Yikes. She will not have any help from me if she tries to get more horses.


----------



## DanteDressageNerd

Humans 🤦‍♀️ so the stupidity has just begun.

Make it plainly clear that the mare and foal is a mistake, she already made one mistake with this pony and she needs to at least wait until she is rehomed before even thinking about another. Why cant she just get some kind of trail safe, broke, been there done that kind of horse? Or does she has some romantic but delusional idea of "saving" a horse and making it a miracle partnership like in the movies?

What the heck does she actually want or is this all impulse? Is she mentally sound or is she living in a parallel world? I've come to realize recently that a lot of people live in their own world and perceive something a bit far from reality. There are people who live in the world of make believe and do not have the intention of trying to perceive reality or be objective. They do not question or cross examine their perception or self narrative. Their thinking tends to be more based in emotion and ideals and less in logic or reason. It's a bit baffling and highly illogical. I have no idea how to cope with that. Because they'll say, I hear you or I understand but they dont.

People who live in a parallel world are often completely unaware that they are delusional and will fight pretty hard against logic and reason. I've not found reason to work and they get very offended by it :/ or they dont really understand the logic/reason. It's a totally different point of view, I have not figured out how to deal with that. But Im very analytical/logic based.

However I think as people are moving more and more away from hands on and grounding type work and life experience, they are becoming more and more in this idealistic way of thinking and perceiving without understanding the reality or implications.

I wish I had some advice, those are just my thoughts. I have not figured out a great way to reason with the unreasonable who are passive enough to agree but then do crazy things.


----------



## egrogan

(_If too inappropriate I will delete...)_


----------



## SueC

@gottatrot, can you just clear something up for me? Am I remembering this right - that at this point the new owner can't afford a saddle?
...but she's talking about adopting two more horses? ...cost of keeping etc, even if no adoption fee...

I'm afraid your new friend does sound like a fruitcake...

You know one thing that really makes me mad? People who want things, but don't want to look after them.

A relative of mine always bemoaned her lack of garden, but didn't actually do anything about it herself. If I planted something for her as a favour (because she allegedly had injuries preventing her from doing so), she'd not even water it consistently or keep the weeds away and sooner or later it would be dead...

She was very much like this: Always wanting stuff and complaining about not having it but not raising a finger herself. She had a horse for a couple of years but never rode it, and didn't even brush it - just fed it a carrot once a day, and let everyone else do the work.

Once when she was moaning about all the things she would like, I asked her if she was an Egyptian princess in a past life, with loads of footservants to attend to her wishes - brush and muck out and exercise her horse, make grand gardens, look after these gardens etc, redecorate on her whims...


----------



## gottatrot

SueC said:


> @gottatrot, can you just clear something up for me? Am I remembering this right - that at this point the new owner can't afford a saddle?
> ...but she's talking about adopting two more horses? ...cost of keeping etc, even if no adoption fee...


Actually, that was a mixup. There is another horse owner with an Appaloosa who also wanted an Aussie saddle but couldn't afford one yet. She actually has saved up and ordered one now. The pony owner is a nurse and has money, at least whenever the paychecks come in. 

Yesterday I was more firm again because she sent me a text that said the Arab rescue is willing to rehome Estelle and let her have the Morab and foal instead. So I very clearly told her I was not going to train any more horses for her after the pony, that she had no concept of how much work a green mare with a new foal would be, and that our horse philosophies did not mesh at all. 

Unfortunately, now that more has come to light, I believe this person may have an issue such as borderline personality disorder. Have you seen the movie The Cable Guy? That is an extreme version. But I am seeing a lot of concerning signs such as changing hobbies or interests and then being consumed by them, a desperate need to keep a friend and fear of abandonment, a person living thousands of miles from family with no friends, a history of serial bad relationships (she says), a history of changing locations and jobs, impulsiveness and spree spending.

We hammered out that I will train the pony until she has a new home, and that she will take good care of her. She is apparently planning after the foal is weaned to take the Morab only, but send her to a trainer for a while. She was disappointed because she thought I might want to "raise a foal from the beginning," and I told her a side project was not taking on an untrained horse, plus a green horse (ridden two or three times), plus a foal. That is more like what a full time trainer might take on, since I have also my own horses to care for and Hero to train. 

Something I haven't mentioned is that when she did not have her RV in town yet, she asked if it would be OK to have a box sent to my house. I said that was fine. Then she said two more things had been sent also because she needed them right away. I said I guessed that was OK. Multiple shipments have been arriving every day, and so I texted and said now that she had her RV in a park, things needed to stop coming to my house. Then she said she guessed she needed to get a PO box, but wasn't sure if her dog food could be shipped there monthly. ???? Can you believe that? Apparently she was planning that all her stuff would just come to my house, including setting up to have monthly deliveries!! 

Basically, I looked at horse pictures with her at work, talked about how much I liked horses, and within a couple weeks helped acquire and agreed to training an unhandled pony, and have had the next couple years of my life planned out for me involving training multiple horses, trailering them around etc. You don't even know all the things she'd mentioned which apparently I thought were dreams but perhaps were actual plans. It's like if someone said maybe we should take a trip to Hawaii sometime and you said "maybe," and then they said "I have my tickets, do you have yours yet?" She's mentioned things like going to a dude ranch, staying down in California and riding Rocky Mountain horses for a few days, parking her RV at the Arab rescue and playing with the mare and foal. Going to endurance rides all over and etc. These things I thought were dreams and just said, "sounds nice," and stuff like that. Apparently, that meant I was all in. 

Her text today was about not wanting to distance herself from me, and she would like to adopt my horse philosophy. Yesterday she said she felt judged by me, but I just stated facts about what horses need, and what I could realistically offer, which was training Estelle. I'm not chatting with her anymore, and there will have to be firm boundaries. At work, we will do our jobs. At the barn, I will train the pony and discuss that with her. If she mentions big plans, I'll have to say firmly that I'm not involved. I want to be nice, especially if there is a fear of abandonment. But I am not able to be in a codependent compulsive relationship with someone. Unless it is a dog of course. But my dog is more stable than that.


----------



## egrogan

gottatrot said:


> But my dog is more stable than that.


Amen!!


----------



## weeedlady

Oh my. She is a mess.


----------



## bsms

Wow! No wonder I like horses and dogs (and cats too) better than humans!


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> Yesterday I was more firm again because she sent me a text that said the Arab rescue is willing to rehome Estelle and let her have the Morab and foal instead. So I very clearly told her I was not going to train any more horses for her after the pony, that she had no concept of how much work a green mare with a new foal would be, and that our horse philosophies did not mesh at all.


Boundaries now established - and doesn't hurt to repeat them whenever the occasion requires it! 

Life is much more pleasant when people know where they stand. Things are far less awkward after the first big clarification session in a situation, if the situation has needed it!

Also a good outcome that things are still civil and people still communicating. 😎 Worst outcome would be two people loathing each other for perceived wrongs etc.

It's not easy to have talks like this - at least for the majority of people. Often people leave it so late they are already upset and then things can get too emotional and turn ugly. Being able to calmly and tactfully state your boundaries to others is a valuable skill, and it gets easier with practice. Many of us didn't have the role modelling at home to show us how to do this from the time we were little. A lot of people either avoid conflict wherever possible, or get aggressive, pushy, insulting etc (i.e. bully others). Friendly assertiveness is a wonderful thing to cultivate.

The way I see it, people have "operating systems" like computers do, that were written by someone else (mostly their chief caregivers). As adults we can take a good look at the source code of our "operating system" and start re-writing it so it's more in line with the operating system we would like to have. 🌟




> Unfortunately, now that more has come to light, I believe this person may have an issue such as borderline personality disorder. Have you seen the movie The Cable Guy? That is an extreme version. But I am seeing a lot of concerning signs such as changing hobbies or interests and then being consumed by them, a desperate need to keep a friend and fear of abandonment, a person living thousands of miles from family with no friends, a history of serial bad relationships (she says), a history of changing locations and jobs, impulsiveness and spree spending.


Not seen the movie, but familiar with the concept. It can be difficult to handle people like this, but it's not impossible if you approach it with clear boundaries and don't get involved in any drama. It's I think far easier to be loosely friends with a person with BPD than to be their flatmate or romantic partner.

I think a lot of people with BPD type characteristics don't have great self-awareness and would be horrified to see themselves as other people see them. There can be a lot of shame when you dig down, and usually the role modelling at home was shiitake. "Nice" BPDs have their hearts in the right place, but lack insight and blunder along and get stuck in vicious cycles, especially since socialising outside of a structured workplace with clear expectations can be so hard for them. If you want to do good things in the world, then being a good role model for a "nice" BPD is definitely a valuable thing - it's sort of like working with a difficult horse with terrible past experiences from a shiitake background.

Not all BPDs are nice, of course - some thrive on the drama and enjoy discomfiture in others. But avoiding that kind goes under the same umbrella as avoiding sociopaths. 🙃




> We hammered out that I will train the pony until she has a new home, and that she will take good care of her. She is apparently planning after the foal is weaned to take the Morab only, but send her to a trainer for a while. She was disappointed because she thought I might want to "raise a foal from the beginning," and I told her a side project was not taking on an untrained horse, plus a green horse (ridden two or three times), plus a foal. That is more like what a full time trainer might take on, since I have also my own horses to care for and Hero to train.


Yeah, lots of people have no idea how much work that involves - the huge difference between some imagined wonderfulness versus the reality of lots of hard grind - and having to go take care of the animals every day, whether you would rather be _hygge_ at home for self-care, or not. Too many Hollywood movies on this topic have given people ridiculous ideas, and only reality can cure such ideas...

It's much better for an inexperienced person to have a single, doable project than multiple challenging ones... not a good idea to take on too much. (Often people mistake their good intentions for their actual abilities, available energy etc.)




> Something I haven't mentioned is that when she did not have her RV in town yet, she asked if it would be OK to have a box sent to my house. I said that was fine. Then she said two more things had been sent also because she needed them right away. I said I guessed that was OK. Multiple shipments have been arriving every day, and so I texted and said now that she had her RV in a park, things needed to stop coming to my house. Then she said she guessed she needed to get a PO box, but wasn't sure if her dog food could be shipped there monthly. ???? Can you believe that? Apparently she was planning that all her stuff would just come to my house, including setting up to have monthly deliveries!!


Sounds like this person was raised without a clear concept of boundaries and appropriateness. Maybe she somehow internalised the belief that friends / nice people will do anything for each other.

This is so like working with a horse: Every interaction you have is training. 😜




> Basically, I looked at horse pictures with her at work, talked about how much I liked horses, and within a couple weeks helped acquire and agreed to training an unhandled pony, and have had the next couple years of my life planned out for me involving training multiple horses, trailering them around etc. You don't even know all the things she'd mentioned which apparently I thought were dreams but perhaps were actual plans. It's like if someone said maybe we should take a trip to Hawaii sometime and you said "maybe," and then they said "I have my tickets, do you have yours yet?" She's mentioned things like going to a dude ranch, staying down in California and riding Rocky Mountain horses for a few days, parking her RV at the Arab rescue and playing with the mare and foal. Going to endurance rides all over and etc. These things I thought were dreams and just said, "sounds nice," and stuff like that. Apparently, that meant I was all in.


Ah well, I guess now she knows differently. 😉

It's easier to handle this kind of situation if you are aware you are really dealing with an emotional age of around 8. That way you're not going to be constantly surprised all over again when the next thing happens that no sane responsible adult would think or do. This is more "teaching people how to treat us". Some people's internal 8-year-olds are amenable to mentoring - and some people's are not!

I really dread to think what this person's upbringing was like. I doubt it was happy. This doesn't make it your responsibility, of course - but I think a good way to see it is like being part of the village it takes to raise a child - just to be a good member of that village - this takes many people, and not one particular person.




> I'm not chatting with her anymore, and there will have to be firm boundaries. At work, we will do our jobs. At the barn, I will train the pony and discuss that with her. If she mentions big plans, I'll have to say firmly that I'm not involved. I want to be nice, especially if there is a fear of abandonment. But I am not able to be in a codependent compulsive relationship with someone. Unless it is a dog of course. But my dog is more stable than that.


Yeah, exactly. And it sounds like you're approaching it really well. If you can work with each other within that really explicit structure and not get too "friendly" then over time you may find that has a good effect on her. Sort of like teaching a class - you're always supposed to start with your boundaries really explicit and tight and to follow up immediately and consistently and without emotional drama on boundary violations. Then you can loosen up later on when the house-training is well established. 😇 If you need to, you can then always pull back into the firmly established boundaries and consequences when people get a bit silly. But generally, having good boundaries established early is an excellent foundation for having respectful relationships - which are too rare in this world! And when people behave well towards other people, we can give them warm feedback on it, which encourages it further in them. It's a way to establish things like kindness, responsibility, good manners etc in students - and sometimes, in other people in our circle of influence. 😉 They don't even have to be your friends - a good role model is a good role model.

/end hippie thoughts. 😇 (But you know, I do like to make sure I smile and connect on a human level with the people who serve me when I do my grocery shopping - to see them actively as people and not conveniences, and to be on the same level as them rather than speaking down as many people will do to service personnel. And this little habit makes for a lot of really nice interactions on both sides! ❤)

How's Hero?


----------



## Knave

That whole post freaked me out. I’m trying currently to be open minded and make a couple friends. This is difficult to do with social anxiety.

One is becoming established; I really like her. She’s not needy by any means, but I feel like she likes me too and we are both happy with the friendship. Maybe I am a bit too... idk, busy? I struggle with the “let’s get together,” concept. It takes me out of my comfort zone. Lol

Another kind of just presented herself to me. I’ve been so distracted with the funeral arrangements that I haven’t been very attentive, but I like her when I’ve seen her. She’s the mother of little girl’s friend, so she’s shown up at my house (with warning, not just surprise) and texted me. She seems like she would become my friend easily, and I just found out she has some skeletons, but everyone deserves to outgrow mistakes right?

Then your story of Estelle has been going on in the background and it has totally freaked me out!! Maybe isolation isn’t so terrible...


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks for the good advice, @SueC. 
@Knave, I'm sure most people just want to be normal friends and not take over your life, so don't let my experience put you off. I've had lots of normal friends, LOL. But they soon learn I don't go out for coffee and things like that. If they want to do horse stuff or something active/outdoors then we get along fine. If we have lunch it's because we are tired and need to eat after an activity.

Session #4 with Estelle yesterday. Good progress, she walked around with the halter sitting on top of her neck and head, and put her nose through it to get treats and I tied it around her neck for a while. I was able to touch her ears briefly, put my arm over her neck and back, and touch her all over for longer. I got two knots out of her mane, three big ones left. 

Here are some pics to show you her size...not the best. DH took them and everyone was moving around a lot. She likes my horses and they like her. No drama, just nose touching and sniffing. Then they all ate her hay together. I first said Amore was 14.3, and my good friends said maybe with shoes on. She's probably 14.2, maybe only 14.1. I think Hero is 15.3. How big do you think the pony is? She's uphill of Amore in some pics, but you can see their overall relative size. Her owner thought if she fills out she'll be bigger, but still she is tiny.


----------



## egrogan

She's very cute, if a little scruffy looking. She's supposed to be Arab?

I'm no good on estimating height, though you're certainly right she looks quite petite.


----------



## Knave

She does look small. It is hard to tell because they aren’t ever really up next to each other... I keep trying to see her in relation to the fence, but I can’t seem to judge that either. It’s too bad she’s tiny.

I’m like that too. I’d love to get together and ride or rope, but I’m realizing maybe I need to branch out. I have a friend who will come over to rope occasionally, but I think they are moving and she is almost due to have a baby! I think maybe I need to have coffee with someone sometime.... I don’t have a town job, so the only people I see are the family. Lol


----------



## Kalraii

Oh no. You need to get out of this situation *ASAP* O.O I've been bitten too many times now. I lost a few friends when I sold my car, after moving Katie closer. How sad is that? Guess how many of those friends were non-drivers? lol. In London of all places where transport is pretty aight. Anything more than a 20minute journey is considered a trek :/ I thought they were taking the mick but this lady of yours... I'm really glad you picked up on it quickly though and can take action to try distance yourself. Help Estelle and then shut that door for good! People I don't know get one "freebie" and the harder they try pull on my heart strings the quicker they get plucked. Just dont have the energy for it anymore. It's nice reading in real time you helping an unhandled mare and sharing the progress.


----------



## SueC

Estelle has a very cute face. As to her being Arab, maybe part-bred? Doesn't quite look right even for a stunted Arab - looks like a pony cross to me, facially as well.

@Knave, with the majority of people you can trust your gut instinct. And the more in tune you are with your gut instinct and don't second-guess it, the more reliable that becomes. (As a young person I got in trouble a couple of times when I had an adverse gut reaction to a couple of people over the space of a few years, but immediately castigated myself, saying, "How can you be so judgemental, you don't even know this person, you've got no evidence, give them a chance!" Bad idea - the gut reaction was accurate, and an adverse gut reaction has never yet been inaccurate for me. I imagine it's a similar process by which horses get instant impressions of other horses and people.)

@gottatrot, I looked up the movie - it's got quite a cast, and a wrist-slitting story line! 

@Kalraii, hiya, hope all's going well for you and Katie! 😎 Your post made me remember the time that I set boundaries on people who visited my house with the front door: You'd not get it if I didn't feel comfortable with you (and I still think that's a great idea), and if I got uncomfortable with you while you were in my house, I'd ask you to go out the door again!  My door is a fairly blunt instrument, but I'm particularly averse to BS in my own home, even in tiny amounts... I now "pre-filter" better so I don't have to ask people to leave very often.

But I remember an occasion I was in my 20s and a sorta friend from work came over. I happened to be making pesto, which has garlic in it, when she came in, and I continued to make it while we conversed across the kitchen counter. I was peeling and putting garlic bulbs into the food processor, and getting my fresh herbs ready, when she suddenly swerved from the topic we were discussing and said, "That's so much garlic you're using there!" I explained it was pesto and garlic is a major component. She said, "Well, I still think that's too much garlic! You should use less garlic!" (No I shouldn't, the pesto is for me and I'm following a recipe I like and has worked before.)

These days I'd probably say, a bit sarcastically, "Well, thank you for your opinion, and you can make pesto how _you_ like it in your own kitchen!" - and change the topic, and refuse to come back to this topic. But back then she didn't stop giving unsolicited advice, and I didn't know how to deflect her, so I said, "You know, this is my home, and I don't think it's right for someone to come into it and tell me how I should do my own things, so unless you're gonna stop with this, I'm gonna ask you to leave!" Which made her go into a critique of me and how I was too touchy and should take advice from my elders and betters, and at this I walked over to my front door, held it open, and said, "Goodbye!"

I didn't see her again socially and she moved away; years later, I was at the farmers' market with my husband and she came up and tapped me on the shoulder, and she said to me she was back on holidays, and that it was really important to her to tell me she was very sorry about the way she behaved at my house all these years ago and she'd felt bad about it for ages. 😮 Then we got chatting, everything friendly again and both of us relieved that we'd met again and straightened things out. Funny how these things go...


----------



## gottatrot

Such great (and terrible) stories. Lol.

There was a chain saw running nearby when I went to see the pony today so she was a little unsettled. I did brush her with a brush, so that was new.

Hero and I went on a nice ride with Maybelle the mule for a little over an hour. He did pretty great. Only one spook at the end of the ride, none of the nervy stuff in my recent video. 

He did not want to enter the wooded trails and would not. I got off and walked him in a couple times. The third time I really did not want to get off so kept trying but he would only back up. 

Maybelle's owner said if he wanted to back, I should try backing toward the trail. Hero is way too smart for that kind of trick and wouldn't even back one step toward the woods. 

Then we found the perfect solution. Maybelle's rider circled by, picked up Hero's rein and ponied us onto the trail before dropping us. At the next woods entrance, Maybelle's rider picked us up again. 

Even in the woods, Hero did not jig and followed Maybelle's lead. She is green so he helped her by being calm near all the traffic, tarps and machinery. She helped him through the woods. It was great.

We saw some cows and Hero was only slightly nervous rather than very frightened the way he was last year.


----------



## SueC

Had Hero been reading _Green Eggs and Ham_?

I could not, would not, on a boat.
I will not, will not, with a goat.
I will not eat them in the rain.
I will not eat them on a train.
Not in the dark! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! You let me be!
I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I will not eat them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere!

I do not like
Green eggs
And ham!

I do not like them,
Sam-I-am.

You do not like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them!
And you may.
Try them and you may I say.

Sam!
If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.

Say!
I like green eggs and ham!
I do! I like them, Sam-I-am!
And I would eat them in a boat!
And I would eat them with a goat...
And I will eat them in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And in a tree.
They are so good so good you see!


----------



## gottatrot

@SueC, perfect! 

I agree the pony could be crossed with something. Maybe just a grade pony? She has a lot of Arab traits.

Her owner has done several good things. She's been reliably making it out to feed and/or has asked the barn owner to feed for her. She told me a box that showed up was for me, and it was a pair of new Dublin paddock boots in my size, with a zip up the front like I prefer. She said this was for helping her and that she was very grateful. So that was very nice. I had mentioned my boots were worn out, in passing. 

Something else that won her some points was that she said she didn't think Estelle fit the pony, and what did I think about Amira? Apparently it means Princess. We agreed the pony is acting more princess-like than like a cranky old lady, and I told her I'd like to call the pony Amira too. To me it sounds a lot like Amore, and DH and I call her "little Amore." 

I've been talking a bit about how I'd be willing to take Amira so she could be with my horses and have friends, and also not have any rush about working with her. She sounds very open to the idea, so I'll keep feeling it out. 
I've been training for charge nurse at my job so finishing my 3rd 12-13 hr shift. Tomorrow I get to go out and play with the horses.


----------



## knightrider

I have a difficult person story that I will share. I was teaching special ed and had a number of difficult and troubled children. I mostly did OK with my kids. I was not the best teacher in the school, but far from the worst--very appropriate nickname from 4-H as a kid--I was known as "The Third Place Kid." And I'll guess that I was a "Third Place Teacher."

So, one year we got a new vice principal who decided to harass me. I have no idea why, but I've seen it happen to others many times and a few times to myself. Made no sense. She'd come into my classroom and find fault with what I was doing. She made suggestions that were not especially helpful--you can imagine the scenario.

She made that school year quite miserable for me, and I was ecstatic when she was promoted to principal of her own school and went away.

Years later, I was a librarian at a different school and discovered that her daughter was attending 3rd grade at my school. How I dreaded having her come to school for parent visitation! But she was OK with me, so it was kind of OK.

When the daughter was in 5th grade, we took all the 5th graders to sleep-away camp for 3 days. I had been in charge of the horses for years and didn't think anything of it until this former vice principal, whom I almost hated, came as a parent volunteer.

And I was super anxious because when she arrived at the camp, she grabbed my arm and said she was going to depend on me because I had done camp with 5th graders for many years. She plopped her sleeping bag and suitcase on the bed next to mine. My heart sank. I couldn't stand this bossy difficult demanding harsh woman!

That night she and I stayed up almost the whole night whispering to each other side by side with our beds next to each other. She confided many of her hurts and fears, including her failure as a principal, being demoted, and miscarrying her baby because of the stress. I felt it was her way of apologizing to me. From that camp experience on, she became like a friend and often helped me in the library as a parent volunteer. I had a wonderful supportive cadre of amazing parents those years, and she was one of them.


----------



## gottatrot

That's a great story @knightrider. 

Last evening DH came out to help with pony training and her owner was there also. It was a great session. First I put the rope halter around her neck, then I put a leather halter on. Then I put a lead rope on and worked a little on having her follow a feel, and also give to pressure. I wormed her, we put rain rot powder all over her, and I was able to get three of the major knots out of her mane. I was able to touch her all over with the lead rope, and touched her legs several times.
At this point DH was thinking we'd done enough, and maybe it would be good to not push it. I agreed. We gave her a break, and came back after her owner left. Amira was still interested in interacting with us, so that was good.

Amira is definitely starting to gain weight. I was very pleased with her owner, until we talked to the barn owner and she told us the hay was running out frequently between the owner's visits, so she was feeding between times. The leather halter is way too big, I guess she was still thinking Amira was not a pony when she bought it, and got a cob size. She said she has not and does not feed treats to Amira or other horses, and then admitted this was because she is uncomfortable about getting bitten. As you might imagine by our fast progress, this pony is very gentle and sweet, and there are no worries about getting bitten. That's fine, at least she won't encourage any bad habits. 

The owner has a hands-off and watch approach to all of this. When I asked her to, she brought the wormer, halter and medicated powder out. She wanted to use coconut fat to detangle the mane, which really did nothing to help, but whatever. I had her work some of it into the mane. 

Strangely, the only time she seemed to think she would do something on her own was when I asked her to bring out the wormer. She had it in her hand, and walked straight up to Amira's face, apparently planning to try to give it to her from the front. So I asked her to hand me the syringe and then slipped it into the side of Amira's mouth and gave it quickly so she wouldn't react. I wasn't sure how she was thinking to give the wormer, but it didn't seem like it would work well. 

The only problem was I had mentioned setting the syringe to a weight appropriate dose, and saw her fiddling with the tube. She asked me what weight I thought we should dose for, so I thought she had set the dosage ring. When I pushed the syringe plunger, the whole dose went in. I think a little came out the side of Amira's mouth, so said hopefully it was close to the right dose. The owner said she thought I was only giving half, and I said I thought she had set the dosage on the syringe. She just looked at me, so maybe she hadn't wormed a horse before and was just pretending to know. Oh well. 

Maybelle's owner (the mule) came by and we told her how things were going. She wondered if Amira had been handled in the past since she was responding so well. I said I didn't think so, because of how she had initially reacted, but she seems to have a very trusting and non-reactive temperament. I was telling DH that this is the kind of temperament that trainers pick out when they're going to do a competition, so it makes them look good. He has noticed how different she is from how Amore was initially, and how she can get calm very quickly after being nervous. Once she figures out she is not going to be harmed, she relaxes very fast. 

At this point I am hopeful for making her a driving pony. My friend up the coast has a 3 year old pony about Amira's size. She has him almost ready to hook up to a cart. I'm imagining us getting together in a year or so to drive ponies together. LOL. They have the minis also so I was thinking it would be fun in the future to bring Hero and Amira and going for a ride, then a drive. The mustang she got about a year ago has turned out to be a great jumper and is going over 3 ft jumps already. Her other draft cross that looks like a giant Haflinger has also turned out to be a very nice riding horse. They had to put down Cassie, the Standardbred/Connemara cross because her spinal arthritis got too bad. Very sad. I helped pick her out years ago, and she was a great horse but very hot and tricky.


----------



## Knave

@knightrider that was an inspiring story. I think that sometimes I forget that people have their own stories going on, and that I can be completely incorrect about where they are coming from.

Gotta, that sounds like an excellent day!!


----------



## gottatrot

Ever heard of cart jumping???










DH and I were talking. I said that if Amira's owner would rehome her with us, it would probably be hard to give her up to another home. He said yes, we'd probably just keep her forever. 
I'm looking at pony sheets and harnesses online.


----------



## Knave

Lol. It’s too bad you’re not here. We could try Zeus’s set up on her. He’s a ton wider, but he is as short as Queen.


----------



## egrogan

Cart jumping? I know less than nothing about driving, but wouldn't the cart flying around like that be really hard on the horse's body at the points where it's attached? 

So glad Amira's personality is beginning to shine through and she seems to be adapting well. Can't wait to see what the future holds.


----------



## gottatrot

Planning on a Hero ride with Maybelle's rider tonight. 

New and crazy developments in the pony situation. I told the owner we needed to go our separate ways. She had said no more boxes would arrive at our house after I drew the line at a wheelbarrow I needed to deliver to her with a few more boxes. 

Next, more arrived and now my name was on the boxes too of who knows what. DH was mad. Why would she put my name on her orders?

I told her, you do your horse thing and I'll do mine. If you don't want the pony I will be willing to take her. Her text back was angry about me trying to take her horse. I said nope, this is your horse, do what you want. I'm out. She then said I was abandoning the pony.

The barn owner said she got texts right after this saying she was taking the pony to a trainer and then giving her to a rescue. Then she talked about the mare and foal she wanted instead and the barn owner said the fencing was not right for a foal plus the elk come in the turnouts and she was afraid the mare would get defensive over the foal and hurt by the elk. This was upsetting apparently because the barn owner was firm.

Then apparently she tried to get off work due to being upset, had words with our manager and got fired. 

Next I got a text saying not to text anymore (this was a one-sided comversation on her part) and she was taking her stuff, giving me the pony and leaving. She texted the barn owner and said she was leaving and giving me the pony.

The barn owner texted to see if this was news to me. I said if this really happened it would be ok. We will see, I am not sure how it will turn out yet.

It is possible I have a new pony...


----------



## Knave

Wow! That just seems like a whole lot. Why the big turn around again? She just sounds crazy.

I feel so bad for you! I’m sorry about all of it, but everything happens for a reason and maybe God intended that pony to be yours. 🤷‍♀️


----------



## egrogan

That escalated quickly! Getting fired over being annoyed about a text?! Do people really act that way? Wow.

I'm worried about you getting involved with ownership of the pony because I have a feeling you haven't heard the last of this woman and she may reappear for "her" pony at a very inconvenient time.


----------



## Kalraii

That is exactly like the uh strange person I'm dealing with. Explosive and random behaviour. It took filing THREE police reports for her to finally get the message and leave me alone. Even now she tries to stare me down as I walk past or bangs pots together if I'm having a conversation nearby. Anyone, and that now means everyone, that talks to me or goes out with, she insults and ignores. It's at a point the only person she is "friends" with is the young timid lady that has a horsebox. I wonder why she didn't destroy that "friendship" hmm... 

I wonder if she's using this as a good way to dump the pony or if later on she might go back on her words and try to "prove people that she can do it" or summat? Either way I guess both you and the barn owner have it in writing, sort of. I feel really bad for her because she obviously needs help - but has to be willing to accept it and actually *try*. But we only have so much to give. Not your problem! Hope it works out :O


----------



## Knave

I have a great aunt that’s like this. She’s bipolar, but I don’t think that is everything, and she refuses to take her meds... I have a hard time being around her at all, and it makes me feel guilty.

As she has become old it seems she has no one left who will tolerate her, excepting an aunt of mine who is super kind hearted. She abuses this aunt terribly, and every other day she tells her to get out of her life, but then there is no one else, and she she comes back every morning.

It is my fear, to grow up and become her. To be fair, she was crazy at my age, but I still worry about it.


----------



## bsms

Well, if she lost her job....maybe she'll move away? 

I swear I find people scary. You just don't know when some otherwise normal-looking person will turn out to have some deep-rooted emotional problems - and take them out on you! Dogs. Horses. Books. The older we get, the more hermit-like my wife & I become. We're doing what we're doing largely to help with grandkids (and housing prices going nuts). But a small home on 10+ acres 20 miles from the nearest town is increasingly tempting. Part of me really hopes we can spend a couple of years getting our house in very good shape and searching for somewhere else - maybe in northern Arizona. So many really weird people, and so many of them look normal at first meeting!

Good luck and prayers. People can be out and out scary - and honestly, some of them can be found in small towns too!


----------



## SueC

bsms said:


> I swear I find people scary. You just don't know when some otherwise normal-looking person will turn out to have some deep-rooted emotional problems - and take them out on you! Dogs. Horses. Books. The older we get, the more hermit-like my wife & I become.


I really relate to this, though for me I'd replace "scary" with "disappointing" - and Brett would substitute "crazy/stupid" and says, "Remember, these people are allowed to vote!"

I always found working with adolescents far more satisfying than dealing with adults - there was actual hope in that, and I did get a lot of really nice young people, and I suppose I had recourse over any rude or crazy behaviour and in most instances the behaviour would then improve, which was good for the person it came from as well. But the problem is, once people are adults, patterns like this tend to get stuck unless the people are actively working on their "stuff" - and the people who need to work on their "stuff" the most usually think that's only for crazy people, and of course they're not crazy or difficult or anything else like that themselves.

@Knave, you're rather above the age when these things will usually start to manifest themselves, and even if they did, you could actively get intervention via medication and therapy - friends of ours have a bipolar daughter and she's doing well now, after a crisis years ago where she was suicidal and terribly depressed and untreated. You've got the awareness sitting there with your great aunt's situation. But like I said, I think that's a moot point because bipolar doesn't usually manifest that late in life.

I've got two narcissistic parents and a sociopath brother - not great if I looked at it genetically. For so long I was scared that I was the same, but I'm really not - these things are a pattern (we all err but when it becomes more often than not without our admitting it, that's a real problem) and of course none of my family ever thought they needed to sort anything about themselves out, it was all everyone else's fault, etc etc. Whereas I've been reading up about these things and DIYing all my life to change the patterns that were programmed into me as a kid, and talking to professionals about it when I could afford it. Especially as a young adult I was often really at sea about things that people from healthy families find as natural as breathing, and I blundered along with low self-esteem and few social skills and various other things until I acquired what was missing belatedly. I've been comfortable in my own skin since my mid-30s. I've been good at my work all my life (because that's what I focused on from little).

@egrogan - I don't think that the pony's owner was annoyed about a text - I imagine her world fell apart, from her perspective. She's had the ground rules and the last training session worked out well and from her perspective she's trying to do the right thing and eating humble pie and now she's in freefall, and it's upset her so much it's cost her her job as well. I think she's got really unrealistic ideas about horses, her own capacity to do stuff, and people, and obviously, issues with personal boundaries - and almost certainly, zero support network. I don't understand why she ever needed anything delivered to anyone else's place - she could have had them delivered to work (is what happens in Australia if you're moving for work and still sorting out an address) or to a PO Box. By the way, during the pandemic a lot of mail delivery has been delayed and it is possible that parcels will still arrive for a while after she's stopped using @gottatrot's address.

The thing about @gottatrot's name on the parcels is really beyond the beyond - unless they were actually gifts intended to make things up to her. Sometimes people are really clumsy about stuff like this.

I'm going to make myself unpopular for a moment by looking at what could have been done to prevent this situation happening. Chiefly, I think it's that we should know people really well before we agree to work with them. How hard would it have been to invite this person to work with horses at the barn to gauge her competence with horses and your own ability to work with them, before jumping in at the deep end and agreeing to train a horse with them?

I give horse rides to complete beginners - and I choose those beginners from the pool of our farmstay guests, selecting people I think will be suitable - physically fit and flexible, and with a disposition to learn and possessing kindness and warmth and an obvious love of animals. I don't put people on my horse that couldn't get off the floor by themselves if they fell over, or that are arrogant, or annoying, or think they know everything, etc etc.

And that's just a horse ride - that's not offering to train for them or get involved in a larger project. However, the way the horse ride goes tells me a lot about whether I could work with them longer-term. So far, that's mostly a "yes" - but would I agree to embark on a major project without checking someone out carefully, including around actual horses? Well no, I wouldn't.

Just saying this because I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon of "Poor you dealing with a crazy person!" - because I think that's way oversimplified. Reality isn't about heroes and villains, it's about shades of grey.


----------



## bsms

SueC said:


> I'm going to make myself unpopular for a moment by looking at what could have been done to prevent this situation happening.


In essence, you have to assume such a thing could occur. But many of us have lived our lives without anything quite like that happening. It is one of the reason serial killers can exist so long. No one is prepared for someone who is that far outside the person's experience. A book by a guy who dealt with them mentioned a therapy session one had where the guy seemed uncommonly happy and "good". What the therapist didn't know at the time was that the guy was that way because he had a new victim's body in the trunk of his car outside. Well, just the head, actually!

That obviously was vastly more extreme, but it illustrates the problem. Some people have something terribly wrong inside them but we judge them based on our experiences. It is tough to deal with situations outside our experience precisely because it is outside of our experience.

If we've had positive outcomes with people, we expect positive outcomes with new people we meet. And I've had mostly good luck in trusting people, actually. Some of my best experiences have come from trusting people. But that trust allows one to be burned as well.

It is kind of like a guy I knew who rented out his home in Oklahoma. He was military, transferred, but wanted to keep the home. A year later, he was in the area and went to check on his home. He walked in, looked down the hall, and a horse's head appeared! Seems the renter had converted a bedroom into a horse stall! And it never even occurred to the renter that he had no right to remove part of the outside wall and convert it into a horse stall! It took months of legal action to force the guy out of the house and my friend had to absorb the costs of fixing the house. He told me that experience when I was asking about maybe renting out our house in Tehachapi - which I decided not to do, in part based on the number of guys I talked to who had been burned.

But....*who expects a renter to convert a bedroom into a horse stall?*

There are shades of grey, but there are shades we don't know exist until we encounter those shades. And the person gottatrot is dealing with is Grade "A" *weird*!


----------



## newtrailriders

I just got addicted to this journal. I read back to where the pony's owner was sending boxes to Gottatrot's house and I was so intrigued I went back 25 days. 

Wow. That lady knows how to get people to do stuff for her, that's for sure. Why does she live in an RV and how long has she been living in it? I've met a few people like her. It's much less stressful and more entertaining to read about it and not be sucked into it. My guess is she's going to move on and leave that pony behind. I feel bad for her but it does seem to be quite a nice pony. 

Like SueC said - there are "nice" people like her and there are the not so nice ones. The nice ones really tug at your heart strings because you just know they're good inside but must have had difficult lives to end up with such a lack of boundaries. You reallyl have to watch out for the not so nice ones though. Is she staying in an RV park? If so I think she should be able to have packages delivered to her there. It's a little suspicious that she's having them delivered to your house. I think you said you met her at work. Does she make decent money? If not, I hope she hasn't stolen someone's credit card and isn't having her packages delivered to your house to avoid being caught.


----------



## SueC

I agree with most of what you've said, @bsms - but I do have to ask you whether you personally would agree to train the prospective new horse of any person, without road-testing that person around horses first, and seeing if you can actually work with them (you know you can work with the horse). I think it's not fair on the potential new horse, that person or you own self not to do that. People who are ignorant about horses or anything else are rarely aware of that, and all of us have met people whose horse experience is mostly based on watching _Saddle Club_ and playing with _My Little Pony_ as children. One thing all of us on this journal group are aware of is the existence of people who are ignorant about horses - and I think all of us can tell the difference between a person who's likely to learn, and a person who's unlikely to, once we have them out in horse situations.

It's easy to be wise in hindsight, but I've seen lots of stupid situations with people and horses, including "professional" people and horses, and people and their horses at boarding facilities - and I think we probably all have.

And that's besides the mental/emotional health questions and dysfunctional relationship issues raised by the situation. I probably take a wider "duty of care" idea around with me than most because I've been a professional educator for 20 years. I don't mean that we are to blame for someone else's issues, but that we need to be aware that a lot of people have them, and that we're responsible for our own parts in situations that might arise. Also that none of us are perfect (and that all of us have issues, whether we admit it or not).

If someone had asked on this forum, "Is it a good idea to promise to train a horse for a person who's never had one before, without watching that person in horse situations first?" I think the answer would have been a resounding "no"... for all sorts of good reasons, not even considering potential mental health stuff.

Also there's the reality that few of us in this group would be able to work with a horse and then not care about its future - and that leaves all of use wide open for heartache when someone else does the wrong thing.

ETA: @gottatrot, if any of what I'm saying is making you feel uncomfortable and you'd like me to butt out, just say the word and I will.


----------



## SueC

bsms said:


> It is kind of like a guy I knew who rented out his home in Oklahoma. He was military, transferred, but wanted to keep the home. A year later, he was in the area and went to check on his home. He walked in, looked down the hall, and a horse's head appeared! Seems the renter had converted a bedroom into a horse stall! And it never even occurred to the renter that he had no right to remove part of the outside wall and convert it into a horse stall! It took months of legal action to force the guy out of the house and my friend had to absorb the costs of fixing the house. He told me that experience when I was asking about maybe renting out our house in Tehachapi - which I decided not to do, in part based on the number of guys I talked to who had been burned.


I admit I laughed at first, because that's so ridiculous, but not for long, because of the shiitake situation that caused for the homeowner.

I can imagine that plotline in one of the Bud Spencer/Terence Hill spaghetti westerns...and the people in the cinema rolling on the floor laughing.


----------



## StellarGrove

Please, if you want to keep this pony find a way to prove beyond a doubt that it is yours and was voluntarily given to you. You need paper work like a bill of sale/gift letter or at least affidavits from the barn owner or anyone else who can attest they saw the pony being given to you. You don’t want to put time, training, and love into this animal only for her to come back later and say you stole it. Even if she doesn’t bring legal action you never know what kind of people she associates with and what lies she may tell them about the situation with the horse, you may have further crazies harassing you or attempting to take it later.

The incredibly sweet, overly nice barn owner where I board has been dealing with a situation of having three horses (one an extremely underweight 4 month old foal) dumped on her because she believed a sob story from a stranger and has a big heart. The lady was a meth addict and never gave her a dime, or any feed for the horses. Just walked them in and never came back. She’s spent month and tons of money getting them healthy, going through courts to get ownership, tracking down addresses of relatives to send multiple certified letters... and continues to house them. She has to worry about the person coming back to steal them while trying to re home them. I would hate to see something like that happen to someone else.


----------



## gottatrot

@Kalraii, I think the person you are dealing with makes mine seem a lot less difficult. 

@SueC, I appreciate your insights and it does not make me uncomfortable at all to have you think through how this could have been prevented. Criticism to me is always helpful, and I want to learn from mistakes in life rather than making them again. 
I don't like being defensive, so these things I am saying are what I think after trying to be critical. One is that this person is a nurse, which I believe is a blind spot for me because they can't have a criminal record and must test negative for drugs, so I have less of an initial barrier or guard up. 

The other problem was that this person had behaviors that I did not predict. One was that she talked constantly and rapidly, but not to the point where I recognized it as a mania. As she talked, if I ever added a comment or agreed in any fashion with what she was saying, it was spun into her stories and plans. For example, one day she is talking about gaited horses and I tell her I like Arabs. She says she has a bad back so I assume she really wants a gaited horse if she does buy a horse. The next day she is looking at Arabs for sale, and talking about how great they are at endurance. Soon she is saying wouldn't it be fun if she got two horses so they could be companions, and she'd of course need someone to ride the second one sometimes out with her, so maybe I could help her out sometimes. Sure, I said, that is something I could do. 

Then she is very interested in a certain horse, but she is green and she will probably need to send her to a trainer for a while. Sure, I say, and if her other horse is well trained, we could ride out and I could help her put some miles on the green one because of my experience. These to me are all just vague thoughts since she doesn't have any horses and I don't even know if she'll board anywhere nearby. 

Next thing I know, she says she has bought an Arab, and wonders if I know where she can keep her, and if I know anywhere she could rent a horse trailer. After I brought her out to see if she liked where I board, and we talked with the barn owner, it turned into borrowing another boarder's trailer and helping her pick up the horse. My problem is that I try to be nice, and have not experienced this case where I say maybe or we'll see, and had someone immediately telling me their complicated plans that involve me. Then I thought I could extricate myself at a later date but kept getting deeper instead. 

For example, the box thing started with her saying she needed something sent right away for the pony since she had just bought her and since she was in a temporary address for several more days (she was staying at an Air BnB while her RV was getting fixed near where the pony was), could she get my address and have it sent to my house? I thought for a moment, couldn't think of a reason why not, so said yes.

That was the only agreement I ever gave to having dozens of items shipped to my house. It was, "Hope it's OK but I had several more things for Estelle sent that I really need." She was till in the BnB at the time. When I protested, it was just one more thing she really needed, and it was always accompanied by why she really needed it such as she was freezing in the BnB and needed a heater. At first I really felt sorry for her, because it sounded like she had a series of unfortunate events, and since my truck had broken down when I first moved here, I sympathized with her having her RV broken down in another town. 

But I really thought that once we moved the RV into town, the shipments would automatically stop, and could not fathom that she was planning to have her packages sent to my house until I made a big fuss about it. I mean any smaller protest was simply ignored or she'd tell me a sad story about her dogs being cold or something like that. 

Did I ever agree to train a horse for her? At one point I thought she was a sane and serious horse person and it sounded like a fun project that would allow me to have a different type of horse to ride. I remember at one point saying I could work with a green horse for a couple days a week, and if she did another day we could make some good progress. Then we picked up the pony, who turned out to be completely unhandled, and I saw she did not have a clue about training, and then I said definitely I will get this pony to where she can be handled and led at least. Even when I did not want to be involved and thought about having her send the pony to a trainer, I did not want to have the pony put through another big trauma to get into a trailer while untrained. 

The sad thing is that I have a lot of awareness about mental illness and I've had some experience with a borderline patient, and had some difficulty with him too. He presented in such a way that seemed part normal, part pathetic and needy, and part passive. This is very disarming, and it was the same with this nurse. I don't expect the aggressiveness that seems to come out of nowhere. It seems to come in a back door, and this apparently helpless person soon has you making the decision that you either have to do what they expect, or become aggressive yourself. Their aggression is passive, so it is difficult to decide that it is manipulation and to choose the moment to take a stand. I got in farther than I meant to, without knowing, assuming decisions take time and that I could deal with things later. It is possible they look for more passive people, believing it will be easier to take advantage. Whether this is all thought out or just evolves, I am not sure. 

More about the pony in the next post...


----------



## gottatrot

We have been worried about any issues that could come up without a bill of sale for the pony. We dropped off the final? packages at the RV and knocked, hoping the owner would come out and talk about signing a paper to transfer ownership. Her truck was there but she did not answer.

At the barn, the barn owner showed us a text that was very definitive, stating my name and that she relinquished all ownership of the pony and any items left behind to me, and would not show up on the property again. The barn owner said she would save this text as evidence, and forwarded it to me also. I am saving all the written texts that say she is giving me the pony, but I believe that one is the most clear. The text said the woman would be leaving the area immediately and going back to the east coast. 

Our new pony, who has had three names after not having any name most of her life, is now Aria. We like this name better than the others. She is short and sweet, like a little song.

Today I haltered her again and worked some on leading. I hope to get her out of the dry lot corral very soon, and into the grassy field with my horses. I will have to lead her about two blocks. I am thinking about having DH lead Amore in front of us to help, and putting her on a lunge line in case she pulls on the lead. Her spine still sticks up quite a bit and I remind myself it has not been long at all since she came. I'll get her on vitamins, E and magnesium, and probably treat for ulcers just in case. 

Hero and Maybelle had a good ride. We had one moment where we decided to trot down a long stretch to get by the horse that tests his fence. This was a bad idea, because it worked up the horse more and while the mule trotted away forward, the horse in the fence turned and galloped the other way. So Hero was stuck deciding to follow Maybelle or turn with the other horse, who was running toward home. He took me around in some circles and backward stuff, and I ended up having to lead him for a bit. But he entered the woodsy trails several times without being led, and only had to be ponied by Maybelle into the woods once. Maybelle actually had more issues with spooking and such, probably because she was in heat. She has a rare talent of being able to pee while still walking, hind legs spread wide. A mule talent perhaps. We plan to go out again tomorrow afternoon. 
Maybelle's owner is very nice to ride with and very sane. I enjoy her company.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> ...I feel so bad for you! I’m sorry about all of it, but everything happens for a reason and maybe God intended that pony to be yours. 🤷‍♀️


So far God has given me two cats, two horses and a pony. All were free so I have to assume they were gifts.


----------



## knightrider

bsms said:


> That obviously was vastly more extreme, but it illustrates the problem. Some people have something terribly wrong inside them but we judge them based on our experiences. It is tough to deal with situations outside our experience precisely because it is outside of our experience.
> 
> If we've had positive outcomes with people, we expect positive outcomes with new people we meet. And I've had mostly good luck in trusting people, actually. Some of my best experiences have come from trusting people. But that trust allows one to be burned as well.



This is me, exactly, @bsms . I started taking people riding when I was in high school. It has been very rewarding. On only a few occasions has it not worked out well. One time, for several years, I took an elderly man every week. He was so sweet and dear. Then his son moved in with him to make sure he was doing OK, and I started taking the son. The son was a little not-as-fun but had a very good heart and I came to appreciate his good qualities. The elderly man's health failed and he could not ride anymore. Then his other daughter moved in and she was invited to go. I didn't care for her at all, but tried to tolerate her because it was the right thing to do. Then the son's fiancé started coming riding. Couldn't stand her. Yikes. Then the son moved in his 16 year old daughter. I adored her and asked every week if this hurting wistful needy teen could come every week instead of the sister and fiancé. But the other two women usually came themselves instead of this precious young person. I finally said that because another rider I regularly took had a fall on the road and let my heart horse go, I decided not to take people any more. It made me sad because the son was actually pretty nice to ride with, and his daughter filled my heart.

My most recent rider was one I found on Facebook. We started out far more good than bad, but I wondered if this was going to be OK. I have discovered some really great qualities about this woman and am starting to truly value her as a friend.

@gottatrot , I can really see how you got sucked into such a mess, and my heart goes out to you because it could so easily have happened to me. I hope you get an amazing pony out of it.

Now, I will tell a funny story about a gift horse. For a short time, I had to board my horse at a nearby stable. There were two sisters who boarded there. They had one quiet docile old gelding and one spicy appaloosa mare. They both loved both horses and we often rode together and had great times. The girls were quite proud of the appie because she was given to them when the original owners couldn't manage her. The girls were inexperienced, but good sensible kids and figured out what worked and didn't work and got that mare riding quite well. A few years went by with everything being fine. One thing they never were able to teach the mare to do was load in a trailer because they didn't have one. I had one and we often talked about how they could work with their mare using my trailer . . . but we hadn't gotten around to it.

The original owners must have heard how well the mare was doing at that stable. They showed up one night with a trailer at 2:00 a.m. and haltered up "their" mare. The BO heard the commotion and came out, saying they couldn't take the mare. The original owners said the mare was only a loan and they were now taking her back. There had been no formal agreement, so the girls were helpless.

BUT--those original owners were inexperienced horse handlers and they couldn't get the mare in the trailer, no matter how hard they tried. The BO and girls watched as they struggled for hours, but the appie would not load.

The next day the girls rode 10 miles on their two horses to a new (secret) boarding facility.


----------



## gottatrot

@knightrider, that is a great story! 

I forgot to say that DH says a small part of him wonders if I orchestrated his whole thing to sneak in a third horse.

I have had a small concern about Amore being 30 and potentially dropping dead of a heart attack or something, leaving Hero alone. Then I would feel pressured to get him a companion right away. Nice to take one horse out riding and have two left together also. Many positives.


----------



## gottatrot

Another great ride on Hero today. We went with Mikey this time, and Hero went into all the wooded parts on his own. He did have to get ponied past some cows that were close to the road, but I didn't have to get off and walk at all! He seems to be getting used to our loop, which is great. It takes about an hour, or a bit longer if we add some side detours. Mikey's rider has a Boston Terrier with neurological issues, and she rides in a chest carrier, very happy to be going along. The other Boston runs alongside the horses. 

While we rode, I put Amore in with Aria. After the ride, I put Hero in the corral too, while I did chores. Aria was so happy to have buddies, that I did not feel I could leave her alone another night. I tested her with leading around in the pen, and she always gave to the pressure. So I brought Hero up to the big field first, and then went back and brought Amore and Aria together. I put Aria right behind Amore and she followed her like she was her foal. We just walked right up to the field and through the gate.

Hero was happy to run around a little with Aria. I had not had the opportunity to see her trotting out yet, and she has a nice extension. Looks very cute. Aria was very happy about the grass, the buddies, and the room to run. She rolled in the grass right away. Hero kept posing and staring at the gelding Mocha, who was watching from across the road. He was feeling a bit proud to have a new pony. 





You can see her poor coat and body condition in these pics, especially the last one: I hate how her hip is pointy and her spine juts up. Soon I'll have to put her in a diet probably, and that will be a good problem to have.
























I was laughing a bit to myself at her old owner, who bought a halter but no lead rope! Judging by how much poo my horses produce and comparing their sizes, it looked like she hadn't cleaned the corral for six or seven days before she got fed up and left the pony. She was just never very committed. She had told me Aria pooped around the edges of the pen, and I had said that was unusual for a mare to be so neat. After she left, Aria was pooping all over the pen, so now I realize she was saying that so I wouldn't realize she was just shoving the poop to the sides instead of cleaning it up.


----------



## gottatrot

Weird thing today...another wheelbarrow was delivered to my house. Apparently this was the "gift" Aria's former owner had mentioned that had been sent to me. We were unsure what to do, so I said we could just drive by the RV and if it was still there, leave it so she could return it and get her money back.

However, apparently she was notified that it had been delivered because soon after it came a text arrived that said "Don't ever come by here again." So for whatever reason, she left us no choice but to keep the wheelbarrow, and the box did have my name on it. It's small, not really a good barn wheelbarrow, but we can use it to garden at home.

I'm very confused about what the motivation would be for this, but perhaps some kind of wanting to make me feel bad or else a control thing? Or I've heard that sometimes people who have manic phases and go on spending sprees don't want to deal with things later and do things like return the items they bought. Once they get out of that phase they want to forget it happened. So it could be something like that I guess.

I wasn't sure if the pony would feel secure enough to go into the shelters to eat hay, so I was having the barn owner throw some outside. She said this morning all three were out eating her hay together. The other two piggies thought it was more fun to share her hay outside since the weather is nice. There is quite a bit of grass, so I think she will get plenty of food regardless. I've rarely seen horses get introduced to each other with less drama. They just sort of thought they were a family right away. Big, medium and small.


----------



## gottatrot

When I got to the barn today, Amore and Aria were nuzzling each others' necks. They stayed right next to each other wherever they went, and stopped every few feet to either groom each other or touch noses. They are good buddies already. Hero stayed near the fence and rushed forward to threaten the gelding across the road if he looked at the mares. I guess that is one way to stay entertained and get exercise. 

I was able to lead Aria out of the field with the other two horses, and they all stood together while I groomed them. We practiced leading around a bit, and I was able to touch all four of her legs, and leave my hand on the front ones for a period of time. I'm dying to see what her hooves look like underneath, but one step at a time. I had her listen to the sound her new fly mask makes when I undo the velcro, and set it on her back and neck. 

Aria comes when we call her already, and follows us around the field. When DH was walking, she came up behind him and nuzzled his back. She is very friendly and seems more relaxed and happy now that she has a herd. I imagine she feels quite secure with two larger horses who are both friendly to her. The barn owner said that Hero let Aria come right up and look in his feeder when he was eating his pellets this morning.


----------



## knightrider

I am really excited to read about your progress with Aria. I am looking forward to some comparisons. Could Aria be an "easy" horse? You've never had an "easy" horse of your own to train. This is going to be a journal I click on the moment I see a new entry!


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> I am really excited to read about your progress with Aria. I am looking forward to some comparisons. Could Aria be an "easy" horse? You've never had an "easy" horse of your own to train. This is going to be a journal I click on the moment I see a new entry!


Now you've said it, lol. 
Yesterday I wasn't able to halter Aria. It was very windy, with things rattling around. She would let me touch her but when I brought the halter out she would not stand if I brought it near her.

I reminded myself that training does not progress in a linear fashion. Instead of catching Aria, I walked around and slung a rope over the other horses and somewhat near Aria. She is still very fearful of ropes, so we need to work on this.

I also just had her tolerate having me approach and touch her over and over. 

I trimmed the other horses' hooves and pretended Aria was learning something by watching.


----------



## Knave

Wind is always a recipe for problems. Queen seems bothered very little by it, less than any horse I’ve ridden, but I still usually just leave her in the corral or tied to the trailer if it’s too particularly windy.


----------



## gottatrot

I'd like some opinions. I have a leather halter coming for Aria, and I'm considering leaving it on her in turnout for a while. I am thinking it would be safe, but not sure if I'm missing anything.

I don't want to rush things, per se, but there are two reasons for this. One is that I have ulcer medication coming and I'd like to dose her consistently for a few days. 

Two is that her hooves really need attention, not imminently but I'd like to work a lot more on having her hooves handled. It's taking daily time to get her accepting of the halter being put on so I'm not having as much time for that work. 

She is in a very big space. With Halla, we had the horses in stalls first, got them doctored, hooves trimmed and used to handling for a while and then put them in a big field. Then I had lots of time to work on getting her caught and haltered. We also herded them into the barn at night, for more handling in a stall.

With Aria, I was not willing to keep her away from horse buddies in a dry corral any longer, so she went into the big field before getting over her nervousness of being caught. In a way there is all the time in the world, but I think consistency will be helpful. 

Any reason why leaving the halter on would not be good? I would also work on taking it off and on a lot after catching her.


----------



## Knave

First, let me tell you that to halter break a horse, I leave on the halter for about a week’s time. I take the risk to the horse for that time, justifying that I need the horse to be halter broke for its future and its health and safety even.

That said, there is a risk you are taking. I heard about not leaving a horse haltered always because of the danger of getting hung up on things or their own feet. Then I watched the movie Unbranded and got the visual. The horse reached up to scratch his face with his hind, and it hung up in the halter. They had to put him down, and it was a real testament to the world about leaving halters on.

So, yes, there is a risk. Are you willing to take that risk for a short time to accomplish halter breaking? I am, but I think a lot of people are definite “no”s in that department.


----------



## QHriderKE

I agree with @Knave 
If the pen is safe with no conceivable ways for the horse to get hung up on something it might rub on, I've even left a short lead tied on to the halter for a few days. Yeah the horse might step on it when they have their head down, but then they learn to give to the pressure and are better set up to deal with stepping on the lead or even a rein in the future. This was done in a very safe pen or round pen, on the property where I was living so I had eyes on the horse most of the day. 

I'm not sure that I would feel super ok about turning a horse out with other horses with a halter on.


----------



## Knave

I leave a lead on too @QHriderKE, but in a small pen that I am home all day around. I took Queen’s off one day when I had to leave for something. I don’t think I’d be comfortable with it turned out with other horses, but I do it with my leppy calves and see people halter breaking small groups of colts doing it.

I think they learn so much about giving to pressure and about ropes from it!


----------



## gottatrot

Ugh yes, I probably won't do it because I might be too worried. I know leather halters break pretty easily, but my worry is if she got a leg through the nose, maybe there wouldn't be enough leverage for it to break before she hurt herself. The mustang trainers I've known always left a halter and lead rope on for a few days. To them the mustangs were fairly disposable though, I hate to say, until they had some training. The short lead in a pen didn't seem too bad. I did feel sorry for the very reactive horses that had long leads on and it took them a while to stop stepping on it and panicking while yanking on their own face. 

I probably just need to stop worrying about the hooves, they're not splitting or anything major and so it won't harm Aria if it does take me a little more time to get her hooves handled. I know it's possible to get her used to being caught even if I don't leave a halter on. Halla was impossible to get close to at first when in a field, but I wore her down over time. Aria lets people come right up to her, so that's a huge plus.


----------



## gottatrot

At the barn there are two divided shelters, a large one meant for two horses and a smaller one meant for one horse. I've been hoping if it rained that at least Amore and Aria would share the smaller shelter even if Hero took the big one. 
It was raining today and windy. When we pulled up at the barn, I saw that all three horses were stuffed into the larger shelter. The two mares were in the back, and Hero was in front with his body sideways, blocking the wind and rain for them. He really is a Hero.

After I'd been cleaning the field for a while, with the horses milling here and there, Aria went into the larger shelter and peed on the pile of hay I'd just set out. It doesn't take long to go from a wild, half-starved horse to spoiled and entitled, taking your nice hay for granted and expecting the staff to clean up after you. She's figured out how it works.

Aria was feeling skittish again today, but we worked hard on some of her weaker areas. She doesn't like having a hand raised over her head, so I made her take food from under my raised arm. Then I had her put her head over my right arm and across my chest, so my arm was in the position where I'd be fastening a halter on. I did not try to put a halter on today, working more on slower movements and always stopping the contact before she moved away. I touched her face a lot in the places that make her nervous. It's kind of funny how much she likes carrots since she didn't even know what one was several weeks ago.


----------



## gottatrot

I'm having trouble getting pics to link in on my phone. What do you think about this halter? It has a velcro noseband and throatlatch, no metal hardware. It seems like it would be safer than leather even. Am I missing any safety issues?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PLK4BBV/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_JBRXGR2EJNE91SWTGPMH


----------



## Kalraii

gottatrot said:


> I'm having trouble getting pics to link in on my phone. What do you think about this halter? It has a velcro noseband and throatlatch, no metal hardware. It seems like it would be safer than leather even. Am I missing any safety issues?
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PLK4BBV/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_JBRXGR2EJNE91SWTGPMH


That's like the one I want to be able to put a nose net on for Katie when its really dusty. Some here have velcro muzzles and its actually to the owners dismay as they get them off so easily because of it so I'm seriously considering it. They don't last long apparently if you overuse the velcro but I'd probably spend a bit of time making it weak specifically so it breaks faster. Or shortening the velcro bits so its just a couple cm of velcro than a whole strip?


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks for the info, @Kalraii.

Tonight having some thoughts on biomechanics and developing horses.

I've been reading a few research studies that were interesting. One showed that similar to humans, lesions in the spinal ligaments did not necessarily correlate with pain. Unridden horses in the study had as many back abnormalities as ridden ones.

Something that I've also not really highlighted to myself is that it seems many people think of the back muscles extending when a horse puts the head down. In reality, a lowered head causes muscle contraction (which can create a feeling of lifting), and a raised head muscle extension.

Thinking about this when developing a horse:

A young or unfit horse can benefit from being allowed to keep his neck lower. The muscle contraction may be necessary to help him carry a rider. However, having the head abnormally low will quickly lead to fatigue because the back is contracted and the neck muscles resisting gravity.

People act like riding long and low is a stretching exercise, but it is really a strengthening exercise and should be kept very short.

When a horse does not have a strong back and raises the head, the muscles are now in extension and so the lengthened muscles will be less strong. 

If a horse is forced to be on the forehand, say the hindquarters are weak, the rider is too heavy or far forward, he will need to raise the head to balance and then extend/weaken the back muscles as well. That compounds the problem.

Of course a lengthened muscle is more easily relaxed than a shortened one, and so the goals of relaxed and moving back muscles is more easily accomplished when a horse has the neck lifted. 

But lifting the head and extending the muscles before the horse is strong enough can lead to extreme muscle tension as the horse tries to support the weight.

At times in the past I had some confusion about this. If lifting the neck brought the horse's weight off the forehand, wouldn't it be better to do this earlier? But I was missing the piece about the back muscles.

We have to be really careful when feeling the back lift and thinking we have collection. We might be feeling tension from contracted back muscles. I personally think that when the back is tense, you feel the horse moving as a unit.

If the back muscles are strong but supple, moving without tension, you will feel the back lifting and moving laterally underneath you as each hind leg pushes off and the back muscles alternately contract and relax with movement.


----------



## gottatrot

I did leave the leather halter on Aria today. The yearling size fit her very closely so I didn't think she could get a hoof through the noseband, and if she gets stuck on a fence or something freak like that the leather really should break. I've seen a lot of photos of TBs in Kentucky turned out in leather halters, so I think it is standard practice in some areas. Trying to make myself OK about it. 








We had some great training today. I put the halter on and led Aria around, brought her out of the field twice with Amore and Hero both. Picked up both front legs long enough to check out the bottom of the hooves. They're really not too bad. What I heard was that she had been turned out on some acreage with other horses in Medford, and that's a dry area where horses getting lots of movement can trim down their own hooves like mustangs do. 

She leads like a butterfly, just naturally. Hero leads like you're towing in a sturgeon from the river, naturally. 

It's funny that Aria was so hesitant to take apples or carrots at first, and now she's like MORE APPLES! MORE CARROTS! Her extreme curiosity works against her also. Even if she gets scared and starts to walk away, she'll jerk to a stop and turn back if something catches her interest. "Now what are you doing?" I think whatever pony is in her gives her this trait. 

Took some photos I thought were funny. All the butts in the shelters.








Amore had a couple bite marks, so apparently Aria had to assert herself at some point. No one else has any marks. I think it is good since she is so small that she will stand up for herself. 
Oh yeah, and she loves Hero now. When I took him down to the arena to lunge him, she called for him and ran around.

They came to inspect the contents of the wheelbarrow together. They might be trouble...

























Her coat is really starting to improve as her nutrition gets better. I wonder what the white marks are from on her back. Some kind of scarring that goes from mid back over her rump. A fence accident? Rain rot? She is standing better, getting some muscle tone. I really wonder what kind of pony she is crossed with. 











I braided her forelock to get it out of her face better.








The scrape on her forehead happened when we got her in the trailer and she leaped in.


----------



## gottatrot

After I carefully got the new tangles out of Aria's mane she did this:





I'm not sure what Aria thought Amore's neck was going to taste like, but apparently it didn't taste good. Then Amore thought she'd rest her head on Aria's back...I like the look on Amore's face.


----------



## egrogan

I have to leave the halter on Maggie most of the year for the grazing muzzle. I don’t love doing it, but it’s necessary. I suppose maybe it’s different when you have a horse just getting used to a halter and more inclined to be bothered by it, but I don’t think it’s the end of the world. The advice I got was to go for a low quality halter so the leather breakaway strap would be thin and more likely to give in an emergency.

The butt pictures are funny-she does look tiny next to Hero.


----------



## Knave

I’m shocked at how fast the mare is turning around! She looks so much better already!

Husband brought me home a starved calf yesterday. Her mother will be sold if it’s any consolation that she starved this poor thing. I don’t think she’ll survive though. I was shocked she made the day yesterday. She was in my house all of then. Now she’s in the trailer. I’ve no idea what I’ll go out to today. I will be extremely surprised if she is alive.


----------



## Kalraii

I laughed at the video where she clearly didn't like the taste  I love that stuff ahah


----------



## StellarGrove

You were wondering what kind of pony she may be crossed with.... I board my Arabs with a Welsh pony/cob breeder and I´ve got to say, with her thick mane and the light feathers on her legs, general build and the shape of the muzzle I think you may have an Arab/Welsh cross. I live in Oregon right now too and have seen quite a few Welshies and crosses in this state. The personality would fit also.


----------



## knightrider

The white on her back might be what is called "lacing". I understand that Arabs and Shetlands can have it. My neighbor had a black Paso Fino with beautiful lacing on his back. Many people thought he had been burned or caught in fence, but nope, it was lacing. I think it is cool.
















(13) Pinterest


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I’m shocked at how fast the mare is turning around! She looks so much better already!
> 
> Husband brought me home a starved calf yesterday. Her mother will be sold if it’s any consolation that she starved this poor thing. I don’t think she’ll survive though. I was shocked she made the day yesterday. She was in my house all of then. Now she’s in the trailer. I’ve no idea what I’ll go out to today. I will be extremely surprised if she is alive.


Aww poor calf. I hope she makes it. I'm amazed at how fast Aria is turning around too. It just makes me shake my head more about how she got into that state. She is a pony, hardy and able to get by on very little feed. She is young too, so the skin issues are clearing right up because I assume her immune system is good too. 



StellarGrove said:


> You were wondering what kind of pony she may be crossed with.... I board my Arabs with a Welsh pony/cob breeder and I´ve got to say, with her thick mane and the light feathers on her legs, general build and the shape of the muzzle I think you may have an Arab/Welsh cross. I live in Oregon right now too and have seen quite a few Welshies and crosses in this state. The personality would fit also.


That is so interesting! I was showing my DH photos yesterday of Welsh ponies and trying to get him to say they looked like Aria. It was the first pony that crossed my mind. I was looking online and saw there are quite a few Welsh ponies in Oregon and especially more east where she came from. I've seen a few hackney ponies too, but I don't see those traits in her and not in her gait. But her trot is very extended and somewhat low, similar to what I've seen with Welsh ponies. Plus I saw some photos online of Welsh section B that had a longer nose and larger ears, similar to Aria's. Her neck is shorter and thicker as well, plus as you mentioned the thick mane and feathers too. 

Here is one that shows some of those traits:









When she trots it looks more like this, and to me this looks very different from an Arabian trot, because it is extended but lower to the ground, something I've seen a lot with Welsh ponies. Arabians seem to usually have more spring and suspension. 











knightrider said:


> The white on her back might be what is called "lacing". I understand that Arabs and Shetlands can have it. My neighbor had a black Paso Fino with beautiful lacing on his back. Many people thought he had been burned or caught in fence, but nope, it was lacing. I think it is cool.


That makes sense! I was thinking since it was so pronounced it had to be scarring, but I found more photos online where it just looked like white marks randomly on the spine. Amore has a white spot up by her withers too, and people told me it was from a saddle but I knew she'd never had a saddle on when I got her, so it could be from a bite but it would have had to be a bad one. I'm thinking she might just have a marking there too. Especially because she has had many injuries since I got her that left no white hair or scars.


----------



## StellarGrove

If she trots like that I would bet on Welsh cross, I love their movement and youˋre right about the difference in way of going. I haven’t been around the cobs before, but getting to know them they are great little guys, when she gets some weight on her I bet she´ll be really fancy! I grew up around a bunch of hackneys and modern shetlands, and I just don’t see it in yours, the hackneys look like baby saddlebreds to me and are pretty hot!


----------



## gottatrot

Ugh, leaving the halter on did not work out well. Aria had apparently tried very hard to rub it off, to the point of creating abrasions on her face everywhere the hardware was. Something that hadn't occurred to me. 

Immediately I felt stressed about needing to get the halter off. I knew I couldn't feel pressured, or it would make things worse. So I tried to feel calm (not very well) and meanwhile, Aria was not going to let me anywhere near her. It seemed that she was very aware that the halter meant I could catch her more easily, and she would not let me get close enough to grab it. I did try once, but she was ready and pulled away hard enough that I couldn't keep my grip on her halter. After that she was even more wary. 

I tried getting her to accept having me come closer and touch her again, but I think having whatever amount of soreness was on her face made her too cautious. I'd try for a while, take a break, try again. I took the other horses out, she ran around for a while calling for them, and then I brought them back and tried again. Finally, after about an hour and a half, I was giving her pellets next to Hero, and snuck the lead rope under his big head close enough to clip it onto her halter. She ran to the end and then was immediately calm about it. 

So I was able to work on having her let me touch her for just a short while, and then I swapped the halter out for a fly mask. The open areas on her face were attracting flies, and I thought maybe she'd get used to having something on her head without risking injury. 

A part of me believes the fact that Aria has to be reconditioned each time to having someone close to her, and allowing touch is a normal variation of being unhandled. Another part of me wonders if she has a history of someone attempting to catch her for some time, and some bad experiences. There are a couple of things that I noticed that seem a bit odd to me, that I haven't seen before with completely unhandled horses. One is that if I ever have her caught completely, i.e. on the end of a lead rope, she instantly changes demeanor as if she is giving up. She acts like she has had some experience with knowing that having a halter and lead on means she is caught. That happened the very first time we caught her too. She also has had quite a few times of being caught without any bad experiences (except for the halter rubs, but she was wary before that). Yet she doesn't seem to be getting less worried about getting caught. And once she is caught, she acts very inexperienced but also not as worried. 

I'm wondering now how to proceed. Part of me thinks I should try what I did with Halla, which was to catch and release many times over the course of several days, to teach her that being caught does not necessarily mean doing anything scary. The other part of me thinks I should just keep catching her once and handling her for a period of time, to get her used to being touched and such. But I am leaning toward the catch and release. I might have to go out for a few hours with no goal other than seeing how many times I can catch her and let her immediately go again.


----------



## Knave

I find it odd that she had that big of a reaction to you leaving it on. I’m sorry.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I find it odd that she had that big of a reaction to you leaving it on. I’m sorry.


Thank you. Working with horses always involves some experimentation, and we can't forsee everything, right? 

The barn owners are very kind people. I paid the same price this month for Aria as for my other two for board, and the barn owner gave me back money, saying she only wants to charge half price for the pony. She said her husband insisted, saying "That pony isn't worth much." 

I have a book of horse quotes, and it has some helpful humor for those starting with a horse.

"_Proper scientific name for horses: Equus keepus brokeus_." -Anonymous

"_He's definitely one of those horses that walks the fine line between genius and insanity_." -Sue Blinks

"_Why is it that a woman will ignore homicidal tendencies in a horse, but will be furious with a man for leaving the toilet seat up?_" - Anonymous

"_Trust in God, but tie your horse_." - Anonymous

"_Robert Frost was like a horse you could get along with if you came up beside him on the okay side_." -Archibald Macleisch

"_Your horse has a reason to be vain. You don't._" -Andrew Glass

"_One must get off one's horse over its head; to step off is merely weak._" -Mao Tse-Tung

"_People who say they have no fear of horses are unsafe to be around_." -John Lyons

"_What you know for certain is that you don't know nothing for certain._" -Allen Jerkens


----------



## gottatrot

I spent a few hours working with Aria over the past couple of days. We are progressing at the speed of a glacier, but the progress is forward. 

Both days I had multiple, short repetitive sessions working on trust and acceptance. The first day initially I had to work my way toward having her allow me in her space without walking away (this has always been the case so far). The second day I was able to walk up to her right away. So that was good.

In order to get her to trust me, I'm going to have to get her to accept getting caught and not trick her. The things I had to get done with her initially required that she was caught a few times. So now we have to go back to the very slow process of having her actually decide to allow herself to get caught, which is something she has never done. 

Of course we had to trailer her to bring her home, and we had to treat her rain rot and worm her. We had to move her from the dry lot, and I thought I needed to have her wear a halter. All of those things required catching Aria without her agreeing to it. Now there is the long process of getting her to decide she will allow herself to be caught. Before catching her again, my goal is to have her accepting having the halter and lead rope rubbed all over her head and body without walking away. After that I will trap her momentarily with the rope, and then let her go, a few times.

If she was in a small pen and I controlled her feed, it would be faster, but I'm not willing to do that to her. She is very happy with the big horses and gaining weight steadily. She's getting a multivitamin with vitamin E, extra magnesium and trace minerals, amino acids, and some ulcergard. 

Yesterday I rode Hero between sessions, and although she called for him, she didn't run around. Later I took Amore and Hero down to the big field, and then Aria did call and run around, but after about five minutes she stopped running and just called out occasionally. I was pleased with that, and she did come interact with me several times while they were gone. 

Aria is allowing me to touch her even without treats, and for longer periods of time. She is still very wary of any rope. By the end of the second day, I was able to rub her neck with a lead rope or halter (with bribery), and walk away before she did. Before we got to that point, she tried twice to see if I would stop approaching her with the rope if she got aggressive. She pinned her ears, and lunged forward with her mouth open. I swatted her, and she took only several steps away, I guess she thought it was worth a try anyway. 

The fear of ropes she has is not a fear of the unknown, but more like a post traumatic fear response, so it is going to take some time to remove. I'll have to touch her with it many, many times before she'll decide it isn't going to hurt her. She must have been very terrified the first time she was caught, and perhaps they roped and trapped her to get her trailered, and this was reinforced when we trapped her again to bring her home. 

Last night after I had spent all the time working with Aria, she came up close to me and I started scratching under her neck and she suddenly realized that felt really good, and leaned hard into me trying to get more. That should help some with feelings of positivity toward being touched. 

Amore gets bored and goes off to graze, but once Hero realizes I'm passing out treats to Aria, he's like a big sticky shadow. If I push him away, he creeps back in, and his nose stays an inch away from some part of my body. I had to do some creative things like put carrots on the ground to distract him so I could go to Aria, and tie him a couple of times. He was very sweet though, just curious and wanting to be included in the attention. I was wondering what he thought of the "treats," which were very tiny for him, just half of a baby carrot. Barely a taste.


----------



## gottatrot

A bit of a breakthrough today with Aria. 

First, when I showed up she let me walk right up to her and put my arms around her neck. Then she was much more allowing of me being in her space and touching her than previously.

When I brought out the halter, she pinned her ears, and I wondered if she'd try being aggressive again. She let me touch her with it very reluctantly a few times. Then as I suspected, she lunged forward and bit my arm to try to get me to stop approaching her with it. This time, I immediately slung the end of the rope around and whacked her hard on the neck. She jumped away. Within ten minutes, she was letting me rub the rope all over her neck and shoulder, and put it over the top of her neck. 

My thought was that she faced her fear, the "worst" happened, and it wasn't as bad as she had worried.
DH thought that it was about her learning that I was going to be in charge, and that made her submit to having the rope touch her. Whatever the reason, Aria was more accepting of me and less afraid of the rope the rest of the day. 

There is a certain boldness to her, which I think bodes well for future training. My thoughts on her biting are that she is used to being only with horses, and using those rules for establishing boundaries. If she has a personality to face things head on rather than only running, it could help her to potentially be a driving horse. If I teach her how to trust, she could end up very confident. 

I approached her with a brush, and she let me brush her with it, without walking away for about a minute. I scratched her hind end above her tail, and touched her back legs briefly. Not much time to spend at the barn after chores, because of working overtime last night, and also we are going out of town tomorrow, but it was a good session for sure. 

Aria has had no problem scarfing down her vitamin pellet concoction with the ulcer treatment, and when I brought out some new treats today that were alfalfa/licorice, she did not hesitate to try them the way she hesitated over the carrots and apples the first time. She's becoming a connoisseur of new foods. Her spine is fairly level with her back now, although her ribs still show. Perhaps they are more obvious because her coat is getting sleeker. 

Amore has a few strange patches but is mostly shedding out, and the hair is coming off her in big mats that float away on the wind. The grooming gloves help tremendously.


----------



## gottatrot

First, I'll tell about Hero's ride today. He's getting more accustomed to our loop and moving down the trail now with very little trouble.

We went out with Mikey today and I thought he did great. However, we had a big spook and another BIG spook, and neither were relating to him being fussy.

The first spook was when we were going by a small greenhouse, and a tarp flapped up in the wind just as a generator or some machine kicked on right next to us. He did a small rear, a hop, and then settled right down and walked forward. Very understandable.

The second one was crazy. There was a turkey hiding on the roof of a bus shelter, and when we got close exploded over the roof and onto the ground gobble-gobbling.

Even Mikey spooked, and nothing gets to Mikey. Hero dropped, my face hit something (neck?), not too hard, and next thing I knew we were somehow across the road. The thing was, I was terrified of the turkey at first too.

The big old turkey then flew up into a tree, and I decided to get off and lead past in case the turkey dropped on us. Hero again calmed quickly, and walked nicely home.

Making progress with handling Aria without the lead rope and halter, but not much with. Am considering what else to do. It seems to be a deep seated fear of ropes and halters.

Then there is LIFE, which always throws curve balls. The homeowners of our rental need to move back in, so we have to find a new place. There is a serious housing shortage here so this will be difficult. Hoping we can find something!! Rent or buy.


----------



## Knave

First off, “yay” on Hero’s ride. I can’t imagine the turkey episode. I don’t like turkeys. I’ve had one run away on the side of a very steep mountain, on a colt, gathering cows when we worked somewhere different, because a wild WHITE turkey flew up under my horse! A girl on the other side of the mountain saw me and asked if it gave me a heart attack. Lol. It’s a totally honest spook.

Secondly, I’m sorry about the struggle you are coming across. I’m not sure what I would do. Probably I would try for a padded halter, dragging a rope, in a smaller and safe enough corral. I can’t really imagine another way to get over it at this point... maybe a padded halter with no rope, or a very short one in the corral with the others. I’m sure it’s very frustrating. I leave the calf halters dragging in with the cow and each other, but they are built to slip off. It’s a rope through a rope, and it makes me wonder if you could use it on a horse in with others. I don’t think you could on your mare though, because almost any rubbing would pull it off. Probably that’s why they aren’t made for horses. Often Mama Pepper licks them off the calves.

Lastly, I’m sorry about the move! How overwhelming!! It seems like everyone I know has had a pounding of stressful events.


----------



## egrogan

Turkey bombs definitely do make for an exciting ride. @Knave- a WHITE turkey is something I have never seen or even heard of. Right now we are dealing with the grouse. They prefer the area right where woods transition to fields, and they wait until the last minute to explode out from under you. You don't even know they are there until they are nearly flying into you.

@gottatrot - sorry about the rental. That sounds really stressful. Hope a good solution appears quickly.


----------



## gottatrot

I cannot imagine a white turkey! That probably would be one of the top ten scariest things you could come across on a horse.

Thanks for the advice, @Knave. I've ordered a breakaway horse collar, thinking that I can leave that on without having Aria rub her face too much. She might rub it off, however. 

I've been thinking quite a bit and believe I've given it a good run at going the slowest, gentlest way. Something I've been coming to terms with is that I'm not an extreme person in my beliefs, and so I need to stop thinking that those who are extreme might be right. Meaning, if I really think critically about some who advocate the "gentlest" methods with horses, I do see hypocrisy. The hypocrisy is that they allow horses to suffer in other ways, as if exposing a horse to fear and anxiety at times is the worst thing that can happen to them, worse than physical problems. 

Perhaps this is a modern idea, because it is something I have been exposed to at my job. Recently I was reminded of this at work, with someone who came in after a serious and potentially life-threatening trauma but prioritized their feelings and mental well-being above their own physical safety. As long as people are conscious and in their "right" mind, they have the right to refuse treatment. But seriously, "feelings" and fears are not more important than possibly bleeding to death or ending up crippled from a serious injury! If you want to wait until you "feel" better to accept treatment, that might be a very bad decision.

With horses, I also don't think we should prioritize their emotional well-being above physical safety. What horse would choose to have a shot that we know they need, or surgery? Aria has been tripping when running around because her hooves are too long. She is never going to choose to be touched by ropes, unless I have her caught and force her to do so. She is going to have to be exposed to some fear and I'll have to figure out how to get these things done, even if she hops around scared at first. 

Hero is a completely different horse than he used to be. You can lead him around and ride him out, and he has less than 5 percent of the bad behaviors he had when I got him. That required some negativity at times. I don't believe it is showing the horse "who is boss," or dominating them. Yet you do have to take on a role where you say yes, this is acceptable, no, this is not. You will have to accept these things.

Amore and Halla also turned out to be good citizens. I was remembering the first times I trimmed Halla's hooves, and how she reared a lot and we hopped around and I whacked her when she was too out of control. I'm sure it won't be very pretty when I trim Aria, but she is going to have to turn into a good citizen whether she likes it or not. Unfortunately, she is not a foal, and is not trusting and thinking the best about being handled. 

It may not always be in the horse's best interest to take a very long time to handle them, if they are not quickly accepting of the idea. I've also experienced many who are very critical of others for doing what it takes (within reasonable parameters) to get a horse to accept handling and to have acceptable behaviors. Yet in my opinion, they fail the horses in other ways. The horse might be tortured by insects, and the person won't buy fly protection. The horse might be permanently lame or suffering, and they won't put the horse on serious pain management or put the horse down (again, prioritizing feelings, usually their own, above physical well-being). 

I've had two close acquaintances who were extremely critical about any harsh treatment during training, but who also had their own horses quite obviously suffering for a long period of time before they could decide to put the horse down. One was severely foundered and gimped everywhere, the other was very old and literally skeletal, unable to get nutrition from feed. Of course, when I say "harsh," I don't mean harming the animal physically. But sometimes what it takes with horses is not always as gentle as some might like.


----------



## Knave

It’s funny, but husband and I talked exactly about that last night in reference to your mare. We both try towards being gentle and kind, yet both would prioritize halter training. Neither of us believe in leaving a halter on in the corral, but both would do it in the beginning. We also leave a wilder horse tied for the first two days (with the rope softer and tied in a safer manner in a bowline around their neck and through the halter.). They have food and water, but they learn to be halter broke quickly with the day tied and another two or three dragging that halter rope.

This may not be the gentlest method, but it does get a horse halter broke and able to move forward with things necessary for their health. At the same time I am fully in favor of other methods, it’s just that this works for us.


----------



## knightrider

This is a great discussion, as yours always are! I have seen horses loaded in trailers in what appears to be harsh ways, but the horse quickly learns to load without fussing. I have never done it that way myself, but I have seen it often enough, and it doesn't seem to permanently affect the horses' loading . . . except that they load beautifully after the tough lesson.

I also have seen (again never done it myself) the rope dragging halter work quite effectively. I probably don't have to use these methods because I've always gotten youngsters and taken my time because I had piles of time anyway.


----------



## Kalraii

I love positive reinforcement but completely agree with you all - there are times and some personalities that require a harsher hand. Even a little fear can get better, faster results sometimes. The trainers I relate to most are the ones that have both sides of the coin, literally. Too much one way can create a dangerous animal or completely kill their spirit. Sometimes love _is_ doing the "ugly" thing. Honestly I have so many times loved to hand over a raging macaw and ask them to try. Or restrain an aggressive python coz don't we love throttling them?  The last incident I remember was a friend's boyfriend got an adult male iguana (right?) that needed his eyes bathed and drops. It took me and a muscle man to pin that TEACUP down and get it done, after I advised that he go back to his vet because this just wasn't gonna work, we couldn't go there twice a day for him. We were then chewed out for being "abusive". He honestly thought there would be another way.. sure let's just wait for it to go blind, it'll probably let us near it then  Sometimes a job just needs doing. For the record he ended up giving the iguana away less than a week later to a sanctuary - I had refused to take it.

I think they have it in their mind that rescue centres and veterinary practices are sunshine and rainbows. It's sooo far from it. What vet is gonna sit there and clicker train an animal just to get an IV in? Do whatchugottado! Also the vast majority of "gentle" handlers I've come across either refuse or have never experienced working with a truly difficult or even dangerous animal. I think my earliest memory of one the extremes was with the llama at our college. Girl from the equine course thought she could save this llama (who was pinning/humping everyone and later shot) with gentle methods. She got a faceful of spit. That was ALL IT TOOK to put her off and she was quite hurt as she was being so nice to him, saying nice words. A real glob of reality  Good luck not gonna lie I am still enjoying you sharing your processes and figuring this out!


----------



## gottatrot

Great thoughts and input.

I am starting to think I'm not smart enough for a pony! 

An hour of trying to get Aria caught by all kinds of means got me nowhere today. I tried sneaking a baling string around her neck (she caught on), tried making a loop around a bucket and slipping it up over her head while she ate,(she was way too fast). Even tried rewarding her for allowing my approach with a rope and chasing her if she turned to run away. That did nothing.

I wish I had a real roper to get a lasso on her.

My next thought is to put up a small corral with a gate where the horses eat. Once they are inside (if the genius pony doesn't see through my plans), I will shut Aria in and try to put a halter on. 

Then, come hell or high water, I will leave the halter and lead on until I think I have her used to them.

The barn owner laughs at me, and says I can do whatever I want.

It could be worse...a coworker had a donkey that not only would not get caught, he could take other horses' halters off, and open up gates too.


----------



## Knave

You made me smile, but I’m sure in real life it didn’t feel so fun. Roping would certainly come in handy about now. The catch pen is a great idea though!

I’m sure all of this is frustrating right now, but I do think that once you get her halter broke you will have a lot of fun with her. I adored little girl’s pony! To be fair though, she was the perfect animal to train. Sensitive and smart... we had our wrecks of course, but that was to be expected teaching a youngster to start her first horse (well, pony). I miss Moon! I think you will enjoy her lots.

I think it’s always surprising how much halter training is of import! We take it for granted as a horse gets older, but every day it is relevant. Zeus was hard to halter break, because the family who had him had made some mistakes. He’s excellent now, and even tiny children can lead him around.

Cash will never be perfect. He is pushy or draggy depending on the day. He occasionally pulls back, but not bad. Queen is excellent! I only say these things to remember the permanent importance of halter breaking. Of course there is the “have to” aspect of it right now, but it is forever one of the most important aspects of a horse’s training although we think about it very little.


----------



## Txshecat0423

My usual method of trying to halter something that doesn’t wish to be caught (the most recent that comes to mind was a show calf) involves eventually throwing the halter at the animal (after chasing for an undetermined amount of time) and hoping the halter miraculously becomes attached somehow [emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> ...I only say these things to remember the permanent importance of halter breaking. Of course there is the “have to” aspect of it right now, but it is forever one of the most important aspects of a horse’s training although we think about it very little.


Oh yes, good reminder. Hero will also never be the best, because he understands he can just stop if he wants to and then you have to go and make him get moving again. With Aria, each time I've actually had the halter on, she's given to pressure and felt very light, and I feel leading itself will not be difficult to teach her. It's just getting the dang thing on her!

I do admire the little pony, she has a lot of spirit and sass, and is getting very cute. She runs around a lot now that she's feeling better, and is getting sleek and pretty. 



Txshecat0423 said:


> My usual method of trying to halter something that doesn’t wish to be caught (the most recent that comes to mind was a show calf) involves eventually throwing the halter at the animal (after chasing for an undetermined amount of time) and hoping the halter miraculously becomes attached somehow [emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]


I will confess I have attempted that once or twice, but the magic didn't happen the way I wanted it to!


----------



## gottatrot

Here is the naughty pony. As you can see, her head is not really too big for her body now that she's put some weight on.
She did look odd when underweight since she's meant to be a little bit stocky I believe.

When the barn owner talks about Aria, she always says, "That little rascal..." I guess Hero has a mini me. 

































We have panels and T-posts now so hope to put up her temporary small pen tomorrow. I also got her breakaway collar today so I hope to get that on her soon to leave on with a lead rope. 
Her hooves are in sand in the photos, but obviously the overgrowth and angles are not at emergency levels. I do not want them to get there. 

We're super busy trying to find somewhere to live. After a few days we figured out we will not be able to get a rental. There are literally zero within fifty miles. I contacted one that came up and was down the list by about a hundred people. We looked at a house for sale today. The realtor showed it to us but it had been listed the previous day at 9 a.m., was shown at 11 a.m. and the offer accepted by 5 p.m. 

It is very tricky because we were given 30 day's notice, and were in our rental ten months. Anyone in a rental over a year has to get 90 days' notice (new laws due to covid). We can't look at any homes that have a renter in them, such as one we wanted to look at today. The homeowner can't give a renter 90 days' notice to sell the home until after the home has an offer. So any house with a renter cannot be occupied by a new owner until at least three months. 
There is another trick for us which is that many homes here are in 55 and older HOAs. DH is 54, so we would have to get special approval to buy in these areas. We drove by a house in the country today that was probably leaking and moldy inside and seemed to depend on rainwater rather than a well. Yikes.


----------



## Knave

Aria is looking so much better! I can’t wait to see her when she is truly filled out. Heck, you might end up doing more with her than you think!

I am sorry about the house. I’m sure you are stressed to the max. I’ll pray something works out.


----------



## bsms

Housing - in all its forms - is really tough right now. Tucson still has apartments available for rent although the market isn't flooded any more. Homes for rent or sale are rare and go very fast (usually). I wonder if the anti-eviction rules passed for COVID relief haven't distorted the market. Normally homes would be added or withdrawn from the rental market as the owners needs changed. I used to do a lot of taxes for people who had moved, rented out their home at their old location, and would then sell it after a few years. But who wants to put their home up for rent if they know their tenants might decide to stop paying? And while an owner might eventually get the back rent money, you can't get blood out of a turnip - and meanwhile the owner still has to pay taxes, maintenance, etc. Between a country-wide hot real estate market and rules that mean your rental home might not provide any rental...why would anyone want to rent out their old home?

Buying? We had two homes under contract. On the second home, we still didn't have the title agency report as our inspection period was coming to an end. And an appraisal on the house was going to take 60 days minimum to schedule because there were not enough appraisers!

I'll pray too, gottatrot. I honestly haven't cared much about COVID. Never came close to panic over it. My retirement income hasn't changed. Wish the government had NOT sent me "stimulus cash" - what is there to stimulate when government is keeping businesses closed anyways? We sent some of the $$$ to my wife's family in the Philippines. We didn't give any BACK to the government. I figured the fact that they sent it to us was proof I was more responsible with money than the government! 

But...it has been a high stress year. The basic rules of society seem to have been tossed aside. Many small businesses here have gone under - to the delight of big businesses, which remained fully in business with government support because apparently it was dangerous to go to a small business but safe to go to a big one? Even Pima County has rescinded their mask mandate, but at the hardware store yesterday half the customers were still wearing masks. Markets have gone insane. I've spent more nights awake this year, worrying about things I couldn't control, than I have the previous 60+ years. I wish I could offer more than sympathy and prayers.


----------



## knightrider

I will be praying too. You are in a tough situation. I hope something works out that is great for you.

We also gave some of our stimulus money to friends who own small businesses, since we both are on retirement income.


----------



## gottatrot

Thank you for the prayers, I truly appreciate it.


----------



## gottatrot

The prayers are helping...our homeowners just emailed and said they might be willing to buy another rental very close by for us to live in so they could move into this house. That would be a great solution. It is amazing that they could have just said "get out in 30 days," but they are being very understanding and kind about how difficult it is to find housing.

We put up Aria's corral last night. I was worried about how hard it would be to get her into it. But she was in the shelter with Hero, and they apparently thought it was magic: we put up the panels around them, and suddenly they found themselves in a corral. Hero didn't even blink, and kept on eating. Aria stared around for a bit, but soon settled.

After everything was secure, I brought out a lead rope. Aria ran around the pen for a few minutes. If she even saw the rope, she'd run up and down the sides of the pen. I really wanted to get her collar on so she could begin the process of getting used to ropes. I started just lightly throwing the lead over her back, and then letting her run away. Then I got to where I was able to follow her and keep the rope over her, so she didn't get away from it. At one point, she stopped, and stood, thinking. I praised her a lot, and then she ran a little and tried stopping again. Then I was able to pull the ends of the lead rope around her, and get close, and put the collar on. 

Now she is wearing the collar and dragging the lead. It is breakaway, so she might get it off, but at least she'll spend some time with it on.


----------



## Knave

That is a good update! I hope it gets this haltering thing solved quickly.


----------



## gottatrot

I'm very pleased with the breakaway horse collar. It hasn't rubbed anywhere and seems to be fairly comfortable.

Today I was able to pick up and hold Aria's front hooves for five seconds several times. Still working on touching the back legs. She is getting better about having the rope swung around her body, having her face touched, and being approached with halters and ropes.

I trimmed the scraggly ends off her mane and forelock, and cut a short bridle path. She immediately looked less like a wild pony.

She was able to go in the big turnout field with Hero and Amore for an hour. I left a lunge line on her halter, and they all ran around quite a bit. At first I think Aria was chasing Amore with her snaky lunge line, and that's why they were running. Soon they all settled and grazed.

When I went back to get the horses, Aria turned and was like, "Come on Hero, she's trying to catch us!" But he saw my treats and came to me, which made her stop. She wasn't ready for me to walk up to her head, but I was able to pick up the lunge line and reel her in, which is why I had put it on her.

I trimmed Amore and Hero's hooves, and was pleased to get a good look at the underside of Aria's. They look fine really, about 3/4 inch of growth past the sole, but no cracking or chipping. Good pony hooves. Some people I know let their horses' hooves get that long regularly.

I was thinking about the difference between exposing a horse to things they are afraid of versus "flooding." From my experience, flooding is when the animal is so scared they can't learn, they just react from terror.

That is different from having a horse learn to tolerate things they are afraid of while learning they won't be harmed.

For example, our barn cat at first was so scared to be in places like the couch that it was flooding and he wouldn't learn to accept that it was safe just by being held there.

But after a period of time, his general fear improved to where exposing him for short periods to the couch allowed him to learn it was safe. Soon he jumped up there on his own.

With Aria, I am doing things she is afraid of like touching her with ropes, but she is not so scared she isn't learning and progressing with her confidence, so this isn't flooding and will not cause her to shut down from fear.

This week has been crazy. We have an offer on a house that might get accepted tomorrow.
There was lots of negotiating because the house has renters, and the homeowners initially wanted to close before the renters were out. We changed it so we won't close until the house is empty.

The renters have a new place with the same property management company, so it will happen within a couple months. But we can't have an exact date because the renters are allowed to take their time moving because of the covid rules.

The house is in a 55 retirement village, and we figured out how to get in since DH turns 55 next year. The house seems private with dense shrubbery on three sides. We've been in a 1300 sq ft rental, after moving from a 2700 sq ft house, so we've had a storage unit. This one is 1800 sq ft and has a huge garage, so should work much better.

The garage has a long and sturdy built in work bench, so DH put in the contract to have that stay for sure. It looks permanent but you never know. It will be nice to not be renting again.


----------



## Knave

That is all great! I am happy things are working out.


----------



## bsms

Best wishes on the house! Hope it goes quickly and smoothly. We've bought three homes and all three purchases, prior to this year, were positive experiences. And one of the two homes we made offers on this year was a positive experience in the sense that the owners were honest and fair with us. Not so much the first home...

The homes we rented over the years while in the military were positive experiences, on the whole. I have a hunch the rental we've lived in since September will be a pain in the butt to turn back over. It is *vastly* cleaner than when we moved in, but I've got a bad feeling about this management company and the owner. I tend to idealize small towns over a city, but folks in small towns are just as likely to lie or cheat as they are in the city. I'm assuming our security deposit will disappear no matter how clean or how well we've cared for the house. There was a house we rented in Killeen Texas like that. We've always taken pride on returning a home in better shape than when we moved in, but....

At least it looks like you'll have a place to move to! I've never seen anything quite like the current housing market - and it is nationwide!


----------



## weeedlady

I just spent the evening playing catch up on your thread. Wow, you've been dealing with a lot of "stuff". Sending good thoughts your way.


----------



## SueC

@gottatrot, if it's any help to you, Julian is really wary about being caught and often avoids it, but once I have him he's OK - at first he was really hard to catch and he knows when he's got a halter on, and when he doesn't! 😄

Whenever I do catch him I make sure he gets his face rubbed in a way he likes and I let him go again quickly and repeat often, which has improved him. He's very protective of leading his own life without interference, now that he's got this free-range lifestyle. He's a really friendly horse towards me after three years here, and always lets me come up when he's not wearing a halter. In his case it's that he's aware he didn't always like what people did with him once they had him by the halter! And I'm hopefully teaching him that nothing unpleasant happens when he does get caught (although I do have to de-worm him from time to time 😝).

As he's very fond of carrots, if I need to catch him quickly and reliably in a particular instance, that one never fails in his case, and continues to set up positive associations around handling for him. He actually loved being lead-lined to places he's not been, which I need to take up again with him now that I'm sticking the saddle on him...

Re halters, and leaving them on, I do usually leave halters on the lead horse in the herd (Julian, in this case), and on a horse I work with regularly or who needs checking up on teeth regularly etc (Sunsmart, who's reached the "flossing" stage of his life). In Western Australia, people generally leave halters on their working horses during turnout, using inexpensive, fairly flimsy fabric ones that will definitely break if a horse gets caught - just like rug straps, in good brands, are designed to break if the horse gets caught in them, which does sometimes happen when they roll etc. I'd not leave a leather halter on a horse in turnout, or anything not designed to break, but have never heard of a problem here in WA with well-designed rugs or the fabric halters we use, which have weak stitching that will come apart under pressure.

The main reason I don't leave halters on the others in my herd is because I only catch them for hoof trimming, and their coats can get abraded by the halter straps. Romeo was handled several times daily but didn't need a halter because so good-natured; I could just grab his top lip if I needed him to hold still for a moment.


----------



## gottatrot

@SueC, thanks, good info.

Definitely Aria is progressing well. She graduated yesterday to not having to wear the lead rope in her pen, because I can walk up to her in the small space now with a lead rope and attach it to her collar. She is still nervous about having a halter approach her face, but getting better. 

Yesterday I was able to hold both front hooves and pick them out and brush them off with the hoof pick. Almost ready to start rasping. I was able to leave my hand on her lower hind legs, but if I lift the hooves she moves away. 

What is very nice is that she is able to walk down to the turnout field to spend time out with Hero and Amore. She wears her lunge line, and I am practicing approaching her with a lead rope. If she moves away, I step on the lunge line so I can approach. Then I give her a carrot. Trying to teach a routine of getting caught with the other horses.

Having the lunge line does not seem to deter her from galloping around with Hero intermittently.

I lead Hero and Aria over together, then Amore. Otherwise if I took the girls I know Hero would have a fit. 

Yesterday when I led Hero into Aria's pen, he immediately opened his jaws and clamped them down on the top of her neck with bared teeth. Aria's eyes bugged out and so did mine. Then he adjusted back to a nibble, and then let go. He didn't hurt her, but for a second it looked like when a horse is going to pick up an animal to throw it. His sense of play has no propriety. He is obviously fond of Aria, and naps outside her pen. 

We're still very up in the air with our housing. Although we first heard it wouldn't be an issue buying in a 55 community, now we hear they may not let us live in the house we are purchasing. A rental may be available, so we will try to apply for that while deciding if we should just let our earnest money and inspection costs go, or gamble that they will let us live in the house if we buy it. 
We don't even know the closing date on the house because the renters have up to 90 days to move and we can't close until they do. Every day things change...


----------



## bsms

Couldn't you get an addendum to your contract saying the deal is off if you won't be allowed to live in your house? And then get an answer IN WRITING from the BOD saying yes or no? 

We used to be part of an HOA. It was voted into non-existence after many complaints and too much bossiness from certain people. I was on the BOD several times. If something came up that wasn't clearly spelled out in the rules, we'd consult with a lawyer and then vote on written guidance. The lawyer, in fact, strongly recommended we do so. And my BOD experience in the HOA makes me believe one needs to get EVERYTHING in writing. Ruling by whim is one of the reasons our HOA was voted out of existence - by an 85-15 vote!.


----------



## weeedlady

Glad things are going well with Aria (I love her name, by the way). I can't imagine dealing with the uncertainty about where you will live! Have faith. In my experience - it will all work out for the best eventually.


----------



## gottatrot

@bsms, thank you for the info. We are adding that we need a response in writing to our letter. 

I am sure you are right, @weeedlady, things will work out for the best.

Good day with Aria yesterday, I brought her down to the bigger pasture down the road and was able to catch her easily even in the new setting. I graduated her another level, and left her corral gate open so she can be back out with the other horses now. I am hoping this wasn't premature, but she went back into the corral on her own with the gate open, so I believe we could catch her again in there if necessary. 

She wasn't in the corral that long, really, but we were feeling sorry for her being shut up most of the time. It definitely was necessary for her progress though. I believe dragging the lunge line in turnout also was very helpful for her to get over the fear of ropes.


----------



## gottatrot

I believe a horse's personality is an extremely important factor in their training. Yesterday I was discussing this with Hero and Aria as I led them together down the road. 

Aria is not even green yet, just barely starting her life of training. Yet she naturally is far different from Hero, and because of her personality she leads much better than him without having training. Quite naturally she is light about pressure and directable with body language and light cues. She has that Arab lightness and extreme sensitivity. It does not seem like I will be at the end of a tug-of-war if she spooks and panics, and I feel that I will be able to direct her movements. So far this has been the case, and I've easily persuaded her to go places she does not wish to, as long as she doesn't believe her life is in imminent danger. 

Hero, on the other hand, with lots of work and training is still difficult to persuade to go in any direction, heavy about responding to cues and requires lots of pressure at times. Aria walked next to my elbow, lightly dancing along and I knew it was unlikely she would run me over. Hero lugged along, sometimes far behind and I had to move him to the side, knowing if something spooked him he'd probably knock me over. They just have far different levels of sensitivity and personalities. 

In the field, they stick together though, because of the things they have in common. They both are curious and want to run and look at things that are passing by on the road, to see what the horses in the other fields are doing, and to react to each others' moods. Amore is on her own, because she doesn't hear or see well enough to react to much, and her main goal in life is to have uninterrupted grazing. When they all go into a big field together, Amore runs with her tail up for about sixty seconds, and then she wants to get down to business and eat. The other two run around for a while.


----------



## Knave

I have a feeling that, with an unhandled horse, that push to halter break is so beneficial. It is one of those times to not get stuck in theory, because it is just so important to get done. I am all about safety, but I think it is worth the risk of simply getting it done on this specific thing.

I haven’t been around a lot of halter breaking colts that have been messed with though. I assume that is a different thing entirely, and maybe ideals can be found. I just don’t know. I guess if Lucy gets bred I will see!

Zeus had a lot of needing fixed things in his halter training. That’s not my favorite thing.

I wonder what other training things are akin to halter breaking an unhandled horse...


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I wonder what other training things are akin to halter breaking an unhandled horse...


I agree! I've learned my lesson...Aria was my first horse I started personally that had no handling at all. Now I know you can't put them out into a large field without getting them over the fear of being haltered and caught first. Maybe the first trailering can be similar, if you need to pick up or move a horse that has not been trained to trailer yet. Amore had been handled a little, but not really started beyond having a halter on, she was completely green to leading and didn't tie. So we had to basically winch her into the trailer to get her home. But a month later, after more training, she was able to get into a trailer on her own. I suspect it will be straight forward getting Aria into a trailer with a friend next time I try.

Aria is a smart pony though, and now she knows I'm catching her to bring her nice places. Today I walked right up to her in the field and put my hand on her collar, and then put her halter on. She went out in the turnout without a lead rope or lunge line on today, and when I came back to get the horses she was the first to the gate to get caught. Good pony!

Here is the little herd goofing off in turnout today. Pony is very healthy and sassy now.


----------



## Knave

She’s looking so much better! She doesn’t look much smaller than Amore now.

Yes! Trailering. Doctoring too we will say.


----------



## gottatrot

Today I tied Aria for the first time, which was uneventful. She's been very good at yielding to pressure, so I added a loop of baling twine to a tie ring and tied her to that. She never applied enough pressure to strain it.

I put it to the test though, by rasping some on her front hooves and picking up the hinds. She allowed me 5 to 7 rasp strokes before I needed to let go. Great little pony hooves, hard with thick walls, so I only got off about 1/3 of the length I need to, but it all has to help.

Amore has shed some sole, so needs more trimming soon even though I just got her a couple weeks ago. Haven't had time to ride in a couple weeks, but basic care comes first.

When I am with Hero, I love him the best. He's powerful looking and sleek, my riding horse.

When I am with Amore, I love her the best. Still so beautiful and gentle, leaning into hugs and scratches, unique and funny.

When I am with Aria, I love her the best. I always wanted a pony, and she's turning into a real cutie. So many great things ahead of us!

Our cat, Velvet with hyperthyroidism has grown her hair back, regained weight and her health. Now Kikko, our other 13 yr old cat is acting funny, getting bald spots and increased appetite so he is heading to the vet Friday to see if he needs pills as well.

Our home inspection is in the morning. We hope there are no major issues!


----------



## Knave

Yay!! That’s a lot of progress. Good luck today!


----------



## Kalraii

Its amazing how time flies and what some loving can do - she looks gorgeous! I wasn't sure if I missed somewhere since full ownership but you planning on backing her (is she too small?) or driving?


----------



## gottatrot

Kalraii said:


> I wasn't sure if I missed somewhere since full ownership but you planning on backing her (is she too small?) or driving?


Thanks! I think she is around 13 hands...I thought 12 when she was thin, guess she looked smaller. I have been on a 13.2 hand pony but that's pretty small unless you're a kid. I plan to teach her to drive.


----------



## bsms

How is her leg thickness? Cowboy is 13.0 but built like a tank. More important to me is that his LEGS are almost as thick as Mia's were. In my honest moments, though, I admit that driving makes a great way for horses to get exercise. Just wouldn't know where to start. And...around here, paved roads would be the only option for driving. It would be a great way for my wife to enjoy horses IF we could figure out how to teach it to them.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> When I am with Hero, I love him the best. He's powerful looking and sleek, my riding horse.
> 
> When I am with Amore, I love her the best. Still so beautiful and gentle, leaning into hugs and scratches, unique and funny.
> 
> When I am with Aria, I love her the best. I always wanted a pony, and she's turning into a real cutie. So many great things ahead of us!


This is so great, and how I feel about my horses. People ask me which horse I like the best, and my answer is, "The one I am riding at the moment." I do think you can ride Aria, but that's just my opinion. My dear friend had a 12 hand Welsh pony stallion that we rode all the time. He never got tired or difficult. We didn't feel funny on him because we just decided we wouldn't. Both Isabeau and Acicate (my current horses) are 13 hands and I ride them for hours. I am tall. As @bsms says, the cowboys in the 1800's rode 13 hand horses all the time, rode them hard, and they managed OK. Also, grown men ride Paso Finos in shows with their legs all hanging down, and they do fine. I know I do fine with my two 13 hand beauties.


----------



## gottatrot

Hmm, well maybe I'll start Aria under saddle too and see how it goes. I could always just do short rides to train her for a kid to occasionally get on. Maybe I'll ride her and pony Hero, wouldn't that look hilarious? She's not very stocky, but not super light either, and let's say she weighs 600 lbs, I weigh about 130 with boots and clothes. That weight should be fine for her. I'm just guessing her weight based on Amore who weighs around 800 lbs.


----------



## weeedlady

I also love both of my horses the most, lol. I would never be able to pick a favorite. Each one is different.


----------



## gottatrot

Our cat Kikko got a clean bill of health at the vet's today. Nice to hear at age 13 his kidneys and liver are working well, no sign of cancer and his thyroid is fine. Apparently his excess grooming is just a new allergy, so he got a steroid shot. 

The home inspection did not reveal any major problems with the house we are buying. A few small fixes and other things we could upgrade that seem acceptable for the price range of the house. The houses we looked at lower in price had major issues like sagging ceilings or extreme remodeling needs. The houses in the next higher range were more updated inside but that meant they also were smaller, did not have a big garage and/or were in busy neighborhoods. This seems like it will hopefully be a nice compromise for us. 

The only hiccups now are waiting for the HOA board to decide if they will let us move in before DH is 55 (they meet next Tuesday), and making sure our current landlords don't try to get us to move out before our house closes in August. We have explained to them that the legislation relating to Covid means the renters in our new house can stay until August, but it also applies to us and give us a 90 day period to move as well. We didn't hear back after that email so they may be checking our information with a lawyer. My friend with Nala who I used to ride with all the time is a real estate lawyer, so I asked her for an opinion and she didn't think there was currently any way around these laws other than trying to pay someone to convince them to get out sooner.

Meanwhile, we are cheerful since it seems it will be worth the hassle to continue living here. Even though we are in a tourist town, the location farther away from big cities means the summer rush we are heading into is much less intrusive than where we lived before. As I was driving home from the barn, weaving between all the lakes and over the beautiful wooded mountains, I could see glimpses of campsites as I passed through some of the state park lands and realized that people come here to get away, and we are able to live here all the time. It's a privilege.


----------



## egrogan

gottatrot said:


> I passed through some of the state park lands and realized that people come here to get away, and we are able to live here all the time. It's a privilege


This is exactly how I feel about where we live! For some people, coming here is a dream vacation. And we get it every day.

Good luck with the HOA!


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks, @egrogan! I would also like to live where you live, I've thought it many times.

Here's a video of what happens when your girlfriends go off to greener pastures without you.


----------



## gottatrot

When I was walking with Aria, I was able to measure her withers at halfway up my humerus/upper arm bone. At home I measured how tall this was, and it came to 48 inches. So it might not be perfectly accurate, but she is somewhere around 12 hands. 

I've certainly ridden 13 hand ponies.



















But seeing the horses together, a person might not realize how small Amore is. I'm 5'3", and she is 14.2 hands. 










Aria is just a tiny little thing: Smaller than those ponies I'm riding above. Look how short Amore's back is in the ridden photo, and Aria's is much shorter. Not enough space for a small adult saddle. Plus look at her tiny legs. I'm sure she's strong, but definitely she'll be a driving and not a riding pony. 










I've found something funny about her name. I keep finding myself saying, "Are ya?" to her, which sounds like her name. "Are ya going to be my little driving pony, Aria? Are ya?" Probably only amusing to myself.


----------



## gottatrot

I'm thinking about the cart before the horse...

I'll probably get an easy entry cart with road tires to start out. Once we get our house stuff straightened out, I hope to trailer Aria and Hero to my friends' house up north, so we can ride and I can see what size cart Aria might need based on the various carts they have. 








They also have buckboard carts for their minis, which are very cute.








When we were doing the parades each year with their minis, we could turn the buckboards into different things such as a boat for the pirate theme:
















Or a prairie wagon:








I had a friend who lived in a very small town near Mount Hood and she had a buckboard for her quarter horse so she could drive a mile or so to the country store for groceries. 

The buckboard also could be set up for team driving, which my friend started doing since her minis matched so well. 








She got harnesses with collars for them because she thought they were cute. We were testing the ponies the day before the parade to see if they could tolerate wearing the big hats we'd made for the clown theme.








That was a fun one to dress up for. Someone gave me these socks and that was the only time I wore them. Here is a mini pile-up during the parade.









That was a fun parade.

















We outdid ourselves sometimes making the manes fancy.

















My papillon has always ridden in the carts with us. He believes he is superior to the other dogs, and rides like a human instead of running on the ground. 









The heaven theme year was fun too.









Ponies are fun, we've also spent lots of time driving along the roads and on the beach on less fancy days. It'll be a process, but it starts with lunging, then introduce the harness and begin ground driving out and about. Next you have them drag things, and introduce turning into poles by holding PVC pipes inserted into the harness where you'd normally have shafts. Then they get used to having the rigid shafts along their bodies. Then you drive them while pulling the cart behind yourself, not attached to the harness. It's a little different for them to hear the rolling wheels and rattling. 

After all this, you hook them up and lead them around with the cart, so you can calm them if they get scared. Once they can walk and trot around with the cart, you lead with someone sitting in the cart, and eventually, like riding a bike, you take off the training wheels and start driving. Someone walks at the head at first just in case. 

When a horse bolts in harness, it's similar to under saddle (i.e. terrifying). You steer and try to stay on safe footing, and get slow enough to hop out if necessary so you can hold a line and run to the head. Jumping out of a moving cart is at least as difficult as getting off a running horse. Often impossible, but if you get down to a slow jog it can sometimes happen. You're not going to be able to make tight turns, and you don't want to hit things or get the wheels near a ditch or flip the cart. My friend was chased by dogs once when her pony was green, and flipped the cart in a ditch. Then you might break expensive things or have a hurt or stuck pony. They all were OK, but she had a lot of work getting the pony to where he didn't get scared about barking dogs.


----------



## knightrider

I sure enjoyed all your descriptions and pictures. I also used to drive and had a cart similar to the one in your first picture. I drove in several parades, and it was fun, but nerve-wracking. I felt less secure driving in parades than I felt when I was riding in parades.

I bought a racing sulky at Good Will for $100, and had fun with it. I ended up selling it because only one person can drive a sulky, and it was kind of lonely. Driving is such a friendly activity with other people sitting up there with you. I had sleigh runners, which I put on my cart when it snowed. It was easy to find folks who wanted to go for a sleigh ride.

One time, I had friends with me sleigh riding, and like the Jingle Bell song, we got into a snowbank ditch, and upset, dumped everybody out, but my horse was steady and calm, and we just righted it and climbed back in.

I gave up driving when a car came barreling over a hill and hit first my cart, knocking it sideways, and then hit my other driving horse. My horse bolted. When the car hit the cart, it knocked the wheel off, which caused the cart to flip and caught me under the cart as my horse galloped wildly out of control. I was trapped underneath losing all the skin on my body where it contacted the pavement.

Finally the cart hit a bump, freeing me. My horse tried to jump the fence back into our property, leaving the cart hanging on the fence. Incredibly traumatic for everyone involved, as you can imagine.

I tried 3 times to re-train my good driving horse. She'd do great until, each time at some point, she would PTSD and panic, just out of the blue. I hadn't gotten as far as hitching her to my repaired cart, so she mostly just smashed up her harness and whatever thing I had her pulling. The third time I gave up, repaired everything and sold it.

Many years later, my friend had a lovely driving pony on a camping trip, and offered me the opportunity to drive him for an hour or two. I often wondered if I could drive again, because, understandably, I had flashbacks and nightmares of being trapped under the cart and dragging along the pavement losing skin. I did fairly well, driving the pony, enjoying it, but not really longing to drive again. I kind of still do and kind of don't any more.


----------



## gottatrot

Wow, @knightrider, what an insane accident. It's quite amazing you survived being dragged like that. I've seen videos and think people should be aware that driving accidents can be very bad, for both humans and horses. I can imagine it would be very difficult to get over that. 

I've never been in a bad accident so far, only minor ones. But even though I like driving, I've known the horses I've had so far were unsuitable so never trained them. Amore was far too spooky and panicky. Halla could easily have been impossible to stop. Hero would most likely kick the cart. So far the indications are good that Aria will have the right temperament. 

Today was my day off so I was able to do a lot of new things with Aria. We worked on hoof handling, having a saddle pad rubbed all over, leading exercises, our first lesson on lunging, and after I rode Hero I ponied her for about five minutes.

I've probably tried ponying Amore off Hero at least 15 times. He always refuses to move. He was willing to walk and pony Aria, and was slightly annoyed at times but not bad. The only thing I can figure out is that he believes it is OK to pony someone younger than yourself, but not someone older. They're supposed to pony _you. _

Forgot to say that today the HOA board approved a variance so we can live in the house we are buying, even though DH is only 54. Great news!
It's a big HOA with 650 homes, so there is a large area behind the gates where we can ride bicycles around the neighborhoods with minimal traffic. Sounds fun, and there are also a couple of pools and a tennis court.


----------



## weeedlady

@gottatrot that is wonderful news about your new house. It must be a huge load off of your mind to know where you will rest your head!
re: driving. I have always thought I would like to learn to drive, but to me, it seems much more dangerous than riding. Reading about @knightrider 's accident was scary. My neighbors have mules that they drive. I will ask them to take me for a ride. That will have to be good enough.

Love hearing about Aria's progress. She is going to be a good little pony! Sounds like you are doing a great job.


----------



## bsms

There was a western TV show that featured a stagecoach pulling into a station. What the camera didn't show was a large parking lot just beyond the "station". One day the horses panicked. Bolted, raced into the parking lot & dragged the stagecoach over a number of cars. Several of the horses died as did the guy driving the stagecoach. Reading that was the first time I realized driving horses could be very dangerous. Even if they are well trained and the driver is a professional. Riding can be as well. I suppose if a horse reaches that level of fear when you are riding, you could also go full speed into disaster. But riding seems less dangerous to me.


----------



## Knave

I loved your pictures and descriptions too! I think you will do an excellent job at that and have a blast!

I got in a bad cart accident too when I was 11. Not nearly like @knightrider ‘s, but bad enough. It makes me overly cautious with Zeus and a bit fearful to be honest. Zeus is lovely and doesn’t have blinders, so that makes me feel a little better.

When I was 11 my mother was starting a horse to pull the cart I have now. She drove him around outside of the cart, and hadn’t put much time into getting him comfortable with it. She said she was nervous to get in, so I volunteered. When I did we found out immediately that a tire was flat (why we didn’t check I’ve no idea). It started to squeal. The horse panicked.

I tried my best to stop him as we ran across the fresh cut field. We were flying, me and that horse called Shorty. I decided there was going to be no stopping him, and I needed to jump somewhere like a quarter mile in to this wreck. Instead of jumping straight from where I was, I walked to the edge of the cart. When I did I flipped it. I was torn up pretty decently by all of the stems on the fresh cutting.

The horse continued to run in a panic, now dragging that cart on its side. With the grace of God the harness finally broke, probably a good half mile in. The cart was bent up, the horse was cut up, and I next remember being in the bath tub thinking about how little I thought about my weight tipping the cart, and how someone should always jump straight.

My family is super modest about nudity, and so when my father barged into the bathroom it wasn’t forgettable. He just had to see that I was alive, because he couldn’t believe it after the aftermath to the field and the cart and the horse. When I tell you he wasn’t happy... lol


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, wow. That was quite an accident too. 
They call them "easy entry" carts. We always joke, "Easy entry? Who cares? We need easy exit!!"
Even in a calm situation, if you're not paying attention it is super easy to trip yourself getting out. At least once during a parade I've caught the toe of my foot and ended up sprawling on the ground in front of the crowd.


----------



## bsms

Do they make carts with one of these? Let me know when it is an option.


----------



## gottatrot

I took Aria's collar off the last time I was out. Today I walked right up with a halter and rope and caught her. She is coming along so well. It's still too scary to let me hold her hind hooves for more than a moment, but she lets me hold her front hooves for long periods of time now. She's tying well, and I did some more ponying today off Hero. It sure is much easier ponying a tiny horse off a larger one. I've often ponied larger horses off smaller ones. 
Aria followed Hero very well. I took a blanket out and showed it to her, but that was very scary so I put it away after she sniffed it and worked on rubbing a saddle pad on her instead. 

I always laugh at the posts that start out "Help!" But I'm going to say "Help, I need some opinions!"

Mikey's rider stopped to chat, and she said what the barn owner has also said recently. "She's not bred is she?" 
😲😲😲😲

I _think _she is just catching up after being thin, and redistributing the weight around her body now that she has good nutrition. Right? I can feel her ribs still, so she's not apparently fat, but...here are photos from today.

Hero









Amore (animals are so amazing at staying beautiful into old age)









Aria

Please tell me that is a natural refeeding belly. Right? I have no idea what I would do if it turned out she was bred. Freak out, worry, be overjoyed. And more.
I looked at her udder, and it just looks small and normal to me. She wouldn't be able to hide a foal figure and then just pop out the belly because she was fed properly would she?


----------



## egrogan

I guess one answer is have a vet out to check her? That would put my mind at ease. But I have no experience at all with breeding so couldn’t say one way or the other. Glad she’s making progress though!


----------



## Kalraii

Oh dang. I was scrolling down "nah nah *WHAT*" 

To be fair there are quite a few mares at my field, most definitely not bred, that look like that. But my goodness... I would hate for my mare to be bred (coz risk) but at the same time overjoyed. Much wow, big confusion. Good luck


----------



## egrogan

Kalraii said:


> I was scrolling down "nah nah *WHAT*"


Haha, that was my reaction too. I was thinking you can’t tell much from pix, but then saw _that _pic and thought I’d want my vet to tell me what’s going on.


----------



## weeedlady

wow! I think I'd have to have the vet take a look, just to be sure.


----------



## gottatrot

Uh oh, was hoping you all might say she's just got a belly. Guess we'll have to see the vet! She needs her teeth checked anyway.


----------



## gottatrot

I guess I should have paid more attention to all the posts about pregnant mares. I don't know very much about it except the gestation is around 11 months. I was just reading online that the udders don't necessarily develop until the last month or so, and that small ponies might start showing around 6 months. It would be helpful for me if she had another 5 months to go, so I could be more prepared. I'm not sure though...if she was only halfway along, how much bigger could she get? 

Pretty big I guess.









A good thing is that the horses' field has field fencing already, so a foal would be secure. I'm not sure about if the weather would be bad for a new foal around here. It doesn't get cold, but it rains a lot so a foal born in the late fall/early winter might get wet. There are more sheltered corrals with stalls available. I wonder if she is Arab/Welsh, would she have been bred to an Arab or a Welsh? Lots of questions. She was apparently living in a breeder's herd, which makes things suspicious. I have to get an appointment with a vet. She'll have to trailer over since they don't do vet calls here. That makes me nervous, I'll have to ask how a foaling problem would be taken care of. 

I forgot to mention a funny incident with Hero yesterday. There is a rubber mat in his shelter that keeps getting sand pushed under it, which raises the lip. I fixed it a while back, but yesterday it was sticking up again. When I went to put Hero's halter on, he took a step forward, caught his front hoof on the lip, caught his other front hoof too, and then massively tripped toward me. We both had our eyes wide with impending doom, but he threw himself up and caught his balance, except he landed one hoof right on the tip of my boot, on the end of my toes. Ouch. Then I had to push on him in vain while he recovered for a moment, until he was able to step off. Nothing injured, and he was as scared as I was. I fixed the mat right away.


----------



## Knave

Her belly does look a bit interesting… most mares would have been bred for a spring baby, and I can’t remember when you picked her up, but I don’t think at 4 months she’d have a belly like that… you haven’t talked about her coming in to heat at all though. That might be a big red flag.


----------



## gottatrot

It turns out the vet is willing to come to the stables, probably since I have three horses that need dentals done. Cha-ching. They come from the city down to our area once a month. This month's calendar was full so she'll come in about six weeks. Probably by then Aria will be getting even a bigger belly if she is pregnant. There is a vet that I could trailer to in five minutes, but my opinion is he's probably good for stitching up injuries or a mild colic. He doesn't do horse dentals, and has a practice that is mainly small animals. The vet coming out is from the equine hospital and they have five or six horse vets. 

I've been worried about getting vet care since the town where the horses are is very small and remote. Thankfully, my last vet has been mailing me Hero and Amore's pills, but I've known we need a vet much closer. It's been a year this month since Amore and Hero had their teeth done, so things are working out OK. No one had spring vaccinations this year, and I'd like to know their recommendations for deworming in this area. I've seen Aria have a wad of food twice, and she eats pellets slowly so I'm suspicious she might have dental issues. At six, many horses are fine, but I've also heard of young horses that have issues.


----------



## bsms

I worry about dental issues. Got mine checked last summer because the dentist needed work during COVID and came out. All the dentists here require you to trailer them over and that isn't going to happen any time soon. No signs of trouble right now, happily.


----------



## gottatrot

It's also scary to hear horror stories on the forum about horse dentals gone wrong.

I don't know how everyone gets such good pictures from the saddle. Here were my best attempts from today.


















Oh well...
We had a great ride. It was very windy but Hero only spooked once. When we first started out, Aria was calling out to Hero and running up and down the field, so he didn't want to walk away from her. I hopped off and led him a block or so down the road, then got back on and after that he was fine.

DH said Aria stopped calling after several minutes, once Hero was out of sight. Then she and Amore hung out together. To me that type of separation anxiety is fairly easy to deal with. As long as everyone calms down soon and no one gets crazy, it's not that bad.

Mikey's rider commented on how much better Hero is doing at going into the scary trails through the woods.

We only walked and trotted a little, because Mikey's rider brings her little Boston along in a sling. She feels left out because she has neurological issues and can't walk well anymore. The other Boston, Gil runs along with us.








Hero likes this pace of ride. He's a heavy horse built more for bursts of energy and slower sustained speed. He's not an endurance type physically. When you see him with the QH, Mikey, they look a lot alike. I really think as he matures more he's going to do well enough that even an intermediate rider will be able to handle him, especially if I was on another horse that could give him confidence.


----------



## gottatrot

The mustang colt is back at the barn, he's been at the trainer's for a couple of months. His owner says he's a yearling now. He's been gelded, is still tiny but looking a little less gawky, and is more used to being handled. Seems like he'll do fine. When we went walking by on the way down to the horse fields, I had all three horses with me. Hero absolutely insisted on going over to see the little guy. Taz bit Hero on the nose, and Hero didn't do anything. I think he likes the little critter.

I wormed everyone today. A lot of the time, I just act like Aria should know how to do something, and this strategy often works. Overthinking can sometimes be an enemy. She took the wormer like an old pro. Of course, I'm sticking something good in her mouth very often so I guess if it doesn't taste so great once in a while that's not so terrible.

Now that I have her front hooves trimmed nicely, I'm dying to work on her hind ones, but we're not quite to the point of rasping yet. I can pick out her right one, but she is still resistant to having me hold the left one. I'm going to measure her fronts soon so I can get her cute little hoof boots and we can go on walks down the road. I hope they make Renegades small enough for her, otherwise I know Easycare makes pony boots. Aria's hoof walls are nearly triple the thickness of Hero's. I'm happy for this, but it just shows how bad TB hooves are. 

Aria is extremely easy to catch now. I can just walk up and put a lead rope around her neck, and then put the halter on. Leading with the others down the road is helpful for her training too, because one of the other horses inevitably crosses behind her and gets a rope across her back or around her hind end. Today Amore's rope was over the top of her neck, and she let me just swing it back and get it loose without a fuss. 

Last time I was at the barn I did more playing than work, so today I had nearly four wheelbarrows of manure to haul off the acre. I always tell myself it's good for me.

DH is always willing to go get hay bales from the feed store across the road while I ride or do chores. The other day he brought back several bales because I was nearly out. It always cracks me up, because they'll tell him things and he'll have no idea what it means. 
Last time he said, "They wanted you to know they also have another type that is good, and it has three kinds of hay in the bale." 
"OK, do you remember what they were called?" 
"No." 
"Well, the orchard grass is fine."
This time he said, "They were out of the hay we usually buy, but they say this stuff is almost as good. The only problem is it has something in it." 
"Like weeds or something?" 
"No, it had a name, but I can't remember." I've found a couple of nettles in the hay, so probably that is what the issue was. I just tell him to get whatever grass hay is the most expensive, because that almost always ends up being the nice orchard grass. 

The horses are quite happy to see my truck pull up. They first get their itchy spots scratched, then they go down to the big field to eat grass for a couple hours. When they come back, there are new piles of hay in the sheds, and there is no manure to eat around in the field, and no flies. Lots of treats all around too. Spoiled brats.


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> I just tell him to get whatever grass hay is the most expensive


Yeah, isn't that the truth! Here the choice is almost always Bermuda vs Alfalfa, first cut or second. I prefer the Bermuda because the grass stems can lie on the bare ground and they can pick them up without getting sand. Once in a great while I can buy Timothy, but that is maybe once/year. But a simple rule of thumb is "_Get the most expensive...._"


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> I don't know how everyone gets such good pictures from the saddle.


Don't feel alone. I can never get good pictures from the saddle . . . and all 4 of my horses stand quietly. Just when I am trying to snap a picture, the horse shakes his head or stomps at a fly or hitches a hind foot. Never fails. @4horses takes great pictures. I beg her to send them to me.

Very thrilling about the possibility of a foal. Isabeau was an "oops" baby. Her dam was 18 months when bred, and she delivered at 2 1/2 years old. I think you are doing an amazing job with Aria and Hero looks fabulous. I wish we humans could look so good as we age.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks, @knightrider!

DH and I are heading toward our 20th anniversary next month. I think there are many things that help people stay together for a long time, but some of the little things are quite important. Just being able to enjoy the mundane things of life is one. Another, I've seen from my own parents is the ability to tease and laugh at each other and oneself.

At the barn, we were actually having a good time picking up the manure in the field. We noticed how often there were two piles next to each other, so we could each pick up one before moving the wheelbarrow. So we said the horses planned it out that way for us. Then we joked about the skill levels required for various manure piles. For example, I said that a pile buried in deep grass was for advanced scoopers only. There were a lot of ways to make it fun, like racing to see who could get their pile into the wheelbarrow fastest. We laughed a lot.

It sounds trivial, but I've noticed that many people have difficulty enjoying life even when they're doing something very special, like visiting a spectacular place like the Grand Canyon, and even more trouble when they are in the daily grind. Many people say it's important to try to enjoy each day, even the little and mundane things in life, and I think there are enough hard and terrible times in life that can get us down, so why not try to enjoy those days when things are less stressful or depressing? I see examples of trying to enjoy the little things in life with @Knave and @SueC, who both mention spending time goofing around with their spouses, just having fun. I think that's great. 

We think this quote from Twin Peaks is a good ideal to strive for:








It seems to me that those little things in life are quite important. A lot of the pressure we put on ourselves is quite ridiculous and unnecessary.


----------



## SueC

That's such a wonderful post I had to log in to tell you even though I'm on the reading device without a proper keyboard. Congratulations on your upcoming 20th! 🎶🍰☕🚴‍♀️🚴🎻🎈

And that's all so true. Humour is ultra important and you'll never want for a laugh with a sense of the ridiculous as so many things are ridiculous, especially in human life and including in ourselves. It's also much easier to change if you can laugh at yourself and we all have little or big things that could be improved.

Laugh at the devil and he will flee from thee etc. And all those wonderful endorphins...😜

Children know how to play and it's great if you can never lose that capacity. While we try not to be childish we strive to be childlike - that's about not losing the best aspects of childhood like a sense of fun and play, creativity, wonder, being in the moment. Without that, as you say, people can stand in front of the Grand Canyon and be empty inside. And who else doesn't lose these qualities? ...animals


----------



## gottatrot

Aria looked pregnant to me today. She just doesn't seem fat enough all over to justify a belly like that. I've wormed her again recently too.


----------



## Knave

That was an excellent post I agree! Husband and I were just talking about things like this. We’ve tended in the last couple years to put a lot of pressure on ourselves, and we are at a point of changing that. We just want to focus on the joy and the love.  

You are three years ahead of us. We just had our anniversary.

I think she does look pregnant.


----------



## SueC

Congratulations, @Knave! 💃🐙🎂🥂🌹💗🌞🐣 🏃

Not sure if these emojis are going to display on your device as they are made by the iPad and so were the ones I sent @gottatrot. There were no cowboy hats that didn't look dumb. You're 4 years ahead of us!

Aria does look pregnant, @gottatrot, and if that were my horse I would be freaking out but I know your situation is different and you may actually be looking forward to that experience. I guess I've seen enough of young foals, and actually too much personally because my parents bred them at irresponsible rates and I am still dealing with the fallout of that decades on. The three I have here now are all retirees from horse racing which I think is one of the stupidest so-called sports on the planet.

In addition to that, I've had two high-needs retirees. Romeo cost us $2,000 per year to maintain not including vet costs for his last five years of life and after we added all that up, we said that though we were happy to have done it for him, we would never extend a horse's life artificially at that cost again because we were skipping our own dental checkups and other things to do it.

And then Sunsmart got Cushings and he's now on 1.5 Prascend a day and that itself is now $2,000 a year because the vet adds on $800 to the basic cost of the already expensive drug to supply it. I phoned for another pack today and was informed they'd not supply it again until they did another round of blood tests and consult for which they quoted me over $500. And I said no, the horse is stable on the medicine and I can't justify another huge bill like that - it's over two days' salary for my husband or a week of farmstay hosting for me and I'm just not doing this anymore. We scrimp each time something like this comes up and we are exhausted. We have signed off of that veterinary practice, mileage alone is a killer, and we are talking about the situation with the new vet closer to us who tended to Nelly recently. Wish us luck.

Veterinary treatment has become ultra expensive. Since the advent of power tool dentistry, the price for an equine dental treatment has doubled and it is no better, in fact our horses had trouble eating after their last dentals and I am not interested in paying over $1,600 annually to get all the horse and donkey teeth done routinely. I already do their feet myself. The vet who attended Nelly told me of another vet I can call who still does traditional filing, which we only ever did when horses failed the carrot test, which happens before they start cudding etc.

When you consider that $2,000 is the basic annual cost for me to keep the three horses and five donkeys here - mineral mix, chaff, cubes etc for the bucket mix, wormer, trimming tool maintenance, basic equipment like replacement rugs occasionally - and that is OK I think, but puts those other costs in perspective.

Anyway, anything that dies won't be replaced and in 10 years from now, when those three horses are no more, I may consider whether I want to keep riding and get myself one horse that is happy just to hang with whatever donkeys remain at that point. Or I may forget it. And it is ludicrous to think that if those three will need euthanasia the collective cost of that via the vet would be enough to buy a very reasonable horse and have change, in this country. Makes me think I need to talk to our neighbours who are excellent marksmen and who would be prepared to do a 5-minute job like that for less than 500 bucks. Keep it local, perhaps. After all, our neighbour put down my Arab mare for me back in 2014 when the then-vet was still faffing about with painkillers when she had cancer.

/end rant


----------



## gottatrot

Yes, if there is a foal it will be stressful. My first thoughts are more about issues than a cute foal. 

My hope is that if I have the right mindset, it won't be too difficult to part with a foal after weaning. For me it's not just the costs, but also the time horses need. Especially since I'm doing my own chores now, and putting in hay, working with three horses is more than plenty, even if one is retired. Amore also needs hoof trimming, treatments, handling, turnout, grooming. Each horse needs a lot of time and physical plus mental energy.

Vet expenses...I expect to pay $1,000+ to have the vet visit with checkups and dentals on the three horses. I hope this new vet doesn't think Amore needs blood tests at her age to continue on her Cushing's pills. I also hope they'll prescribe the Equioxx for Hero, because it seems to help him a lot. 

I don't know about vet fees for a pregnant mare. I'm thinking about how far away the vets are (1.5 hrs) and all of those dilemmas. Living a half hour away from the horses, it's not realistic that I could check constantly for days to ensure a safe foaling. If there was difficulty, it could take too long for a vet to arrive. I'm wondering if I should try to find somewhere that would board and monitor her closer to the vets. But I've heard that it can be dangerous to trailer a mare late term so she'd have to go earlier. There is a vet in town, he does not do farm calls. I wonder if he might be persuaded to be available for a foaling emergency. It would seem most comfortable for Aria to foal in a familiar environment. What risks should I take? I never wanted to breed a mare. 

The many expenses and potential expenses with health problems that each horse brings can be formidable. I'd much rather give one or two horses excellent care than skimp on important things for more horses. Any animal can end up being expensive if accidents or diseases occur. It is why I limit myself to an amount I believe I can afford, worst case scenario. This was something I considered before accepting Aria, but I didn't think at all about a possible foal. I won't mention my comparative expenses, it would sound appalling. But my career was chosen with horses in mind. It will work out financially, but I also think about the time and attention each horse needs. I might be overstretched for a bit.

My sister with her farm doesn't stress or worry about her animals as much. She's planning to AI her Highland cows and to have calves. I'd be thinking about all the things that could to wrong, be expensive or harm the animals. She's thinking she'll sell the calves for quite a bit.


----------



## SueC

Advance apologies for long post on your patch.

I respect and empathise with your thinking for your situation, and think much the same. But each situation is also different. For example, Brett and I have discussed what is reasonable to us in terms of a retirement for a horse. We think it is reasonable that while horses over 20 are healthy and respond to the basic nursing we can provide, that's fine. Also if they need the odd veterinary visit, that's fine. Dentals used to be fine when they were as-needed and with hand files at $80 a horse - but they are not fine at $200 or over a horse, annually. So we're going back to as-needed and finding someone with a hand file, which is what I believe @Knave does as well, whose situation is closer to my own: Living on a farm and not having huge amounts of income. Also seeing the reality of death and the apartheid we create around it, sometimes very unreasonably. I send in my steers for human food. The most I ever got for one is $2,500. That's the price on the life of a young animal, and is it a fair exchange to keep an old horse with a chronic illness who would have been dead years ago in the wild going another year, for that price? I don't think it is. I think we anthropomorphise the animals we have social bonds with, and privilege them over those we don't have those sorts of bonds with. And all of us have to die. The important thing is that we can prevent suffering around that, with our animals anyway.

And when there's chronic illness in an old animal that's going to result in ongoing significant expenses, for us that is no longer fine, especially if we are changing ourselves short to do it, with our own personal needs, or with the needs of other things in our care.

We applied that standard when Sunsmart's mother developed rapid-onset Cushings just shy of 28 years old. We assessed the situation, saw that treatment would be unlikely to give her more than a 50% chance of a quality life and be incredibly expensive for her acute situation, and we opted for euthanasia. We feel that was the right decision. She'd had a long life by horse standards and a happy three years of retirement with us, which is more than most horses get. Instead of pouring thousands into treating an old horse who'd had a good innings and a decent retirement we opted instead to adopt a younger, healthy retired horse (Julian) who I knew was living a lonely, miserable situation, and give him her spot, and with that his first-ever chance to be social with other horses and free-range in an interesting environment. His eyes are lit up every day. I don't think the old mare would have had an argument about that - if you'll let me anthropomorphise for a minute. It's sort of how it goes: We leave the stage to make room for the younger ones eventually.

Because Sunsmart is my riding horse, we treated him for Cushings when it was mild and the drugs were under $650 a year. We were trying to prevent a loss of quality of life with him and to prolong his working life, and that's how it went for over a year, and was worth doing all around. He's a great horse, we enjoy our outings, he's a super horse to teach others on. When his ACTH was no longer controlled by the level of medication he was on summer before last, he was re-tested and the dosage increased. But he'd gotten so bad in such a short period of time that I would have opted for euthanasia if he'd had laminitis or insulin resistance. It was fortunate for us he had neither. It took him months to respond to the increased medication and to stabilise. He's been back to having good quality of life for nearly a year, he still goes on rides, he still runs around with his herd.

But at the current price of his medication and the veterinarian's insistence on re-testing him every year from now on in treatment alone would come to upwards of $2,500 a year. He's 24.5, and if we keep him going another four years like this, that's $10,000 and is just not conscionable for us to do that. We can't let property maintenance and our needs fall by the wayside to artificially extend the life span of an old animal who has already had a good life and a decent retirement. I think that would be insanity, and we've already done that once and swore never to do it again. Sometimes you just need to let go. I know that's not the done thing with a lot of modern humans, that we'll pay any price to prolong our own lives or the lives of our companion animals - often even at the point when quality of life is really poor. That's not how things go in nature, and sometimes I think we need to accept rather than fight death.

Even if we won the lottery, I don't believe that spending resources like that on an old animal is necessarily ethical. There's other animals younger and less fortunate looking for spots, not that this is up for discussion this time. It's what we did in the past but we're also drawing the line under that now, because the amount of work I'm putting into this has to reduce as I get older.

The one thing I disagree with you on, @gottatrot, is the idea that it's possible to limit yourself to what you could sustain under the worst-case scenario. Even if you only have a dog, and no other companion animals, it could suddenly have an accident a year and repeatedly require surgery worth thousands and at the same time you could have an accident yourself, lose your ability to work and exhaust your savings to pay for it. We can decide to only take on what is reasonable for us, and that's what you did, and what I did. I know the limit of how many animals I can care for properly and still enjoy the process. I've never wanted to have more animals than I can properly look after, and I've not reached that point - and I've now got a new policy of not replacing any horses or donkeys I lose, so I can continue not to reach that point as I get older myself. But I don't think properly looking after an animal includes expensive medical interventions without limit in case of accident or chronic illness. I think properly looking after an animal is to give it a decent standard of care, feed, social interaction with others of its kind and interesting things to do, and I owe that to food animals and companion animals alike. What I don't owe any animal is running resources into the ground in case of accident or chronic illness - what I owe it then is a humane end, instead of an unpleasant demise.

We're going to draw the line on Sunsmart's treatment. We may go a little longer if we can get the cost of it down, e.g. if the new vet lets us buy our own Prascend online with a prescription, and if she agrees to a yearly standard health checkup not necessitating complete blood panels and Cushings re-testing when the horse is stable and doing well on his medication. That would let us give him another year or so, as long as his quality of life stays acceptable. And then we'd see what the situation is. His sire died of colic at age 24. His dam got chronically ill at age 27, with the same thing that he has now. His teeth are wearing out and are beginning to be a factor. The end of the line comes whether we want it or not.

We've had to put down three horses in the last ten years, all of which had had long lives and good retirements. We're going to have to put down three more in the next ten years, most likely, because ours are between 20 and 24, and horses rarely die peacefully and quietly of their own accord - I've only ever personally known one horse like that, who at age 27 went to sleep one night and didn't wake up next morning. When she was found she just looked like she was sleeping. Wouldn't it be nice if they all went like this, but to be honest, humane euthanasia isn't horrible for an animal either, if it's done thoughtfully and competently. It's just us it bothers so much.


----------



## bsms

Tough calls with animals. I spent $2000 on Jack when he was bitten by a rattlesnake as a puppy. Never regretted it. But wouldn't do the same now that he is almost 13 and starting to withdraw a bit...choosing to spend more of his day in bedrooms sleeping than he used to. Horses? I might spend $2000 in an emergency, but not much more. I'd spend more on Bandit than Trooper since Bandit is much younger and much more friendly. If someone wants to argue I'm unethical....I won't argue, but I won't change either. I understand why some might spend less than I would, and understand why others would spend much more. I wouldn't challenge either of those. Very personal questions. I wouldn't want anyone making heroic efforts to save my life either. I'd certainly spend more than 2-5K on saving my life, but I wouldn't bankrupt my family over me.

It was challenging to live in the Philippines in the 80s. The poverty was extreme. Before we married, my wife made $50/month working 6 days a week as a house girl - and she was GLAD. When she worked in Manila, she was paid $20/month, worked 7 days a week and they fed her so little she weighed 80 lbs when she left to see if some Americans would hire her. What are one's moral responsibility living as a wealthy American - certainly comparatively wealthy! - in the midst of such poverty? I never figured out the answer. I still don't. We've got a box in the living room with clothes we're about to send to her family (something we do several times a year), and we're sending the security deposit we got back to her family. But is that enough? I can pray about it but I've yet to walk outside in the morning and see, written across the sky, "_Send $X,XXX, Bob!_" Or "_$XX,XXX_"!


----------



## gottatrot

I think both of you @SueC and @bsms are kind and ethical people.

Well, talking about worst case scenarios, I don't exactly worry about that because the chances are that the best decision for the animal will not be spending insane amounts of money. If a dog needed surgery every year, most likely there would be a problem that would mean he was suffering more than he was happy. I don't worry about a horse needing a massive colic surgery, because if the problem was that bad the chances are very low that the vet would say the horse would have a better life if we loaded them into a trailer and drove them with their dying gut to the surgery clinic and put them through a long and grueling recovery. 

For me it is not about cost, or saving myself from heartbreak, it is always about if I believe the choice is a good one for the animal. For example, my Dalmatian was 12 when his bladder filled up with stones. It was either put him to sleep, do surgery, or he might die in surgery at his age. He couldn't urinate so would die anyway. The vet thought he was healthy enough for surgery, and that if he fixed the problem, after a couple of weeks he would be fairly normal again. He had arthritis, but not severe and still was running around and happy. So age or cost was not the factor (about $1,000), it was how much suffering there might be versus a good outcome. My dog did well, seemed to feel pretty good within a week, and we had him three more years. 

It was the same when my Papillon was kicked by Amore. It cost $3,000 but I didn't try to save him because he was only three and healthy, or because I loved him too much to let him die, but because the vet thought there was a good chance he could make a full recovery, and medications to keep him comfortable in the meantime. 

Both my husband and I grew up poor, and for some reason we don't think of money or resources the same as a lot of people. We put more value in things that are not tangible resources than things that are. I'm not saying this is a way others should be, just discussing, really, a different perspective. For example, we have spent many tens of thousands of dollars on trips that only leave us with photos and memories. But we have never thought about money we might have or possessions we could have if we hadn't taken trips. For us, seeing the world and its beauty has more value than a remodeled kitchen, for example, or a nicer car. Other people have different things they value more. If we could not afford a place to live and food to eat and also take big trips, we'd still find a way to travel and have adventures in other ways. 

One thing I have seen as a nurse is how we might try to plan out our lives, but there are a thousand ways things can change and out of all those things, our health and our possessions are the least reliable. Fires can burn everything, people can steal things, or those we love can lose their health or sanity. That's why I try to make decent financial decisions, but I don't live my life for some fantasy that will happen later on, such as over saving for the perfect retirement, because I've seen so many that planned to travel later, but now are too ill, or their spouse died. They worked hard and paid off their house, and then the state took it to pay for the nursing home. To enjoy the loved ones you have now (for me that means animals and humans), that is important and people can't steal those memories from you. 

We can't be completely selfish creatures, but we don't have to live our lives for other people's ideals. Our dreams are horses and travel. We help our families if they have needs, but they spend and save or don't save according to their own values. Our dreams are ones that must be done while having some youth and health. 

My sacrifices are ones others are not willing to make; exposure to violence and disease, the stress of pressure in a highly critical/criticized job, seeing people traumatized and dying, understanding that my decisions mean life or death, and taking care of all the detritus a sick body produces. For that, I must have rewards to make it worthwhile. For me these are spoiling my family of animals, and ourselves in certain ways. 

But our values are also such that we have a lot more money to spend "recklessly," because we don't care a whit about many things people care about. We don't care about clothes, or purses or shoes. Our furniture is cheap, free, falling apart, unmatching. Our towels and blankets were wedding presents from 20 years ago, some have holes, some are hideous. We use disposable cell phones that cost us $20 a month (for both of us). We don't have cable or subscriptions to all those online things you can get. We cut our own hair, use cheap soap and shampoo, and don't spend money on concerts, movies, parties for friends, don't smoke and hardly buy any alcohol, so there are many hundreds of things other people think they need, that we don't, and so we have many hundreds of extra dollars to spend on the animal care we think is necessary, the gas that our less efficient truck and car use, and other things people look at and think is wasteful. 

We go to the dentist when our teeth hurt. The horses have dental care yearly. All the pets see the vet if they seem a little off. We avoid human doctors unless something is obviously broken, and work on our health with exercise and diet. We feel responsible for the pets, and that's not because they're human-like, but because we value them highly, and we love them. I guess I've learned that people will judge others for their values (not doing that here), but without knowing the big picture and adding it all up, it might seem a person is wasteful when they really just have different ways of valuing things. 

Those who have kids have made the choice to place a high priority on their lives and well being. Those who have chosen other responsibilities will have other values. We like the kind of happiness we've chosen. You might like pretty things in your house. We like weird stuff like colored water in jars sitting in the windows and fossils. There are so many ways to look at things. How much should you pay for a horse? Or a dog? How much should you pay for a book, or a cup of coffee? If you bought yourself the perfect horse, for $10,000, do you have more to spend on his health care or less than if he was free? How much should you spend on a car? Should you drive a car and use gas if it is to care for an animal? What if it was to care for a human? Or a piece of land?

None of us can help everyone, and can only give to a few we choose. Many can't even get together enough to help themselves and not be a burden on everyone else. 
To me, money is just money. You should see how much our house which we haven't yet sold has fluctuated in price. If we'd sold it sooner, it would have been silly to think we'd lost money we might have had. I don't have any idea if we'll actually sell it this month as we plan, or if it will burn down or explode first. Chickens and eggs. I can add up just Amore's boarding costs for the 18 years I've had her and realize it's been at least $55,000, and that for a $700 horse. However, if I'd smoked a pack of cigarettes per day for those 18 years, it would have cost me around $40,000, and I guess I'm willing to pay a little more than that for a much healthier vice. Would I have beautiful memories of smoking those cigarettes? A great friend to remember forever? Would I have written a book about it? Some things are absolutely priceless.


----------



## Knave

This is an interesting discussion in two totally different ways. I don’t have much money. It’s not really a problem, because we have enough to eat and to mostly do the things we need to, like shoe the vehicles lol, but we don’t have any extra. Sometimes we seem to run into a piece of money, and then someone gets hurt and hospital bills are outrageous. I just spent 3k for the visit to the hospital for big girl to be told she had a concussion and them not to sew up her mouth, which will always be a bit off, but luckily it is cute enough on someone who looks like Barbie. Now I had to take her back in, because I knew she was anemic, and the tests proved it massively. Also, she has developed post concussive disorder, so there is that too. I say this not to complain, but to give an example of why I have no ability to hold on to my extra money.

Yet I look at money in a different way too. I am quite capable of going and getting a town job, which would turn our situation around easily. I don’t really care that we don’t have money though, and I love the environment of the work I do, and I do know that eventually we will be financially set (although I don’t care to live for the future that way).

I spend the money I have to, and usually nothing more. It seems God always provides, and when someone is hurt we magically have that money. The same seems true of our animals. We give them good lives; I doubt they are of want of anything.

So I look at the medical expenses of them differently. If they cannot survive something they will be put down. That is sad, but the amount of money required to do continuous surgeries or the like isn’t even what I consider in it I don’t think, maybe subconsciously I do, but it’s a quality of life. It’s kind of a general view where I live too. A vet might tell you, “they will never come back from this, I probably would put him down,” and so we do. I’m sure there is the person that says, “I don’t care the cost, or if I could ride him again, what can we do to keep him here as comfortably as possible?” That’s not me though.

Yes, I will retire a horse. He gets to live out his days with everyone else and fat and happy and unusable, but when he develops problems that aren’t a one time fix he is usually put down before winter comes. It seems kind to me, but I am like @bsms, and I don’t want to be pushed into a longer life.


----------



## gottatrot

Good thoughts, @Knave. I'm also about quality of life versus quantity for animals and humans. Prolonging is a good term.

If someone wants to put down a horse, that is fine with me. But I think you either treat an animal or put them down. Suffering is what I am against, not death.

It's true with us too, if you ever find yourself with extra money don't hold your breath. That money was given to you for a reason, which will soon reveal itself when the car breaks down or an appliance, or your tooth breaks.


----------



## gottatrot

Aria is becoming rather domesticated. I'll walk in, put her halter on, lead her out and tie her, brush her all over. She'll stand tied while I work on the other horses. I filed on a hind hoof for the first time, and held the more resistant one for several seconds. Pulling them away seems less about fear at this point and more about the difficult feeling of balancing her weight when I pick up a hind leg. Between the long hooves and her belly, she is awkward. She's not quite to the point where I can spray fly spray right on her, but I can spray it on my hand right next to her and rub it on her. I can put a fly mask on her easily. 

I took her on a walk down the road with Hero today, places she's never been. She was so well behaved. He was the only one who misbehaved and got in front of me a couple of times. I'm trying to avoid things that are very strenuous. She can learn a lot about being handled as we go. 

I've been reading about feeding a pregnant mare. She is gaining weight rapidly, so I don't want to overdo it because I know obesity is bad too, just like with pregnant humans. She gets the same amount of orchard grass hay as the others. I tried putting a mare and foal supplement into FeedXL versus the vitamin/mineral supplement she's already on, and the mare and foal supplement had so much Vitamin A that it supposedly was nearing toxic, but if I cut back on the rest of it there would be deficiencies. So I think I'll stay with what I'm feeding. From what I've read, the biggest issues are making sure the horse gets all the needed vitamins and minerals, and making sure she has enough calories. I can always feed more hay. 

She wears a yearling fly mask and halter.


----------



## Knave

She’s looking a lot better! She’s still kind of angled. It’s continues to blow my mind how small she is. She just doesn’t look like a pony!


----------



## gottatrot

I post a lot on the forum about how I'm against the idea that horses need free choice hay when they're on pasture. There are quite a few people where I live who think that it's best to feed horses lots of low quality hay, even if horses are overweight. 

My barn is an example of how horse management turns out with different approaches, because we have a few different owners with horses all on about an acre lot. All the horses are on 24/7 turnout on the same land. 

One horse is older and has not had her teeth done in years. Her owner feeds just a little bit of cheap, low quality hay. The horse has eaten her lot down to almost dirt, and is thin.

Then there are a few owners who feed measured amounts of hay of varying quality, and monitor how much the horses need. All of these horses are at a normal weight or very close to it. 

A couple owners feed as much low quality hay as their horses can eat. These horses are obese and/or have signs of insulin resistance. The worst one looks like this. This is why I speak out against the practice.

















Hero and Aria are so cute together. I realized today that the Hero needed a sidekick. They're like Batman and Robin or the Tick and Arthur. They zoom around the field together, Aria right at Hero's side. He looks like the fearless leader, and she's like "I'm here, let's do it!" He is more calm now that he has her. She's been very good for him.

Today Aria let me file on both hind hooves, and hold all four. When I got to the last hoof, she picked it up for me. Smart little pony.


----------



## Knave

That’s awesome about the hooves!

That horse looks awful! My dad sold a horse once he called Woody. Woody was a favorite of mine, but not of anyone else’s. He was a super hot style of horse, like most cutter bred horses of the time, and when they took him they let him get super fat. Not as fat as that horse, but fat. 

One day they decided to use him. When a cow turned back he got excited and reared up and died. Just like that, he had a heart attack.


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, that is crazy!


----------



## gottatrot

The horses have such nice coats this year. Not sure exactly why, might be the good hay or the Tri-amino I'm giving them.
I'm very proud of Amore. I've had a fear of having her lose health and condition and am so glad to not see any signs of it yet. She has had less difficulty with sweet itch this year because I'm picking up the manure regularly. I just feel like no one could ever guess she was 30. 


















Sometimes I think of TBs as finer-bodied horses than many actually are. I get a mental image of the immature racehorses, and I've seen quite a few that had ulcers and were underweight. Hero is a solidly built horse, and to me he looks similar to some of the mature TBs I see online. 



























I wanted to try to get a picture of Aria's back markings. Standing on the pickup bed, didn't get a very clear shot. She was wondering what I was doing up there. She lets me touch her udder, and under her tail. Halla never would, LOL. 


















Her belly has some weird asymmetry to it.








I was reading that people think they see a foal moving but it's usually just breathing and muscle movement. I watched some videos on youtube that showed foal movement, and I thought that it had to be what was in the video. But watching Aria, I saw all kinds of similar movements today that seemed to sync with her breathing, flinching, twitching, snorting, etc. Everything is exaggerated when it rolls around on a big belly.


----------



## bsms

Hero looks like a TANK to me! Bandit is a good fellow but he's about half of a horse in comparison:






After 6 years of riding him - has it been that long? - I wonder what I'd do if I tossed a leg over a normal horse. I can vaguely remember when I first started riding him and he felt very narrow compared to Mia. I suspect a normal horse would feel like a couch to me now....not sure my aging legs would spread far enough apart to ride a normal horse any more!

Hero looks more like what a Hollywood star would ride. Bandit is more like what the faithful sidekick would get....


----------



## Knave

That’s really odd… I want to think it’s scarring, but it’s odd.


----------



## SueC

Just catching up again! ...and need to actually go do some work, but I did want to say that in Australia, we have some midges to which some horses are allergic, and when susceptible horses get bitten by those, they get allergic reactions that lead to de-pigmentation of hair. This typically happens across the middle of the back in a similar position to where your horse has it, but the cases I've seen tend to be spottier, rather than having such large areas involved. This may be because the cases I've seen are cases where the owners started applying the pour-on insect repellent that vets prescribe for this condition the moment they noticed areas starting to de-pigment, so that it never got so severe. On the other hand, your horse may have something completely different - but I would say it was acquired, rather than an inborn thing.

Another idea: A vet told me that some people are erroneously using pour-on cattle ivermectin to worm their horses cheaper than with the horse products - the only thing is, the horses apparently have different hair follicles which don't actually admit proper absorption of this product through the skin - and the other is that the carrier in the pour-on gives susceptible horses chemical burns - and those can lead to both scarring and depigmentation of hair. If I had to guess between the two ideas I've presented, I'd actually go with this one - looks more like a splash pattern to me from doing a pour-on, and it's exactly where it's supposed to go in a cow... @Knave, what do you think?


----------



## Knave

That’s an excellent thought @SueC! In the situation this mare was in, unhandled too, if they wanted to worm it would make sense to pour on. I’ve never seen anyone do that before. We even avoid those spot fly sprays; they are supposed to work really well, but I’ve heard they burn.

Do you remember the story I told about the bull and the fire because of the pour on? He is still alive and quite well, but he has white scarring all down his side.


----------



## bsms

I tried the spot fly stuff. Couldn't get a horse to stand still long enough. So I assume they cause pain. Not severe pain maybe but enough and I don't want to deal with a dancing, upset horse.


----------



## knightrider

I'm going to go with lacing. My neighbor had a lovely black Paso Fino with lacing on his back. Here is a short article about lacing:

*Lacing Markings*
Lacing looks similar to dapples, but backward, or perhaps giraffe spots. It’s also called giraffe spots of cobwebbing. Some people think it’s genetic, while others think it might be some sort of scarring from skin infections. But, because some owners have had foals from mares that have had the same pattern on their coats, it’s probably genetic, caused by a recessive gene. It tends to grow year after year, and that too, points to genetic origins, as scars or healed lesions would probably lessen over time, not increase.

Sometimes really unusual coat patterns can happen that have nothing to do with genetics. Pinto markings are especially apt to create pictures on a horse’s coat that look like other things. I knew a horse that had a very precise silhouette of a person wearing a feathered headdress on its side. In Britain, a pinto pony foal was born with its own silhouette on its shoulder. There are horses with maps of countries or other animals. The phenomena of seeing an image in another random object is called pareidolia. And this has inspired contests in which digital image software users are challenged to create artistic pareidoliac images. Many of the unbelievable unusual coat markings are computer generated, so you can’t believe everything you see. 

Here is a photo of my neighbor's Paso Fino with lacing. I've read a lot about it since I was riding with one.


----------



## gottatrot

@bsms, I really prefer the narrower type horse. First, they are usually more self-propelled, second, the wide load is harder to straddle. 
Hero is the kind of horse that many people I know would prefer to ride. Once you get on, he has that slow and easy walk, and you just mosey along. His trot is also smooth (unless he's excited and jigs instead). So he'd be a perfect beginner horse, and confidence builder if he didn't have the tendency to get worked up once in a while, and also do his little skittering/bucking type maneuvers. However, these things are lessening over time, so perhaps by the time he is 20, he will be that type of horse. 

My first thought had been scarring on Aria's back too. A chemical would be a possibility. But it does seem to have characteristics of a pattern too. In some places it makes little half circles or Vs. I don't think it could be from rain rot, because where she came from has a very hot and dry climate. I had thought maybe it could be from going under a fence, but it's not completely on top of her spine. Amore once skinned herself going under a butt rope on a horse trailer, and the wounds were all on top of her spine (no scars though). 

The other thing that makes me think it is a marking is that some of the patches are so big, white and solid that it would seem like it might have been a serious wound to make them. But the skin doesn't feel bumpy or rough like there is any scarring underneath.


----------



## SueC

Freeze brands routinely just de-pigment new hair, without causing any scars you can feel - and that's the same with the allergic reactions to midges causing white spots over the back. I personally can totally envisage large depigmented areas from certain chemical burns, and the vet did say that this happens in susceptible horses - and does de-pigment. (The chemicals don't actually peel off the epidermis like acid, it's more like an inflammatory reaction in the skin etc - nothing ever scabs.)

But yeah, that's very much the kind of pattern I see in "blue" (dye) when I backline a cow - it's the right places and the applicator dropping over from the top makes those kinds of patterns - the large primary area as well as the splotchier ones as you continue to work along the backline. But to know for sure you'd have to know if she was born with it or not, and if not, if she was backlined with _anything_.

I liked your observations on free-hay feeding - and I remember someone on HF doing that because he was terrified of stomach ulcers, and ended up with an overweight horse with laminitis...

@bsms, have you ever come across DMSO? It's an old type of topical anti-inflammatory that's applied to a horse's skin, and horses always react to it with surprise, and some by running around for a few minutes. I tried it on my own skin - it's a similar feeling to Oil of Wintergreen - methyl salicylate - I wouldn't say that hurts, but it's certainly weird and I could see it spooking a horse. Which is not to say that some of these chemicals couldn't possibly hurt - I'm sure that's possible too - my own sensations aren't everyone's, or those of every species...

(...and if you accidentally get methyl salicylate on your, ahem, undercarriage because you didn't wash your hands after applying the sports ointment and then scratch yourself absent-mindedly in bed at night, on that kind of skin it does burn alarmingly and cause pain...and maybe horse skin is more sensitive than ours, who knows... and now you all get to laugh at me because when I was a teenager I had an irritating sweat rash on my undercarriage from horse-riding and was using Bepanthen to treat that area, and one night I did that with the light off and confused that tube with a similar-shaped tube in the drawer that had Deep Heat in it, with the methyl salicylate - that was just terrible, I was nearly crying and in the shower for ages after that...)

@knightrider, that's a very pretty pattern I think! We don't see this kind of thing often in Western Australia - maybe you've got some bloodlines that carry the trait?

It's so interesting to think about how colour or the lack of it, and patterns, get made biologically. Tortoiseshell cats, for example - that's sex-linked switching on or off of certain colours in an early developmental phase in the embryo. Here's today's fun spot: Tortoiseshell cat - Wikipedia

Siamese cats are living thermal maps. Their ancestors were solid chocolate like the Burmese but they have a mutation which inactivates the pigmentation mechanism for the warmer areas of the body - so that the chocolate is reserved for the coolest extremities. If a Siamese needs a cast for long enough, the leg will de-pigment - and then re-pigment eventually later after the cast is removed and newly growing hair gets pigmented again. Likewise, clipping the belly for spaying etc can cause a temporary dark rectangle which eventually fades again. 😎


----------



## bsms

I find my horses aren't FOND of regular fly spray. Bandit has figured out (as Mia did before him) that it makes the flies go away. He'll let me know if I've missed a spot. The other two are much less happy about it. I've had plenty on my hands and arms and feel nothing. It could be the spot fly repellant is like tiger balm or similar stuff - not pain, exactly, but a very different feel. And horses don't like "different". So it might be that, @SueC. Just different. But I'm not patient enough to work on getting them to accept it.


----------



## Knave

I think Hero will end up being a solid type of horse. I was surprised at how quickly Cashman turned around. He was intimidating in the beginning, now I feel confident to put people on him in most situations. When he is worked up he is still intimidating, but it is rather rare anymore. In all actuality I think I could put anyone who could ride fairly well on him and they would be happy. He’s just so solid.

@SueC that made me laugh!! I have done the same thing before with deep blue. Are doterra oils a thing there? Around here they are super popular, but also super expensive, so mostly if I want oils I buy them somewhere else. They have one called deep blue. It’s like a mega intense version of icy hot. It’s pure oils. I got that on the… um… nether region, and it was not fun!


----------



## gottatrot

DH hadn't been to the barn for a while. He was surprised to see how Aria was. Not just the belly.

I said, "Watch," and walked up, then put her halter right on while she stood waiting.

After the horses had been turned out for a while, I said "Guess who will come first?"
Aria started running from the other side of the field the moment she saw us walking up.
We joked that she is the most hungry for treats. She's been missing out for a long time.

DH was amazed at how I can pick out her hooves, and how he can touch her all over now and she stands without flinching. Actually, she pushes into rubs and scratches now instead. She is starting to get very fond of attention.

If she is pregnant, I suppose she might not be as cuddly and sweet afterwards, but she is pretty adorable right now, pushing up into your space with big eyes for attention and treats.

Like DH says, animals seem to get over this threshold sometimes where they decide they trust you and like you, and then everything changes.


----------



## Knave

That sounds lovely!


----------



## gottatrot

A very sad day today. Amore colicked and it was the bad kind, so we had to put her down tonight.

I have to think it is good for a horse to live happy and healthy until their very last day. I have to say it's just as difficult either way; to have a lingering slow decision, or to have it all happen suddenly. 

We played with Amore yesterday, and she was happy and healthy, so it was only today that was a bad one for her. 
The barn owner tried calling in the morning, but I was asleep after my night shift. Amore didn't eat her morning hay, so she was worried about her. Then Amore started rolling and acting colicky throughout the morning, At about 12:30 pm, DH got the messages and woke me up so we could rush to the barn. The vet arrived about a half hour after we did. 

Amore was lying down and we could see she was having pain spasms along her belly. The vet gave her Banamine, and then sedated her to tube her. He left me some more Banamine paste and Dormosedan just in case things got very bad. 

It was difficult to tube her, and a lot of air came out, with some food. She had no gut sounds on one side. After the vet left, at least half of the mineral oil he put through the tube came shooting out of her nose. I believe horses can't normally regurgitate, so I suspected this meant extreme pressure and bad things happening inside. The pain seemed to get worse over the next couple of hours, and by 4 pm I gave more Banamine, even though I knew it was too early.

By 6 she had only passed a couple small pebbles of manure and was breaking out in a sweat, and kept lying down. Sometimes spasms would go over her belly or her legs would go rigid. Her pulse stayed over 60 and I couldn't hear gut sounds. I called the vet to come back. Meanwhile, I gave the Dormosedan, which seemed to help her relax and stop spasming, although she kept pacing around with her head down.

The vet thought everything was looking bad. Amore's belly was more distended and hard, she was having a lot of pain despite medications, and worsening as time went on. 

We decided this was a deadly colic, and put Amore to sleep. She went fast and peacefully. 

We put her down in a corner of the field near a gate so whoever picks up her body could have access. We let Hero and Aria out to go see her body. Aria looked, but then went to stay by Hero. Hero did something strange. He sniffed Amore all over for a long time. Then I guess he understood she was dead. He walked a few feet away from her, stopped, and then kicked out high and hard toward her body with his hind leg. Then he galloped away across the field. We wondered what that meant. 

Amore was 30 and we had her almost 20 years. We'll miss her a lot, but I feel extremely blessed to have had her for so long, and to be able to keep her in great health even with Cushing's for the last few years. I rode her hundreds and hundreds of miles, and she was the silliest horse I've ever met. 

I'll miss her beautiful face. Both DH and I said that Aria was sent to us because her little face and expression look so much like Amore's. So we don't have to miss Amore so much. I'm very glad Hero has a pal too. 

An aside...the vet charged me $1,500 for the first visit on a Sunday. Not sure how much for the follow up and euthanasia. Hope I don't have to use him again...


----------



## egrogan

Oh @gottatrot, I am stunned reading this. I’m so sorry to hear Amore had such a painful afternoon and that you had to make that decision for her. I can only imagine how much you will miss her after such a long life together.


----------



## bsms

I'm also very sorry to hear it. Amore had an uncommonly good life and longer than most horses around here. She had a wonderful life. Far better than most of the horses I know around here. I've got three who, if they had Internet in the corral, would have been glad to trade places with her. I seriously doubt many horses have had better!


----------



## weeedlady

I am so sorry @gottatrot Amore was very well loved and will be missed. Sending healing thoughts and comfort for you.


----------



## Txshecat0423

I am so sorry to hear this…my heart breaks for you. No matter what a great life they’ve had, it’s always hard to make that decision. Thank you for sparing her any more pain and doing what was right for her. 

I’m appalled at that bill to be honest. The expense involved sometimes makes it even more difficult to make that decision. 

On a side note, I’m curious as to Hero’s actions too. I wonder if it had some sort of meaning between the two? 

Again, my condolences.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## SueC

Gosh, I couldn't believe it, Amore looked so wonderful and well muscled and glossy in her photo from last week and not at all 30, or Cushings. I'm so sorry. 😢 Whichever way this happens, it's never easy - expected, unexpected, long illness, short illness. Dying peacefully in their sleep is a bit better, but I've only seen that happen once in all the horses I've personally had anything to do with. The horse just looked asleep propped up on her chest with her lower jaw on the ground, her normal sleeping position - this was one of my fathers' - so she died in a stable and they had a bit of a job getting her body out what with rigor mortis and everything.

That colic sounds very bad indeed and very like one colic I baby-sat and let go too long. This was one of my favourite mares at my parents' - she was a real sweetheart and only about 22 when this happened to her, very like you described. By morning when I was walking her around, up into a paddock she'd been in as a young horse, she looked at me and lay down under a big tree there, and she looked like she was just going to give up, and to my lasting regret I called her back, instead of letting her go. I think if I'd not have done that she'd have died on the spot - you know how some horses seem to be able to just say, "Enough!" and pull the plug? I'd seen that happen before, and at that time it scared me - but now I hope I'd be able to just let it be.

She lived another day or so after that - by the afternoon the spasms had stopped and she was eating hay, but we know now that the reason her pain had largely stopped is because her gut had ruptured around the impaction and therefore the pressure had released, and of course then it was only a few hours before peritonitis set in and things got painful again because of that, and also because she had ruptured she was slowly losing blood internally. Then she was put down. You can imagine how much I regretted that I didn't leave her alone when she was ready to give up under that tree. 😪

I've nursed way too many colic deaths, because of how my parents kept horses, too sedentary and locked up too long and hand-fed hay in sand runs. It's an awful thing; and it even sometimes happens when you keep them more naturally, especially when older. Apparently they have a bigger risk of twisted bowel when the liver shrinks with age and makes space for the bowel to turn. That happens more often when they're full of sand as well, which is what happened to Sunsmart's sire at age 24 and like your mare, he looked wonderful right up to the day he died. (But he didn't have a social life on pasture and so much attention on a regular basis.)

My Arab mare was 32 when she got intermittently colicky for a minute or two and then fine again, rinse and repeat at shortening intervals over a week or so. In her case, pedunculated lipoma acting as a ball-and-chain around the guts and we put her down when it became clear what it was and that it wouldn't go away.

Many many years before I remember this blue-sky, sunny day when a tiny and lovely mare I really liked broke her leg in a trial. It took an hour to get a vet there and my father refused all offers of local people with gun licenses to put her down on the spot "in case she had a chance" - what chance does a horse have whose hind cannon is shattered and the lower leg hanging just by a tendon and some skin? I was only in my early 20s and the thing that really stayed with me is how something like this could happen on a perfect blue-sky day. It's logical, of course, but it's different if you live it.

I've got three horses 20 and over and I have to be careful not to let myself count down somewhere in the back of my mind. In some ways it was easier in the days before I'd ever witnessed a horse dying; it's just abstract then. But I was 13 when I first held a horse's head in my lap as she died, and that was Sunsmart's great-grandmother haemorrhaging out after giving birth to the sixth foal she was never supposed to have because her previous birth had damaged her internally. For two years she'd been my riding horse before she was taken off me for breeding - and we were so close.

I know death happens etc but it doesn't mean it's easy, especially when you had a close bond with the creature that's dying - but even just in general; we eat our own beef but that doesn't mean I'm all detached and neutral about it the day we kill the animal. It's still sad, even when it's necessary for whatever reason - at least to me it is. Others may feel nothing. Some people even enjoy it, but that's a long way from my own personal universe.

Ironically, I spent the afternoon today with a friend from the donkey society who had a bit of a bad month last month: Her mother died, and then her horse died of snakebite in the middle of winter. The mother actually had a good death - went to sleep in the armchair one evening after dinner while visiting my friend for a week, after a lovely day out in the sun with the family at one of our icing-sugar beaches down here. Didn't wake up. Bit of a shock for my friend but has got to be one of the best ways you could possibly go. And her horse was 28, not that it made it any easier. Snakebite in winter is not that common - since the snakes aren't very active when it's cold. Also, mares don't usually go around interfering with snakes (stallions are most likely to), so this was a freak thing.

My friend has a donkey called Sam, an ornery huge thing bred of feral donkeys from central Australia. His head is enormous and he's very anti-social with humans! But he needed a new companion, so my friend adopted an Arab/Percheron mare who'd been a broodmare all her life. I met her today - pretty thing, bay, Arab face, solid wide chest and strong legs. She's never had that much to do with humans but three weeks after arriving at her new home she nickers when she sees people and comes up to hobnob and get scratchies. She'd never seen a donkey before but apparently was totally unfazed. I joked that Sam must look like a teenage special-needs horse to the broodmare - gangly thing with an enormous head and long ears, not quite a standard model! The mare was the underdog in the breeding herd and now isn't - now she can eat her food without getting beaten up.

It's a good thing you had Aria already. Instant companionship for Hero in this case. Very interesting to read how the horses responded to being let to see the dead body of their friend. Because we shoot our horses, I don't let them near the body - I kind of imagine the blood would upset them. Maybe I'm overthinking it, I don't know. They can look from over the fence and do. And they've seen it all before and seem to understand what happens, so long as they see the dead horse. It's when they don't see it that they can end up searching far and wide.

Sorry again - that one just came out of the blue, just like that, so unexpected. I'm happy you had her for so long though, and that she had a good life with you. Take care. 🐙

PS: Rather oversized vet bill!  🤬


----------



## lb27312

@gottatrot - Soooo sorry to hear about your loss. Sounds like she lived a good long life with you. Still doesn't make it easier on the heart.... My condolences


----------



## Alder

I'm so sorry about your loss. Our hearts are with you.


----------



## gottatrot

Thank you for all the condolences. @SueC, it was very helpful for me to read your stories and experiences. That is cute about the donkey and the horse, it sounds like they will be good companions. 

A concern this morning was getting someone to come and pick up the body. I'm pretty good at thinking of the life and spirit of a person or animal as separate from the body. I've seen a lot of dead bodies I guess. Actually, animals seem less "body" like than humans since they have hair and color that makes them still look more beautiful in death. Humans seem very unlike themselves when they are dead, in my opinion. More like a shell. (Hopefully that's not TMI for people, nurses can be very stark about these things). So to me, what happens to the body is not so distressing. DH was more worried, not wanting to see any damage from animals or birds, and we have it covered with a tarp held down by cement blocks. 

But today will be hot, so thankfully there is a professional horse burial service that will come pick her up this morning in an hour or so. It's about 60 miles away, and they have 300 acres where they have buried hundreds of horses as a business and service to people who lose their horses. Some people give their horses to the Wildlife Safari for meat, but that can only work if the horse was shot and not on medications. 

We actually talked about if it would be more humane to use a gun (based on discussions here on the forum), but decided if all things seemed even, it was worth a lot of money to us to not have to put a hole in her star, which was sentimental to us thinking of her little heart that gave her the name Amore. We decided that either of us could shoot a horse in an emergency, but since we had a vet available we would use the euthanasia drugs. As far as I can tell, the sedation needle was the only thing she felt in a minor way, and the euthanasia that followed seemed to work almost immediately.


----------



## gottatrot




----------



## Txshecat0423

gottatrot said:


>


What a stunning, heartfelt, loving tribute. I’m in tears but in a good way [emoji3590][emoji3590]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Kalraii

I am so sorry for your loss. What a wonderful tribute. I agree with the manner in which you chose to lay her to rest. It is unfortunate that something so necessary in my opinion - a quick and painless end - has to cost so. That should be a right for every living creature. Sometimes the only consolation is the quick relief the needle brings, the only way I've found to be able to live with myself at times for also regretting letting things go too far at times. She was so beautiful, I was only just yesterday browsing and determined to make sure I do everything I can to let my two girls age so gracefully.


----------



## QHriderKE

@gottatrot 
So sorry for the loss of your beautiful little mare ❤ 
You were so blessed to have so many great years with her


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> Thank you for all the condolences. @SueC, it was very helpful for me to read your stories and experiences.


Well, I'm glad it had that effect. 🌻 For me personally, reading about other people handling similar difficult experiences to my own is always A1 helpful when I'm confronted with something like this - whether it's the death of a person or (other) animal I have loved, or whether it's recovery from childhood trauma and PTSD, or any other difficult situation. It's usually informative and makes me feel less isolated in a situation like this, and it's kind of comforting to feel a connection to others going through similar stuff as yourself. So in turn I now write when it's someone else dealing with difficult things.

I think this forum is super-excellent at supporting people through things like this. It really doesn't feel like a "message board" but like an actual community (which it is, because people let themselves be human here).




gottatrot said:


> A concern this morning was getting someone to come and pick up the body. I'm pretty good at thinking of the life and spirit of a person or animal as separate from the body. I've seen a lot of dead bodies I guess. Actually, animals seem less "body" like than humans since they have hair and color that makes them still look more beautiful in death. Humans seem very unlike themselves when they are dead, in my opinion. More like a shell. (Hopefully that's not TMI for people, nurses can be very stark about these things). So to me, what happens to the body is not so distressing. DH was more worried, not wanting to see any damage from animals or birds, and we have it covered with a tarp held down by cement blocks.


That is so interesting. Like yourself, I've dealt with dead bodies a fair bit, both growing up on a farm and professionally because I taught anatomy etc. So there's this professional detachment I can switch on pretty easily in most cases, because a dead body is just architecture, the life and spirit are gone - and there's actually beauty in that architecture too. Even when we were cutting up our beef carcass, when I moved the rumen to a hole for planting a fruit tree I was mesmerised by the beauty of its internal lining. Bodies are so clever too, and when you're teaching anatomy and physiology you really appreciate this.

I think it's true that dead furry four-legs are much more beautiful than dead people, but then I think that's true about them in life as well. 😛 I guess too that because of the fur covering you don't see the sickly colouring you see in sick and dead people, that makes them look ill. So that's where, with people, if you're having an open-casket send-off, a sympathetic make-up / presentation job can be really helpful to grieving relatives - one of the themes of the Japanese movie _Departures _was that when the undertaker could make the dead person look beautiful in the way they had looked beautiful when alive (and not fake like Ken or Barbie), the family really appreciated this (and partly the movie was about breaking down the "untouchable" type prejudices of people working these roles and recognising their compassion and skill and the importance of what they were doing).

I think that's important for family because of how we are about emotional bonds. That's also why it's much more difficult for me if I'm dealing with the dead body of a person or (other) animal I have loved, than with a "stranger" - and why the states of Australia "swap" human bodies donated to anatomy labs with each other, after a medical student had a bit of a traumatic experience finding her uncle on the dissection table.

It's interesting about the concern for damage to a dead animal body. We can still feel protective if it's an animal we have loved. I have had to teach myself to let that go. We steward a 50-hectare nature reserve - a big chunk of natural ecosystem - and run a sustainable farm on the other 12 hectares. It's changed the way I view and do things. In this part of the world, people who have large amounts of bushland reserve on their own properties will take large animals that have died and put them in a good spot in the bushland, on the surface. So there was already a "cattle cemetery" on our place when we bought it - lots of big bones in one particular spot on the place.

The first horse we put down here, we paid our neighbour to bury - but after seeing the time and effort and the impact that had on the bushland, we swore never to do that again here - and more importantly - and this has become a big thing for me - I now feel that the number one priority for me as an ecosystem steward is to facilitate natural recycling, which I don't do when I bury a large animal deep below the humus layer where things are effectively and quickly broken down in nature.

I think part of our human inclination with dead bodies is to make beautiful and then sink them out of sight, out of mind where we're not confronted with decomposition etc - and then extend that idea to companion animals as well. I don't mind if someone wants to make me look beautiful after I've died for the sake of others, but I very much object for my own self to the idea of being buried six feet under where my components can't be quickly and effectively recycled to other, actually _living_ things who need them - or to be cremated, which uses a lot of fossil fuels and leaves nothing but mineral fertiliser, and no proper lunch for any other animal. Nature is so generous to me; why should I be mean and grasping about the matter in my own body after death? I want that to benefit other living things in the best way possible - to give back, after taking so much all my life. Most of all I'd like a surface burial in the same place we put our animals, but that's not legal for humans, so a shroud-only, shallow earth burial with something useful planted on me is the next best legal thing for my own self - or to donate my body to an anatomy lab, if that's not possible for some reason. (Deep burials with trees planted on top aren't nearly as effective for recycling as you'd think, because most of the "feeder roots" of trees are in the topsoil - the lower roots are more about anchorage and getting to water.)

I fully understand how your DH feels about "animal damage" - did you ever read John Steinbeck's _The Red Pony_ when you were growing up? I nearly threw up when the vulture was dripping eyeball fluid, but I was only 12 when I read this and Steinbeck was positioning us to feel this way. I feel very sorry for the vulture now, who was, if I remember correctly, brutalised by the young pony owner for daring to break the carcass of his beloved pony, but it was only doing the role it performs in an ecosystem, and it's an important role - without the scavengers and decomposers, our planet would be metres high in dead plant matter and animal bodies, and none of their building blocks could go back to other things who are trying to have a turn at life. We all only live because the building blocks of things that lived before us were recycled to us.

So to deal with that very human reaction about the body of a loved animal being broken down, what we do is place the body into a good spot in our nature reserve, and then resolutely I don't go looking for three weeks, by which time, if it's not winter, the local scavengers and insects have got the carcass down to mostly skeleton. Then I'm OK to go look, and I've retrieved a few skulls and hooves for reasons of anatomical interest. (It's very Hamlet actually, you know, with the character picking up the skull and saying, "I knew him well!")

In our part of Australia we don't have vultures; ravens and foxes will gnaw at a carcass and welcome to them. But the most important recycler is the blowfly - not in itself a species most people do cartwheels over, but they are in turn a major food source for songbirds here in our ecosystem, and in the weeks following the death of a loved animal I become conscious that it is coming back to me in the form of birdsong, and I'm happy for the birds to be powered by the remains of an animal I've loved. Nothing is wasted - except if we make it so by locking it away, as we humans are wont to do.

Most people, of course, aren't in the position we're in to recycle animal bodies naturally in a natural ecosystem, and need to find other ways to deal with it. I fully respect the people who donate the carcasses of their large animals to zoos and hunt clubs or friends with dogs - carnivores too have to eat. In Germany, it's pretty common for horses to go to small abattoirs at the end of their lives, and for their owners to take them there and stay through the death - and I've had firsthand accounts that this can be a respectful and humane thing - and then of course, the body is recycled, not just as pet food either - at any Oktoberfest you can get traditional horse sausage with your beer, because of this, and I don't think it's horrible, I think it's a good thing to recycle like this, so long as the death of the animal is humane and respectful and it doesn't have to be afraid.

I'd have no objections if a friend with dogs wanted to take some pieces of carcass, or all of it, after we've put down a horse. I'd just not want to be there at the cutting up, because of my emotional connection to the animal. But the animal itself is gone and when we're dead we don't care about what's going on with our body.

My friend whose horse died of snakebite last month is on a very small property near town and only has the options of deep burial on her own place, or having it carted to the special lime pit at the local landfill, and considering her animal was full of drugs even before it was put down with more drugs which are toxic to wildlife, dogs etc, deep burial was pretty much her only option - so she'll be planting a tree; it's the best she can do with her situation.

Another person I talked to in the local horse community knew her old mare wouldn't be happy in the incipient winter, and arranged for a pet meat man to come put the horse down in its home environment and then take the whole animal away. She says it was very professionally and humanely done, with nothing to worry her mare, and that's the important thing.




gottatrot said:


> Some people give their horses to the Wildlife Safari for meat, but that can only work if the horse was shot and not on medications.


Yeah, that's exactly right, and that's not always possible even if you'd like to do it that way.




gottatrot said:


> We actually talked about if it would be more humane to use a gun (based on discussions here on the forum), but decided if all things seemed even, it was worth a lot of money to us to not have to put a hole in her star, which was sentimental to us thinking of her little heart that gave her the name Amore. We decided that either of us could shoot a horse in an emergency, but since we had a vet available we would use the euthanasia drugs. As far as I can tell, the sedation needle was the only thing she felt in a minor way, and the euthanasia that followed seemed to work almost immediately.


While I personally prefer properly aimed gunshot for large animal euthanasia, without a doubt both methods are way more humane to the animal than leaving it to suffer. And when your horse has already had multiple needles stuck into it to manage its health emergency before death, another needle becomes less of an issue than, for example, when you've got a horse with cancer or with something you already know is untreatable and causing suffering who's not already been stuck with needles, and then I recoil at the idea of going up to an animal in that situation and sticking a needle into its neck as part of its death, if I have another way. All three of the horses we've put down here were either napping and oblivious when we shot them, or had their face deep in a feed bucket at the time (as did the steer we are eating) - so I was super-happy with the instant oblivion they got, and I got over myself about the blood etc. Financially, also, for us, the living things left behind benefit more from the cost saving of gunshot euthanasia over chemical (which is not the main reason we do it, just another advantage). But it's a very personal thing how we want to handle this stuff, and the most important thing is that the animal has a humane end. Also though that we humans think about death and the natural processes around it a bit more and come out of our comfort zones and cultural boxes about it a bit, I think, for the sake of life on earth in general.

It's funny how a lot of the boxes we've put around ourselves can end up exploding - once upon a time I couldn't face the idea of eating raw fish. Then a trusted colleague went fishing before work and brought in sashimi. I gave myself a push, and then found I really enjoyed the sashimi... 🙂

Right now, I have a bit of trouble with the concept of eating Witchetty grubs...






...but if you placed me in an Indigenous community for a week and I developed relationships with the people, I'm pretty sure I'd do it...

After all, we all eat honey! 🤪


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks again to everyone for the kind wishes. This forum is so healing for me. When I was going through the situation with Amore yesterday, it was comforting to realize that afterward I would be able to talk about it and explain the details of what we went through with understanding people. It's very therapeutic for grieving, for me personally. Family and friends are usually sympathetic, but they don't really want to hear the story of how the vet came and what was done, but it can be part of processing what happened for me.

@SueC, I read the Red Pony when I was quite young too, and now I think it was a mistake to have that book in the children's section at the library. It was too adult for me at the time, and rather traumatizing. Steinbeck was a realist and his books are full of the harsh truth. But I was a sheltered child, and I believe although everyone needs to know the realities of life, children should be allowed a time where they believe life is mostly beautiful and good. My mom was a Swedish stoic and read us books like Old Yeller, The Fawn, and Where the Red Fern Grows. She thought they were good stories, but for me they were too difficult to process until I was older. They gave me terrible nightmares. I don't think it was such a bad thing in the long run, but still I remember most of my childhood as a carefree time, and I believe that helped me develop more resilience for adulthood much more than hearing about bad things happening to pets.

I agree with your thoughts about death. We do have vultures, coyotes and bears, all of which are good scavangers. Of course I am pleased Amore was buried deep due to the fact she was on Prascend and also given euthanasia drugs, so I wouldn't want any animals exposed to those chemicals. 

The horse removal man was extremely kind and compassionate. He's been doing this service for eighteen years as a horse person trying to help others through a tough time. He had a big dump truck with a boom, and was able to put straps around the pasterns and lift the body easily through the air, and lay it gently down in the truck. Back at his acreage, he would put her into a deep hole. We talked about the things he's seen, in particular he says it is terrible to see horses where people have waited far too long. It makes him feel good to see a horse as old as Amore with well trimmed hooves, in healthy condition and obviously cared for until the day she died. 

The people who own the stable are some of the nicest I've ever met, and they told me not to pay board next month because they heard how much it cost to have the vet come out and also remove the body. 

Also therapeutic today was caring for Hero and Aria. They seem to be doing well with everything, but Aria seemed to forget that I wasn't bringing Amore down to the turnout, so after the horses were turned out she kept returning to the gate and pacing there, waiting for Amore to come.


----------



## SueC

That horse removal man seems like a good sort, @gottatrot. One issue with a large animal death is that it's not like a dog or cat, whom you can wrap in a towel and carry to where you're going to bury them. It makes large animal deaths extra traumatic - needing heavy machinery to lift them etc and all the ins and outs of that. Not to mention the financial expense of all of that. But I tell you what, unless a horse is comfortable being walked out into the bushland (at my place that's only Sunsmart, he enjoys it out there) and capable of actually walking 500m without distress, I'm going to put it down in the home paddocks, and then pay a neighbour for the time and effort to transport the body out into the nature reserve.

We have a neighbour who's been very helpful to us that way, who is a horseman himself and excellent with animals and really sensitive with transporting dead bodies around. He uses a tractor, lifting boom and platform, as he does when he's occasionally got cattle that died in a paddock and need moving.

It's good when you've got people like this in your local community. I agree with your horse removal man that too late is a horrible thing - there's this saying about horse euthanasia, better a week too early than a day too late. Also so lovely of your boarding people to offer you complimentary board for a while because of what happened.

That's a lovely clip you made of your horse. It's good to celebrate a life and a road you shared together. It's sad when it ends - I'm not looking forward to putting down the next horse but statistically that's likely to happen in the next 1-5 years here, with the horses 20, 24 and 27. But what you both had was real and wonderful, and Amore is not hurting anymore. It's only the ones left behind who hurt on behalf of the departed, and because we miss them - but in time the predominant feeling is gratefulness for the life that was there and for the shared journey.

My new calves are doing well and are now out exploring the big Common, after starting in the smaller paddocks. They're like kids in a playground, running up and down the dam wall, looking through the little hide-outs at the edge of the bushland and going for hikes on the access tracks. They kick up their heels when they run down the dam wall or when they see me with their food buckets. I have them 2-3 years and then it ends. But that doesn't make the time they have here less real, and the life they are living and enjoying now is a good life. At the end of it all, their lives will be relatively short, but their lives will have been worth living.

You take good care of yourself - it's never an easy time after something like this. Something else that helps me is watching the kind of movie that's sad and beautiful and makes me cry, because then I cry both about the movie and the sad thing that happened in real life, and it helps get these feelings out. As it turns out, I accidentally saw a super movie like that this afternoon (channel-surfing to SBS Movies during afternoon tea and then getting stuck there 90 minutes, but it was really worth it):






I can really recommend this one, it's a nice story and an adorable cat, and there's a little surprise at the end as well that made me cry in earnest! (Nice surprise though!)


----------



## Kalraii

I didn't know where to write this nor could I actually figure out how to say it but your recent posts helped. Many on here bring comfort during difficult times it really is true. It's often me having to reassure others experience their first traumatic loss (human or otherwise) because I've been through so much and y'know, life really does just go on. I don't have "that" person I can turn to in real life so to speak. Now I get to read the likes of yourself and @SueC and I feel like I can breathe.. coming here makes the loneliness of dealing with all that go away. Especially better when you meet those kind souls in the real, like when your little lady was taken on her last journey. I'm glad she'll be buried. I don't really mind cremation either but something feels right about letting nature take over the rest. Hope you're feeling better.


----------



## knightrider

So very very sorry to learn of Amore's passing. I am crying so hard. Your tribute is beautiful. What a terrible heartache.

I would like to share a song that came on the radio the day my horse was killed. First I will tell why this horse was so significant to me. When I was a kid, we moved at times, and I was always made to sell whatever horse I had because it was "too much trouble" to move her/him.

When I graduated from college, I spent the summer job hunting and horse hunting at the same time. I was determined that the horse I bought would be for the rest of his/her life. NO ONE could EVER make me sell this horse. I bought an unbroken two year old, appropriately named Cyclone, wild as the West Texas prairie where he was born and raised. Everyone told me I couldn't possibly train him to ride (I had already trained 3 colts by myself at that time, all turning out fine). Everyone told me I had made a poor choice in picking him. Back in those days, nobody got vet checks--you just looked at horses and picked one. I boarded him at a quarter horse race horse farm, and they constantly told me I should sell him and get something worth riding.

I did train him, and quite successfully. When we moved from Texas to Maryland, we bought a little two horse trailer and hauled him with us, pulled by a 1960 Chevy station wagon. All the way from Texas to Maryland, we were in the midst of Hurricane Agnes. It was quite a journey . . . and Cyclone was a terrible loader because I had never had a trailer and didn't know the first thing about loading a horse. 

I kept working with Cyclone and training him until we were showing at A rated horseshows. One time at a foxhunt, a snooty neighbor asked how we did at a Maryland State Horse Association show. I said we had gotten 2 third places. She looked at me in surprise, then looked Cyclone up and down, and said, "Well, of course you would, with THAT horse." (I was not a pretty or trained rider, having gotten only a few riding lessons in my life).

All this backstory to show how important this beautiful talented horse was to me. He was my whole world. I had taken him from a scrawny wild colt to a beautiful elegant showhorse and foxhunter. And he was so incredibly talented, beautiful mover and scopey jumper. If he didn't make a mistake (and he often did make mistakes--he was a high strung half thoroughbred), he always won something in a class because he was a stand-out.

I let my brother take him for a ride with his girlfriend, riding double bareback--I have always loved to share my horses with other people--and they fell off. Cyclone ran home. My mom came outside to see why Cyclone was galloping home, and she saw him come to the gate, spin around, and gallop back to where my brother and his girlfriend were trudging up the hill. He had to cross a road, and as he crossed, he was hit by a car, which shattered his hindquarters. There was no way to save him. It was raining hard by the time the renderers took him away.

My husband helped me into our car, and we drove home in the rain. . . and this song came on the radio, the first time I had ever heard it. It was me and Cyclone to a T. I always liked to ride in the early mornings--that was our special time. I still do ride at dawn every day.

Touch Me In The Morning - Diana Ross - YouTube


----------



## gottatrot

@knightrider, thank you, that was a great song. Made me cry, in a good way.


----------



## Knave

I am trying to catch up, and I’m not there yet, but I wanted to say I am sorry and thinking of you.


----------



## gottatrot

Some pretty interesting happenings today.
We had done some research trying to figure out how to find out some of Aria's history. None of that paid off until today, when I managed to contact both the woman who owned her for a couple of weeks and listed her on Craigslist, and from that was able to talk to Aria's breeder (who owned her until this year). Lots of good information.

The woman who had listed her on Craigslist was happy to hear Aria was doing well. She said she had worried about her since she had not been able to handle her at all, and she hadn't thought the crazy woman who had bought her seemed like she would be a great owner. She told me that the "6 years old" information had not come from her, and she believed Aria was around 11. 

The breeder was able to give me more information, but some of it I had to piece together later because she was vague on some things over the phone. A woman had been in the process of purchasing Aria for $3,500, but had not completed all of the payments and stopped paying, so they decided to sell her to the Craigslist woman instead for $500. Then my acquaintance bought her for $500. So a lot of money was spent on this silly little pony, but I got her for free, LOL. 

Aria was called "Dani," and from what I could figure out from the phone call and their farm website, she was foaled April 9th, 2011. So she's actually ten years old. She is a purebred Arabian even though she is tiny. 
Her sire is named Cameo Eskonts Pepper, and he is 14.2 hands.









Her dam's name was tricky to figure out over the phone, but from what I found on the website it seems to be Lady Bekka CDS, who the breeders don't own anymore. She is 14.2 hands also. She is bay.

This is Aria's full sister, and I think she looks a lot like Aria, except she is gray. She ended up 14 hands. Their head shape is almost identical.









They never registered Aria or trained her. She does have her pedigree online, however. She is Polish, like Amore was.









The breeder was adamant that Aria was never bred. This makes sense to me, I doubt they would have wanted to breed her after she only grew to be 12 hands. However, the breeder said there are five stallions on the property, all Arabians except for the pinto that is almost 100% Arabian. They all are decent looking horses. 

The vet is coming on Friday, so I am more hopeful now he will say she is very fat. The breeder said Aria had never had a large belly. She asked if I'd wormed her, and what I was feeding, and didn't think she should be fat on that diet. She said Aria was kept in a field of mares, well separated from any stallions.

There are many reasons why I feel relieved. If Aria has a foal, it will be an Arabian, and might even grow to be full-sized since she seems to be an outlier with her height. Even better would be if she simply needs to go on a diet, and I can start working her and doing some serious training. Now that Amore has passed away, I could keep a foal if I wanted to. 

Now I'm wondering...I knew her teeth were not good since both the barn owner and I have seen her coughing up wads of hay. But since I thought she was six, I didn't think they were likely to be that bad at such a young age. Now that I know she is ten, I am wondering if her teeth might be very bad, and perhaps she is getting her hay down without much chewing, and so it is sitting in her belly for a long time trying to get digested. 

I've had worries such as how wet it is here in the winter, and I know you can't blanket a mare with a nursing foal, and I wondered how to avoid the rain rot. I've thought if there were foaling issues, I would not want to lose another horse so soon. I'd be very happy to find out the breeder is correct and Aria has a hay belly going on. 

It makes a lot more sense to me since Aria was so fearful of handling that she was actually an unhandled ten year old. That's a long time to get set in your ways.


----------



## gottatrot

It amazes me when people say that if horses act up it always means they need more training. Here is a video...can't think of horses with more training than grand prix level horses with olympic potential.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3-YqN_TVVU


----------



## gottatrot

Even better, the horse in this video is in the Olympics. But here he is recently having a bad day. I can only imagine the advice I would get if my horse was doing this.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyGWlfruLZo


----------



## bsms

Mia never used her legs for a dressage-trained motion. Other than that? We had a LOT of days like the second video. And she HATED the idea of me dismounting at times like that, so I sometimes spent 20-30 minutes living with it! Normally 2-3 minutes that FELT like 2-3 hours! At least that horse didn't start spinning in circles on a paved road.

Looking back, I think Mia needed a better rider (not my fault since she was my first horse and no one else wanted her). She ALSO needed open terrain. But what I learned on her gave me a foundation to start work on Bandit. I think some problems are when someone tries to take a square horse and put it into a round sport. Some are rooted in trust and communication problems. Some in training. And some are just how a given horse *WILL* express itself! Mia? All of the above!

But many riders never encounter a horse like that so they assume a quiet horse is due to their skill rather than a lot of horses being quiet or submissive by nature. Bandit is a pretty cooperative fellow by nature but he'll always sometimes ask, "_Are you barking mad?_" Or, "_Nope. Nope. I'll get us out of here and THEN we can talk!_"


----------



## SueC

That's such interesting background information on Aria, @gottatrot. I was inhaling the pedigree and noticed lots of Polish Arabians five generations back, including Comet and Witraz, who were also in my Arabian mare's pedigree. Witraz was in Dresden during the Allied bombing and his tail caught fire - his groom hung onto him and another stallion and they were lucky to escape relatively unharmed. More here:



WITRAZ



This was Witraz:









I personally am a huge fan of the Polish Arabian stud's breed standards - they were working horses; and I don't like what either America or Australia did with their lines and how they bred them to have flat backs like dining tables and overdished faces - although the endurance fraternity still retains individuals of the lovely working horse quality like Witraz or Comet - the Polish stud raced their breeding stock.

This was Comet, and that's a likely source of my mare's fleabitten grey colour when mature.

















I honestly can't understand how a purebred Arabian with parents of average Arabian height could have ended up so small - are they absolutely sure there wasn't a pony stallion roaming around? Something doesn't add up here. I don't know if you know the story about the English Crabbet Arabian stud - a lot of their horses photographed in the 1940s looked like Anglo-Arabians and it turns out that's what some of them were, and they'd used TB stallions on the sly as substitutes for the official Arabian sire who wasn't, so they could get extra height into the breed, which they wanted, being English and used to taller horses. This was before DNA testing.

I also want to know why Aria's abdomen is so asymmetrical. That's not typical of hay belly or worms, it's more typical of pregnancy. It will be interesting to hear what the vet says. Romeo had shocking teeth and cudded all the time in his last five years, but it never gave him a hay belly. In part that may be because his intake was limited by the state of his teeth. Can you feel her ribs? Do you think she's suddenly overweight? They can get huge bellies if they eat too much, but the asymmetry throws me.

My parents had a tiny horse, a just over 13hh maturing mare that was a Standardbred. Her full brother was small for a STB at 14.3hh but her tiny size took the cake. She was weaned at 5 months though, before being sent to the yearling sale later, and maybe she didn't have a good placental connection in the uterus, and lacked decent food after weaning. She was seriously stunted, but well built nevertheless. She turned out to be too small to race competitively and I honestly don't know why my father ever tried. I re-educated her to saddle when he gave up and tried to find her a home as a child's pony - she was a sweet little mare and super under saddle - but sadly, she died of sand colic before she could be re-homed. She was definitely the smallest horse I ever rode as an adult, but she was also a solid, strong horse, so it wasn't a hassle to work with her (although it did throw me that she was so small; there was so little behind and in front of the saddle!).


----------



## gottatrot

@SueC, that's very interesting our Arabian mares have common relatives. Something that is fun with Arabians and TBs is that you can look up photos of horses in their pedigrees. 

It does seem strange that Aria could be so small and be a purebred. I do know there were some very small Arabians that popped up from time to time. Such as Raffles, who was bred quite a bit and only 13.3 hands. I am wondering if somehow the cross with her parents produced some small horses genetically, if her sister is "14" hands, which might be slightly exaggerated. How much can poor nutrition effect growth, I wonder? In the photo of Aria's sister she also looks like she has a wild, long mane and appears thin. Unhandled horses left to fend for themselves on pasture while growing...could it stunt a horse that much? 

Ugh, it does make sense that she might not just be fat if her belly is so asymmetrical. Which it is.

Tonight my game is: If she is bred, which of the five stallions do I want it to be? We'll say four actually, because I would hope they would not have bred her accidentally or on purpose to her sire.
These all are currently on the property that Aria came from. How do those fences look in the background for keeping stallions in? 

First, a straight Egyptian Al Khamsa named Cameo Moniet Dancer I









Next, a black named Cameo Addis Jubilee with Polish and Egyptian lines and successful endurance horses in the background.









Another black, straight Egyptian, Cameo Asaddibai Raven









And the pinto, JPA Apache Skylite. He is 68% Arab (part QH/Paint), so a foal would be 84% Arab.









I'd be more OK with any of the top three, just would not want a horse with too much white...
If there was any chance for a foal to grow to 14 hands, that would be great.


----------



## gottatrot

Now Amore had some truly great Polish bloodlines. Witraz also sired Bask. 
We said after she passed that she might have been one of the last Bask granddaughters. Here is her sire's pedigree:








If it's too fuzzy, here is the link. Nations Arabian
Her dam was by Marhaba, who was a champion in Holland.








There is a statue of Bask in the museum of the horse at the Kentucky Horse Park. When we saw it we said, "Oh, that explains a lot."


----------



## SueC

Have you seen this video before?






He certainly moved beautifully - probably just let out from being cooped up in a building, or maybe doing what stallions do when they don't get to have company. It's much nicer if they run in a breeding herd, as they do in Marthe Kiley-Worthington's care.

My mare had Bask's full sister Arfa in her pedigree.








It is nice being able to look these horses up, although I can't help but notice that the horses of bygone days are so much better built than average horses now, and particularly the human ego extensions bred for the show ring - like this one:








I shudder to look at horses like this - they look like equine Frankensteins, glued together out of bits and then distorted. The Polish Arabian Stud horses in the 1940s, I'd happily have ridden any of the many I've seen. These new-fangled monstrosities, no thank you.

The Arabian stallions in your previous post seem OK. I don't like the look of the Pinto, not because of the colour, but because of his build. I do think that it's possible to get foals that end up bigger than their dams. You see that with pony/TB crossbreds. Connemara/TB crosses (TB sires) regularly grow to 14.2hh but of course, the TBs are taller than Arabian stallions. Luck of the draw. If she's pregnant. And if she is, it's unlikely the foal will mature smaller than the mare - unless a mini crawled under the fence...


----------



## knightrider

My Isabeau is only 13 hands with her sire and dam both 14.2. She had great pre- and post-natal care, but her dam was bred by accident at 18 months and she delivered Isabeau at 2 1/2 years old. And she wouldn't let Isabeau nurse. They tied up a hind leg each time for Isabeau to nurse. I always attributed Isabeau's small stature to growing inside a growing mommy, and being limited with mare's milk only when the breeders could come tie up her dam's hind leg. Isabeau turned out kind of funny looking and crooked, but her sire and dam were lovely. Can't find the photos of Isabeau's dam, but she was a beautiful buckskin.

Rescate de Ocho, Isabeau's oopsie sire









Isabeau, sort of funny looking and crooked (but beautiful in my eyes).


----------



## gottatrot

@SueC, thanks for the Bask video, that was fun to watch. I agree about the modern looking Arabs. Some of the most beautiful Arabs I've seen are those being bred for endurance, such as Belesemo or Rushcreek. This horse is at Altitude Arabians where they follow the Polish standard of racing horses first, and then transitioning them to endurance careers. 









@knightrider, I think Isabeau is a beautiful horse.


----------



## gottatrot

If my little horse is not pregnant, I don't look forward to dieting this off!!


----------



## weeedlady

Oh my. She really looks pregnant in these pics, I think.


----------



## bsms

Time to buy a sign:






She's pretty but...wow! OTOH, I knew a woman - coworker - built like her. She was a slender woman with VERY wide hips. I don't know enough about horses to know if some of them are just built that way sometimes. How do her ribs feel? If she was really fat, wouldn't it be thick on her ribs too?


----------



## SueC

That's a lovely Arab there, @gottatrot. 😍 So good that the endurance people are keeping that DNA going. 💕 I've also never seen a horse @phantomhorse13 rode that wasn't gorgeous and athletic both, nor any of the ones she takes photos of at her events.

@knightrider, your Isabeau is also that kind of horse. Smaller package or not. Now luckily, you're a smaller package than I am yourself, and so you get to ride this lovely and athletic mare. ❤ And actually, she looks solid and strong enough to handle a reasonably sized rider. What's your limit for other riders riding her?

Sunsmart is a solid, strong horse and 15.2hh and when he was younger I'd have limited him to carrying 80-90kg (because I'm very conservative about giving a horse back strain - and of course it also depends on how well-balanced a rider is) - these days I don't put riders on him over 75kg because he's 24 and has Cushings. I just feel that he doesn't need to carry anyone heavier than me in his sunset years. Actually most of the riders I put on him are lighter than me, and he's quite happy carrying them around - "piece of cake" he thinks!


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> ...How do her ribs feel? If she was really fat, wouldn't it be thick on her ribs too?​


​That is why if I were betting, I'd bet pregnant. I've never seen a fat horse that did not have fat deposits in places other than the belly. If I had to score her everywhere except the belly, she'd get a 4.5 at most. Her ribs are felt easily.
Her spine is not level with the back (peaked), no fat pad in front of the udder, no crest, no crease in hindquarters or spongy deposit over tail. 

Fat horses also fill in the little spots above the eyes and hers are depressed. She might actually need more calories.









You can see her topline and hips in this pic.








Dying to find out Friday!


----------



## Knave

I can’t wait to find out! I’m betting pregnant too, especially since she’s never had a colt before.

The Arabian ranch I worked for had some smaller horses. Nothing like that, but I always thought most were in the high 14s, low 15s. They were built solid and extremely successful horses, many owning world titles.

I was thinking about your nutrition statement. Many mustangs in the overgrazed areas are tiny. They are in the high 13 hand range often, and awfully poor looking animals. It shocked me to see the horses who were taken off the mountain young and fed well grow up to be bigger and not so terrible looking.

Now there are herds like Queen’s and apparently Cashman’s that are big horses. I don’t know if it’s because they have had access to better feed or what exactly. I think starvation has a whole lot to do with end sizing though.


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> I think starvation has a whole lot to do with end sizing though.


It does with people. Before I had kids, I used to do home exchanges to Russia and the Ukraine. Before WWII, Stalin seized the grain from the Ukrainians and exported it instead. There were many many tiny elderly people in the Ukraine who were children during that enforced famine. 

How Joseph Stalin Starved Millions in the Ukrainian Famine - HISTORY


----------



## bsms

Same in Korea. The post WW2 generation was tiny. As South Korea prospered, folks...got taller. In the 90s, it was not uncommon to see a 4'6" grandmother beside her 5'10" grandson....Someone put together an interesting web page here:

How The Average Height In Korea Changed Over The Years


----------



## gottatrot

Interesting the talk about malnutrition. Because (drum roll please...) Aria is NOT pregnant!
It's a good thing I'm not a gambler.

The vet that came today was excellent. She answered so many of my questions. After an ultrasound where we saw no foal, she showed me that both her ovaries had eggs ready to go so she is a horse that would tend to have twins. Wouldn't that have been a mess. 

She believes the cause of the belly is her recent malnutrition. I said I'd never had a horse so fat, and she told me that actually she would score her barely a 5 on the BCS. She said the issue is more similar to how Cushing's horses have a pot belly, and muscle wasting. Her organs stole protein from her muscles so she could stay alive and functioning. So she basically had muscles that were depleted completely. Now she has had to put the building blocks for the muscles in place with good nutrition, but those muscles are still weak and so her topline and abdominal muscles can't hold up the weight of her intestines yet. 
The solution is to begin exercising and continue feeding, good quality and not too much, but she doesn't necessarily need to diet either. 

Other questions: She looked at her back and immediately told me she has Leukotrichia. Apparently it is commonly seen in Arabians, and passed on genetically. Basically they lose pigment in the hair in patterns. It's the same thing that causes horses to get white hair after pressure from a saddle, but it's simply genetic and not from an injury. 

I asked about why Aria has trouble picking up the left hind. She said she didn't feel any pelvic abnormalities on the exam, and her hips are level, she does not have joint effusions or swelling, no signs of ringbone, tight tendons. So she did not think it was related to any injury. She said normally it would be from pain in the opposite leg, but it seemed fine to her. So she thought maybe it could also be from not having strong muscles yet, and recommended that I keep working with her and exercising her to see if it gets better. 

It was a huge relief to be able to get her teeth done. It was appalling to see what Aria has been living with. I just want to call the breeders she came from and give them a piece of my mind, about how they can keep adding horses into the world but not take care of ones they have. She had the worst teeth I've seen. There were three major problems. The first was that she had a giant hook on the right front molar. It was as long as the one in this picture, and also literally curved around like a hook.








Next, she had a completely missing molar on the top right, and the lower molar that matched up with it was growing upward in a curve into that space. Then she also had the front lower molar on the left side that was crooked and growing slanted forward rather than flat, and it had also grown much taller than the other teeth.

I know some on the forum don't care for power floats. This vet was drenched in sweat and I can't imagine her trying to rasp on those huge problems by hand. We needed to put Aria in a stall in the main barn, and I had forgotten for a moment that she had never been in a stall like that, with a small opening into a dark space. She tried to quickly back away and got scared, but our leading lessons paid off and she came in after me. 

She took her first ever shots for vaccines and sedation fine, but after two doses of sedation she was still trying to twist away from the power tool and the vet apologized, but said she might only be able to fix the big issues and not get everything perfect. But then she gave her one more dose of sedation, stuffed some cotton in her ears, and it was enough to calm Aria, and so she was able to get everything done. 

Hero did great, no major problems but he did have ulcerations on his cheeks in the back. He definitely needs yearly floats, and of course the vet said Aria will always need yearly floats with her issues. That's fine, just something I always plan on. 

After the vet left, DH helped hold Aria's weight off me so I was able to trim the left hind I haven't been able to get trimmed so far. That was a huge relief too. So now she's all caught up on her health care, I don't have to worry about a scary foaling, and we can start real work! 

It probably was good that I believed she was pregnant, because it has prevented me from doing any hard exercise with her. Knowing that she has been trying to just get to baseline with muscle recovery after such poor nutrition, I'm sure that the rest was necessary.


----------



## knightrider

I've been watching for your post. Very interesting and useful news. I'm glad you can now move on with her nutrition and training.


----------



## egrogan

I was waiting for the update too! Sorry she had so much going on, but I’m very glad for you there’s no foal on the way. Now that she’s back on track with the basics, can’t wait to watch her continue to blossom!


----------



## weeedlady

I glad she's not pregnant! (and I'm surprised). Now you can concentrate on getting her healthy.


----------



## gottatrot

Had a very fun day today. It sure is nice to be able to start into training and also I enjoy shopping for horse things, now that there are things I will need for Aria.

Today I measured her for a bit, something I can do now that her teeth are floated! She'll wear a 4.5 inch bit. I actually have a couple of pony bridles that Amore fit into and I can adjust down for Aria. 

Next, I measured her for a blanket, which will be a 66 inch. It's interesting, because she and Amore are close in measurement (Amore was 68) because Amore had a short head and short back, and Aria has a long head and long back for her size.

Speaking of size, I was looking at photos of 12 hand ponies online, and thought they seemed smaller than Aria next to people. So I had DH help me with an "official" measurement today, and checked it twice. I had measured her before based on where her withers hit my arm, but wasn't apparently on flat ground, because when we measured her today she came to exactly 13 hands. 13 hands seems like a good size to me. If I ever do want to train her for a small person to ride, I can probably get on her and do short sessions.

The other good news is that I trimmed her front hooves so I could measure her for hoof boots. It turns out she'll be a Renegade size 0. I love the Renegades and was worried she wouldn't fit into them. Once I order those, she can do more ponying down the road with Hero. 

Her hooves are as hard as rocks right now; it's been very dry and she has hooves that are going to be superb after a period of regular trimming. I gave up on the file quickly, and poor pony was startled a few times when the nippers made such a loud snap cutting through her thick walls. She did very well though.

We also did a lunging session, and this was only her second time on a line. Amazingly, I was able to get her to go in actual circles already, and she managed walk, trot and canter. Of course she has no idea what the words mean so we'll have to begin associating those. She went a little fast, but wasn't panicking or anything. I haven't had much opportunity to watch her trotting out yet, and she has a very spanking little trot with lots of hock action. It would look great in harness.
As soon as I unclipped her, she came right over for treats and scratches. Good little girl.

Then she stood by the fence and watched Hero lunge, and I hoped she wasn't taking notes. I think I've been underestimating how well he is feeling nowadays. He wanted to gallop and gallop, and it was hard to get him out of a gallop even when I made the circle very small. Oops, forgot to wear gloves. Of course he did his trademark bucking and rearing a few times at the start, feeling great. I told Aria to close her eyes and not watch that part. She was so funny, just stood there watching him go around and around. Probably wondering what the point was? 

It sure made me feel great to watch her eating hay and seeing it go down the "conveyor belt" of teeth the way it is supposed to. No wads, no hesitation, and her jaw is finally going back and forth. She had a kind of strange motion before with the jaw going one way and then back, and sometimes a rotational type of thing. Hung up on that big hook, I imagine. I know it's probably my imagination, but I swear her belly looks a touch smaller already. Maybe there was a lot of unchewed hay in there.


----------



## gottatrot

I enjoyed doing more training with Aria today. 
There are always many things to work on. A lot of my training is just doing a normal routine. Tying for grooming, brushing, picking hooves, leading, putting on fly spray. Little by little everything becomes commonplace.

Also I practiced pretend bridling with a piece of rope in her mouth, and rubbed her all over with a saddle pad to start tack training.

We did more lunging practice, and then I free lunged the horses for exercise. I wanted to keep the lunging on the line very calm and work on recognizing voice commands, but also I want Aria to begin building muscle and fitness. 

She was interesting to watch free lunging, watching Hero and seeing he wasn't really concerned, and that the running around to my silly noises and the lunge whip was just for fun. She seemed to get that quite well, and approached to accept treats right after, appearing unconcerned. 

I wouldn't really do much differently if Aria had a difficult temperament or past, but it's nice that she seems to be the first horse of my own (not training for others), that is not really a problem horse. Things go easier. 

It was nerve wracking at first, with the worry of being unable to easily catch or really handle a horse. I can see why people don't want an unhandled ten year old horse. You feel the clock ticking because the horse could suddenly require vet care at any moment, and you can see the hooves growing and putting stress on the joints while you hope to avoid tendon injuries. 

It is an amazing relief to have all the necessary vet care done, and the hooves trimmed nicely. The three easy legs are no problem now, and the "bad" leg that is tricky for her to pick up is getting easier to hold every day. 

I've noticed there are the horses that consider having their private areas handled an outrage, and the horses that believe a full spa treatment should include the undercarriage. 

The vet said, "I suppose you'd like his sheath cleaned," about Hero. I said, "Oh, no, he doesn't need sedation, he enjoys it." It was something I did not look forward to with my first gelding, having worked on other horses. But Hero not only cooperates with being cleaned, he actually stays squeaky clean somehow on his own.

Halla had extreme difficulty resisting the urge to kill anyone who touched her udder. Aria is amazed and pleased that I can reach under there and rub the dirt off. She thinks humans are pretty great, now that she knows them.


----------



## Knave

I think it’s an interesting thing that some horses tolerate their privates touched and others do not. Cash could use his sheath cleaned and his bean too, but he would kill me for the effort. He’s definitely on the “nope” side of that idea. Most of mine fall that direction, but Queen is far from insulted if I clean her bag. She finds it lovely to get the itches scratched and the gunk off.

Beamer I worry has developed a cancer inside of his sheath. You can feel the raw tumor inside when you clean him out, which he tolerates out of necessity as his willy gets swollen up and stuck inside at times. The vet said primarily that there was nothing they would do, so he may as well continue along in his normalcy.

I did learn something though after a scolding! When I explained the tumor inside his sheath, I was asked if I used gloves. No, I did not. Apparently that cancer shows to directly transfer into skin cancer on people. Do not mess with a cancer on a horse without gloves! Just a heads up. Lol


----------



## weeedlady

My Tucker is the dirtiest gelding on the face of the earth. My vet has instructed me to clean him on a monthly basis. He tolerates me well but refuses to drop. If he does happen to be dropped and I even look at him, it disappears, lol.


----------



## bsms

Happily, my three geldings all seem to be the self-cleaning sort. That comes under the category of things I do NOT want to spend time with a horse doing....


----------



## knightrider

This is hilarious.


gottatrot said:


> I've noticed there are the horses that consider having their private areas handled an outrage, and the horses that believe a full spa treatment should include the undercarriage.


----------



## gottatrot

For those of you who like mustangs: my friend has a mustang who is turning out to be a talented jumper. I thought I'd share these pictures of him.










__
Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content










I've ordered my renegade boots for Aria, hope they fit!!


----------



## bsms

Hmmm...the second photo displays "_Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18_" and then gives me the option to "Show Content". Being a retired military guy who has seen sights he'd rather forget, I risked hitting "Show Content". The content does NOT look very sensitive to me.

Did a search and found articles like this:

"_Social media is supposed to be your personal curation of the world around you — but when an intense post shows up on your Explore page, it can be disquieting. “I honestly cannot take it when medical things appear anywhere on my feeds,” Anna, 22, tells Bustle. “*Even those pimple popper videos just gross me out and I have to hide my head under a pillow.* My girlfriend tried to show me a feel-good post about a cat having surgery and I legit almost fainted.”...

....So what counts as “sensitive content” on Instagram? Sensitive Content Control is actually based on something Instagram already has in place: non-recommended content. These are posts that Instagram technically allows, but doesn’t “recommend” (which means its algorithms don’t put them on feeds to show to new audiences). So posts showing people fighting, poses in see-through clothing, promotions for things like vapes or weight loss supplements, or even vaccine-related misinformation might end up caught in your sensitive content filter._"

This New Instagram Feature Will Help Keep Violence Off Your Explore Feed

In case anyone is worried, @gottatrot isn't pushing a photo of a pimple being popped or a promotion for weight loss supplements (??????) and it certainly doesn't involve anything most people would be shocked to see in public. I mean, it does have a horse, but it isn't something one might have seen in the 1980s in a bar in SE Asia....


----------



## gottatrot

Maybe it's scary for some to see a mustang jumping so high?


----------



## bsms

I've seen much worse when I go out to feed the horses and see 3 geldings "relaxing"!


----------



## Knave

Lol. All true, but Queen jumped 5’6”, and might have higher in her bag of tricks.


----------



## gottatrot

No one will sympathize if I whine. But I must have sweated a liter off today. Ran a 5k on the treadmill and it was about 75 degrees in the garage, then did all the horse chores and went for a ride, and it was about 73 degrees out. I know that isn't hot for all of you, but in my defense it's high humidity here. 😁

I rode about a half hour. It still cracks me up that Hero would never pony Amore even three steps, but he doesn't mind ponying Aria.

What's more, he's so much braver with his sidekick along. Like that little pony is going to jump in and save him? Or maybe it's the mindset Amore always had: they'll be sure to eat the smallest horse first.

I've been trying to avoid gravel since Aria's boots aren't here yet. She doesn't seem affected by gravel the way Hero is, having hard little Arab hooves. Still, the gravel is brutal I know.

So after a short leg on the gravel, we went around the outdoor arena area for a couple laps on the grass. Aria followed along really well, only stopping a couple of times and coming along again with pressure on the lead.
I thought both horses did exceptionally well.


----------



## weeedlady

I certainly sympathize! It's been really humid here also and if the sun shines, temperatures always seem higher than they actually are. 75 here in the UP can feel quite warm. Too warm as far as I'm concerned. 

You are making great progress with both of your horses. Well done.


----------



## Txshecat0423

Heat index here was 104 yesterday….real temp will be 97 today (Central Texas USA). Everyone at my house is still lame so no riding, but it’s too hot to do so anyway! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## phantomhorse13

What is 'too warm' to a person is all relative. Humidity on the left coast is generally much lower than other places, but that just means you aren't use to it at all. I can remember thinking I might die after being in oregon for over a year, then coming back here to visit family in july - and they thought the weather was lovely!

I am at the Jersey shore, where it's currently 84 but with 79% humidity.. I am sweating just sitting on the porch (in the shade) typing this. At home, it's a real feel of 102. The ride we were originally supposed to be at in Maine is 106. I suspect @bsms laughs at those temps (though 'it's a dry heat' .. but so is an oven!").

A good day for inside in the AC things or swimming. @gottatrot you are very dedicated to be jogging!


----------



## Txshecat0423

phantomhorse13 said:


> What is 'too warm' to a person is all relative. Humidity on the left coast is generally much lower than other places, but that just means you aren't use to it at all. I can remember thinking I might die after being in oregon for over a year, then coming back here to visit family in july - and they thought the weather was lovely!
> 
> I am at the Jersey shore, where it's currently 84 but with 79% humidity.. I am sweating just sitting on the porch (in the shade) typing this. At home, it's a real feel of 102. The ride we were originally supposed to be at in Maine is 106. I suspect @bsms laughs at those temps (though 'it's a dry heat' .. but so is an oven!").
> 
> A good day for inside in the AC things or swimming. @gottatrot you are very dedicated to be jogging!


All too true. When I was traveling with a rodeo drill team and performed throughout the Texas summer rodeo season, we would hear “you shouldn’t ride at (certain temps)”. We would just shake our head and say well we’d never get to ride if we stuck with that! I also rode Mounted Patrol in the heat of the Texas summers. People where we rode MP would say, “Oh, those poor horses to be out in this heat”. I always wanted to say, “This horse lives outside. What about us poor humans???” LOL! Anyway, what the horse is used to and conditioned to has a great deal to do with it as well, in addition to what the horse is being asked to do. A big part of my “Oh, it’s too hot to ride” is that it’s too hot for ME 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## gottatrot

I know I shouldn't complain! Wow, you all have it so hot. I looked up the temperature, humidity and real feel today. It says 71 degrees, humidity 78%, real feel 78 degrees. Still feels hot to me! August is our hottest month.
Maybe I can complain a little because having air conditioning indoors is a very rare thing here. So it's always at least as hot inside as it is outside. We use fans.
I don't think the cats believe it is ever hot enough. They're always looking for sun patches in the house.

I guess our horses live a rather comfortable life though too. I pick up manure off the field, and so far this year I have scarcely seen a fly. I put on fly spray just in case, and sometimes I put the fly masks on because they look cute. The horses don't really show signs that they've sweated when I'm not there. 

Whenever I might feel like being lazy about running, I talk to my sister. She's getting ready for the Hood to Coast in several weeks. It's a team relay that runs from Mount Hood near Portland down to the coast. Each runner does several legs, and she has to run a total of 18 miles. So after she told me about her training I got on the treadmill. 😊








The Providence Hood to Coast Relay


The most popular running and walking relay race in the world, known as the Mother of All Relays. The event takes teams of 8-12 members 200 miles or 130 miles (from Portland) from the iconic top of Mount Hood to the beaches of the Pacific Ocean.



hoodtocoast.com


----------



## phantomhorse13

Well 78% humidity is terrible.. the air is just solid. I find that saps my energy worse than straight heat. I am much more jealous of your lack of bugs!!

I hope your sister and her team get good weather for that event.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks, @Phantom Horse!
Aria's boots just arrived! I can't wait to try them on her tomorrow. They're cute and small compared to Hero's clunkers. I suspect I'll have to buy a size down for her hind hooves, but I wanted to try the fronts first.
It's always funny putting boots on a horse for the first time. But the hinds are usually more dramatic.








Dogs also think boots are weird.




That reminded me of a funny video I saw of a cat that does an extended trot like a dressage horse.


----------



## bsms

I wouldn't want to be the rider who taught the cat dressage....wonder what bit they used.

July was the wettest on record for Tucson and August is continuing almost as wet. We're between two mountain ranges, the Rincons to the NE and the Santa Rita's to the SW. Both about 9,000' high compared to ourselves at 3600' MSL. We always get more rain than Tucson because it tends to roll off the mountains and we're there waiting... 

I rode Bandit briefly yesterday. Clouds were building up and I expected rain so we did a fast 20 minutes. Of course, once I dismounted and put things away....the clouds thinned. But 80 degrees and 80% humidity is tougher than 95 degrees and our normal 15% humidity. Also, I want to spray for weeds but iin my experience it needs 16-24 hours without rain for it to take effect - not the 6 hours the box says - and we aren't getting those gaps. We've moved from "Extreme Drought" to "Severe Drought" and might hit mere "Drought" if this keeps up for another month. But I wish some of it would get further north. It moves north from the Pacific but I don't think it is getting past mid-Arizona. I keep looking for my friend's ranch in central Utah and it seems to be petering out before it gets there.

@gottatrot has mentioned before what a place is used to. We used to joke in England about how in Arizona, the roads are designed to shed water even though Arizona is a desert, while in England the roads seem shaped to RETAIN water even though rain is omnipresent! But in reality, folks outside and horses can handle a given climate just fine if the climate is acting "normal". It is just...well, right now I'd LOVE 4-5 days of normal intense sunshine and no water! THEN I'd be glad to see some more rain!

And I'm posting because it seems like a lot of HF friends are just having weird weather. Hot or dry or wet or fires (!!!) or just stuff that isn't NORMAL. The rain we've had the last 6 weeks would be trivial in Oregon but we aren't used to it here. Although...my wife's roses are loving it! Got a hunch she may shed some tears when the rains slow but the rose blooms have been spectacular this summer.

BTW - I used some of the horse's fly spray yesterday on me. Doubt it is approved for humans but the flies and GNATS - gnats are right up their with pack rats on my hate list - had decided that if Bandit was protected and I was not, well, then I was a good secondary target. So I used what was on hand. BTW - Bandit loved the grass but he behaved well on our paved road segment. Wish I had gone farther from home but I didn't want to be a mile from home and hit with a thunderstorm. But like I said, once Bandit was back in the corral and the gear all put away..... ...but if I'd kept us going, I know we'd have been hammered!


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> I wouldn't want to be the rider who taught the cat dressage....wonder what bit they used.


Hilarious!!

It's definitely about what you're used to. I love this scene from the show Portlandia where they are chasing sunbeams.

Also I've found that weather can be amazingly different in different places. We consider ourselves rain experts and I don't believe I have ever stopped driving due to rain in the pac NW, even when tourists are acting nervous. But in Texas it rained and it was like our car was under a waterfall. No visibility at all and everyone pulled over. Scary.






Sometimes I think our area is for wimps. We don't have much heat and no snow or ice to speak of. The snakes are non venomous. The little black bears run away, we have coyotes instead of wolves. The flies are small and don't bite, mosquitoes are rare. DH was stung by a bee the other day, but it was a fake bee and the sting never hurt or got red. 

But many people like sunshine, warmth and even snow I guess. I think the bad and scary creatures must too. 😁

We were on the beach the other day and thought it was fine. In august, our hottest month it was about 60 degrees on the beach with a fairly blasting wind. The tourists had coats on and looked unhappy. I've heard people ask about when the sun will shine, but we have at least minor cloud cover 98% of the year. Many people like myself don't ever wear sunglasses.

I think many people have a climate they prefer and feel most comfortable in. But I really love visiting other climates and can tolerate them quite well in the short term. The heat in the outback in Western Australia is simply unbelievable. We've hiked in Florida in July, and Arizona in summer, Death Valley even. Also experienced Minnesota in winter, Iceland and the northern part of the East coast up to Nova Scotia in October was quite chilly too. 

I think it's enjoyable experiencing the weather and climate in many places. But where you want to live is another story. If I have to scrape ice off my car windows, it makes me feel very put out. And if you have to turn a fan on to get cool, to us that feels like a bad day. 😁😁


----------



## Knave

Firstly I am terribly jealous of your run. The walking boot I have to wear now is discouraging. I think I may have to pull out of my race in October, but I don’t want to jump the gun. My hopes keep dwindling. The foot still hurts and it feels weak outside of the boot. I find it super odd to still feel pain in it, but I did get the boot crashed into a couple times.

It’s been crazy hot here. I wanted to ride last night, but I hid inside from the heat. It is normally hot in August, so it’s not particularly surprising like it was hitting 100s in June.

I think living here is for hard people. Lol. I always think of that song “paved paradise” when I think about how people complain about agriculture here. It is cold in the winter. It’s not uncommon for it to be -20, and I’ve worked once when it hit -30, and in the summer it gets to be low 100s, not all summer but a little. There is ice in the winter and dust in the summer. Usually someone is sick too, and that blows my mind when we have rarely traveled into touristy big places and it seems everyone is healthy!

The horses seem built for this environment though. They would probably complain in your humid places. The horses that move here seem miserable for a bit and then fit right in.


----------



## phantomhorse13

bsms said:


> I wouldn't want to be the rider who taught the cat dressage....wonder what bit they used.


I suspect that cat has cerebellar hypoplasia, so actually learned all of that bitless. 🙃



bsms said:


> And I'm posting because it seems like a lot of HF friends are just having weird weather. Hot or dry or wet or fires (!!!) or just stuff that isn't NORMAL.


Our weather has certainly been interesting this year (interesting like the Chinese curse). We joke we have an invisible dome over our place at home, as you can watch the storms and rain approach, then deflect north or south (and sometimes both). The towns around us are having above average rainfall while we are in moderate drought. Really awful to watch Keith's crops withering. And as if that wasnt enough, it was the hottest June on record, July tied the record, and August is looking to follow the pattern. Because of the crazy heat, I have found myself following @knightrider 's example and riding a bit first thing in the morning before its too hot, then hiding inside. I try not to whine (esp since we are not on fire!), but it seems unfair that we are having a summer similar to the South, yet we have winter with ice and snow while they get prime riding conditions!



gottatrot said:


> But many people like sunshine, warmth and even snow I guess.


🤣🤣🤣


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, being injured is the pits!

Today was my birthday (44), and I went to try Aria's new Renegades on her. The base fits perfectly, I just need to adjust the cables so they tighten a little more.

I was very careful when I put the boots on. She was like, "Guess my hooves have boots now." Didn't concern her much. At first she seemed to think they were ice skates, and swooshed her feet along in the dry gravel instead of stepping forward. That was kind of funny, not a reaction I'd seen.

People on the forum have told me I'm wrong about Arabs, and even though most I've met are super spooky and reactive, my experience does not reflect on the majority of Arabs. I'm more inclined to believe it, getting to know Aria. I don't mean to say "good," about her temperament implies those reactive types are "bad." But she is nice to work with.

Horse temperaments are different in such complex ways. Hero is more stable in many ways than Amore was. For example, if I tie him I don't expect him to react to anything he understands, and he has been exposed to a lot. If he gets a rope over his neck, or a big truck pulls up, or something falls with a crash nearby, he'll just stand calmly. But if something does make Hero worried or upset, he's a big reactor, and it's going to be a dramatic and exaggerated response.

Walking the horses down to new places Aria had never been, in her new gravel crunching boots, she did not react in any dramatic way. When we saw new things, her eyes got bigger and her nostrils went snork, snork, but she kept walking calmly.

She is much better to walk with Hero than Amore was. Hero and Amore would ask each other, "What is it, is it OK?" The question would ping pong back and forth between them as they hopped around. Hero says to Aria, "Is it OK?" and Aria says, "No worries, mate." Some horses galloped around in the fields and normally that excites Hero, but Aria was nonchalant so he was too.

The horses did spook one time. My boot slipped out on some dusty gravel and I fell down. The horses thought I spooked, and since they know it takes a lot to spook me, they got momentarily freaked out. Hero was heading toward the horses across the road, Aria though it best to shoot home backwards. But as soon as they realized I just fell, they calmed down.

Neither horse is embarrassed about spooking. Halla used to hate admitting she had spooked, and would act super tough afterward. She'd startle, and then be like, "You want me to go run up that hill where I can't see the top? Cause I'll do it. I'll take all these wimpy, scaredy cat horses right up there. Want me to jump over that ditch? Cause I will, just watch me."

I trotted Aria on the lead for the first time. When we passed a bunch of cows in a field on the way home, Hero stopped to stare but Aria wanted to keep going to get home and eat hay, so he followed her.

She is a little Napoleon. Sometimes Hero pushes her off the hay, and he is big and powerful. But today she went past him into the shelter where he could easily trap her, and she parked at the biggest hay pile and started eating it. He just let her.


----------



## bsms

Mia was PROUD of spooking. "_*I saved us AGAIN, little monkey!* It may LOOK okay to you NOW, but there were space aliens there and I saved you! You're so lucky I picked you out from the prospective buyers and took you!_"


----------



## Knave

Happy birthday!!!!!!!!

The Arabians I have been around are more like your new mare. They were smart and thoughtful. I can’t remember any I particularly considered hot by any means. There was a paint cross that I didn’t like, but I wouldn’t say he was hot. He was rude. He’d buck and he’d strike and spook, and I disliked riding him. He was in my string. I never remember another person touching him to be honest. Boy I dreaded catching that jerk.


----------



## gottatrot

After adjusting the cables, the Renegades fit Aria great. 

Hero has been taking advantage of the fact that their hay nets are close together and hogging both of them, the barn owner says. She never calls Hero by his newer name, but says "That Rascal." That rascal did this, and that rascal did that. She always has a story for me. 

So I took down the corral that had been put up to teach Aria to get caught. It made the two shelters separated enough that Aria did not want to walk clear around to go in the other side to eat hay. Now she can just peek around the corner to see Hero is on the other side, so that way they can each be fed in their own shelter, and Hero will have a hard time taking all the hay in both areas.

I feel like her belly and back muscles are tightening up a bit already, with the little exercise I've done so far. I would like to have more time, but this month has been crazy. We are trying to simultaneously buy a house (closes the 31st), sell a house, and move. Next month will hopefully be better for training.









She looks funny stretching for the clover. Now that there's no middle sized horse, their height differences are quite noticeable. 13 hands vs 15.3 hands.










My friend with Mikey and Maybelle has moved her horses across the road to my barn. The fields where she was keeping her horses are full of tansy, and not much grass. I think Maybelle has great dun markings. I like the stripes on her legs.


----------



## Knave

That sounds very busy. I don’t envy you it.


----------



## egrogan

Buying and selling houses is definitely stressful, and it sounds like that is all compounded right now given how hot the market is. I hope both transactions go smoothly and you can finally feel settled!

Loving all the pics and updates as usual!


----------



## gottatrot

Today I put the surcingle on Aria. She tolerated having it rubbed all over, so I held the cinch around her and squeezed it tight under her belly. She gave a big hop. I gave her a cookie. Then I buckled the cinch on, and she ran forward a step and I gave her more cookies. She decided she could wear a belt as long as I gave her cookies. 

I lunged her with the surcingle on and took it off and put it back on. No problem. She's already starting to make pretty good circles, and today she was beginning to respond to "walk," "trot," and "whoa." 

Hero did his five minute warm up and then I walked them on the scary woods trail where Aria had never been. 

Hero: This looks scary.
Aria: Come on!
Hero: OK...looks scary...
Aria: Why would I be scared? You're as big as a house! Also we have the cookie lady. She has scars all over, I don't think anyone would mess with her.
Hero: I'll stand here in the woods and look around for danger.
Aria: Green, green grass!
Hero: Let's make our way home carefully.
Aria: We are having an adventure!


----------



## Knave

She sounds quite lovely herself. Maybe she will be like Queen, and she will think that if you are together you are superheroes.


----------



## gottatrot

My good friend has a pony almost the size of Aria, and she also is training him to drive. She messaged me about the harness she bought and really likes, and then did a 13 minute detailed video review of it for me with her pony. She included explaining all the features she liked, and also showed me how it fit her pony and should adjust to fit Aria also. So I ordered one tonight. I told her the company should pay her. She's had two other people admire the harness and both of them bought one also. 
It looks like this:








The one above has a gray saddle and breastcollar lining, but I ordered maroon to match Aria's Renegades. 

This is what the bridle looks like up close, but I ordered one without the silver dots since my friend's doesn't have them and it looks classy.









She's been using the new Easyboot Sneakers on her pony. I hope once we get the ponies trained we can go driving together. Here is Milo modeling his harness for the video. She hasn't bridled him yet, so she didn't put that part on him.









Today I took Hero and Aria for a walk, and we went over a scary bridge. I put Amore's blanket on Aria for practice, and she seemed used to it after about twenty seconds. I also put her surcingle on again, and worked on bridling with a rope. 

I saw the cutest beaver, he had a very whiskery face like this guy:








The horse fields had flooded recently, and it was due to a beaver dam that had created a blockage that even made the golf course soggy a mile away. So they sent a backhoe to clear it out last week. Mr. Beaver was hard at work today, putting everything back again. 

DH also caught this guy walking by our house a couple days ago on the wildlife cam:


----------



## Knave

It sounds like she is coming along perfectly! I’m happy for you that she is such a nice pony.

The harness Zeus uses is one my mom had. I was harnessing Cashman, but it was with the old work horse harnesses from the ranch. You know, the best collar was getting too small for him. I decided to give it up because of that and because I wasn’t working on him enough. We’ll just have to keep driving Zeus.


----------



## gottatrot

The horses have been getting minimal attention for the past few days because I was following a stretch of work days with several days moving into our new house. 

The timing was a bit unfortunate, because I had to get my second covid shot just before moving. Thankfully, I didn't have any fever but my lymph node under one armpit swelled up to the size of a tangerine, and then I had about 8 hrs of severe body aches. 

After stretching out on a hard floor, I was able to lift heavy things OK, and finally it occurred to me to take a Tylenol, which helped. The good news was that after all the hours of moving stuff, my lymph node cleared right up. Probably all the muscle contraction helped. 

In case you wonder, I was waiting for guidance on which brand of vaccine was best for autoimmune disorders. Rheumatoid arthritis, polymyalgia and sjogren's have severely affected my mom and her mom, and I suspect I carry the same genes waiting to be triggered. The autoimmune experts were a long time in coming out with recommendations. The word was "not studied."

My work now requires the vaccine, so I made the best choice I could. Supposedly autoimmune disorders are not being triggered or flares caused by the vaccine. It is difficult to track, however, and there was one case of RA that I know of that seemed to have a bad flare up after the vaccine. It was a lower risk to be vaccinated, but it is good information to know which are more likely to cause problems. My mom and I went with Pfizer. She's in a flare up (swollen knees and shoulder joints), but it hasn't worsened.

The rental house we were in was way too small for us, and my tack was mostly in boxes in a closet, or in the garage. I am looking forward to setting up a real tack room again. In case you didn't know, spare bedrooms are for tack and other hobby supplies, such as musical instruments, books, or crafts. Not for guests, they can get a hotel, lol.

The cats love the chaos of boxes piled everywhere.


----------



## bsms

My oldest daughter was required to take the vaccine for work. The first shot didn't bother her. The second one knocked her down for two days and she said she felt like she had golf balls in one arm pit. My son had what felt like bad flu after the second shot. I had no problems at all. My wife took the J&J one shot vaccine yesterday. So far no swelling but she seems pretty lethargic. Although that could be from pulling a LOT of weeds yesterday before getting the shot. When I was in the military, in a flying squadron, they always gave us the flu shot before a 3 day weekend. That way we could start feeling better in time for work....

A combination of an anthrax shot and a yellow fever booster shot in one arm on the same day resulted in what felt like a pencil in my triceps for a couple of months. Anthrax is a series of 5 shots. In its infinite wisdom, the military had started me, then changed their minds after 3 shots. A year later, they decided I needed the anthrax shots again....but they started me back at the beginning. So I eventually had EIGHT anthrax shots and it was number 8, combined with the yellow fever booster (which is no longer recommended 🤬 ) that zapped me.


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> My oldest daughter was required to take the vaccine for work. The first shot didn't bother her. The second one knocked her down for two days and she said she felt like she had golf balls in one arm pit. My son had what felt like bad flu after the second shot. I had no problems at all. My wife took the J&J one shot vaccine yesterday. So far no swelling but she seems pretty lethargic. Although that could be from pulling a LOT of weeds yesterday before getting the shot. When I was in the military, in a flying squadron, they always gave us the flu shot before a 3 day weekend. That way we could start feeling better in time for work....
> 
> A combination of an anthrax shot and a yellow fever booster shot in one arm on the same day resulted in what felt like a pencil in my triceps for a couple of months. Anthrax is a series of 5 shots. In its infinite wisdom, the military had started me, then changed their minds after 3 shots. A year later, they decided I needed the anthrax shots again....but they started me back at the beginning. So I eventually had EIGHT anthrax shots and it was number 8, combined with the yellow fever booster (which is no longer recommended 🤬 ) that zapped me.


Maybe you didn't react to the vaccine because you've had so many! Your body might just think, "Oh, another one." 

I've been busy cleaning and cleaning. I didn't realize there were people who just didn't clean at all. I'll readily admit that I'm not the best cleaner. I get busy, I'm a barn girl and the deep cleaning gets put off, and the dishes pile up. But our new house was occupied by people who apparently just didn't clean. It has been taking me about 3 hours to clean each room, sometimes more. Some things are difficult like grout and the edges of showers. But porcelain and tile? It just takes a swipe. I don't see how you could just never spray something over the outside of the toilet. There was an inch of dust on the sides, plus mold underneath that layer. Maybe you don't wipe down the moulding along the floor, but letting big piles of dust accumulate seems excessive. Well, things are beginning to look and smell much nicer. 
Soon I'll get back to horse stuff.


----------



## bsms

Sounds a bit like the house we rented in Benson. Cleaning it was hideous. And so much of it was just someone who didn't care - AT ALL - about minimal cleanliness! We always live with a certain amount of dirt, dog hair, etc - part of having horses and dogs all at home. We are not neat freaks! But the _*nasty*_ stuff we found....YEGADS! We actually went to look at a home to buy a few weeks ago. It sold while we were inside looking. 😕 But...the number of places where someone had OBVIOUSLY cut corners - painting over rotted wood, for example! The homes we made offers on were at least clean and in decent repair. But some folks.....and dirty toilets? Yep....


----------



## weeedlady

I hate cleaning. Most of all I hate cleaning other people's dirt! I would rather clean the barn than dust and vacuum.

We moved in January and I am soooooo lucky. They left this house spotless! I walked in with my cleaning "tool kit" and found nothing to do.

Hoping you can get back to the fun stuff before too long.


----------



## Knave

When I was first married we moved into a bunkhouse at a ranch we hired on. Bunkhouses are traditionally messy I guess, because cowboys are often young and single at those jobs. There was a couple in before us though, so I didn’t expect what we got.

It was awful! I am not a particular kind of person, but I am somewhat tidy. Anyways, this house was so bad that I sat and cried. Everything about it was bad. The kitchen was colored in sparkly grease, and mouse crap was an inch thick in every drawer. Some drunk cowboy must have scratched the word “stove” onto the stove, and the smell was hideous. Everything in the bathroom was yellow and everything had a stickiness to it.

The house itself was in awful repair, and a creek had ran straight under it, messing with the wiring where it blinked on and off. The area was stunning at least, and these big apple trees surrounded it in a meadow. You could pick apples straight out the window.

The week we cleaned everything and moved in I had cried to another hired man’s wife. She laughed, “well, maybe a tree will fall on it.” We went to the fair and came home and wouldn’t you know, a tree had fallen on the house. Husband was up in arms, “This is too much! This crosses the line.” I laughed like a crazy person. I thought that was the funniest thing that had ever happened.

The roof caved in over the dining area, and the light hung from the ceiling where you had to duck to get around it. The ranch hired someone to do a job of fixing the roof, but it wasn’t a good job because water poured in with the rains. They left the caved in dining room though. Lol.

The cat was spectacular, and she literally piled dead mice in the hall every day. She would leave 20 mice a day for the first month, and then she brought it down where it was only three or four.

When I had my oldest daughter I said we had to leave. They finally burned that house down after us. We were the last ones in there. I think they thought the creek mixing with the wiring was going to burn it down anyways.


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, WOW. I cannot complain!!


----------



## Knave

Lol. It really was kind of funny. I couldn’t understand why no one would take their shoes off in my house, because I was young and because I figured it was required respect for my cleaning. Lol

It was an adventure for sure, but I think the house displayed my life at the time…


----------



## Txshecat0423

Knave said:


> Lol. It really was kind of funny. I couldn’t understand why no one would take their shoes off in my house, because I was young and because I figured it was required respect for my cleaning. Lol
> 
> It was an adventure for sure, but I think the house displayed my life at the time…


When I married my second husband (yes, they’re numbered…LOL!), we were really broke so couldn’t afford much in rent. We ended up renting a two bedroom house at the lake kind of sight unseen. I’m not a fabulous house keeper by any means but man….this house was horrific. The grease on the wall behind the stove was at least an inch thick and it was like a brick wall so I ended up having to actually take a chisel to clean some of it off. The bathroom hadn’t been cleaned in years and everything in there was painted a different color…a sunshine yellow vanity with purple, turquoise and lime green drawers, red linen cabinet with orange, blue and black doors, stuff like that. A big part of our entertainment was drinking cheap beer and you did NOT want to walk into that bathroom with that psychedelic color scheme after drinking a few too many. That husband gave me some stovepipe type western boots for a wedding present and I was putting them on one day. There were two scorpions in there that stung me about fifteen times before my husband could get the boot cut off…my leg had already starting swelling…hated losing those boots! After me cleaning that place up and us repainting etc, we ended up having to move after about three months because the owner’s house was being foreclosed upon and they gave us two hours notice to pack our stuff and get out. Hadn’t thought about that house in years! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Knave

@Txshecat0423 it is funny how those things make life worth it. I think had my husband and I not been fighting so much back then we really could have had some fun in that house. We did a little, but not like we should have.

Now I see young broke kids getting married and remember those times and laugh. It makes you I guess.


----------



## gottatrot

Our first apartment after we got married was in the city, and the tenant in the upstairs unit above us had bipolar. There would be several days of complete silence, followed by her manic period where it sounded like bowling balls being dropped overhead, and the vacuum running all night, loud laughter as she chatted on the phone for hours. Then silence again.

When it rained, we discovered that during the quiet periods, our upstairs neighbor would not bring her dog outside, but instead was putting her out on the deck. So when it rained, the dog waste began dripping down on all our stuff we had on our deck outside. We complained to the landlord, he talked to her, she slashed my tires. Unfortunately, it was just before a riding lesson, so I had to cancel. I would have rather it happened before my work, LOL. The landlord said there was nothing he could do about her behaviors, so after several months we moved out and decided to never have an apartment again. 

Our next little house was much better, although there was no insulation so in the summer we lay dying on the sofa, too hot to move, and in the winter the pipes froze and burst in the middle of the night, and the water shut off was underneath snow so DH had to dig it out. Then we had a couple of days waiting for the pipes to be repaired, with no running water to flush the toilets with or take a shower. We would drive to the grocery store to use the bathroom.


----------



## gottatrot

Aria's harness arrived, and it is beautiful. Unfortunately, it is also a little too small, so I have to exchange it for the next larger size. Now I have to be patient. She let me put the saddle and back strap on to try it on, with no issues. Of course I didn't attach the crupper yet. I know how that one goes...horses need a lot of room to run with their hind end tucked under while they figure out the feeling of something under the tail.

A couple days ago DH came to help get hay in, and pick up five wheelbarrows of manure off the field. I was a little behind from the time constraints during moving. Now things are looking better.

Mikey's rider was supposed to meet me after her work at around 6 pm yesterday. Unfortunately, she called at 6 from the vet's office where she works. It was the day after the three day weekend, and they still had a dog to stitch up, a cat to see, and a horse to geld so she would not make our ride. She has been doing the virtual Tevis cup and is almost finished.

I ponied Aria off Hero, and we went the farthest we've gone yet. About a mile and a half total. So far it just feels like I'm riding Hero. The ponying part is no issue, except Aria doesn't trot yet on the line so when I have Hero trot, we come to the end of the line and have to walk again. I've only been using a regular lead rope so far, but I've ordered a longer line to use. Hero is still calmer with his buddy along, but sometimes he doesn't want to go forward if he's scared, and then we get stuck. But I didn't have to get off, I was able to work him forward after a bit, so that was good. Aria is adapting very well to going out and seeing new things. She has very little concern after going to a new place once.


----------



## Knave

I’m sorry the harness was too small!


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I’m sorry the harness was too small!


I shipped it back today...it will be so hard to wait for the new one!


----------



## gottatrot

Lovely ride yesterday evening. DH was willing to go for a walk so led Aria while I rode Hero around the 45 minute loop I usually do with Mikey's rider. When we went by her stable, she said, "I wish I knew you were riding!" Too bad, but it was a last minute decision - we hadn't been sure if we'd make it out in time for me to go for a ride.

So far I've had trouble getting Aria to trot when she is being ponied, but tonight every time I trotted Hero she would break into a trot too. Hopefully that will carry over to ponying. She is a brave little pony. The first several times Hero went onto the wooded trail with Mikey, who is unflappable, Hero was very nervous, jiggy, and worried. I had to drag him in. 
Aria walked right into the wooded part and then immediately noticed there was green grass along the trail and was diving for it. She had many snacks all along the way due to her handler, but I thought it was good for her to think positively about getting out into the big wide world.

There is a part where we leave the woods and enter the backside of a nursery. Hero is always quite calm about the debris since he believes woods are scary and man-made things are comforting. The track gives that to horses. But that was where Aria spooked. There are piles of empty plant pots, tarps, trailers, a pump house that makes noises, and it's a very stimulating scene. Still, she only spooked once and then calmed right down. The only way you can tell she is nervous in areas she has never seen before is by listening to her breathing, which gets a little shorter and faster. But she keeps walking out and also searching for food as we go.

We commented about how different a green Aria is from how a green Amore was. DH thinks Aria is so much like Amore, because she has a lot of the same mannerisms. Such as being very food oriented, and she has many little looks and postures that remind us of Amore. When you get her home and stop, she immediately begins to rub her head on you. Amore always did that. But they are very different when it comes to reactivity. 

If we had brought green Amore out of the woods into the nursery storage area, she would have snorted, darted and danced all over the place for at least the next half hour, for sure. Aria was like, "Yikes!" and then immediately began walking calmly again. 

Hero was far more worried about things throughout the ride, compared to Aria. Still, he has improved immensely in the past year, and even in the past six months. I even offered for DH to ride instead of walk, because Hero was that good. No bucking, skittering or kicking at all. He's had enough good rides around the area, I think he's mellowing with age, his physical problems are the best they've ever been, and he feels safe with his little pony. DH wanted to walk, and that suited me fine. It was nice to be riding.


----------



## gottatrot

As I was unpacking a couple days ago, I thought that I needed to find a new home for Hero's Scoot boots because he does better in the Renegades. I tried asking Mikey's rider if she could use them for her mule, but Maybelle actually wears a very small size because her hooves are so conical and small at the bottom.
Then yesterday @egrogan popped up on my FB page asking about used boots and I realized she was looking for 3 slims, which is what Hero's boots were. So today I'm shipping Hero's boots to Fizz, and ordered Renegades for Aria's hind hooves. That worked out great. 
I have bought some toe straps for the Renegades with buckles instead of velcro, so I'm going to try those out soon to see if I prefer the buckles.


----------



## egrogan

Keeping it all in the HF family  I’m so glad you happened to be on FB when I posted!


----------



## gottatrot

Yesterday worked more with Aria on lunging. She is doing so well, I think we can transition to ground driving when her harness arrives.

Unfortunately, I made a mistake. Both horses had their boots on, and after lunging Aria I had the horses loose in the arena. I decided since there was no time for a ride or walk, I should get them running around a bit for exercise. Hero got a bit too excited, right away. He began galloping, but too fast for the area and doing tight corners with legs flying everywhere. I began to look at the boots and get an ominous feeling. I couldn't even see his hooves, they were blurring so fast in all directions as he snorted, kicked, bucked, galloped. Argh. By the time I got him stopped, sure enough, one hind boot was flapping in the wind, hanging off his fetlock.

I took it off and surveyed the damage. Something new I hadn't seen before...he'd ripped the cables through the side of the boot, breaking them through the plastic. Each boot is "only" about $100, and I was feeling very dumb about my choice to have Mr. Ungraceful wear his boots while galloping about madly. We live and learn. 

I believe that after cramming the cables back through the plastic, closing the broken area back together with gorilla glue and adding duct tape for good measure, we might have a workable boot again. I doubt it would hold up to wild galloping again, but if I am dumb enough to do that again I will deserve to have it break. 😬


----------



## Knave

I’m sorry, that’s a bit of a loss isn’t it? I would mourn the loss of one of my boots, although I rarely use them anymore.

I hope the fix works out.


----------



## bsms

I'm back to using Bandit's boots any time we go to the desert. The chat we put in our corral seems to have encouraged them to move around more, and the fine gravel wears down their soles as well as their hooves. I view that as a positive, but it means Mr. Thin Soles needs boots for the desert.


----------



## gottatrot

Aria's hind boots are here! The right one is a little big, but it's the smallest renegade size so I'll try to snug it up a bit. No time so adjust them before our ride today, so we went with just the fronts.

Hero's repaired boot seemed to hold up. We rode for an hour on the trails with Maybelle the mule. I had the buckled toe straps on Hero's renegades for the first time. Wow is that nice to just close a buckle and not deal with the velcro. I wish I had bought them a long time ago.

Aria ponied along beautifully. When we got to the nursery where she spooked the last time, she was like "Oh, I've seen that stuff before."

Hero walked and didn't spook at anything. Neither horse spooked on the entire ride. That is something pretty unusual in my life. We even went to some new places where Aria had never been. A four wheeler came shooting down a side road, and Aria just looked to see if anyone else was concerned. When they weren't, she wasn't either.

Putting her hind boots on was a non-event also. She took two funny steps and then was cool. I swear, she is like Amore in that both horses were not handled until after 10, but both seem to want/expect/thrive on attention. It really seems like Aria wants me to put more stuff on her. I swear she was offended the other day when I led her out without her boots on. 

I think many Arabs have this innate wish to be doted on. 😁
Halla loved attention too. She would leave grain to come and get petted. I'm very glad to still have an Arab in my life, even a diminutive one.

Near the end of our ride, we stopped the horse, mule and pony to talk to the barn owner. Sometimes Hero has had trouble standing, but his pony/anchor stopped him from milling around.

As we stood, I started scratching Aria's head from the saddle, and then she put it in my lap so I could get all the good spots. Then she politely ruffled my jeans with her lips, to let me know she wished for the treats in my pocket. Of course then she got some, and more scratches. She is very cuddly. 

Hero is more like cuddling an alligator, but getting better all the time. He just wants to participate with his mouth all the time, and even though he really has toned it down and doesn't bite, he uses his lips as strong play tools somehow. They can kind of whap and scrape you. Lol. He means well.


----------



## Knave

I love that Aria is so kind!


----------



## gottatrot

I haven't put pictures up for a while, so I took some pictures and video of Aria sporting her new Renegade boots.

Hero looks "ho hum" in this picture, but he was really just calm. Funny how the light can be in photos. He looks almost thin, but actually he is leaning toward the fatter side of normal, and feeling his ribs requires a bit of pressure. I think it's the winter coat coming in that creates the illusion.









Aria's belly is starting to lift and firm up, as she finally is able to stop compensating for her previous state of poor nutrition. 









I was able to get her hind boots to fit quite well after adjusting the cables.









It's hard to explain how cute her personality is without a video. When I was trying to record, Aria kept trying to get closer to see if I had any treats. She always stands at the gate for a few minutes after I turn the horses out, wanting me to take them for a walk or some other type of fun. It's cute because she smooshes right up to the gate with her toes underneath. 
I simply cannot understand how someone could have this horse for ten years and not gentle her. Some were talking on another thread about how they call small Arabs or QHs horses and not ponies. I guess it's because Hero is just so much bigger than her, but Aria is a pony to me. Amore was borderline pony sized, but since she was big enough to ride, I called her a horse. Aria to me doesn't meet the height where I think of her as a horse.


----------



## knightrider

She is so adorable! I am so glad she is yours!


----------



## egrogan

She is so cute. I think I will always be a sucker for a little bay mare. Her huge forelock makes me laugh. Fizz's is like that too!

Did anyone ever hear from the lady who put this all in motion, or did she truly clear out of town? That part of Aria's story is so odd, yet so lucky for both of you.


----------



## gottatrot

egrogan said:


> She is so cute. I think I will always be a sucker for a little bay mare. Her huge forelock makes me laugh. Fizz's is like that too!
> 
> Did anyone ever hear from the lady who put this all in motion, or did she truly clear out of town? That part of Aria's story is so odd, yet so lucky for both of you.


I know, I love the forelock. Amore could never grow one.
We haven't heard from the crazy horse lady, and haven't seen any sign of her.

My good friends are working their pony Milo, who is about Aria's same size and in a very similar stage of training. I thought some might be interested in how cart training progresses. They have a great setup because they can pony off the carts, so Milo can get used to the sights and sounds of being driven while wearing his harness. Little Eddie is the teacher in this case, the steadiest mini.
My friend recording has had a shoulder surgery so is driving with one hand and does not have a spare one for ponying. I'm hoping to trailer Aria up there one of these days for a session of ponying with the carts too. I love my friend's commentary.


----------



## Knave

That would be so good for Aria!


----------



## gottatrot

Aria's harness came today, but not until after I'd been to the barn. Can't wait to try it on her.

When I turned out the horses, Maybelle's owner had put a bright purple blanket on her, with sparkles. It really freaked out Aria for a couple minutes. When I let her go, she bolted across the field. Hero was concerned too, but he figured it out pretty quickly. Aria thought a mule wearing a blanket was some kind of space alien.

I asked Maybelle's owner if she wanted to ride, but she was farm sitting somewhere out in the country so had to head out there. So I rode Hero and ponied Aria. I decided to take them through the neighborhoods for a while, so Aria could get used to the sights and sounds. I will want to eventually drive her on the asphalt once she is trained to drive. 
Hero enjoys going on asphalt, it seems to remind him of his track days. He is far less worried about neighborhoods than the woods. We only had a couple small spooks, the first one is in the video, which was when some dogs came rushing out, and I decided I couldn't handle two horses and filming so put my phone away. Some spooky little kids also jumped out from behind a bush, which startled us too.

Later, we went back down the gravel roads around the horse areas, and I filmed the horses grazing where we stopped to turn around. It is a neighboring horse boarding place, they have about 10 horses and we are grazing next to the outdoor arena that no one seems to use. 

It has been raining, so the dried up grass is having a growing phase, which is good before the winter rains set in.


----------



## Knave

I love her neck and mane. I have my phone tucked away most of the time, which is why I never have pictures when exciting things happen. It’s just time to focus. Lol

It was blowing my mind because you had her on your left. When I had my broken foot I tried to put Queen on the left, and it was such a mess. 😂 I pony like I rope, and apparently my horses agree.


----------



## knightrider

When I start young horses, I pony on both sides right away because you never know what is going to be needed. Same with mounting. I mount for the first time on both sides right away. I've had to mount from the right side for many reasons and it's good to know you can do it.


----------



## Knave

It would have been smart @knightrider! Queen is so aggressive that I can’t seem to manage with my left hand very well. I should have started out that way for sure. I have with her made sure to have my rope come off both sides of her, because sometimes it happens that you have to throw over the other side, or a horse is holding a calf and they get their neck on the wrong side of the rope and panic.

I usually do mount from both sides too, but I haven’t done that with her either! Probably she wouldn’t mind… I don’t know. I need to do it before she’s convinced that would be wrong. I struggle with myself doing things from the wrong side. I have gotten on Cash from the wrong side, and Bones, just not her.


----------



## Kalraii

Knave said:


> I love her neck and mane. I have my phone tucked away most of the time, which is why I never have pictures when exciting things happen. It’s just time to focus. Lol
> 
> It was blowing my mind because you had her on your left. When I had my broken foot I tried to put Queen on the left, and it was such a mess. 😂 I pony like I rope, and apparently my horses agree.


I was about to write the same thing. She has an amazing mane. Look how far and how fast you've progressed. It's wonderful. She's so darned lucky! That cart video I have to say that tail swishing back and forth is very cute. The noise would worry me doesn't something need greasing?!


----------



## gottatrot

@Kalraii, I think my friend is driving in a sulky, and they seem to squeak more. 









@Knave, Aria is super easy to pony. In the past I've decided which side to put the pony horse on by putting the horse in my right hand that I think will need the most strength. If I think it will be the horse I'm riding, I put the pony horse on the left. But Hero does not try to pull and rush, so either side is fine for these horses. I always ponied Amore or Halla from my right hand, they were unpredictable. But that was risky too, because you never knew which horse was going to get antsy.


----------



## Knave

That’s nice Gotta. Queen is spectacular on the ground, never pulls tight, but ponied she gets angry with whatever horse I am on. I guess, to be fair, she is the excessively jealous type, and no one goes fast enough in her opinion.

I dally off though, and dallying with my left hand takes a ton of concentration. Lol. Cash is cranky about it, which I could handle, but she is angry as he is, and my left hand is awful.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> That’s nice Gotta. Queen is spectacular on the ground, never pulls tight, but ponied she gets angry with whatever horse I am on. I guess, to be fair, she is the excessively jealous type, and no one goes fast enough in her opinion.
> 
> I dally off though, and dallying with my left hand takes a ton of concentration. Lol. Cash is cranky about it, which I could handle, but she is angry as he is, and my left hand is awful.


I've mentioned Bibi quite a bit. She was the 13.2 hand diva mustang queen of the universe.
We ended up deciding it was unfair to the other horses to pony her. Even the big patient Beau would get too frustrated. We thought she should be ponied until 3, but got on her at 2 instead because she was too aggressive to pony. Even though she was small. She thought it was fun to kick and bite horses that dared to pony her. It wasn't about speed, it was more like, "How dare they think they can lead _*me*_?"









Here is big Beau, the saint. Supposedly he was a Quarab...? We didn't think so. Huge and built like a tank.
Both my sister and DH rode him, he was the best babysitter and could even take beginners for a smooth gallop without losing them. He tripped and fell down with my sister going down a steep hill, but did not lose her - he fell onto his knees and got back up without unseating her. She is a complete beginner. She still tells me all the time that I told her horses rarely fell down, so not to worry...just before going down that hill. Murphy's law again.








When my friends got Beau, his owner had fed him on a diet of mostly donuts, if you can imagine. He broke my friend's back, because he thought she could handle the powerful buck he threw in after taking a big jump. She flew over his head. He was very good at taking care of beginners, but he also had too much faith in a good rider sometimes. It was like he separated people into two categories: the frail and stupid ones, and the super heroes. If you were a super hero, he'd gallop like a freight train, jump over anything, stop on a dime. If you were frail, he'd never let you fall. What a super horse.


----------



## Knave

I don’t know how a horse could get by on donuts. Lol

Beamer is like that. He bucked every ride through his 11th year. Husband put my oldest girl on him when she was 4 or 5, and I was ready to kill him. Yet, Beamer loved her and took excellent care of her until she was aroun 14, when he decided to buck her off. We moved him to the little girl, and he took care of her with complete happiness.

He thinks of her as an adult now too. Lol. He never bucked her off yet though. Yet, it’s not only little girls he babysits. Beginners he loves too. He can tell if they know nothing, and he will do anything for them.


----------



## gottatrot

I keep wondering why it is so common for people to believe that if they run into any trouble they should never get off their horse. Others on the forum have pointed out how helpful it can be.

Someone recently referenced Darrell Gardner on FB as a trainer with an effective approach to a "barn sour" horse. I prefer to call it separation anxiety, or perhaps a "safe space oriented" horse. Lol. Actually I quite like @Knave's label of "lonely" horse.

I did not like the trainer's approach. I quite liked the quote from one of Warwick Schiller's videos someone posted recently that said there may be a million methods but principles are few. 
So very true.

Gardner seemed to believe in the idea that you never should get off. Just whip the horse until they do something right, then lay off. 
It worked with the horse. Yet the horse was very upset and could easily have gone down or backward. Horse or rider were at risk of getting injured.

A principle I see Schiller following is to set the horse up for success. That is a principle often impeded by riders who believe every solution is found in the saddle.
Ground work per se does not translate directly to saddle work. But things like feeling secure in a new area or facing a scary object can be done from the ground. And so often you can lead a horse over an obstacle you cannot ride them over.

I don't think any horses are trying to gamble with their riders. "I bet I can make you get off." I bet most if not all horses know deep down they can pitch us onto the ground whenever they wish. 

Why not get a horse comfortable with leaving his safety zone by leading before trying under saddle?


----------



## QHriderKE

@gottatrot 
We have a bridge over the creek between the house we live in and the barn yard. I have 3 horses electric fence by the house here so if I need to do something over at the barnyard, I've got to cross that bridge. 

Martha, who spooks at most things, crosses the bridge with hardly a second thought. But Penny, who is pretty reliable and unflappable these days, is absolutely convinced that she cannot be rode over the bridge. I can lead her over without hesitation on her part, but there's no riding her over most days. If she's comfortable being led over the bridge, that's fine with me. Some people would say it's bad to let her "get away" with refusing but that horse has trucked us over and through stuff that most people wouldn't dare try, if she says she doesn't want to be rode over that darn bridge, we can compromise!


----------



## Knave

@QHriderKE I think our horses deserve that sort of respect. I should have gotten off Lucy and led her down that particular hill, or let her sidehill it. I think that any horse who works very good for you should get a say about some things like that.

Cash refuses to step on these rubber mats outside the trailer. It annoys me, because even not stepping on them he throws back over them half the time, but I don’t make him step on them. Whatever. One day he decided he didn’t want to anymore, and I just started tying him next to them.


I think that’s a good idea Gotta- sometimes I forget it, but like the dummy with Queen, why not get off first and show her it’s okay? I loved how @QHriderKE ponied those colts at work!! I would do that if it would fly around here.

Cashman is one I would rather stay on in a fight or wreck though. He is not trustworthy on the ground. He would just as quick run over the top of you if he was scared of something. Queen may be the best I’ve owned on the ground, or maybe I just appreciate it more since Cash. Bones isn’t bad at all, but he kind of drags behind when he is being led. Even scared he would watch out for a person. The others there are no complaints with.


----------



## weeedlady

I am all for getting off if I feel the need. There are times I want my feet on the ground, but there are also times with both of my horses, that I feel safer staying mounted. It depends on the situation. I do not hesitate to get off it that is what the situation calls for.


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> I don’t know how a horse could get by on donuts. Lol


I once set up a bunch of horses for a PA friend to come look at to buy. One of the horses was in a pen with hundreds of loaves of bread. The man worked somewhere where he had access to all the leftover bread every day and fed the horse nothing but bread. I desperately wanted the man who was horse shopping to buy that mare just to get her out of that situation. But he chose a flashier more exciting horse.


----------



## Knave

Wow! I have never seen a horse fed an odd diet. We were given a horse called Zipper for my girls when they were little who was being starved. We couldn’t really leave him there. Even old I knew he would be an easy keeper, because he was making it on next to nothing.

That poor horse was a mess. Kindhearted and very good, but arthritis in his knees and a bowed back tendon because they hauled him for two days straight and he went down in the trailer and they hot shotted him to get him out!

Poor Zipper. That horse had some bad chapters in his life. When we gave him away after the girls had outgrown his abilities, it was to be a pasture pet for a woman who just wanted a horse to love on. He was perfect for that. Yet, they divorced and he was sold as a hunting horse. This poor horse who waddled in front. I was already mad about that, and I heard he was sold as a team roper next. In hindsight I would have given him the year and put him down.

That is the worst I’ve seen though, starving horses. I’ve never seen feeding random things.


----------



## gottatrot

I tried the harness on Aria last night, and it seems to be the right size.

Unfortunately, I made a small mistake, which was thinking the saddle would stay in place so I could walk her around and get used to the feeling of it.
I ran the breeching and straps around her hindquarters and belly, and she seemed relaxed about it. So I tightened the saddle/girth and had her walk around for a while. That was fine too. So I put her on the longer lunge line, but when she trotted a couple steps, the breeching made the saddle slide around so the breeching was underneath. Then she ran off to the other side of the arena with it chasing her.

That wouldn't have been so bad, except Hero was loose in there and he thought maybe he should gallop too. I was like, "Not again!" because I had put his boots on. Dumb me. So I yelled at him to *stop* galloping, and for some reason he did, LOL. Then I grabbed his boots off really quick before he could break anything.

Poor Aria, she was still standing with the breeching hanging down, but that was my secondary concern. I adjusted everything and walked her some more, but the breeching kept wanting to slide over and worry her. Once we were walking nicely, I took everything off. She was calm very quickly afterward, so no harm done.

I messaged Milo's owner and asked for her advice. I did not want to put the crupper on yet, because that seems to worry horses a lot. She suggested using blanket leg straps attached to the breeching to hold it in place, so we can practice some more before putting the crupper on. Brilliant. I will try that next time.

My philosophy about horse training is that "it takes a village." I don't see how I'll ever think I know it all and think I can figure out every scenario for every horse. I will take advice any day.

ETA: I'll mention that even though I've trained horses to harness before, they all had been very exposed to other tack, blankets, ropes and handling for a period of time before their training. We either trained minis that had been handled from birth, or else bigger horses that had already been trained to ride. This is more like saddle training an older horse, but still the harness sliding over being a concern did not occur to me. Milo's owner is very helpful because her pony was unhandled also.

I put Aria's bit in for the first time, just holding the bridle on top of her face and keeping the bit in place for a couple of minutes. She didn't mind, but was seriously trying to figure out how to get that "food" back toward her molars. This is where using treats liberally pays off. She believes that anything I put into her mouth is going to be edible.


----------



## gottatrot

When I say a crupper seems to worry horses a lot...

Before I had studied enough about saddle fit to figure out how to get a saddle on Amore that would not slide forward, I modified one of her saddles for a crupper. Amore had been ridden for several years by then, but had never had a crupper on. Still, you must understand that I always handled her under the tail, picked it up and had run ropes under there. 

So I put the saddle on and attached the crupper. That was an experience. First Amore tried sitting on the ground. But that didn't work out because of the saddle and the pressure it applied when she rounded her hindquarters. So then she went racing around the arena (of course she got loose from me right away), and was trying all kinds of things to get away from the crupper. She bucked, but that is terrible with a crupper, and she did this scooting thing like dogs do with their hind end under, and she twisted and shuddered and made every motion known to horse until the saddle was on sideways and the crupper was sliding down her tail. 

These are the butt tuck zoomies if you don't know what I mean. Cute on a dog, very disturbing on a horse, LOL.





It took several sessions for her to get used to the crupper, but I only rode with it several times because it felt like she was crouching in the hind end all the time. Hmm, might be a good "strengthening" device for some horses. I am trying to avoid this type of drama with Aria.


----------



## Knave

I made a big mistake starting Cash to pull too. I had him used to the tack, big workhorse tack from the ranch that my grandfather used that was almost too small already for a four year old Cash.

I decided to pull the tire, with safety measures in place, but I attached the big heavy workhorse chains. When he spooked of the tire the tire came off like I anticipated, but those big chains went to dragging and he panicked. He almost ran me over and I lost him, and I was sure he was going to break a leg. Them big heavy chains were flying and slamming his legs, and I was imagining one wrapping around it.

He went off towards a bobwire fence, and I knew he would crash it and that he was going to be majorly hurt. He stopped though. He stood there shaking and I got up to him and unhooked the chains.

I finally did drag some things on him, much more cautiously, but he outgrew the collar and I decided it was good enough to have Zeus pulling.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I made a big mistake starting Cash to pull too. I had him used to the tack, big workhorse tack from the ranch that my grandfather used that was almost too small already for a four year old Cash.
> 
> I decided to pull the tire, with safety measures in place, but I attached the big heavy workhorse chains. When he spooked of the tire the tire came off like I anticipated, but those big chains went to dragging and he panicked. He almost ran me over and I lost him, and I was sure he was going to break a leg. Them big heavy chains were flying and slamming his legs, and I was imagining one wrapping around it.
> 
> He went off towards a bobwire fence, and I knew he would crash it and that he was going to be majorly hurt. He stopped though. He stood there shaking and I got up to him and unhooked the chains.
> 
> I finally did drag some things on him, much more cautiously, but he outgrew the collar and I decided it was good enough to have Zeus pulling.


Wow, quite an ordeal. Super scary. 
I was just thinking yesterday about the courage it must take to train a draft horse to drive. With a big, super easy going horse like Beau, no big deal because he'd already dragged logs and things around many times, been ridden for years, and did not react to things. But even with the minis and ponies, if something goes wrong it's a terrible wreck, and I can't imagine being the first one to finally take the reins and sit in the cart of a draft, after all the training, hoping that you are right and the horse is completely ready. I have faith that if I get in the cart of a mini or pony for the first time, a person holding another line clipped on will be able to slow or turn the horse and give me a chance to get out, and for us to avoid a wreck. But with a draft I don't believe there is a prayer. 

A friend of mine had her draft dragging chains and things, and then one day attached a board to drag. He went through the side of the barn and took out two fences. He only got scrapes and small cuts, thankfully.
If you haven't seen "Martin Clunes: Heavy Horsepower" that's a very interesting show. He has a Clydesdale someone is training to drive for him. I was impressed with the training. I think it's free on Prime if you have it.


----------



## TrainedByMares

knightrider said:


> I once set up a bunch of horses for a PA friend to come look at to buy. One of the horses was in a pen with hundreds of loaves of bread. The man worked somewhere where he had access to all the leftover bread every day and fed the horse nothing but bread. I desperately wanted the man who was horse shopping to buy that mare just to get her out of that situation. But he chose a flashier more exciting horse.


If that is the same PA farm I am familiar with, all the animals were fed a steady diet of bread, ho-ho's and other 'snack' foods at that time (several years ago) and alot of them died or were stricken with disease because of it. The horses died from eating moldy hay I was told. They would dump that stuff by the truckload in the barn and I know people were eating out of that pile too. That was around the time I was getting involved with horses and did not have the knowledge or wherewithal to rescue those horses.


----------



## knightrider

TrainedByMares said:


> If that is the same PA farm I am familiar with, all the animals were fed a steady diet of bread, ho-ho's and other 'snack' foods at that time (several years ago) and alot of them died or were stricken with disease because of it. The horses died from eating moldy hay I was told. They would dump that stuff by the truckload in the barn and I know people were eating out of that pile too. That was around the time I was getting involved with horses and did not have the knowledge or wherewithal to rescue those horses.


Wow! This place was in Maryland. That means there were TWO sets of incredibly ignorant people endangering horses by feeding bread and junk. The place where I took my friend hadn't had the horse very long and realized they were not equipped to keep a horse. At least they were smart enough to figure it out and sell her.


----------



## TrainedByMares

knightrider said:


> Wow! This place was in Maryland. That means there were TWO sets of incredibly ignorant people endangering horses by feeding bread and junk. The place where I took my friend hadn't had the horse very long and realized they were not equipped to keep a horse. At least they were smart enough to figure it out and sell her.


That is a shame.


----------



## gottatrot

Beau came with laminitis from the donuts.  I can't believe people would feed horses like that. 

Today I didn't have a lot of time but needed to trim hooves. After the hoof trimming, all I had time for with Aria was getting used to wearing tack. Aria tried on her winter rain sheet.








I will put it on her a few times before she has to wear it. I thought there would be a lot of color choices for ponies, but there were a lot less than horses. I wanted burgundy, but couldn't find a pony rain sheet that color. I guess a lot of ponies have kids for owners, and the parents pay the bills. It seems like the most choices are for standard QH sized horses. That's OK, Hero wears a blue blanket too, so they'll match.

She tried on her saddle and breeching again too. You can see she is still a little apprehensive about wearing it. Saddling her would be tough. She has a seriously forward girth groove.


----------



## Knave

She’s looking really good!


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> She’s looking really good!


Thanks, @Knave!

We took an overnight trip to have some fun. Went down the coast, then over to the Wildlife Safari. It's an animal park that has most of its 600 acres as a drive through with animals roaming around. We loved it. You can see many animal behaviors close up, because the animals are desensitized to the vehicles driving slowly through. Only the very large animals or predators are inside other fences. The hippos were behind a fence, but the rhinos were not. We didn't get to see them very close though. The ostriches were behind fences too.

Dogs are not allowed inside the drive through, but they have nice covered dog runs that are free. When we put Gilligan in one, there were no other dogs. When we came back, there was a tiny Yorkie across from him, wearing a sweater. They were just staring at each other like "What is happening?" Little dogs are often not very used to being left in kennels. 

I didn't get videos of the cheetahs for some reason, but they have a very big cheetah breeding and conservation program. We brought home a painting that the elephant made for us.  She was eating the same hay we feed our horses, and they said she eats 200 lbs a day. So she has to work for a living, selling art to support herself. She sold two paintings, so enough to eat for a day.

ETA: The lion disagreement was because the small (old? he seemed stiff) male was lying down near the females. Then one female got up and made him move, taking his spot in the sun. This made the other male get up and get angry with her for pushing the small guy around. It seemed like he was protecting him. But the female still got the spot she wanted in the end. 

6:39 video, about a minute and a half is the coast, the rest is the safari park.


----------



## gottatrot

Yesterday I had time to do some training with Aria, and a short ride on Hero, ponying Aria.
Hero did not want to leave the field, and later on when it was time for the ride he did not want to go out. I made him go, and then halfway through the ride I felt like a jerk because he was taking an off step every minute or so. I couldn't find any signs of hoof issues like an abscess, so it must have been a pulled muscle somewhere. Poor horse. He told me loud and clear, but I didn't listen.

I need to tie up Hero when I'm working with Aria. As you can see in the video, he wanted to be the one getting the attention (my horses are like @Knave's), and pestered Aria way too much. He is a total clown though. Aria did great. I am trying to find the balance between introducing her to new things and allowing her the opportunity to move around to relieve stress, to not feel trapped, but to challenge her and make progress. So far I think we're doing fine. After all I did to avoid using the crupper, attaching it was a non-event. I need to bring the bit down a hole I think.


----------



## Knave

It always bothers Queen a lot more than Cash when I romal him too. Lol.

He is a jealous heart. Hopefully he doesn’t get super aggressive about it like Cashman…


----------



## egrogan

I don’t know why this moment cracked me up so much, but I can’t stop laughing! What a pest Hero!!


----------



## Knave

I think Hero is kind of a funny guy. He has a lot of personality.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks for thinking Hero is funny instead of a bad horse. 

I told the barn owner once that Hero's name used to be Rascal, and she always tells me what he does interspersed with "That rascal..." did this and "He is such a rascal." 
I've felt that racehorse names are more or less random, but someone must have figured him out as a young horse when they named him Radiant Rascal. It is way too fitting.

Maybe some people feel I am too lenient with my horses, but I truly feel that many of Hero's behavioral problems when I got him were from being misunderstood and mishandled. He doesn't have great social skills, but he doesn't mean any harm. You can see how he nips at Aria, but she never has a mark on her, and she goes right in and eats his food. She doesn't like getting nipped at, obviously. To Hero, this is more like saying "Hey." 

On another thread we were talking about if horses were people. You can see how Hero is just this guy who thinks he's really funny, is nosy, and doesn't understand personal space. He doesn't understand that people (and horses) don't like getting pestered all the time. He's like a coworker I had who would punch me on the shoulder all the time. But he's not evil, and I think that people taking an antagonistic approach toward him caused worse behaviors. 

At any rate, he came to me with really bad behaviors, and I know or know of at least two people who had him for a while, and both are people who believe that horses do not get away with anything, and if they get in your space, bite or kick, you get after them as hard as is necessary because those behaviors are "never" allowed. 

But that didn't work with Hero, obviously. I don't think he understood. He's not sensitive, and is not thinking antagonistically, so I think he must have thought people like to play really, really hard. I also believe that because when he was out with Leo, the gelding who took extreme exception to being played hard with, he had big gashes all over his body. Leo tried to punish Hero into leaving him alone, and Hero seemed to think that if Leo injured him it was an accident, and they were simply playing very hard. It's actually kind of a nice personality trait, to always think the best of everyone. 
I think Hero thinks everyone likes him and wants to play. 

I think that even though I did reprimand him quite a lot for biting and being rough, it was at a lower level than he was used to, and he finally understood that we were not having a play battle, but I was actually trying to tell him to tone things down. I learned from the mares, because I found out he could not go out with geldings because of the way they react to him. The mares give him light warnings or else ignore him, and that is how he needs to be handled.

I know a lot of people wouldn't care for him because he is so nosy and is always, always doing things when you're handling him, like a kid with ADHD. When you tell him to do things, his default is always to say "Wait a minute, let me think." Rather than saying, "Yes, boss." He is ten times more compliant with things than when I got him though. But if you have the mindset to laugh, he's actually quite funny!


----------



## Knave

I didn’t see anything wrong with his personality, and really do think he just has a sense of humor. Zeus would do the same things, but he actually is far too rough with the same mentality. We just laugh about it. Bones is a pest too, always messing around with something, and always making me laugh. Bones doesn’t pick at other horses though, because they eat him alive.

There seems to me a big difference between those pestering attention type behaviors and something like Cash when you try and pull another horse out first. Cash is out for blood, and Queen too. There is no play in those two, and you’d better be watching them closely.


----------



## bsms

He sounds a LOT like Bandit. When our granddaughter watched him the other week, she called him a "butthead". But it was because of things like him sneaking out if she left the gate unlocked - although she could then walk up to him with a lead rope and bring him back. Or because he bites at the other horses - but the other horses never have a mark on them, while Bandit has bite marks all the time. When we go to feed them, he makes a big fuss about "This is MY bucket" - but then Trooper displaces him with a head nod. He likes a bit of drama. My all time favorite was when my farrier broke out laughing while working on Cowboy. He then pointed out Bandit was trying to "sneak up"...by hiding behind a 4" vertical metal pipe! He was like a kid who thinks he is invisible.

"_When you tell him to do things, his default is always to say "Wait a minute, let me think." Rather than saying, "Yes, boss._" I'll admit...riding Trooper yesterday afternoon, Trooper is a no fuss ride. At most he would sigh and then go where pointed. With Bandit, everything is under negotiation. So many people hate that in a horse. I just assume it. *And he's NOT a butthead! Just has a surplus of personality.* 😁


----------



## gottatrot

I haven't been able to stop myself from giving out treats to the rattos when I go to the barn. There are two that live in my shed, and despite what you might think, giving out treats has not attracted more rats. It's been just the two for the year I've been there. They haven't had babies, so must be two boys or two girls.

When I arrive, they make chattering and squeaking sounds. Then I put out several treats, and they always come and get them even if I'm still there. They like carrot pieces, or horse treats.
I'm quite certain the person who wrote the song I cut for this video was thinking of this when it was written (_song Lonely Eyes, Chris Young_). 





It was raining today, but supposedly it will taper off during the night so I took the rain sheets off the horses. When I arrived, Aria was looking all comfortable and dry in her rain sheet, as if she'd always been a spoiled pony. She's also been pooping under her shelter. Although the climate she came from is drier, it does rain there. As with all the animals who have come to me, they're quick to adapt to perks. It doesn't take long to go from being scared of anything with a roof, to wanting to park under the shelter eating hay. 

We practiced getting used to the bit and bridle again, and she was beginning to walk forward and turn left and right to bit cues. After that we went for a ride ponying off Hero with Aria wearing the harness. I evaluated Hero on the way down to turnout, and couldn't see any hesitation in his stride. He cantered around the turnout, and when I rode him I couldn't feel any off steps. Aria had no problem wearing the harness around. She's better than Hero at having her boots put on and taken off already.


----------



## Knave

I like your little friends!


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> I like your little friends!


As long as they are YOUR little friends and not MY little friends. I have such a problem with rats chewing up my stuff and destroying stuff. Rather like bears. I like looking at bears as long as I am not on the back of a horse looking at bears.


----------



## Knave

We don’t have rats. We have the occasional Kangaroo Rat, which is adorable, but smells awful and makes a giant nest, so we let the dogs kill them if they come around. Dogs can’t resist them. Other than those, and the occasional pet rat, I’ve never even seen one.

Mice do enough damage, and those voles. The cats do a good job of that though.


----------



## bsms

We have pack rats. They LOVE electrical wiring from cars. I've had a couple thousand dollars of damage done. One took up living in the frame of my truck. He died there of poison and his mummified remains were still there when I gave the truck to my BIL. Field mice might be OK but I've never been around one. Pack rats are from Hades.


----------



## Knave

Oh, we have those too @bsms. They are awful bad. I don’t know why I didn’t think of them. They ruin vehicles if given the chance. Dogs go crazy for them too.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Rodents can spread diseases like hantavirus and damage food, living spaces and wiring etc. Encouraging them by feeding will lead to infestation and health problems. Put your treats on large sticky traps and get rid of those bad boys!!


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> Rodents can spread diseases like hantavirus and damage food, living spaces and wiring etc. Encouraging them by feeding will lead to infestation and health problems. Put your treats on large sticky traps and get rid of those bad boys!!


Rats are subject to a lot of bad press and bias. My two are roof rats.
LOL, humans can and do spread diseases too.











To be clear, I'm not against anyone humanely killing animals if they believe it is necessary. 
There is no danger of damage or problems with these rats, however. Roof rats have a very small habitat, often ranging no more than 100 yards from their home nest. The shed where I keep my horse supplies has no electricity and no insulation. There are no cars parked there long term. There are no human habitations within their range.

I believe it is my responsibility to keep horse feed in rat proof containers, so things they could chew on are in metal garbage cans or thick plastic bins. They don't chew on my leather. They do like plastic and wood to sharpen their teeth, and sometimes nibble the edges off buckets. 
When I kept bottles with liquid in them, they would try to chew into those, so I put them away. But I realized they were trying to find water sources, so now they have a water dish, and they drink from there.

I don't provide their main food source, only treats. Possibly because they have such a nice environment with a dry nest out of the rain, they defend the territory and don't let other rats move in. There also is not a lot of food available, other than occasional treats, so they have to go out and forage for their own insects, plants and seeds. 

The main problems with rat infestations come from when people leave food readily available. Of course if food comes easy, they will eat it and move their relatives in. In cities like New York, they often do not require that garbage is put in cans, and set bags out inches away from sewer grates where rats can come up.
Rats in these conditions often have diseases, eating garbage and rotting food. Rats living in natural conditions are as clean as other animals.









I learned about how great rats are after I bottle fed a couple of orphaned roof rats several years ago, and raised them to adulthood. Then I released them into a natural habitat. Wild rats are wild animals, and do not become tame like domesticated rats.





Like other animals that are breaking down your apple trees or digging holes in your yard, they can be pests. But I think people also should realize rats are very intelligent. Scientists trained them to drive little cars, and I think they drive better than most of my neighbors.





They also show empathy. When scientists taught them what it felt like to be in a tank of water, and then gave them a chance to either eat a treat or save a friend rat from being in a tank of water, they chose to release their friend. 
So I'm pro rat, and don't see why a person would kill them if they are not causing any problems. 
Rats like to be clean and bathe themselves like cats. They stay clean unless living in a very dirty environment such as a big city. People don't like them, but all they are doing is trying to survive and using their brains to do so, like us. When you get to know them, you find out their personality is like a small dog, and they are very affectionate.





When it comes down to it, they're just cute little animals.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Well , @gottatrot , thank you for the education. 
I kill rats and mice on sight. I can't see me changing that. Clearly, I spent too much time in the ghettos of Detroit and Buffalo.
I do appreciate your love for your little friends and I hope it continues in a clean,healthy fashion.


----------



## gottatrot

Thinking today about how looking back to see how much progress horses have made is so beneficial. I was recalling a ride with my poor friend, where she was riding Cass and ponying Brave.








I've been having so many good rides on Hero lately. Even this bucking earlier this year was minor compared to how he used to be when we first started several years ago.




(What a silly song...no one in their right mind would rather know horses when they were more poorly behaved, or people for that matter). 

The ride with Cass and Brave was perhaps the pinnacle of Hero's worst bucking. The little thing he does in the clip above, where he balances on the front and then kicks out the hinds... On this particular ride, we went onto a narrow trail, and I was in front on Hero. I am not exaggerating, Hero did that at least forty times over about 1/8th of a mile. My friend was sincerely worried about the state of my back. My thighs were very sore the next day. 

I've had people think I am exaggerating when I talk about horses I've dealt with. For me that would be counter productive. I struggle with confidence the same as everyone else. If I were to imagine that horses were worse than they were, I'd be terrified. It's bad enough in plain, brutal honesty.

Going through those times, I was glad Hero did not have the speed or talent that Amore had, because her bucking was so much more difficult to ride. Since Hero had such a refractory issue with bucking, it was very good that it was something that could be ridden through, and that I could keep his head up. 
For me it is so beneficial to think back, and see that yes, he has toned down his spooking and reactions so much, and that he has come so far. It occurred to me that I wouldn't call him green anymore, and his good and sensible rides are far outnumbering ones where he has issues. Progress is a beautiful thing.


----------



## weeedlady

This is so very true, and I need to make a point think this way. While I appreciate my horses when they do well (and I let them know) I also tend to dwell on the mistakes or bad behavior. 

Yesterday my riding friend commented on how much better Tucker is doing lately- he is more calm and willing to walk quietly on trail now instead of always rushing and being worried. It brought to my attention how much progress we have actually made. When I brought them home in May I was afraid to ride him. Now we ride out all over the place-alone and with friends. 

Thanks for this!


----------



## gottatrot

Tonight I put Aria's harness on and did some ground driving. She was picking up the rudiments of going in a circle, following the bit while walking forward. She chomps a lot on the bit and puts her tongue over and under it still. I'll give her more time, but it could be that she doesn't care for a single joint. 

After that, I put a bareback pad on Hero and ponied Aria for a short while wearing her harness, until it got too dark. The deer and elk were quite active, probably because this was a sunny day sandwiched between some rainy days. Hero is quite comfortable to ride bareback. He has nice back muscling. 

The rattos told me to say hi to you all. At least I think that's what they were squeaking.

Mikey and Maybelle's rider had her Boston Terrier pup at the barn, following Gil the bigger Boston around. So adorable. She looks just like this, a brindle and her ears are still floppy.









I was looking at a video from 2018 that shows Hero getting worked up. I don't have many videos of him getting panicky back when he was very mouthy, so I thought this was interesting. Usually if he was trying to bite or getting very worked up I had my hands too full to be recording anything. I feel like you can see he was at this point a horse with poor coping skills, and he hoped to relieve his stress by mouthing/biting (which I am blocking) or bashing his head against me. The look in his eye says it all. 
In my opinion, there is nothing to punish here, and I think it's very important to recognize a horse that is agitated because of fear and worry. 





Hmm, I kind of miss those days. Nowadays if he destroys a boot he sometimes looks triumphant.


----------



## Knave

I wouldn’t miss those days. Lol. Cash was and still can be kind of a jerk on the ground. Not as much anymore, but I still watch him some.


----------



## gottatrot

Today the rain was steady with no breaks, so it was not a good day to work with the horses.
When I went to the barn, I was wearing my black rain pants and black rain coat with the hood up. After putting Hero's halter on, I noticed Aria was reluctant to come near, and when I went toward her she rushed away. After a moment, I realized it might be my hood, so I put it down and tried coaxing her to come and get haltered. That didn't work, so finally I took my coat off and hung it over the fence.
You should have seen her face, it was so funny. As soon as I removed my coat she was like, "Oh, it's YOU!" She came rushing toward me.

I think she thought I was a black bear or some other scary monster trying to catch her. She's very smart though, and when I went to go get the horses out of the turnout later, wearing the coat and hood, she came up and let me put the lead rope on. I think a small part of her was still a little skeptical that it was me though, because she came forward hesitatingly.

ETA: I was just remembering how I used to think it was funny to put my rain hood up and get Amore snorting around the arena sometimes. All I had to do was put the hood up, lean over slightly and make a "shhhh, shhhh," sound and her eyes would bug out and she'd go snorting and galloping all around.


----------



## egrogan

I found both Hugh and my horses did not like the “swish” of rain pants the first time they saw me wearing them.


----------



## gottatrot

The weather was "good" today, so I worked on ground driving with Aria. I'm still learning how to adjust her harness. The saddle and girth are supposed to be looser than a riding saddle, and well back from the withers. It seemed to be in a good position with better spinal clearance today.

She is getting the concepts of right and left very well. Forward and straight, not so much. We weave like a drunken sailor.

I tried a new bit, a Shire's Equikind mullen half cheek. It seems much better for her mouth, and her tongue stayed underneath even when I had no wrinkles in her lips.

After driving practice it was getting dark (and still sprinkling), so I took the horses for a walk instead of riding. We went about a mile and a half, down and up a steep trail in the woods. Aria wore her harness and she walks next to my shoulder, never lagging or surging, just naturally leads well.

Amore was the same, I could pretend I was the expert at teaching perfect and polite leading with those two mares. Halla led perfectly too, as long as she wasn't excited.
Then there is Hero who never is in the right place, or at the desired pace regardless of practice.

Everyone has their good qualities, however. Hero keeps his shed spotless. Aria is like Amore and Halla were. If it rains at all, they poop and pee in the shelters, and make a big mess. Sometimes on a nice day just for the heck of it. Geldings are so much neater.

Halla was the worst. She'd pull out a big section of expensive hay and then pee on top of it. She knew the story: Orphan Annie gets adopted and now she is spoiled by Daddy Warbucks. If bathing in Evian or peeing on soft hay is what you want to do, that's OK now!


----------



## Knave

I always think mares are cleaner than geldings!


----------



## gottatrot

Guess it's west coast boys...my friends' geldings are tidy too!


----------



## Knave

I had a mare, the one I rode for years I talk about often, that pooped in a stud pile. I think Queen always poops in the same corner, but not the stud pile like Runt.


----------



## egrogan

My mares have a "poop corner" where they are constantly marking and re-marking over each other. It actually makes it really nice for cleaning the paddock! Last week though, someone started the game in the corner of the paddock near the main gate, and that was really annoying because I walked out to do chores and had to walk around it. For a couple of days, I had to remove the piles in that area as soon as they appeared so it didn't escalate. They seem to have given up on that spot and have gone back to the regular area.


----------



## knightrider

I've had both mares and geldings and find the mares generally are more neat than the geldings about their poop piles.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I think it all depends on the individual horses personality whether they are messy or not.


----------



## bsms

My mares were WAY neater than the geldings. Not even close. The three geldings I have now wouldn't blink an eye about pooping in a feed bucket - or eating the feed afterward! Mia and Lilly both went as far from the shelters as possible and pooped there. Always the same spot.


----------



## egrogan

PS-I never had any idea how much mental and physical energy I would spend on horse poo until I brought them home 🤣


----------



## TrainedByMares

There is something really satisfying about cleaning up every bit of poo! Lol! 😊


----------



## Knave

I don’t have to spend much energy on it here @egrogan. The tractor cleans the horse corral once or twice a year, and it’s never a problem.

I however spend a ton of time in Mama Pepper’s pen thinking about poop. Today, for example, the corral is a mess. I try to keep it perfect daily, but I had COVID, and I got behind, and then I was getting it back where it should be when the snow hit. Now, because I keep it so clean, it’s down to hard pan. So, the corral collects water and won’t drain. Mama is currently living in a puddle, excepting her barn which I had not caught up after Covid.

I’m hoping it drains out in the next few days. I can’t put her anywhere else, because Queen is horsing again and I have her in the calf pen and the calves in the extra corral.


----------



## gottatrot

@TrainedByMares, it's true, once I pick up the last pile of poo I feel real a sense of satisfaction. When I'm cleaning up horse poo, I've sometimes thought about how all across the world, there is this crazy group of people who are doing the same thing. 

That is funny how you all have clean mares and mine have always been messy. My friend has a gelding that she can put in a stall and he will keep all of his poop and pee in a tiny corner, even piling the poop into a tower. We wonder how he can pee in the corner. Somehow he aims over there. The same friend had a mare who dipped her hay in the water trough and made a green soup, and then dropped the mucky hay all over the shelter. 

Amore used to poop in the water buckets, and Halla would usually leave at least one pile of poop mixed in with her hay (in the main hay pile, not the separate "special" pile she pulled aside to pee on). Amore would also sometimes poop on top of fence boards. Halla would poop in her grain pan too. Aria even sometimes pees in Hero's shelter, which seems despicable since he would never do that.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I pick the paddocks and the heavily pooed portion of the big pasture. When its all clean, I feel like a victorious General looking out over the battlefield. What a feeling of accomplishment! Lol 
I believe the horses appreciate it, @gottatrot . If I keep up with it, they poo in the same areas. If those areas fill up, they choose new areas, making the job much more difficult. 
Sometimes while I am picking , they will walk a good distance to come over to where I am and drop another one perhaps to 'help me out'! 😄


----------



## knightrider

TrainedByMares said:


> Sometimes while I am picking , they will walk a good distance to come over to where I am and drop another one perhaps to 'help me out'! 😄


Yes, isn't it satisfying to hold the shovel under their butts and think, "THAT'S one I don't have to scoop!"


----------



## gottatrot

@TrainedByMares posted a pic of the fruits of hard labor...here's mine, LOL. I usually get two of these every three days. 

Most people at my barn leave the manure in the fields, but if I did that my field would be muck instead of grass (like many of the other fields). In my opinion, less than an acre for two horses is just a paddock, and that means the manure has to be picked up. 
But it's a lot of work, and I can see why some others just clean out their shelters and leave the fields.









We were talking about riding on the roads on another thread, and I've thought sometimes it is helpful to have the horses boarded next to a road. The feed store next to us means there is a lot of traffic up and down this road, which I think is helpful for Aria. When I ride the horses down the road, they are simply seeing the cars and trucks that go regularly by their field, so it doesn't bother them. Sometimes Aria looks up at Hero, but since he was a track horse, vehicles don't get to him. So he is helping teach her that cars are no problem.

Hero used to react badly to headlights. A couple years ago when I was riding him at the beach one night, every time a car drove up to us with headlights in our face, he reared. Usually I don't care what observers think when I'm riding, but good grief. The barn owner drives down her driveway a lot at night, so I guess he has grown used to the lights now. 

I did some ground driving with Aria last night, and then took the horses out for a short ride down the road. One of the boarders drove up behind us, and she wouldn't go around even though I waved my arm for her to go ahead. Hero just plodded forward, and I thought there was plenty of space, but I guess she was in no hurry. Finally there was a pull out area so I got the horses off the road, and then she went by. 

Hero was tied to the shed while I worked with Aria nearby. When I went to saddle him up, I found that his lead rope was attached to the shed, and he was unclipped and grazing next to where he was supposed to be tied. Not sure how he managed that! 

Although I miss having a fast ride, it's good for Hero that I can saddle him up, hop on and go out to explore. He was very interested in going out tonight, wanting to have a sight-seeing adventure. Aria was less eager, thinking that after her driving session she should just go in and eat some hay, but she got into the mood after a few blocks.


----------



## Knave

We call a horse afraid of lights “twiterpated,” and General was the worst I’ve seen. One day we were trotting out to the cows before even that hint of sunrise, because the roads were too bad to get a trailer down. My grandpa kept shining a flashlight back behind him. I know he was trying to be kind and worried about everyone, but the road was soooo slick in mud, and we were trotting out fast, and my horse kept trying to buck every time he shined that damned light backwards. He didn’t know what was happening because he would see we were there and turn back around. General went down a couple of times in the mud because of it.

It was a very rare time that I was irritated with my grandfather. I was ready to shove that light somewhere else dark by the time we’d covered the miles we had to before the sun even rose and we started our job! Eventually, like Hero, General got over his hatred of lights, although he never did appreciate them.

My mom always shines a flashlight into a dark trailer for the horses to “see,” and since General it annoys the crap out of me. Lol

I can see Queen is going to hate lights too.

Hay trucks are always loading semi’s in our yard, and tractors in the summer, and I think it helps out too. Queen has a phobia of motorcycles, but that is because people have a tendency to run mustangs on motorcycles for fun, and I’m sure that’s something she’s experienced on the mountain. No other vehicles bother her yet, but we haven’t come across a helicopter either. I was afraid Cash would be frightened of them, but he could care less.


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, that's very interesting. It's funny that my "twitterpated" arabs didn't mind lights. 

I think even though they herd the mustangs with helicopters, some horses end up desensitized to them. Kind of like how you can run a horse with a lunge whip, but the horse ends up not afraid of a lunge whip. An acquaintance took a mustang to the beach after only three rides, and a coast guard helicopter landed nearby on the beach. The mustang didn't care at all, he'd seen helicopters a lot and it didn't impress him.


----------



## Knave

@gottatrot that makes perfect sense! I’ll tell you what though, Queen hates bikes!


----------



## gottatrot

Reading about @egrogan's issues with Cushing's...it almost makes me feel guilty, but I know it's natural that I have a feeling of relief that I don't have to deal with the issues anymore.
Of course when I had Amore, I was happy to take care of everything. But occasionally it occurs to me when I'm cleaning healthy hooves and they aren't always trying to deteriorate, and when I think about not having to shed out a Cushing's horse in the spring, that it is nice to not have to deal with those things anymore.

I've felt the same after having an old, incontinent dog finally pass away. It's not just the work, but also the worries about how they are feeling, and if you'll be able to keep them comfortable. You love them and don't begrudge any of the hard work they cause, but it is still a relief when you are free from that.

Especially it is good to know that my old horse passed quickly over to the other side and I was able to keep her healthy and happy until the very last day. It's so much work, and it is worth it. And it's a big burden off your shoulders when that responsibility is over.

Between the thrush, the coat shedding difficulties, and Amore's sweet itch, she kept me busy. There was also her club hoof that had to be managed carefully. I ended up doing very well with that. Still, it was a lot. 
I expect Hero will have issues in a few years as he ages, due to his anatomy and stifle problems. Plus his typical TB hooves. But for now we're all in fairly good health, and it's a nice reprieve. Don't tell "Murphy" I said that (I believe in Murphy's law).


----------



## Knave

I understand. My old cat has felt that way. She was a mean thing by nature, but nice to me. The last few years she would poop and pee in someone’s dirty clothes if the did anything to offend her. She couldn’t attack them anymore, and it felt a relief to not continually be cleaning that up.


----------



## egrogan

Don't feel guilty @gottatrot. After my experience with Maggie, who is so difficult to manage because of the Cushings/IR, I am pretty sure I will never take on another horse that is showing a tendency to be cresty/overweight. I've never had a hard keeper, but I know I never want another truly "fat on air" type. The Cushings I feel like is sort of inevitable, at least in Morgans, when they get up into their late 20s. But the insulin resistance stuff, the constant obsessing about turnout and fat pockets and sore feet, I'm not up for that again once we no longer have Maggie. I have thought about a pair of donkeys as companions, and lovely husband would really like to get them, but I just can't knowingly take on another equine where I'm constantly worrying about restricting grass.


----------



## Knave

I feel for those of you who face it. We’ve never owned a cushings horse, although I was beginning to wonder as the old paint horse hit his 30s. He was put down somewhere around 32 or 33, so it never became an issue worth forcing, as he was so old.

When I worked at the Arabian ranch there were two cushings horses. Both were in their 30s, and neither difficult to manage as your own. They were actually in very good shape. One was 33, and the boss’s step son rode him on littler rides, and he was as solid as they come. The other I never saw ridden, but she was also sound and happy. We had them vetted bi monthly, if I remember correctly, and they were easily managed.


----------



## TrainedByMares

In a previous post @gottatrot you mention that you find horses interesting. That comment got me thinking, because I find them interesting as well. I asked myself, what do I find most interesting about horses? I find communicating with them to be the most fascinating. In the beginning of our time together, Nicki did not have an idea of what I was doing when I hugged and kissed her. Over time, she has learned that when I do that, I am telling her that I love her. I vocalize this as well. I know she has learned that this means what it means because she has reached the point where she will nuzzle me gently or lean into it gently in return (if she feels in a loving mood). We are communicating! There are many other examples but you get the idea. Communicating effectively and working as a team is pretty neat for a four-legger and a two-legger to learn. What do you find most interesting about horses?


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> My mom always shines a flashlight into a dark trailer for the horses to “see,” and since General it annoys the crap out of me. Lol
> 
> I can see Queen is going to hate lights too.


I read in Equus Magazine that it takes 45 minutes for a horse's eyes to adjust to a change in light, whereas it takes people about 3 minutes to adjust. The article was about taking horses into indoor arenas where there is low level lighting. The riders need to be more aware that the horses' eyes have not adjusted. If this is true, I can see why you would hate lights shining and blinding the more sensitive horses.

What I find most interesting about horses is their varied personalities. I also like listening to them and pretending that they are communicating with me.


----------



## gottatrot

I love communicating with horses too, and I think many on the forum here do what many people don't do with horses, which is have a two way conversation. I think many people just "talk" at the horse but they don't listen to hear what the horse has to say. But horses have a lot of interesting things to tell us.

Like @knightrider, I also think horses have such unique personalities. I'm learning about who Aria is, and finally am understanding more about who Hero is. It takes time to really get to know a horse. But you really need to understand a horse's personality in order to figure out their motivations and what they enjoy doing or resent.


----------



## gottatrot

Today was hoof trimming day. 

Aria has about an inch left of the old, poorly connected/rippled hoof wall left to grow out. Everything above that is smooth and tight from having good nutrition and regular hoof care. 

She had a lot of imbalances and flares when I got her, due to being ten years old and never having her hooves trimmed. This was the first trim where she was able to hold her hind legs up well for me. I think it is a combination of things. She is stronger, her opposite hoof feels better, she is starting to trust me, and she's figuring out how to balance weight on the other hind leg. It's funny how challenging it was for her.

She has good hooves now heading toward great. Hero's are always trying to get unbalanced due to his conformation and movement, so he needs frequent intervention. 

Aria's hoof walls are 3× thicker than Hero's. I firmly believe bad TB hooves are largely due to genetics. Generations of breeding horses with bad hooves. I've looked at many old photos of famous TBs and the hooves were no consideration in breeding horses on, if they had speed. Even Man O War's right front was a lot taller than the left. 

Hero's hooves are pretty good for a TB, don't get me wrong. Farriers I've known would say "great." But he would never be able to trot a half mile down a gravel road barefoot without flinching a bunch of times and probably getting a stone bruise and chips. Something most Arabs and Mustangs can do, and most TBs cannot.

I was thinking today about how nice it will be to have a trained driving horse. We were talking on another thread about how to get SOs on rides, and I was thinking about how it is much easier to have a less experienced person drive a horse. They don't have to be feeling particularly rested, or brave. It's not physical exertion like climbing into a saddle, riding, and no concerns of falling off.

Another great thing is that you can take people for a drive who don't know how to ride. You can take friends who are visiting and are only mildly interested in horses, a child, or a person not physically capable of riding.


----------



## Knave

I’m excited for you to have her. I always thought about those physically unable to ride. I had so hoped to let grandpa drive Zeus before he died, but it never happened.


----------



## weeedlady

Our neighbor drives mules. I am hoping for a sleigh ride this winter! My husband doesn't ride, but I think he would like to learn to drive. 
You are doing a wonderful job with Aria.


----------



## gottatrot

A sleigh ride would be so fun! That's something I've never done with horses yet. Not enough snow here.

At the barn tonight I put an apple on the ground while I went to get the horses. When I came back, a peacock had stolen the apple. He was so excited, pecking at it as he rolled it away.
I'll get used to the time change, I know. Tonight I did not get to the barn early enough, so by the time I was finishing cleaning up the field I wasn't sure if I was scooping piles of poo or maybe just mole hills, or even peacocks.

I'm looking into getting a new pet. It's something I take seriously, since DH believes I'd be a pet hoarder without him (probably right) so I need to choose carefully. Also I want to give the best care.
I'm down to 5 pets right now, 2 horses, 2 cats and a dog. I've had up to 10 pets. The time I can spend with the horses is limited by sleep and daylight. There's more time for home pets. All 3 of the home pets are nearing age 14, so they are mostly about sleeping nowadays.

Here are the ones I've been thinking about and pros/cons:
Rats are of course on the short list. I have a big cage already. Cons are a short lifespan (2 years), and health problems. Females tend to get mammary tumors. Males can fight, but can't be kept alone either. Rats are like little dogs and love being cuddled and played with. They even wag their tails.





Mice also have a short lifespan, and are less cuddly than rats. But they also don't miss you if you don't have time to play for a couple days. They're pretty cute to watch.





I was considering a jumping spider, but I don't think I can have one because they require live prey.
They are very cute, but you'll notice in this picture that the cute little critter is a vicious predator killing something.








If you consider everything as if the spider was as big as a cheetah (thankfully they're not that big or they'd jump out and eat us), then keeping crickets and flies (noble animals in their own right) for the spider to eat would be like keeping cute pet goats to feed to your cheetah. Necessary perhaps, but it would make me sad.
Even some flies are actually really cute, like the bee fly.








I can't imagine leading this little guy to his death. "Come on, jump in here with the big scary spider."








In the end, don't we all want to die in our sleep?

I'm also considering land snails. They are rather fascinating creatures to watch, easy to care for and can live five years or more. It's kind of fun to watch them eat. At night at my house up north I used to go outside and find dozens of them eating my flowers. So I'd cut the flowers down to make it easier for them to eat them. I've always thought animals were cooler than plants anyway.




A problem is that they are social, but also hermaphrodite. So if you keep two snails, they'll always lay eggs. Then you have to get rid of the eggs or you'll have hundreds of snails. I think I could handle that though.









Another choice is madagascar hissing cockroaches. They can live up to five years. There are 3,500 species of cockroaches in the world, and only 30 are considered pests to humans. Most live on rainforest floors. These are very clean, and friendly and seem to like being handled.
This guy takes his to the beach with him.





They're figuring out how to make "biobots" out of these cockroaches so they can send them in to disaster areas to find survivors. They can steer the bugs by controlling their antennas, and send signals out to tell where victims are located.





When I was a kid, I used to try to keep bugs as pets. It always went wrong somehow. The crickets kept me up at night so I let them loose. The ants escaped the ant farm. The slugs escaped the terrarium because I didn't put a lid on it. My mom was not too happy about that one! I've had rats and mice too. It's hard to choose.


----------



## TrainedByMares

That is quite an unusual list! I like jumping spiders too. They seem intelligent and watching them can be fun. I had one living in a big cardboard box in my shop some years ago. He would come out and watch me working and seemed to enjoy my company. Then , a couple of weeks later, he disappeared. It was a strange feeling missing a spider!


----------



## weeedlady

I will say your list is interesting. I personally would not choose any of those as a pet, but to each his own!

Have you considered a snake? My son has a ball python. She is beautiful, fun to play with, and requires very little maintenance. She eats frozen dead rats, so no need to be the one to send them to their demise.

Personally, I would get another cat.


----------



## knightrider

TrainedByMares said:


> It was a strange feeling missing a spider!


Oh no, I cried my eyes out when Charlotte died! I was missing an imaginary spider!


----------



## egrogan

TrainedByMares said:


> It was a strange feeling missing a spider!


I am still missing my barn spider that I said good morning to every day all summer!


----------



## Knave

I had a cat spider I called George in the hallway in our old house @egrogan. I really actually enjoyed speaking with him on the way by. My husband hated him something awful, but I don’t remember him killing him. He just complained every day. Lol

I would go with the rat if that were my list Gotta. Excepting running into bugs and making friends, I don’t think they qualify as pets… we had a mouse and I enjoyed it enough, but it died so shortly! The lifespan just isn’t worth it, and it didn’t become exceptionally friendly, and bit if you tried to hold it. There were two, but the first one died super quick. Both had tumors at death.

I’ve never been around a rat, but figure they would be fun enough. I like the idea of their intelligence and friendliness, but not so much the smell. The mice smelled, and I had to clean the cage every day.

I have too many pets. The horses, the cow and calves, the cats and dogs and chickens. The chickens and cats are the easy ones. They take very little maintenance. If I were to get a house animal I would prefer a bird I think.


----------



## gottatrot

I guess most spiders are not social. I had one living by my bathtub, and I'd look at him when I was in the tub. Then one day there was a second spider hanging down near him. I thought, "Oh, they're going to be friends." The next day I saw spider #2 was on the ground dead beneath spider #1's web. 

DH always wants to put spiders outside. I say, "They're _house_ spiders." To me that means they're supposed to live indoors. We usually just say hello when they pass us and let them go find a corner to hide in. But I think the cats might kill them sometimes. 
I like hearing about everyone's spider pets.

Snakes are amazing, but my efforts with reptiles have not been successful. I am wary about reptiles and fish, because the heat sources have sometimes been problematic. Years ago I lived in Minnesota and had anoles, and it was very difficult getting crickets home from the pet store in the winter. They'd freeze to death even inside my coat and running as fast as I could to my heated car. I don't see how people live in Minnesota. Lizards either. 

Fish have always been too difficult so I've given up. I've had bigger ones eat little ones, I've had them jump out because I didn't have a lid, and once I bumped the heater dial just before bed and woke up to find everyone floating dead on the top in very hot water. 

I've had birds for many years, and may get more sometime but was thinking about something different. This is the first time they've happened to die of old age so close together. Usually one dies, then I get a companion, then the older one dies, and it goes on. This time by the time the oldie died, the other bird was so old I was afraid a younger companion might be too much.


----------



## Txshecat0423

gottatrot said:


> Fish have always been too difficult so I've given up. I've had bigger ones eat little ones, I've had them jump out because I didn't have a lid, and once I bumped the heater dial just before bed and woke up to find everyone floating dead on the top in very hot water.


I did the same thing regarding the heater [emoji22] I cleaned out the fish tank and I guess when I was replacing the stuff, I bumped the heater and came home from work to find dead fish. I also had the bigger fish eating the smaller ones going on and I too gave up on fish! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## knightrider

We have found great joy and pleasure in hamsters, gerbils, and guinea pigs. They are all friendly and fun. Hamsters and gerbils have very little odor. Guinea pigs have a little more, but they are so loving and friendly. They call to you when you enter a room, love to be cuddled and petted. Our hamsters and gerbils lived far longer than they were expected to. We had two that lived 4 years and one that lived 5 years, and that is long for those little guys.

And don't forget rabbits! Rabbits are smart, sweet, cute, cuddly, and super fun. If you make them house rabbits, they do tend to chew up things like cabinet doors and electrical cords.


----------



## gottatrot

@knightrider, I do love guinea pigs. I had many when I was younger and showed them in 4-H. I had a gerbil once when I lived in a girl's dorm and he escaped. I was easily able to track his progress by the screaming that went from room to room. 

I'll have to put a guinea pig on the list...
Are hamsters very personable? I think I heard they are solitary animals?


----------



## knightrider

Our hamsters were personable. I kept some in my classroom at school as well as letting my kids have them for pets. The kids always enjoy watching them stuff all their food into their cheeks when you feed them. They crawl all over your arms and lap when you take them out. We used to let them run all around in their hamster balls, but my daughter read recently that hamster balls are not good for the hamster.

Hamster Exercise Balls are Not Safe, Not Recommended! — Hamster Society (Singapore) 

On the other hand, our hamsters and gerbils lived far longer than expected. They all got to be really old and frail and tottery and still lived on and on. I guess we didn't hurt them too much.

"There are several different breeds and varieties of hamster, varying in size and temperament. Hamsters usually live for *up to two years*, although some may live for longer."

Most of ours lived about 4 years and I think one lived 5 years.


----------



## jaydee

gottatrot said:


> @knightrider, I do love guinea pigs. I had many when I was younger and showed them in 4-H. I had a gerbil once when I lived in a girl's dorm and he escaped. I was easily able to track his progress by the screaming that went from room to room.
> 
> I'll have to put a guinea pig on the list...
> Are hamsters very personable? I think I heard they are solitary animals?


I loved my youngest sons guinea pigs, they're too short lived though but have real personalities. 
Elvis and Erik


----------



## Knave

Little girl had a Guinea pig that lasted for very long, and I had one as a child that felt long lasting, but I was a child of course. Little girl’s was six years I think.


----------



## gottatrot

Those guinea pigs are cute! I've been reading about hamsters. Lots to learn. I have to go measure my rat cage to see if it is even big enough for a hamster. They actually require more space than rats, plus I'd have to figure out how to make a burrowing area. It's so great how people now are studying animals we keep as pets and finding out what they actually need to have a good life. You can find out so much online regarding diet, habitat, and health. 

Small rodents can be entirely different in their needs. Rats and mice are great climbers, hamsters not that great and guinea pigs don't climb at all. Hamsters are not social whatsoever, and live solitary lives. Very interesting. I'm leaning away from guinea pigs at the moment because my floor space in the tack room/exotic pet room is limited and their cages take up a lot of floor space. 

I'm thinking about going to see this hamster at the shelter. Someone doesn't know their fairy tales because she is named Hansel.








They have Gretal also, who is a girl too.








My sister said, "Get a hamster!" She thinks it sounds much better than hissing cockroaches. 

Lately all I can think is, "Hello darkness, my old friend." 
My shift starts at 10:45 pm, so it felt lately like I was going to work at almost midnight. 
Yesterday I managed to squeeze in some driving with Aria.

I've been waffling about whether to train her to drive in an open bridle or begin with the blinders. So far I've been using the bridle with the blinders. I know it's very important to tack up and attach the cart eventually with a halter on, so the horse can see what is behind them in case the bridle ever comes off when driving. But I do believe it's true that if a horse panics, it's much better to have the blinders on because once they get the sight of something attached and chasing them, in a fearful state they have too much difficulty calming down. My thought right now is to continue training with the blinders and then just do a lot of leading around, ponying and walking with the cart in a halter too. 

I've been just starting out with no whip, trying to get Aria used to moving forward and turning. This time I used the lunge whip, and it went very well. It doesn't seem like the horse would react much when they can't see the whip, but the little popping sound helped a lot when she felt like getting stuck. Without a whip, I was sometimes having to go and lead her forward, or push on her hind end, but with the whip I was able to get her moving with just noise cues. 

It's kind of amazing how she was in a complete panic at the sight of a rope in April, and now I have things hanging off her and lines dragging over various parts of her body, and she is not afraid of the sound of the whip. It makes her open her eyes a bit wider and move forward, but she doesn't try to run off or break out of a walk. 

Hero was very calm and cute yesterday. I had the thought of having him run around the arena a bit after I was done with Aria, but as soon as he went into a fast trot he started slipping so I decided the ground was just too wet. It was a lovely day since there was a break in the rain for several hours while I was at the barn. I brought a long-sleeve shirt, but it was 64 degrees and humid, so I was plenty warm in short-sleeves.


----------



## Knave

I read about another country where using blinders is very uncommon. I decided myself, that for safety reasons I’d rather just never use them. Lol


----------



## knightrider

As soon as I started teaching my horses to drive, I took off the blinders. I had read that they do more harm than good. Since I had two sensible quiet smart appaloosas, I figured they'd soon learn about what was behind them. They dealt well with distractions, having been jousted and sword fought on for many years. I never had a problem with wishing I had blinders on them.


----------



## knightrider

My cart came with runners, and every December, I took off the wheels and put on the runners and did sleigh rides until March. And it is very very fun. I took a lot of people sleigh riding who never could or would have gone riding. One time we did get turned over in a snow covered ditch, just like in the song "Jingle Bells." Luckily the horse I was driving was that smart calm appaloosa and she stood there until we flipped the cart back over and went on driving. Also luckily, I did not have any elderly or infirm people on the cart with me that day.


A day or two ago,
I thought I'd take a ride,
And soon Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side;
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
We got into a drifted bank,
And then we got upsot.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks to your comments I'm now reconsidering using a bridle with blinders for Aria. I've been thinking about it a lot, and something has occurred to me.

When I was reading about the pros and cons of an open bridle, one reason to use blinders made sense to me. That was the idea that the cart is in a horse's blind spot, so if the horse gets spooked and reverts to fight or flight, they'll catch glimpses of something chasing them, so in the open bridle they're more likely to keep bolting. 

After percolating over this, I'm thinking now that doesn't make as much sense as it sounds. First of all, if you've been driving in an open bridle, the horse is used to the sight of the cart. So if they get spooked, why can't they just turn their head and see what is behind them like they do normally to see what is in their blind spot? But if you have blinders on, then the horse can't actually turn and see what is behind them, so it seems more likely that the panic would continue as they hear something chasing them that they can't see. Then it is all left up to the horse's imagination. 

Another thought I had is that I used to drive Star, the hottest of the minis we used to drive in an open bridle. She spooked and bolted with me in a parade, and I was still able to get her under control again. So if Star can do it, I would think Aria could. I'm going to switch over to the open bridle and go with it unless I have problems.

Today I didn't get out to the barn early enough to work horses. When I went to get the horses out of the outdoor arena after their turnout time, I saw that one of the boarder horses was loose. Kadeera is normally in a back pasture behind the arena, so I suspected the elk had knocked some of her fencing down. I took Aria's lead rope and went to grab her while I called the barn owner to see where I should put Kadeera. 

The barn owner said to put her into the outdoor arena, so I had to figure out how to get my horses out and Kadeera in. I decided Hero would cause the most trouble, and he came to put his head over the gate to see what I was doing with Kadeera. So I attached his lead rope and pulled him out while I shoved Kadeera in (I had the lead rope looped around her throatlatch). 

Then it was very funny because Kadeera simply walked past Aria into the arena, but as soon as Hero was out Aria started panicking. "I don't know her! Stranger danger, stranger danger!!" 
She was seriously upset until I got her lead rope on and took her through the gate. 

Yesterday I worked a lot on converting my old rat cage (homemade) into a hamster cage. I measured it and there is definitely enough space. But it has three levels and I had to make stairs and ramps so the hamster can get up and down. Rats are such good climbers that they easily use vertical space, and I had things like ropes and hammocks to climb. I had to make some spiral stairs and other stairways, and cut out a new doorway. I also had to add plexiglass in a few areas to contain the deeper bedding. 

Plexiglass is a bear to work with. DH said to score it with an Xacto knife, but after about 1,000 scores I was getting nowhere so I ended up using my dremel as a cutting tool. That worked much better, but the hot little pieces of plastic are uncomfortable flying against your arms and face. Plus when attaching it I had to be very careful drilling, and also I couldn't tighten the screws too much or it would crack. 

The cage is ready now though, so I'm painting the tack room where it goes. Unfortunately, every room in our new house needs painting. The tack room was a bedroom but the back of the door wasn't even painted completely, and whoever put the last coat of paint on the walls was too lazy to mask the edges so they just didn't paint all the way to the ceiling. Tacky. Small rodents are very prone to respiratory problems, so I have to make sure it is all painted and aired out before I put one in the room.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> First of all, if you've been driving in an open bridle, the horse is used to the sight of the cart. So if they get spooked, why can't they just turn their head and see what is behind them like they do normally to see what is in their blind spot? But if you have blinders on, then the horse can't actually turn and see what is behind them, so it seems more likely that the panic would continue as they hear something chasing them that they can't see. Then it is all left up to the horse's imagination.


This is exactly what I was thinking when I took the blinders off my driving bridle. Also, there was no internet back in those days, and I got several books about driving and a few magazine articles about how to teach a horse to drive. And also, my friends from the thoroughbred farm helped me, which I wrote about on another thread. I put all that together, both plus and minus about blinders and came up with that conclusion.

I never had a problem with a horse spooking or bolting . . . until one terrible morning when, for some unknown reason, my horse starting trotting out the driveway as I was getting into the cart. There is always that split second when you leave the horses' head to get into the cart. I still had the rein, but not tightly. My tried-and-true steady eddy appaloosa decided she was ready to GO and began trotting before I could quite get into the cart. I bounded in the cart with her trotting. Everything would have been perfectly fine except we lived on a blind hill, and a car came barreling over the hill at 60 mph in a 45 mile limit, hit the cart just as my trotting mare entered the road, knocked the wheel off the cart and knocked the cart sideways, then hit my horse. The cart flipped over with me underneath it and my horse bolted down the road. We both survived, but my horse never got over her PTSD and I never was able to drive her again.

Lotta work to convert your cage, but I'll bet your hamster will love it. I hope you love having a hamster. We always enjoyed ours. Here's another funny story. My daughter wanted a dwarf hamster. She told the pet shop owner she wanted a male, and the proprietor assured her this one was a male. Three days later "he" had 6 babies! We ended up giving the babies back to the pet shop and kept the mom because my daughter had already bonded with her. I wanted to keep one of the babies, but it wasn't my decision to make.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Sounds like you were using acrylic . It will crack and break. Polycarbonate is much more durable and I think that is called plexiglas or lexan. 

The amish driving horses around here have blinders and I always thought it was to minimize the sight of passing traffic, not so much the cart or buggy.


----------



## gottatrot

@TrainedByMares, thanks, that is good to know.

@knightrider, that pet store owner had no excuse...hamster boys are rather obvious. Like rats.
 







What a terrible driving accident! So traumatic for you and the horse. I know well that moment where you are so vulnerable, hopping into the cart. I've hopped back out and tried to catch them, and had them run the cart into the side of buildings or other carts.


----------



## Knave

That story may give my nightmares @knightrider!

I was in a wreck in a cart when I was little, and I thought if the blinders had not been on it could have possibly not happened. Blinders allowed his training to feel rushed, and he had no idea what was going on and panicked.

Zeus just was so easy and good, and I really wanted him to understand what was going on. I read an article about another country, and there are lots of trees. They don’t like blinders because of the trees and getting rubbed out of place and then having a horse panic when it sees what’s going on. They said that only horses who cannot be trained to pull without blinders will have them used.


----------



## gottatrot

I drove Aria today in an open bridle. Sadly, even the smallest of my black bridles does not fit her, so I had to use a brown one. The driving bridle that came with the harness is very pretty but the blinders are stapled on. 

She was confused at first, but then was doing better than she has before, so we practiced for a while. It seemed to help her to be able to see me behind her (after the initial confusion of thinking she should turn to face me), and I felt she was calmer than before. I think it was giving her some anxiety to have such limited vision. 

Of course by the time I was finished with driving practice, it was pitch dark. There is just not enough time to do everything in the daylight. The horses had a good turnout time while I was cleaning the field, but before the barn I had to get pills for the cat at the vet, and then stop at the feed store for hay pellets, and there the daylight went.

For the first time at this barn I tried riding with my LED headband on, and that gave me plenty of light. It was a little tricky because when Hero stalled and stared at something I didn't know what he was seeing. So urging him forward, I was half-hearted because quite possibly there was a good reason. But Aria, my non-reactive pony did not ever seem concerned, so I suspected there was nothing like a bear in front of us.

After we had been riding and ponying around the property for a while, the barn owner came driving over. Then I felt bad because she had seen a strange light floating around from inside her house, and wondered if someone was looking for a lost pet or trying to hunt on the property. Once she realized it was just me trying to ride in the dark, she was happy I could be out there, but laughing because she had been so mystified by the floating light. 

Today the two rats were sitting high up near the ceiling, looking out of a crack where I could see their little eyes and noses. They chattered at me, and I felt like they wanted us to see each other. They must be middle-aged by now at least, and have had no babies so I wonder how two males or females ended up together. Maybe they are siblings. 

I've submitted an application to a small animal rescue in the city, asking about a couple of hamsters. My local vet office says they will see hamsters, so that's good since sometimes you have to drive a ways to get someone to see exotics. I've finished painting their room.


----------



## gottatrot

I hope this isn't too political because I mean to say this in a neutral and somewhat humorous way. 
But do any other horse people have this strange feeling when the news says things about BLM and riots? At least the first several times I heard this (not really paying attention), it grabbed me as my first instinct was to think, "Are people upset because of the mustangs?" LOL, but to horse people the abbreviation BLM has always meant Bureau of Land Management, and issues with wild horses, and that is what first pops into my mind whenever I hear it.


----------



## knightrider

I've had to wean myself off that first thought too.


----------



## Knave

Even now as I read what you asked I thought is there another Lavoy or what is going on, how do I not know this. Then as I read the next sentence I thought, oh ya, that.

Seriously, although I get the BLM stands for a perfectly succinct title, it is super confusing. Maybe whoever thought of that didn’t have contact with the prior BLM which is the only my mind ever goes to.


----------



## bsms

I once worked for the Forest Service and had applied for (although not gotten) a job with the BLM. I considered getting a masters in Range Management so yeah, BLM to me means Bureau of Land Management. Maybe they should be called URBAN BLM and RURAL BLM (U-BLM and R-BLM) to distinguish, but very few people and almost no reporters give a rat's rear about rural issues!

Judging from what some ranchers tell me, I'm not sure the modern R-BLM cares about rural issues either...seems they are focused on appeasing city folks and their masters in DC.


----------



## Knave

I always thought that @bsms, but I think they are pressured from above. Oh, just like anyone there are bad apples… someone dancing in my mind… but mostly I think they are trying their best with obstacles on both sides. The higher ups want to please more urban voters, and so they control to that side, where maybe the actual low men in the organization really do want to do what is best for the land. Yet, hands are tied.


----------



## bsms

What my friend tells me is that both the USFS and BLM people he deals with now grew up in cities and have no concept of how animals behave. When I was applying for jobs, a typical "Range Manager" grew up on a ranch, or at least had friends who had. And a typical one would listen to the rancher's objections. Now? They don't understand and don't want to listen.

My boss on the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources grew up on a sheep ranch and had ridden as a cowboy before being hired by the DWR. He was passionate about wildlife, but he didn't ASSUME a conflict. He believed urban sprawl was a bigger danger to wildlife than cattle and sheep. He knew SOME ranchers abused their permits. And that others did not. *He was pro-wildlife, not anti-human.*

Another friend from college worked as late as the early 90s in Montana, working for the state but his desk was in the USFS office. He said the USFS workers viewed *HIKERS* as intruders on "their" forest. He quit in disgust because he was such an odd man out. He came from the city too, but he thought public lands were for EVERYONE. We had "Multiple Use" hammered into us in college and we believed it. Another college roommate stayed with the Forest Service for 40 years. By the end of his career...he had turned. It was "his forest", not "our forests"!

I'm sure there are some good people still in the managing agencies, but I think there are fewer than when I was young. As we become a more urbanized society, our policies will be rooted more and more in the imaginations of city folk instead of the experience of people who spend much of their lives outdoors.

Me? City boy who loves being outdoors. I wouldn't assume a rancher was honest. Sorry, but I've met too many ranchers. But I've also known some who are the 'salt of the earth', great people who care far MORE about the land than any city person I know, including me!


----------



## TrainedByMares

I think it is human nature to become possessive about things or concepts we are put in charge of, given or acquire. Some people are better at it than others. The Bureau has complex issues to solve.


----------



## gottatrot

Aria didn't do so great ground driving yesterday. I thought it might help to have DH walk in front to help guide her forward if she got stuck. But it seemed to confuse her. I think she thought he was leading her, but then I was trying to guide her with the bit when she got too close to him. She was tossing her head and it took a while to get her straightened out enough to call it "practice." Oh well.

I have been working hard on my hamster cage. Thought it was pretty great, until I showed the pictures to the rescue and learned that I still have much to learn.

A hamster forum has been helpful. Basically, I was like someone coming on here and saying, "I'm ready to get a horse, I can put him in an extra big 12 x 12 stall, so that's great, right?"

The levels that were great for rats are not helpful to hamsters. My thought at first was that maybe the cage could be turned back into a rat cage someday if necessary. 

Nope. Species with completely different needs. Ventilation is key for rats, but hamsters need sides that will hold in deep bedding. So...more plexiglass is coming and the wire mesh is going to be minimized.

Regardless, my length for continuous burrowing is set by the length and width of the cage, not the height, so I only have enough space for a dwarf hamster.

Like horses, sterotypical behaviour happen if hamsters have an unsuitable habitat. Overbreeding causes neuro issues that people think are normal like back flips and circling. Climbing bars and chewing are like horses weaving and cribbing. So I'm learning a lot. 

Not a great kid's pet apparently because (as DH rolls his eyes) they have expensive care needs. Big cages, tons of bedding. As DH says, "But the hamster costs about $10!"

Here is my first attempt: 








Not suitable. The hamster people like this one better, but the bedding falls out the mesh so I need to add more plexiglass.







In my experience, every pet is expensive! And time consuming. But I ordered a new cat box from amazon the other day and it came with two more stuck to it...someone thought it was one. So the cats have three giant litter boxes now with low step in for geriatrics.😁

Of course it is fun to buy toys and hideouts, and some I found at the thrift store.


----------



## Knave

Wow! I would think that cage would be the rescue’s idea of a heaven for a hamster!! Little girl had a dwarf hamster for a bit. I didn’t like him to be honest. He had no friendliness to his personality, and was an escape artist. He was in a mouse cage, and the bars were too far apart for his tiny little self in certain places. Don’t ask me how we would manage to catch him in his varied escapes.

One time we found him in the garbage can, and another in a shoe. I don’t know how he escaped the cat. Then, one day little girl said he had escaped again, and we searched and searched. I decided it was time to give up a week in (once we had found him at 3 days), and I cleaned the cage. He was in the cage dead. He had burrowed and died in there, and I guess we didn’t think to look because he was in a different spot than normal.

Big girl and I caught a vole later that year, and he was much friendlier. He was always happy to be given food, and would take it out of our hands. He was becoming obese, because we enjoyed feeding him and he enjoyed eating. Then one day he bit big girl over something, and she decided he needed to be freed. Lol

I finally got myself a feeder mouse last year or the year before, because I had always wanted one. Two actually. They didn’t live very long, both ended up with tumors. Besides the Guinea pig and the captured vole, none of them were good luck.


----------



## gottatrot

Aww sad about the hamster and the vole sounds cute. 

Hero celebrated thanksgiving very well. When I brought the horses out and got through Hero's layers of caked mud, I thought he was looking more rotund than usual. 

After cleaning the field, I went into the hay shed and discovered we had stacked a bale too close to one of the openings we feed through. It was too high for Aria to have reached, but Hero had worked through a good chunk of the bale before finally knocking it off the stack.

It must have been disappointing when he couldn't reach it anymore.

The turkeys were running around the town, flaunting the fact that they had once again survived the human hunger games.


----------



## knightrider

Wow, that hamster cage is amazing! We always just had regular little ones that you get at a pet store, nothing close to that. We didn't have stereotypical behaviors. The hamsters were friendly and fun. And they lived longer than predicted--a lot longer--so I guess they weren't too unhappy. It helped that the kids played with them a lot, I think.


----------



## gottatrot

Friday we made the 5 hr drive up to have Thanksgiving dinner with my parents, siblings and brother's kids at my sister's farm. It was fun, only notable happening was that my sister's red heeler bit a niece on the hand just before we got there.

She is 15, they have two big dogs at home, so I don't think it was too big of a deal. My SIL is pragmatic, and doesn't freak out about stuff.

My sister's heeler is almost two, so I hope he is getting past the most difficult years. She's worked with trainers and he is much better, but he is a particularly difficult individual in a difficult breed. She got him from a good breeder, takes him running and tried to socialize him, but he is very protective and gets triggered by strangers and strange dogs.

We think that the problem was letting him out of his kennel after several hours, and the house was cluttered with people standing around.

After some people left, my sister let the dog out again and he was fine with me and my dog. He's know Gilligan since he was a pup, and since Gil can't see or hear so doesn't acknowledge him or even look at the dog toys, there is nothing to react to.

I've heard of cattle dogs that will even warn their owners off a couch, but my sister's dog is sweet and doesn't bite his owner or her other dog. Still, his energy level is very high and he can be aggressive. My Dalmatian had that much energy but was easy to deal with because he would never have dreamed of biting a human, and liked other dogs.

@knightrider said her hamsters from pet stores worked out fine...
On our way home through the city last night we stopped at a pet store. I just wanted to look at the sizes of different hamsters.

I tried to get DH to tell me we shouldn't endorse the pet store hamster trade, but he wouldn't commit and they were too cute so we brought one home.

The advice online was that female Syrians are hard to please. But when I saw how small the dwarfs were, especially the mouse-sized robos, I was afraid if one got sick I wouldn't be able to find it in all the bedding, or catch it if it got loose.

The pet store only had female hamsters, apparently they separate genders between stores to prevent accidental breedings. DH thought that we have enough resources to make the most difficult hamster happy, and that we love our queen cat who is very demanding.

Our hamster was clawing at the sides of the small cage at the pet store, but so far seems well occupied in her new cage. I scatter her food around so she has to forage for it. She didn't get up until 9 tonight so it was hard to go to work when I wanted to watch her. Still deciding on her name.

I feel a little guilty we didn't go with a rescue, but they didn't have any Syrians, only the tiny robos. It's hard to wait and go through all the hoops when there is a cute hamster right there, $10 and the cage is all ready at home.


----------



## knightrider

I hope you have as much fun with your hamster as we had with ours!


----------



## Knave

I hope you have fun too! I think the pet store was a better solution.

I didn’t like the dwarf of little girl’s either. It was too small.


----------



## gottatrot

Usually I turn the horses out before making them work. Today I wanted more time before dark, so hoped they wouldn't mind working first.

Aria was accepting the bit well, with long periods of a quiet mouth and turning in response to cues. At least three times she walked immediately with a word cue, and stopped and stood at "whoa." We went a little farther than before.

After that I hopped on Hero and rode down the road with Aria ponying behind. It's so nice, I feel like he is finally a riding horse.

Maybelle the mule is in a small corral because she keeps escaping the field. There was a big ditch with high shrubs along the road. Horses have been kept in there for years with no problem. But mules are smart enough to know a few bushes and a ditch are a "pretend" barrier, and she waltzed right out.

We went along fine until an extra loud weed whacker stopped Hero. I decided it might be better to lead the horses through the neighborhoods anyway, with so many Christmas decorations up. The horses maybe walked a little fast, but went by everything just fine. Only one 15 ft tall white snowman made Hero think about nibbling on me a little.

I rode the horses back to the arena and turned them out. Then chores were in the dark, but the ride was fun. It has been fairly dry, temps in the 50s.

We still haven't named our hamster but she is super cute. She will take food out of our hands already. Her fur is beige with gray swirls and she has seal points on her face and ears like a siamese cat.

It makes me laugh that they put hamsters in kid's rooms. Ours wakes up at 9 pm after sleeping all day, and then she is busy busy. I guess kids sleep pretty heavy.


----------



## Knave

Oh, my daughter complained at the hamster at night! She ran like crazy on the wheel, and it would sound like a helicopter. Lol. That hamster could fly!

You need to put a picture on here of her!

I was thinking as I read where you said that Hero feels like a riding horse, that it always works that way for me. It’s a new colt that makes the one you’ve been working with feel broke. It seems they meet that expectation too.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I was thinking as I read where you said that Hero feels like a riding horse, that it always works that way for me. It’s a new colt that makes the one you’ve been working with feel broke. It seems they meet that expectation too.


Funny, like they have to "grow up" when a less trained horse comes into the picture.

My camera isn't the best at low light, but I hope you can see the hamster's beige with gray swirls/patches a little.



























Yesterday we brought our cat Kikko to the vet. He has been walking sometimes down on his hocks, and I was worried he might have kidney problems or diabetes. He also has been finding other places to use as a bathroom besides the litter box. However, he just had labs drawn in June and everything was normal.








We've had him 5 years, and took him home from the barn after we heard the barn owner had contacted his previous owners who had rehomed him via craigslist. She wanted to give him back because she was worried he would die in a hole in the floor and she wouldn't know since he didn't come out when people were there. 

He had lived in a barn on a sheep farm, and then was given away as a barn cat. We suspected he had health issues since he'd been in hiding the year he had been at our barn, so we caught him and brought him home. We didn't think he should go back to the people who had given him away. He had a broken tooth we had removed, and a bladder infection. 

He slowly warmed up to us and loves being a house cat. Based on what the craigslist people said, we thought he was about 14 by now. The vet said he thinks he is more like 15 or 16. 

Anyway, good news is that the vet showed us how he is having some proprioception issues. He could put his hind paws down upside down, and Kikko would take time to fix them. So this is a sign of back arthritis, and he said with the recent normal labs and exam, he thinks that is his only issue. We are doing a pain medication trial, and today he was using his litter box. It makes sense that cats with back pain don't want to go into shifting cat litter and try to squat. He'll probably feel a lot better on pain medication. We are relieved.

He has some amazing whiskers (and food on his nose).









At the vet it was sad to talk to a couple who were putting down their 15 year old dog. At home I gave the pets extra treats for being alive. 

Our female cat has decided the floor in front of the refrigerator is warm and has taken to sleeping there. When we open it, she gives us dirty looks and sharp "Meh, meh" sounds because she has to move, but of course we have to open it many times a day. DH told her this was not acceptable. When I came home from work this morning, I saw he had put a blanket down so it is more comfortable for her there. It seems that what he says and does are two different things. 

Here is that Velvet on a pile of coats. She always looks cute and innocent even though she is a sly old lady who always gets her way.


----------



## gottatrot

Horses...
When I drove up to the barn today Aria and Hero were standing by the road waiting for me.

When I looked at them I realized...I love them! I wouldn't trade them for any other horses in the world. 

You can tell it's love when your eyes tell you that they might be a little wonky looking here or there, maybe not supermodel horse catalog star material. But your heart sees something else; drop dead gorgeous horses (this principle applies also to spouses, siblings, etc).

Today I saw a poised and handsome thoroughbred, and positively the cutest pony in the entire world. Waiting there for _me_. Wow did I feel lucky.

Humans have a natural tendency to always want something more or better. I know this about myself, but I believe it hinders happiness. Because there is no such thing as a perfect horse, or a perfect life.

Sometimes I feel like riding a plodder like Hero, and having a pony too small to ride is less than my ideal. Sometimes I miss galloping around at the speed of the wind. 

But if I think about it, I realize how great it is to have these two very special horses. I'll always find ways to challenge myself and my riding, and life is a continuum. You never know what tomorrow will bring. Meanwhile, I want to enjoy _these_ horses! 

When I told Hero he was a wonderful boy, he pressed his head against mine affectionately, and closed his eyes when I gave him a rub. We were friends for a while, but he's let me all the way in now and we're family. 

Aria is his family too. She can bump against his hind end and never get a warning. I mean, how could you be upset with the cutest pony in the world?


----------



## TrainedByMares

You are in a good place, @gottatrot that is a very special connection!


----------



## knightrider

What a great post! Made my day!


----------



## Knave

That made me smile too. I feel the same way right now. Hero is very similar to Cash I think, and I’ve come to a place where I love him and appreciate him. He isn’t what I usually ride, but he is so solid and good, and I love him.


----------



## gottatrot

Aria taught me a lesson today. Thankfully, horses are really good teachers.

She would not stand still to let me brush her lower legs with the stiff brush. This has been an ongoing problem, and today I decided that she would allow me to do it. So in various ways I brought the brush gradually down her legs, and attempted to make her stand still. 

Rather than getting more accepting, she got more upset, until finally after I had untied her and begun moving with her in order to keep the brush in contact with her lower leg, I found myself laughing at the ridiculousness of it when I was holding her still with a firm hand on the halter, and she was collapsing almost to the ground on her hind legs, in an attempt to get away from the brush. Literally her hindquarters were inches off the ground.

That was when I stepped back and looked at the big picture. Here was a pony that with a little introduction has accepted: haltering, brushing, scissors, blanketing, wearing a harness, wearing a bit, ropes, lunge whips, picking hooves, trimming hooves, etc. If she was not accepting something after all my attempts, what did that mean? It meant that I was asking her to do something unreasonable.

To prove the point to myself, I brought out a soft brush, and within moments Aria was standing still and letting me scrub around her lower legs with it. 
In reality, she did not believe it was reasonable of me to ask her to have her legs poked with what perhaps felt like brambles, and for her to continue trying to get away from the poking was a sane thing to do. 

So I told her she was right, and that it was wrong of me to poke her legs with brambles. What kind of a sadistic person would do that? 

Just recently I bought yet another book that talks about how you really must dominate your horse, and immediately punish any sign that the horse might be challenging your authority. This was an incidental discussion in a book on carriage driving. 
Perhaps I am just not as perfect as other trainers, because I find that sometimes I am wrong and the horse is right. But I believe that admitting to the horse that I am teachable can actually make me seem more trustworthy to the horse. 

Horses need strong leaders, but they actually also want smart leaders. When introducing Amore to a strange herd, at first the other horses would follow her. Such a decisive horse, taking off at the first hint of danger. What a strong leader! Except after a very short period of time, the horses would stop following Amore, because spooking at things that are not dangerous is a waste of energy, no matter how decisive the horse is. 

It is my opinion that insisting horses do things that seem insane to them erodes their trust in us. I can't think of a good reason to force a horse to do something they have made it clear to us that they dislike very much, once we are beyond the initial introduction period. If it is something that isn't necessary (such as treating a wound), then why would I force a horse to put up with something they dislike just to prove that I can? Especially because over the years I've come to realize that even horses that have very strong personalities and opinions, like Halla or Hero, are still trying to figure out how to get along, to be a partner, and find out where they fit in.

Horses are individuals, but they're not strong individualists. They're herd animals, trying to fit in and definitely their agenda is not to fight against us, to ruin our plans or take over the world. They're just not strongly antagonistic. At the worst, they are game players, in a chess match to see if they can take a piece to their advantage, but still they want to play with you, not play solitaire.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I think it is a fine,flexible line that separates not pushing the point enough from pushing too far. When you have found that line, you can train to the best of your ability. I think it is good to work outside the 'comfort zone' for both horse and human,even just briefly,to constantly remind them and us that more and better is always possible. Your chess match analogy is a good one! I am a sucker for a pretty mare and I lose a match occasionally!


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> I believe that admitting to the horse that I am teachable can actually make me seem more trustworthy to the horse.


Absolutely! Works with co-workers and kids, too! Horses prefer smart to "strong" leaders. After all, stupid and dominant describes a bully, not a leader!


----------



## ACinATX

gottatrot said:


> Our female cat has decided the floor in front of the refrigerator is warm and has taken to sleeping there.


Our old cat started doing this because he was cold all the time. We got one of those cat heating pads that he could sleep on and he LOVED it! It took a while for him to figure out, but once he did he was all over it.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> It is my opinion that insisting horses do things that seem insane to them erodes their trust in us. I can't think of a good reason to force a horse to do something they have made it clear to us that they dislike very much, once we are beyond the initial introduction period. If it is something that isn't necessary (such as treating a wound), then why would I force a horse to put up with something they dislike just to prove that I can? Especially because over the years I've come to realize that even horses that have very strong personalities and opinions, like Halla or Hero, are still trying to figure out how to get along, to be a partner, and find out where they fit in.
> 
> Horses are individuals, but they're not strong individualists. They're herd animals, trying to fit in and definitely their agenda is not to fight against us, to ruin our plans or take over the world. They're just not strongly antagonistic. At the worst, they are game players, in a chess match to see if they can take a piece to their advantage, but still they want to play with you, not play solitaire.


This is SO well said! I remember being 14 years old in 4-H and being told to do things with my horse, thinking, "That just doesn't make sense. I'm not going to do that." Those were the days when 4-H leaders insisted we had to "make" our horses do something like cross water or go over a certain jump. I was thinking, _The more you slam and bang and beat on them, the more they are going to dislike what I am asking them to do!" _


----------



## gottatrot

We're in a spell of winter weather. The water trough was more full today than right after I filled it two days ago. 

Thankfully my field has been doing well. DH told me that whoever had added sand and gravel near the horse shelters had created the problem of standing water I had last winter. There is hard pack underneath, and a downhill slope. So removing most of that material over the summer has allowed much better runoff this winter. After several inches of rain, there were no large puddles in front of the sheds.

I didn't expect to be comfortable doing chores, but with a coat and rain pants on my hands warmed up in no time.

Aria and Hero looked soaked, but up close they were completely dry under the rain sheets, with just a little water on their manes and necks. 

Hooves still looking good too. In the wet, hoof concavity is super important, because it helps the mud packs fly out with movement. With flat hooves it tends to mire up in the frog, and it sticks in there. The mud packs tend to pull the mud out of the frogs along with the rest. So they get exposure to air frequently enough to discourage anaerobic growth. 

Horses with shoes or contracted hooves have the concavity but it's too deep and the mud doesn't shed out of those squished frogs either. So they usually have bad thrush issues too around here.

Unfortunately, Aria has the same kind of mane Halla had. I guess it has some curl, because the wind twirls it around into knots, worse when it's wet. I had to spend some time getting those out.
Amore's mane never twirled, and Hero rarely gets a knot either although he tends to like his hair with a frosted look of dried mud. Maybe he picked up the idea that he needed lighter highlights during his time racing in sunny Arizona.

Aria was pleased to see I remembered not to poke her legs with the bramble brush, and she stood nicely and accepted my peace offerings of carrots with grace.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> I didn't expect to be comfortable doing chores, but with a coat and rain pants on my hands warmed up in no time.


Ha ha . . . I had to read this sentence 3 times to figure it out. She puts rain pants on her hands? How would that work? Wouldn't the pant part kind of hang down and be awkward? Then I figured it out!


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> Ha ha . . . I had to read this sentence 3 times to figure it out. She puts rain pants on her hands? How would that work? Wouldn't the pant part kind of hang down and be awkward? Then I figured it out!


Always better to have too many commas than not enough.


----------



## egrogan

This photo was making the rounds recently and it really gets me laughing.


----------



## gottatrot

Pictures are never great in the very gray lighting outdoors this time of year. Two muddy horses greeted me this afternoon. They realize their blankets are supposed to match, so strive to keep the same level of dirt covering them. 









Of course Aria had her mane tangled already again. She thinks it gives me something to do.









I wanted to show how Aria's "pregnant" belly has gone down with more muscle built up and a longer time recovered from her starved state. To me it looks closer to a normal belly, a bit wide like Amore's was but you wouldn't think she was pregnant now.


















Aria was very silly today when I was trying to video her. I wanted video of driving, but it was a lot harder than I thought to hold the reins in one hand and attempt to drive a green pony. It turned out pretty shaky...oh well.


----------



## knightrider

@gottatrot , just had to share this with you! Who would have known . . . from one hamster lover to another.

The Heaviest Drinker in the Animal Kingdom - The Atlantic


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> @gottatrot , just had to share this with you! Who would have known . . . from one hamster lover to another.
> 
> The Heaviest Drinker in the Animal Kingdom - The Atlantic


That is very interesting! Thanks for sharing. It makes sense hamsters are able to process food that they've stored, even if it begins to ferment. 

It's fun watching Abbey's behaviors. Like all pets, she is beginning to get a little entitled, expecting that if she sniffs my hand there will be a treat in it, and last night after I filled her water dish with fresh water she stood on her hind legs and I had to hold it while she drank before setting it down.

I've made multiple small caves out of cardboard tubes and jars buried in the bedding. Each night when I feed her I hide the food in many places so she has to go hunting for it. Then she goes "shopping," looking all over for the food and stuffing it into her cheeks as she goes along. After her cheeks are full, she goes up to her hoard she keeps behind her wheel and empties it all out onto the pile. Very entertaining to watch. 

She's extremely clean and only pees in her sand box, like a cat. I like giving her new foods like lettuce, celery, bell pepper. She pretty much likes it all. When she eats dried grasshoppers she eats the meat out and leaves the shell so it resembles what you might leave after eating a dried fish. 

The weather here has been iffy. Yesterday I went to the barn and it was in the mid-30s but raining. The horses looked wet, but when I took off the rain sheets they were warm and dry underneath. I hurried through the chores and got back on the road before dark, knowing a drop of several degrees could mean heavy snow on the way home. Thankfully, I made it home before the temperature hit freezing.

People think we are delicate about snow here. But there are several factors that make it bad for us. One is that everywhere are steep mountains with twisting roads. The other is that we don't have snow plows, salt for the roads, and very limited processes for clearing. Since we don't have regular snow, most people don't have studded tires on, and often the snow is very shallow and the issue is more about ice so using chains can damage the vehicle. You might need chains at some point, but then need to take them off after 5 miles.

Tonight it is rainy, and hovering near freezing. By 10 pm it may be very icy out, and the small steep road in our neighborhood impassable. My work is only a mile away, so it is possible I might have to walk. 
My mom is disappointed because our family Christmas on Wednesday will need to be rescheduled if the cold weather continues. We looked at one of the mountain passes on a highway cam at 1 pm today and it was snowed over with only a single tire rut going across. 

We know not to risk travel if the roads are bad. When I was a teen, we made a family ski trip (in a couple of vehicles) to Mount Hood and it froze on the way home, while freezing rain was still coming down. On the freeway no vehicles could go over 15 mph so we all crept along, watching everyone wobble sideways as we went. When we got to the mountain pass, my brother started up behind a semi truck and barely pulled to the side before the semi came sliding back down the mountain backwards and sideways. We made it home but the two hour drive took six hours. 

I wanted to share a tip in case anyone else ends up with an old, arthritic cat. Our Kikko was started on his pain medication, and obviously feels much better but still was not going in the litter box. Online I got the idea to use pee pads, and I cut his litter box lip down so it is a short step in, and put a pee pad in instead of cat litter. Now he is using his box just fine. It didn't occur to me at first that with back arthritis, the shifting footing could be painful. It's easy to just roll up the pad and throw it away after he uses the box.


----------



## Knave

That is a good tip! My old cat was awful that way in her geriatric years. If you insulted her in any way, she used your clothes… I never realized it was probably difficult to get into the box however.


----------



## gottatrot

Today dawned bright and clear. Well, "dawn" means when I woke up about noon or so. But it wasn't raining, and there was no threat of snow or ice. 

The feed store told us that they are letting locals know that there could be a hay shortage in the spring. They still have quite a bit of the premium hay, but they have heard many in the surrounding areas that feed lower quality hay were not able to get in a full supply for the winter. They suspect when people run out on the farms around here, they will come with big trailers and buy them out of the premium hay since they won't be able to get anything else. DH put in about a ton for me today, enough to last until March. We may put in some more in a couple weeks or so. That way even if I do have to drive to the city to get hay, the winter weather won't prevent us.

Both horses have lost a little weight over the past week or so. I've been feeding them a little extra, but the nights have been a lot colder than they are used to, down into the 20s at times. This is actually good, because I think it is natural for them to burn off a little in the winter. They're down to about a 4.75 BCS or barely a 5, and a couple weeks ago they were at about a 5.25. It seems to work well around here to have the horses lose just a little during the coldest periods, and that prepares them so they aren't too heavy already when the spring grass begins growing in.

When we arrived at the barn, I thought Jake in the next field over had died. He is at least 32 years old, and was lying at an awkward angle, but after a few minutes he got up. The barn owner told me she thought he had died earlier that morning, and she had yelled and banged things but he hadn't moved, but then later he got up again. I suspect his time is getting close. He is not thin, but has chronic laminitis and IR, and the cold weather is probably making him more painful. The ground was not hard today though.

My plan was to scrub the water trough, ride Hero, drive Aria and trim hooves. But dark came too quickly so after chores I only had time to drive Aria, and then DH and I took both horses for an exercise walk. That was good too, at least to get the horses out for a leg stretcher. It was quite dark by the time we got back.

Today Aria began walking right away after she was harnessed up, in a straight line. Her turns are improving a lot and she was able to do some very nice ones. We also trotted several times, which was her first time going above a walk. She's beginning to halt better too.


----------



## Knave

I’m glad Aria is doing so well! Happy New Year too!


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I’m glad Aria is doing so well! Happy New Year too!


Happy New Year to my HF friends!


----------



## gottatrot

I thought this was interesting and wonder what @knightrider would think.

A coworker from Florida was telling me that when she worked there, she took care of six different patients who had shark bites. Four of the six had been riding horses on the beach shortly before they got into the water.

It makes some sense to me that riding would put you at a higher risk for a shark bite. In a hot climate, the horses probably sweat a lot and I know when I've ridden a sweaty horse, my legs or clothes will get a strong odor. Quite possibly that odor could be attractive to a shark. 
Something to bear in mind as a possibility I guess if you live in those areas.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Perhaps horse odors are similar to seal odors? Could also be that horse people are more active in the water than the average beachgoer. 

I was bodysurfing in the little waves near the shore at Myrtle Beach a few years ago when a little Blacktip bit my finger and then quickly released. I found it quite disturbing that it was known to the authorities that Blacktips were pursuing bait fish up the coast leaving a good number of bites in their wake but MB refuses to issue warnings.


----------



## knightrider

We'll have to tell @4horses about the possibility of shark bites after riding on the beach. She likes to swim after taking the horses on the beach. I wonder if riding in a saddle on the beach vs riding bareback makes a difference to the sharks.


----------



## gottatrot

I managed to get in some riding and driving practice today.

Sorry for those of you who are having winter weather. It seems like often at the coast we have nicer weather when there is worse weather inland. Sometimes the cooler air inland pulls the warmer air off the ocean.
Today was dry, the sun was shining(ish), and it was almost 60 degrees out.
I'm still picking up a lot of branches from the last windstorm, scattered all over the field.

Aria was doing some nice steering today, around corners and poles. She also stopped and stood the first time I asked her to. I left Hero grazing with his lead rope on outside the arena while I drove Aria. Whenever we got more than 30 feet away, he would suddenly lift his head and come running over. Some might consider it irresponsible to leave him loose, but he was very concerned about staying close and not getting left behind.

It was getting dark by the time I rode, so I just went around the grassy area outside the perimeter of the arena. Both horses were suffering from what @Knave's horses were in the nice weather. A car came driving behind the arena to feed a boarder horse, with the headlights on. First Aria ran and skidded/skied about five feet in the wet grass on the end of her lead. Hero seemed calm, until the headlights flashed in his eyes, and then he reverted to his old trick of rearing. We had several more spooks before we were done, but I scolded them both a bit verbally about being such ding-dongs, and they settled down.

Now that I've ridden a few horses that reared once in a while, it seems very unfair that so many people spread the idea that if a horse rears, it's basically one of the most dangerous things that can happen. A lot of people say it will mean the horse can never be trustworthy, and probably should not be ridden.

There is a huge difference between a horse that pops up and down, or even rears and spins, versus a horse that stands straight up and totters or flips. In my experience, it is a serious exaggeration to think if a horse rears they are heading toward becoming one that flips over backward. That is an extreme example of what is otherwise natural behavior, and even a go-to serious spook for some horses.

A flipper is a horse for only a very extreme horse rider or trainer, and my friend had a horse that would go over backwards sometimes, but only when frightened out of her mind, so after a lot of experience with a good rider it was less likely to happen. Perhaps some would think riding such a horse was too risky, but she knew the horse so well she made it off on the couple of times it happened. There were hundreds of other times the horse simply reared and came down nicely. She rode the horse into old age and those behaviors were not what retired her. I rode the horse sometimes, and felt fine about it. I can't even remember her rearing with me, maybe once. She just reared a lot, and reared when ponied, reared when you turned her out, etc.

With a horse that rears like Hero, or my friend's warmblood that rears when he spooks, it's just a quick and balanced up and down, and one of the easier types of his spooks to ride. I think if a person goes backward when a horse rears, they need to seriously work on their riding. It is similar to jumping, if you are with the horse's balance, you just follow their lean and go up and down with them. You don't want a horse to slip while on two legs, but horses also slip at the trot when on two legs, and go down. With most rearing horses the momentum is already carrying them back down within a second or two, so even if they slip they are likely to go sideways.

I'm not saying a horse that rears is appropriate for a beginner, but also I don't think it is the big deal that many people make it out to be. I've ridden at least six horses now that had a casual rear in their spook repertoire, and it rarely even unseated the rider. One of the first times I ever rode on a shetland pony with my cousin, the pony reared. We did not fall off even as little kids riding bareback, double. I do believe in Murphy's law, so I'll just hint that I may not yet have come off a horse that was rearing, and hopefully it won't happen tomorrow.

I also know a trainer whose horse reared once when she was badly frightened, and the trainer sold the horse right away. That horse was a good, reliable horse, but the trainer had that belief that if a horse rears, they're basically ruined. The biggest rear I've ever ridden was on a horse that reared because his saddle pinched, and as far as I know it was the only rear with a rider in his life.

Bucking is far more difficult to ride, but yet most people will put up with a buck now and then, without thinking they have to get rid of a horse.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> Now that I've ridden a few horses that reared once in a while, it seems very unfair that so many people spread the idea that if a horse rears, it's basically one of the most dangerous things that can happen. A lot of people say it will mean the horse can never be trustworthy, and probably should not be ridden.


This is so so true! I have gotten a couple of amazing horses cheaply because they reared. Some of the unbroken horses that I have trained reared, and as @gottatrot says, they come out of it with age and training. We began calling Tico "The World's Greatest Pony" (and he definitely deserved that name), but when I tried him out to buy him, he reared 17 times in about 17 minutes. He was a rearer, but I was certain I could get him out of it, and I certainly did. Many children rode him and adored him, as well as a number of timid adults.

Of course, Isabeau is my most famous rearer. She was quite dangerous. Only because I had had so much experience with rearing horses, did I think I could cure her of that bad habit of rearing and coming over on her rider when she didn't want to do something. It took me a whole lot longer than I ever thought it would. But, can she ever give you a fun ride! And now, like Tico, all the inexperienced riders and timid riders get Isabeau to start out with because she is so trustworthy with someone who doesn't know what they are doing.

When I was training Chorro to be ridden, he wondered what would happen if he reared. It was probably the 4th time anyone had been on his back. He went up a couple of small rears, and I booted him. Then he did a great big rear, and my left stirrup came off. Then he popped up high immediately again and my right stirrup came off (English saddle--made to come off if pulled backwards). I slid behind the saddle on that one. I thought, "No problem, I'll just pop back up in the saddle," but he didn't give me a chance. Went up high again, and I slid right off the back. Got back on and whacked him good and scolded him big time. I don't think he's ever reared since. He will be 18 in April.

When I was 21, I got an unbroken two year old, Cyclone, who was a kind of bad rearer. That was before I taught all my horses to rear, but I loved him so so so much, and he was so talented and beautiful, I was certain I could get him out of it. One time on a foxhunt, we were watching the hounds work while standing at the top of a gravel pit. The pit was about 40 feet down below us. Cyclone was about 4 or 5 at the time, and I had gotten him to not rear except when he had to stand still for too long of a time. He decided he'd stood long enough and began to rear right above this deep pit. I yelled, "I'm not goin' down that!" and leaped off just as he came down and rolled into the pit. That was pretty exciting. He wasn't hurt (didn't do my saddle any good). I just made my way down that steep incline, picked up the reins, got back on him, and finished the hunt. He turned into an amazing competitor at shows. He was quite a horse.

















Later, when I started doing Renaissance Festival shows, I taught all my horses to rear, and reared them several times for every show. When my kids were born, I stopped teaching my horses to rear. I was taking other people's kids riding, and I didn't want anyone to get accidentally reared with. The white appaloosa would rear if you gave a verbal command, no matter who was riding. The kids liked to "rear" her, and I didn't want anything to accidentally happen.


----------



## knightrider

I thought of another very naughty rearing horse story. The first horse I ever did a lot of rearing with was called Canario (Canary in English). This was in Ecuador. People knew I'd ride anything and I started colts for people, so they asked me to ride Canario a lot and get him out of rearing. I was such a bad person, I still am ashamed of it. Most of the time, I did get him to not rear, but when I wanted to show off for my friends, I asked him to rear. I didn't do it a whole lot, but I never should have done it at all, and I knew it. I figured a few rears wouldn't hurt, especially if I was asking him to do it. One time I was showing off for a friend I hadn't seen it a while. Someone who knew Canario's owners saw me doing it, and I was told I could never ride him again. I knew I deserved to be taken off him, and I was very very ashamed.


----------



## TrainedByMares

You were a horse-rearin' hottie back in the day, @knightrider !😀

I have never had a horse rear with me in the saddle, so I have no experience with rearing. When I was reading and following Caprilli's writings, I rode with one hand as he instructed,since cavalry carried a weapon, and I found that I balanced better since I could swing my arm out or back and forth to accomadate sudden movements of the horse (spooky Nicki).

Does it make sense then that to ride out a rear would be easier if my balance were aided by my free hand,which could also be used to grab the mane if need be ,as opposed to two hands on the reins. What is the safest way to ride out a rear?


----------



## Knave

I agree wholeheartedly! Now, I don’t know if I could handle a flipper like @knightrider. I almost flipped Partner and that is how I messed my back up. The balance was so precarious… long story. Lol

My favorite mare was Runt. I talk about her all the time. She always reared. No biggie. She had great balance and was an athlete, and she could stand up and walk on her two hind feet! I never ever felt her balance was off, and it never got under my skin in the least. I was not raised to be afraid of rearing, although I do see where people who are immediately think it will turn into flipping.

I convinced Bones to rear with me a couple times pregging, because he was after the flag. He rears up to reach the low branches of trees, and so I knew I could con him into it with the flag. He was so upset each time I convinced him to do it! I don’t know if it scared him or made him feel like a bad boy or what. I pet him and loved him and he was still upset. He didn’t even rear high!

I didn’t care so much about Queen rearing when I was on the ground, although I didn’t appreciate the look she had to her, like we could play. Um, no. Lol

Maybe it is because of Runt that I don’t care about rearing… husband got horses in training before we were married just to solve the rearing. He does not appreciate rearing. Lol


----------



## Knave

@TrainedByMares you just let the horse move under you, which leans you forward I guess. I think if you do have a horse rear, you will naturally do the correct thing if you don’t panic and get stiff. Like Gotta said, it’s easy to ride in comparison to bucking or something like that.


----------



## Knave

Oh, also, I wonder if it was in the moon. Lol. I always say that, we joke “it’s either the moon or my allergies.” All of the animals seemed off here yesterday.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Thank you @Knave ! I had a tenant that had her horse rear and flip over on top of her ,leaving her with a broken back and internal injuries. Her ex-husband worked for me for a couple of years around the time I was just getting into horses and I heard the story many times over(and other horror stories too). 

When Jesse gets worked up, she rears and kicks and I get to thinking maybe one day, I will be in the saddle when that happens.


----------



## Knave

@TrainedByMares that is a scary story. I know it does happen, and I was right on that edge with Partner. @knightrider I’m sure has some sort of trick to getting off safely. I don’t. I don’t know how, when the balance is so precarious, to get out of the way without creating the loss of balance to flip. That is how I felt on Partner, because I knew he was teetering that line.

I tend towards trying to keep the balance in any situation like that. When Bones fell on the mountain, and was teetering towards rolling off of it, if you remember I just stayed on him and let him work it out. I’ve done that a few of the times Cash has fallen too, when he was on the verge of endoing and I just tried to let him work it out.

I don’t know the right answer in that scenario. I know some can step off the side of them as they go, but my guess is you have to do it almost reflexively. I would like to have knightrider explain it to us. I also hope none of us ever face that scenario to begin with. Especially not a horse who throws themselves over backwards with intention. I have seen one, and that type I would think are truly dangerous.


----------



## knightrider

@TrainedByMares , thank you. When a horse rears that I don't want it to, I keep both hands forward. When they go up high and kind of teeter up there, I put everything I have forward. Forward, forward, forward, don't come over. I wouldn't put a hand up or out unless the horse is trained to rear. You can hold on to the mane, the neck, whatever. Actually, you would be surprised how easy it is to sit a rear, especially a small one. And, as @Knave says, your body is telling you to get forward, so it's just something you do naturally.

Acicate was a difficult rearer because he'd go up high, and I'd get all forward, and then he'd land bucking. You lean back a bit to get that head up in a buck, and then he'd rear and I'd be all wrong for another rear. Windy was another one for doing the rear/buck combination. Luckily both were easy to cure. I asked my horse trainer friend about how to stop Aci from rearing so much. She said to spin him. I said, "I do spin him, but the minute I stop, he just goes up again." She said, "You have to spin him for 50 minutes."  Fifty minutes! That's a VERY long time to spin a horse. I actually only spun him for about 12 minutes (it felt like 45). In just a week or two, he hardly reared any more. For about 3 weeks, I would have to spin him for about 3 or 6 times, then we were done.

If I tried to spin Isabeau, she'd just come over. I never spun Windy. I just would kick her and make her go forward. Neither Windy nor Aci rear anymore. Aci still rears with fearful folks, and he usually does it before we even get out of the yard, so they don't ride him (and they don't want to).

Sorry for co-opting your thread, @gottatrot


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> I know some can step off the side of them as they go, but my guess is you have to do it almost reflexively.


This is it exactly. Isabeau came over sideways and not real fast, so all but one time, I just got out of the way. You don't even think about it. You just do it. It just happens.


----------



## Knave

I had a horse once who flipped over intentionally, but he flipped his tail end over his head! I never saw anything like it. I was starting him, and I was young. My father came out to help (it was the first day of something new and he just flat panicked). That was the end of him though. He broke ribs each time he flipped, and he flipped five or six times.

The horse could have been a decent horse, but the day he was castrated he flat decided he hated humans. That was it for him. He thought all of us were evil creatures, and it didn’t matter how hard I tried. I saw a calf do the same once. It got its head stuck in a fence, and when my father pulled it out it blamed him for the ordeal. It was a roping steer, and you had better watch him when you were on the ground. He hated people and wanted nothing more than to hurt someone.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Thanks @knightrider , great advice for me to keep. Yes, sorry gottatrot I figured while the conversation was about rearing, I should ask. Better to ask before I need advice!


----------



## gottatrot

@knightrider, you are the person to ask, because of all your rearing experience. You're the only person I know who has taught horses to rear on purpose. @Knave also has the experience. 

Yes, I agree. Mostly you just balance for a fast rear that feels like the horse is staying forward. As with jumping and bucking, it's better if you keep your foot aligned with the ground rather than letting it swing back. Otherwise when you come down, you might lose your balance. 

@TrainedByMares, something people do is pull hard on the reins, which is something you should never do on a rearing horse. Whether using one hand or two, you throw your hands forward and give rein. Realize when the horse is up on the hind legs, you can control nothing with the reins. It's not like you're going to steer those two hind legs, and any pulling might make them lose their balance. I've seen videos of horses that reared and were not going to flip, but the rider caused the horse to flip by pulling the horse over.

I've also known cases where horses flipped and badly injured the riders. In one case the rider had no fault, but also was not exiting the horse due to fear of the pit bulls that were attacking the horse's hamstrings. In another case the rider was whipping the horse forward when he was exhausted, and the rider did not allow any escape other than backward. Most often when people have told me the horse flipped, they really spooked and panicked on asphalt, and slipped to land on their side. 

My opinion is that people underestimate how dangerous it is to trot and have the horse standing on two diagonal legs when the ground is slippery. That is when I have had horses fall with me the most often.





For pretty much anything really naughty that a horse does, if the front end comes up, it's better to be leaning forward. The only time it's good to lean back is if the front end disappears. If the horse's neck disappears, you better lean back and pull on the reins, because the horse is most likely bucking, or else tripping. 

But if a horse goes high, I throw my upper body forward and lean my balance forward as far as I can. I definitely don't want my weight to pull the horse over backward. There is a video online that shows someone exiting a flip, and I do keep that in mind as a worst case scenario.

Sometimes for me it is helpful to see and have a mental picture of the worst thing happening, and then it removes the fear which hopefully means I can keep thinking clearly and react appropriately should a serious problem arise. Staying forward means the rider is ready to drop off the horse if necessary. I've always found it helpful to push away from a horse if I was coming off, away from any legs or rolling body.


----------



## Knave

Yes! How did we not say never pull on a rearing horse? Sometimes we forget to include important information!!!


----------



## knightrider

@gottatrot , I looked all over for that video to show, but I couldn't find it. I am so glad you found it! I have watched that so many times, hoping if it ever happened to me, I could do what Paul did. Actually, I truly hope I never need it.


----------



## gottatrot

Ugh, I hate TB hooves. I've trimmed a few TBs and never thought one had feet that were good enough to make me happy with them.

I have been keeping an eye on Hero's hooves, but their growth was a bit slower over the winter so I waited five or six weeks this time. I have been watching the bars. They looked fine superficially, getting just a tad long and smooshing in with the sole.

But dang TBs can't go that long. When I trimmed him last night, there was bruising under the bars on both hind hooves. Not too bad, but it is annoying you have to stay on top of them so much to prevent problems.

Of course, paring down bars that have bruising under them is not comfortable, and Hero has never been a model of patience or longsuffering. I had to growl at him a few times for trying to pull his hooves away.

I suspect many farriers would say he has "amazing" hooves for a TB. Compared to Nala's they are super, and her farrier thought hers were good for a TB.

Compared to Aria's, they are barely acceptable. Hers were neglected for years. Yet all the flaring and imbalances went away in just a few months with basic trimming. Her walls are thick, her soles great, and they practically stay healthy themselves.

To me it feels like TB hooves are trying to fall apart, and your skill and attention hold them together. It feels like Arab and Mustang hooves try to stay healthy, unless something goes very wrong, and that's the only time some skill or attention are necessary.


----------



## Knave

I have some horses with hooves that you could’ve believe! Zeus has the best hooves I have ever seen. They are different. Always perfect, I do think probably around 7 weeks, and they are like a stone. It kills rasps. Husband and I were talking about buying him his own special rasp. They are beautiful too. Black, perfectly shaped, amazing feet! I read fjords are supposed to have good feet, but this is insane.

Bones has pretty good feet too. Not like Zeus, for if you went too long they might chip, but they handle a lot. No one expected me to be able to keep a true barefoot horse, and Bones and Zeus have been great. Zeus can do anything and go anywhere! If it’s going to be really rocky and difficult I have put Bones’s boots on, but rarely anymore and he’s done fine too.

Beamer had bad feet. I think from not being done enough at some point, but maybe that wasn’t it according to your Aria. Cashman seems to require front shoes for heavy work outside. I don’t know if it is because I keep him too short, but he gets sore footed eventually at work. I can’t let him have any extra growth though because he trips if they aren’t kept super tight with a good breakover. I think Queen will be great though, with the standard of mustang hooves. She doesn’t seem to take a sensitive step ever.

Her feet are pretty too, but they try and get overgrown heels quickly. I have to do her about 4 weeks, and they still try and get that weird heel!


----------



## gottatrot

I've just added two new kindle books to Amazon. 

The first one is called "Sister White, Sister Red." It is another departure from a fairy tale, this one is the tale of Snow White and Rose Red. As in the fairy tale, there are two sisters, a gnome and a bear at the beginning. Mostly it is a romantic tale about a stronger sister who tries to help out a weaker one, with some mild adventure. This land has had minotaurs, trolls and a phoenix, now the gnomes show up. 

@knightrider has been kind enough to read some of my fiction and has said the stories need more horses. In this one, the main character works for a time training horses. Hero also has a cameo appearance disguised as a horse named Foki. I was able to list the book as a free download for five days, if you have a kindle or the app.
Amazon.com

The second book I wrote some time ago, and I liked the first part but not the rest. I rewrote a lot of it and this one has an even stronger horse theme. It's another medieval romance (my themes are not graphic). It's called "The Blacksmith," and the main character is a horse person who in the beginning of the book struggles with making a safer choice or else encouraging a pair of thieves to stay at her inn just because they have horses she admires. I was able to list the book for free for five days starting tomorrow. 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QT24Q93


----------



## knightrider

Yay Yay Yay!!! I can't wait to read them! I encourage everyone else to read them too! Good as they are, I do believe that your non-fiction horse books are even better, in fact, yours are some of the best horse books ever. If you haven't read @gottatrot 's 3 non-fiction horse books, I encourage everyone to read them. One is even embedded in her journal.


----------



## Knave

Now I will have to read them!!!


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> Yay Yay Yay!!! I can't wait to read them! I encourage everyone else to read them too! Good as they are, I do believe that your non-fiction horse books are even better, in fact, yours are some of the best horse books ever. If you haven't read @gottatrot 's 3 non-fiction horse books, I encourage everyone to read them. One is even embedded in her journal.


Thank you, @knight rider! Very nice of you to say.


----------



## Knave

I read The Blacksmith. I really liked it! I especially like how you do not drawn the bad parts on for too long. The bad parts always give me anxiety! I just love how you write!


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I read The Blacksmith. I really liked it! I especially like how you do not drawn the bad parts on for too long. The bad parts always give me anxiety! I just love how you write!


Thank you! I like gentle stories I guess, even though I do read some dark books too. I wonder if any of you have read the Girl of the Limberlost. It was a good story I read when I was a kid, and I just watched the movie again (free on Amazon Prime), hadn't seen it since I was a kid. Anyway, the mother in the story is bitter, and even though it turns out fine it was stressful for us to watch! DH kept asking me if it was going to turn out all right. LOL. 

I always think you should write a book because your writing is so great. Personally, I can't help writing because it is something my brain does on its own. Regardless of what it turns out like, it just has to come out somehow. Your writing is so beautiful and descriptive. Your journal is a gift to us, and a book would be a great gift too.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Can I get paper versions of the non-fiction horse books? I will buy them and read them if they are available that way. I am old-school when it comes to reading!


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> Can I get paper versions of the non-fiction horse books? I will buy them and read them if they are available that way. I am old-school when it comes to reading!


I haven't published them in book form yet, but I plan to soon. I like real books better too.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I look forward to reading them some day.


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> I just love how you write!


I agree! Super great! I also agree with @gottatrot that @Knave is quite a writer too. Let's see a book by you, knave!


----------



## Knave

You guys do have me half convinced to do it @gottatrot and @knightrider. At light I make up stories to go to sleep, and the same ones happen over and over. Maybe if I got them out I would no longer have to recreate and explain the beginning all the time.


----------



## gottatrot

It was a beautiful day so instead of working with Aria on driving, I went for a longer ride instead. The horses were very good. Usually I turn them out before working with them, while I do chores. Today I was early enough that I thought that even if I rode for an hour, I'd still have time to clean the field before dark. 
I wondered if the horses would be spooky or overly energetic if I rode before turnout, but they were fine. Possibly it is more unsettling for them to be out closer to dusk, when the elk and deer are more active and the turkeys roosting.

As usual, I couldn't get any good photos from on my wiggly horse. Here we are coming back up the road.









They were standing in some muck while I took their boots off for turnout, which was interesting.









Waiting semi-patiently to get untacked:









The grass in this field isn't super great, so after I turned the horses out, Hero hunted me down to see if I had any treats.



























Aria with her model-worthy hair:


----------



## gottatrot

Thinking today about neurodiversity in horses.

There are quite a few who say they don't allow their horses to misbehave.
It reminds me of my mom who did not allow her children to misbehave.

In her opinion, she could have handled any child by being strict. I'm not saying people don't spoil children, or horses. But my mom was given four children that developed within a narrow neurological range, one that made us perceive the world and receive her direction the way she intended us to.

I know there are children who fall far outside of this neurological range, who would not have behaved the way my mom wished them to, regardless of how strict she got.

The idea of being strict enough that horses don't misbehave also applies to those that fall within a certain neurological range.

You can be harsh enough to reprimand many horses for unwanted behaviours. But what about when that doesn't work? 

Some say the answer is to physically harm the horse if necessary, for fear that they will harm you. If the punishment is hard enough, the horse will learn. 

My experience with neurodiverse horses is that even if they understand you don't want them to do something and will punish them, even very harshly, they may not be able to stop doing it.

I don't believe @Knave could ever punish Bones hard enough that he could stop his self mutilation. 

When I reprimanded Hero for biting me, at first he could not stop doing it. I believe the pattern of behavior was so engrained in his brain/neurons that he did not know how to stop it when he was anxious. He had to rewire his brain, basically, after finding other ways to cope and calm himself. It was the same with his bucking. Changing electrical signals, chemicals and patterns in the brain takes a long time.

I feel it is very important to consider that you may not be able to change a horse just by being firm and insistent. I believe we are understanding some of these things more nowadays thanks to Temple Grandin and others.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> I feel it is very important to consider that you may not be able to change a horse just by being firm and insistent. I believe we are understanding some of these things more nowadays thanks to Temple Grandin and others.


I couldn't agree more. If you are comfortable telling us, could you tell more about your mom's handling of the 4 siblings? Were there any that did not respond to her strictness? I know you said all 4 of you were within the neurological range of behaviors. Were there times when one of the siblings was not?

I was thinking this morning of my son, whom I compare to an Arabian horse. The harsher you get with him, the deeper he digs in his heels. Ask him nicely, complement him, encourage him, and you get so much more. It is frustrating to me that as an adult, most people just want to slam him and "straighten him out" which has never worked and still doesn't. My son is definitely a square peg in a round pen.


----------



## gottatrot

Interesting about your son, @knightrider.

Somehow my mom had a way of letting us know her strictness was in our best interest, because she cared so much. We usually did not resent her.

My little brother I would say ended up somewhat shut down, kind of like a horse that is less expressive because they have been reprimanded too strongly. But as an adult he doesn't seem to have issues.
My sister felt she had to work through some resentment that came out later in life, but discussed it with my mom and remains close.

Probably I was the one who was most difficult, not appreciating such a firm hand. I dealt with it by anorexia, which was not severe compared to many but still affects my brain.

I'm like an arabian too, not sensitive (more like Halla than Amore), but needing to understand why and being asked instead of told. Come to think of it, I'm a lot like Halla. Willing to give and give and work and work if you tell me why and ask instead of force me.

I think we all were within a range where it didn't harm us much, but still, three out of four would have benefited from a gentler hand on the reins. Quite possibly even horses that seem to tolerate that tough approach would also.


----------



## TrainedByMares

It's difficult to ride and take pictures! Some of the more energetic rides would provide some great shots but you have both hands busy! 

Love the pictures! Looks great around there with some greenery! Tying the horses to the gate looks dangerous though.

I had very strict parents. They were children of the Great Depression and were forged during those very difficult times hence their strict attitude. Tough when I was a kid, great as an adult. I am a strict parent. I began as 'my way or the highway' and now I've mellowed to a kinder,gentler iron fist in a velvet glove. Most of that evolution is from training horses. Know when to stand firm and know when to cut some slack! 
Parenting is a tough job!


----------



## Knave

I could not agree more! I would find it apparent, but I guess some do not. We talk about that type of thing often with no question as to it’s validity. Each horse is different, and some similar to certain personalities while others are striking opposite.

It is why one has to change their training techniques. General flourished with a Clinton Anderson type method. I think Cash would have as well, but had too many prior training mistakes for anything to flow so simply. Bones could never have mentally handled a black and white routine. General could not have handled the easy and emotional training Bones required. Bones would never stop mutilating; I agree. It is why most are put down. People cannot understand it or train it away and find it dangerous.

As far as people go, my parents were also strict. I am closer in temperament to Bones. I try really hard to please and break easily. Yet, as a child that translated to the same behavior with a friend. Her ideals were far from my parents ideals. Opposing… hers were drinking and partying, and my parents were those of behaving perfectly with no embarrassment to them. Both ran me in different directions, and I was rarely accomplishing pleasing either.


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> ...Love the pictures! Looks great around there with some greenery! Tying the horses to the gate looks dangerous though...
> 
> ...Parenting is a tough job!


I meant to put a little disclaimer with the photo of the horses at the gate. I thought someone's sharp eyes might think it dangerous. Aria's lead is looped once, just enough to keep her from wandering away while I took the boots off. I tried pulling it loose from the gate and it didn't budge the gate, so it seemed she would pull free easily without issue if she needed to. 

Hero's reins are wrapped around a couple times. I tried one loop to be safer, but he walked away, and he needed a little more incentive to stay. If I couldn't imagine him getting a leg on the reins and pulling on his mouth, I would have set the reins on the ground instead. If he pulled on the reins from the gate, it would pull mostly on his poll and not his mouth. 

A better way would have been to take his bridle off and use a lead rope. Unfortunately, I left the lead rope back up at the barn and only had a halter. 

After turning the horses out, I carried all the tack back up the hill. As I walked, I kept saying, remember to bring a lead rope back for Hero...remember...

When I went back to get the horses just before full dark, do you think I remembered the lead rope? I debated trying some method where I had Aria's lead rope going through the ring on Hero's halter. I imagined pulling on it and her head smacking into his. He would have taken a chunk out of her if that happened.
Luckily, the horses in the next field had halters and leads on the ground. So I borrowed a lead rope and brought my horses up, and then dropped it off later when I drove by on my way home. I thought, what are the chances the owner will show up and suddenly decide to walk her horses somewhere? But she leaves them out in the field at night, so I gambled and she did not show up. Whew. I'll tell her later I borrowed it, she won't mind. 

About parenting...I only know what my parents did, and can't be too critical, except for trying to figure out what might apply to horse training. But I have no advice for anyone else since I never felt up to the job myself, and am amazed that people attempt it. By the way, my dad was the balance of my mom, very gentle and tenderhearted. Once, my mom was tired of always disciplining, and sent my dad in to spank me. I felt so bad for him that I cried right away, so he didn't have to continue. With my mom I would never cry, even if she broke a wooden spoon on my butt. It was a matter of pride for me. What a bad child I was, LOL. 

Also, I've experienced horses (Hero being one) who don't even notice a fairly firm hand, and things that would have sent Amore skittering into the ditch he doesn't even blink at or understand I am upset. So "harsh" is in the eye of the receiving end, and if the horse doesn't even register what you are doing, it's not harsh enough to be a reprimand. Draft horses in particular can be very "dull," I'd call it, and Arabs are usually on the other end of the spectrum, some you can even have a disappointed posture and they'll appear chagrined. That's why as @Knave says, each horse needs such an individualized approach.


----------



## Knave

Cash and Zeus are the only drafts I’ve dealt with ever. I know Cash isn’t technically a draft, but I’ve heard rumors of full draft studs being turned out in his area in an effort to improve the horse flesh. Even if that isn’t the case, his ancestry I would bet on work horses.

He is duller, but has a temper to him too. He needs a stronger reprimand, and then gets angry he was reprimanded. He can be light enough mouthed and sided, but as far as “in trouble” goes, he needs to actually know he is in trouble. If not he will just attempt to rule the roost.

Zeus is overall duller. Hands and feet require a heavier approach than we are used to. Not pulling on his head by any means, but actually making contact, with the rare upped pressure. As far as scolding him goes, I can wack him on the chest hard to try and keep him from pushing out the gate. He will then not push out the gate, but also not back up a step either. Lol. He doesn’t get into more trouble than that though luckily. I always figured as smart as he is, and as much of a beating as he can take from the other horses (never means a thing to him, and he never gives), if he decided to be a bad boy there would be absolutely nothing one could do to deter him. Luckily he just loves people and likes working together.


----------



## gottatrot

This horse, Bullwinkle was a Percheron. The Arab, Banner was 15 hands. It was very difficult to get Bull to understand that you were cueing him to do anything.


----------



## Knave

I forgot to tell you I read the second book! It was very good.


----------



## knightrider

I read _The Blacksmith _and loved it. In fact, I loved it so much, I was going through "book withdrawal" which happens to me when I really like a book and don't want it to end. I wish you would write a sequel, where the main character is Queen and has piles of adventures trying to manage being Queen. I remember reading "The Blacksmith" as a short story. I think all the improvements you made were spot on. Great book.

I am saving the next book --it's downloaded--because I don't like to read two books in a row by the same author. I'll read a few books in-between. Horse Forum members, if you haven't read _The Blacksmith, _I think you would like it. I surely did.


----------



## MeditativeRider

gottatrot said:


> I know there are children who fall far outside of this neurological range, who would not have behaved the way my mom wished them to, regardless of how strict she got.


I have one of these. She is a fighter (out of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn) and goes into fight mode at the first hint of anything, multiple times per day. If you try be strict with her then it just makes it much worse, particularly because it is not really an intentional choosing to be difficult but a meltdown of regulation and if you pile anything (like instructions or demands) on that, it just overloads the system more. I can definitely see how horses can be just like this too.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I forgot to tell you I read the second book! It was very good.





knightrider said:


> I read _The Blacksmith _and loved it. In fact, I loved it so much, I was going through "book withdrawal" which happens to me when I really like a book and don't want it to end. I wish you would write a sequel, where the main character is Queen and has piles of adventures trying to manage being Queen. I remember reading "The Blacksmith" as a short story. I think all the improvements you made were spot on. Great book.
> 
> I am saving the next book --it's downloaded--because I don't like to read two books in a row by the same author. I'll read a few books in-between. Horse Forum members, if you haven't read _The Blacksmith, _I think you would like it. I surely did.


Thanks to both of you fellow writers!!


----------



## gottatrot

Hero has a hoof abscess. It appears to be a bruise that turned into a shallow sole abscess. Seems to be from when I let the bars go too long recently.

Thankfully he's not very lame, just ouchy on hard surfaces. I drained it for the second time today, and it just has blood that comes out, no pus. The first time it drained a lot more, so I think it is improving. Of course he doesn't love having it drained, but he just tries to pull away so it's not too bad.

The weather has been great but no riding this week. If I take Aria out alone, Hero will run around and that's not good right now. Like @egrogan, I need a third horse. Have been considering borrowing one for the summer.


----------



## Knave

I’m glad it’s not too bad. Does it bother you when Hero, when he’s not lame of course, runs around like an idiot?


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I’m glad it’s not too bad. Does it bother you when Hero, when he’s not lame of course, runs around like an idiot?


No that is just his personality. But he is also hilarious. A lot of horses just run back and forth. He does things like squat back on his hind legs and dig fast with both front hooves, like he's trying to dig under the fence. He'll freeze, glare out and then grunt and squeal while bucking in place over and over. Sometimes I consider it good exercise, when he's in a safe board corral and I'm doing a short work with Aria nearby. He looks very furious, but never gets too sweaty or anything so sometimes I think it is an excuse to burn off energy. He doesn't panic or test fences or anything.


----------



## Knave

That’s the way all ours are too, so I figure it’s good exercise. Queen used to debate taking fences, but she doesn’t seem to anymore. Yet she hasn’t been left completely alone… we’ll see how she does come spring work.

Zeus got so mad one time that he ended up cast under the gate. That was bad!


----------



## gottatrot

Poor Hero was still sensitive on the bad hoof today. He walked over to me a bit gingerly, so I again opened the abscess with a hoof knife and it gushed out some more blood. 

Immediately he seemed to feel some relief, and walked out well when I took them down to the turnout. The road has grass verges, so I was able to walk him on softer ground.

After turnout he still seemed fine. However, it was getting dark when I walked him back to his own field. He stepped on a stick I didn't notice and that sure made him mad. He squealed and bucked hard. Then he favored the foot for several steps. It looks so superficial I keep thinking it will resolve, but I guess I need to soak it. 

I thought of pressing down to drain it more through the hole I made, but that was a no go. To his credit, Hero tries really hard for me. He reared back and almost sat, but let me keep his foot. Then when I squeezed again, he brought out the big chompers, but since I stopped squeezing he put them away before they descended to the grip on my shoulder that was threatened. 

Whenever Aria sees my truck come driving up she gives her head a big fling. "Huh, it's about time you got here!"

She had a big spook today while tied because DH a hundred feet away was playing goofy games with Mocha across his fence. Mocha loves it when DH starts running silly, but he still had the running water hose in his hand when he started lifting his knees high and dancing around, and Aria thought that was something she'd never seen before. Mocha started prancing with DH, he thinks it is great. He also has perfected his sad, starving pony look and stands right next to where I am walking, looking forlorn so I have to give him treats. 

Aria gave her big spook, and I waited to see if she would run back or stay worked up. But a second later she was like, "I'm done, I see it's that silly man. Go ahead and brush me now."


----------



## Knave

Have you ever tried poulticing? It seems to work wonders for us.


----------



## MeditativeRider

That's such a cool story about your DH dancing with Mocha. I do dancing with our dog when she is excited to see me. We have a hopping and holding our front paws/hands in front of us move, and a wiggly bottom move that if I do them, she does too.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> Have you ever tried poulticing? It seems to work wonders for us.


What do you use for your poultice?


----------



## Knave

We use 3M poultices and wrap them on with vet wrap, then boot over it. It works insanely good. They aren’t particularly cheap, but I would think that one time would cure Hero.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> We use 3M poultices and wrap them on with vet wrap, then boot over it. It works insanely good. They aren’t particularly cheap, but I would think that one time would cure Hero.


Thank you! I will order those poultices. I'm spoiled having had Arabs and so little dealings with abscesses. Other than the one Hero had last year, which resolved when I drained it, I've only lanced them for other people. In my years with horses, this is only the second one I've dealt with in my own horses, both from Hero. I tell him, "I'm never having a thoroughbred again!" He thinks it is funny that he causes me so much trouble.


----------



## gottatrot

Since the poultices were supposed to arrive today, of course Hero's hoof seemed nearly back to normal yesterday. He was walking fine and only a slight tenderness at the small open area on the sole. It amazes me that such a small spot can be so problematic, but of course it is the same for us with blisters, hangnails, slivers and such. 
He did not want me to even look at that foot, believing I was going to make it hurt again. I could hardly blame him, but did insist, and he gave in. 
If I'd known he would be doing so well, I would have brought Aria's harness to work her. I'll do it in a couple days, for sure.


----------



## Knave

I’m glad he’s doing better! Also, now you have the poultices for any needs.

ETA- it’s crazy to see what they draw out. You can see the spot and all of the nastiness, and any “thing” that was stuck.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I’m glad he’s doing better! Also, now you have the poultices for any needs.
> 
> ETA- it’s crazy to see what they draw out. You can see the spot and all of the nastiness, and any “thing” that was stuck.


Yes, I'm glad now to have what I need on hand. So far I also think a reason his abscesses have healed with only draining is because they have not seemed to be from infection or pus, but only bruising/bleeding that creates the pressure. In this case, I think due to his bars getting too long and pressing on the sole. But I've drained abscesses for other people that had all kinds of pus and junk in there.


----------



## gottatrot

I hope to play with the horses tomorrow. Tonight I was trying out the camera on my new cell phone.
As strange as it sounds, I'm still getting used to the look of a cobby pony. Aria's body type is just stocky, and that's the way she is. I feel for her ribs and hip bones, and they're right under her winter coat. But I'm so used to having horses that are not built like little tanks. To me her neck and body make her look like some of her legs are missing, and she'd be a normal horse if they were just a bit longer. But she's not a horse, she's a pony.








Tonight Mocha was begging and using his pathetic desperado face to get me to give him a treat. He parks right by the road where I can't miss his expression when I walk by.
This is what I have to put up with.





Even my brother, who knows nothing about horses, asked me what my pony was like, and when I said she was sweet and good, he said, "She better be, or else we'll know it's not the horses, it's you." Quite funny. But Aria is the first horse I've owned that seems to have both a stable mind and a sweet temperament. Most people seem to take those things for granted, but they're certainly not to be found in every horse. Only 25% in my case, LOL.

Aria is very trusting, and very sweet. Quite an ideal pony, I'm not sure how I ended up with her. When a person is so used to reactive horses, it can seem odd when things happen and the horse doesn't react. I suspect by the end of this year after some more training she'll be a pony anyone would love to have. Right now she'd be a pony anyone would love to have as a pet, or any trainer would love to work with. She just stands quietly when I tie her, and looks appreciative when I scratch her. She's so polite when leading, and if I bump into her she acts like it was a mistake.

It's quite a nice feeling, knowing she'll be assured a good future. My other horses unfortunately have needed me or someone experienced, to be safe from a bad future. That being said, I'm still hopeful that Hero in the next year or so will continue to get so out of habit of bad behaviors, that he'll be fairly reliable.


----------



## gottatrot

Probably it was a little soon to ride Hero on Thursday after his abscess. I lunged Aria and then drove her for a few minutes. It took me a little while to figure out she was fussing because her tongue was over the bit. I'll have to check that more carefully next time. After I fixed it she went better.

When I rode Hero I just walked him for a short time in the arena. Mostly I have this idea that I need to remind him about being ridden, because for the longest time my Arabs would be tricky if I let them go too long. But for the past few months it doesn't seem to matter with Hero...he'll go right to work after a lay off. 

He was very calm and willing so his foot must have felt OK. The funny thing was that Aria is apparently so used to being ponied that she followed along. She did circles and serpentines with us, right next to Hero's side. It was pretty cute.

Of course it's nice when your horses get along, but I try feeding Aria less hay than Hero and it doesn't work so well. First they go in his shelter and eat his hay net together, then they go empty hers. I just hope he eats faster somehow.


----------



## Knave

That sounds cute! I am glad Hero is good with time off. I’m used to those who don’t do it well, and always amazed and appreciative of those who do. Zeus has from day one. Never a change from the last ride with him…


----------



## knightrider

Just finished Sister Red, Sister White. What a great read that was! Thank you so much for letting us know your two books are available, @gottatrot . I enjoyed that book so much. The horse stuff was a real plus too. If anyone on the forum is feeling a little blue or down, you need to get this book and read it. I am certain it will cheer you up. Such a delightful story. Thanks again, gotta, for writing it and sharing it with us!

If you haven't read The Blacksmith, it is just as good, maybe better. Don't miss it!


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> Just finished Sister Red, Sister White. What a great read that was! Thank you so much for letting us know your two books are available, @gottatrot . I enjoyed that book so much. The horse stuff was a real plus too. If anyone on the forum is feeling a little blue or down, you need to get this book and read it. I am certain it will cheer you up. Such a delightful story. Thanks again, gotta, for writing it and sharing it with us!
> 
> If you haven't read The Blacksmith, it is just as good, maybe better. Don't miss it!


Thank you so much for reading, I appreciate it! I'm working on getting Round Pen, Square Horse and Horse on Fire formatted better and available in paperback. It's kind of tricky because the margins have to be just right, and lots of other details.


----------



## gottatrot

My new phone can take photos at dusk, so I tried some hoof photos. I wanted to look at photos of Hero's hinds compared to back when his stifles were bad and he dragged his hooves badly.

Here is a comparison of one hind sole. It's a winter hoof vs summer, but the changes are interesting.
The frog looks smaller in the current photo on the left, but actually it is the sole that has a larger surface area now. 
Lots of dirt on the hoof, and I even hosed it off first...so it's a little tricky to see but there is a rim of hoof wall all around now.








Here is what the hind hooves looked like before:









And now, no more bull nosing, and no more massive wear on the toe.



















He can stand "over" his hooves now, and is more balanced.









His hooves will never be perfect. Here are the fronts:









But they are not terrible for a TB.









Here is a pic of where the abscess/hematoma was on his left front. You can see it is a white oval area in the seat of corn on the left side of the photo. The white is the new sole underneath, just the top layer is missing where I opened it to let the blood out. Very shallow, but that's all it takes to cause a lot of pressure and pain.









I don't know if you make bad jokes to yourself when you're out with the horses. I call the horse Smokey "Smoker," because he coughs so much from his COPD. Today I called Hero "Turd Bred" when I was doing his hooves. I think Turd Bred is more appropriate than Thorough Bred nowadays. 

Aria did so well driving today, I was very proud of her. It probably helped that I made sure her bit was over her tongue before we started.


----------



## Knave

Good job!


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> Thank you so much for reading, I appreciate it! I'm working on getting Round Pen, Square Horse and Horse on Fire formatted better and available in paperback. It's kind of tricky because the margins have to be just right, and lots of other details.


@gottatrot , your fiction is fun and well-written, but your non-fiction is incredibly awesome. Your three non-fiction books are among the very best non-fiction horse books I have ever read, right up there with Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand.


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> @gottatrot , your fiction is fun and well-written, but your non-fiction is incredibly awesome. Your three non-fiction books are among the very best non-fiction horse books I have ever read, right up there with Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand.


(We are missing the embarrassed/blushing emoji in the forum update)...I guess I need to work more on Hero's book. It's tricky because there are so many things to write about...


----------



## gottatrot

@knightrider, I'm sure you've read Little Women? Your comments make me think of how Jo writes thriller stories for magazines, and the Professor tells her she should write about what she knows the best, what she is passionate about. When she writes about her own family and growing up, that is when she can write the best. 

March 13th...it's coming!! That is when the time changes back. I could have really used that extra hour of daylight tonight. 

Took Hero out for a ride and ponied Aria. We went through the neighborhoods, working toward the goal of having Aria driving there someday. The only sign Aria shows of being concerned out in the world is that she makes these "snorkle, snorkle" sounds with her nostrils when she breathes. She keeps on going, and just looks around. 

Hero, of course, had no problem with the cars, flags, trailers and banging noises in the neighborhood. But there is a section of street that opens up to view the river and fields far below, and those fields were dotted with cows. They looked tiny, so far away. Hero suspected they might sprint up the hill and eat us. So we got stuck staring at the cows and I finally had to get off and lead the horses past.

Later, after I had climbed back on Hero and ridden almost back to the end of the asphalt, we got stopped again. This time there was a chicken roosting in a rhododendron bush. The bush was shaking, rattling and going "cluck, cluck, cluck!" Behind the bush, a garage door was going up and down as if the button was stuck. Needless to say, we couldn't get past this, so I had to get off and walk a few feet to get us past the chicken/bush. 

On the way up the last hill, I tried to get the horses to trot. Hero was eager, but Aria just will not trot on the pony lead. She becomes an anchor and we are forced to drop back to a walk again. 

When we got to the arena, I let Aria loose and then decided I wanted to ride a little more trotting on Hero. I'm tired of walking so much. Once we were inside the arena, any desire he had to work disappeared. With some coaxing, I got him to trot briefly a couple of times, and then I gave up and told him he was a good boy for taking us down the road. 

After chores, when I brought the horses back to their field, I tied them and decided to put a saddle on Aria. I showed her the pad and threw it on. She just looked at me. I eased the saddle over her back and settled it into place. She was like, "Are you going to feed us or what?" 

I thought the saddle would extend past her hip or seem ridiculous. But it didn't look bad at all, and actually fit. Of course it is an Arab saddle so it's short and wide. The stirrups were set to where I had ridden with them on Hero. They only went down to the bottom of her barrel, and didn't hang below. As I've said, she kind of looks like a regular horse with short legs, and it looked like if I got in the saddle she would take up a lot of leg since she is stocky. 
I would be sitting normally, just closer to the ground. I guess I'll start saddle training along with the driving, and maybe get on her eventually to see what it feels like.

ETA: My guess is Aria weighs about 600 lbs. Maybe 550. 25% of 550 is 138 lbs. My saddle is light, so I would weigh right around that with the tack. She's a sturdy little thing, so it doesn't seem like it would be too bad for her to carry that much. 
I'm guessing her weight by Amore who weighed 780 on a weight tape, versus the larger mini horses I knew that weighed around 300 lbs. She's quite a bit larger than a mini, and if I were to guess, about 3/4 Amore's size. Which would be around 580 lbs.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> she makes these "snorkle, snorkle" sounds


That was so funny, I laughed out loud.

About the _Little Women _idea, I thought the same thing when I was first reading your fiction. However, you have improved a lot, and I think you are getting there. Writing fiction is so much fun because the characters take you for their own adventures. I wouldn't give it up. It's just too much fun.

G.K. Chesterson said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." I say Amen to that! I've had a lot of fun doing things badly. Not that your fiction isn't good, but it sure is fun, and that alone is worth itl


----------



## weeedlady

We have cow issues also. Now that we have moved, we can't go anywhere without passing cows, but we are still working on it a year later. I guess we'll get there eventually.

By the way, I also enjoy your writing very much.


----------



## Knave

I’m so happy you decided to saddle break her! I don’t know why, but I really hoped you would decide to one day. Random thing to hope for, I know. Lol

I wish you had a horn when she decided she wouldn’t trot!


----------



## gottatrot

Hmm, maybe I need to get a western saddle. I haven't had one in a long time. I loved the Circle Y I had, but I just never rode in it so I sold it to get another english saddle instead. My treeless saddle has a leather loop on the front, like in this photo. I wonder if it would work to thread the lead rope through it. The only problem is it is so hard to get back on Hero in it. I might give it a try.


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> I’m so happy you decided to saddle break her! I don’t know why, but I really hoped you would decide to one day. Random thing to hope for, I know. Lol


I feel the same way! I kept hoping you would at least give riding her a try. My friend and I rode her little Welsh stallion everywhere (we took turns with one of us riding him and the other one riding her other horse). Our legs hung all down, but he carried us just fine. He wasn't very big, I'm sure smaller than 13 hands.


----------



## gottatrot

When I was riding Hero yesterday I thought I had it backwards. Why was I riding the one that stalls out, and leading the willing one? It is going to look so ridiculous though if I get to riding Aria and dragging big old Hero behind us.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> It is going to look so ridiculous


Probably most people won't notice. I wouldn't worry about it. Whatever works best for the horses and is fun for you!


----------



## gottatrot

Here is Aria wearing a saddle again today.
Sometimes I think of the horse @Knave mentioned called the Hair, and it seems like Aria could be named that too.
I did get the knot out of her mane later, LOL.









It would probably look better if I had a smaller pad underneath, and the saddle is placed a bit too far forward. 









I walked her around, and even trotted her a little. Other than the first step where she went "uh oh, that feels different," and picked up her front hooves for a second, she wore it like a champ. I went over to the mounting block and stood and leaned over the saddle. The thing about ponies is that they get used to things over their head more than other horses. So she didn't seem to mind any of that. 

The horses were shedding a lot today because of the light, but it was very nippy and around 40 degrees. Apparently, Hero got miffed because I was making so much over the "Good Pony." After these pictures I put her harness on and began driving her around inside the arena. Hero started being a rascal, and bolting toward us, then rearing and spinning. "Look at me! I'M the GOOD PONY." 

After he charged us a second time, narrowly missing us, I stepped toward him and snapped the whip. Of course this barely fazed Hero, but got Aria to dart forward, and then I lost the driving lines. Hero reared, "Come on!" and then both horses bolted around the arena. Aria was dragging the lines, but it wasn't that big of a deal...she didn't look too scared. I yelled at the horses to "Knock it off!" and Aria, the good pony actually turned to look at me and then stopped. A horse that listens and cares? What a concept. 

So I gathered up the lines again, and Hero realized how fun that had been and rushed in again; Aria was ready and off they went to run together. When I hollered again, they both stopped, and I went to get Aria. This time I walked her around, and she was calm enough. Eventually I went behind her and began driving again. Hero was quite fresh and was galloping and bucking around the arena. 

Aria thought about running off again, but I was ready and stopped her. She skittered around and fell, but then got up and calmly began walking, and so I drove her around and we ignored the antics going on around us. 
"Look at me, look at me!" Hero wanted attention. Aria was very good, and after I took off her tack I lunged Hero for a while. 

Now that he had my attention, he didn't think it was so great, but he still had a lot of energy. I didn't want him to get sweaty since it was so cold, and the temperature was dropping. The horses seemed pretty contented after I finished and left them in the arena to graze while I did chores.


----------



## Knave

Wow! She does have the hair of All Mane!!! That is crazy!

It also sounds like a lot with Hero being so needy.


----------



## gottatrot

I've talked a lot about how Amore, Halla and Hero have all been difficult horses. I've worked with many horses in many situations and I know in my head this is true. 

Still, I keep feeling surprised by Aria. I have just spent so much time with the difficult ones.
I know breeders try to pass on good temperaments. Entire breeds of horses are known for being easy to work with. But it has seemed that any horse that ends up with me will be tricky.

But now I have Aria. Amore thought good things about people too, but her temperament made her spook and panic so often.
Aria is like, "I didn't know people, but now I do. People are good and I like people."
Her default setting is that if something goes wrong, I meant well. 

I was remembering once poking Hero in the eye and he bit the finger that poked him faster than I could blink. I could poke Aria in the eye, and she would assume I didn't mean to. She is easygoing and benevolent.

Today I drove her up and down the road, and she did extremely well. Lots of trotting. Hero called for her but she didn't pay any attention. 
She spotted something and was like, "Is that a monster?" and stopped walking. I said, "Not a monster," and she said, "Oh good, not a monster."

Later, I rode Hero with a bareback pad. I was laughing at myself because I put a mechanical hackamore on him, and when I was riding something seemed odd. I realized I had put the noseband on the headstall so the shanks were backward, curving toward his nose. Oh well, it worked the same.

Riding along, Hero was like, "Is that a monster?" and stopped walking. I said, "Not a monster," and he said, "It is a monster!" and spooked hard, spinning around. 
Aria was being ponied along, and she just jumped away so he didn't smash into her, and went "Snorkle" but didn't spook. I'd told her earlier there was no monster.

She stood steady and calm while I swooshed her rain sheet on and fastened it up. Then she delicately lipped the treat I gave her.
Hero pawed and swung his head while I put his sheet on, and I had to keep my fingers safe when his teeth came chomp chomping for his treat. 

Temperament is a huge factor in handling horses, for sure.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I am always concerned that the spooky horse is teaching the good one to spook and thus set my training back. Some days, I try to work Jesse well out of sight and earshot of Nicki. Is it worth it? What are your thoughts?


----------



## Knave

I loved that post. I think I forget that entirely as well. It’s not that I haven’t had easy horses, but I always have an expectation for things to be difficult. Husband and I keep talking about my bringing Queen to work, and I keep relating it to the other’s first work days. Now, I can’t remember Zeus’s excepting that he snorted coming up to the cows. Zeus’s snort is not horse like, so I about crawled out of the saddle assuming he was finally going to be difficult. That was all. A single snort, and he worked the rest of the day. Literally unmemorable, except the snort. I’ve heard it on two other occasions. It’s wild sounding!

That’s not who I think of though. I think of Bones’s first day, forgetting to consider he only had 7 rides or so, not by me, and is a hot style of horse. I remember Cash’s first work day, and forget he was started in prison and it was a day or two after I bought him.

I need to remember the Zeus’s and Aria’s of the world. Queen has been always good. Yes, she is mean and she is ambitious, but she is good. It would do me better to have those expectations.


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, that's funny about Zeus. It's like he got it all out of his system in one snort. I remember taking Bibi the Mustang to the beach for the first time. We were all ready for her to get upset at the sight and sound of the ocean, like most horses, but she was annoyed when we stopped to wait for her reaction. 



TrainedByMares said:


> I am always concerned that the spooky horse is teaching the good one to spook and thus set my training back. Some days, I try to work Jesse well out of sight and earshot of Nicki. Is it worth it? What are your thoughts?


When I've been riding on a variety of horses, sometimes one horse will spook and the other one will too. That's the horses reading each others' signals. But I don't think a naturally spooky horse will make another one more spooky. For example, Amore was the spookiest horse I've been around, and when she was out in the field she'd spook at things and the other horses would ignore her. They were tired of her false alarms and didn't trust her judgment. Unless they were all in a heightened state, and then they might spook at her signals just because they were all amped up. 

Some horses seem to really depend on other horses to lead, and they are more susceptible to what the other horse does. Other horses tend more to be the leaders, and they want to make their own decisions. Halla was a leader, and would sometimes act superior if Nala spooked at something and she decided it wasn't worth spooking at. Halla was only a medium spooky horse. Hero's a higher spooker, maybe 7/10, but Aria is only about a 2. The more I take the horses out together, the less she spooks at what Hero does. She doesn't trust his judgment and seems to think it is a waste of energy. She could easily make him spook though, since he already tends that way.


----------



## gottatrot

I'm sure everyone wants to see a video of my hamster eating lettuce. 




 I love how she spins it around in her little paws. Then she eats a banana, and has to wash her hands really well.


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> Riding along, Hero was like, "Is that a monster?" and stopped walking. I said, "Not a monster," and he said, "It is a monster!" and spooked hard, spinning around.


That was Mia, for the 7 years I rode her. That was Bandit...but it is gradually less likely. Hard to believe we're close to 7 years together (in May)! He's more likely to listen to me now than 7 years ago but it is still prudent to ride ready for a quick spin. Or an OMG Crouch. 

Trooper and Cowboy never cared if Mia spooked. Still don't care if Bandit spooks. If they spook? Both Mia and Bandit remain[ed] independent. Either one might spook with them, or either one might punish them for spooking. Bandit in particular seems to think that if he & I both say "Not a monster" then the other horses DARN WELL better shape up! I mean...How Dare They!


----------



## gottatrot

I was a little worried about my barn rats. The barn owner set out some traps (she told me later), and then thought the rats had left because they were quiet. I think one of the two rats must have been injured by a trap, because for a few days I only heard one moving around and the squeaking was very quiet. Maybe a tail got snapped. But everything is fine now and today I heard them both running around and squeaking like normal. They must be quite old, since I've been at the barn for a year and a half. Rats rarely live to be over two or so.

I've told the barn owner I don't mind the rats, but she doesn't seem to believe me. We'll always have war, it seems obvious to me. Why? Because people hate rats. Rats laugh if you tickle them (scientists believe), freak out with happiness like a dog if they see someone they know, empathize with other creatures, have loving families and are intelligent enough to steer around little cars. People would do anything for a dog, but kill rats without a thought. Because they have tails people think look ugly, and they chew on things (you would too if your teeth grew continuously), and eat from food sources that people leave available to them. Similarly, people kill other people who get in the way of their ambitions or for other stupid reasons. It can easily be justified, and so can hating rats.
You have to be careful, some people will just keep having children and take over areas, so it's better to eradicate them (like rats).
LOL?

Today I tied the long-handled brush I use for cleaning water troughs on the end of the lunge line, and dragged it behind Aria while I drove her around in harness. It made a lot of noise and rattled. Her eyes got wide at first, and there was one "snorkle," and then away we went. 

After that, I put the saddle on her, walked and trotted her up and down the road and you'd think we'd done it a hundred times already. Then I stood on my truck bumper, laid over the saddle, and ran my hands along her neck and back to her rump, rattled the stirrup. I stood in both stirrups, jumped down to the ground around her, pulled the saddle from side to side, and she stood and hoped that all of this meant she'd be getting more treats soon.
Of course it did.
Next time DH comes out, I'll sit on her and get led around.

I think @SueC mentioned that it's much easier training a horse to saddle after they've been in harness. That's true even if you haven't attached them to a cart yet. The saddle and stirrups flapping around are nothing after having the crupper and all the harness parts on. The surcingle girth is much narrower (more pressure) than a saddle girth, so once a horse gets used to having that tightened up, a saddle girth seems easier. Plus after driving from the ground, a horse knows how to walk, trot, turn left, right and stop from bit cues. 

Ponying horses also gives them a good head start for being saddled. They are used to having a rider above them and giving cues. Plus they've been out and about more. 

I rode Hero just down to the arena for turnout so he wouldn't think only Aria had to do any work. He hadn't minded standing tied and eating hay while we did all of these things.


----------



## Knave

Wow! What a great day!!

Cash, like Hero, doesn’t have qualms with sitting and eating hay watching Queen work. Lol

I liked the facts you had about rats. We don’t have rats like them, but only have packrats. Now, I think packrats are very adorable, but they are pretty troublesome and I understand why people kill them. They eat the wiring out of vehicles, among other things, and they do smell pretty strong.

Now, I like that you don’t mind your pair of rats though. It’s not like they are reproducing, nor causing any trouble, so I am glad you don’t kill them. I think I would enjoy having a little set of non producing rats somewhere. The dogs and cats would not tolerate it though, nor would my husband to be honest.


----------



## gottatrot

I know, there are "ratsists" in my family too. Ratsism is real.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I struggled with your link between rodenticide and genocide


----------



## bsms

I've had $1500 in damage in one night to a car from pack rats. Twice. Another one, during a week my wife's car wasn't driven, built a poop-filled nest in the glove box. One took up residence in the frame of my truck and (through a hole in the frame) ate the wires running to my brakes. I ended up covering the hole in the frame with a metal plate and eventually managed to poison him. His corpse could sometimes be seen still in the frame but I couldn't figure out how to get it out and just left it there as a warning to other pack rats.

The way I figure it, the pack rats started a war with me. I don't mind them in the desert but not in my house and not in my cars. Backing out the drive isn't the best of times to find out I have a brake failure, although it beat finding out on the highway....

I have no opinion on barn rats since I don't own a barn. But I'm pretty sure pack rats were designed in Hades.


----------



## knightrider

I love pet rats and have had a bunch of them. But I don't like the rats in my barn at all. I keep all my feed secured and my floors swept clean, but still the rats come, chew my tack, poop all over everything, and even eat my glycerin saddle soap. I cannot use glycerin saddle soap (which I really like) because after cleaning saddles and bridles with it, they will get all chewed up. I once put a piece of glycerin saddle soap in a live trap to see what would happen. The rat pulled the saddle soap out of the trap without getting caught in the trap.

Every time my son catches a rat snake, I get it and put it in my barn. I have two rat snakes now (I hope I still have them) and it appears that I have fewer rats too. I have been told that rats won't go in your barn if rat snakes live there. Unfortunately, that is not true. I still have rats, but not as bad. My dog catches about one rat a month, but that is not nearly enough because my rats make a lot of babies.

I've been told that Jack Russell terriers will clean out all my barn rats. They are not my favorite breed of dog, but I've thought about getting one.


----------



## Knave

@knightrider little girl has a Jack Russell. He will kill a packrat in a matter of seconds if one is around. He is a very loving dog, and I do really like him, but he can be irritating too. He’s overly emotional, which creates that loving demeanor. He knows if you are sad or sick and sticks to you like glue. I like that, but he’s also jealous and will act out over it on occasion. When I got Junie B he peed on my pillow!


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> I struggled with your link between rodenticide and genocide


Tongue in cheek, hopefully that is understood. But in my jesting I do think about how many people would be incensed about someone killing a dog that for example got loose and killed someone else's goat, but would not blink about killing a rat that causes trouble. If a bear causes problems, many people believe it is a tragedy that the wildlife agent killed the bear, but it is not a tragedy if it was an opossum that was found near a garbage can, or a raccoon. 
I do believe people have inherent biases that also may make it easier for us to justify many things, up to and including genocide. If we think certain animals are better or worse based on various traits, then it is not much of a leap to also think humans are better or worse based on certain traits. I'm basically pointing out a biased way of thinking. Hence my "ratsism." 

While I believe that killing an animal is not the same as killing a human, it seems important to me to understand that every single one is an incredible being that has a life, thoughts, feelings, and I personally don't believe that a dog is "better" than a rat, or an opossum, just because you have had a personal relationship with dogs. The more we learn about different species that we have not yet understood, the more we learn how intelligent and special each type of creature is. Including rats. 

I don't care for the bear getting killed, or the rats, or the dog that kills the goat. However, I think life is tragic like that, and it is something we just have to accept. Still, once in a while I like to point out the dichotomy of nuturing and valuing one animal, while thoughtlessly killing another. Or to hate one species of animal when all they are doing is living like the rest of us. Maybe if we think about these creatures as more similar to our beloved dogs, when it seems necessary to kill them we will do it in a quick, humane way without suffering. But for some I am sure there is no dichotomy, because even if they value other humans, they might shoot one that was in their house or car causing $1,500 worth of damage. Seems fair to me. 
Dogs are rather more humane about killing rodents than cats. My Dalmatian would snap the neck instantly.


----------



## Knave

Cats are just evil. Lol

I see your point in entirety. Maybe I am evil like the cat, because I do think life is tragic that way and have no problem shooting the dog who kills livestock, or even one who bites horses, the packrat who messes with my car, nor the human who does a particularly evil thing. This in fact makes me just as bad.

I know I am to value human life more than that of an animal, biblically of course, but whatever I am made of tends to think along the lines of yours. I think each life is valuable, excepting bugs, but I also have a feeling that I know nothing of the bug and I’m sure he’s valuable to others of his kind.

Yet, I understand the need to protect what we are responsible for, so if the coyote comes back who killed a chicken last night, and I see him, I will do my best effort to kill him. Sadly, if my own dog killed livestock (excepting a single chicken), as much as I love her, I would be responsible to end her life as well. I wouldn’t want to, but it would be done.

I guess we are responsible to our own selves to have a sort of survival drive. One cannot value the coyote more than his own survival, but I believe the coyote intends the same, and do not judge him for his actions. If he had a gun he wouldn’t mind taking me out either. Lol

So, we do what we do to survive, and try to make it as ethical as possible, but I guess it comes down to eat or be eaten. Now, I am different than most of my culture, because I don’t kill the coyote on the mountain. He doesn’t do anything that bothers me on the mountain. I am not one who takes any joy in killing, and don’t do it on any principle that says “all coyotes are bad.” I wouldn’t kill a rat who wasn’t bothering me either, for I do believe their life is full and valuable, and don’t count mine as more valuable than theirs as a matter of superiority. I count mine as more valuable to me, just as he counts his as more valuable to him I guess.


----------



## Knave

Speaking of the coyotes though; they are particularly bad here this year. A neighbor has lost 20 calves! I guess he has a picture of one he killed with his jaws clamped on the newborn. They thought they could save him, but could not as the dog broke his spine. This is why one was brave enough again to come into my yard (we killed the group who did so last year and ate my geese and my cat). There are no rabbits!

The rabbits cycle through. When they become too overpopulated, a disease runs through and kills the majority. Now the dogs are starving. Husband has found several trying to kill our baby calves this year, but they have not been lucky enough to accomplish the task.

And on another sad note, speaking of rodent killing- everyone here kills the squirrels and gophers in their fields. Everyone with much sense at least, for again it is protecting what is yours. Now, the neighbors had a pallet of poison, and somehow their horses got out. Their best three got into the pallet and died. So, put up all your poisons!


----------



## gottatrot

Yes, the wildlife center around here often treats endangered owls that have eaten rats people have poisoned. Rats are so smart they usually need slow working poison or they won't eat enough to get poisoned. This leaves time for other animals like cats, coyotes and owls to eat them before they die. 
When I was a kid my dad put slug poison out on his garden and our three dogs ate it, ending up in the vet hospital after having seizures. They all recovered fine. My opinion is that poison is not the best way to kill animals. It will end up killing ones that were not intended, and causes suffering.


----------



## Knave

@gottatrot that is a fair thought, but it’s impractical to try and trap squirrels. Gophers yes, but it doesn’t work well with squirrels. It is a difficult thing, because house dogs will get killed occasionally. Everyone lets everyone with a dog around know when they poison, and it is then the problem of the owners to keep them locked up.

The crows aren’t effected by the poison. I don’t know about other predator birds, but you don’t see them dead at all. House cats are rarely effected, but I did lose one once. I liked her a lot too. It is rare for a cat to eat a squirrel though. I think they don’t like them for some reason. I’m sure it gets the occasional coyote, but I don’t see that either.

The poison is put far down the holes, but it still definitely is responsible for some dog deaths.


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> I love pet rats and have had a bunch of them. But I don't like the rats in my barn at all. I keep all my feed secured and my floors swept clean, but still the rats come, chew my tack, poop all over everything, and even eat my glycerin saddle soap. I cannot use glycerin saddle soap (which I really like) because after cleaning saddles and bridles with it, they will get all chewed up. I once put a piece of glycerin saddle soap in a live trap to see what would happen. The rat pulled the saddle soap out of the trap without getting caught in the trap.
> 
> Every time my son catches a rat snake, I get it and put it in my barn. I have two rat snakes now (I hope I still have them) and it appears that I have fewer rats too. I have been told that rats won't go in your barn if rat snakes live there. Unfortunately, that is not true. I still have rats, but not as bad. My dog catches about one rat a month, but that is not nearly enough because my rats make a lot of babies.
> 
> I've been told that Jack Russell terriers will clean out all my barn rats. They are not my favorite breed of dog, but I've thought about getting one.


It's interesting...even in the best places I've boarded we never had the luxury of a rodent proof barn. Some barns had cats, but there were always rats anyway.

I never saw a rat chew leather, so it must be the glycerin that is the big attraction. We have mold, all the time so I haul my saddles to and from the barn to ride. But my leather halters and the old western pony saddle in my shed never get chewed.
I did have a horse chew up a leather halter once for some reason.

The rats love plastic though. They chew my brushes, bucket rims, and any plastic containers. I have to keep my liquids like fly spray in a non chewable container, and all food, vitamins and treats in metal cans. They do poop all over.

The snakes sound like a natural solution.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I suppose all life has a purpose and value and we are all interconnected in some way. If that chain is broken somewhere, we all will suffer for it, some of us more than others. We people don't live in harmony with our environment though,we alter it to suit our needs and thus the chain is broken and other animals, plants and insects arrive to take advantage of it. So, in effect, we bring in the coyotes, the rats in the barn and the deer in the cornfields. 

Like @Knave said, we look after our own survival. I keep the tack and feed in the house so the barn isn't full of 'snacks'. Cats are fed twice a day and their bowl is removed. When I sweep up, I don't see any evidence of rodents.


----------



## bsms

@Knave, we have a lot of coyotes right now too. They use the wash next to the horse corral. Don't bother the horses - the horses would probably kill them - but make a lot of noise. Not good to have small pets around here. I did see a bobcat in the wild a couple of days ago and that made me happy. It was brief. I was jogging and about 15 feet ahead of me a bobcat popped out in the open. It saw me and then spun and immediately disappeared in the brush. I've been seeing more deer too, so maybe last years heavy rains have caused a temporary wildlife explosion. If it stays dry, they'll die in large numbers too!

Rode Bandit out solo a few days ago. Going along a familiar trail, he suddenly hopped sideways with a snort, then turned and stared. I finally spotted a hole large enough for a coyote den about 25 feet from the trail. I assume Bandit smelled it. So we turned and left...but he wasn't panicked. Just cautious.

We have a large coyote den 30 feet from my little arena. It wasn't occupied long. I also use the arena to throw the ball for the dogs and I think the presence of 2 large dogs (50 lbs and 100 lbs) convinced the coyote to find a calmer place to live. The abandoned den is just past the rails in this photo:






For whatever reason, Bandit never seemed concerned...so either he didn't smell them or just didn't care. The dogs have seen coyotes while chasing the ball but are too interested in the ball to pay attention to them.


----------



## gottatrot

My horses have always seemed to think coyotes and dogs are the same thing. They will get spooked by a sudden appearance of one from the bushes, but if they see them running around they don't care. 

I agree, @TrainedByMares. Where I used to live, people rapidly built houses all over the plains where the elk grazed, and then the elk were stuck trying to roam between houses and graze on the golf courses. Then there was discussion about how to decrease the elk population. Those elk behaved unnaturally, as @Knave pointed out to me, and now that I live in a more natural area, the elk I see are spooky and stay away from people. 

I liked this photo of a guy making sure his rat stayed safe with him in Ukraine.


----------



## gottatrot

We had a funny experience on our ride tonight. I rode Hero and ponied Aria down the road, went for about an hour. On the way home, Mikey's owner had parked her Subaru near the horse fields. It was getting dark, and inside the car her Boston Terriers were wearing collars with red and blue lights on them. These zoomed around and the car looked like an alien spaceship. Hero was never, ever going to pass that, so I got off and pulled the horses by while convincing them they were not going to be abducted into outer space.

I saw Mikey's owner near the fields, so I told her and we laughed. After I was a good distance up the road, she let the dogs out of the car. Now the lights were zooming around outside the car, back and forth. Hero got tense, did two small spooks, and then a massive spook across the road, leaving Aria in his wake. It's good I had a long line on her. The way he stared at the aliens down the road, I knew I had to get off, so I just led them the rest of the way home.

I've been doing a lot of thinking tonight about Hero. It's more difficult to notice changes in horses that happen over time. I was realizing that he has been gradually getting more difficult to get moving. On our ride I was thinking it was good because he can stay much calmer than he could a year ago, and only spooks once in a while rather than getting jiggy and chompy. I've thought he was finally maturing and getting over some fears. I think that is true, but along with that it has become very difficult to keep momentum going. Even though he seems less nervous, he is difficult to keep going forward. That doesn't make sense to me, because feeling more secure should mean he moves out with less resistance. I have to get off and walk him forward more than I used to. Even when being led he does not have momentum, and he goes slow both away from home and toward it, and even in from the field to his nightly feeding. 

I was trying to think that maybe it was adrenaline that kept him going, and now he doesn't have that. But there is a general loss of fluidity with him. I was noticing on some horse videos that sound horses appear to move effortlessly. Hero has never quite had that, with his stifles, but still it used to be better I am realizing. Reading over what I wrote about some rides we've had over the past four years, I see that the past year he has had a major loss of momentum. He doesn't want to move forward on the lunge, in the arena, or on the road. He will run if I get him very worked up, but he doesn't offer to trot or canter under saddle anymore. That's even if I'm not ponying Aria. 

In short, Hero is only 14, but he moves like he is in his 20s. I shouldn't be surprised since I've known his stifles had some arthritis, and those were the only joints we xrayed several years ago. My friends who have experimented with a few OTTBs have had to put down and retire several between age 7 and 12 for physical problems ranging from comfortable as a pasture pet to every step brings pain. So my thought is that I will give him a break and evaluate him for a couple months, and then when I have the vet out to do the dentals I will have her do a thorough exam to see what she thinks about how he is feeling. 

DH was busy and could not come out to help me get on Aria today, but I am anxious to. She might end up being my riding horse for a while. I was looking at photos of me on a couple of horses near her size.








I think this Icelandic could not have been taller than Aria, and the Icelandic has a thicker neck, but other than that they do have a similar build.
I really enjoyed riding this little mare, and she even had a nice gallop for such a small horse. 








The stirrup is below her elbow. I think my leg will be about the same on Aria. A short step up, LOL.








Aria actually has a pretty thick neck too, and she's a fairly sturdy pony. Not a tank, but solid. I always think she is getting fat, but I can feel her ribs fairly easily. She's stocky. 








Well, we'll see how it goes. You never know with horses. You might ride them for 15 years, or only a few months. 

If Aria has an endurance type brain and body, she might have no trouble carrying me at all. Some of the FEI horses that do 100 mile rides carry riders that are quite large in proportion to their size. Arabians tend to be such tough little horses. My two previous mares sure were. 

















William Fox-Pitt looks like that on normal sized horses, he is so tall. He does weigh less than 200 lbs though.








I feel self conscious because the barn owner saw me lying over Aria with the saddle on, and she asked how it was going. I said I was going to try to ride her, and she said "Oh," and I am sure she was distracted, and her tone probably had nothing to do with it since she was looking over toward her house and it was dinnertime. Still, you know how we are, in her tone I heard that she might think I was too big to ride on my little pony. So I've been working on convincing myself that this isn't true. Especially since I adamantly told her brief, previous owner that she was too small to be ridden. In my defense, Aria was in poor shape, very thin, and the gal outweighed me by at least 20 lbs.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Well,from posts I have read in the past, you are not a heavyweight rider so you've got that going for you. Aria is stocky and she's got that going for her. Just try it. 

Too bad for Hero but it does sound like something is wrong. I hope you can figure it out. What if he is worn out? What will you do?


----------



## Knave

I have two different trains of thought after your post. You are smaller than I am. Sure, we are built somewhat similarly, but I would think I have 15 pounds or so on you, and I wouldn’t think a thing of starting the mare.

In my culture there has always been a lot of big people on small horses. Many men weigh over 200#s in my life; the men are simply big and strong. It is becoming fashionable to ride bigger horses now, with Peptoboonsmal having such an influence, but for much time the horses were very small. 14ish. Cutters have been bred to be fantastic horses, but they have lost all of their size.

Zeus is a small horse. 14hh. Everyone calls him a pony. Yet, not one person questions little girl riding him. She’s over 5’10”, and sturdy built. She even trick rides on the little dude. There are very few people I’d question riding him.

Now, I don’t mean to sound like size is completely irrelevant, but I think I find it much less relevant than many HoFo members. I do have a friend who had to quit cowboying. They came to me to ask to buy Cash. I refused, because I need him, but I did listen to his dilemma. The man is huge. A gentle giant, but seriously massive. He’s not fat, but I would say he definitely weighs 300#s, and probably a bit more than that. He said he tore up too many horses. He can ride well, but to cowboy all day with such a big man on you was too hard for any of them. He needed a horse like Cashman, who could hold up. Him I would not put on Zeus for any length of time.

Now, my second train of thought is about Hero. I know there are a lot of people against Clinton Anderson, but I think he has a lot of good ideas. One of the things I always remember that he talked about is a line. He said on one side of the line a horse is dull and lazy, and maybe a little belligerent, and on the other side he is hot and spooky and very touchy.

Now, he said in training a horse, his goal is to skip rope on that line. Take them from one side to the other until they end up living on the line. I’ve paid a lot of attention to other’s horses and my own after that sunk into me. My father for example makes all of his horses extremely sensitive. This is fine, and they are Uber talented, but you have to watch them. They are touchy and watchy and worried. He never desensitizes; he says he doesn’t want a gentle horse.

He’s convinced I am ruining Queen by getting her too gentle. Yet, she is naturally a very hot type of animal. So, I’ve tried hard to keep her on the dull side. Husband and I talked about it a lot. I want to counteract that intensity for a time with her, and so I allow her to be lazy. I reward it, and desensitize the crap out of her. She is made of heat. Husband keeps saying, “don’t worry about the go. You have the go. When you decide to ask for it, you know it’s already there.”

So, my mind went there with Hero. Maybe Hero is a bit more of a Cash type of horse. Sure, Cash can get hot and be a jerk, but his nature is on the other side of that line. He’s a bit lazy and cold, and so I ride him with a request of sensitivity. (If I allowed him to be lazy more of the time I probably wouldn’t deal with the spooking and occasional jumps he takes.)

I think you’ve always ridden horses more like Queen or Bones, so you’ve probably not done a lot of sensitizing. Like Queen, the go was always there when you asked for it, and the problem was teaching the calmness. I wonder if you have let Hero get on the side of the line that is dull and lazy…

It’s just a thought of course.


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, thank you! All of your thoughts are very helpful to me. I have definitely dealt more with hot horses than lazy horses. It seems possible I have worked too much on calming. What interests me is that Hero seems both very spooky and also dull. That is a dilemma. My thought is that I will try to get the vet out sooner, because I don't want to be unkind trying to sharpen Hero up if it is a pain issue. It would be different if he seemed very sound, but he walks slowly and without fluidity, so I wouldn't want to be punishing pain inadvertently. 
What do you do if the horse is only energetic when nervous? 

But also, it used to be easy to get Hero moving like this several years ago. This was in the round pen where he was used to being, so he wasn't nervous, just energetic. Now he doesn't seem to have that drive. 
He's less sound now, and in this video you can see how his hind legs functioned several years ago. He can't maintain the correct lead in the hind, puts his hind legs close together and there is dragging as you can see by the clouds of dust. But he overcame those things with energy, and now he doesn't seem to be able to. It seems likely the arthritis has advanced. He is on daily Equioxx to help.





@TrainedByMares, if Hero is worn out at his young age, I'll see how much Aria can do without strain, and think about other options. Maybe that would be an incentive to get our own property in the near future so we could have a third horse, or I could borrow a horse from a friend to ride for a while, or etc. There are always ways to get a "fix." I could consider going to the city for jumping or reining lessons once a month, or just drive up the coast to ride with friends for free. 
It's a drive, but Nala's rider has three horses now, all ridable and my other friends a little closer have four. Nala's rider has a fun mix. She now has a gaited Tennessee Walker, a green Mustang, and Nala. The Mustang is calm, and she went to a show with him a couple weeks ago and won some ribbons. There is Nala if she wants a fast, exciting ride, and the gaited horse for mellow times.


----------



## bsms

I think people worry way too much about how much weight a horse can carry. With regard to their back, it is primarily muscling - which we control by incremental exercise. If the weight becomes too much, the horse will start tensing its back and tightening it. You can feel it. If that happens, either more conditioning...or it is too much weight for that horse's potential. But Dan Blocker (Hoss Cartwright) was a really big guy - 300 lbs at his lightest and often believed to be over 350. His horse was around 1200 lbs, much smaller than people expect. 800 lb Bandit carried up to 300 lbs too (38% !!!! 🤬). It was too much. That is why he braced his back when ridden until he got used to the idea that I was much lighter. But it was OBVIOUS he had been bracing his back.

Legs? I have no relevant equine experience. But I'm a life-long jogger and I believe the key to my being a LIFELONG jogger is...jogging. Not running. Every time I trained for speed, I hurt myself. I like weightlifting too. I had to stop in December due to tennis elbow in my left arm. Just recently resumed. I think I was putting too much weight in a twisting motion at the extreme end of motion and that did me in. I'm experimenting with a variation of isometric and am being very cautious at extreme extension or contraction. That seems to be the killer.

It might be like that with horses. Competitive horses pushed to run as fast as they can, or to do extreme motions, or turning in a human friendly fashion (straight turns) will use their joints a lot like a runner working on speed, or a weight lifter at the extremes. Of course, some horses do extremes on their own - Mia had little interest in "jogging" if there was another horse around or if she spooked. But the rest of my horses, trail riding, regulate their own motion. They know how much to try. Or not.

When I was 185, I could affect Cowboy's balance. That was more an issue of my weight being too high above his back (13.0 hands). But that was only an issue on steep spots with gullies. Anything else he handled fine.

Ultimately, I think the answer is give it a try starting with short rides at a walk or easy trot. Let HER tell you if it is too much. We all know you'll listen!


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> Now, I don’t mean to sound like size is completely irrelevant, but I think I find it much less relevant than many HoFo members.


This is me also. I am tall, but not heavy. Isabeau is a dainty 13 hands even. I know I "look" big on her, but I enjoy riding her so much, and the only time she was slightly "off" in the 9 or so years that I have owned her, is when I tried "moving her feet" for an








hour and a half or two hours every day. She had a crack in one hoof, and the "moving the feet" made the crack much worse. And it didn't teach her to stop kicking in the trailer, either. I ride her two hours regularly, mostly at a walk, but she dances, doing a very smooth corto, quite a bit of the ride. She just likes to, and I enjoy it very much.


----------



## knightrider

Aci is also only 13 hands even, but he is a bit sturdier. Aci has never been lame and I ride him quite a lot.


----------



## Knave

One of the toughest horses on the ranch is Partner. Partner is very small. Not 13 small, but probably right around 14. He’s stout with small bones and a little dainty face to match.

He is stinking tough though! If one wants a big circle horse, he’s the guy. Bones is tough too, and also not a particularly big horse. I don’t believe Partner has ever been out for any sort of health issue. He is fat from being turned out and not used. One of the hardest rides we’ve had in forever my father took him. I don’t know how he didn’t die of a heart attack. He is just as sturdy and ambitious as they are made.


----------



## bsms

Well, one could always claim to be inspired by the Mongols 😁 :


----------



## gottatrot

Yes! Icelandic horses also carry large riders. 








I'm noticing many of the horses that carry more weight have thick necks. I wonder if that helps somehow.
Ponies can be very mighty.


----------



## bsms

I think the prejudice against "taller" riders comes from some sports. People talk about height as an issue but people who have tried it seem to find horses and ponies do just fine. When one wants to know what can be done, it helps to ask those who have tried it versus those who never did. Yet a lot of riding conventional wisdom seems to come from hearsay passed along.

"_This illustrates a major problem in medicine today: *Eminence based medicine where expert opinion is relied upon despite often being no more than perpetuation of long-standing myths and falsehoods*. Basically those in authority at venerable institutions exert an undue degree of influence over general opinion. Eminence based medicine, it should be said, is the direct enemy of evidence based medicine which is based on critical appraisal of the best available science...._"- Dr. Paul Mason - 'Why your doctor thinks cholesterol is bad" on YouTube

Riding theory gets a lot of "_My instructor told me I look too tall, too fat, too skinny, stirrups too long/short...._" That would be fine if more instructors were truly good instructors....and I've noticed riders tend to be very critical of other riders.

And if I were going to ever get another horse (no plans at all!), I'd look for a pony around 14 hands. Maybe smaller. Because I'm getting older and gravity is growing stronger every time I try to mount!  And 13 hand Cowboy has no issues with me.


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> I think the prejudice against "taller" riders comes from some sports. People talk about height as an issue but people who have tried it seem to find horses and ponies do just fine. When one wants to know what can be done, it helps to ask those who have tried it versus those who never did. Yet a lot of riding conventional wisdom seems to come from hearsay passed along.
> 
> "_This illustrates a major problem in medicine today: *Eminence based medicine where expert opinion is relied upon despite often being no more than perpetuation of long-standing myths and falsehoods*. Basically those in authority at venerable institutions exert an undue degree of influence over general opinion. Eminence based medicine, it should be said, is the direct enemy of evidence based medicine which is based on critical appraisal of the best available science...._"- Dr. Paul Mason - 'Why your doctor thinks cholesterol is bad" on YouTube
> 
> Riding theory gets a lot of "_My instructor told me I look too tall, too fat, too skinny, stirrups too long/short...._" That would be fine if more instructors were truly good instructors....and I've noticed riders tend to be very critical of other riders.
> 
> And if I were going to ever get another horse (no plans at all!), I'd look for a pony around 14 hands. Maybe smaller. Because I'm getting older and gravity is growing stronger every time I try to mount!  And 13 hand Cowboy has no issues with me.


I agree, and also our experiences can lead us astray. For some reason I discount my experience comfortably galloping an Icelandic horse that was around 13 hands and my experience riding Bibi the Mustang who was around 13.2 hands. 
Why? Because I decided the times I unbalanced Amore were because I was too big for her at 14.2 hands. Meaning too big for galloping and faster riding.
Funny how I'm just now realizing...I was not too big for Amore.









Amore was just an awkward horse! I mean, I also pulled her off her feet long lining. And she fell flat on her face with my friend. 








Look at Halla behind her. She was taller than Amore by a couple inches but slighter built and I never unbalanced her. I think the picture of them in a natural state says it all.

I have been getting up and down on Hero so much, who also has a round barrel and flat topline, so I have to minimize the stirrup pressure when mounting or the saddle will roll. A short way up and down sounds nice. I always am looking for even a slight elevation in the ground to help me get on Hero. Not to mention every once in a while he ends up ten feet away from where we started before my rump is in the saddle. 

On a tall horse, when you finally commit, you are committed, no matter what they do while you are making that long journey upward. 
I was remembering my tall friend kept forgetting when she was on a small horse and jamming her ankle when she stepped down. 
When I would get off Nickel it was like wheeee a long slide down. No way to make that a step. He is around 17 hands. 









I've always thought it funny how walking on a big horse or small horse can feel the same until you look down. Nickel is narrow and I would always forget I was up in the air on him.


----------



## bsms

Mia (15.3) was awkward. Never fell with me but fell several times, flat on her side, just running around on her own. Having watched her fall flat made it tough to trust her in rough terrain. 13 hand Cowboy has never been seen to fall and has cantered across terrain the other horses slowed to a walk for - while carrying an inexperienced rider! I really don't fear falling OFF a horse. Just falling UNDER one. Bandit seems awkward to me but he manages to go anywhere he's agreed to go (or chosen without my input) without falling and without putting me into cactus.


----------



## Knave

Cash has fallen with me more than any horse I’ve ever ridden. He’s fallen more than any horse I’ve ever seen. I think he had nerve damage from his start in prison, as another of the adopted horses from there had the same issue. Also, I took into consideration how badly his ribs were out.

I say this only because he’s also the largest animal I have ever ridden. Lol. I think falling has a lot more to do with things like that and coordination.

The horses that fell apart for my friend did so in other ways. They came up lame and sored and their backs were messed up. I think a hip went bad on one. I think he goes to prove that too big is usually quickly noticeable.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> Cash has fallen with me more than any horse I’ve ever ridden. He’s fallen more than any horse I’ve ever seen. I think he had nerve damage from his start in prison, as another of the adopted horses from there had the same issue. Also, I took into consideration how badly his ribs were out.
> 
> I say this only because he’s also the largest animal I have ever ridden. Lol. I think falling has a lot more to do with things like that and coordination.
> 
> The horses that fell apart for my friend did so in other ways. They came up lame and sored and their backs were messed up. I think a hip went bad on one. I think he goes to prove that too big is usually quickly noticeable.


That's too bad about Cash and nerve damage.
We used to ride a TB named Kelso, and he also was very clumsy. He retired recently in his teens from spinal arthritis. I told Nala's rider about Hero slowing down and she said that Nala is also already showing signs of aging at 18. Nala is probably the most well built TB I know. Her owner has a theory that TBs age faster than other breeds, based on her experiences with them. I think her last TB made it to age 20.
I think you're right about horses showing signs fairly quickly from carrying riders too big for them. I saw that with one of my friends, who liked to ride english but changed to western because the saddles had better weight distribution, and her horses did a lot better. 

I was looking forward to getting on Aria today, so of course there was a big storm. I thought I would try getting hooves trimmed instead, and convinced myself the horses would be fine if I put their rain sheets on and gave them hay. I only managed to get Hero's front hooves trimmed before the horses made it clear to me that this was cruelty to animals. 
"It's blowing into our eyes!!!" They looked at me with the rain streaming down their faces, and the wind buffeting around them, and I decided to call it a day.
I had to drive home carefully, avoiding all the branches in the road and big wind gusts. 

The good news is that tonight I work an hour less than usual due to the time change!!


----------



## Knave

That is good news! I’m actually ready for it to change. This is the one I wish it would stay on, although I do hate getting used to getting up early.

Yes, it was too bad for Cash. I think it’s healed now though. He hasn’t fallen for long enough I don’t even think about it anymore. Well, he did fall last autumn when he was trying to climb brush and scratch his belly like Queen does. It was killer funny.


----------



## gottatrot

DH was not able to come to the barn today, but I decided to ride Aria anyway. 
I tried to get a video for posterity. In the future I need to remember to turn us around toward the camera!
It's more like a video for _posterior_ity. Oh well.

Lots of rocking in the saddle and flopping my legs around, and Aria was great. I'm not sure now what to recommend. Start a horse like Amore as your first horse, and you'll be pleasantly amazed at how easy it is to start horses forever after. Or start a horse like Aria first, and feel like you're a great trainer already.

Hopefully next time we can have someone lead us, but she did very well about being "unstuck" for her first time. We didn't walk forward, but she did move her legs and didn't worry, so I'm confident having someone lead us forward and then letting go to take the training wheels off will be effective.
Hero of course untied himself at one point and had to be retrieved. As always. 
Also, I was laughing realizing that I don't seem to have the talent for swinging my leg over the cantle when I have my stirrups off. Guess I need to practice that. I got hung up every time...you'd think I might have figured it out.

I don't think Hero is going to be retiring anytime soon. I've discovered that he's not having reluctance to go forward because of worsening arthritis. As far as I can tell, his problem is his hooves. I found another serious bruise on a hind heel today, and both hinds were very tender when I was trimming. Tender as in I had to tell him multiple times not to kick me.

I saw Mikey's rider out feeding her horses, so I stopped to ask her if her horses were having hoof issues this winter. Apparently Mikey has great hooves and has had no problems. But her mule has had multiple abscesses, in three out of four hooves, including two that blew out through the coronet band. She said her farrier said it is the worst winter weather for hooves he has seen, and he has basically been constantly draining and packing abscesses. 

Everyone's hooves are soft and tender, and I have a Thoroughbred. I guess I've been lucky he has been just low grade sore and not wanting to move out rather than dead lame. Probably he has had some level of soreness most of the winter. Mikey's rider said she believes pouring durasole on regularly will help, and she's going to put sand in her pens this summer in case next winter turns out like this one. 

I was remembering how at one point I tried "toughening" Amore and Halla's hooves by riding them gradually increasing distances barefoot on gravel, because I read that horses could develop tougher, callused hooves that way. That was when I ended up with two Arabs that were reluctant to go forward. I never could see any visible bruising, but they got very tender. After putting them in hoof boots, they went back to being forward horses.

I talked to another boarder, and she said she actually had to sell a horse because he had so many holes in his hooves from blown out abscesses she decided he needed a drier climate. Last winter was a lot drier, and this is my first winter with 24/7 turnout and no sand like we had up north. My pen has barely any mud compared to some, and I am guessing Hero would just not be able to have a wetter turnout and stay on his hooves.

The other boarder has a QH/Arab, and she asked me if I would be willing to help her with her horse. I should never complain, there are always people asking me to ride their horses. Her mare is around 12 or so, and she had asked me before if I could ride her, but then she had developed a breathing problem. The owner thinks it was a mold or dust allergy, because she changed hay and put her horse out more and it seems to have resolved. The vet told her it wasn't COPD, but they hadn't been able to figure out why she coughed. 
Kadeera's owner really wants to ride her, but she has only had her outside of the arena once, and Kadeera ran off, scaring her. The horse has been with a trainer, and been ridden in the arena. The owner says she is an intermediate rider, and was hoping I could put some trail miles on her horse so she will be able to ride her out of the arena. I told her I'd try to evaluate her soon, and of course would be happy to ride her. 
So I guess I might have a back up ride until Aria gets trained, and Hero's hooves feel good again.

DH calls Aria "Little Amore." Both sweet as sugar, and adorable little faces. But personality-wise, Aria is so much calmer and thinks through things instead of panicking.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Great job with Aria! I laughed when Hero popped in to 'help'! More often than not I like working alone but usually when I would like to have a helping hand to lead or just another set of eyes and hands for safety, no one is available. Hopefully next time you will walk around on lead.


----------



## gottatrot

I'm mostly happier to do things on my own too. There are only a few times I really like to have someone helping: first ride being one, first time actually sitting in a cart with a horse hitched up to it, and soon I also will recruit DH to help with shaft training. That's very hard to coordinate. 
Dragging things is easy enough. Trying to hold a pole through the tug on the side of the harness, drive the horse and turn them into the pole while holding it steady is almost impossible. Even if you use PVC pipes, that are light. But it's really important for the horse to get the feeling of turning into the shafts before being strapped between them.

I'll say it is different though if you are around very experienced horse people. During those times when I've had knowledgeable people around, I would rather not do things on my own, because everything is far easier and goes smoother with help. People who don't know what they are doing just make things much more difficult. Real horse people are extra eyes, hands and minds and will point out things, or step in at the exact right second, and create even better outcomes. Many times I've had good friends walk up and say one word, tighten one strap or fix one thing, and I'll realize how helpful that was. 

Thankfully, DH is very responsive to direction, has quiet body language, doesn't just spontaneously try things on his own when I'm working with a horse, and also can read animals. So I can safely use him (that sounds bad, but he is willing) when necessary.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Yes,absolutely right! That's why I started working with my trainer on Jesse, to have the help of a knowledgable,experienced horse person. When I enlisted the aid of 'someone on the property who shall remain nameless' it never did go well.


----------



## Knave

I think she did great! That mane still blows my mind. I didn’t think she looked particularly small with you on her either. I also think having someone lead you for a minute will solve all of that stickiness. I did see she didn’t really understand you wanted her to go forward I thought, but she never was mean, never really anxious… it was impressive!

I also laughed right out loud when Hero walked up and you bailed out so quick! Hahahahahaha! That’s exactly what I would have done. I also bail off the same way. You know what’s funny, is that if you step onto someone else’s colt it will panic them. Most people get off very slowly.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I think she did great! That mane still blows my mind. I didn’t think she looked particularly small with you on her either. I also think having someone lead you for a minute will solve all of that stickiness. I did see she didn’t really understand you wanted her to go forward I thought, but she never was mean, never really anxious… it was impressive!
> 
> I also laughed right out loud when Hero walked up and you bailed out so quick! Hahahahahaha! That’s exactly what I would have done. I also bail off the same way. You know what’s funny, is that if you step onto someone else’s colt it will panic them. Most people get off very slowly.


If she did buck, I'd have a ton of mane to hold onto.  Thanks for saying she doesn't look too small. I didn't think so either.
Yes, I sure did not know what Hero was going to do, that Rascal. The barn owners says that when she feeds him in the morning, he bares his teeth at her. He never does that to me. But it is some kind of a game, because she tells him, "I know you're bluffing!" and then he covers his teeth up and waits for his food (probably laughing).

I always jump down off the mounting block next to the horse, and off the stirrup a few times before ever getting on. I always remember @bsms and how Mia was afraid of people getting off. I expect that at some time I will come flying off a green horse, so I don't want them to buck me off and then get spooked into running away. I'm always wary about that between time where I am not committed into the saddle, and not yet all the way off. Having been caught halfway when horses bolted off or bucked, I know that is not a place to linger, LOL.


----------



## gottatrot

I saw this quote today and liked it:

_*Some people change horses,*_
*some change saddles,
some change trainers,
but they forget to change themselves.*
*(Warwick Schiller) *

Cool video on FB shows that dressage does not require the horse moving into bit pressure, a bit, a saddle, or constant cueing from kicks.
*Gasp, anything we teach horses to do, they can do better without our interference.
Rider is Carl Hedin.
https://v16m-webapp.tiktokcdn-us.co...gLS1kMS9zczM0LzM0XmMtLzJfYjIzYzQ6Yw==&vl=&vr=


----------



## bsms

The longer I ride, the fonder I grow of this quote from Caprilli 

_"Long years of practice and of continual observation have convinced me that the horse acquires these qualities without effort *provided that the rider subjects him to rational and uninterrupted training, throughout which he tries to make his own actions the least disturbing that he can to the horse*, and tries not to impede him in the natural development of his aptitudes and energies... By this *I do not mean to say that one should let the horse do as he pleases*; one should, instead, if necessary persuade him with firmness and energy to do the rider's will, while leaving him full liberty to avail himself of and to use as best it suits him his balance and his strength. From this fundamental and unchanging principle stem all the practical rules of equitation with which I shall deal...

*the first rule of good riding is that of reducing, simplifying and sometimes, if possible, even eliminating the action of the rider*....the horse who has rational exercise, during which he is allowed to balance himself as he pleases, not being punished with needless suffering, develops in the most efficient fashion, with great advantage to his way of carrying himself, *and becomes docile and submissive to the wishes of the rider.*_"

If riders approached riding as TEACHERS instead of BOSSES, we'd have happier and more willing, obedient horses. Too often we create tension and resistance, then punish the horse for having them! I also like this quote from James Fillis (1890): "*Energy is an admirable thing, but the energy of stupidity seldom avails much.*" I too often have energy of the wrong sort!


----------



## TrainedByMares

I would love to get my own copy of the Caprilli papers. He really knew his stuff!


----------



## bsms

There is a translation of one of the few things Caprilli wrote available here:

Per L' Equitatzione Di Campagna (For Riding in the Field) by Federico Caprilli

The translator (Dan Gilmore) wrote:

"_The vast majority of what Caprilli says in his article, as Littauer notes in Modern Riding, is taken as the norm today. But that does not take into account that much of what Caprilli promoted has been neglected or even ignored by today's riders. Caprilli wanted to eliminate the complexities of the High School in favor of a more simple and effective system mainly because it expended fewer resources and time in getting cavalrymen and horses into the lines quicker and more effectively. *It would seem that today, too much of the classical methods (mostly in terms of collection and imposed balance and frame placed upon horses) have crept back into Caprilli's original* simple Natural System of Forward Riding has become something arcane and unnecessarily complicated. I can largely be concluded that little, if any, improvement on Caprilli’s original system has been made (*and some ‘improvements’ take on the appearance of a regression*). This state of things I conclude would dismay Caprilli who only wanted to simplify matters for practical purposes of cross country riding.

The modern rider should consider, if nothing else, one of Caprilli's main points concerning the nature of the horse and the nature of the rider. *Until Caprilli, the nature of the horse was something that was to be altered to meet the nature of the rider. Caprilli put the horse first: it is easier to change the nature of the rider to suit the nature of the horse. He was the first to really consider the psychology of the horse, equine locomotion, and how to best preserve and promote the nature of the horse and how it moves.*_"



Articles on Horsemanship - Professional Horse Services, Dan Gilmore and E.W. Gilmore



Forward Riding has turned into Jumping - "The Jump Seat", to be taken as one is about to jump, rather than a system of teaching, training and riding meant to be used in riding outside the arena. It was oriented to field work by cavalry, not ranching or showing or competing. I think his ideas about working with the horse are more important than any details on HOW he rode: He put more emphasis on the knees while Littauer (correctly IMHO) put more emphasis on stirrups. But once people start competing while riding, what is natural to the horse and working within his limits falls away and people want quick answers and fitting the horse into a judge's mental box.

As Fillis wrote in 1890: "_The French say, when speaking of a horse that shows restiveness, "il se defend" - he defends himself...There is much truth in this expression, and it is one that riders should constantly bear in mind, *for insubordination is most commonly the result of something having been demanded from the horse that it either did not know how to do or was unable to perform*..._"

Watching gottatrot, one can see her letting the horse figure things out and setting the horse up to realize what her rider wants - and to find that doing what her rider wants makes them both happy and safe. This is sooooo unlike how riders are taught on poor lesson horses, where everything is about the rider and the horse is expected to submit to any stupidity. People TALK about being "leaders" but the follower needs to believe in her leader - and neither human nor horse believes in someone who doesn't explain or who regularly requires them to do senseless deeds!


----------



## TrainedByMares

bsms said:


> There is a translation of one of the few things Caprilli wrote available here:
> 
> Per L' Equitatzione Di Campagna (For Riding in the Field) by Federico Caprilli
> 
> The translator (Dan Gilmore) wrote:
> 
> "_The vast majority of what Caprilli says in his article, as Littauer notes in Modern Riding, is taken as the norm today. But that does not take into account that much of what Caprilli promoted has been neglected or even ignored by today's riders. Caprilli wanted to eliminate the complexities of the High School in favor of a more simple and effective system mainly because it expended fewer resources and time in getting cavalrymen and horses into the lines quicker and more effectively. *It would seem that today, too much of the classical methods (mostly in terms of collection and imposed balance and frame placed upon horses) have crept back into Caprilli's original* simple Natural System of Forward Riding has become something arcane and unnecessarily complicated. I can largely be concluded that little, if any, improvement on Caprilli’s original system has been made (*and some ‘improvements’ take on the appearance of a regression*). This state of things I conclude would dismay Caprilli who only wanted to simplify matters for practical purposes of cross country riding.
> 
> The modern rider should consider, if nothing else, one of Caprilli's main points concerning the nature of the horse and the nature of the rider. *Until Caprilli, the nature of the horse was something that was to be altered to meet the nature of the rider. Caprilli put the horse first: it is easier to change the nature of the rider to suit the nature of the horse. He was the first to really consider the psychology of the horse, equine locomotion, and how to best preserve and promote the nature of the horse and how it moves.*_"
> 
> 
> 
> Articles on Horsemanship - Professional Horse Services, Dan Gilmore and E.W. Gilmore
> 
> 
> 
> Forward Riding has turned into Jumping - "The Jump Seat", to be taken as one is about to jump, rather than a system of teaching, training and riding meant to be used in riding outside the arena. It was oriented to field work by cavalry, not ranching or showing or competing. I think his ideas about working with the horse are more important than any details on HOW he rode: He put more emphasis on the knees while Littauer (correctly IMHO) put more emphasis on stirrups. But once people start competing while riding, what is natural to the horse and working within his limits falls away and people want quick answers and fitting the horse into a judge's mental box.
> 
> As Fillis wrote in 1890: "_The French say, when speaking of a horse that shows restiveness, "il se defend" - he defends himself...There is much truth in this expression, and it is one that riders should constantly bear in mind, *for insubordination is most commonly the result of something having been demanded from the horse that it either did not know how to do or was unable to perform*..._"
> 
> Watching gottatrot, one can see her letting the horse figure things out and setting the horse up to realize what her rider wants - and to find that doing what her rider wants makes them both happy and safe. This is sooooo unlike how riders are taught on poor lesson horses, where everything is about the rider and the horse is expected to submit to any stupidity. People TALK about being "leaders" but the follower needs to believe in her leader - and neither human nor horse believes in someone who doesn't explain or who regularly requires them to do senseless deeds!


I have seen the Gilmore translation online. I must be quite the Luddite because I love to have an actual paper book in my hand that I can pull off the shelf and read. Copies of the Caprilli papers go for hundreds of dollars and I am too cheap to buy one. I am still waiting for @gottatrot to publish paper books so I can read them.


----------



## Kalraii

You look fantastic on her not at all too big! Not at all. How very exciting, can't wait to see your new adventures. Thanks for sharing the video I loved it. Hero is such a goof and Aria is such a boss  A ride n drive on the way... poor Hero I hope he feels better soon. When you dismount do you usually leave one foot in the stirrup? Is this a _thing_? Never in my life shall I ever! Not that I can on Katie without doing the splits.


----------



## Knave

@Kalraii I also do not leave a foot in the stirrup, but everyone else I know does! It is totally a thing. Then, when I jump off someone’s horse, the usually spook the first time or two. They are used to people leaving that foot in and slowly stepping down.


----------



## gottatrot

Kalraii said:


> You look fantastic on her not at all too big! Not at all. How very exciting, can't wait to see your new adventures. Thanks for sharing the video I loved it. Hero is such a goof and Aria is such a boss  A ride n drive on the way... poor Hero I hope he feels better soon. When you dismount do you usually leave one foot in the stirrup? Is this a _thing_? Never in my life shall I ever! Not that I can on Katie without doing the splits.


I made a video a while back for someone who was asking about doing a fast dismount. I was demonstrating the "step down" version (which I never do), and for me Hero is about the limit of height where a person could step down without hurting their knee. A lot of people are riding horses less than 15 hands, with a stable western fender, and they are over 5'5" tall. That makes stepping down a lot easier. 
The shorter you are, the shorter the stirrups, and on a tall horse everything gets very high.

Then I was showing my casual dismount where I kick the stirrup off, lean over the horse and slide down. On a really huge horse I believe it is the best for sure. Then I showed a rapid dismount at a walk and trot, although Hero stopped when he felt me leave the saddle. Those I have done many times on horses that were spooking, freaked out and I couldn't get them slower than a trot and wanted to get off, etc. Usually I end up running next to them after hitting the ground. 




Obviously I am very dependent on pushing off that stirrup to get my leg over the cantle though, since I kept hitting it on Aria! I need to work on that.

@bsms, fascinating stuff. I think this one will be very important to me with Aria:
_*"...the horse who has rational exercise, during which he is allowed to balance himself as he pleases, not being punished with needless suffering, develops in the most efficient fashion, with great advantage to his way of carrying himself..."*_
The bigger you are in relation to the horse, the more you will need to let the horse figure out how best to balance herself. She is going to have to figure out what efficient is. I thought it was interesting that when I leaned back, she wanted to come back underneath me. I suspect her balance point might be a little forward, and she might need me to ride in a bit of a forward lean to keep my core with her in motion. That is something that doesn't seem to relate to the size of the horse, but is more important to figure out on a smaller horse. Amore had the most forward balance point of any horse I've ridden. You really had to stay forward on her. But Bibi, the 13.2 hand Mustang had one of the most rearward ones I've experienced. She did best if you leaned back, more obvious the faster she went. She's the only horse I've ever galloped on feeling balanced while sitting upright. 

@TrainedByMares, I am waiting to get proofs of my books from Amazon. The first ones I had sent had formatting errors, and I am hoping I fixed those. I'll let you know if they seem OK. Last time it took a couple weeks for them to arrive. Thanks for the interest!


----------



## MeditativeRider

I think I dismount something like your fast dismount for my regular dismount. I take both feet completely out of the stirrups, then lean forward, swing the one leg over and jump off. I am about 5 ft 5, and currently riding a 16 hh horse, so it tends to be a jump off rather than a slide as I think I would pull on the saddle too much then.

I remember as a kid someone telling me I should do the stepping down dismount but I did not like it.


----------



## gottatrot

At work last night a coworker offered me ice cream. It was brought in for us for St. Patrick's day. She thought it was funny because I told her I couldn't have any because I am riding a pony now. Later in the night I had several crackers and she told me to be careful, that was 50 grams I might put onto my pony. 😄

I used to joke like that when I had Amore. Acquaintances or relatives would ask me how I didn't gain much weight over time, and I would tell them I couldn't because then I would be too big for my horse. For non horse people, they are expecting you will say something like you eat low carbs or stay away from sweets, so I find it humorous to see how they take the horse size diet explanation. 😄


----------



## weeedlady

I know my horses are going to be happy that I've been dieting since January! Less of a load when I'm able to get out on the trails!


----------



## gottatrot

Today DH had time to go to the barn with me. Unfortunately, it was also raining very hard all day, so I didn't bring a saddle along. The rain started tapering off just as we started doing chores, however. I decided it would be fine to put the bareback pad on Aria, and have DH lead us around.

Nothing unexpected happened, and Aria stood while I got on, and then walked nicely around the arena several times while being led. 
It was fun to feel her walk. She really moved out. We tried to go long enough for her to get a good feel for carrying a person while in motion, but not long enough to get overwhelmed. 

I put Keratex on Hero's soles several days ago for the first time, and more today. His soles already seemed a little harder, and he was moving out better. Both horses were rather spunky when I led them down the road.


----------



## gottatrot

Today I was remembering Theodore O'Connor, the pony that was USEF horse of the year.
Can you imagine the bravery he had? Hooray for ponies!


----------



## knightrider

I love Theodore O'Connor! I am such a fan of small horses. The O'Connor's home farm is just a few miles from my house. I have been there several times and camped out there once for an event.


----------



## gottatrot

I joined a group on FB called Adults Who Ride Ponies. What I haven't seen on there are people who appear too heavy for their ponies. Many are in the UK where they have a lot of very sturdy native pony breeds. There are many who ride the little guys extensively for years and still have healthy, happy ponies. It looked like my pony size and my size were fairly average. But also I have to say there are some tiny adults who are riding 12 hand ponies and looking no different from a large person riding on a TB. 
One thing I also saw is that nearly everyone has made sure to have excellent saddle fit for their small and usually wide ponies. 

I'm thinking about using my Ghost treeless on Aria. I'm thinking the fact that it will allow me to sit wherever the balance feels right and also won't have a structure that is long for her back might be actually be better than having more weight distribution. 
I weighed myself with boots, clothes, saddle and was just under 145 lbs. Assuming a 13 hand pony weighs around 600 lbs at least, that's under 25%. So no different from a guy riding in a big saddle and weighing 250 lbs on a 1,000 lb horse. But probably a little less strenuous since Arabs are particularly good at weight carrying in general.
ArabianHorses.org - Arabian Horses
*In 1919 W.R. Brown, then President of the Arabian Horse Registry, organized the first Cavalry Endurance Ride. The government had just established the U.S. Remount Service and there were only 362 registered Arabian horses in the country. It was a prime time to convince the government to breed Arabians. With so few Arabian horses, it was no easy task to find enough to adequately represent the breed in the endurance ride. However, the Arabs made a superior showing, taking most of the prizes including first. Mr. Brown won first place on his purebred Arabian mare RAMLA #347. RAMLA carried 200 pounds on the ride.*

*The second Cavalry Endurance Ride was held in 1920. The U.S. Remount Service, representing the Army, became much more involved in the ride this year. The Army wanted to increase the weight carried to 245 pounds and the Arabian owners agreed. The horses traveled sixty miles a day for five days with a minimum time of nine hours each day. The highest average points of any breed entered went to Arabians, although a grade Thoroughbred entered by the Army won first.*

*According to Albert Harris (Arabian Horse Registry Director 1924-1949), the (Thoroughbred) Jockey Club gave the Army $50,000 in 1921 to purchase the best Thoroughbreds they could find for that year's endurance ride. Mr. Harris wrote: "With two endurance rides to the credit of Arabian horses in 1919 and 1920, the U.S. Remount, and incidentally the Jockey Club, felt something had to be done to beat these little horses in the next ride..." The Army selected all Thoroughbreds or grade Thoroughbreds which were all ridden by Cavalry majors. The Army also wanted to lower the weight carried to 200 pounds, but the Arabian people, having proved their horses at 245 pounds, objected. A compromise was reached at 225 pounds.*
_* 
In spite of the Army's efforts, the first prize in the 1921 Cavalry Endurance Ride went to W.R. Brown's purebred Arabian gelding *CRABBET #309. Mr. Brown won the trophy once again in 1923 with his Anglo-Arab gelding GOUYA.
*_
*Having won the race three times on his Arabians, Mr. Brown gained permanent possession of the U.S. Mounted Service Cup. Albert Harris wrote in his history of the Arabian Horse Registry that after 1923, the Arabian people decided not to enter their horses in the ride. This was done "so that the Army would have a chance of winning the cup the next time."*

Amore went well in the Ghost, and I would ride Halla in it when she wasn't a fire-breathing dragon. It wasn't the balance that was a problem, but she could use everything to her advantage, including the lack of a tree. In this photo she is in the treeless. When she was fit, her entire body was just muscle.








She didn't quite have the mane of Aria, but almost. 









Here is a photo of me riding on 17 hand Nickel with a woman about my height on her approx 13 hand Icelandic. It's just that my horse has longer legs. But seriously, I think her little guy's legs are as thick as Nickel's.









Nickel again...I guess we took him out with ponies a lot. It was funny, this gal got Earl for her son but really liked riding him. He kept up with Nickel and Hero, no problem. 








If you can't tell, I'm excited about riding my pony. I've just been riding the big, heavy guy for a while now and without a lot of variation like I'm used to. So I'm thinking having a little more zip will be fun. At heart I am definitely an Arab/hotblood type person. Also, I have always wanted to have a pony since I didn't get one when I was a little girl. But I thought I would have a driving mini someday. It would be quite a bit better to have a driving and riding pony. 
I guess I shouldn't have been so sad about not being taller for basketball, since I'm an Arab and pony person.


----------



## bsms

You've got me thinking I ought to take Cowboy out sometime:
















I ride Bandit at about 21% now but did years with him at 25%. Rode Mia 7 years at 25% or maybe a bit more. I never came CLOSE to tiring her out! Bandit would get tender feet on the trails at times but never had an issue if he was wearing boots.


----------



## gottatrot

Cowboy looks so sturdy. He's really put together nicely.

Kadeera's owner chatted with me today and we're planning to try her horse out on Sunday. Should be interesting.

Today I did some shaft training with Aria. I found a thick bamboo stake in the garage that was a good length, and it was light enough for me to work with on my own. Of course when I first pressed the "shaft" against Aria's side and tried walking her into it, she thought about running away. I got her stopped, and then led her while holding the shaft through the harness tug loop from the front, and then walked her into the pressure while holding the bridle. I hadn't done that before with horses (from the front end), but it worked really well. After she got used to being led with the shaft while turning into and away from it on both sides, I went behind and did some driving with it. It was hard to get her to press into it through a turn, of course, but she did it several times.

After that I drove Aria a distance down the road and back. I had an idea to push the wheelbarrow and drive her so she could have the wheel noise behind her, but I couldn't organize that well enough to hold onto everything. Maybe I can have someone push it along behind her while I drive sometime. 

Hero's right hind still had a slightly soft spot, but I don't think there is any fluid in there to create pressure, because he didn't mind when I pressed on it. His soles do seem harder after a couple of Keratex treatments. I might switch to Venice Turpentine to try after this bottle, since it is much cheaper and people seem to say it works well also. After driving Aria, he was looking very pathetic and left out, so I told him I would lunge him a little to see how his hooves were feeling. I clipped the lunge line on, walked into the center of the arena, and when I said "trot," he galloped around me for a long time with some bucking and rearing thrown in for good measure. I'm thinking he will be up for a ride very soon. Even after he was breathing a bit, he didn't want to slow to a trot. 

After I "lunged" Hero, I put him in the round pen so I could try riding Aria in the arena. They were right next to each other, but Aria trotted around for a bit before deciding she was fine. I put the treeless saddle on, and messed around with it for a while. After getting on and off a few times, and hanging over it, I decided I didn't want to commit to staying on while she walked in it. You have to trust your equipment and the only girth that was the right length was a thicker one that was up in her armpits. She didn't seem bothered by it when I led her around, but I didn't trust if she trotted off and got scared that it wouldn't freak her out. 

I changed my mind about using the treeless on her. At this point I want some stability, and it slid to the side a good amount when I got on. That's not ideal when you're working on getting up and down a lot. Partly it was due to the girth, and partly due to the fact that I jump and leap on with it normally, but I don't want to be that rough with Aria yet.
I put the dressage saddle back on and it really seems to be the best fit. So I'll use it even if it is a little heavier. I don't think 5 pounds is a big deal, and I weighed it tonight and with jeans and gear am still under 150 lbs. Maybe it will actually feel better since I could see the panels contacted her back along the entire saddle, and with her being smaller it actually provides more weight bearing surface than an english saddle usually would. More like a western saddle. 
The Arab saddles are so short, that even though it is a 17 inch it is well forward of her hip. 

I thought about putting her back in the arena and getting on again, but she had done a lot for me and after trying the three mohair girths I had, none were the right length. I have a super short one because the bareback pad I have has very long billets with the holes near the ends. But that one was right at her elbows. The shortest one I use on Hero was at the top holes, and it wasn't very snug, which I had gambled with for our first ride. Luckily, when I got home I remembered that I have one more mohair girth, which has been put away since it was Amore's and it was too short for even Halla. It should work great for Aria, and it's actually the nicest one I have and is shaped.


----------



## gottatrot

I have been feeling guilty after reading the time change thread, knowing that people who live more southern have lost their early morning light and are less happy, like @knightrider. It's been so nice (selfishly) though, to have time to do more riding and training before dark. 

I was looking at pictures of Aria from last April when I got her. It's amazing what nutrition can do. Her winter coat was so patchy last year versus the smooth and pretty coat she had this year. Her mane is so different too. I rarely brush it or anything, just remove big knots and that's how it looks compared to the ratty mess she had last year. Just basic care and feeding. 
But I was realizing also why I told her previous owner she was too small to ride. She was so scrawny and frail. Now she looks like a sturdy little pony.









At the barn today, the barn owner pulled up and told me that she and her husband had been watching out the window of their house when DH had led me around on Aria the other day. I had felt very calm about it, but she said they were waiting with bated breath to see if Aria would buck or spook or anything. Apparently they were cheering and clapping when it all went so well. Very funny, I hadn't realized we had an audience.

She looks so terrible in this video!





When she was skinny she looked like she had a big head and a little butt.
Her whole body and neck were supposed to be much bigger, so her head and ears looked too big. 









When she is fed, she has a little head and a decent sized derriere.


----------



## knightrider

What a difference! She looks so good. I am so glad you got her.


----------



## Knave

I think that I thought that was why she looked so small. I remember thinking she would look more like a usable horse if she wasn’t starved to death. I even wondered if it would raise her up an inch. Lol

ETA- you’ve done amazing.


----------



## gottatrot

I need some help making a decision.
I bought a new Lemeiux saddle pad for Hero, and I want to buy one for Aria too, in burgandy. The one I bought is a large, and I am thinking I should get the small/medium size for Aria but can't decide. Opinions?


















Kadeera's owner didn't show up today so I didn't evaluate her. I was 15 minutes late, so it's possible she came and thought I wasn't going to show. We were a bit vague when we set it up, I said "about" 4, so to me it seemed fine.

Hero's soles were hard everywhere with no tenderness. I might just keep him on the Keratex. 

Just as I was finishing grooming the horses, Mikey's owner came riding up on Maybelle the mule, ponying Mikey behind. It was by now 4:40, so I decided I'd given Kadeera's owner a chance to show up, and saddled up Hero.

Off we went to ride around the loop, with Aria ponying behind Hero, so we had 4 horses.
Now I know Hero's lack of momentum was his hooves rather than worsening arthritis. With the sole hardener and boots on, he moved right along with pep, even breaking into a trot now and then. Up and down steep hills he had no problems.

I was happy because Aria trotted a few times, which I had not been able to get her to do yet while ponying. Between having a whole herd along and a degree of basic fitness, she was ready.

We had gone a good distance when Mikey kicked at Hero. We were almost a horse length behind him, but since he was "free" with no rider, he suddenly turned and gave a quick stink eye at Hero, then backed up a step and launched the double barrels.

I've had so many experiences with horses that sometimes I find myself acting decisively with no time for conscious thought. As the hooves came up, I positioned Hero with his chest exactly in the center of the line of fire. Mikey got in trouble; but I could tell from the sound and feel it had been a gentle impact. Hero was offended briefly, and on we went, giving Mikey more room. His owner had never seen him do such a thing. 🙂

Afterward I wondered at my reflex. I had no time to think of self preservation, or putting the impact of the kick on an area with big muscles to absorb the blow. But somehow I was convinced that was the thing to do, and so it was. Plus Hero just did what I told him to! "Here boy, take it square in the chest." Poor horse.

The turkeys are out of hand right now, breeding. Apparently the males have been challenging walkers, even cars on the road. Deep in the woods, there were a dozen of them flying up into the trees, clucking and making all kinds of noise. 

The horses were not too concerned, until we got back in the woods next to a rushing stream. Someone started up a big machine nearby, the turkeys were gobbling, and Hero started spooking. After that we spent about ten minutes with him being hot and silly (we were in the woods, after all). 

Hero hopped and bucked and side skittered a few times. Angel pony thinks that is how horses get ponied. Part of the job is following the spooking horse, around or sideways or whatever. Staying out of the way of flying hooves. Of course she doesn't spook, she just goes along. 

The culmination was when Mikey and Maybelle crossed the concrete bridge in front of us, and I will admit it was particularly echoing and the mule hooves sounded like gunshots. Hero morphed into a rapid, extended sideways twirl and I thought Aria might be getting dizzy, so I hopped off and walked them across the bridge. 

Then I hopped back on and all was well until a quarter mile down the road, when a horse in a field threw his bucket a few feet at us (how dare you go by without filling my bucket)?
Hero spooked once more and played the game where he is a bucking bronco a granny might ride, so he got another lecture and Mikey's owner told him to grow up. Well, Amore was a little spooky horse and Hero is a big one. We walked calmly the rest of the way home, and it was a great ride.

After the ride I put the saddle on Aria and trotted her down the road before grazing the horses. They seemed pleased with themselves.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Burgundy is an excellent color choice. I think a medium size would be suitable,certainly a good start. Poor Hero, I would rather ride alone than put up with nonsense like kicking. What if you had been turned sideways and caught the force of it with your leg? 


Sounds like you need someone to kick some turkey butt where you live... around here, the turkeys run for their lives if they see or hear someone!🦃


----------



## Knave

I almost would go with the size of Hero’s. It seems to fit the saddle well, but I don’t know what really changes on an English pad.

I am glad Hero is back to himself. Cash would spook at things Queen ignored when I was ponying her too, and she took it a lot like Aria. The other day my husband was ponying her, and I was riding her, around the pivot loping to kind of bring her head back. It was windy, and I saw a bag had blown into our direction.

I told husband “You’d better not,” I’m not really sure where my train of thought intended to go, because soon Cash was plowing into Queen and I, and we were scrambling like crazy to get out of the way. I whined about my knee (he really did mash my knee), and Queen acted like that was par for the course. Lol


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> Angel pony


I liked that! It would make a good nickname for her....


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, sorry to laugh but that was a funny story about Queen getting plowed over and acting like it was normal. That's life when you are a little horse getting dragged around by a big horse I guess!

Some videos today...
First, Hero torn between wanting to see if I have a treat, and wanting to shake after a roll.





If anyone is interested in driving training, my friend makes much better videos than I do. She and I are both working along at a similar pace with training our ponies to drive. We're both doing shaft training. She made this ingenious device to practice with out of PVC.
Here he is early on and still nervous about it:
March 29, 2022

And here he is getting much more accomplished. She is taking it slow with him because Milo is naturally a lot more timid and spooky than Aria. 





It won't be long before both ponies are pulling carts.


----------



## gottatrot

We put some hay in today, and then DH helped with some riding and driving training with Aria.
She wanted to follow on the lead rope, but had some difficulty walking on her own. I worked on turning her left and right while DH was at the end of the lead rope, and also having her stop and start walking without just following him.

At one point DH tripped over a dirt clod and fell, and I felt the muscles ripple under me. I thought, "Here we go." Aria waited while DH straightened back up, and then we started walking again. We laughed and both agreed that if he'd done that with Amore at this same stage, I would have had a fun few seconds bucking around the arena before falling off.

After riding, I put Aria's harness on and we worked more with the bamboo shaft. There was one point where it rattled and scared her pretty good, so it was helpful to have that happen and work through it back to calmness again. 

I left DH alone with Hero while I was tacking up Aria, and next thing I knew, he was in trouble because Hero was trying to start a play biting fight and then was rearing up, and it was too much for him to handle. So Hero had to get tied up as usual. I told DH that Hero thinks guys fight for fun. 

I'm pretty sure I wear my helmet crooked 99% of the time.









Saddle placement is pretty difficult on Aria. She has an extremely forward girth groove with a wide barrel, like Amore. I put the saddle back behind her shoulder and it still came forward. I might have to find an even wider saddle, even though this one is an XW hoop tree. The billets come from under the knee block also, at the very front of the saddle. 










The proofs of my books came and they seem formatted pretty well now, so I'll say if you want to read a paper copy of one @TrainedByMares, it should be fine. 
Just to warn you, I had a review that said the reader stopped believing the story halfway through the book, so it might sound like I am making up how it was, but I swear I wasn't even exaggerating.  
The first one is "Round Pen, Square Horse," about learning with my mare, Amore.
Round Pen, Square Horse: A different view of difficult horses: May, Evelyn: 9798406854273: Amazon.com: Books


----------



## TrainedByMares

Nicki thinks guys fight for fun ,too! Lol 

Thank you, I will order and read your book!


----------



## Knave

That’s the one I haven’t read yet. I just ordered it, but on kindle. I really should have done the hard copy. Lol


----------



## Knave

Okay, apparently I did already read it. I forgot. I guess I donated to future books you write. 😉 lol


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> Okay, apparently I did already read it. I forgot. I guess I donated to future books you write. 😉 lol


Oh no! Sorry!!


----------



## Knave

@gottatrot don’t be sorry for my own lack of memory! Lol.


----------



## bsms

Amazon sometimes reminds me I ordered a book 7 years ago...but not always. I have multiple copies of a few books sitting on my shelves now...but at least I can say I'm getting old! Got the graying hair and wrinkled face to prove it. Although, as my BIL puts it, gray hair is STILL hair....


----------



## gottatrot

Aria's new sidepull arrived.









She seemed to respond well, so I decided to ride her in it. 
I also received a beta biothane lunge line, so tried that out on Hero first. It was so much better than the web lunge line I dislike; it was light, and easy to hold all the excess in one hand and feed out with the other. 

My other bright idea was to bring a tie ring down to attach to one of the arena posts, so I could tie Hero to it outside the ring while I rode Aria. There was grass out there, and he was quite content.

The ride went great. Aria figured out how to walk without being led, and turned easily in the side pull. We practiced turning, relaxing at the walk, halting, and walking again. She was introduced to seat and leg cues also, and seemed to be beginning to understand. 
Afterward, I drove her for a while in the harness with the sidepull, and that went well also. 

I'm thinking about buying a pony saddle in the hope that it will fit her better. I'm looking at Thorowgoods or Kent and Masters (the leather version of Thorowgood), because they have 16.5" saddles that are supposedly meant for ponies and have point billets at the front of the saddle to help with the forward girth groove issue.


----------



## Knave

Her face is so pretty! The side pull accentuates it for some reason.

I’m glad your ride was good! I hope she’s your dream horse. Think of the cool story she already has!


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks, @Knave!

This cartoon made me think of Queen.


----------



## Dancing Arab

gottatrot said:


> Thanks, @Knave!
> 
> This cartoon made me think of Queen.
> View attachment 1126786


Sounds just like my horse 😂


----------



## Knave

It is a Queen!


----------



## gottatrot

I have to say it is more fun having two horses to ride than one...

Today was Aria's second solo ride. Already I'm teaching her to walk off as I am mounting. LOL. Forward motion is good at this point. The wobbles crack me up; sometimes out of the blue she just gets a wobble as she figures out her balance.

I rode in the Ghost saddle, and I think that is what I will have to use. She just has such a wide barrel with a forward girth groove that is tiny, so getting a treed saddle to where it doesn't sit on her shoulder is going to be next to impossible.
With the treeless, the shoulders can move underneath the front. It also doesn't put pressure behind, so as long as I'm sitting in front of the last rib, the saddle can go past it. 
When I got home I moved the stirrups down a hole and also back to the next slot because I think my leg was too far forward. 
The only issue I really have is getting on, and I just have to hold mane and make a good jump rather than pulling the saddle over. 

After Aria's ride, I rode Hero in the treeless also. It doesn't have quite enough wither clearance to make me happy, because his withers are so long. However, I am thinking about getting a newer Ghost. They've improved some things in the years since I bought this one, and the panels are a little thicker, and also they've made the wither clearance a bit higher. So a newer one might work on Hero. Maybe I am just wanting a new saddle since it's been a while...LOL.

The Keratex has worked miracles. Hero walked_ out_, and I mean he was very forward. He even started down the road where the cows live and went a hundred yards before he thought twice about that. But we went at a lively pace until I decided to turn around, and it was so nice. The Ghost is nice to pony from because it has a pommel arch I can just loop the lead rope through. 

When I put the horses away, I was scratching Aria under her mane and she thought that was great, resting her head on my shoulder and closing her eyes.


----------



## gottatrot

Look how this pony can walk though, when she gets going!

















I didn't have my stirrup pushed forward the _entire_ time. She has so much mane she keeps it on both sides of her neck.









This photo shows the girth groove issue.This girth is too short...I'm ordering one that is slightly longer. It is annoying how many girths I have and yet none are exactly the right length.


----------



## knightrider

You can see her improving as the video goes along! How fun! You know how she wobbles and reacts with her head? That is how horses act the first time or 3 that they are ridden. I have ridden 3 sale horses over the years that sellers said had been ridden for months . . . and they rode just like that. There is something distinctive about those first couple of rides that is unmistakable. Who do those sellers think they're fooling, anyway?


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> You can see her improving as the video goes along! How fun! You know how she wobbles and reacts with her head? That is how horses act the first time or 3 that they are ridden. I have ridden 3 sale horses over the years that sellers said had been ridden for months . . . and they rode just like that. There is something distinctive about those first couple of rides that is unmistakable. Who do those sellers think they're fooling, anyway?


Yikes!! I can't believe you got on those horses that had never been ridden. That is so completely unethical - anything could have happened. Honestly though, I think some people buy those horses, because occasionally people come on the forum and say they just got a "green" horse, and it sounds to me like the horse is acting like that and hasn't actually been ridden. 

Several other horses where I put the first few rides on, I don't remember as much of the details because I was too nervous, I think I blanked it out. You know, trying not to be nervous but actually being nervous. Amore never managed to walk in a straight line at all, for a number of rides. She was just so silly. Aria is so much like her in many ways. Her facial expressions and her demeanor are very similar. Except Aria's eyes never look like they are going to pop out, and she is a calm thinker rather than panicky. My friend gave me a little rubber horse that you squeeze and its eyes bug out, and said, "Look, it's Amore!" Ah, the fond memories.


----------



## Knave

I have a friend who calls it the drunken rides. Lol. I agree that it’s perfectly normal and expect it, but in trying to remember I don’t think Queen ever did that. I guess it’s because I put so many odd little rides on her just playing around.

I think she did wonderfully. I still have a hard time focusing on much past that wonderful mane, but I did notice today that she is starting to look put together well. I thought the saddle looked fine on her too, and I loved the music choice!


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I have a friend who calls it the drunken rides. Lol. I agree that it’s perfectly normal and expect it, but in trying to remember I don’t think Queen ever did that. I guess it’s because I put so many odd little rides on her just playing around.
> 
> I think she did wonderfully. I still have a hard time focusing on much past that wonderful mane, but I did notice today that she is starting to look put together well. I thought the saddle looked fine on her too, and I loved the music choice!


I'm sure it would have been beneath Queen's dignity to show any signs of struggling with her balance. I was remembering that Bibi the 13.2 hand Mustang only wobbled a little on her very first ride. She was pretty much too arrogant to do that kind of thing also.


----------



## gottatrot

I'm going to trial a newer Ghost model called the Torino. It has thigh blocks you can remove. The flap is straighter than the Ghost I have also. The rep tells me the panels have been redone and are more suitable for horses with higher withers like Hero, so I'm going to see what I think. 

In general, they're not for everyone, but are so comfortable and give so much "pre-signal" when a horse is going to act up, that I've quite liked riding in them when I could. When you first get on you're like, "Uh oh, this doesn't feel safe," but then you adapt and it's a very different feeling. 

The Ghost people have a serious sense of humor and their videos are hilarious with dramatic music.




You can literally order a purple saddle from them.








I'm going to try a basic black one: At first I didn't like the handle in front, because of the look. You can get them without it now. But it does come in very handy when hanging things off the saddle, carrying it, or ponying. You can get it without the slit, but I like my stirrups leathers on top.








You can even have your seat made out of sheepskin or fur. That's not a seat saver, it's built in.
















I've also discovered something I didn't know about...colored mohair girths!
I ordered a burgandy one for Aria. She has her burgandy boots, sidepull, (reins coming), so now all she needs is a matching pad. Obviously at heart I'm an endurance rider.


----------



## Knave

Guess what?! I’m getting one custom made for Cash!! The person who owns the stud we bred Lucy to makes them and gives classes on making them. Cash requires a 40” cinch, which is very long in the western world. The longest a person can purchase is 36”, and it sits low right under his elbow. I’ve looked and looked everywhere, and everyone who does custom has said their looms do not go that big. Usually they are 32” or 34”.

I talked to her about it, she measured her loom, and she can do 40”!! I picked a base color of orange, and she is going to add the exciting things in complimentary colors. I’m super excited!


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> Guess what?! I’m getting one custom made for Cash!! The person who owns the stud we bred Lucy to makes them and gives classes on making them. Cash requires a 40” cinch, which is very long in the western world. The longest a person can purchase is 36”, and it sits low right under his elbow. I’ve looked and looked everywhere, and everyone who does custom has said their looms do not go that big. Usually they are 32” or 34”.
> 
> I talked to her about it, she measured her loom, and she can do 40”!! I picked a base color of orange, and she is going to add the exciting things in complimentary colors. I’m super excited!


You have to post a photo when you get it! Also with it on him. Hmm...maybe you are an endurance person at heart too.


----------



## Knave

I will! I think I must be. When I was showing cowhorse on Sassy, I had lime green bell and splint boot for her, lime green boots for me, and a shirt to match! I’ll see if I have a pic.


----------



## Knave

I don’t! You can see her boots and mine in this. I was super horsing her at the time too, so we ran the speed events. We jumped too! Reining and cowhorse… we were winning super horse and then she came up with nevicular changes sadly. I could have pushed her through the season, but I didn’t want to add any damage as hard as I was pushing her.


----------



## gottatrot

Great pic! Having your own boots matching is so neat. Sassy looks like she was an incredible horse. Too bad about the navicular.


----------



## Knave

She was a great horse! She was interesting because my uncle had her and disliked her, and I traded him a filly for her. We fought for a year, and then no matter what I asked she would do it. She was calm after that, but gave everything she had to be an athlete. She beat a girl competing prca every weekend at the gymkhana events, and that girl was so mad! Lol! She won the jumping, she always won the reining, and she just overall was spectacular!

My girls were little and I could trust her with them.

I gave her away as a broodmare with the promise of her first colt. The girl went to team roping on her, which bothered me a lot. Then she sold her as a competition horse. We live and learn.


----------



## gottatrot

It was so cute, we drove up to the barn earlier than usual and Hero was lying down napping, and Aria was standing right next to him. "I'll protect you, big guy!"

Height is a relative thing. I was realizing that all the talk about horse height made me think about Hero. When Nala's rider got him she told me he was 16 hands. I thought maybe 15.3, but never really paid attention. Definitely plenty big enough to carry me easily. 

But the other day I was realizing: I am 5'3" so if Hero was 15.3, his withers would be as tall as my head. They are not quite as tall as my head. So I think he is only 15.2 hands. 

What is interesting is how height is only one factor in how big a horse is to ride. Hero seems a lot bigger to me than many 15.2 hand horses. He's built heavy. A big QH or draft is a lot bigger than an Arab or lighter horse the same size. 

Nickel at 17 hands was very narrow. He felt so much smaller. I sat wider on Halla. Many horses I've ridden have less body width and muscle mass, so they ride smaller. Halla at 15 hands rode much bigger. Draft ponies ride bigger.

The Ghost saddle came and I hope to try it tomorrow. They have made some serious improvements since I bought my last one. The wither clearance is much higher and I have no doubt I can get enough clearance on Hero. It is very comfy to sit in on my saddle rack so I have high hopes.


----------



## gottatrot

Grr, it was a very windy day. The wind was cold, and it even snowed today in the valley, and Portland. Very unseasonable for here.

The horses were spooky, even Aria, so I was not able to ride her in the new Ghost saddle. I liked how it fit her though.

You can see the wind is blowing her mane on this side, her forelock is in her eyes, and the tree branches are on her head.








But I did ride Hero around the arena a couple times in it. To be contrary, he walked and trotted around happily without spooking. 
He would not stand still to model the saddle with green grass nearby. Oh well.








There was spinal clearance galore. I was super comfy. I am very pleased at the improvements in design since I bought my last one. They added more structure and improved the billets and panel design, while keeping the narrow twist and comfort. TBs used to be the bane of treeless saddles with their withers.


----------



## egrogan

I like the fit of that on her. I think she'd look really cute with a little shaped pad underneath. Because of course it's a fashion show with a petite little mare 😉


----------



## gottatrot

egrogan said:


> I like the fit of that on her. I think she'd look really cute with a little shaped pad underneath. Because of course it's a fashion show with a petite little mare 😉


Like this, I am thinking. Burgandy to match her sidepull, reins, girth and boots. Lol.


----------



## egrogan

Burgundy is a great color for her!

How cute is this one with burgundy tones in it?!








(Though I will never understand why anyone who actually _rides _would think a white-based pad was a good idea...)

I'm also a fan of the PRI contour pads- they come in a ton of colors and they hold up really well, even if you throw them in the washing machine every now and then. They call both of these options "burgundy" - so I guess it's hard to keep the color consistent...


----------



## Knave

Ugh, here too! This morning the ground is snow covered and it’s supposed to be another crazy windy day. We start turning out this weekend, but there was no way I was riding horses down in that yesterday. It seemed the constant was in the 30mph, and the gusts were bad. I don’t think our cheap little wind reader goes over the high 30s, but it was forecasted to be gusts in the 60s. Today too. Ick ick ick.

I think the saddle looks wonderful!


----------



## Dancing Arab

Knave said:


> Ugh, here too! This morning the ground is snow covered and it’s supposed to be another crazy windy day. We start turning out this weekend, but there was no way I was riding horses down in that yesterday. It seemed the constant was in the 30mph, and the gusts were bad. I don’t think our cheap little wind reader goes over the high 30s, but it was forecasted to be gusts in the 60s. Today too. Ick ick ick.
> 
> I think the saddle looks wonderful!


It was snowing here this morning too 😩. Just when you think winter’s finally over…


----------



## TrainedByMares

@gottatrot I just finished reading your book! I thought it was wonderful. Many of your experiences mirrored what Nicki and I went through. Amazon won't let me leave a review because my account does not qualify but if I could, this is how it would read: Well wriiten and very interesting! A good read for anyone involved in training a horse!


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> @gottatrot I just finished reading your book! I thought it was wonderful. Many of your experiences mirrored what Nicki and I went through. Amazon won't let me leave a review because my account does not qualify but if I could, this is how it would read: Well wriiten and very interesting! A good read for anyone involved in training a horse!


Thank you! I really appreciate your input.


----------



## gottatrot

I wish there were more hours in the day sometimes. I wanted to do so many things with the horses tonight but ran out of time. This week was busy with Dr appointments, taxes, extra work hours. 

All I had time for was a two mile ride on Hero, ponying Aria. I was so pleased with the Ghost saddle again. With the new panel design, I was able to ground mount without pulling the saddle over, which I hadn't expected. 

We had a very good ride. On the way home, it began hailing. Hero stopped dead. Unlike most horses, who would want to hurry home, he was like, "Oh no, you are not riding me in this." 

I tried to tell him we were going _home,_ but he was not buying it. So I had to get off and persuade Hero to go home through hail. Aria was unsettled by the sound of the hail on my helmet, but got used to it.

I used a weight tape on the horses. Aria was 640 lbs, and Hero 1100 lbs. I am pleased Aria tapes at that much. It really removes any restrictions from my mind, because I can manage with the treeless saddle to hit right around 21% of her weight. With an Arab, I think if she acts athletic when in shape, we could do about anything. 

Speaking of green grass, the horses enjoyed their very green turnout today.


















Both horses are a 5 BCS. 
Aria is hard to score because she has a large barrel, but doesn't carry weight other places. 
Hero looks less in this pic than he is, because his winter coat makes the hair stand up over his withers. That's not spine there, just hair.


----------



## Knave

I wonder if Aria will get even more butt to her as she gets more fit. She is so pretty! That hair just makes me fall in love with her.

It’s funny about Hero. I would have assumed he’d hurry too.


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, I hope Aria gets more butt eventually. 

Today Maybelle's rider was coming down the road on her, ponying Mikey behind when I showed up. She asked if I wanted to ride.

My idea had been to ask her if she would pony me on Aria the first time we went out. I've whined about how there aren't enough hours in the day, and I have not been taking either horse out solo. I know they need to, but when you want two horses to get exercise with limited time, you take both.

I waffled for a few seconds, but heck you guys know how I am. I threw Hero in the outdoor arena and hopped on Aria, thinking it was her first ride outside the arena, and we were going to try it the hard way.

Aria followed Maybelle and Mikey away from Hero. He hollered and galloped, and then very unhelpfully Mocha and Dusty galloped around their pens too. Aria grew nervous, but did not gallop, although she called back to Hero. When she got fairly tense as we got quite far from Hero, I got off and led her a while. 

We dropped off Mikey at his pen, just in case it would make things easier. I got back on, rode a distance down the road, but then Aria got tense again and was calling for Hero so I got off and walked her more.

She didn't really settle, so I walked her through the woods. At the end where we turn around, I got on and she had a little trouble standing still. We worked on it for a bit, and then I got on. Maybelle's rider wanted me to back her up hard, but I thought she was already unsettled, and she was tending to scoot backward anyway. But she stood after I was on, so I praised her. 

There was a steep hill to go up then, and I thought it would be a good challenge. She went right up and trotted fine. We got closer to the nursery with all the tarps and pots so I got off again, and walked her back home. 

When she was upset, Aria shook her head whenever I applied rein pressure. So from the ground I made her tolerate more pressure, turning this way and that, slowing her gait, etc. All new for her. 

Back at the arena, Hero was standing waiting. He paws, bucks a little and sometimes trots back and forth, but he doesn't challenge the fence or hurt himself. I've dealt with horses you just can't leave like that or they will hurt themselves. I am thinking next time I will bring him down to the grassy field and I bet he will be happier with food and the other geldings near.

I got back on Aria and rode a little outside the arena, near Hero, and she did great. Then I turned her in with him.

Her girth has not arrived, and I thought the too short one would be OK but I felt bad because it rubbed hair off behind her elbows. 

After the ride I texted Maybelle's owner and thanked her profusely for helping with the training ride. She had been heading out on a quiet Easter ride, but ended up with an antsy, loudly calling pony along instead. She was gracious, said she was happy to help. Gotta love horse people.


----------



## Knave

I’m sorry it wasn’t perfect, but you did it! Easter Sunday as her first outside ride! I think that she did it is worth a lot. I’m sure it would have been a lot easier to be ponied, lol, but either way it happened!


----------



## gottatrot

My dad had a stroke on Tuesday, thankfully a small left posterior one. He spent a night in the hospital, but his only deficits are that he lost the outer half of his vision in the right eye, and minor balance problems. He had a TIA about ten years ago, and was supposed to be taking aspirin but apparently my mom took him off it a while back. Oh well, he is on a moderate blood thinner now and hopefully won't have any more issues. He's 87 and walks two miles a day, so we're all grateful he is doing so well. 

Of course the doctor wanted to start him on a statin, but he's not going to take one. He is otherwise healthy, and may have just passed a clot from less efficient circulation at his age. A statin is likely to decrease his functional life. Meanwhile, after a stroke they fed my dad steak and french fries for lunch in the hospital. 

We were up visiting my parents about a week ago, and I showed them copies of my horse books I had printed. They were interested, so I gave them to them. I guess it was a mistake to give them print to read...now my siblings are saying my parents are trying to get them to read the books, and even quoting them?!  I am trying to tell them this is a very niche topic. They are precious.

It was my day off yesterday, so of course when I had plenty of time to do horse things I forgot Aria's harness at home. My friend who is training the pony Milo said she has ordered a cart for him. We were laughing about how much a person can spent on equipment for their cheap and free ponies. Her pony was $500 and the cart cost several times that much. She said she made a mistake and tightened Milo's overcheck, thinking she was tightening another part of the harness. When she drove him forward he started rearing, because he was getting stop + go. She said that is a horse equation: stop + go = rear. I told her not to worry, even if we did everything perfectly our horses still wouldn't be perfect. 

I was stymied by the lack of a correct girth. My plan was to take both horses out saddled, and switch off which one I rode and ponied. So I put the slightly too long girth on Aria, which was the one that fits Hero, and that meant his was slightly too long as well. I was able to get on him, but after riding down the road I couldn't get on her with such a loose girth. So I just rode Hero and ponied her for a while wearing her saddle. Then I tied Hero up at the shed and put the short girth on that had rubbed Aria before. I tried avoiding the rubbed area, and decided it would be OK just up and down the road a little. So I rode her around the area where Hero was tied, up and down the road.

She is so great, she tries so hard. When I wanted to turn around, I kept giving supposedly light and gradual cues to turn. She would respond to the rein with her head, but then go, "I know, you want to turn around!" and then just flip in the other direction. Quite hilarious. By the last time her flip wasn't quite so dramatic. 

When we passed Dusty's shed, he came bombing out of it and galloped around the backside. Aria gave a small snort and kept walking. Angel pony. After I get off and praise her, she gets this very satisfied look, as if she has done something to be proud of. She stands tall and accepts scratches under her mane, and nuzzles delicately for treats. 

I had bought a Haas brush since everyone talks about how great they are. It did seem to have a nice scratchy feeling that Aria enjoyed, especially under her neck. Plus the dried mud came off nicely. Hero did not share his opinion about it, just stood and bore it as usual. He doesn't think horses should get brushed at all.


----------



## TrainedByMares

All the best for your dad. @gottatrot !


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> All the best for your dad. @gottatrot !


Thanks very much.


----------



## weeedlady

Sorry to hear about your Dad. Hope he continues to recover well.


----------



## Knave

I’m sorry about your dad Gotta! My grandfather had a stroke about four years ago, or somewhere around there, and we did speech therapy for six months or so until he could talk decently again. I am so grateful the family chose me to be his speech teacher. I will never forget the wonderful conversations we had! It was so different to talk about the things that came up with the programs. They were things you wouldn’t think to talk about, and I will always be so blessed by that time.

I love that they loved your books! I’m sure your siblings will be ready to murder you though. Lol


----------



## Txshecat0423

I’m sorry to hear about your dad @gottatrot. Prayers for a complete recovery. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## gottatrot

Why is it we can know we're being an idiot, and still sometimes be unable to stop ourselves?

Tonight I was that idiot. I lunged Aria, and she did great. Was able to canter nicely for the first time. So I only had a little time left (dumb to do anything training related with a time limit), and decided to drive her for just a few minutes.

There was a lawnmower going somewhere beyond the bushes, and for some stupid reason I decided I must drive Aria in that direction. She didn't want to turn that way, and I was bullheaded and kept turning her and trying to drive her.

Yes, I was able to force her to turn. Wow, congratulations. And I got my pony shaking her head and flipping the reins over her neck, all upset. Then I broke a piece of the harness so it was hitting her back legs and spooking her. I could not figure out how to stop the session with any kind of pleasantness, so kept trying way too long. Arrgh.

Finally, I adjusted a few things, and led her and let her wander on the reins, then stopped. Horses are amazing though...so forgiving. I scratched her and she rubbed her head on me and looked happy. All the weird confusion was forgotten, and we were friends. I promised to stop being an idiot, and not to try to muscle my way through confusion or horse nerves. It never helps. I hope you will try not to be dumb like me.

It was a very beautiful day. Jake, the very old foundered horse was napping a lot in the warmth.

On a pleasant note, I tried a new hackamore on Hero, which I like very much. I read a review of several hackamores, because I don't like the flower or english style on him. The english is too unrefined and bulky, the flower twists too much. The review convinced me this baroque style of "s" hackamore is very nice for direct reining.








It was only one short ride, but Hero responded beautifully in it. He had a big spook, and it gave me excellent directional control.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Lol you brutal taskmaster! Lol I get the same way... I get an idea and look out!


----------



## Knave

I know exactly the feeling! You know you shouldn’t, you push too far… at least she is forgiving! I am lucky that way with Cash. He’s the most forgiving horse I know. I can make those mistakes and he is completely over it as soon as I stop. Queen has a lot more of a temper, so her forgiveness takes a little begging. Bones is so emotional that every mistake is paid for with weeks!


----------



## egrogan

I am about to go out with Fizz on our first ride of the season and am internalizing this message 😁


----------



## TrainedByMares

I watched a documentary about the horses of Gettysburg battle last night. Gen. Custer's headlong cavalry charge against the Confederate cavalry helped prevent a rear attack on union troops. Of course,his decisions at a future battle were similar but met with disastrous results. We all charge ahead when we shouldn't sometimes!


----------



## bsms

Where did you get the hackamore? It looks interesting...something Bandit might do well in.


----------



## gottatrot

This video was showing the direct reining with the baroque hackamore shanks (second style in video).





I bought the cheekpieces from this seller on Etsy:
Hackamore Cheeks Bitless Horse Bit English Western Stainless | Etsy

I wanted the ones with multi-colored metal. You can get the same cheekpieces cheaper in plain metal for $23 with free shipping from this seller: EquineUnitedStates
New Hackamore Cheeks Bitless Horse Bit English Western Quality | Etsy

I already had a headstall that worked, and also a noseband and chin strap from other hackamores, so it was cheap to try the cheekpieces out.


----------



## bsms

I've never used Etsy but found the seller on eBay and ordered one. It is always hard to guess how a horse will respond but I can at least _imagine_ Bandit doing well in one. It won't cost much to try. And I certainly have a ton of now-unused tack in boxes in the garage. Green applies to more things with horses than their poop.  "Free horse"! Yeah...


----------



## gottatrot

Like @egrogan, I could use another horse to leave behind when I take one out. Hero is a lonely type. But I don't really have the time or energy to pick up after three horses, trim their hooves, and exercise them. So we make do.

Today I trimmed hooves. Aria is getting very good at standing and holding her feet up. She has great little hooves, and Hero's are looking better with the keratex and durasole I am applying. When we go down the gravel road to turnout, Aria usually walks on the road and Hero likes to go on the grass wherever possible. 

My friend who is training Milo the pony told me that I need to be as forgiving of myself as Aria is of me. Honestly, I don't think horses always connect us with what we are doing to them. I think Aria might have viewed our bad training session the other day as something that "happened" to her, and once it was over she did not connect it with me personally. My friend also gave me some helpful advice on my harness setup. We decided the one part I was using is really only for a finished horse, and so I took that part off. It basically holds the driving lines up over the hindquarters, but we discussed that green horses really benefit from having the lines draped around their sides to help with turning cues.

So tonight I did a different kind of driving session. The goal was to be completely positive. I put the harness on Aria and led her along with Hero for about a mile down the road. Along the way, they stopped to graze. Before we turned around, I also let them graze for a while. Then we turned toward home, and I drove Aria back, leading Hero behind me. It worked out really well, and on the way home whenever I asked Aria to do a sharp turn, I turned her toward the verge where green grass was, and then had her stop and graze. It was the farthest we'd gone driving, and she was very relaxed and probably did the best she ever has. 

When I am leading Aria, sometimes she nuzzles me as we walk along. She also appreciates scratches very much. Even Hero is liking the Haas brush, since it seems to be scratchy without being poky. They are halfway through shedding out, and rather itchy right now.


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> Honestly, I don't think horses always connect us with what we are doing to them.


The day I tried to follow the advice to "Get a bigger whip!" with Mia is still etched in my mind. She was afraid of something ahead and started backing up. I took a folded leather split rein - so a double strap 4 feet long - and started whipping her butt hard. She backed up faster and then even faster. She didn't actually _RUN_ backwards but she sure moved backwards fast! 

When she was about to go off trail into the cactus, I stopped. She stopped too. And as best I could tell, she said, "_Something bad is out there! I backed us away and it started hurting, but I got both of us safely away. Aren't I a good girl?!_" I don't think it ever occurred to her that I was the one hurting her. That was just too inconceivable for her to comprehend. Since that was impossible, it had to be the scary thing ahead that was somehow hurting her rump.

I whipped her hard. Deliberately. And she just didn't believe it. So...as far as she was concerned, it never happened. And it sure didn't happen again!


----------



## Knave

Someone whipped Bones once when I was riding him without asking me. I was seriously irritated, but I think I only said “please don’t do that.” It was at one of the water holes we come to on the second day of the drives out, and in a year they were full of water.

Bones is an emotional type of animal, to an extreme. I was trying to talk him into going into this water hole to get a cow out, and he was just a coming three year old. We hadn’t faced water, and he was uncomfortable about water naturally. Well, the loud woman came up behind me and started whipping him.

To this day, Bones has a panic attack about those water holes. It took years to get him anywhere near them, and I wouldn’t ever be able to force him into one. I can get him into other water, but he hates that water. He also hated that woman for years, and it took a good couple weeks to get him to calm down about life. If he heard her voice he was grabbing his butt, and he watched her riding always.

So, some horses hold a grudge. Bones gets over nothing. Cash is over things the minute they end. I’ve tried really hard to not make a mistake with Queen that was very big, because she would fall somewhere between them I think.


----------



## bsms

I suspect Trooper holds grudges. Bandit doesn't know what a grudge is. Mia assumed I was too wonderful to do anything bad. Cowboy has too checkered a past. I doubt he'll ever really trust anyone, although he seems to trust me as much as anyone. It is skin-deep, though.


----------



## gottatrot

I had a bad day, the kind where you question everything. Now I am telling myself it wasn't as bad as it felt at the time, and that I need to learn from it.

I joke that I don't learn until I do something wrong. I hope that isn't always true. A dog trainer told me that if my dog somehow sat every time I said "sit," he still wouldn't be trained to sit. He would only be trained after he did it wrong and I corrected him. She said the dog has to make the mistake to learn what is the right response.

What I learned today: If the horses are nuts, do nothing or something really simple. Lesson two: Do not involve DH or other inexperienced people with training. AT ALL. Lesson three: Don't overestimate people's skills with handling. I also decided that I need to put the work in to have the horses work separately, so I am not tempted to try stupid things.

What happened: Hero was very up and spooky. When we drove up, we saw him spook in the field. In hindsight, I also think Aria was in heat, because she was not herself.

After chores, I asked DH if he would go for a walk with the horses. I wanted to drive Aria. Harnessing up, she would not stand still. DH unintentionally was getting my nerves up because he worried over the horses not standing, about our schedule, about little things.

Very sweet of him to consider if Aria's forelock was pulling under the browband, or the harness was right. But I didn't stay calm hearing about his worries if I was putting boots on too fast or if it was OK to loop Hero's lead over the gate. It was distracting me when I needed to focus. Now I was not in a calm state, pretending everything was fine. With worked up horses.

I thought DH could lead Hero. I cannot ever let him do that. Very unsafe. He lasted about 5 seconds. Now I tried to drive Aria forward while holding Hero, who was completely distracted, and we were not sorting out well. Hero just lost it and I let him go, he ran a few feet and then grazed. DH was losing it, and felt it was all unsafe. Hero was zooming by, kicking out and such. I talked DH into standing nearby while I untacked to abort the mission, but then asked him to lead Aria back to the barn.

She was too much to handle, so I switched, giving him the tack to carry while I took the horses. Hero got smacked seriously a couple times just to keep him from barging off, and we walked back and put the horses in their field.

People say things they don't mean when they are upset. I was too emotional and decided it was true that I was too arrogant and reckless and had no business training horses. I felt terrible about ever having giving anyone advice. My own horses were a disaster.

I'm not saying this for reassurance or sympathy, but to help myself learn. I know sometimes I am far too cocky and also not the best trainer, just someone trying to work with horses that seem difficult to me, and that I believe would be difficult for some others. I believe I am basing that on objective things, but maybe I am deluding myself.

But I do need humbling. I was like, what am I doing? I am taking a horse that perhaps is not quite as wild as Wonder the TB was, but quite difficult. And involving a guy with only several tools in the toolbox for handling calm horses, and putting us all in a very bad situation.

The horses were not really affected. DH was upset and worried, and a lot of it was about my safety.
For a few moments I basically said if he weren't there I would have been fine, and said out loud that doing some of these things required a calm and confident state, implying I had lost that due to him.

Then I had to apologize a lot. That was unfair. It was my poor decision making that was at fault, and I am writing this to promise myself not to put an innocent bystander into that type of situation. As the leader, all I did was give myself another party which was two more than I could manage safely.

To myself: It is only profitable to work with horses when the conditions are right. Stop feeling pressure to "progress." Stop making a habit of trying to work with two horses at once. You're not that good. Your friends that do this are using a calm, well trained horse as the leader. They are not using a nut case while trying to teach a greenie.

Sorry that was long, but I needed to hear it.😊


----------



## egrogan

I’m glad it all ended with no one hurt and the horses safely back home. I find for myself, whenever I start to hear the voice in my head say “what’s wrong with you, you should be able to handle this,” what I _should _have done is not put myself or the horses in that position in the first place 😉 Sounds like you were able to take the space for reflection and do some mental planning about the right next steps. Fortunately today will be a new day.


----------



## Knave

They make shirts which say, “I’m sorry for what I said working cows.” There are several memes and reels about it, for people in my culture. I think working horses is similar.

Husband and I have talked about it, and the girls and I too. It’s like everyone’s anxiety is up. You are doing dangerous things, people have to work together smoothly and simultaneously, and in that state of emotion and anxiety and focus, it’s really easy to lose your cool. Then, a fight starts, and it’s as extreme as the moment that you were in called for.

It’s almost better your husband does not know what he’s doing. Imagine him also being highly confident in himself. It turns out brutal! Lol. After being together 19ish years, husband and I rarely have those moments anymore. We lived in those moments the first five or six years. We try to live with a rule now that only one person can be unreasonable at a time at work. Still it happens on occasion.

It sounds to me like the weather just had the horses up and it worked against you. Then it was dangerous, and you kept those natural emotions forefront (everyone does). Yet, being hard on yourself is more of a reflection of just how stressful it was. I would chalk it up to a bad day, and hope that I didn’t have another one for a long time. Lol

There are so many times I have been crying over a bad day on a horse. My husband is good to remind me that everyone has them. I don’t think that should make someone accept the Kenos of the world, or not learn from their mistakes, but it should make us let single bad days go.

I have to ride in bad weather, and I don’t love it. So, I try and compensate for it. With Queen that has been having Cash there to pony. I think Cash deserves a special spot for how good a colt starter he has been so young. He likes it! It definitely matured him. Hero though, maybe it’s not a job for him. Lol. You wouldn’t have known without trying though!


----------



## gottatrot

Such good words, @egrogan and @Knave. I don't know what I would do without my support people. So true, @Knave, I have always said I prefer my husband does not have enough knowledge for strong opinions about horses.


----------



## knightrider

So sorry you had a bad day. In reading your post, it didn't seem like you made all that many errors in judgement. You aborted when you figured out it wasn't going to work, nobody got hurt, and the horses didn't learn any bad habits. So, I think you did pretty good. You should re-read your horse training book. It was great and all top notch. You still have "it."


----------



## bsms

FWIW, I ride 100 times more often than my wife, but she still sometimes lectures me on how I _should_ ride....  After 14 years, she's just beginning to accept that maybe I have a reason for riding like I do.


----------



## Knave

Lol @bsms. Our last big work blow up was last fall when we all had Covid. I misunderstood husband when he told me what cows he wanted me to get, and he had to get off his mare to get these cows up high on a majorly steep mountain, and his Covid had his lungs screaming at him, and everyone was sick and cranky.

The footing was scary. There was a big drop off that I climbed in my confusion of what he wanted me to do. It was sketchy, and I was proud of Cash for climbing what I asked him to, because I didn’t think we could do it!

Apparently that was not what he wanted me to do. When he came off that mountain we were flat screaming at each other. Little girl started to cry, and my mother left for another mountain! Hahahahaha! I was so stinking mad at him, and he knew he was in the wrong, but both our adrenaline was so high and we both we so sick. Needless to say, I pulled the woman card and he ended up spending like a whole mile trying to apologize to me and make me get over myself.

Then we both had to apologize to little girl. I was mad at her for being so emotional about something she wasn’t a part of, but she leans towards being an emotional creature. In a way I was proud us fighting was so foreign to her though too. Glad she wasn’t there for those first 6 years in any way she could recall. Lol

Now we all laugh about that day last fall when Covid got the best of us. Husband knows he’s toting a fine line when he has something to say about my horsemanship or work, and I danged well know the same thing. I think we have a lot of similarities about the way we work and ride, and we both acknowledge the skills the other has that we lack. We are a good team for sure, but every marriage has those moments I think.


----------



## weeedlady

"Every marriage has those moments" Amen to that. Some more than others.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Yeah, don't be so hard on yourself @gottatrot ! My horses are acting up a bit too. Spring and hormones are in the air. Jesse seemed near impossible lately. I have been in the same position,trying to enlist the aid of my wife to help me with a horse lesson and when it went wrong there were hard feelings. No more. Thats one reason I work with my trainer lady. 

We all need to chip in and buy land ,build a horse community and then when someone needs help, one of us can just walk over and lend a hand! Lol


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> ...We all need to chip in and buy land ,build a horse community and then when someone needs help, one of us can just walk over and lend a hand! Lol


But somehow keep all the variety of trails around the country so we could ride on the beach, in the desert, through Vermont horse country, etc...yes! We just need portals so we can blip around to where we need to go. But I can imagine the threads..."I can't get my horse into the portal, help!" "Loading into portal questions..." "Should I tie my horse in the portal or leave him loose?" etc.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> We just need portals so we can blip around to where we need to go. But I can imagine the threads..."I can't get my horse into the portal, help!" "Loading into portal questions..." "Should I tie my horse in the portal or leave him loose?" etc.


And we need @SueC, who loved and wished for her tardis.📱


----------



## gottatrot

Yes, @knightrider, the tardis! 

It's so true that during stressful times, things can come out quite wrong. A pet peeve of mine is when people after a code blue complain that someone wasn't polite to them. Wha?!? In my opinion, if someone yells, "Just grab it!" because you were being fumble fingered or says "Move out of the way," because they need to get to a part of the patient in an emergency, there is no room for feeling offended. They teach us that we're all going to be calm and polite, but in real life some people lose it and run around flapping their hands in the air, and sometimes what they are told does not come off politely. 

















A couple nights ago, it was quite funny because nurses were panicking and running around, pushing the button for a code blue, and then yelling out "code gray" which means a violent person. It was quite confusing to figure out what was really going on (someone fainted), but when I arrived the person was very obviously not dead, so I was trying to figure out how they were being violent sitting on the floor. 

@Knave and I were talking about how horses can be a reflection of ourselves. I found this great Warwick Schiller video, and it matches what I believe. He said the horse doesn't necessarily show who we are exactly, but they tend to highlight areas that we need to work on more, to be more well rounded trainers. I really like that. Because as one person asked him, "If my horse is an a-hole, does that mean I am?" And I can relate to that, because if you thought Hero being a spazz was because I was, I believe you would be wrong. 

It's true...Hero can be a panicker, much more so when I first got him, and can be somewhat aggressive. I'm neither of those things. I thought if he became less that way, it would reflect my influence on him. Probably what is reflected more is when I am not thorough, or rush, or don't think things through, or don't push forward and advance with training, taking an easier way out. 






I took this training style quiz:
Horse Training Style Quiz by Warwick Schiller

It said my style was Analytical. Probably true.


----------



## Knave

Mine said collaborative, but I didn’t sign up for the email explanation. I think that’s a good word though for the way I ride.

I totally understand what you are saying about being rude! Things get hairy in my life a lot too, and things are said in a rude way. It isn’t intended to be rude, but it is just fact. Like you say. It’s more about stopping a wreck from coming, and a lot of what is said at work is that way.

Sometimes someone gets their panties in a twist. My girls understand that things are said in the moment because they need to be heard in that instance, and they are not usually said in a friendly way. On the occasions we see things differently, that is when the fighting starts. Lol

I am always blown away by the quiet crews. Husband and I have tried to take away something we learned at a funeral of a friend of recently. Maybe because our crew is small, everything is high anxiety. This cow boss was talking about how he trained his cowboys. He said he let them make bad decisions, and they learned from the consequences of those decisions. He did not help them clean them up, but they became better cowboys from seeing the results of those actions.

Maybe it can be that way when there is a cowboss and not an owner. They don’t have as much at stake. I grew up working on another ranch on my days off of this one, and we were able to learn in that style. We sewed up prolapsed uteruses on our own as teenagers, and we figured it out. If one of those cows died, it wasn’t really effecting the cowboss. He valued our education more than the cow. One killed cow would mean many saved later in our lives.

I wasn’t there to learn cesareans, and really regretted having my own job that day! Today I wouldn’t try one unless something died, because I think you have four minutes. We were young teens, pulling calves and doing surgeries with no supervision. I really value that time I had.

Here everything is meticulous, and every cow has a value. This I also appreciate, but without that experience elsewhere, I wouldn’t know what I do now, because my father would have supervised everything and yelled at everything. Lol. My husband and I fall more into that category, not allowing mistakes to be made in the first place.

We have been working on toning down that in ourselves. We are allowing mistakes to be made and corrected by our girls, without our help. Yet, we’re doing it in a middle ground. Anything that will result in a life or death situation, we correct and manage. If they are going to get beat in a pasture by a cow, we don’t yell this year. We watch them learn and correct it.


----------



## bsms

When danger is involved, getting it right is critical. You don't have time for politeness. And when you've worked long hours and need to get X done and someone isn't helping...yeah. Most of my military career was flying in fighter squadrons. People died doing that, even when getting everything right - let alone if one made a mistake! Tempers would flare and you were drilled - by example and necessity - to do whatever it took. Immediately. In a fighter squadron, typically with cussing.

Near the end of my career, I moved into a paperwork job surrounded by people who spent most of their time doing paperwork. And I did NOT fit in! I had no problems tearing someone a new butthole if I felt it was needed, with language George Patton would have been comfortable with. And...people would take offense! *Weird.*

And now? If my horse spooks, or I have a day like I had when Mia's saddle slipped all the way over onto her side and I needed to jump off, I instinctively revert to cussing and taking charge. Bandit would have fit in a fighter squadron just fine, so our only problem is we're BOTH cussing and trying to take charge! Fortunately, I was doing that before Bandit's sire was foaled, so I hold the edge. And we both understand each other. We can then revert to easy cooperation with no hard feelings.

Trooper is more like the paper-pushing weenies in a tough spot: He wants someone else to take charge but then gets the vapors after they use harsh language! You can darn near see him fanning himself and saying (in a fake English accent), "_Oh my! Such language! You awful brute..._"


----------



## Knave

@bsms cowboy culture is the same. Lots of swearing… Bones is like Trooper. Cash is like Bandit, Queen would be one who might pull a gun, and Zeus is just that person who waits for your temper tantrum to end and then does what he wanted in the first place.


----------



## gottatrot

Hero is like Zeus. If you "correct" him, you can see he is just waiting until you are done. He sees it as a mere delay in his plan. People say stubborn, hard-headed, etc. If I want to be positive, I could say "determined." Probably the most accurate would be "incorrigible."


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> Hero is like Zeus. If you "correct" him, you can see he is just waiting until you are done. He sees it as a mere delay in his plan. People say stubborn, hard-headed, etc. If I want to be positive, I could say "determined." Probably the most accurate would be "incorrigible."


This is Isabeau. Her favorite quote is, "Leave me alone. I got this."


----------



## TrainedByMares

Knave said:


> @bsms cowboy culture is the same. Lots of swearing… Bones is like Trooper. Cash is like Bandit, Queen would be one who might pull a gun, and Zeus is just that person who waits for your temper tantrum to end and then does what he wanted in the first place.


Lately I've been really aware of cussing...my own especially. I was working on going a week without swearing until yesterday when I rode Jesse! Lol


----------



## egrogan

Even us desk jockeys can cuss like sailors 😉 I spent about 10 years at a company where most people I worked with were old school New Yorkers. My favorite email chain I was ever part of was between the CEO of our company and a prominent policy wonk in our field- they were having a heated disagreement about a policy topic, which concluded with policy guy saying, "If I didn't know better Mr. CEO, I would think that your last reply was the equivalent of telling me F-u and the horse you rode in on." I still have that saved somewhere 🤣 There were no hard feelings.

Then I moved to a company with a bunch of pearl clutching southerns who said things like "Shoot" and "Dang It." Southerners make me nervous, because you can't ever tell what's a performance and what's real. I know people don't like Northerners because we're "cold" but I think that's just coming from people who don't understand directness.


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> Mine said collaborative, but I didn’t sign up for the email explanation.


I just took the quiz, and like @Knave, I did not sign up for the explanation. Mine said analytical. About my horse being like my personality--not at all for me. I've had a bunch of horses over the years and they are completely different in personality. I never buy a horse unless my sixth sense tells me, "This is the horse you HAVE to have. If you don't get it, you will always regret it." They were all very different, but they've all been wonderful for me. I sometimes look at 12 or more horses before that "click" comes.

Canela was my first horse as a child. My mother called her my nursemaid. She looked after me completely in all my stupidity and risk taking.

Then came Apache, who was a wild and free spirit. He threw me about once a month, went galloping away, then galloped back to me when I called him. He was so so contrary, at horse shows, he would always take the wrong lead, both ways of the ring--not in practice, just in shows. He was contrary in a hundred ways, full of spice and pep and fun, laughing at me and with me. I could ride him, hands out, bareback and bridleless over a 3 foot course of jumps, turning just by the movement of my body. I loved him with every fiber of my being.

Then came Cyclone, a ditzy half thoroughbred, super high strung, hot, super talented, super fun to ride. He was so high strung, if a strange horse rode by his pasture, he wouldn't eat his dinner that night, still worked up over that strange horse.

Then came Magic, a complete steady eddy. She wasn't a beautiful mover, but I could trust her to take every fence just right, every lead correct. From being a young person who was excited just to win a ribbon, she won me championships in hunter over fences, equitation, and English pleasure, all in the same show. She also was a decent barrel racing horse and won there also. She earned me a belt buckle in versatility.

Then I got Shadow, who was quirky as all get out. She would have been great at dressage, but I gave that up to do professional theatrical joust. I never knew how she would perform from one show to the next. She was kind of hot and crazy but a ton of fun to ride.

I won't tell about any more but you can see how different they all were, but all perfect horses for me and I loved each of them with all my heart. By the way, the only one I sold was Canela, the first one. My parents made me. I cried my eyes out. I keep them until they die.


----------



## Knave

I haven’t been around many southerners @egrogan. There is a woman though, and she’s always saying sweet things, and it always feels very fake to me. Like it makes me feel icky and uncomfortable, and I feel like an awful person for thinking that. I do think she’s a good person, but it feels very fake.

@TrainedByMares good for you for trying!!


----------



## bsms

Mia and Bandit have very different personalities. 7 years with both, sequentially. Don't think my personality drove either one, although I suspect my philosophy of riding would affect how the horses respond. And I don't admire cussing...but I've sure done a lot! I _do_ like people who bring intensity to their work. That was what really drove me nuts when I became a desk jockey - people doing just enough to get by instead of trying to excel.

Lots of show or competitive riders would say I have low standards in riding but they're wrong. I don't value a horse who obeys my every whim, but I try hard to ride well. I just view riding well as being more about mental and emotional connection than position and obedience.


----------



## Knave

I used to cuss as bad as anyone you could imagine when I was young. I was bad, and one of those types that just uses a swear word in every sentence. Lol. So, my oldest turned two, dropped something, and said “well ****,” clear as day. I decided I wouldn’t cuss, and I yelled at my husband and aunt who was recently divorced and living with us.

Neither of them really watched their language, but I went years without a swear word, and my girls never cussed. Then, I was substitute teaching a class of older high school kids. One let out an uncommon swear word, and I told her not to use that word in my class, or to at least speak it in Spanish because that was the class we were in. A little Spanish speaking girl I called Princess didn’t know what the word meant, and she kept asking me. I told her it would be inappropriate for me to explain, and to please ask a friend after class or think about it long enough to figure it out herself.

Now, I thought it all funny enough, and the original swearer looks across the room with wide eyes. There is a third girl, and this one is having a full on nervous breakdown because she heard a swear word, that I guarantee she did not know the meaning of. She is in the fetal position and rocking back and forth, and I was irritated bad. I ignored her. I wanted to send her to the principal’s office for being a disruption to be honest.

So, I went home and had a family meeting with my girls. I remembered my father telling me when his dad did it with them. I told them every swear word I could think of and defined them, and then I said I’d better never hear them saying them.

Now my girls are big obviously. The oldest has a mouth, and the youngest simply doesn’t swear, unless maybe she were really upset. I swear again, but I don’t use the f word almost ever. I like how when I do, every couple years, everyone’s jaw drops and they listen to what I am saying and know I’m serious. Lol. I’ll be super mad other times and still only say f that. Lol


----------



## egrogan

I obviously don't have kids, so who knows what I would really do if I were a parent navigating those lines that aren't supposed to be crossed. But I am puzzled by a cultural prohibition on words, given that the words in question are primarily about the human body and sexuality. I would rather take an open, biological, clinical approach with kids to explain those terms. Not hide them or act scared of them, which only increases the "wow" factor when you hear or say them. I think I would take a much harder line on racial slurs or intellectual putdowns like "re---d." Because those words are designed to demean and make other people feel less than, far more than a body part!

When I taught 3rd grade, there was some sort of yelling happening in the back of the room, and the only snippet I caught was a girl saying to the boy she was mad at- "Yeah? Well your dad f's your mama's p---y every night." That certainly did have a special zing to it! But I don't think they really understood the concepts, just that those words were impactful and shocking. I was too young and new to teaching at the time to make that a teachable moment, but I would handle it differently now.


----------



## Knave

That’s funny @egrogan! Swear words never bothered me all that much, obviously. I realized, watching the over dramatic girl that I never wanted that to be my kid. Nope. I laugh when my girls are like Princess, and they get a text or something and ask me what it means. Sometimes I have to think about it.

My oldest is funny, because she likes to act like she knows what everything means. So, she will come up with the dirtiest translation of something, and I am like “how do I still parent a jr high boy? No sis, that is not what that means. Did you really think that?” Lol. The youngest is such a prude, and yet she will tip you over with a “that’s what she said,” or something dirty randomly. It is killer funny.

I was pretty young when I was substituting that class. I tried to get the original swearer to explain the word to princess after class, but she was too cool to be caught talking to her. High schoolers are so weird; there was nothing uncool about Princess. She was beautiful and kind, but I guess she did have a cultural difference. Because I was young, and I felt I was toting a line of being professional, I didn’t tell her the meaning of the word. If it were today, I would tell her. It’s so weird right now though, what one can and can not say. Everything is overthought.


----------



## Knave

I am with you though too @egrogan. We don’t use racial slurs. Now, yes, I say Indian referring to Natives, but I am friends with many and that is what we say. I’m sure there are some who would be offended. Yet, I feel that there are words that are not okay to say, and we do not say them. I would not let it fly in my house.

Husband used to use words like that, as it is common here, but he knows I don’t like it so we don’t. We may say the word you explained, but only in regards to ourselves.

I am not a person who falls into the current cultural bandwagon of everything being racist or anything like that, but I have never appreciated words that are meant to be derogatory. It had always made my skin crawl.


----------



## bsms

My grandparents on my mom's side had a strange marriage. The 8 kids ended up all adoring their mom and despising their dad. Their mom NEVER cussed. Sometime during the 1930s, their dad brought home a KKK uniform and said he was joining the KKK. Their mom reared back, stretched to her full 4'10" height, and said, "_The day you put that [expletive] thing on, I take the kids and leave and you will never see us again!_" The expletive used sounds like a 3 letter word that might follow "Hoover".

But...their MOM said it! For decades after, the kids would tell how everyone stopped everything in shocked silence. Not just at the threat, but at the word she said to emphasize it. And everyone realized how deeply sincere her threat was. Their dad never put it on and never went to a meeting. He was too lazy to work and the farm would have fallen apart if she left because she ran it with the kids.

I think there is something to be said for that approach. I certainly haven't _followed_ it, but I respect it. My grandparents on that side died before I was born so I never met either of them. But none of my aunts or uncles ever said a bad word about their mom or a good one about their dad. And while all of them would cuss once in a while, it was rare.


----------



## gottatrot

I didn't sign up for the explanation on the training quiz either. I was just basically curious.

@knightrider, I like your thoughts about how all your horses were so different. It wasn't that you made them who they were. I think it can be the same when you're married for a long time. It can change us some, because being with the other person shapes us over time. But we still have strong personalities. My husband might be a little more mellow because of my influence since we've been together over 20 years, but he is a fiery, reactive type. I can't really "train" that out of him, LOL. 

A coworker told me that when a southern person says "Well, bless your heart," it is no different than an expletive and an insult. 

I've always found it amusing when people use swear words with their proper meaning. I've met some very old people who use those words in context and very mildly, and I'm so used to hearing the words used as expletives that I forget that they actually mean things. "Excuse me, I would like to get up and go ****," I've also met people who have English as their second language, and they sometimes will use the words very politely and as part of a normal conversation. I guess they asked what the words meant, and then added them into their vocabulary.

Swearing does not offend me. People tend to swear less around me because they notice that I do not swear. It seems to hold people back. DH has a colorful vocabulary. His family tended to punctuate everything with cursing as a dramatic flair. 

I've had to explain to friends that they can say what they wish and it won't bother me. But in my family no one swears at all. The habit was engrained deeply into me, and I have difficulty breaking it. My grandparents were very strict Swedish traditionalists, and they were close with us. We saw them most days when I was growing up. My grandma would probably have literally had a heart attack if she heard a swear word. She thought "bull" and "testosterone" were foul words. She grew up on a farm in Iowa, so I asked her what they called the male cows. She said "Mr. B." 

When something unexpected happens, curse words rarely pop into my head. Sometimes I can come up with something soon afterward. I'll think, "Gaaa!" or something like that. DH has been curious about it, because for him it would require thought not to swear. For me it requires thought to swear, because it was not part of my basic language even when I was a teen.


----------



## Txshecat0423

@gottatrot, as a native Southerner (and a Texan at that!) I can confirm that “Well, bless your heart” does indeed have a much darker meaning [emoji2959][emoji2959]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Knave

Okay, question then: the woman I was talking about is a pastor’s wife. She always tells me “well bless your heart.” I am talking every time I see her. So, are you saying it doesn’t just feel bad, but it is bad?!


----------



## Txshecat0423

@Knave, I only know it’s evil in my own circle…LOL! She may be perfectly sincere in her blessing of your heart. According to Bless Your Heart 101, it depends a lot on the tone used by the speaker. It can range from sincere and empathetic to sassy and sarcastic (which is usually my version [emoji1787][emoji1787]).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Knave

@Txshecat0423 I have to say the tone is always very sincere. She also is the type to always call you pet names and touch and be very close. I am just not used to it, and I feel like a terrible person for finding a dislike in it. The other old school southern (once upon a time) woman I know is much more Scarlet O’hera. She is blunt and tough, and I danged well know when she says things in a condescending manner that she means it exactly how it comes across. Lol. To be honest, I really have a fondness and a kind of respect for her.


----------



## egrogan

I can say with certainty that if it’s coming from my Southern in laws or their church friends, it’s definitely evil 😆


----------



## knightrider

That's funny. I grew up in Maryland, which is considered Southern or Northern, however you want to think it, and lived in Texas and Florida. I've heard "bless your heart" all my life, and rarely heard it used negatively. I say it myself quite a lot when someone is telling me their woes, and I am sympathizing with them.

Southern hospitality is real and so is Southern courtesy. All the children around here in the rural south are taught to say, "Yes, ma'am" and "Yes, sir."

My former in-laws used to say, "God love you," which I thought was so sweet--they were from NJ. 

When driving into Baltimore, there was a big billboard that used to say, "Welcome to Baltimore, Hon." Store clerks and people in service businesses often call clients "Sweetheart" and "Hon". I find it endearing.

Welcome to Baltimore, Hon! – Language in Baltimore (baltimorelanguage.com)


----------



## gottatrot

Oh yes, nurses that move here from the south really struggle because of Sir and Ma'am. For some odd reason, in the Pacific NW it is generally considered insulting if people call you Sir or Ma'am. What is polite in the south is seen here as being unfriendly, or intentionally distancing yourself from someone. If you say "Sir," you are often implying the person has stepped out of line or is losing control. The words are often used in a sarcastic manner as well. So when the nurses come in and can't help saying "Ma'am," I often hear the patient in the room saying, "Don't you Ma'am me! Get out!" 

We went to a restaurant in the south once, and my husband was called more terms of endearment from the waitress than he has ever heard from me! Sweetie, darling, dear, baby, love, hon, babycakes, I could not believe how many different ones just came flowing out of her. I personally have not ever called him babycakes. 

I went to the barn alone today, the weather was great, the horses were mellow, and we worked on many things. Everything went splendidly and I rode both horses. I took some photos, and then realized...I have always struggled with getting hackamores on headstalls right, and after two rides where Hero did very well in his baroque hackamore, I see it is put together very incorrectly. I already had put it on once with the curve the other way around, and "fixed" it. For some reason I am a moron when it comes to figuring out how they go!! 

Here is how it is supposed to go, as modeled by Bandit.








And here is how Hero has been wearing his: I put the cheekpiece slot on the noseband. Brilliant. 








He was a little tired by our ride because I took Aria out for a walk to practice separation. He was in a field between five other horses, all of which he knows. Yet he ran and hollered and bucked while we were gone. Aria was calm and ate grass wherever I let her, and only gave him one very weak reply. 

Aria tried out her new saddle pad.









Hero sleeping before his ride.


----------



## gottatrot

Obviously I like color, and I tried out these blue stirrup leathers on Hero's saddle today. Two Horse Tack has some great colored Biothane tack. He has a new royal blue headstall for his hackamore too, Australian style. But I had to take it home and put a couple extra holes in it.









A storm was rolling in tonight, and the winds were starting to pick up. For a long time I was trying to squeeze training and riding in on days when I was working and had all the chores to do. Now I've started going out extra just to ride and train, and that is so much nicer. 

Today the new thing with Aria was that after I drove her up and down the road a bit, I left her harness on and took out the new contraption I made with two bamboo shafts attached with a crosspiece, and a handle. I put the shafts into the tugs, and then just had her stand while I moved the shafts back and forth, pressing against her sides. That did not bother her at all. Next time I will try doing a little driving with the contraption in place. It's very light to hold, since it's made of bamboo. My friend made hers of PVC, but we already had bamboo poles in our garage that had been used as garden stakes.

After driving, I left Hero in the field and walked Aria down the road, then got on and rode her back. I figured that would be easy even with the winds going, and she did great. We went in several directions, and once when she didn't want to go forward I got off, led her a ways, and then rode her back to her field. 

By the time we were done it was getting really windy, so it was just a short ride on Hero, ponying Aria behind. We just went around the property and arena since I figured Hero would be very spooky with the winds. He did spook a couple times. It was nice that I had time to graze them when we were done.

Everyone talks about Haas brushes, and I got a cheaper one recently, it was $11, just for curiosity's sake. I thought maybe such a cheap one would just be like a regular brush. 








The horses _love_ it though! For some reason it is just more comfortable than all the other brushes I have. Aria left her hay tonight and stood for a long time while I rubbed it in both directions underneath her belly, at the base of her mane, on her chest, etc. They like it on their face, and it somehow is both soft and scratchy. 

Abbey said to tell you all "hi."


----------



## egrogan

Love that shade of blue!


----------



## knightrider

Abby has got to be the cutest hamster EVER!!!


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> Abby has got to be the cutest hamster EVER!!!


 I'm glad I listened to your recommendation. She is a great pet. It feels like having a little zoo animal, watching her do her behaviors in her enclosure at night. I give her stalks of seeds to forage and she knows how to strip the seeds out with her teeth.


----------



## gottatrot

I have to share this story here because I tried to tell DH but it was too gory and he didn't want to get depressed. LOL. He doesn't like to hear stories about animals getting hurt. 

This photo was Hero looking at a deer curled up sleeping under the trees. They are so tame they don't get up and we ride around them. 








But the deer got up a minute after this, because all of a sudden forty crows came swooping out of the sky just a few feet away. They were yelling, that's the only way I can describe it. I told Hero, "Something is wrong," and then something with four wings came plummeting out of the sky. It sounded like a crowpocalypse,

A hawk that was barely bigger than a crow had apparently decided to attack one, and was killing it in front of all the others. They were swooping around, and by the time I jumped off Hero and ran over there, the hawk was standing on top of his victim and it was flailing its wings. The crows were screaming, but seemed helpless. I chased the hawk away, but the crow immediately died. When the crows saw their friend was dead, they became subdued and all flew back up into the trees. They seemed to be talking about it, but weren't screaming anymore.

I decided they really just wanted justice, because it seemed to satisfy them that I chased the hawk, and they accepted their friend was dead. Of course the hawk came back and started eating the crow a few minutes later, and no one protested that since he was already dead. 

I was imagining being in a crowd with 40 people, and a terrorist just comes in and starts killing a person, but everyone is helpless and can only scream and watch. The hawk was very brazen, apparently he knew even 40 crows couldn't stop him. Why couldn't they all gang up on one bird? 
Nature is pretty cruel sometimes. I was shocked for a few minutes. 

I'm not saying the hawk is bad and the crows are good, but I think from the crows' perspective it was that way. They might have been mobbing the crow for being in their territory, causing him to lose his temper, or it might have been trying to attack their young. Today I was on the side of the crows.

Hero was wearing his new Australian style headstall with the hackamore, which worked very well when put on correctly also. I have a blue noseband coming for it also, from Two Horse tack. 








You may have noticed I've been buying tack. Well, my work is very short staffed. Currently we only have two nurses and one on call nurse to work all the night shifts in a week. The hospitals have stopped paying the astronomical Covid pay to travelers, so many are going back to more permanent jobs. So they've been talking me into some extra hours most weeks lately, for double time. My policy is that working extra is not something to do for bills, but only to fund things like vacation or fun. So...buying horse stuff.


----------



## knightrider

That's odd that the crows do not attack hawks, because they do attack owls. I learned this interesting fact from loving the children's books series about owls _The Guardians of Ga'Hoole _by Kathryn Lasky. I think that is why a group of crows is called a murder of crows.

From Wikipedia:
So, do crows attack owls? The short answer is *absolutely yes*. A murder of angry crows can attack, harass, peck, mob, and even kill an owl if the owl mistakenly comes out before sunset, and the flock of crows spots it. Diurnal crows cannot tolerate nocturnal owls during the day.

If you have never read any of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole books, they are fantastic.
Guardians of Ga’Hoole: Book Series by Kathryn Lasky


----------



## weeedlady

I've see crows attack a hawk and run it off. They seemed to be enjoying it, as if it was a game. Maybe that is the difference. 
Hero looks very good in blue.


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> If you have never read any of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole books, they are fantastic.
> Guardians of Ga’Hoole: Book Series by Kathryn Lasky


I love those books too.



weeedlady said:


> I've see crows attack a hawk and run it off. They seemed to be enjoying it, as if it was a game. Maybe that is the difference.
> Hero looks very good in blue.


Thanks! I think it helps with his plain coloring.

It was funny, I tripped over a tree root and fell down right in front of Aria when I was walking her. Then I cringed, because if it was Hero he would have walked over the top of me. But she stopped dead, and then a little nose came down to see what I was doing.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Birds are interesting. I always root for the hawks over the crows because the hawks are always outnumbered and the crows sometimes spook the horses with their noises. 

We have black vultures in this region and they will attack fawns,sheep and calves. I was out in one of our fields last fall when one circled me for a better look. I stopped and faced him which typically would cause most birds to move farther away but he kept the same distance. I raised my arms and made threatening noises while continuing to lock my gaze on him. To my surprise,he swooped in closer as if to taunt or threaten me!


----------



## Knave

We don’t have real crows, but call ravens crows. I doubt a hawk would take one on, mostly because I’ve never seen it. I see little birds tormenting hawks sometimes.

I really like birds. All of them make me happy. Husband gets mad at hawks when they are in the yard, because he’s convinced they’ll kill the chickens, but I’ve yet to see them pay much attention to a chicken. Our rooster is pretty little, just a silky, so I figure if they cared much for my chickens we’d already have lost one to a hawk over the years. I’ve not seen it yet. Maybe they leave them alone because of the dogs.

I am the only one around with a fondness for the ravens. When I was a teenager I had one for a pet. He was free in the yard, and he flew onto my saddle horn to ride with me and just was the funnest pet. He was a terrible thief though, and that made people mad. Someone must have shot him one day, because he was just gone.


----------



## bsms

We returned home from church one Sunday and a Ferruginous Hawk had somehow managed to get hold of my wife's favorite hen. How the hen got out or the hawk got in remains a mystery, but the hawk had taken her as far as the drive and I think was trying to tear her into pieces small enough to fly away with. I stopped the car and The Wife ran to try to save the hen. The hawk was having none of it, spreading its wings (up to 5' wide, average 4.5') and making it clear this was _*its*_ prey.

Then The Wife kicked the hawk in the face, knocking it over. The hawk lost its grip and, facing an immediate follow-on attack by the two-legged hawkicidal maniac...took wing. The Wife wasn't quite able to grab it before it made its aerial escape. I'm not sure what would have happened if she had, other than I'd place money on The Angry Wife!






Unfortunately, the hen was dead. Badly mutilated and dead. We never did figure out how the hawk and hen managed to meet - no holes in the coop that we found. A couple of years later we gave up having chickens because the hawks, owls and coyotes were such good and aggressive predators, even with the coop in our inner backyard near the house. The owls were the worst, or best, in terms of predation, depending on how you look at things. I think the hawks and owls are spectacular, but I'll admit that little white hen had tons of personality.


----------



## Knave

I love that image @bsms, although I’m sorry the hen died.

Our problem has been more with dogs than anything else. If a coyote comes he steals a chicken a day until we get him killed, but if a dog comes he kills everything. We’ve lost many chickens to dogs over the years. I have to admit sometimes it’s been our own dog. Jemma, our old yellow lab we lost last year, killed a couple chickens. She was one who ended up having to be beaten with a dead chicken to give it up.

Neighbor dogs have been the worst. When we were first married I had this group of chickens I loved. I don’t know why, but I was very attached to them, and they each had super cool personalities. One was a swimmer! Anyways, the poor neighbors were charged with watching them while we were gone one weekend. Their old dog killed every chicken except for these three black ones I didn’t care for. They felt so awful, because they had seen how overly attached to those animals I was.

Before that coyote finally got the goose killed last year, he was the king of protecting the yard. I’d seen him torn to shreds from fighting a dog, and he managed to win! That thing was insanely tough and protective. I couldn’t believe he was finally outmatched. That coyote started killing off everything one by one after he got that goose, but we finally shot him.


----------



## egrogan

The first chicken we ever lost was to a hawk. It was in the middle of the winter, lots of snow on the ground, and the hawk had carried her down the back hill leaving quite a dramatic bloody streak through the snow. That's when my dreams of "natural" chickenkeeping went out the window, realizing I'd lose them all pretty quickly if we didn't keep them penned up.



TrainedByMares said:


> We have black vultures in this region and they will attack fawns,sheep and calves. I was out in one of our fields last fall when one circled me for a better look. I stopped and faced him which typically would cause most birds to move farther away but he kept the same distance. I raised my arms and made threatening noises while continuing to lock my gaze on him. To my surprise,he swooped in closer as if to taunt or threaten me!


I didn't think we had vultures (buzzards?) here, but just last week Hugh and I had a similar experience with what I think was a group of vultures. We were walking down one of our logging roads and saw a huge black bird glide in for a landing a ways off the trail. I looked over and there was a whole group of them, maybe 6 or 7? I assumed they were on something dead but I couldn't see what it was through the brush. I got Hugh leashed because I didn't want him diving into a rotting carcass, but the birds still saw us and took back to the sky. We probably walked a half mile or so down the trail with them circling around above us, low enough you could see the detail in their feathers. It was a very clear, sunny day, so they made these really cool shadows passing over the top of us, almost like a plane. Never experienced anything like that before.

Edited to add:
-A flying group of vultures is called a "kettle of vultures"
-A group of vultures feeding on something is called a "wake of vultures"








A Skulk of Foxes, A Bevy of Quail


Learn the collective nouns for the animals The Nature Conservancy works to protect in California.




www.nature.org


----------



## gottatrot

I love birds too, @Knave. Maybe the most interesting bird I've ever seen is a cassowary. They make a scary drumming sound, and have been known to kill people. We saw them in the zoo in Australia. The giant pelicans they have over there are very amazing too.









We have lots of bald eagles here, and I've had a few experiences with them. Once I was walking my dog on some railroad tracks along the river, and one swooped down right over my Dalmatian. I've never seen a dog flatten like that, all spread eagled (LOL). The eagle's wingspan was much bigger than my dog. 

Another time I was walking my Papillon on the beach, and I was watching the sky for eagles. If I saw any I would put him on a leash. He was running loose in front of me, and when I finally looked ahead, I saw one standing on the beach just a few feet in front of my dog! I didn't know if an eagle would do a grab and carry from the ground, but I panicked and ran for my dog. 

They are king when it comes to carrion on the beach, and there might be six or seven turkey vultures on a dead seal, but they all leave when the eagle comes in. 

I helped my sister make a large, completely covered pen for her chickens to keep them safe. She had some problems with a mink, however. Her barn was not completely sealed off, and it was stealing her chicken eggs. But worse, one morning she found a row of her quail with their heads taken off. The mink pulled the heads through the bars and killed them that way. She fixed the problem by spraying foam in all the cracks in the barn. There are tons of mink in that area because years ago there used to be a couple of mink farms, and PETA came through and set all the mink loose, wreaking havoc on the rest of the wildlife in the area.


----------



## Knave

Wow! Mink don’t exist here. The dogs keep most things from the yard. There aren’t many rabbits or squirrels this year though, so the coyotes have been desperate. They won’t come when the dogs are loose in the yard though.

I remember running after an eagle on Bones when he was hunting my little dog Hobo! I was cussing that thing. Lol. We have some bald eagles, but more goldens.

That bird is neat!


----------



## gottatrot

Here are photos of a cassowary, and also an emu and pelicans at the beach.


----------



## gottatrot




----------



## gottatrot

Aria made some training progress today. I drove her in harness for a few minutes while holding the bamboo shaft contraption behind her. She did very well with it, and turned all the way around while pushing against the poles several times. 

After the horses were turned out for a while, I brought them back up and put Hero in their field. Then I walked Aria down the road about a quarter mile, then rode her back and then went up and down the road near the field where Hero was. I've been working more on separating them, and today Hero did not protest at all when Aria left. That helped her stay really calm. She walked out very nicely, and didn't try to run for home. It was the farthest she'd been out alone and riding so far.

The secret with Hero was that I put the dinner hay out, and he went into Aria's shelter and was eating her hay while she was gone. That made him feel like he was being sneaky and bad, and so he stayed quiet. 

Then I took both horses for a walk down the road, in a new direction. This was the second time in a row that I took Aria somewhere she hadn't been before, pushing out her horizons. She gets a little nervous in new territory, but I can tell she also has a side that wants to explore. We went past some cows, and Hero did the best he ever has. On the way out when we passed them he got a little excited, but on the way back he walked calmly. I was very proud of him.

The vet is supposed to be coming next month to do the horse dentals (the city vet comes to our area once a month). I'm going to have her do a good lameness eval on Hero to see what she thinks about his current functioning. He walked out very well today.


----------



## TrainedByMares

gottatrot said:


> Aria made some training progress today. I drove her in harness for a few minutes while holding the bamboo shaft contraption behind her. She did very well with it, and turned all the way around while pushing against the poles several times.
> 
> After the horses were turned out for a while, I brought them back up and put Hero in their field. Then I walked Aria down the road about a quarter mile, then rode her back and then went up and down the road near the field where Hero was. I've been working more on separating them, and today Hero did not protest at all when Aria left. That helped her stay really calm. She walked out very nicely, and didn't try to run for home. It was the farthest she'd been out alone and riding so far.
> 
> The secret with Hero was that I put the dinner hay out, and he went into Aria's shelter and was eating her hay while she was gone. That made him feel like he was being sneaky and bad, and so he stayed quiet.
> 
> Then I took both horses for a walk down the road, in a new direction. This was the second time in a row that I took Aria somewhere she hadn't been before, pushing out her horizons. She gets a little nervous in new territory, but I can tell she also has a side that wants to explore. We went past some cows, and Hero did the best he ever has. On the way out when we passed them he got a little excited, but on the way back he walked calmly. I was very proud of him.
> 
> The vet is supposed to be coming next month to do the horse dentals (the city vet comes to our area once a month). I'm going to have her do a good lameness eval on Hero to see what she thinks about his current functioning. He walked out very well today.


I have noticed that hungry horses are too preoccupied with eating to be fussy about another horse leaving!
I try to take advantage of that when I can. 
Do you exaggerate the motion or touching of the poles or will you in the future?


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> I have noticed that hungry horses are too preoccupied with eating to be fussy about another horse leaving!
> I try to take advantage of that when I can.
> Do you exaggerate the motion or touching of the poles or will you in the future?


Since Aria tolerated the poles very well, I really exaggerated the movement. I pulled on the harness tugs pretty hard. I also pushed her body from side to side, pressing with the poles. She just stepped over and it didn't seem to bother her.


----------



## TrainedByMares

gottatrot said:


> Since Aria tolerated the poles very well, I really exaggerated the movement. I pulled on the harness tugs pretty hard. I also pushed her body from side to side, pressing with the poles. She just stepped over and it didn't seem to bother her.


That was a really dumb question that I asked. Of course you do. I read your book. You know what you're doing and how to do it.

That was a motivational question that I asked because of Aria's success with the contraption and I wanted you to do more. That's the frame of mind I'm in right now and I was like 'okay, let's rattle her cage a bit,rattle the contraption ,pop an umbrella open,let's push her a little bit'. 

So ,I am thinking about training Aria! Maybe this HoFo thing is getting too deep! Lol!


----------



## Knave

I think we all do that @TrainedByMares! Lol. We have to to be learners. We imagine ourselves in the same situation and our responses.

I was thinking as I read it, that I am glad we trained Zeus to the cart, but that I probably wouldn’t do that again. Zeus is easy because he thinks differently than any horse I’ve ever met. I feel like the skill for starting work animals has been lost with the old generations. I know that’s not true, but every old guy I asked about how to get Cash broke to work said “well, you hook them to an old mare.” There are no old mares to start work horses!

I just think about how dangerous it feels to me. I wonder if to other people who have only worked horses and not ridden them, if they feel the same fear riding I do driving.


----------



## Knave

Maybe it’s because of the accident I was in. Maybe it’s because of all the horror stories I’ve heard from the old generation. This fear of it is real to me though.

I have some friends who rigged up a very safe contraption for horses to pull. Safe for the handler and not the horse, but I guess if you put a lot of time into the horse and hoped you had him ready you could hook him up to it and feel like you wouldn’t die.

It’s a skill I regret not having. If an emp was deployed and we had to break horses for work, I’m sure we’d get it done, but I wish it had stayed common. When I was a kid several ranches still used teams to feed, but we didn’t. Now I only see the rare place that does it. When we worked at a different ranch, first married, they still had an old team, but they were long retired.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Knave said:


> Maybe it’s because of the accident I was in. Maybe it’s because of all the horror stories I’ve heard from the old generation. This fear of it is real to me though.
> 
> I have some friends who rigged up a very safe contraption for horses to pull. Safe for the handler and not the horse, but I guess if you put a lot of time into the horse and hoped you had him ready you could hook him up to it and feel like you wouldn’t die.
> 
> It’s a skill I regret not having. If an emp was deployed and we had to break horses for work, I’m sure we’d get it done, but I wish it had stayed common. When I was a kid several ranches still used teams to feed, but we didn’t. Now I only see the rare place that does it. When we worked at a different ranch, first married, they still had an old team, but they were long retired.


"If an emp was deployed" lol thanks @Knave now I've got that to think about too! 

The amish around here work with horses in the fields and woods and of course have buggies. Occasionally, someone gets killed when a horse spooks but training to drive is alive and well,in this area anyhow.


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> I just think about how dangerous it feels to me. I wonder if to other people who have only worked horses and not ridden them, if they feel the same fear riding I do driving.


When I first started driving, I believe I rather enjoyed the feeling of it being a little more dangerous than just riding. The only connection you have is with the reins and your voice. No weight shifts, no leg pressure, no body movements. I felt, back when I first started driving, that driving was kind of magical. Then my horse and I both got hit by a car, and it kind of made me realize how little control you really have when driving.

Once, after I had had a hysterectomy, the doctor said NO RIDING. So I thought I'd be clever and take my horse driving instead. A car spooked her and she ran the cart up on a steepish hill, almost tipping over the cart. I realized that if I was too weak and fragile to ride, I was too weak and fragile to drive. I dodged a bullet on that one. We made it home just fine, but I didn't drive again until I was feeling much stronger.

I have often wondered how so many people managed in "the good old days" when everyone drove.


----------



## Knave

@TrainedByMares I guess there are the Amish and the occasional people who just do it because. There is no one like that around here though.

@knightrider no one told me anything after my hysterectomy! I just did whatever like normal. I guess it was good I didn’t know. Lol. I love those stories from those old guys. Most of them are gone now sadly.


----------



## gottatrot

@TrainedByMares, I'm always feeling like I'm involved with the horses on here too. It's good vicarious learning. 

Driving definitely makes me cautious. That's why I am working Aria a ton before even thinking about buying a cart for her. Versus I put the saddle on several times and then hopped on. 

I've seen plenty of videos online of accidents, and there are the horse forum stories. I've driven mild runaways that I was able to steer. Something to consider is that a driving horse does not have to be going fast to be a dangerous runaway. They can be trotting fast but not steering well or going too fast for the situation, and it is still very dangerous. When my friend was training her mini she got too close to a fence when he bolted, and got the wheel hooked, and flipped. It's very hard when you have shafts and harness to get a horse loose that is panicking. 

Just like when riding, if a horse starts running away you have to keep thinking and stay calm. I tell myself it doesn't matter if we can't stop right now, there is plenty of room and the footing is fine. So far I haven't been in a situation where that wasn't the case. But I've seen my friend expertly threading through a narrow alley of parked cars at high speed, not hitting any. I've also run a cart into another horse cart and nearly had an accident. I've had minis rear and fall between the shafts. Minis are easier to help though. 

Even after I get a cart, I plan to have a period of time where I take Aria for walks hooked up to the cart, just leading her. That way I can see all of her reactions. 
Temperament I think is the most important thing for a driving horse. None of the other horses I had would have been suitable for driving. I wonder how they screened horses back when people drove horses everywhere. I do know I've read in old books about horses being suitable for a team versus a fancy buggy horse or a "ladies" horse. They seemed to take temperament into consideration quite a bit. 

It was very interesting because I met a human that has HYPP. I've seen a horse have an attack before. Horses can't tell you what it feels like, so it was interesting to hear what is going on. With the tremors and shaking, I thought it might be painful. Apparently it doesn't hurt, but it is very frightening. There seems to be a mind/body connection, meaning if it causes a lot of anxiety, the problem gets worse. The fight or flight chemicals worsen the potassium/sodium dysfunction that is happening in the cells. Horses can have it triggered by stress, and humans can too. But a human can work on becoming more calm, to alleviate some of the effects. That might make it worse for many horses, not understanding what is happening. It was described to me as a feeling of profound weakness, and suddenly your body just doesn't work right.


----------



## gottatrot

I've been selling some tack and organizing. It's something I like to do, making sure I like the things I have, and that it is useful. A nice thing is that I sold two saddles. I still have three, but they are useful to me and if I decide I need another there is space without having to stack them up high.

It was super windy today so I didn't ride. The horses are done shedding and looking sleek. 

I got a fit kit from Easyboot since a couple of their models are slightly smaller than Renegade's smallest #00 size. The Renegades are slightly loose on Aria's hinds, and I've thought about what might happen if one comes partway off when I'm driving in the cart. 

Unfortunately, I discovered she can't go down a size. The Easyboot shell that fit her is exactly the size of the #00 Renegade. The next half size down won't go on the hoof.

I haven't had retention issues lately, as her flaring has grown out, so probably I was just being paranoid anyway.


----------



## Knave

You could come help me! Actually we kind of did that a couple years ago. We did the whole “trade box,” adventure. It’s common I guess in current cowboy culture, but we are so isolated it took a friend teaching us about it and explaining it all. Doing that we got rid of a lot of the things that aren’t useful, and got some really great things that are! It’s really a cool thing, because we got things we never would have had the money to just buy, but they didn’t work for someone else. We got rid of things we’d either never use or we could manage to lose because of something we wanted more.

We did end up with a couple things that went back into the trade box that we now have put together. Like trading for a bridle set up because you really want the headstall, but the bit is something you don’t use.

Our tack room is so small. Okay, that feels guilty to say when many have tack boxes they store things in. For this country, ours is small and it feels cluttered. We have five ranch saddles, two English saddles, and my trick saddle. Then we have all the ropes and bridles and grain and brushes and vet stuff and whatever else gets thrown in there. I wish I could figure out a way to declutter it and keep it nice!


----------



## TrainedByMares

My tackroom is the living room in the old part of the house. Because of the humidity around here,anything leather stored in the barn quickly develops a dirty,








moldy coating.


----------



## bsms

My Abettas are in the garage - the beauty of nylon! My leather saddles are in a spare bedroom.


----------



## Knave

Maybe that is what we could use to add more room to the tack room @TrainedByMares!!


----------



## TrainedByMares

You can do it, @Knave !!


----------



## Knave

I looked at the tack room today @TrainedByMares with a new eye, and decided the reason no one had ever thought to do that with it (it was my parents tack room when I was a kid and until they built the barn when I was in high school), is that the roof is really short on the sides. It just wouldn’t work sadly.


----------



## TrainedByMares

No,no! You need to use the living room! Lol


----------



## Knave

I can’t imagine all of you toting saddles from your house every day! I think I would whine wayyyy to much for that. Maybe I should be pleased with my cluttered tack shed!


----------



## TrainedByMares

I was working in one of the old buildings today. It was a very hot day and the insects were very active. This jumping spider was very aggressive,even jumping at my phone! I thought about you, @gottatrot !


----------



## bsms

Knave said:


> toting saddles from your house every day!


That's about 50 yards from where I tack up Bandit. If I use the Abetta. My heavier leather saddle is more like 100 feet away via the front door (versus in the garage).


----------



## gottatrot

@TrainedByMares, I would probably have captured him for a pet! 

It's too humid here for leather also. I keep most leather things at home. But my nicer things I also bring back and forth, because the barn owner's house is a distance from the horse sheds, and nothing is very secure. They haven't had a problem with things being stolen, but it seems safer to not leave very nice things out there. Plus there are the rats.

It's not always fun to haul tack back and forth. Sometimes I can put things in my truck bed, but a lot of the time it is raining and I only have a single cab, so everything gets squashed into the cab. At least my saddles are light. But leaving for the barn is a big production where I load up the truck. The good thing is I can park the truck right next to my horse shed at the barn. 

My tack room is also a library of horse books, knick knacks, and also the hamster room. The hamster cage is actually enormous, and takes up a short wall. Then there is a big box with all the bedding and food. But I could fit a lot more horse tack in the room if I wanted to. I have three saddle racks, so was stacking saddles up for a while. One wall is books, one wall is hamster, and one wall is saddle racks. The other wall has a window and a tack trunk with blankets. The closet is full of bridles, hoof boots, bits, halters, misc.


----------



## Knave

I’ve been thinking about something. I could be super far off, but it’s a thought I’ve been having so I decided I’d explain it to you, probably rather poorly. Lol

General was arguably the best horse I ever made. He didn’t put a foot wrong, and he was good at everything he did. He was a true bridle horse by the time I finished him, as good as one gets. Truly. General taught me more than any horse I’ve ever ridden prior or since about training. He was different than the horses I grew up on, and I always appreciated him and everything he did for me. I could tell you great stories about things we had done.

Yet, there was always something between us. I respected him, but I never fell in love with him. I know I should have, and many people did, but something about us never meshed perfectly. I thought he was condescending, and he was, but it should have been irrelevant I know.

I was definitely proud of him. Yet, I didn’t just look forward to our time together. To him it was more about the job, and he cared a good deal for me I believe, but he was a serious sort. I can’t really put my finger on why he wasn’t the love of my life, but he just wasn’t. Even saying that now makes me feel guilty, because many couldn’t dream up a better animal.

I didn’t feel how I normally felt riding. It felt like an obligation in a way. He wasn’t like Keno, who was a dangerous excuse for a horse, he was actually spectacular, but I just wasn’t super happy.

When he went lame I bought Bones, and I was back to myself. I loved every part of it. Sure it was difficult at times, but I loved him. I was happier.

I feel like Hero might be a little that way with you. Maybe I am way off base. I know you like and appreciate him, but I don’t know if he brings out that sort of love and obsession that you normally have with a horse. I think Aria might give that to you more in the long run. I definitely know you’ve put everything you have into Hero, but I also think it’s okay to put him on the back burner if that will make you happy. It doesn’t have to be an obligation.

I’m not saying you are facing that, but if you are, I just thought I would tell you I’ve been there myself.


----------



## gottatrot

Wow, @Knave, you are very astute, and discerning. I appreciate your post very much. 
You are very right, but I have a hard time analyzing it myself. 

Of course I love Hero, and the reason I don't mesh or have that bond or obsession with him is difficult for me to pinpoint.

It's not because he is spooky or misbehaves, or has anxiety issues. I've had those with other horses. It's not because he is sometimes dangerous. Halla certainly was, and Amore gave me injuries too. 

It's not because he has physical issues, because Halla had more than her share of those. I say TBs are high maintenance, but Halla had diet issues and tack issues, all kinds of maintenance.

It might seem esoteric, but when I was with Shamrock, Amore, Halla and now Aria, I enjoyed their company. Brushing them, standing near them in a stall, grazing them, walking them. Hanging out. It does not feel the same hanging out with Hero. I feel like we are friends, but if I ride him alone or walk him, I don't get the feeling of enjoying his company. 

So it almost feels like if the vet comes and says yes, he has pain issues and needs to have less work, it would feel more justifiable to use him less. But your saying that maybe there is some elusive reason he and I don't have that bond gives me real food for thought.

I want to blame myself, or feel guilty. Because other people have discarded him. But I like most people and yet have very few good friends. There is more to personalities meshing than is obvious. 

People would dislike Hero because he is difficult and tough to deal with. I admire his physical attributes, laugh at his antics and can handle him. I don't get weary of dealing with his issues. But I don't have a passion to work with him and ride him. 

When you look at the two horses visually. It appears there is a big athletic horse, and a round little pony. So I have more interest in working the little pony?
I've wondered if maybe I am just an Arab person? Or mare person? 
But I think I could have owned Nickel and other non-arab geldings and felt the same way. I think it's Hero.

What is this about? I have serious bonds with my cats, the dogs I've had, my hamster. With only one of my many birds I had. But I kept him alone a long time, not realizing how social they are, so maybe that is why. 

How can I think Hero has a funny personality and love him but not feel like I want to spend all my time and energy riding, training and using him? Why do I love him without being "in love" with him? You all know what I mean as it relates to an animal. We just adore some of them.


----------



## Knave

I have no idea why it works that way. Look at General, who should have been put on a pedestal. I just was starting thinking that you were feeling how I was feeling back then. I think our minds work in a similar way, and I think we both are the type to not want to give up on anything.

So, I’m not saying give up, but I’m saying let him sit for a while and don’t feel any guilt! He’s broke, so you don’t have to keep trying to get somewhere, and he’s older. I don’t think it would bother him a ton to just be a pasture ornament for a while, or even forever.

I’ve seen horses go through phases around here where they might sit around for ten years and then start being ridden again for this or that. It’s not the end of the world for them at all.

Or, maybe you could decide to sell him on. I don’t think that would be a bad decision, because you’ve brought him along much further where someone could actually get along with him, but I just don’t see you being okay with that.


----------



## Knave

I don’t know if you remember Slinky. He was Dad’s horse and I said he moved like a ballerina in my stories, but I’m not sure I ever called him by name.

Dad had the same issue. There wasn’t anything wrong with Slinky. Oh, there were a couple things that irritated my father, but nothing he couldn’t handle. You could get any job done, and you could get it done with class too. He was Dad’s horse after JP (the roan) who he traded for the baby he has now because the horse would just blow up on occasion. So, Slinky was the next horse and there wasn’t anything wrong with him that stood out, and a lot right about him. He was beautiful and moved fancy and was a heck of a cutting horse.

He just didn’t enjoy spending his time with him. Eventually they bought the buckskin and he loved him. The buckskin isn’t nearly as talented or fancy, but their personalities clicked so well. So, he decided to sell Slinky back to his old owner. I was half annoyed, because I knew I could sell him high and that the person who had owned him didn’t want him, hence the selling part. Lol. She sold him last month for 30k. So, there wasn’t a thing wrong with him, Dad just didn’t have that connection.

I don’t think anyone can define why it is or isn’t there. Oh yes, you can define it with a Keno, or JP who dad adored so much but was dangerous on occasion. JP is doing excellent where he is now. He bucked his kid off a few times, but he’s a kid so he bounced back easily and they are winning all sorts of things.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks so much, I do believe we think alike.
I used to have a Chihuahua named Slinky. Lol.


----------



## bsms

It is an interesting point. I really enjoyed Mia even though we were totally mismatched in terms of ability and a suitable riding environment. And she really liked me. Bandit and I are a pretty good match in terms of ability and resources. I didn't really like him at first. Over time, I began to appreciate him and I think he began to appreciate me. He came here thinking humans did good things for horses, but I think he came to enjoy the freedom of expression I allow him - something a lot of riders would not. Certainly not around here.

I like Cowboy OK and want to work him enough that maybe the grandkids could ride him - or The Wife. But if I go into the corral, Mia used to come over to see what I was up to. Bandit does as well. Cowboy doesn't care.

And Trooper? It is hard to like a horse who doesn't like you, but at least it is obvious why I don't like riding him!

I think Mia would qualify as a "heart horse". If we lived in open country, I think we would have gotten to be a good match in ability as well as personality. We could at least have ridden safely. But that is tough to do where I live due to the rocks and cactus and too darn many people. Bandit & I have a different relation. I don't think I'd describe him as a "heart horse". We do well with each other. We understand each other and I really appreciate his balance and how he never loses his mind. We make a good team, but I'll never have the same strength of connection I had with Mia within the first week. But he can make me laugh, our rides are conversations and I trust him in a tough spot.

I honestly wouldn't like riding a lot of horses. I can ride Trooper and Cowboy, but it is a chore to do. Not a pleasure. And I really think those two will largely be lawn ornaments until they die. They will never forget HOW to be ridden. I think either one would be fine carrying a beginning rider in the desert today. But I've no real emotional connection to them. I won't mind much when they die, provided their deaths are not painful. I don't wish them ill but I won't miss them and they only miss me if they are hungry....


----------



## Knave

I think it’s odd that Cash and I love each other so well. He’s big and not particularly athletic, his personality is a bit off putting. He’s solid and steady, and I actually adore him. He’s not my type at all! Lol. Queen I understand why I am in love with. She’s exactly my sort. She difficult and touchy and athletic as they come.

Cash though is a surprise. When you walk to the corral he comes hurried, and his ears are pinned and his neck is curled down, and he just looks like a jerk. He kind of is really. Then you catch him and he’s happy. He simply must threaten that he is who is going to be caught. If you don’t catch him you’d better be a freaking ninja.

Then he’s serious acting. At the trailer he might pull back because of the monsters who live under it. He will sit there and dig a hole rudely until he gets a handful of grain. Once you are on he’s pretty well all business.

Yet, he loves me and I love him.


----------



## knightrider

This is a fascinating conversation! I am so glad I get to read it.

I only buy a horse when my heart goes "zing!" and so far, I have never been wrong. I'm not sure how many horses I have owned because I don't know how to count ones like project horses, or horses that I owned 2 hours, horses that were given to me, etc. But I will estimate about 12 horses in my life. I adored every horse I picked out for myself. They all had issues and faults, but I didn't care. They meant the world to me.

I bought Winddancer for my daughter to train and ride, and my daughter feels that exact way about her Windy, even though she rarely rides her. I ride Windy about 3 times a week. Windy does great. I actually look forward to riding her and enjoy hanging out with her. But I could sell her tomorrow and wouldn't cry (much). I guess she doesn't quite have that "click" for me that all my other horses have had. I didn't buy Windy for that click. I bought her because I had ridden a bunch of her siblings, helped to break and train her mother, and saw and appreciated all the colts from her sire. I knew she'd be quiet and level headed for my daughter to break, a beautiful looking mare, and would have a nice running walk.

I guess that's the closest thing to what you are describing. It sure is interesting. I am fairly certain that I will end up keeping Windy her whole life. I doubt my daughter will be able to keep her on her own. There's a part of me that is glad that Windy will always be here. I guess I can live without that "click." (Please , dear God, don't take away my Chorro. Please please please let Chorro live a long long LONG time . . . I love him SO MUCH!)


----------



## TrainedByMares

It is very interesting reading! I'm so glad I found horses and all of you,too!!


----------



## Txshecat0423

I’ve only had that “click” with one horse and that’s my Skip. I have have tons of horses go through my pasture since getting back into horses, but most of them were purchased (or rescued or given to me) on the suggestion or say-so of someone else. Because we require paints on the drill team, they were usually paints and ended up being sold or given to a teammate. I’m still hoping to experience a connection with another horse like I have with Skip, but if I never do, at least I’ve had it once! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> ...I guess that's the closest thing to what you are describing. It sure is interesting. I am fairly certain that I will end up keeping Windy her whole life. I doubt my daughter will be able to keep her on her own. There's a part of me that is glad that Windy will always be here. I guess I can live without that "click." (Please , dear God, don't take away my Chorro. Please please please let Chorro live a long long LONG time . . . I love him SO MUCH!)


When I drive up and see the horses, I think, Oh, there's Hero. He's looking sleek and handsome. But then I think, "Aww, there's Aria!!" I imagine riding her on trails, and driving her down the road, and it makes me happy. 

I guess sometimes we keep horses because they are useful, and what we need, and we get along with them. Sometimes we keep them because we felt obligated to take them, and with Hero I thought he needed me for sure. And he did. With Halla and Aria I felt obligated to take them, but then it turned into much more.


----------



## Knave

@knightrider I’ve had 12 that my name would have actually been on the papers as owner that I can remember, so not counting the horses I rode for long time frames I didn’t actually own myself, and not counting husband’s or kids’ horses.

I didn’t connect with General, although I had no apparent reason, and I couldn’t get along with Keno. There was a mare called Lilly I bought out of haste who was as bad as Keno. She was out to get someone from her youth from what I was told. She didn’t last too long, about as long as Keno. I loved HeiHei for what I knew of him, but he passed way too early, and I traded a filly called Dolly who I did ride and really like for a mare I knew better and loved already.

So, I guess I loved all the others quite well. Nothing stands out that I remember not liking like Keno and Lilly. Lilly stayed a danger to society and died luckily, and Keno has turned around and worked good for where he is at now.

The mare Dolly has been the staple at the ranch she ended up on. She’s getting old and semi retired now. She was a very good horse.

General I gave to a small kid to learn to ride on, because he was too lame for us to use here. That boy loved that horse, and I was very happy to hear all of the stories of their adventures!


----------



## Knave

Oh, there were two more when I was young that didn’t work out. Now, I did have that connection with them.

Both were mustangs. The first was a little sorrel called Elmer. Elmer was a friendly chap who was happy to go along with the program. Then we gelded him. It scared him, the whole process, and hurt him too of course. So, he decided he flat hated humans after that. He never could trust anyone. When we hobble broke him he flipped his hind end over his head, landing on his back, five different times and broke his ribs. He just was a panicked horse. My grandfather told me he had seen another horse become hateful after being cut as well only one other time in his life. He also was a very smart and friendly sort.

The second I adored. She was the one I sold to the bucking string from my own mistakes. She bucked because she thought that was the right answer, and she was friendly as they come. They loved her on the string, and said she was almost impossible to cover.


----------



## gottatrot

Today I told DH about our discussion regarding horses that we don't really bond with. His perception at first was that with Hero it is because he is difficult all the time. I said Halla was difficult also, but he said, "Yes, but I could lead Halla, and she never tried to bite or kick me."
He thought sometimes parents don't feel as close to very difficult children. 

But then after talking some more, he brought up some good points. He said perhaps Hero is a sociopath, and it really made me think. I knew another TB I would describe as socially ignorant. He would walk up to strange horses and shove his nose under their flank as if they were his mother. We heard he had been kept in a stall since weaning.

I wonder if being kept in the artificial track environment can create horses with social problems and bonding problems. Hero gets along with mares, not with geldings at all. But I have not seen him be friends with another horse. He will sometimes let mares share hay near him, but he never mutual grooms or shows friendly body language. There is no reciprocity as far as I can tell.

Maybe we don't bond because Hero is the equivalent of a sociopath in a horse. He may not feel the way other horses do about social bonds, and maybe for him it relates more to herd safety instincts. Could a person feel a bond with a sociopath? Or does something so one sided go against our own social instincts?
Something to ponder...


----------



## Knave

That is a very interesting thought. Bones is schizophrenic, I imagine there would be sociopaths, or maybe he is just extremely narcissistic. Narcissists tend to get under my skin pretty bad. I could definitely see that making it impossible to connect.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks to @Knave and my forum friends, there were no conflicting feelings today over focusing on Aria. I would not have been able to work through those ideas on my own very easily. 

It didn't seem like Hero minded. He was able to go out and play in the fields, and he seems to be getting better about being left behind when I take Aria out. He trotted around and whinnied a few times, but calmed down and was eating when we came back. 

I combed through her mane so it was all on the same side for once. 










The horses had hay nets to keep them busy while I trimmed hooves. 









It is nice to have been given a horse with good hooves. Such a pleasure to trim. She stands and holds up her hooves so well now. This hoof does not have a crack in the sulcus, it's just that there is some shedding frog on top. Her flaring and issues from having never been trimmed in ten years have pretty much grown out. Her hoof wall is so thick. Hero's is about 1/4 of this thickness. I don't know if he could even hold shoes.








Hero was as good as he ever is for his trim too, only some minor pulling away and fidgeting. 
The rest of the parts for his hackamore came, and it is so nice. Everything is blue now. The hackamore nosebands from Two Horse Tack are great. I will try to get a picture of it next time.

I led Aria a little too far away before driving her back, so she was a bit fussy at first. Then she settled down, and we drove around a bit, and I dragged some noisy things behind us. 

After that, I led her farther than we had gone before down the road, and intended to get on and ride back. But the girth I have doesn't fit, and the new mohair one hasn't arrived yet. So I couldn't get on without a stump or something to stand on, because the saddle kept sliding over. 
This horse has a very oddly shaped barrel, and when you look at her shape that I thought meant she was pregnant, her rib cage is actually sprung that way, because you can feel her ribs all the way down the barrel. 

I ended up leading her back to the field, and got on there. We rode around where Hero was, and then I got off and led her down the road toward the outdoor arena, so I could have something to get on and ride her back. She did great. 

It's quite funny how Hero just ambles at the walk, and probably it is his stifle issues that make him slow. But Aria is a fast walker, and we really move out. I can't wait until she is ready for trails.


----------



## Knave

I’m glad you did!

Your world is looking very pretty and springy too!


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> I got a fit kit from Easyboot since a couple of their models are slightly smaller than Renegade's smallest #00 size. The Renegades are slightly loose on Aria's hinds, and I've thought about what might happen if one comes partway off when I'm driving in the cart.
> 
> Unfortunately, I discovered she can't go down a size. The Easyboot shell that fit her is exactly the size of the #00 Renegade. The next half size down won't go on the hoof.
> 
> I haven't had retention issues lately, as her flaring has grown out, so probably I was just being paranoid anyway.


Renegades come plain or you can ask for factory fitted cushioning, which is a shock layer on top of the plastic shell. I usually buy the fronts cushioned, for shock absorption. But if your rears are too loose you could get cushioned ones and they'd be a bit more snug, plus there's more friction between the hoof and the cushion than between the hoof and the standard shell.

Of course that will be useless information if you already have ones with added factory cushioning. I'm a slow reader and can't read everything everyone writes, across various places...just thought I'd tell you in case it's helpful.


----------



## gottatrot

SueC said:


> Renegades come plain or you can ask for factory fitted cushioning, which is a shock layer on top of the plastic shell. I usually buy the fronts cushioned, for shock absorption. But if your rears are too loose you could get cushioned ones and they'd be a bit more snug, plus there's more friction between the hoof and the cushion than between the hoof and the standard shell.
> 
> Of course that will be useless information if you already have ones with added factory cushioning. I'm a slow reader and can't read everything everyone writes, across various places...just thought I'd tell you in case it's helpful.


Thanks, that is really good to know! I didn't know about the cushioning option. 

I'm feeling extremely pleased tonight. It was a beautiful evening, and my friend called when she arrived at the barn to see if I wanted to ride. It was Mikey's 28th birthday today, so she was going to ride Maybelle the mule and pony Mikey along. 

My thought was to lead Aria on the way out on the trail, and attempt to ride back. Aria was quite calm most of the way out, and led with no problems until we reached the woods where a large backhoe was parked. She was nervous about that, and tossed her head and pranced a little. She was still prancing when we entered the wooded trail, and then she slipped and fell down in the mud. Oops.

That would have made Amore or Hero hysterical, but Aria seemed to believe it was a sign she should calm down. So we walked the rest of the way out, and then I got on and we headed home.
She walked and trotted, was directable, and even stood and waited for my friend's dogs to catch up a couple times. She pranced by the backhoe, but was fine. We went up and down some steep hills, and she walked out and balanced well. She still turns like a bogged down ship, but her walk is very ground covering, and her trot comfortable. 

Even though she is so green and I should have been worried, I had a lot of faith in her personality. I figured she wouldn't bolt for home even when we got close and heard Hero calling for her. The closest she came to a spook was a flinch when one of the dogs came running up behind us. I felt relaxed and it was fun! I even rode her across the bridge, behind the others. When we got closer to home, she powered around the other horses and took the lead. She's quite the pony. Right now it seems like she will be a very fun ride, a pocket rocket. 

I don't know how I would saddle her without the treeless option. She basically has to have the front of the saddle over her shoulder, because of her build. But it's no problem with the Ghost saddle, and it was a very comfy ride.


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> She walked and trotted, was directable, and even stood and waited for my friend's dogs to catch up a couple times. She pranced by the backhoe, but was fine. We went up and down some steep hills, and she walked out and balanced well. She still turns like a bogged down ship, but her walk is very ground covering, and her trot comfortable.


You think YOUR little horse is turning like a bogged down ship! Bwahahaha. 😁 Ex-harness horses like the ones I work with seem to be under the impression that having a bit in their mouth must mean there is a cart behind somewhere and that they must at all times describe the full turning circle in order to prevent an apocalypse. Sensible when you're pulling a cart, of course. Takes a while until they work out they don't need to do a supertanker impersonation when doing other kinds of bridled work. I even get it leading them around in a bridle initially. The moment the bridle is on...

I had Julian at the point he was turning small circles in-hand in a bridle, but when I did my first little ride with him Monday morning and time came to turn back on the vehicle-width track, he was like, "But it's too narrow here, isn't it?" ...reverted to caution under load. Seemed quite surprised it was so easy.

Having said that, partly it's also that they need to learn to balance the load of a rider during a turn. My own turns are not quite the same either when I am carrying a 20kg bag of horse feed around. I am sure I would get better at it too if I did it more often...


----------



## Knave

That is so awesome!! I’m happy for you!


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> I had a lot of faith in her personality


That is what Bandit has taught me. Mia was _sweeter_ and she really tried to please. But she could lose it. Bandit has no trouble telling me where I can stuff my ideas, but he doesn't lose his mind or his emotions. When I'm solo in the desert, having a horse who keeps his mind is wonderful!

There are times I'll ask Bandit to do something. If he feels he can't, he'll say so. If he decides he can, then he accepts responsibility for doing it successfully. I enjoy those spots when I can almost hear him saying, "_Don't worry. I've got it!_"

If 2022 Bob could work with 2008 Mia, maybe I could have gotten her there. But 2008 Bob couldn't and by 2015 Bob was too afraid to help Mia do better. And of course, _some of it really does just boil down to the horse's individual innate personality!_ Mia was sweeter but Bandit has tons of "try"! And I honestly think he was born with it.


----------



## gottatrot

Ah yes, good minds are amazing. It was funny because Maybelle's rider yesterday was saying, "Good girl, Aria!" a few times during the ride. She's only seen me ride Hero, so perhaps she wondered if his problems were due to his rider at times. I think my little green pony will make me look better, LOL.

@SueC, probably it hasn't helped that I started Aria driving before riding, so she learned to steer as if we would be turning a cart with us. Funny about Julian turning so wide. 

I liked @bsms' point on another thread re: horse and rider size, which was if a 110 lb rider can't ride a 14.2 hand horse, who can? It has helped me get over the thought of being too big for Aria to see all the photos and videos of adults riding ponies on FB. There are people who have ridden small ponies for years, and had them remain sound and healthy. 

Quite frankly, I am starting to think it might be healthier for some of the ponies to carry a little more weight within reason, and work a bit harder, because they are so efficient and tend to be easily overweight. I've gotten over feeling insecure and now am proud to be seen on my pony. Yesterday I wondered if those who saw us out riding thought my pony was cute. 

There are quite a few ponies who ended up with adult riders because their temperament just wasn't suitable for kids. Some ponies are hot and have tons of energy. A lot of the ponies on the group are doing jumping or endurance. The riders are not much over 20% of their ponies' weight, but some are a bit taller and ride with shorter stirrups. I think many people would see the riders as too large, but it appears the ponies are healthy and thriving, and winning competitions even. 

In the horse world a lot of people promote things based on very little evidence, because of what sounds like it should be correct. Things like having your horse travel with his neck curved over will strengthen his back, and horses with swaybacks shouldn't be ridden. 
There are some very successful tall riders like William Fox-Pitt, and I think many of us riding ponies are not even comparatively that large.








In reality, many ponies have shorter legs and a solid base of support making it less likely to unbalance them with a top heavy rider than with a taller horse on long legs and high center of gravity. 

Yesterday the way Aria felt going through mud, down steep hills and picking through underbrush, I suspect it would be a lot harder to unbalance her than it would have been to tip over 17 hand Nickel.








I felt it was very necessary to be careful with Nickel and my balance, and it wasn't just a feeling. His next very brief owner was not an experienced rider, and he tipped over with her on asphalt and gave her some serious injuries. They were not going fast.








Because of all the people who talk about riders being too big for horses, sometimes I felt too big for Amore. This was reinforced by her getting unbalanced at times. I think telling people they need to ride large horses is misinformation. Amore was unbalanced at times because she had an awkward balance. It had nothing to do with my size. She could have carried a regular rider larger than me at 125 lbs, no problem. 








In this picture, I am approximately the same size as the woman riding with me (I look bigger closer to the camera). Who is more likely to unbalance their horse? The Icelandic is sturdy, and low to the ground. Nickel is built up on skinny stilts. Her little guy is built to carry weight. Nickel should not carry as high of a percentage of weight, because although he is bigger he is not built to carry with a long, weak back and really serious balance problems. 








Nickel with a heavier rider, struggling with balance. He easily weighs 1300 lbs, but there is no way he could carry 20% of his body weight which would be a 260 lb rider. He struggled with riders less than 200 lbs. Meanwhile, a 900 lb Icelandic or Arab carrying a 180 lb rider is not going to have any problems at all. 








Remington, 13.3 hand Icelandic is in the AERC Hall of Fame for high mileage endurance with his adult male rider. I guess he didn't ask anyone if he was too big for his pony. 









Yesterday I was seething a bit thinking about how Aria came to me malnourished. To have such an easy keeper pony end up malnourished is ridiculous, and it means they can't have been feeding her any hay. The field she is on has only a little grass and weeds, and I feed her less than 10 lbs of hay a day. 2% of her body weight is less than 13 lbs of hay, and she is such an easy keeper she doesn't even need that much to stay at a 5 BCS.


----------



## knightrider

Very well said. I have two 13 hand ponies that I ride everywhere. When I was young, I was told I could never ride anything under 16 hands because of my long legs. Then I spent a week at a dude ranch where they gave me their daughter's fancy barrel mare, who was 14.2. That little mare could do anything, and I was completely comfortable on her.

A few years later, I spent many many happy rides with my friend on her 12 hand Welsh stallion. She was almost my height with long legs like mine. She didn't care one bit, and taught me not to care either. We took turns riding that stallion and her gelding all over central Florida.

Here's to little guys! They can get the job done!


----------



## SueC

... one of my favourite TED talks which is very relevant to this topic.

And here's a related idea: Women must always marry men who are taller than them. Otherwise it will "look wrong"...well, I'm two inches taller than my husband. So? These are just irrational beliefs, and there's a lot of these about. Monkey see, monkey do - and people letting others tell them what they should believe, instead of examining it rationally.

A lot of these irrational ideas are about status and dominance. Men were typecast in patriarchies as being dominant and in charge of women, so how would it look if they were smaller, or weighed less?  Horses were, and still are, status symbols for the upper classes (and transport etc for everyone else). So the estate overlord wouldn't have looked nearly as imposing on a Dartmoor pony or a donkey than on a tall fast thoroughbred, preferably expensive, black, glossy and with a pedigree as long as your arm. Sort of like a CEO typically wants to drive a big expensive imposing car, and wouldn't be seen dead in a beat-up Morris Minor. It's basically snobbery and "I'm so much more important than you are, you pleb."

I started off on 16-17hh Warmbloods in a German riding school, when I practically needed a rope ladder to get on one because I was 9 years old. Then I grew to 180cm with long legs and en route had bought a 14.2hh Arabian mare, whom I rode in various competitions including endurance. My legs would hang far under the barrel of even a Clydesdale but the question is whether you're a good combination, and we were. She was old in the photos below - 27 - but we still enjoyed going places.



Of course, the snobbier the competition, the more likely you are to hear this codswallop about being too big for your horse.

I remember riding a friend's Welsh pony for the first time when I was 10. It seemed half the size of the Warmbloods but boy could it go, and could it turn - the Warmbloods were like cargo ships in comparison.

You look fine on Aria. You're tiny compared to me and I doubt I will look bigger on Julian when we get a photo at some point.

Any more myths we need to debunk here?


----------



## bsms

The "20% Rule", as best I can tell, started with a FORMER Us Cavalry officer teaching show jumping. He might have told students "20% is the max" for competitive jumping - and of course, in jumping, smaller IS better. But in spite of claims, I've spent years actively looking and can find no sign the US Cavalry ever taught it. As a rule of thumb for jumping? Makes sense. 

But apart from that? I spent 7 years riding Mia at 25% of her weight and she NEVER seemed to even NOTICE my weight! Rode Bandit like that for a while before Keto & IF helped me to FINALLY lose 30 lbs and keep it off. Add in the lighter Abetta saddle and I now ride him at around 21%. So now some would argue I'm borderline too tall (5'8" on 15 hands). Which is simply ridiculous. I'm pretty sure I ride him over rougher ground than most of the detractors ever experience.

I think the horse riding community - at least that part of it which cares to write about riding - is particularly susceptible to deception by authority. An instructor tells a student, "Curb bits are too harsh for you" and the student, for the next 50 years, will SWEAR curb bits are cruel! 

The size thing really bugs me. A bigger horse is already dealing with more weight: HIS OWN. As a horse's size goes up, his weight increases on the cube, but the cross section of his legs only increases by the square - so a bigger horse MUST load the cross section of bones in his legs more than a small horse even before a rider gets on. Backs can get stronger with exercise (and so can bones to a point) but legs will suffer if they don't have enough cross section. 

On the thread, balance was mentioned. A taller rider carries more weight higher up, so that will throw off a small horse's balance. To the point it was argued that women's breasts will unbalance a horse more than a man's torso! So...maybe MEN can ride small horses, but WOMEN need to check their cup size before tossing a leg over a horse's back? 😲 

What frustrates me is how these ideas are pushed with no reference to data or actual experience. There is no reason for any guilt about riding Aria. *If she didn't enjoy being out with you, you'd know!* And you being you, you could never enjoy riding an unhappy horse. You wouldn't need someone to tell you you are too heavy or too tall. *ARIA would tell you and you would listen!*

Aria is saying, "We can do this!" But it is going to hurt when people tell you she's too small and you are too tall, too heavy, too...whatever. And nothing you say will convince the detractors otherwise. The riding community is just packed with people who never try, never know and never listen!

Sorry for the long rant but I get upset at the emotional struggle we go thru due to myths pushed. It hurts to hear the detractors even when we know they are full of it. It _still hurts_. And you WILL have detractors. Here on HF, every time they see a picture of you and Aria being happy together!


----------



## bsms

That reminds me. Might be a good idea to give Cowboy a ride soon...🤠


----------



## Knave

If you think about people, the tall thin people aren’t usually as physically strong as the short stout people.

Zeus is a good example. Granted, everyone believes a fjord is made well for packing weight. Yet, I’m sure some would believe he is made more for pulling weight, but I digress.

We started Zeus very young if you remember. He wasn’t asked to do much, a lot like Queen in that first baby year. He was very small. When my husband jumped on him, it was obvious he was too big for him at the time. I saw his back kind of give… it’s hard to explain. It was obvious though, and for a long time no one got on him that made that happen. As he got stronger he could carry that weight without that sign. Yet, when two big people jumped on him, again he gave. So, that wasn’t reasonable.

Now I never see him give to anything. He is sturdy and strong. Granted, the moments people pile on him for a picture or a joke only last seconds, but he is solid when they do it.

Queen never gave at all to my weight, although I babied her during all those little short moments. I think had a bigger person slipped onto her, she would have shown that same give. She could probably pack a big man easily at this point, but no one else has stepped onto her.

Occasionally I rode Moon for quick lessons when she would do something to little girl that needed fixed. I’m sure I would get a lot of comments for that, but I don’t see how a pony could get well broke for small children without the minimal help I gave. Her being a good broke horse, gave her a life beyond that of a broodmare and she was very happy while she was here. When I got on her, there was never any give. She was strong as anything, believe it or not. When she was a little spooked and wanted to try her hand at running away, it was me who got on and let her run until she thought about listening. That pony could haul butt too! She never felt unbalanced or off in any manner. I did a little, but she did not.

Cash, who is a massive beast, struggled with balance terribly for a long time. Of course, I believe that was due to injury, yet only partly. Part of it was a simple struggle of a horse learning to balance with a rider. I’ve had colts struggle with that many times. Yet, the smaller and younger ones, like Queen and Zeus, never seemed to have issue with that. I don’t think Queen is going to be a small horse by any means, but I think because she was so young and yet to have any height, her balance was easier to maintain.


----------



## gottatrot

Such great comments!!
I think @knightrider, @SueC and @bsms all look great on their smaller horses/ponies. 



bsms said:


> Aria is saying, "We can do this!" But it is going to hurt when people tell you she's too small and you are too tall, too heavy, too...whatever. And nothing you say will convince the detractors otherwise. The riding community is just packed with people who never try, never know and never listen!
> 
> Sorry for the long rant but I get upset at the emotional struggle we go thru due to myths pushed. It hurts to hear the detractors even when we know they are full of it. It _still hurts_. And you WILL have detractors. Here on HF, every time they see a picture of you and Aria being happy together!


That is why I care, and why I think it is important to put information out there that disproves some of these things. The myths do hurt people. I feel like I have wasted so much time believing the myths and also passing on the information. I remember when I was trying so hard to learn about dressage, and the concepts seemed so cerebral. I tried explaining to my husband about the circle of muscles and how the bit connection transferred energy to the hind legs, and his comment as someone who studied physics, biology, anatomy and physiology in college was "that doesn't make sense." At the time I thought I wasn't explaining it right, and that it must be true, I was just missing something. 

I've told people mechanical hackamores could break a horse's nose bones, and then eventually searched for any photo online proving this and could not find one. Halters are more likely to break a horse's nose if a horse pulls back. I've thought curbs were cruel, that it helped horse's backs to be ridden with contact, and spread many myths. I've also felt bad about many things I did because people made me feel that way, even though it was not supported by any evidence! Later I found myself riding in curbs and mechanical hackamores, and allowing horses to move naturally. 

I'm not even sure the 20% rule applies to jumping when it comes to ponies. I've been seeing many videos online (which I am not free to share, so I looked up some others) of very talented and stable Welsh and Cob pony jumpers, and I think even though lighter is obviously better with any rider, that an arbitrary weight rule doesn't necessarily apply to jumping either. 

Again, a heavier horse with small hooves up on long toothpick legs is going to have less shock absorption and more leverage forces acting on the legs. So I think a pony may be able to do better jumping with a heavier rider. 
Tiny pony - massive jump! Bear’s best bits video out tonight! #shorts


----------



## bsms

Here is something I discovered on this morning's ride. With the shorter stirrups I've been using, I really can absorb all of the motion in my hip, knees and ankles - mostly knees. I'll be a little out of the saddle. But! If he suddenly slows, having my rear entirely out of the saddle means I will slide forward more. I won't fall off if he slows, not with the swells and horn ahead of me, but that position leaves me less steady WHEN Bandit is adjusting for the rocks or gullies or soft sand. As he must constantly do.

Dropping them a hole, if I actively work to feel my legs flexing, I can absorb maybe 75 percent as much of the shock, but the extra thigh contact means I'm safer and steadier. I can do it better with shorter stirrups and one hand on the horn...but I'd rather not make a habit of trotting with one hand on the horn. The one hole longer stirrup gives me most of what I'm after while keeping most of the safety and stability I need to feel good. A compromise.

Too much of riding is based on what has worked for top riders to win in top competitions. If you want to win jumping a 6' oxer, then a 13.3 pony probably isn't your best bet. But for a recreational rider, if you want the exhilaration and feel of a 17 hand jumping a 6 foot oxer as your 13.3 pony clears a 2' 6" fence, with less risk of injury to man and horse (generic man and horse, being neither sexist to humans or size-ist to ponies), then a pony may be a BETTER choice! What wins a high level competition when ridden by an expert who is willing to risk serious injury to win (and too often willing to use up a horse in a few years) is NOT "good riding". Not for 99% of recreational riders. But the "rules" come from what "judges" like to see and what can win at high level competition - and that is stupid.

This is a long excerpt, but seems relevant. It is from the official army report filed after action by the commanding officer in charge of chasing Pancho Villa:

The Soldier's Mount (a subsection in the After Action Report):

*"This service showed that the compactly built horse stood the campaign much better than the tall, leggy type.* Our horses never even got half feed and it was a constant effort to keep the big ones on the job. *The little fellows also did better in the mountains and the rough places. The cavalry horse should be an animal low on his legs, of full form, one that when in low flesh does not show it - a horse whose bone, muscular development, energy and reserve power are denoted by a certain balance not often seen in horses over 15 hands 2 inches.* The height of the cavalry horse should range between 14-2 and 15-2.

I cannot leave this subject of cavalry mounts without a tribute to my little horse Kingfisher. *At the time of this campaign he was four years old, 14 hands and three inches high and when in hard flesh weighed a little under 800 lbs [*Note: Measured on a scale before putting him on a train. Not a guess.*]. He was an Arabian stallion* with some of the best Arab blood in his veins...

This little horse crossed the international boundary line into Mexico March 15, 1916 in pursuit of Villa and his outlaw band.

From March 15th to March 26th he was ridden 219 miles, and from March 31st to April 12th 362 miles, *across the deserts, over the mountains, and through the waterless wastes of Northern Chihuahua*, carrying his rider, food for man and horse, in addition to the usual pack and officer must take when operating far from the base or line of communications; a load well over 200 lbs.

After marching 219 miles in eleven days [20 miles/day] on less than half forage, on March 31st he led a small band of horsemen in a dash after Villa which ended in the fight at Parral on April 12th, covering the distance of 362 miles in 13 days. [28 miles/day] *In this drive he had but little grain, and that corn which he had never before eaten, no hay and what dead grass he could get during the night* while tethered to a short chain. He negotiated the snows of the mountain passes [Note: Some were 10,000' MSL!], he sweated through the noon-day heat of the lower levels, and he shivered at night from the icy winds of these high altitudes.

He never showed any signs of fatigue, never lost courage, and was a constant inspiration to his rider. He lost but little flesh, *always moved with a quick springy step with head and tail alertly raised, animated and watchful. In battle he was fearless*, being quite content to keep on the firing line without fuss or objection.

From April 22nd to June 9th he was ridden 300 miles but under better conditions than he experienced previous to April 12th. He went lame but once due to a thorn in the frog, but he did his work just the same. He was never sick and he was always ready."


----------



## bsms

A picture of the expedition (note the guy in the lead):






This is a picture of the Apache scouts. Notice the size of THEIR horses!


----------



## Knave

Well, Queen would work until she finishes growing up. Right now I’d say she’s 14.3, but she’s a tank. I’m pretty sure one would struggle to starve her. She seems bottomless too. I find the athleticism and endurance odd for such an overweight looking horse.


----------



## gottatrot

Very interesting, @bsms.

@Knave, I wonder if Queen has wide ribs. Amore had such a wide barrel, the rider's leg would almost disappear on the rear view.








Considering the size of horse lungs, I believe this is one of the reasons Arabs are so good at endurance. They have extra wide rib cages, which allow for extra expansion of the lungs. Amore would not breathe hard until long after the other horses did. She didn't always want to work hard mentally, but physically she was probably the most athletic horse I've ridden. 








Halla did not have as wide of a barrel as Amore. She had the mental drive, and would overcome any tiredness that way. I think the best endurance horse would have a driven mind like Halla, but the physical aspects of Amore. Aria has a super wide barrel. I'm learning to assess her weight by fat deposits in other areas, and to see if I can feel her ribs.


----------



## Knave

That would make sense! I keep telling husband she is just made that way. She is working hard, and she is only getting timothy hay. You can see my legs pretty much disappear from behind, but that’s hee big booty for the most part. Her stomach is about as wide.


----------



## SueC

Sunsmart and my Arabian mare were both beer barrels. Julian is like that too. Had to have a special wide-horse saddle for Sunsmart and it fits Julian really well. By the way, that's one reason my feet don't hang that far below the barrel of my Arabian mare in the picture above. Huge barrel.

Those lungs are most instructive, @gottatrot.

Let's see if I can dig out an old video of my mare...

This is when she was 30; so pretty old with a sunken back, a configuration flaw from the Autumn Sunshine line (look where the hip bone is - really far back on her rump) - so when I sat on her bareback when she was old I tended to tilt forwards with my legs - it's just where they came to rest due to her shape. This was a fantastic endurance horse though in her youth and had amazing recoveries. All hauling about me, and I'm not exactly small or lightweight. Though I am a bit more chunky now than in that clip from a decade ago, where I was in "racing condition"...right now I'm in "leadup work condition" I think...

You can see the width of her as she turns. Her barrel was just as wide as Sunsmart's and she had the same girth settings - yet he was one hand taller than her and much bigger overall!






A film we took same day while grooming...






This was before the house was built.

This was Sunsmart last year in March, on my 50th birthday. He was looking really good then, considering the Cushings. You can catch the size of his barrel too when we ride away.


----------



## Knave

@SueC Queen wears the same saddle as Cashman, and he is 16.3, and not a narrow horse at all! Her cinch is much shorter at least. I had a custom one made for him and just got it recently! I needed a 40”, but I see I could have gone 42”. (Western cinches are much shorter because of the latigo.)


----------



## SueC

Knave said:


> @SueC Queen wears the same saddle as Cashman, and he is 16.3, and not a narrow horse at all! Her cinch is much shorter at least. I had a custom one made for him and just got it recently! I needed a 40”, but I see I could have gone 42”. (Western cinches are much shorter because of the latigo.)


So she's about the same height as Julian is now, and she does have a slightly chunkier behind...not much in it though...she's just rounder...










Side view:






14.2hh to 15.2hh seems to be what I mostly ride. Though maybe when I'm 70 I will treat myself to a Percheron or Clydesdale...


----------



## bsms

Bandit isn't wide anywhere:














He's built very much like Trooper:






Yet he ran 10+ mile legs in relay races. From what his previous owner said, he just didn't like being beaten. He said they always used him on the final leg because "_If he could see the horse ahead of him, he'd beat the horse ahead of him!_" But there is nothing to his build that suggests to me any speed or endurance.


----------



## gottatrot

@SueC, I love those videos!

There are many factors to endurance and athleticism, for sure. Mustangs have the bone density, good hooves, and thrifty metabolism to add to a cross. Depending on their genetic mix, sometimes Mustangs don't have the cooling ability that Arabs do, with their thin skin and veins close to the surface, and some Arabs have the large forehead or jibbah that is supposed to give extra sinus space for cooling during hot weather. 

But temperament is probably the most important factor. It sounds like Bandit has the temperament to race and go for long rides. 
I've always thought it funny that my friend's horse Brave was bred to be imported to Europe as a stallion to create the "perfect" endurance horse. They crossed Kiger mustang, Arabian and Friesian. The Friesian was supposed to add size, but between the Kiger and the Friesian, he lost the temperament and drive to put on speed for miles on end. Between the Arab and Friesian, he ended up very difficult to fit a saddle to with an extremely short back. He's a very cute horse, but not exactly the ideal endurance horse. 
He's better at cooling and has more drive than the typical Friesian, but his endurance is more like a lot of Mustangs I've met. They'll go all day, but not at a fast pace. 

At least the Friesians I've met through my friends could trot and canter very flashy, but they also would be quite happy to stand and watch other horses canter and gallop around.


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> There are many factors to endurance and athleticism, for sure. Mustangs have the bone density, good hooves, and thrifty metabolism to add to a cross. Depending on their genetic mix, sometimes Mustangs don't have the cooling ability that Arabs do, with their thin skin and veins close to the surface, and some Arabs have the large forehead or jibbah that is supposed to give extra sinus space for cooling during hot weather.


It's so interesting you should say that about the forehead - I didn't know that. What I do know is that all the horses I've ridden who had enormous endurance as well as speed over terrain had two things physically - apart from an "I want to move" temperament:

1) Big girth due to enormous and wide ribcage, and
2) Foreheads larger than standard - standard browbands didn't fit right

To list those horses:

Dame du Buisson (French Trotter, Sunsmart's great-grandmother)
Snowstorm (Arabian mare)
Sunsmart (French Trotter / STB cross)
Chip (STB, looked like an Arab cross and only about 15hh)

The second factor, I've never considered before. There you go.

Romeo was very fast, but didn't have endurance. He could pace 800m more quickly than some of our Interdominion champions - 54 seconds, and that was 25 years ago. He was insanely fast. But he couldn't last the distance. And - he didn't have the ribcage width, or the girth, of the horses listed above. He was a tall, long-legged horse with a reasonably wide chest, but his ribs weren't sprung like the ones on the list. Of course, heart/lung space and cooling ability are only two factors in a range of others, including slow-twitch/fast-twitch muscle ratio, temperament, anxiety issues etc (Romeo had anxiety at the racecourse - but not on the trail).

I have some footage of him ridden impromptu at the age of 26 after about 5 years since his last ride - I threw a saddle on him for old time's sake (I rode trails with him in my 20s and a lighter friend with shorter legs jumped with him) because he put on a lot of condition after we brought him to our place with all the grass - previously he'd been skinny and frail and struggling to chew hay because of deteriorating teeth.






...and look where my feet are under his barrel, compared to my Arabian mare who was 2 hands shorter than him. Didn't make a difference...

I was a bit wobbly with him and he with me because it had been so long - but you'd expect that on the first dink in 5 years. Saddle fit wasn't great either. For some reason I always feel more anchored on the wider horses - and less comfortable on narrower specimens like Romeo. He wasn't super-narrow - he was wider than many riding horses - but not in the same league as the above four.

He could move though. This is him in the paddock at the same age - his first year here. He's the one with the socks following a younger horse. You briefly see Sunsmart and my mare in the clip too. Have a look at his trot - huge stride length, which is one reason he was such a superb sprinter.


----------



## Knave

Queen is fast, but Cash is exactly what you described. He’ll go all day and maintain a drive, but he’s not fast. He’d prefer to go slowly all day. On hard days he has never given out though, like some would.

I don’t know what Queen will end up doing. She prefers doing things with speed, but I haven’t allowed her that freedom. So, everything has been controlled to her disappointment. I too would like to feel what she is capable of, but we will wait until she is very solid in her knowledge. Lol

She has an attitude though. I think she’ll have lots of bottom, but she also seems like she might get mad if someone pushed her too far. I don’t know. I hope I never learn in any case, because I don’t think she will be lazy at all, and that it would take a lot to get her to that point (not mad, but worn out).

Husband and I were talking the day before yesterday about how both Cash and Queen like to hit a long trot. We talked about the horses on the mountain, and how most of their traveling is done at a trot. They lope when they spook, but only until they get a better ground and then they trot. They lope as colts, bucking and playing, but you most often see them trotting or walking when they graze.

Surprisingly, even Cash can trot exceptionally fast. Both horses are super smooth too.

We talked about bred horses, and how that is not as natural of a thing to them. It seems bred up horses are happier to lope places. He said he thought it was because the horses on the mountain have had to do a lot of traveling, but I don’t know if I think that. I’m not sure what it is. Bones, when I was fitting him up and using him hard, loped out down those same dirt roads every day we weren’t doing something else. We went 6-10 miles. His preferred speed was a slow lope he felt he could maintain easily. If I put him in a trot it almost seemed difficult for him to maintain and he definitely didn’t like it.


----------



## gottatrot

Say Cheese, Hero.









Hero and I had a typical ride in the arena. First, we'll pretend we looked good.


















I wanted to see how he looked in his hackamore now that it had all the pieces, and the blue stirrups are new too. Plus I've been riding in Dublin boots. A friend always wears them, and I realized it would be nice to just tuck my pants in rather than having to put on half chaps. They're waterproof for the wet fields, and good muck boots and riding boots too.









This one is funny, he was not really moving out, just spooking.









In the video, everything looks pretty smooth. But it's funny what you can get if you take screen shots.
He wasn't too crazy about going forward today.


















He just loves dressage, this horse.









Sort of.


















In all seriousness, when I watch the video I see his hesitancy to go forward as probably relating to the stiff movement of his hind end. Does it appear awkward and stiff to you? When the vet comes next month, I've asked her to do a full lameness eval, and I won't be surprised if he does have DSLD or worsening stifle arthritis. This ride was only about 15 minutes, and I'm not going to ask him to do more than that for now. 

DH was kind enough to video the ride, and he said it must be frustrating for me to have Hero when I just want to ride. I'm fairly sure if Hero ends up having to retire, especially if it is something degenerative, he would be fine with me getting a 3rd horse in the future. However, even a retired horse is a lot of work, and I have Aria to focus on for now, so I might decide that is plenty for me. 

When I first was looking into treeless saddles, I was worried they might want to slide sideways if a horse acted up. Obviously that is not the case with my new Ghost I have fitted for him. It's a different feeling from a treed saddle, and takes a little getting used to, but definitely very secure and I don't have any worries about the saddle when I'm riding in it. I can look down the channel and see the spinal clearance all the way back. I don't normally ride with caged stirrups, and I can take the cage off if I want. But they feel fine to me. 

Aria's mohair girth finally arrived, and it fits great. So now I don't have to worry about the buckles being near her elbows and chafing. 

Here is our ride in all its glory. Aria just stood outside and watched. The funniest part to me is where I go to give Hero a smack on the neck and totally miss.


----------



## Knave

I don’t think he looks stiff, but I’m not great at seeing hind leg soreness. He’s odd, like he’s lazy but throwing a fit in a hotter way. It looks like if you opened him up and made him move he’d get pretty hot. I can see why he’s confusing and frustrating. He still acts like a two-year-old. Ugh


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I don’t think he looks stiff, but I’m not great at seeing hind leg soreness. He’s odd, like he’s lazy but throwing a fit in a hotter way. It looks like if you opened him up and made him move he’d get pretty hot. I can see why he’s confusing and frustrating. He still acts like a two-year-old. Ugh


That's why I think it must be pain, because how can he be lazy when he has that much angst and energy in him? To rear, buck, etc. He simply will not do forward, and I've tried and given up on driving and using crops, etc. Now if the vet came and said he has no issues, I will have to rethink it all for sure. 
His temperament is difficult. Why is he spooking in an arena that he's been in so many times and his buddy is right there? It was a very calm day, and nothing concerning was going on. Even Amore would not have been spooky in that circumstance. 
As you've said, focusing on Aria is going to be more rewarding for me. But Hero is still a puzzle I wish I could figure out.


----------



## Knave

I have thought a little more about it, and husband watched the video, and we thought about it together.

Hero is like Cash. They are tempered the same, watching him I think. Cash would try and scare someone if he thought it could go his way. He is lazy in that manner. He is a jerk too. There’s really no other way to put it.

Cash had to go to work though, and we’ve never been easy on him. He had to learn to get along and get a job done. I like him a whole lot, even though he’s a jerk. Husband likes him a lot, but knows he’s a jerk too. He has a romal on his reins, and he gets a good wack for those things. I know he won’t really blow up, and it took me a while to figure that out. He just takes a very clear line of right and wrong, and interestingly enough he really seems to like it like that.

I trust him a lot at this point. He’s steady and reliable, and good at his jobs. He’s very well broke now too. That doesn’t mean it’s not still there, that personality. It just is who he is. He is a worker too, so his lazy is more in his head than his body. He works hard, and he still has a lot of go, it’s just that he would prefer to not. Lol

It’s hard to explain, and I’m surprised I do like him. It’s a different personality for sure. If I didn’t have the work for him I do, I’m not sure we would have gotten along. You don’t have that for Hero. That makes it a lot tougher on you.

I do think you’d be happier to not focus on him. It didn’t look like it would be fun.


----------



## SueC

Doesn't he look super in this! If only modern competitive dressage rules writers could take a leaf out of that book, because that's what a nicely engaged horse looks like - working well from the front end but also stepping far under himself with the rear so that the hindquarters are being utilised properly. He's light on his feet and 100% there and looks happy.

I literally looked through hundreds of competitive and even Olympic-level dressage horses last night and found the same thing I dislike in nearly all of them, to my chagrin - it used to be more of a problem in lead-up events than in high-level horses - but what I dislike so much about modern competitive dressage is that the horses are too cramped about the neck, sometimes even overbent behind the vertical, and not engaging their hindquarters properly - a direct result of the forced head carriage.









This is a successful modern high-level dressage rider. And we would have been rightly shot if our horses had been so forcibly overbent in their necks and behind the vertical with their heads, and so out of kilter between the front and rear ends, when I was learning to ride in Germany in the 1970s. Top-level horses back then stepped right under their centres of gravity with their rear legs instead of "leaving them behind" - and were never behind the vertical, and had a much airier neck carriage. More like some classical dressage riders preserve these days...

This Spanish horse is still a bit more cramped-up in front that used to be idealised in the 1970s, but at least he's not behind the vertical and he's stepping under himself properly...










...instead of showing the front-rear disconnect that's apparently fashionable these days...most competitive dressage horses these days seem to be about producing an artificial showy gait, rather than something the horse himself would do in a paddock in high spirits.

And of course, working endurance Arabians and harness horses will always reach far under their centres of gravity with their hind legs when trotting, and not show disconnect...

Here's one at liberty, but look at any under saddle in competitions as well...









2017 Australian endurance horse of the year

...yeah, fashions and biomechanics.


----------



## gottatrot

@SueC, I agree completely. 
I think in that moment Hero was getting ready to buck or rear, which requires full engagement. Modern dressage ideas are that this type of engagement requires that the rider is "connecting" the horse through the reins front to rear. But of course the horse can do it himself any time he wishes. I believe pulling the horses in so tightly helps because you can force them by driving heavily without losing control of the movement you want. 

Once, I put out the idea on the forum that training horses to collect and do dressage movements created horses that could misbehave better. Some thought that idea was preposterous, but horses that have enough imagination and athleticism to do dressage movements can use them against you in many clever evasions. Having a horse do a movement does not mean obedience, but if you cow the mind and hold the neck in tightly there is more control. 

@Knave,
Well, it's not entirely fun, but if I find out he's just getting away with my uneasiness over his stifles, he _will_ learn to work. Fun or not, LOL. There is a strong possibility Hero thinks he is getting away with misbehaving, because I don't force him into things, and that he is lazy minded. 

The only thing that holds me back from forcing him to work is that he will drag his hind toes and canter disunited, and the vet several years ago said the xrays of his stifles showed some arthritis. If somehow a vet could tell me he has minimal pain, and this is all attitude, I would use a long dressage whip, spurs and I'd drive him forward and make him work. 

He can rear or buck all he wants, that doesn't concern me. He's not going to lose his mind in a tantrum and go over or anything, he's very excitable but he doesn't lose his mind. I notice very much that if he does throw a tantrum, and I give him a jerk on the reins, then he will go forward for a bit before another tantrum. But I feel so strongly about being unfair to a horse, and if it turned out I was punishing him because he hurts, I'd think I was a monster. 

But how can I know? Part of me wonders how much he can hurt if he rears and bucks and uses his hind end like that. He has that oppositional temperament, and enjoys a good fight. Does Cash like it if you get very strong with him? Do you have to prove you are the boss daily, or does it stick for a while? 

With Halla I had to prove daily that I was able to best her both mentally and physically, and then she was satisfied. I haven't taken that approach as strongly with Hero. Partly I feel the dilemma of having a horse that is less than physically stellar. Here is the difference: Halla had physical issues, and sometimes maybe was having pain after her fall injured her knees. She had scar tissue, and some arthritis. But as long as she didn't limp, I had no issue with working her hard because I knew mentally she enjoyed it. Hero, if he does have a lazy brain, gives me the impression he doesn't like working. So I feel if he hurts, and also doesn't have any mental drive, what is in it for him? 

Where is the line between: I'm selfish and I want to ride hard, so as long as you're not visibly lame, I'll push you and make you do it - versus you may be resistant because riding faster than a walk makes you sore, and this isn't fun. With Aria I can already tell the only thing holding her back is insecurity. She doesn't mind moving, and wants to please. 

Dr. Ramey says people don't want to necessarily hear their horse isn't lame. Not me! I'd love to hear Hero was feeling fine and then I'd attempt to push him. Ramey talks about this new device called a Lameness Locator, which my vet advertises so I'll ask if they can use it on Hero.
Lameness Locator® - David Ramey, DVM
Something very helpful is that where we moved from, there were two vets that were pretty good, but they didn't come from an actual horse clinic that specialized in horse medicine. The horse clinic vets in the city will come out to the farm here, and also if more needs to be done I can trailer to the facility.


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> @SueC, I agree completely.
> I think in that moment Hero was getting ready to buck or rear, which requires full engagement.


Which to my mind is an example of what a horse naturally looks like when fully engaged, as compared when it is _forced_ to _appear_ fully engaged by riders riding in the current dressage fashion. You can see them in the paddock like your horse in that moment, and like the Arabian horse in my post - with the head anywhere from where yours has it, to where the Arab has his, depending on what they are doing and individual difference in build etc. But you do _not_ see them like that paint dressage horse or thousands like it, in the paddock, when having fun and going through a natural range of motion - including "dancing" for fun and doing high-jinks. They do not jam themselves up like that in front voluntarily when moving about freely. They will arch their necks, and lower their faces for more collected stuff, but not look as if they have just run into a brick wall.

Isn't it odd that this lovely photo came from a session of the kind of stuff that would, were Julian to do it, have me hanging up my hat and deciding to do extra hiking with my husband instead. I'm not saying _you_ should do that - you're more into riding than I am these days, and you don't have my pre-existing back injury. But what an indictment on modern competitive dressage, that a horse who is doing ratty things in the arena and whose owner wonders if he has pain or movement issues looks lighter on his feet and in better balance than competition-winning dressage horses. By the way, his face really does seem to indicate that he's having fun, at least at that moment - maybe he is a bit sadistic and thinking, "Hey, hahaha, I will be a fairground ride for my monkey!"  Seriously though, maybe in part he enjoys that he can do antics, like horses do when they play with each other. But yes, would be interesting to know exactly what factors are behind this, and what role physical issues are playing in this.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Hero may be telling you he would rather be somewhere else doing something else with someone else.

I don't think I would have much fun dealing with that all the time. You seem to be having much success with Aria. I think it would be more fun to focus on that.

Just some thoughts,please don't take it the wrong way .


----------



## Knave

Um, Cash doesn’t need it every day, I don’t think… (I’m thinking lol) It depends on his mood and the job. If he likes the job he doesn’t find the need to pull any nonsense. Branding is a good example, or going to a neighbor’s, or going to town. He loves working a colt too. He adores those days and is perfect as could be.

He doesn’t love arena work, so he gets spooky and rude a lot more often, but he takes a scolding and changes his attitude.

Now, there is an obvious difference of when he is being a jerk or when he has a real problem. Being a jerk looks like Hero did, and sometimes like @SueC said I think he’s just having fun, albeit not to me. lol. When he has a real problem in his mind, like the bugs, he will look and feel actually scary. He cannot seem to tolerate the idea of bugs and becomes so upset that a romal across the butt doesn’t change his attitude.

The first few rides of spring, when he can be honestly nervous, he also feels a lot closer to actually having a problem. The feeling is different though. In those moments the feeling is true heat, not just messing around. Those days he feels like that he puts me on edge. He’s just so stinking big, and when he gets in that place it is intimidating. He’s getting older though, so he only had one ride like that this year that I saw, and two of the “bugs are after me” rides.

I do believe he had a true health issue when he first came due to his start, and that the pinched nerve was bothering him. Maybe this is why he can be lazy in his mind and not his body. Maybe the stifles did the same to Hero, and this is why their personalities don’t make perfect sense.

My husband can be a lot like Cash. I don’t know if he’d admit it. Lol. He can be a jerk and he can be confusing because he’s an extremely hard worker, but sometimes he doesn’t want to. There are things he doesn’t want to do, and he procrastinates forever or flat refuses. Yet, you couldn’t call him lazy ever, as he’s always working. He’s stubborn and can be a bully to a minor level, like Cash. He expects things to go his way sometimes.

This makes them a fun pair to watch work together this year. It kind of makes me laugh. He saw Hero and said he needed to ride him, and I totally agree. You think those personalities would clash because they are too similar, but instead they just understand each other and don’t really take sympathy on one another.


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> Hero may be telling you he would rather be somewhere else doing something else with someone else.
> 
> I don't think I would have much fun dealing with that all the time. You seem to be having much success with Aria. I think it would be more fun to focus on that.
> 
> Just some thoughts,please don't take it the wrong way .


It's very helpful to have straight talk and honest opinions, which is one reason why I value this forum so much. There are lots of places people can go to hear just what makes them feel good. 

@Knave, I really wish I could have your husband put some rides on Hero. It would be very helpful. Something I believe though is that if a person is going to be stubborn and not give up on horses, then we have to rise up and become what the horse needs us to be. I was not bold enough for Amore, and all of her spooking made me nervous. I was not assertive enough for Halla. I've also been not gentle enough, not slow enough, and I've had to stretch and do many things that weren't natural for me for horses. 

If Hero needs no sympathy, and a different approach, then I will have to do that. I believe if I could get Halla to believe I was a lead mare, I can convince Hero. She had such a strong personality, and wasn't super aggressive but I had to let her know every day that I was still attempting to be in charge. Actually I suppose she was aggressive in a way, because a barn owner who kept stallions told me she was worse than the three stallions had in her barn. 

What I see with Hero and other geldings is that he always has the antagonistic attitude and it is always fight and never back down. With mares he does not fight, and they get along. But he also is dominant, so when he wants the space or the hay, he just takes it and mares don't fight, but let him have it. 

Apparently I have not wanted to fight him every day, since he always has to win, so I've taken a different approach and tried to indirectly get him to do things. I don't let him have his way like the mares, but I also don't fight like the geldings. Unless he directly attacks me, and then I give him a hard reprimand. That has worked on the ground, meaning he only attacks me 1% of the time.

But other geldings don't have ropes and whips with little stingy ends, so I may have to pretend I'm the meanest mare he's ever seen, and see if I can convince him that I am bigger than him. He is a bully, and when he tries to bully me with teeth or hooves I have always let him have it. Then he stops. So perhaps it is just bullying under saddle he is trying, and I haven't convinced him yet that it has to stop. 

I firmly believe that saddle training is different from ground training, and what you accomplish on the ground doesn't necessarily apply to the saddle. It is good for me to hear that others would lay off the sympathy and get tough. It's easy on the ground because I know I'm not asking for anything unreasonable. 

If I don't have good success with Hero, I do have a friend who could give him a try. He doesn't intimidate me, but she has something beyond what I have. If a horse has any bluff, even 2%, she can call them out and her own confidence is 100%. I have another friend like that too, but she doesn't like difficult horses. This one doesn't mind a challenge. Her voice, size and posture also give her a physical presence I don't have.


----------



## Knave

It took me a long time to figure out to be more stern with Cash. It’s not really my nature. Like you, I have a line on what you can do to me, but I tend towards wanting to work together. Bones I had to be especially sensitive to his feelings and thoughts, and I went into Cash with the same mentality. It didn’t work.

Cash is the boss in the herd. I don’t know what it would take to best him as a horse, but if I watch him he’s stern but fair mostly. Sometimes he’s a jerk because he’s upset about something and takes it out on whoever is closest. If he’s not upset though, he’s very strict and very fair.

I think he needed that from me. It’s how he is, and I think he expects others to be the same. He pushes boundaries where he can, but he responds to clear rules. It’s not my nature, and it took getting used to. Lucy is actually very similar to the two of them, and when I finally lost my temper, I was shocked at her response. Husband kept telling me to get after her, and I was, but in a way Queen or Bones would respond to.

Finally I was in a bad mood and I got serious with her. I expected her to blow up, because Bones certainly would, as would most I’d ridden with their sensitive feelings, but she just was like “Oh, okay. I didn’t think that’s what you wanted me to do.” Now, she certainly knew what I’d been asking, but that was how she responded. “I’m sorry. Now I understand.” Not a hard feeling at all.

Cash is like that. I had to, like you say, stretch. Like I said, I’m surprised I like him so well. I wouldn’t think I’d fit with a horse like that, but I trust him. I can get the job done on him, and he’s a very honest sort of horse. He’s not condescending like General, he’s just a little bit of a jerk. He also loves me and would climb to the moon for me I believe, so we became good friends.


----------



## SueC

Well, hopefully I get a ride today. And just reading all this puts it in perspective. Sunsmart and Julian were both recently gelded "dangerous stallions" who would have torn chunks from other people or animals attacking over the fence, when I adopted them. But once free-ranging and socialised, they became quite normal, if opinionated and assertive. And even in their Jaws days behind their isolation fences, their work ethic was such that they were all business once they were in harness or under saddle, and never threw wobblies. They liked to work and were cooperative with their long-time handlers for all their assertiveness - but also I think were never asked anything unreasonable by monkeys who didn't know much about horses, clear communication with them, and the progressive nature of good training.

So their only flaw is jumpiness at unexpected things, and Sunsmart was jumpier than Julian, always. So I should really be grateful for having a horse who is calm and reasonable and has no interest in jigging or antics, or existing bad work habits, or underlying injuries, and was 100% reliable all his harness days wherever he went - despite, and maybe because of, being a thinker and leader rather than a people pleaser and follower. I should just enjoy him. I have a good autopilot for sudden leaps and he's going to do less of those than Sunsmart did in the beginning. He's also never shown any tendency to want to run away. I've got a comparatively easy horse, and should just enjoy it.

When Sunsmart sometimes queried if we were going to do another lap of our trails, instead of head for the food bucket, I just had to keep pointing him in the direction I wanted him to go, and give him uptake time, and laugh at him, and soon his brain would go "crunch" and he'd say, "OK, let's go then, preferably at a good pace!" Fighting him or bossing him or hurting him, as many people on the main forum here would probably have tried, would have resulted in resistance and the horse potentially blowing up and forever altering his good opinion of you, which with people like this might well have produced another fighting, uncooperative "problem horse". I never upset his dignity - and he was a super horse for me, who every now and then needed 30 seconds to think about something, but then did it with aplomb anyway. Julian is the same type.


----------



## gottatrot

Very interesting, @Knave. All your info is helpful for me.

@SueC, Julian sounds like a lovely horse. Definitely enjoy him!!

Today, DH and I walked with Aria down the road about 3/4 of a mile, and then I got on and rode back. There was one point where I wanted her to turn and wait for DH to catch up, because she was walking so fast we left him behind. She got a little upset and panicky, so I got off and calmed her down before getting back on. DH gave me a leg up, and nearly threw me over off the other side. That was funny. I had to grab the saddle and catch myself hard. The rest of the time Aria was calm, and didn't spook at anything even with Hero calling for her the whole time. Her new girth worked great.

I'm not sure how the hay prices are in other areas, but they are appalling here. For a 60 lb bale of grass hay, $18.50. I used to buy a 110-120 lb bale for $20, so it is almost double from what it cost a couple years ago. The prices might go up even more because we've had so much rain and they haven't been able to cut hay here yet, and it's getting late.


----------



## gottatrot

I sent the video of my ride to a friend and she noticed his hind leg angles are so straight, and also that when Hero goes faster he steps shorter. They had a couple of horses that ended up being put down in the last several years, and one was a QH with similar post-legged conformation. She said several vets told them that the stifle angle is one of the main shock absorbing components of the leg, and if the stifle is very straight it also puts more stress on the hocks. All of that adds up, and once the horse gets into their teens, they can have real problems. For me it is harder to see bilateral lameness. 

The other horse they had to put down was reluctant to go forward like Hero and started spinning circles when they pushed the issue. It's not common in horses, but it turned out one of her hips had functioned abnormally for a long time and it destroyed all the cartilage, so she eventually was in constant pain despite medication. 

I was thinking more about how Hero stomps down a hind leg, and how he likes to use them together as a unit, which combined with energetic motion can end up as crowhopping or rearing. Thinking about whether he is lazy minded, I was remembering how when he used to get worked up he would often break into a canter, and nowadays he almost never does that. Loose, he does three strides at the most.

@knightrider was mentioning a horse that had bad behaviors and ended up having a stick wedged in her teeth. All of this to me is an indicator I should not decide anything with Hero for now, and wait to see what the vet says next month.


----------



## egrogan

> I was thinking more about how Hero stomps down a hind leg, and how he likes to use them together as a unit,


I’ve had PSSM on the brain since Fizz’s unexpected diagnosis, but what you shared about how he moves, plus the unruly behavior, sound like things that could fall into that category. PSSM1 is a simple hair test via UC Davis, and the other variants are better found with a muscle biopsy. Maybe something to consider if your vet is well informed about the latest thinking. The other variants (P2-P6) seem to becoming more common in warm blood breeds, but I don’t think anyone really has any conclusive data in prevalence. There’s been a recent paper out disproving the value of a genetic test for the P2+ variants which has a lot of people up in arms, and I’d be curious to hear an experienced vet’s opinion. Anyway, just one more possibility to throw in the mix…


----------



## bsms

Haven't caught up so hope this isn't irrelevant.


gottatrot said:


> Even Amore would not have been spooky in that circumstance.


Mia would have. Particularly if she was already feeling a bit agitated over _anything_. She could spin, leap, spin back to look...and snort heavily because there was a WEED in the arena! Of course, it may have been there the previous rides and there are weeds growing there all the time, but that was Mia. *I loved her but can't say I miss riding her.* Two different things. Perhaps what I should have done was get a horse for riding and keep Mia for her sweetness, but there are limits to how many horses we can keep.


gottatrot said:


> Once, I put out the idea on the forum that training horses to collect and do dressage movements created horses that could misbehave better.


Not sure I agree. Of course, I have no experience with a trained dressage horse. And a horse kept stalled or that was in poor condition for any reason might be different. But it gets back to something else you mentioned, about when the HORSE wants to do X. Mia (and now Bandit) have drilled into me how most horses have a huge surplus of raw power rarely tapped. It is different for a work horse doing many miles of work each day. But Mia, as a corral ornament, had more than enough power and speed to do anything she felt like in a spook and do so instantly. She might not have been able to keep moving like that for 5 minutes straight, but for 20 seconds?

Part of the overselling of dressage (IMHO) is the idea that we teach the horse to move "properly" - that WE know how the horse moves most powerfully and effectively and need to train the horse to do so. I find horses already know how to turn, leap, spin, stop, jump and move..._only when horses move in the way THEY choose, it is harder for a human to ride!_ A horse turning "straight" is easy to stay on. A horse leaning and digging in, shoving sideways with his front feet? Not so easy. I suspect any riding with regular gear changes, turns , etc. is all a horse needs to be able to shoot forward (or back) or turn so suddenly that many riders would be flicked off like a booger - while moving in a way the HORSE knows gives them the best turn, speed change, etc. 

I get very frustrated and sometimes give in to the urge to comment in the general part of HF that horses know more about moving vigorously than any human, and they do NOT need to be collected because, if they need it, they will BE collected in a quarter second. It is like when to give the cue to canter. Does it matter, if Bandit (or Mia) could do a strolling walk to high speed canter transition with NOTHING from me? If Mia could turn 180 and be in a gallop before I realized something was going on, then just how much does my weight or leg position REALLY affect her? If Bandit could initiate a canter with 300 pounds on his 800 pound body, then why does a 135 pound woman need to give the cue at some particular point in the stride or her horse 'won't be able to obey the cue'?

I'm glad Bandit doesn't simmer at as high a temp as Mia. He stays chilled much of the time. But if he detects javelina? He doesn't give a rat's rear where my weight is in the saddle, or what his left rear leg is doing at the moment! He'll "transition". Period. Doesn't matter if we're climbing up something or in deep sand or if there are rocks. If HE decides to perform X, he does it. Without any regard for collection or if my weight is forward or back or ANYTHING about me. Tie a 300 pound pack on his back and I'd bet he could still spook! 

< / rant > Sorry. I think a lot of riders with lots of lessons would have come off Hero's back simply because they had never been taught or felt how a horse can move when a horse wants to move! And I've bookmarked the video because (with your permission) I think it might be eye-opening to some new riders on how one CAN ride a horse.


----------



## bsms

Knave said:


> It’s how he is, and I think he expects others to be the same.


That is Bandit, although Bandit's 850 pounds keep him from being too intimidating. He'd scare the daylights out of me if he had more raw power to call on. But we're BOTH capable of being kind of bullying, and both can be jerks, and both of us can get mad and cuss and then not be mad a minute later. So we get along fine. My wife would like to try riding Bandit and I have trouble telling her that 90% of the time, or maybe 95%, he's a good-natured, "I'll get it done" horse - but he needs a rider ready for the other 5%. Great discussion and I'm still barely working my way through it.


----------



## Knave

I honestly see both points @bsms and Gotta. I will see a less athletic horse begin using his newfound skills in his method of being in the corral. I think it more relates to fitness than natural ability. So, like @bsms said, the ability to do these things is already in the horse. However, like Gotta said, we make them better at it.

It isn’t because we’ve improved their movement though. It’s because we’ve improved their fitness. Like me doing a hard workout program, suddenly my body is capable of more things, and I find myself doing things differently in regular circumstances. Maybe I race someone, or maybe I jump high for something…

On the other conversation. Horses should teach me about people. The way they have expectations of being treated in accordance with their personality. I don’t know why I can understand it with a horse and not a human. I think I struggle trusting a human is what they seem to be.


----------



## gottatrot

@egrogan, very interesting about PSSM. I don't think about it in TBs, but it's quite possible and I'll ask the vet about it.

I agree completely with @bsms' points. Horses have it in them to do all kinds of things that they don't need us to teach them. Physically, they are capable of all the things we could teach them to do, quite naturally. They know how to get us off if they want to, and it's one reason why I believe horses in general are very good hearted and complaint creatures, because they do let us ride them and stay on. 

When I talk about teaching a horse to misbehave better, it's more about mental creativity. A lot of horses I've ridden think of doing one or two things, and that tends to be what they like to do. For example, spinning, or backing, or bucking. When a horse gets upset, they'll often have a "go to" move or two that they resort to. 

For example, Aria has been quite upset a couple times with me on board. So far all she can think of is a little scramble with her legs, and she'll take a couple steps backward. She hasn't figured out any spins, bucks, rears, or anything like that. As I ride her more, I suspect she'll get some new ideas.

What I've seen is if you practice things the horse hasn't thought of, he'll end up with more things in his mind that he may think of doing when he is upset. For example, Nickel was taught 3rd level dressage. When he got upset and you tried holding him back, he'd start doing a canter half pass, which he'd practiced in the arena. He would think, "Oh, I'll just canter sideways then." People who punish horses by backing them rapidly, introduce the idea to the horse that if he is confused, he can back up rapidly. Halla and my friend's horse Booker would do flying changes if they got too excited. 
A horse at the grand prix level has been taught many ways to evade aids. He'll have practiced moving both directions, sideways, up, backwards. He'll think about turning around his hind end or front end. I find this horse fairly creative, and suspect his training helps him think of things to do.


----------



## gottatrot

@egrogan, according to the PSSM group on FB, three horses in Hero's pedigree are suspected of having PSSM2 based on their offspring. The closest is Mr. Prospector (grandsire), but he has Northern Dancer on both sides farther back, and also Nearatic. Hero closely resembles Mr Prospector, so must have a lot of similar genetic makeup. 

The group has a lot of knowledge. I read about how the genetic markers for PSSM2 are suspect, but also many on the group have had positive biopsies along with the genetic testing. I will ask the vet about it.


----------



## SueC

That's such an interesting clip. Lovely horse, definitely not happy that day. If it were me, I'd have stopped for the day after the horse gave about 10 seconds of cooperative forward movement, which he did at one point before entering the ring. Asked him for a nice halt then and, when I got it, thanked him and dismounted. That's end-lesson on my terms, and my terms don't have to be the complete programme I had in mind for that day, if the horse is off.

Tom Roberts also, whose training books I've had since I was a child, aired the opinion that some days you are better off cutting things short, but always ending on a good note, of course. That sometimes you can do more damage by letting it turn into a fight. He says come back the next day - more often than not the horse is then back to normal. And check out any issues it may have with its body, gear etc before you try again, and think if the horse may be overworked or mentally just had it for some reason. Sometimes horses need breaks, just like humans do, or they will physically or mentally burn out. And if you push at them then, you can completely sour their attitude and their relationship with you, which will then take a lot of work to get back.

Heck of a thing to happen in such a high-pressure situation. I admire that the rider stayed calm and that she didn't get cranky with the horse, and was looking to give him positive feedback and acknowledgement whenever he was cooperating again. I want to hug the rider. Big contrast to that awful situation at the last Olympics where a trainer came out and manhandled a misbehaving horse, in some kind of pentathlon thing. We do need to remember that competing isn't actually the horse's idea, and that actually we're not _entitled_ to their cooperation - it is something they will give if the relationship with you and the circumstances are both right, so I see my job as stewarding the relationship with the horse and making sure circumstances stay reasonable, and if they aren't then I have to fix that. I'm not "fixing the horse" - just fixing myself and the circumstances, actually.


----------



## gottatrot

I also thought the rider showed a lot of restraint. But then I also wondered if she was worried about bad press, knowing she was on video. But you are right, it appeared she was trying to calm fear and nerves rather than punish.


----------



## bsms

I've had times that FELT like that, although with cactus around us. What made Mia such a challenge at times was she wouldn't let me dismount when she was scared or agitated - the two being essentially the same to her. Bandit quickly concluded that my dismounting meant I was about to make him feel safe and content, so dismounting is easy with him. Just IMHO but she might have had an easier time reconnecting if the horse hadn't been taught modern dressage - which is a point @gottatrot made earlier (and I disagreed with but in retrospect I think she was right and I was wrong). An overbent, behind the vertical horse is much harder to deal with than one whose nose is forward. 

When I first got Bandit, he'd do that sometimes - tuck his head back and fuss. I think that came from his previous owner liking Clinton Anderson. CA puts a lot of emphasis on "flexing". Maybe it works for him but I think it is easy to overdo and leaves you with a horse who is harder to reconnect with. Decades ago, long before I took up riding for real, I was on a ranch horse who bolted and proved to me he could gallop at full speed with his nose pulled against my knee. I don't like noodle necks!

Happily, over the years, Bandit has concluded I often have good ideas when things go bad. If anything, he often listens MORE when things go to pot than when we're just cruising along. I really like that, along with how he ALWAYS stays aware of the cactus and any sharp drops. I hate being on a scared or upset horse, but if I have to be on one, I want it to be Bandit.


----------



## gottatrot

I tried to video Hero today while lunging to see if I could look at any lameness more closely. It's hard to lunge and film...anyway, I was a little surprised when I slowed it down. I think his walk and trot have improved since the last time I looked closely. I don't see any hard toe dragging and he is tracking up probably as good as he can for his conformation. It's only the canter he has issues with, getting disunited and using both legs together sometimes. 

Now I'm wondering if his stifles are really not the problem anymore, since it was an intermittent "hanging up" and supposedly that can go away with better movement over time. Maybe he has something simple like hock arthritis. I was watching video and seeing horses having difficulty mainly with the canter when their hocks were fusing from arthritis. If that's the case, he could possibly get treated and feel better after they fuse.
I found another video with lots of horses with PSSM also cantering like Hero does. That would be less helpful. Obviously I am wishing the vet visit could be sooner, but we live out in the sticks.










I rode Aria in the arena today. It went great. I'm feeling more comfortable and tried getting her to trot several times. She did just a few steps at a time, mostly off camera but there is one on the video at about the 3 minute mark. At times she wasn't sure she wanted to go where I was pointing, and hesitated, but she is starting to learn to respond well to cues. 


























Sorry it's far away sometimes, I stuck the camera on a fence post.


----------



## gottatrot

I'm actually not a huge fan of the sidepull I'm using on Aria. It poked into her nose, so I added a fleece cover, but it's still a bit unstable. I've ordered a different style for her which is similar to a crossunder but has a piece under the chin so hopefully it won't squeeze much and will also be more stable.


----------



## bsms

Couple of comments on a horse using both hind legs together - at times - for a canter or canter entry:

1 - I had a big dog who broke his back when we were in England. Don't know how it happened. He was 10 and about 110 pounds. One morning he was in pain and couldn't move. There wasn't any surgery they could recommend but they suggested an experimental drug. Its side effect was he'd lose a lot of weight. But it might heal his back enough for him to function.

That is how it worked out. He dropped from a very muscular 110+ to 80 pounds of skinny dog, but he was soon moving again under his own power. But from then on, he often used his hind legs together, particularly when accelerating. The vet offered two possibilities. One was that while his back healed, it may have healed imperfectly and affected the flow of information going thru the spine to the hind end. It is easier to use the two hind legs together than independently, so maybe it was a coping mechanism due to his back injury. The second was that he lost so much weight that he lacked the strength sometimes unless he used both hind legs together. In any case, he lived a happy life to 14. That is pretty old for a dog who was built big enough to naturally be over 100 pounds.

2 - Bandit. He sometimes explodes into a canter and has no issues with using both hind legs together to get the added thrust. I suspect that is a _habit_ learned from being an 800 pound horse trying to canter with 300 pounds on his back. Particularly 300 pounds sitting deep and to the rear.

He doesn't need to do that now. With saddle and clothes I probably put 180 pounds on his back and he's easily 850 now, maybe closer to 900 lbs. Right around 20% versus the over 35% he carried training for races. He is fully capable of _sliding_ into a canter versus _exploding_ into one and _usually_ slides now. But one never knows when he's going to hurdle himself into a canter, using both hind legs together to get the initial thrust. It may make sense when we're in deep sand or going up a steep spot but one never knows when, where or why he leaps into a canter!

My contract with him is I ask for a result and he figures out how to provide it, so I'm OK with it. It could be Hero has some issues NOW or it could a the residue of having had issues before. It looks to me like he is careful with his hind legs so he may be anticipating some pain and doing what he knows will work to prevent it. I've struggled with back pain since Jan 2009. Sprained my back when sleeping a few nights ago. Totally unfair. If I had been sleeping with a couple of 20 year old gymnasts, it would be fair - but I didn't even have my wife in bed with me so waking up feeling like I was twisted into a pretzel sometime during the night is just SOOOO unfair! (She'll be sleeping until the end of the month in a hammock in the Philippines and the very thought of trying that is enough to make my back spasm!)

But while my back is recovering faster than normal this week, I still find myself rolling out of bed or getting out of chairs like an 85 year old man. It just isn't worth taking a chance! And MAYBE Hero feels the same way sometimes.

PS: Want to add it looks to me like you and Aria are likely to have a lot of fun together. Maybe she won't win any races carrying you, but she seems to have that, "_Ooooo, so what are we going to do today? OK, that sounds good!_" sort of can-do attitude.


----------



## gottatrot

@bsms, thank you, those are very good insights. 

When my Dalmatian was old and had back and hip arthritis, he would pace like a Standardbred instead of trotting. I knew a Paint horse that would do that also after a back injury, so it must put less twist on the back.

It seems a very unfair part of getting older that you can wake up and seemingly have injured yourself while sleeping!?! I put my back into spasms several years ago riding on an airplane, because the man sitting next to me was unpleasant and I was unconsciously holding myself twisted slightly away from him. It took days to get over it, and it was all just from sitting wrong. 

I'm starting to feel hopeful that Hero is simply having minor pain and/or leftover memories of pain, and if that is the case, behaviors can improve. Something I was noticing looking at old videos is that he regularly used to get himself into a prolonged state where he was very upset and looked anxious with a pinched face, vocalizing. Now he does behaviors and then moves on for a while. He doesn't squeal and grunt as much either. When I look at his outline, it appears more smooth and balanced than it used to, which would seem to indicate less tension from pain. 

Bandit must be a stoic horse. Hero is a hysterical horse. So it is hard to know if he is overreacting to minor pain or the memory of pain, or if he is actually in distress. I used to say stoic horses were worse, because you didn't know if they were having pain. But unnecessary hysteria is also not helpful, since you still don't know. 

I also feel that Aria and I are going to have fun. It seemed like yesterday she was thinking, "I'm not sure why you want to sit on me and make me go here and there, but you seem to enjoy it, so...OK!" She really responds to my voice and tries to please me. When I get off and scratch her, she looks very happy with it all. 

I was hoping my video showed the kind of tact needed for a green horse. I was trying to explain this on another thread, how it doesn't matter if a very green horse doesn't do what you are asking. They are still confused, and it's a very bad idea to argue with them. You want to ask, and then if they don't go where you are asking, just figure out how to get them moving in any direction, and then make it pleasant or at least neutral to be moving along. You really don't want to insist that they do something, because it will only create problems with resistance and negativity. More fine-tuned responses to cues come later, after the horse is in a habit of listening.


----------



## gottatrot

Short ride report from today. 

It was a little disappointing because I walked Aria out to where I thought she would be fine being ridden back. She started out fine, but after I'd only been on a minute, a big dog was coming down the bank from a house, deep in some bushes that were crackling and crunching as it made its way toward us. 

If I don't think a trained horse will handle something, I'm certainly not going to try riding a super green horse past it, so I hopped off. The owner managed to call the dog back, but Aria was a little nervous for a while after that, so I walked her back most of the way before she calmed down. Then I got on and rode the last little bit toward home. 

She's very funny because she has this huge and fast walk, and the instant she finally lays eyes on Hero, it drops into a normal walk. All she has to do is see him, and this huge relief comes over her. Whew, made it back to the safety zone.

I wasn't ready to get off yet, so I sat on her for a while, and worked on having her accept pressure from the reins. Eventually she got tired of that and took off walking down the road toward the barn owner's house. We practiced left and right a few times, up and down the road, and then I got off. When I say "Whoa," she stops instantly, thinking there will be big rewards. She actually likes having the top of her neck scratched from in the saddle, so that's helpful.


----------



## SueC

Lots to catch up on already! That was an excellent video. I've never seen PPSM horses before, at least not knowingly - but now I'm immediately thinking of a Trakehner called Jaro from the riding school where I learnt as a child, who really struggled with the canter, laboured and disunited, but fabulous at walk and trot. He was a personal favourite but the riding teacher couldn't progress in dressage with him because of it. So he could well have been a PPSM horse - he also tied up sometimes.

So very good thinking, @egrogan! Hero certainly could fit into that with his presentation at the canter and would be worth testing for. I shudder to think how many PPSM horses got kicked and beaten by their riders for "misbehaviour" especially when that's the go-to for many arena riders nowadays apparently, from what I gather from the main forum lately, when they feel a horse is "lazy" or "misbehaving"...and that's when you start barracking that the Hindus are right about reincarnation and that those people will get their karma. 👺

My Arab mare tied up sometimes under some circumstances, likely due to developmental selenium deficiency which is common in Western Australia when animals are pasture-raised but not supplemented with minerals/trace elements, which she was not (she actually starved in the drought of 1982/83, too, between weaning and when I got her as a yearling) - but she never had any issues with the canter or with hindquarter engagement. We put her on high-dose Vitamin E (as she was lot fed when I was a kid) and weekly selenium as well as a good mineral supplement and together with careful warming up and cooling down, it mostly prevented azoturia episodes from occurring again, and much milder if it did.

Nice progress on Aria! I didn't ride this afternoon, it was too blustery and I was in an off mood because I strained my forearm when I was putting a bugle in with the power drill this morning and because I had to hold the wood with the other hand my drill hand got wrenched around when the bugle caught, ouch. It's not too bad but it needs a little consideration so we won't be plastering tomorrow. Also I have some woodwork left to do and should actually do some cobbing near that woodwork to get a better shape for plastering...anyway, so we're having a beach day tomorrow instead of working, and the weather forecast is great. The dog is excited because she knows what "tomorrow broom-broom" means. 😄

@bsms, how's that mattress you're on? If I sleep on a soft bed away, it always puts my back out. I need a firm mattress and my favourite for my back is pocketed springs that move independently, with latex over the top and preferably no flame retardants to poison me.


----------



## bsms

I suspect our mattress is a source of some of my back issues, @SueC. My wife prefers the soft pillow tops. I sink into those and then, when I roll, my hips seem stuck. We've compromised - less "pillow" than she likes, but maybe a bit more than my back really can handle.

And riding can be an issue. As a matter of riding philosophy, I believe in encouraging a horse to do whatever he needs to let him turn or stop in a way that suits him. I'm the rider so I need to be the one to figure out how to handle what he offers (the opposite of standard, where the horse needs to move for our comfort). High & fast trots, swerving suddenly while going down a wash, any 180 spins? Those often hurt. But like a lot of riders, I accept the risk of some pain in exchange for the pleasure of riding.

I have discovered holding on to the horn helps to stabilize my shoulders during those sudden movements, which in turn protects my back. One of my many unorthodox views is that using the horn can improve my riding. My back hasn't fully healed in 13 years so it isn't likely to. If I'm going into a situation where Bandit might suddenly swerve, spin or stop, keeping a hand on the horn and USING it can save my back. But as I've done so, _I find the stability that helps my back also helps Bandit!_

It goes back to something Count Topani (spelling?) tried in the 1930s. He put a dummy on a horse, bracing the weight with some wood. Same weight as a rider, but very stable. He then had the horse run around a course of jumping. He found horses consistently jumped better with the braced dummy than they did with top riders! I'm doing much the same thing with the horn and my arm. Bandit moves better when I do that than when I don't. We talk a lot about "core strength", but my arm strength is much better than my "core" - and that is true for almost everyone. I can't prove it, but it feels like Bandit can move more freely and more aggressively when he doesn't have to worry my shifting weight will throw him off.

It is arguably "a crutch" - which isn't so bad to use if one is in some ways crippled. But other riders get to use crutches - look at the size of those thigh blocks (and don't tell me those reins are light as a feather):






If actively using the horn helps my horse move the way he knows how, particularly when riding in places where we might be surprised by javelina or coyotes, then how is it wrong to do so? Maybe there is something to be said for being a "riding dummy"!

And @gottatrot? Bandit is pretty good about going out with me, but he always seems happy when he's brought his "riding dummy" home safely and can go back to hanging out with his pals in the safety of the corral. We're pals, but he may have more reason than most to think of me as his dummy.... 😲


----------



## SueC

...only time for a quick one, as we're off to the beach and a hike, but @bsms, are you actually straining out the gnat to swallow the camel? 🤪 I mean, when it comes down to it, isn't the whole _saddle_ a crutch? Let's see some competitive riding without any of those - that'll sort the sheep from the goats! 🥳

I love those thigh blocks - the Ascot Roma I got for Sunsmart and which fortuitously also fits Julian super well (though sadly the Renegades do not, Julian has bigger feet despite being less tall, must have put his resources into growing those instead) has them, which makes my seat super secure when kangaroos bound from the bushes randomly or space aliens descend nearby. Australian stock saddles have those flap thingies which also have that role, but they lack the simple emergency ejection seat mechanism of the thigh blocks - which is, if you do need to eject, just stop using your thigh adductors and let gravity do its thing.


----------



## bsms

Poleys, @SueC ! 10 years ago, they were keeping me from dying. No kangaroos here but we also have plenty of visits from aliens. I never see them but I've been told they are there...






I did like an ad for the saddles that said, "_Only starvation will make you leave this saddle_...."! That was what I needed. I'd like to get it reflocked but Arizona isn't a great place for getting that done.


----------



## gottatrot

For me it's a balance between security in the saddle and being unable to leave the saddle. 
Ghost has a saddle called the Buttera Maxi that would make me anxious, because I would worry I couldn't get out if I wanted to.








But I do love the thigh blocks on my Ghost saddles. They velcro in and can be removed. What I like is that they don't have a "hard stop," so you can slide over them, but they also are high enough that they hold you in if necessary. 








If I fell I'd land on those carrots in my back pocket. I also have my cell phone in a fanny pack around my waist. It's pretty comfortable if I keep it on my lower back. I got a strap for my phone as recommended by @bsms so I can slide it over my wrist before taking it out of the bag, so I can take photos without worrying about dropping the phone. It's much safer than keeping the phone in a pocket. Also frees up space for carrots. 

Thigh blocks from the front:








My two saddles are a little different. One has an all leather seat and the handle is hidden (in photos above). Then I have one that has a suede-like grippy seat and thigh blocks. Since the all leather one is a little prettier, I had it set up for Aria and have been riding in it. After my ride yesterday, I was like, "What am I doing?" The leather is not broken in yet, and so is quite slippery. If she made a sharp turn I'd probably go shooting off it. When I got home I swapped the stirrups again so now I can ride Aria in the one with the grippy seat and "Oh ****" handle.


----------



## bsms

For security? I like the swell and the horn on a western saddle. I liked the poleys on my Aussie-style one, which also had a horn. I go back and forth between using sheepskin, but it IS like butt velcro and when security is needed, it helps! If javelina or moose or space aliens were a serious issue during most dressage competitions, I'd be in favor of sheepskin and poleys for a dressage saddle.

But in terms of "What is good riding?", I think we all should _try_ for the balance and position needed without _relying_ on things like that. If my goal was to show what a well trained horse I had and my superb control of that well trained horse, I'd probably want an English saddle with slick sides - much like my Aussie-style one only without poleys. [Note: I believe it was Count Topani who popularized knee pads on English saddles.] 

However, for my personal definition of good riding, I'm starting to accept that _*for my goals*_, a good riding position might include keeping one hand on the horn. I've ridden with a horn for years anyways. Now...if I get my seat entirely off of the saddle, I'm not as stable front to back (or side to side) as I am while seated. No one is, really. If I don't mind looking like a sack of potatoes newbie rider, though, then one hand on the horn can give me excellent stability WHILE out of the saddle. And Bandit seems to respond to that combination well, concentrating on HIS balance and HIS movement because he won't need to compensate for my shifting weight.

It is a bit hard for me to wrap my mind around it because grabbing the horn is generally what a beginning rider does to save himself when his balance is gone to pieces. If anyone saw me riding crouched off of Bandit's back with one hand on the horn going down the wash...well, most would assume I'm an idiot on an out of control horse!

Happily, no one is looking when we go trotting (or sometimes galloping) down a wash! But it gets back to the insecurities I think most of us get when doing something unorthodox - be it an adult riding a pony (or an adult riding a 15 hand horse in some circles!) or wearing a helmet (unorthodox to some) or NOT wearing a helmet (unorthodox to others), or genuinely USING knee blocks or sheepskin, or riding without paying any attention to our heels or not keeping a vertical line from "ear to shoulder to hip to heel" as many advocate, or even one of the ultimate sins: dismounting from a tense horse. In many circles, that is the ultimate admission of incompetent riding. Me? I think it makes perfect sense for both horse and rider, and I've never had a horse who thought they had "won" by my dismounting.

Heck, if I had a horse who thought my dismounting was a victory for him, I'd be SOOOO ashamed of my riding!

We learn riding from humans. The large majority of the riding world believes horses should adapt to the rider rather than the rider adapting to the horse. I suspect most of those reading gottatrot's journal believe the opposite, at least to some degree. Yes, if you are a sheepherder in cougar country and need a rifle, one expects the horse to adapt. But as much as possible, I want my horse to be free to be himself, moving in the way he does when I'm not on him. I have to make some compromises for my own safety, but I think horses can sense when we are trying to enable them. To help them. And they appreciate it!

Caprilli hinted at it: "_...the horse who has rational exercise, during which he is allowed to balance himself as he pleases, not being punished with needless suffering, develops in the most efficient fashion, with great advantage to his way of carrying himself, and becomes docile and submissive to the wishes of the rider._" I think a horse who believes his rider is his TEAMMATE, not his COMMANDING OFFICER, responds by trying to be a good teammate himself. Suppose gottatrot told Aria, "_I'm your boss. I give commands. You obey. If you don't obey, I'll make your life suck. Got it?_" Should anyone be surprised if Aria responded with resentment instead of "_Ooooh, what are we doing today?_"

But if I try to learn riding by seeing what gives me the best response from my horse, I start doing things that would get me laughed out of an equitation class. And even when I'm going down a desert wash, _I sometimes worry more about what a human would think of us than what Bandit thinks of me_. Why is that? And what does that say about the riding community and how we teach riding?


----------



## Knave

I don’t feel insecure about my riding, but I do understand what you are saying. I used to do that when my girls were littles. I patented that way, and I regret that. I know I would have been better without caring so much, because the general onlooker has no actual idea what is going on.


----------



## gottatrot

bsms said:


> ...However, for my personal definition of good riding, I'm starting to accept that _*for my goals*_, a good riding position might include keeping one hand on the horn. I've ridden with a horn for years anyways. Now...if I get my seat entirely off of the saddle, I'm not as stable front to back (or side to side) as I am while seated. No one is, really. If I don't mind looking like a sack of potatoes newbie rider, though, then one hand on the horn can give me excellent stability WHILE out of the saddle. And Bandit seems to respond to that combination well, concentrating on HIS balance and HIS movement because he won't need to compensate for my shifting weight...
> 
> ...But if I try to learn riding by seeing what gives me the best response from my horse, I start doing things that would get me laughed out of an equitation class. And even when I'm going down a desert wash, _I sometimes worry more about what a human would think of us than what Bandit thinks of me_. Why is that? And what does that say about the riding community and how we teach riding?


@Knave, I think that is common. I know my mom was insecure about what others thought of her parenting. 
I suppose in one way it is a good sign to care...if you are worried about what others think, then at least you are probably not abusive. Or at least not in front of other people. 

It's so true that the way riding is taught and critiqued depends heavily on aesthetics and blanket ideas. An example of this is my first thought when I read the comment above that if the rider gets the seat entirely off the saddle, they are not as stable. My first thought was defensive, because recently there was a thread where I posted a photo and the critique was that I was not stable as a rider due to being in two point at the time. 
Why did I feel defensive? Because from the beginning some of us are not taught clear principles with "how" and "why" attached. Instead we are critiqued on our position and performance without all the reasons why and when you might want to do things differently. 

This leads to still feeling when people critique us that we might be doing something wrong. Especially because many fall back on the ridiculous personal type of arguments such as, "Well, if you'd had enough proper lessons, you would not need to hold onto the horn." As if "proper" lessons covered every situation including going through desert terrain. 

Why not hold the saddle horn? Has anyone ever heard a good reason? I don't when I feel secure, because I am used to having two hands on the reins. I've ridden horses a lot that dart suddenly to the side, and I like having a rein to steer them back immediately. My hands are all over the place. Sometimes I have one hand on the reins, sometimes two, sometimes my hands are high, sometimes low. Sometimes resting on the saddle. Whatever works at the time. People who work cows may use the horn a lot, judging from videos I've seen online. 

It reminds me of a post I was reading yesterday on FB about hoof trimming. The post said that what you need to do with a TB is correct their bad hooves. In order to do that, many people believe you should bring the heels back, but that will only make things worse. Also, be sure not to bring the toe back or address flares from the top, or trim the bars down. Do you see the problem? This is the type of advice people get, which basically makes it sound like this person has the answers, but they don't give any of them to you! All they tell you is what you might do wrong, but give you no reasons or solutions. 

On the one hand, critique is good. However, it is encouraged to have blanket ideas that supposedly cover every situation until you examine them closely. This confused me very much when I was newer to horses. For example, the idea that horses had weaker backs when going along with their necks held high and not arched. It caused me to ask questions about people jumping and galloping. The confusing responses I got were basically that yes, endurance horses should be moving along with their necks curved over, otherwise they were "inverted" and weak. But obviously jumpers and galloping horses shouldn't. They were in extension, not collection. Oh, but perhaps jumpers should move like that between jumps. And for some reason dressage horses moving in extension should keep their necks rounded over, otherwise they would be weak. Especially in the hind end. ?????

Many things are situational. Not to be argumentative, but whether you are more stable seated or in two point varies. On many horses, a seated gallop is rough and keeps bumping you out of the saddle and off balance. At that speed, being in two point can be more secure. This is also true when riding a rough trotter in extended trot, and (in my photo I posted on a thread) a horse like Halla, who had rough and sudden transitions. Often when a horse is bucking, or jumping also. 

But situational is not "OK" in the horse world. And that philosophy is what many of us were taught with horses, and it continues to be perpetuated. Anyone who posts a video for critique will hear certain things. They'll be told to sit back whether it matches the balance of the horse and what they are doing or not. They'll be told things that contradict one another. Keep your heels down but don't push them down, and keep your leg on the horse and stay relaxed. 

The first time I had a horse take off into a gallop so fast that my torso went behind the vertical, and I was fighting to throw myself back into balance without getting swept off the back of the horse, I learned that sitting back is not always the right thing to do. 

All of these things require details and also the philosophy/logic behind them so the rider can decide if it works for their own situation. Why heels down? It's really not about that. What you want is a stable lower leg, and safety. If your horse stops suddenly and you find yourself with your legs up in the air behind you and your head tipping down over the shoulder, you're not doing it right. If you start trotting through sand and your stirrups are bouncing loose around your knees, you're not doing it right. For each rider, what they need to do with the pressure in their stirrups and feet is different depending on the gait of the horse, the build of horse and rider, the tack they use, etc. etc.

One of my favorite horse sayings is, "Relax, never relax." That is the mysterious type of advice we give people when learning to ride. It is true, but really not helpful until you've advanced far enough to become more philosophical and less practical.


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> whether you are more stable seated or in two point varies


At least one study found riders in two point were MORE stable in all directions. But if my horse stops suddenly, more contact between him and me and a lower center of gravity will be better. The more friction between my legs and him, the less my legs will tend to slide. I wouldn't be likely to come completely out of my slick seat saddle but it is called "slick" for a reason!

I can probably learn to compensate for his changes but seated deep with lots of contact friction between us would help keep me from being thrown forward. OTOH, if he is going to go entirely down, then staying with him could be worse than being flicked off!

The longer I ride, doing the things I do, the more I like riding in two point - or standing in the stirrups, since lots of people say two point doesn't use stirrups (???). I think the active use of our legs in two point means we already have built-in firmness that is valuable when a horse squirts sideways or stops. I'm totally certain that I am more secure in two point than many are while sitting relaxed, legs dangling. If only because it makes me so aware of what he is doing.






That said, I won't be surprised when people tell me I'm insecure, too forward, likely to fall off, etc. As they have many times on the forum. I wish I wasn't insecure about my riding ability, but I have maybe 1/10 of 1% of @Knave's experience. I started at 50. And..._I wasn't graceful at 20, either!_ I'm growing more secure in my riding but I need to set aside so much of what I read in books, was told online and see in videos. I need to care about Bandit's opinion of my riding. Not some online poster....

PS: And on today's short ride, we were in synch. A team. A weird team, perhaps, but weird together!


----------



## TrainedByMares

"Relax,never relax" ... I like that


----------



## twhvlr

I ride in a trooper saddle that doesn’t have a horn. I’ve been riding with one hand on the ?pommel because someone told me that I sit crooked on the saddle and I’m trying to be more balanced. This also gives me more security when my mare sees a boogie man and plants, which really jars my neck. I find myself wondering if people think I’m a novice too when they see me riding. Why do I care? This seems in the best interest of both of us.


----------



## Knave

I ride in a lot of ways. I don’t consider them or judge them, because it is always situational. Maybe it’s because I was raised horseback, but I just move with a horse. If they are going uphill I am forward, downhill backward, running I guess stood up ready for ditches and jumping brushes, if a cow is going to turn though I sit back deep prepared for that hard movement. I feel like I don’t over analyze any of it; I just do it.

Today my oldest called me on the phone. She is pushing cows for the boyfriend’s family, and was on a new horse in new country all alone searching for cows. She was on a mountainside and panicking because the horse was throwing a fit and she doesn’t know him or where she was.

Then it is easy to say, from the phone, relax your body, calm down. I could hear the horse screaming and just knew how she felt. Yet, there is no blanket rules for those situations. I wondered, should she relax or be grabbing her swells? Should she make him work or try and pretend nothing was going wrong?

Eventually she figured him out, and called me back still in one piece with two different groups of cows. Then I could tell her how to get him thinking. Side of the mountain with a hot horse… that’s harder, and people need to remember there is no blanket rule. You have to adjust.


----------



## SueC

So much great stuff to discuss. But first of all, a song for anyone who ever feels insecure about not doing what some herd is doing.






Outrageous lyrics and completely tongue-in-cheek and meant as parody (Bob Geldof, for anyone who's not heard of him, feels the exact opposite to what he's singing in this song, which makes it extra funny), but that catchy chorus is one to sing along to and know off by heart in case you come to any situations where people are judging you without actually knowing why you're doing something, and being typically Dunning-Kruger about it. (I've linked through to a clip explaining why it is that ignorant people tend to be super sure about their own views, while people with a lot of knowledge and skills in a particular area tend to doubt themselves and not think they've "arrived"...).








The main problems philosophically here are Dunning-Kruger Effect, dogma, confirmation bias, black-and-white thinking, short-term thinking, the fashion for one-size-fits-all solutions, and an unwillingness to question everything, think critically and independently, and experiment in life. In reality no two horses or people are the same, and real-life situations change all the time, especially outside of a riding arena.

Speaking as a biologist, in nature, diversity, adaptability, responsiveness and complementarity are the key to the flourishing of life on earth. Industrial-age humans, on the other hand, like to make monocultures, whether in the fields or in how they think people should be. It's as if they think in terms of "the best" and it really hamstrings human thinking, and creates a lot of sound and fury and pointless debate, which people get really attached to having.

I see this everywhere. In contemporary music forums, arguments about which is "the best album" or "the best song" which people bash each other's heads in about, and it's so ridiculous because so subjective and down to personal preference rather than objectively quantifiable characteristics. In religions, especially, the idea of only "one right way" (and it's ours, of course). On supermarket shelves, the idea that there is an "ideal" Granny Smith apple, or an "ideal" cabbage (and it's all about homogeneity and appearances, instead of diversity, taste, nutritional value, responsible resource use etc). In hamburger franchises whose claim to fame is sameness around the world, and in some people's brand of religion, ditto, right down to the clothes, the chapel design, the hymn book, the haircuts. Countries saying they're the best and better than anyone else, people saying it. Philosophy, in which combative people will champion pet arguments which are usually extreme, then the next person comes along and champions the opposite extreme viewpoint, and all along, neither of them are correct. It's like _The Blind Men and the Elephant_.


*The Blind Men and the Elephant*
John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

_It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a WALL!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho, what have we here,
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a SPEAR!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a SNAKE!"

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he:
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a TREE!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a FAN!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a ROPE!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!_

...and if these learned men from Indostan hadn't argued about how their own limited perspectives were the correct perspective, but instead had sat down cooperatively and made a synthesis out of their different perspectives, they would have come up with a pretty good model of the elephant after all...


----------



## gottatrot

I don't want to be premature, but I am trying to teach myself it is OK to say things that are positive or you are hoping for, and that doesn't mean something will happen to ruin it. @knightrider has convinced me it is healthier to have a positive attitude.

We had tons going on last year and ended up never selling our house where we used to live. This was very stressful for me, but apparently DH's reluctance to commit to the process has resulted in prices going up a whole lot more...so it seems his approach was right.

We are in the process of listing with a realtor now, probably next week. Once we sell our house, I have a new horse trailer picked out, there are two on the lot and I hope one will still be there waiting for me. It will be very exciting to have a trailer finally!


----------



## knightrider

@gottatrot, thank you! Here is one of my favorite quotes by Barbara Kingsolver.

„One of the very first things I figured out about life… is that it's better to be a hopeful person than a cynical, grumpy one, because you have to live in the same world either way, and if you're hopeful, you have more fun.“ — Barbara Kingsolver

Source: One of the very first things I figured out about life… is… 

I also figured out in college that I wouldn't be damaged by having my hopes dashed. I was strong enough to deal with disappointment when things didn't turn out the way I had hoped.


----------



## Knave

I have changed my outlook too since @knightrider talked to us! So, I’ve also tried to get my family more into that mindset, rather than prepared for things to go wrong. Yes, we should be prepared with knowledge and tools to deal with bad things, but beyond that we do not need to be mentally blocked because it could go wrong.

We are living the results of that currently. My oldest’s boyfriend broke up with her. She had said many times to me while they were dating, “I get so worried. I’m so scared he’ll break up with me. I hate that I actually care so much. I’ve never cared.” I would say, “Don’t worry about that now. For now be all in. Fall in love, be excited, and if it ends deal with it then. Don’t ruin the greatness of now.”

So, yesterday she said “It was such a waste of my time. I never will love a boy again. That was stupid.” I had to remind her that it wasn’t a waste. She was really happy, and she had all of these cool experiences and grew up a lot, and right now is painful, but it won’t last terribly long.

Husband was worried with Oakley. “I won’t let myself fall in love with her. She is so young, and things happen to foals.” I said, “No! Fall completely in love with her. Have the joy that you can right now. In life we only have so many things to be so excited about. Love her. Be excited about her. Don’t hold back. If she dies, that will be sad of course, but you’ll deal with it then. Don’t ruin the joy you could have now. What would that gain you?”


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, your advice about Oakley was so great. I loved it.

Today I was thinking about how I really love mares. From now on I am going to try to stay with mares. 

Of course Hero is not a typical gelding. He's none of the things people like about geldings. But I've ridden a ton of geldings, and they're all different but all are still boys.

It's hard to explain, but there is some almost undefinable thing that mares have and it makes me get along best with them. I can't say it is attitude, because many geldings have plenty of that. Nor being opinionated, because geldings are that too. 

But for example, today was very windy so I decided to put Hero in the arena, and ride Aria around outside of it. Hero kept making a big fuss, galloping and bucking around, squealing because we were outside and he was in. 

At first Aria was a little "up" in energy because of Hero. But after a couple minutes she settled down and I could feel this attitude coming from her. She decided there was no cause for Hero to act like that, and she wasn't even going to look at him. She had this superiority complex on, like he was fussing but _she_ was the horse chosen to be ridden. Then she just pranced right around wherever I pointed her.

With geldings, I also talk to them and they listen, but with all three of my Arab mares I could _feel_ them listening. It's like the boys listen with their ears, and respond, and are often very sweet, but the girls listen with their whole bodies. They are not just sensitive, they are in tune with me. Even Aria already, when I praise her I can feel her being quite pleased that she did it right. 

When she is proud of herself, she puffs up but then when I praise her and scratch her she tries to nuzzle and scratch me too. 

Maybe it is that I can tell what mares are feeling. With a gelding I think, "He doesn't seem worried but he might be bluffing." Or "I don't think he is as scared as he is acting." With a mare, I think, "She's scared pretending to be brave." Or "That's just being silly." 

The difference is that I feel more confident of my read. To me the mare's emotions are more outward and easy to read. Even with Hero, who expresses every whim dramatically, I can't tell if he is more upset sometimes or just high spirited, or frustrated or just having a game with me.

With dogs I feel more in tune with boys. Not sure yet with cats...I have one of each and they are very different. DH adores the girl kitty so we probably will go with that next time.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Mares are very expressive. I think us two-leggers are as well and that attracts us. Perhaps stallions would share the same expressiveness as mares and geldings not so much?


----------



## Knave

Before the current time frame, and before General, I always rode mares. Pete the Paint was the exception to the rule. I am more inclined to like mares. My husband disliked them, and I felt it was, at the time, more of a socially acceptable response from him. He hadn’t ridden but few mares. His father was against them and there were none on the place since he was tiny, and many ranches will ask you not to bring mares.

Today, it seems many places are letting go of those rules. I don’t know if they realized it was a bit of a fad, or if it is because horses are so extremely valuable in this market, and therefor whatever someone brings would be needed and accepted. I don’t know. I do think the mentality is shifting though.

Now, I have been remembering with Queen how much I prefer mares over geldings. I always knew that, but General was around for those years, and then Bones came along, and then Cash. I think I prefer mares because they try harder in a way. They are intense and I agree that I read them better.

Maybe it is how men and women differ in the human population. I would find that odd though, because I can read a man much better than a woman. Like a gelding, a man usually says what he means and actually means it. There are not a lot of lines to read through. That is how a gelding is too, although there are exceptions to the rule of course in both species. I don’t know why I can find the same trait so valuable and appealing in my own species and then kind of unappealing in a horse.

I called an old man, before I bought Bones, to see what horses he had for sale. I had heard of him from someone. He said most were sold. He had a pen of yearlings and a started 8-yr-old crypt. At the time I felt I wanted something started, and he told me how much he liked this horse. His granddaughter was queen contesting on him and he was solid as they come. I turned my nose up, because of his honesty. He told me the horse was a crypt.

I told him I was scared of studs, and preferred mares over geldings. He told me he also preferred mares over geldings, but he most enjoyed studs. He said they tried harder like a mare, had the intensity, but lacked the up and down of emotions.

That was the only time I talked to him. After that I went and bought Bones. Little did I know I was getting a likely crypt! The man was right though. If Bones did not struggle with his neurological disorder, he would have the funnest riding temperament of any.


----------



## bsms

Bandit is very expressive. I can feel when he's listening...but he doesn't always care. Mia was sweeter. I would describe her as more SOCIAL. But if she lost it, she didn't hear anything. I think she was more focused on having fun together while Bandit is more focused on getting a job done together. Lilly didn't lose her mind like Mia and was equally social.

I'd prefer an Arabian mare if I was ever going to get another horse. But at 64 with no family to take the horses when I die, and Bandit at 14 and likely to be rideable into my mid-70s..... 😕


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> ...Maybe it is how men and women differ in the human population. I would find that odd though, because I can read a man much better than a woman. Like a gelding, a man usually says what he means and actually means it. There are not a lot of lines to read through. That is how a gelding is too, although there are exceptions to the rule of course in both species. I don’t know why I can find the same trait so valuable and appealing in my own species and then kind of unappealing in a horse.


Yes, same here! I can't read women. Just mares. And why is straightforwardness fine in a man but not a gelding? 
I don't even try to figure out a female cat. They are mysterious on purpose. 

With women, I think everything is going along fine but I missed something subtle between the lines somehow. With my sister I just listen and don't say much, and then she thinks we had a good conversation. LOL.
The open emotions I appreciate in mares annoy me in women. I remember it would annoy me in basketball if I accidentally knocked someone down and they would cry and carry on. I wanted them to get over it or get off the floor so we could keep playing. 
My female horse friends I ride with are more straightforward, tough and less emotional. 

Very interesting about stallions. I've had a couple friends who loved their stallions, but they had the studs before I knew them so I didn't get to see what it was they enjoyed so much.


----------



## gottatrot




----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> She decided there was no cause for Hero to act like that, and she wasn't even going to look at him.


Here's a clip of two male horses spooking at an emu - one of them actually tries to alert the lead mare to the danger, but she has seen emus many times before and is very, "Be off with you, I'm staying!"






She stayed right where she was.


----------



## SueC

And about working with men versus women - in my professional work I found it generally easier to know where I stood with male colleagues, whereas women could be nice to your face and talk about you behind your back, or be tricky to work with. There were exceptions - manipulative males who hid their agenda - and also there were some refreshingly straightforward women. Nice to nasty distribution, about the same, but women hid it better.

Socially, of course, women are generally discouraged from expressing themselves as freely as men in the workplace, which leads to that kind of deception, and society needs to drop those double standards and treat people as people, not genders.


----------



## Knave

I wonder about that though @SueC. Not that I disagree that expectations of gender do effect development, but look at the animals. We can all say a mare behaves differently from a stud and from a gelding. I love Junie B, and she is my first female dog, and I have learned a lot about female dogs. I like them better I believe, but they are mean and snaky.

You could say the society of a horse dictates the difference between the genders, but then many horses are not raised in a herd any more. Junie B has not been raised in a true pack.

Now, I have had a gay goat and we have a cat who isn’t gay necessarily, but believes full heartedly that she is a tom. She behaves like a tom. I believe that she is a trans, and proves the existence of such. She is not a hermaphrodite, because she gets pregnant and chooses to kill the kittens. The goat may have been a hermaphrodite; I never knew.

These personality traits we see evident in animal species, which we also are, and we see them even in cases of social isolation.


----------



## SueC

I'm not saying that there aren't also some inbuilt differences in male versus female behaviour, e.g. more testosterone is correlated to more aggression. What I do think though is that in humans, socialisation around genders has influnced behaviour differences more that underlying biological sex has - and that individual personality differences also come into the mix.

So in the workplace, typically, assertive males are looked up to and promoted, while assertive females are often tagged bossy and difficult for displaying identical behaviour. It's interesting actually that a female-to-male trans on a programme we watched last night was mentioning exactly that too - how common it is for people to respond completely differently to their behaviour now they present as male than when they presented as female, and how office life became so much easier for this person as a result! Mostly what changed here is perceived gender, not the actual person. It's very similar to the 1960s blackface experiments - how white people changing their appearance affected how people treated them.

So I think the double standards around gender, colour, cultural background, sexuality etc need to stop and people need to see and treat each other as people first, and not presume upon those things. And of course people will still have differences in how they are and how they present, but it's the negatively biased reactions that I think are problematic.

So I think the smiling-at-face, talking-behind-back behaviour among some office women would lessen if women weren't pressured socially to "make-nice-in-public" whatever happens, but could express dissatisfaction or disagreement as openly as men are generally accepted to (over and above any such inbuilt tendencies).

Mares have a better deal than female humans with that, I think. And maybe that's why some of you relate better to female horses than female humans! They express themselves quite freely. AND you don't expect them not to!


----------



## Knave

That is true @SueC! They are not dishonest in their communication. They have all the emotions and intensity of their femininity, but they are not quiet about such things. Queen, and the mares prior, have made darned sure I understand their opinion!


----------



## gottatrot

I've never worked in an office so have never seen that type of workplace culture. Before my career, my entry level jobs were run by bossy, loud women and now I am in a female dominated profession. Sounds like a strange, fake way to try to work.

I've never wanted a job where I had to dress up either. I've heard some jobs are moving away from that dress up culture. That being said, hygiene seems like a basic requirement and I don't mind someone looking comfortable but I wouldn't trust a slob.

I feel it is that social aspect as @bsms says that makes mares so nice. Even after they let you know their opinion, they still want to work with you. They're like, "I don't want to do that. It makes me angry...so now what should we do?"


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> I've never worked in an office so have never seen that type of workplace culture.


Fighter squadrons in the 1980s were all male among the fliers. Cargo planes had been integrated for some time but not the fighter squadrons. There was some of the attitude @SueC mentioned when women were first integrated into fighter squadrons in the late 80s/early 90s. It was based in part on the preferential treatment of the first female fliers and in part on the belief (recognition) that flying fighters wasn't like flying cargo planes. Not many cargo pilots ended up as POWs in Vietnam and many of us knew men with limited mobility after the torture they received in the Hanoi Hilton.

At the time I ceased flying in operational squadrons, women fliers were still very rare. I gather they are still a small minority of fighter pilots. Modern air combat MAY be more like a video game, but thru the 90s it was a physically demanding job that needed a lot of upper body strength and a spouse (if you married) willing to give up much of their life to support yours. I wish I could describe what my first tour in fighters was like, flying F-4s in a Wild Weasel unit in the Philippines. The only book that captured the feeling was "Thud Ridge" - the best book about flying fighters in Vietnam ever written. I don't think anyone who wasn't there could understand how what happened to the POWs in Vietnam shaped the fighter and bomber communities at least thru the first Gulf War. I won't try to justify it other than to say I also don't have the words to provide the context of an old time fighter squadron. It was a brutal environment for everyone in the squadron. I promise you, men took an incredible amount of abuse. I was an odd ball, tactical call sign "Mr Rogers". _I think I learned to swear fluently in self-defense. _I really wish there was a way to describe it, though. I both loved it and hated it.

Outside of that, I haven't seen what SueC describes in the modern workplace. I think it was common in the 60s and 70s. But now? Daughters and nieces tell me they are fully accepted as equals, including the daughter who works as an airline mechanic. My oldest daughter did tours as an aircraft mechanic with the Marines in Iraq. It wasn't "easy" but it wasn't as rough as how any man was treated in a fighter squadron in the 1980s.

I agree with gottatrot. The one time I had a male dog castrated, his personality changed big time. It would be interesting to know how training and riding a stallion compares to geldings. I've heard a lot of stories of Trooper's sire - and was glad I never had to ride him! I'd have been willing in my 20s but I sure wouldn't want to try now!

Comparing Bandit with Mia, they both are/were extremely expressive. It is just Bandit focuses on the job and Mia focused on "WE". I can't give a true analysis because Mia could also become hysterical ("from the Greek root hystera, meaning uterus.") I don't think it was her uterus that was the issue, just some disconnected wires inside her head. I'm certain there are male horses like that. Riding a hysterical horse isn't funny! Or fun. 

_But that "WE" *was* magical!_


----------



## TrainedByMares

"Mr. Rogers" that's good! I bet you heard alot about the 'neighborhood' too. 
Guys in a crew are always brutal. I worked stone crew,paving crew and concrete crew and worked with 1000 people a shift as a roving QC inspector in an assembly plant. Is it any wonder I spend my time with horses and work alone? Lol


----------



## Knave

Cowboys are a hard crew for women too @bsms. It takes a lot of proving one’s self. I don’t dislike that, and am probably internally as hard or harder on a woman as any. What I dislike, and I have seen, is a woman who cannot do the job then tries to bring others down to their level. They want the woman to fail because for whatever reason it makes them feel better. I’ve also seen some of them (women) who are adamant that women cannot physically do the job and look down on any who proves them wrong.

I don’t mind it being hard to prove one’s self. It is a hard job and one does have to count on their team. I think if I was immediately on the side of a woman I would be as bad as those immediately against them. Anyone has to prove themselves. I’ve worked with women I can really count on, and those I really can’t. Men are the same way. Physically they don’t let you down as often (although many can be lazy and not use their size), but sometimes they don’t have the skill of reading a horse or cow and they are just a level of difficulty added to one’s day. Every time you are introduced to a new crew, you have to prove yourself. Women have to work a little harder to accomplish that.

Now, when a man tries to treat me kindly at these things, I get mad. Lol. It’s the chip on my shoulder from being a woman. “Get the f out of my way!,” and they are simply trying to be gentlemen. Gentlemen are not cowboys! Lol.

Then there are those who will throw a tantrum if a woman shows up. They will NOT work with a woman. There are many places that will not hire a woman, and in those places you’d better not bring one with you to anything. Those are the type that play gentlemen. (Imagine me rolling my eyes.)

Me? I enjoy the struggle of proving myself. I enjoy watching other people and deciding who I can work with and who will be the hinderance when we work with a new crew. I don’t cow to anyone simply because I am a woman, but I do try and play that appropriately and respectfully. I always cow to the boss at a place, and if it was a place that didn’t allow women then I just wouldn’t go. No skin off my back.

I allow women the grace of knowing that physically they are not as strong as most men, but if they are trying their hardest I am more impressed with them than a man leaning against the fence.


----------



## gottatrot

I saw this a couple days ago and thought it was funny.








It's interesting how people are different in different types of jobs. DH used to be a roofer and like @TrainedByMares he disliked dealing with all the blue collar guys and their vices. When he was younger he worked in a library with all women and he was discriminated against for being male, and then harassed by his boss. No one should feel their job is in jeopardy if they don't allow someone to flirt with them or say inappropriate things. 

I think people should be allowed to do what they can and prefer. Several years ago we went to help my brother put a roof on his house with some other relatives. The women all went inside to make food and take care of kids. Those things did not seem fun to me, so I went up on the roof with DH, my brother and dad and used a nail gun. Much better for my personality. But the other women thought it was more enjoyable to do the other things. Like @Knave, it would have annoyed me to no end if any of the men thought they should stand by or help with the nail gun. They all know me so they just told me what line the nails should go on and DH corrected me if I was not pressing it down hard enough. He also made sure I knew nail guns can shoot people, but I'd seen the xrays in trauma classes LOL. 

A couple of my best women riding friends are larger and stronger than many men. One used to be the supervisor of a crew of men working to repair aircraft, and she has been the manager of a large hardware store for many years. They built their barns, put their own roofs on, decks and additions on their house. DH asks for advice and we borrow construction equipment from them sometimes. When I work with them on things like putting in stalls or fences, I feel just like when I work with men in construction type things. They have to apply the real force when necessary. But I often build things using tools that overcome my strength deficits, and things like fencing can be done by anyone.

When I started nursing it was common that female nurses who had been used to having things their own way felt threatened by men and tried to make their lives miserable. Even ten years ago, I saw nurses trying to sabotage the males and get them fired. My uncle is a nurse, and he said other nurses would try to get him to move and lift all the patients for them, and he couldn't physically handle it. Things are a lot more fair now, because there are so many men in nursing. It used to be unfair for female physicians, and they had to prove themselves. Nowadays in a lot of places such as the hospital where I work there are more female physicians then males. 

In our hospitals, there is really no difference in whether a person will have a more vocal, outward type of approach to the job versus a softer one. Some of the male nurses and doctors are quieter and more mellow, even in the ER. Some of the female doctors and nurses are a lot more abrasive and direct at times. It used to be you could count on a surgeon being more aggressive to others, but many nowadays have better manners, it just depends. Some female ICU nurses are really scary and people are intimidated by them. Kind of like, "I know what I'm doing so get out of my way."

Last night one of those types came into the ICU and was spouting off about something, using colorful language, and I told her that I heard in office jobs women had to be polite and quiet. It was cracking everyone up. That nurse used to be a corrections officer before she was a nurse, so meek and quiet are rather foreign concepts to her. I worked with an ICU nurse who was so scary, the male doctors would call me and ask me to pass messages to her. 

I really like my job because we do very technical and skilled things similar to building or construction but you're not better at it because you are bigger or stronger. For example, the other day the ER called me to come set up a pressure monitoring system on a patient. There were two men in the room, but I had the knowledge and skill to set up the equipment. It's the same with all the machines we use. They require a combination of technical skill and fine motor. Strength won't make you better at putting in difficult IVs or lines. So men and women are quite equal in the field, just like with horse competition. I like to do things where men and women can compete equally.


----------



## Knave

I like that too Gotta! Although my job is very physical in nature, when I am on a horse it is an equalizer. Sometimes people forget that. Lol.

Also, when it comes to sheer strength, like throwing a calf, technique gets you very far. I laughed to myself at the last big fall branding of a neighbor’s. The calves were massive, 7 and 800 pounders. Yet, myself and a smaller man could work together and knock them down much better than some of the big men working together.

The problem with the big men was a lack of technique. You can try and explain it to them, but they feel their power alone will see them through. Then they get just beat to heck. I saw four big athletic men drug around by one calf many times, but my smaller partner and I had no problem. Sure, we still use our strength, but we have the advantage of having learned all of the tricks.

My husband is a big man, and strong, but even he uses technique. I cringe when someone who does not comes running to a calf I am tailing over. I’d rather do it alone, because it is those people who get you hurt. Nothing against them, for they are working their hardest and putting everything they have into it, but it becomes so much harder.

I imagine they are like I would be at your job. I want to help, and I would go a million miles an hour, but I would make it harder. My husband complains about that in me. I lack patience and manhandle things, and fingers get smashed often around someone like me. I am the bull in the China closet. I understand where those athletes come from when they are at a branding. I just think they need to learn the techniques that make people work together well and are much faster and safer.

Sometimes I will meet someone who I know just doesn’t know, and I will tell them some trick, like put your weight on your knee right here on this joint. Those people who I tell I usually see close to getting the face kicked in, and the less cocky they are they will listen and be appreciative because they know I am trying to keep them safe and effective. Those who blow me off, maybe I don’t feel so bad when they get hurt.

I’m sure I should offer the same helpfulness to everyone alike, but some need to learn a lesson and some have been told a million times and just don’t take the polite hints.


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, somehow I doubt you are a bull in a china shop, but I also lack finesse a lot of times because I go too fast. 
With moving patients around it is also more about technique than strength. If I use good body mechanics and the right techniques, I can pull very large people over onto their side, or from a stretcher to a bed. It's all about using leverage and their own momentum at times, and physics. You would probably be good at it. I bet it's similar to throwing a calf.


----------



## Knave

I guess, as I sit here thinking about it, that a woman has that advantage when she shows up to work (in a cowboy job) without the knowledge of being raised doing so. People want to help them. They don’t feel like they are crossing boundaries to give them little tips and tricks. If they are nice and try hard, they will have every man on that crew teaching them. Lol

Now, when a man (older than a teenager) without experience shows up, no one is willing to help him. It is like he is looked down on by all of the men. They can see an obvious wreck coming, and close their eyes to it. That is when, ever since I was small, I will go save their face by giving them a few tricks. The men feel they will insult him if they help him, and as I said, they are looking down at him already, yet if he were a woman he would strike their fancy.

I remember as a teenager helping a new owner at a neighbor’s. I saw his death coming twice. I couldn’t stay back from teaching him what was wrong and stoping the problem before hand, and I took a good scolding from it. I didn’t cow though, because I said someone should have helped him.

He was my friend the whole time he owned that place. He was so appreciative too.


----------



## Knave

I bet it is similar! I think that part I would probably be good help for. I think you would be good help throwing a calf too, because you would listen to the technique and know how beneficial it would be.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Yes, technique is key when handling heavyweight items and animals. Like @gottatrot says, physics,leverage and momentum are your friends! Knowing how to use them is the technique and it's really something to see when it's done correctly. Watching the 700-800 pounders romp through the sale ring at the one sale I attended before I bought my steers made me stop and think about how difficult a job that could be to tangle with one and having no experience.

My wife is in law enforcement and she experienced discrimination through the years. It was mainly from the old guard, older guys who didn't believe a woman could do the job. Of course, she could and when she was promoted, they had to answer to her. They gave her grief and if it were me I would have fired their sorry butts but she always worked through it. That's one difference between how men and women operate.
I was on the road buying core auto parts in some nasty places in Detroit, Buffalo and Philly and I don't think a woman could have done that. Sure,she would be a fine buyer but a woman in the ghetto is a target.
The east coast horse scene is dominated by women and I think locally there were some raised eyebrows when I came along. Even my Trainer lady says "your just a guy" when it's difficult for me to grasp a move or a concept


----------



## Knave

@TrainedByMares here it would be the opposite. A guy is considered better than a woman when it comes to horses. It makes people laugh when someone says “husband horse” here, as that means he’ll buck your butt off. Lol


----------



## egrogan

> Sure,she would be a fine buyer but a woman in the ghetto is a target.


Eh, I think it depends. I’ve been the only white girl in Black neighborhoods that I guess some people would call the “ghetto,” but when you work in schools everyone tends to know who you are and you have a bit of a bubble around you if you don’t act stupid. I walked plenty of kids home or drove them back from events late at night, and while I was mindful of my surroundings I knew everyone knew I was there whether or not I knew who was watching.

Actually the bigger problem was white cops pulling us over assuming we were buying drugs because we were in that neighborhood


----------



## gottatrot

I did something today that was probably nuts, but it was a lot of fun.
I put a saddle on Aria, got on, and ponied Hero along with us down the road.

It took a couple of minutes to get sorted out, getting both horses turned in the right direction, and I had to get Aria to turn all the way around Hero, who was planted facing the wrong way in our path. 
But then I got Aria walking, and Hero coming along with us, and it went great. 

As we rode, I was thinking that this was the better way to do things. Even though Aria is super green, she is so much calmer than Hero, and it works much better to ride the calm one and pony the less calm one. Hero had to keep breaking into a trot, because with Hero by her side Aria walked out fast. I'm not sure how far she would have gone so eagerly, because I had a time constraint so had to turn back around once we reached the end of the road. 

Hero was well behaved too. He has been ponied a lot in his past. The only issue was that if I didn't pay attention, Aria would give space to him little by little until we were on the edge of the road. Then I would have to get Hero to move over and turn Aria in front of him so we could get back toward the middle. It was nice because Aria would stop and wait during the times when I had to get Hero straightened out. 

It seems like it might work out well to put saddles on both horses and ride Aria out, and then switch and ride Hero back home. That way we should have a good pace in both directions. Plus if I have saddles on both horses, I can always swap if one is having a bad day.


----------



## SueC

Great idea, @gottatrot! 

Also when you have to focus on something extra like that, it sharpens you up very quickly and gets you working as a team. 😀 

I don't have to pony anyone because they either tag along or don't. This morning, while riding up the ridge, I had three donkeys galloping around in front of us and then under our noses, kicking up their heels!  Julian is used to being surrounded by crazy animals going every which way...


----------



## gottatrot

We got our house listed for sale, so things will be a little stressful as we see how it goes.

It means my horse trailer purchase is not far off. When I calculate all the maintenance, tires, gas, that I could have spent over the past 20 years of horse ownership, it becomes clear that I've saved enough by putting off the purchase to buy a brand new trailer of my choice. Right? LOL.

I have one in mind at a nearby dealer:
https://trailswesttrailers.com/trailers/horse/royale/

Another thought occurred to me today, to spice up my horse life. DH was all for it. We live an hour from the city with a variety of horse facilities. I realized I could take jumping lessons once a month. I've taken western, english and dressage, and gone to various clinics, but I've never had jumping lessons. I bet I could learn a lot and have fun. 

The idea is that DH could take cello lessons, and we could have a lesson day together.

I'm looking at two stables. One is hunter/jumper, and the other is eventing. I lean toward cross country, but only to a certain level.


----------



## SueC

Do they supply the horses for these courses, @gottatrot? It does sound like fun. Eventing / cross country especially. In another life I'd do it just for fun - maybe I can do that vicariously through you! 

Cello lessons too. Anything to get one motivated to somehow cram extra into a full life. I had a "splat" day today after all the extra work of the last few weeks. Couldn't move off the sofa except to feed the horses and dog. I'll be OK by tomorrow and today I had a good novel and caught up on some stories on here.

Brett and I are talking about both of us doing floor exercises together 20 minutes at least every other day, as a team. I need to do regular core work and he's starting to need it too because his office/commuting life of the last 9 years has really cut down on his exercise levels - he only gets our team hiking at the moment, which is maybe twice a week, and laps around our bushland in-between but not as often as me - and plastering/maintenance etc, but I do most of the maintenance and walk more than he does when I'm on my outdoors job...

And he really needs weight-bearing exercise because his bone density isn't what it should be (runs in the family) and I think it's important to have a strong core before you start doing any kind of weights for that. What do you think? He hates floor exercises and prefers to exercise on his feet, but I mentioned that we're critters with a bipedal lifestyle superimposed on an initially quadrupedal body plan and therefore we do need to get off our hind legs and work different muscles against our own bodyweight, as in Pilates, Yoga etc, and the routine stretching of course is good. It's always the abdominal area that suffers especially from the imbalance of our lifestyle, particularly with lots of sitting. If you've got any other ideas, please let us know...


----------



## bsms

Most have an option for using the door frame or one can put it into a ceiling - which is my preference, but I put mine in our closet because The Wife doesn't seem to think it belongs out in the open.  If you do a search for "exercise rings with strap" there are variations like what I've been using:






There are endless variations depending on what area you want to concentrate on, and I find it often means the smaller supporting muscles (stabilizing) get a serious challenge. For example, suspend in it like I'm going to try to do dips, then just move my hands away from my body - inches because I can't DO it more than inches! Makes me REALLY appreciate how insanely strong a gymnast must be! But just holding like that for 10 seconds affects muscles I didn't know existed. The ring and strap option ran about $40 and the ceiling attachment was $10. Oh - and right now I can feel the affects of trying too much last night. Also, I may switch back to the TRX I first bought because it adjusts much faster for various exercises. Knockoff versions of TRX run around $50.


----------



## Knave

@SueC I just started a new workout program with big girl. The story I told when I said she was in a bad mood- she had been complaining about her health. She wanted to see a doctor.

Now, we all know I am a bit weird about doctors, but I don’t think this was me being weird. I discussed it with husband to make sure we were on the same page. Since her accidents, she has been refusing to do any form of exercise. For a little while she did basketball, but when it ended so did she. She also took up eating a lot of junk. Her personal responsibility in her health went away with the feeling that she had been dealt a bad hand.

That feeling is fair, and it was an awful amount of bad luck she faced, but I explained to her that she still has to be responsible for how she responds to such events. She definitely didn’t want to run, and since it has been a struggle to put weight on her I can understand that intense cardio is not the brightest idea.

So, I started a weight lifting program with her. The trainer (on tv) is killer, and I have been so stinking sore! Yet, I can see a dramatic improvement already in the girl. Her muscles are already defining, and in a week she gained two pounds. She has more energy too, even with working from 1am until evening. She wakes up and is in a good mood. I think her back is already showing improvement too.

Yesterday I was sitting on my tail, and watching my phone, and she came charging in from work, “let’s do our workout right now. Go change your clothes Mom.” I was myself in a bad mood, and I drug myself up and did the workout with her. I could see a massive improvement in my own energy and attitude.


----------



## Knave

I forgot to mention what program we started. It is called MBF and on Beachbody on Demand. My friend bought me a year’s subscription to it, and it has so many choices of programs. If you can stream on your TV, it is a great investment.


----------



## bsms

I'm not endorsing these YouTube channels as perfection, but they've helped me troubleshoot some things like how a minor change in grip position or how one performs a pull-up can greatly reduce (or increase) the chance of injury. I got serious about it after hurting my elbow and needing to take a couple of months off - and a couple of minor changes to form made a difference:



https://www.youtube.com/c/RedDeltaproject/videos





https://www.youtube.com/user/Calisthenicmovement/videos





https://www.youtube.com/c/athleanx/videos



There is a lot of stuff on them that is irrelevant to my goals and 'over the top' in presentation...but there IS good stuff on how to perform certain exercises to get the gain to pain ratio much higher.


----------



## gottatrot

We have the rings and you can do a good workout with them. We attached ours to my husband's power rack. I've never been one for doing much floor exercise or strength training. It's good that I have a lot of upper body and core strength just from shoveling manure, pushing wheelbarrows, trying to get Hero to walk forward when there is grass, and pushing/pulling on patients. So I run for cardio, and my strength training comes naturally.


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> Now, when a man (older than a teenager) without experience shows up, no one is willing to help him. It is like he is looked down on by all of the men. They can see an obvious wreck coming, and close their eyes to it. That is when, ever since I was small, I will go save their face by giving them a few tricks. The men feel they will insult him if they help him, and as I said, they are looking down at him already, yet if he were a woman he would strike their fancy.


I am way behind everybody, but getting back to this idea. I learned when I started doing theatrical jousting that the joust troupes put the least experienced riders on the worst behaving horses. It's sort of like an initiation, but in my opinion, it is incredibly stupid. We are doing a show, for crying out loud, and the better your show is, the better you get paid, the more gigs you get, the more word of mouth gets out. It's incredibly foolish to scuttle your show just to make a newbie feel incompetent.

When I started my own show with my jousting partner, we rode the tougher horses and put the novices on the good tried-and-true horses to get a better show. Why would you do anything different? And yet I saw every other troupe that we worked with put the novices on the tough horses. Such an ego trip. One joust troupe made the worst rider--the one who jousted the worst, earning the fewest points, buy everyone beer at the end of the day. The experienced riders wanted to look the best . . . at the expense of their show!

By the same token, now that I have 8000 acres of privately owned hunting land behind my house, I see that the foreman puts the least experienced riders on the most difficult horses. They laugh and make fun of the mistakes that the newbies make. It isn't as important as doing joust shows because the guys just fall off or make mistakes, but I don't understand why they have to give the new riders a hard time.


----------



## gottatrot

@knightrider that seems unfair to the horses too. 

Someone on FB pointed out that Spirit the cartoon horse appears to have DSLD. Kinda funny.
Hopefully the artist wasn't looking at pasterns on a real horse...?


----------



## SueC

Those fetlocks, eek! 

Thanks a million everyone for the exercise suggestions. The ring arrangement seems like a great way to move core exercises off the floor a bit and make them more appealing for Brett - and give me something different to do. I'm hoping we would be able to mount those in our attic but the ceiling battens are thin metal channel and I don't know they would take bodyweight on a single point without bending; and I can't remember where the main beams are plus they are a few inches above the timber ceiling lining...I might ask our carpenter who built the frame what he thinks. No suitable door frames up there or anywhere except the guest wing. The carport though has thick exposed timber beams that would definitely work.

We don't have streaming TV but do have Youtube. I will follow that up! Great to hear about your success with the exercise programme you are sharing with big girl, @Knave! 

@gottatrot, I had a look at that trailer link and it seems very well made and safe. I do wonder why they don't put front windows in trailers in the States for the horses to have some visual orientation to the journey as well (more complicated with a tack room there too I suppose). I wonder if horses get motion sickness too - I'm one of those people who gets car sick as a passenger unless I keep my eyes on the external environment. Of course that makes me the minority. It just occurred to me though that some of the anxious travellers amongst horses might be getting motion sickness. I mean, some dogs do too.

@knightrider, it's like those stupid hazing rituals isn't it - a way for people to feel superior at the expense of others.


----------



## gottatrot

Sometimes really great photos come across my FB feed (of course ones from my horse friends riding are great too).



























There was also a thread on here recently discussing old trucks vs new trucks, and this photo made me think of it:


----------



## TrainedByMares

It is difficult to believe some pictures posted on the internet are actual,unaltered pics. Here is one that didn't make the cut last fall but I was reminded of it this morning when I saw your pic.


----------



## gottatrot

My dog has been needing dental work but he is 14 so I've been hesitant. My horse friend who rides the mule does the dental work at the vet clinic, and she assured me she does many very old dogs, using gas is safest, and she has been doing it for 30 years. I know she adores dogs, so I trusted her and brought Gilligan in yesterday.

He had 9 teeth removed, which means he has 7 left. He's had the rest removed over the years as they ended up loose. But there is no more plaque affecting his gums, and no loose teeth so he should feel much better. He's doing well today, and eating fine. His lab work was good so I hope he'll stay healthy and live to be quite ancient. The vet says he is "well preserved." 
He still has his canines intact so he can bite little kids if they grab at him. I feel that is a right any dog under ten pounds should have. 
He doesn't need teeth to be cute.









Hopefully I can ride tomorrow. I didn't try on the 4th just in case there were fireworks going off, and was in the middle of a stretch of work days anyway. At our house we could hear the big booming from the town display going off from about 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. The only pet that seemed to notice was Abbey the hamster, and she sat up listening from time to time but kept eating the seeds I gave her so was not too stressed.


----------



## gottatrot

Today I followed my plan of riding Aria out and ponying Hero, then switching horses for the ride home.

It went perfectly. Aria headed straight out, even dragging Hero a bit at first. She was willing to go where I pointed her nose. Once Hero got settled, he ponied very well. I believe he has a lot of experience being ponied from his first 5 years as a track horse, and he seems to have better manners doing it than he does when doing many other things. He just puts his head down by my knee and trucks along. 

Aria feels great to ride, she's comfortable and moves out. I put her new bitless bridle on for the ride, since I'd fitted it to her already and she seemed fine with the action of it. It is much better for her than the previous sidepull. That does not work on the right parts of the face she is comfortable with, and the difference was immediately obvious. With the new one I can pull steadily and she never objects to the pressure, just turns. It is a crossunder style but has a piece that prevents it from tightening farther up than below the jaw, so the squeezing is limited. 

It felt funny to switch to Hero for the ride home. Suddenly I was way up in the air and also just slogging along. It's probably a good lesson for Aria that we head out fast and then creep back home. It was a warm evening after a sunny day, and the horses were mellow. They didn't spook at anything.


----------



## SueC

Isn't it great to have a drama-free run when starting a new horse!  Did you anticipate more problems than you actually got in this process so far? I know I did - I have a great imagination for many things that could go wrong, although thankfully I can stay emotionally even in parallel to this because as you know horses pick up on anxiety. So any bits of anxiety I may have about that stuff will happen mostly when I am not actually working with the horse, and go to the side during an actual session, where I will sing if I have to or use other distractions if I sense any kind of nervousness cropping up in me.

It's kind of the same way any stage nerves disappear for me once I am actually working with a group of people. Or how the worst thing about getting into the ocean is the beginning, until you are actually wet! 

Best wishes to your dog. Jess is getting her 3-monthly arthritis shot next week. I want one too!  (Electric blanket in winter makes all the difference though! Haven't had a knee niggle in so long! It's mostly fingers for me. How are your hands holding up with hoof trimming?)


----------



## gottatrot

Yes, I anticipate everything I've experienced with green horses...bucking, total blind-eyed panic, taking off during mounting, taking off during dismounting, running for home, running off to who knows where, spinning, falling, etc...

But it's true, once you're doing it, the task at hand helps you live in the moment and forget about those ideas. Staying prepared, of course.

Haven't taken a knuckle off lately with a rasp so I'm probably overdue.


----------



## bsms

SueC said:


> I have a great imagination for many things that could go wrong


Possibly my greatest flaw as a rider! I've been known to spend most of a ride anticipating trouble that never came....🤨 Of course, part of that was learning to ride on Mia and needing YEARS of therapy on Bandit's back to get better!


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> Yes, I anticipate everything I've experienced with green horses...bucking, total blind-eyed panic, taking off during mounting, taking off during dismounting, running for home, running off to who knows where, spinning, falling, etc...
> 
> But it's true, once you're doing it, the task at hand helps you live in the moment and forget about those ideas. Staying prepared, of course.
> 
> Haven't taken a knuckle off lately with a rasp so I'm probably overdue.


Argh. Instant memory. That's why I wore gloves starting early on - good leather work gloves shaped and designed to allow your fingers to move properly. Less trouble with rasps in the past few years since Greg sharpens them for me with his bench grinder, rag wheel and cutting compound meaning I don't ever have to use a blunt rasp ever and all my old undiscarded rasps came back into service.

I also had to start wearing long sleeves after slipping with the hoof knife once or twice and getting myself on the supporting arm. I'm looking at a nice inch-long keloid scar here and another half-inch that didn't go keloid but I can still see. Having said that, I have keloid scars on the backs of my hands from brambles and broken branches and even a few tiny ones from catching a protruding bolt on a horse trailer when unloading a horse in the dark 25 years ago.

Keeping tools sharp and taking short breaks when near comatose helps me prevent some of those incidents... like grooming half the horse when two hooves are done, and the other half when finished, which also helps unkink my back...




bsms said:


> Possibly my greatest flaw as a rider! I've been known to spend most of a ride anticipating trouble that never came....🤨 Of course, part of that was learning to ride on Mia and needing YEARS of therapy on Bandit's back to get better!


I guess acquiring one's PTSD in a vastly different context means one doesn't get triggered when horse riding, but has all the advantages of the survival repertoire, like dissociating emotionally if necessary, and also having the hypervigilance and attention to detail that reduce risk for an actual activity. It's wonderful being thoroughly prepared, but being able to enter calm mode when working with animals - best of both worlds.

The calm mode I don't think is dissociation, I think it's some other instinct to do with having to emotionally model for someone you are working with who you have duty of care for, like a child or a horse or a relative in a tricky situation that could unsettle them - if you give aid to an injured person or animal, for instance, one of the best gifts you can give them is calm and reassurance, because anxiety is contagious (and so is calm). Ditto when leading a horse past a space alien. I don't know where that comes from but I have been able to do that since my teens - after having a mother who always went hysterical and useless at the sight of blood even to the point of not being able to assist her own children. My brother slipped with a carpet knife when he was 14 and I was 6 and had just started school. He went to her for help but she screamed and ran and locked herself into her bedroom, where she continued to scream. I asked if I could help - he'd hit blood vessels and couldn't get to it properly himself as it was on his right hand in a tricky spot, so I bandaged that under his instructions and felt miffed that a first grader had to step in for the parent but we were already well taught about emergencies at school, and that you had to stay calm. I knew my whole childhood it was pointless going to her with a bleeding injury and you were better off doing DIY or seeking out the neighbours if nobody else was home. I think that's probably part of it for me.

Dissociation, I have to do when handling euthanasia. That's not calm connectedness, that's the twilight zone where you're piloting yourself from somewhere far away and the very very bad thing is coming to you through a glass wall or layers of transparent cotton wool or like watching a film, so you hide your emotions even from animals who are very perceptive, just because you really really have to.


----------



## SueC

Just wanted to add, that's when someone else is doing a euthanasia on one of my animals and I am in the supporting role. If I ever had to do it myself I know I would be able to enter the calm mode - which is what I do when killing a food animal or when having to put a small wild animal out of its misery (where you don't need firearms). Then I become hugely focused on calming the animal and being super conscious of doing a clean, quick job to minimise suffering as much as I can. Which is what the guy who put down Sunsmart for us did as well - calm demeanour, connect with the animal, right time, super professional shot placement and timing.


----------



## gottatrot

The two point life:

So many times I hear that forward seat is less secure, and two point is mainly for jumping. It was discussed recently on another thread. I find that a following, stirrup-based seat is extremely secure.

Free to move around in the saddle.










Look how high Nala is off the sand. That lowest hind hoof is probably a foot off the ground. Huge strides, literally flying. Horse and rider balance is together as the hindquarters push powerfully with each stride.








Again, if you zoom in you can see how high Nala is above the sand and how this rider balance is ideal when heading from canter to gallop.









I guess people imagine on a big trotting horse you will be thrown forward in two point? On landing, flexing hips, knees and ankles onto the stirrups keeps me off the saddle.
This horse was the roughest trotter I've ridden.








I feel that two point is the preparation for anything.








If in doubt, stand up. To me it looks as though I am in a relaxed balance, not unstable, not insecure. If his hind goes up, I'll lean back. If the front goes up, I'll bend at the waist and knees.








My calf and my friend's calf is always on the horse. We both try to keep our foot underneath our weight. 

Two point or forward seat are not the only ways to ride. You can have a very secure seat with a more upright and rearward balanced seat, especially in a western saddle.


----------



## bsms

If my horse is likely to do a dropped shoulder spin, I do NOT want to be in two point. That is more of a "desperately cling to horse" situation and being forward and up makes coming off the shoulder easier. If my horse is likely to slam on the brakes, then being up very far while forward makes it tough during the half-second where my upper body is still going forward _before_ I can react and actually shift my weight back.

During my short arena ride on Bandit yesterday I still tried two stirrup lengths. I rode both in two point - or "no knee two point" since I follow Chamberlin's idea of two point (which he passed to Littauer who in turn, via his books, taught me):






I love the statement about slow canter where he says "_a large part [of the rider's weight] slips through the relaxed knee and ankle joints into the heel_", along with his description of "standing in the stirrups" (versus perched above the knees). Tried both stirrup lengths yesterday while Bandit felt like making unasked for stops to eat the rare green grass that we briefly have. Higher up didn't put me in danger of coming off, but it made my balance shoot forward until I could get my weight back. The sudden slowing without being asked just took me a moment to react to. Had he continued into a dropped shoulder spin, I might have come off at the higher setting. Unless I had a hand on the horn.

Apart from that, I love the feeling of riding my horse like I would a dirt bike. Or to use another analogy, of _surfing_ on my horse. It has an element of risk on desert trails but...is that risk alleviated by my horse's improved balance and movement when I don't interfere? Does allowing him to move as freely as possible mean I'm safer because he's less likely to have an issue? Maybe. He has little incentive to keep moving in an arena with grass. Much more self-incentive on an open trail! And even then, if I leave one hand resting on the horn, I can prevent my weight from going forward...so maybe _trust_ my horse? Much more plausible on Bandit than it would have been on Mia!

That said, I love both two point and a forward seat - or the Forward System of riding, as Littauer preferred. Littauer argued the Forward System was an entire approach to riding that focused on letting the horse move as naturally as possible with the least interference from his rider as possible. That approach then has implications for how we use the reins and what things we try to teach a horse. For example (quoting Littauer):

"_But to resume quoting Chamberlin:_

"_Keeping the horse's head turned inward while working on the circle is occasionally beneficial as a gymnastic and disciplinary exercise but should not be insisted on normally...It is unnatural, impedes the inside shoulder, shortens the stride and instigates resistance...The pernicious custom, frequently seen in high-schooling and elsewhere, of striving to hold the horse's body on an absolutely straight line while at the gallop, and the even more ruinous one of habitually bending the spine and neck outwards to conform to the curve being travelled, shorten the stride, cramp and annoy the horse. These faulty methods are to be carefully shunned in the practical training of outdoor horses…"

I must confess that it was hard for me to relinquish the belief once taught me that the horse should be bent to correspond to the curve of the line along which he moves. I had preserved this tenet of dressage longer than any other. Evidently it is equally hard for many other horsemen to abandon this idea, and even today some of them, by requiring small circles, induce that bending of the horse which according to Chamberlin is a "ruinous" procedure...

The last paragraph of the book is also written in Caprilli's spirit:

"If one has a good cross-country horse, the author deems it inadvisable to teach extreme collection or the delicately balanced airs of the high-school. Riding the horse on the bit with a normal head carriage, improving his natural balance through the simple exercises detailed heretofore, __and thereafter allowing him, as a rule to go in the manner most comfortable to himself., is the safest and surest road to success and pleasure for the practical horseman._" (The underlining is in the text) - Horseman's Progress by VS Littauer

It comes down to a conflict in approach: Do we know more about how a horse moves well than the horse does? Do we seek to _enable_ the horse to do what horses already know to do, or bend him (maybe literally) to our will?

Still later Littauer wrote (1970?):

"_There was no beauty in the performance of the Germans at the time that I saw them. Their horses often galloped between fences in a choppy, uneven fashion, pulling, with necks frequently arched and chins in; while the riders, in the struggle for an efficient take-off, exhibited positions ranging from rather good to completely grotesque. Hans Winkler, on his famous Halla, was the most attractive rider of the German team, particularly at the beginning of a round, when Holla would come back softly and the rider had no trouble in placing her; in the latter part of the round, when Halla would begin to pull, the original softness was often replaced by yanking and everything that goes with it. *It was only during the jump itself that the Germans and their horses often looked well, because at that moment the riders changed very acrobatically from their nondescript positions to a forward seat, and gave sufficient freedom to their horses’ necks and heads*….

*It must be quite obvious from what I have said that I personally admire an inconspicuous control of the horse; however, because it is undramatic, it leaves many people cold.* And there is another factor: while many people today like to ride on the basis of a partnership with the horse, just as many love to dominate the animal and to feel that he is merely an animated instrument in their hands. This category of rider will always prefer a method based on pushing and pulling, which gives the sensation of dominion. When talented riders take this road the results may not be too bad, but when every Tom, [Richard - HF's censoring software doesn't like some names!] and Harry attempts it, the level of average riding goes downhill, and upset and unhappy horses become a common sight_." All emphasis mine.

It is why I get upset when someone refers to a Forward Seat as a "Jump Seat"! _It isn't about jumping!_ It is a philosophy of riding. A way of thinking about horses. On another thread I read just before opening up your journal, someone said something like "Our legs create movement by..." That is SUCH an UNSERIOUS statement! The horse has 4 legs on the ground. We have zero. Our legs ASK for movement. They NEVER "create" movement! It is why I cringe when I see DVDs on "Body Control". We never control the horse's body. The horse's MIND controls the horse's body! We can only ask, or urge, or maybe try to demand - but the horse always has control.

On the thread you mentioned gottatrot, I attacked the BHS and most riding instructors as being "unserious". That they never THINK about riding. That upset people, but how can anyone be more unserious or more unthinking than when they say "our legs create movement"? _If you haven't noticed the horse's legs create the movement, then aren't you...*STUPID*?!_

Sorry for the "first coffee rant" gottatrot but I suspect you sympathize. The sense of freedom, of connection, of shared joy one can have giving yourself over to your horse's power, letting your horse use his/her amazing athletic power, knowing your horse is giving himself back to you as you both become one in purpose? Incredible!

In different circumstances, one can do that with a deep seat as well. When exploring a new area with a cautious horse, a deep seat can be every bit as much a partnership as a forward seat while trotting/running. There are times and places and activities where a deep seat unites you with your horse's mind and soul as much as a forward seat can. But to do so, IMHO, one must first seek a partnership with the horse. The kind of partnership where we KNOW, to the core of our being, that our legs do NOT "create" movement!


----------



## bsms

Also, this is a phenomenal photo!


----------



## bsms

Littauer's original comments on Hans Gunter and Halla must have been written well before 1970.


----------



## TrainedByMares

gottatrot said:


> The two point life:
> 
> So many times I hear that forward seat is less secure, and two point is mainly for jumping. It was discussed recently on another thread. I find that a following, stirrup-based seat is extremely secure.
> 
> Free to move around in the saddle.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Look how high Nala is off the sand. That lowest hind hoof is probably a foot off the ground. Huge strides, literally flying. Horse and rider balance is together as the hindquarters push powerfully with each stride.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Again, if you zoom in you can see how high Nala is above the sand and how this rider balance is ideal when heading from canter to gallop.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I guess people imagine on a big trotting horse you will be thrown forward in two point? On landing, flexing hips, knees and ankles onto the stirrups keeps me off the saddle.
> This horse was the roughest trotter I've ridden.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I feel that two point is the preparation for anything.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If in doubt, stand up. To me it looks as though I am in a relaxed balance, not unstable, not insecure. If his hind goes up, I'll lean back. If the front goes up, I'll bend at the waist and knees.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My calf and my friend's calf is always on the horse. We both try to keep our foot underneath our weight.
> 
> Two point or forward seat are not the only ways to ride. You can have a very secure seat with a more upright and rearward balanced seat, especially in a western saddle.


If I had that black and white photo I would frame it and put it on my livingroom wall. Riding on the beach looks amazing! I wish I had a lifetime of experience riding like some of you do!


----------



## SueC

bsms said:


> Littauer's original comments on Hans Gunter and Halla must have been written well before 1970.


Just double checking for those of you who don't speak German that you're aware this was that famous time he was jumping horrifically in pain due to a hernia and he was only on the horse to give his team a chance. He moved minimally and said he thought his horse knew what was going on and basically carried him over the course as cargo.


----------



## gottatrot

I have to love a horse named Halla. 

I also quite like the description by Chamberlin of the rider's weight slipping through the relaxed knee and ankle to the foot. 

To me, the way things are described is very important. If a description brings up the wrong ideas, we may latch onto them even subconsciously. 

Things like the legs controlling the horse rather than cueing the horse, these are important to think about in the right way.

I have had so many breakthroughs in my own riding when I've realized I had a wrong concept. 

Knees and heels will lead us astray if we focus on them too much.


----------



## bsms

I took a riding course at Utah State a LONG time ago. The instructor was a former cowboy who wrote his text and illustrated it with pictures of him riding. I couldn't help notice, even then, that the pictures often showed him doing the opposite of what he had just written. I'm fascinated by riding THEORY - a fascination few share. I also love the Forward System of riding and admire that it IS a system and a philosophy as much or more than a "seat". As Caprilli noted back when he first started pushing radical ideas about riding:

"_...the horse who has rational exercise, during which he is allowed to balance himself as he pleases, not being punished with needless suffering, develops in the most efficient fashion, with great advantage to his way of carrying himself, *and becomes docile and submissive to the wishes of the rider.*

...in order to accustom horses to the field without ruining them *and making them bad-tempered*, one must always *profit by the natural instincts of the animal* substantiating his movements and way of going, and one must give him the least possible discomfort in the mouth, loins and ribs. One must abolish the forced position of balance, and any action of the horse's legs beyond that which is essential to move him forward._"

I read an article yesterday about Baucher's Second Method. It discusses how he changed from a dominant rider to emphasizing relaxing the jaw and "_*Hands without legs, legs without hands*_". He was struggling with how to decrease "resistance" in the horse. Seems to me the relaxing of the jaw is a PRODUCT of avoiding aggravating the horse rather than a prerequisite. And "Hands without legs, legs without hands" - almost a total reversal of his "First Method" - is a key element to letting the horse understand what is asked, versus submitting to what is demanded.

But...I'm starting to rant again!


----------



## knightrider

I am fascinated with these ideas related to the teaching of children. I first became aware of resistance when I was sailing with my husband. We'd go out sailing, and I'd wonder when we'd be coming home. The longer he wanted to sail, the more I wanted to be done.

I got my own sailboat; he taught me to sail it; we'd go out sailing on my boat together, and it would be the same. I'd be ready to go in; he'd want to sail longer. I figured I just wasn't as eager of a sailor as he was.

Then I started sailing on my own, by myself. I discovered that I wanted to stay out far longer when I was on my own than when I was being pressured to stay out longer. I found this very weird and confusing, but also I related it to teaching the kids in my classroom.

How could I make the learning process something that they "owned" so that they wouldn't resist it? Just being told, "I want you to do this" makes a person not want to do it. I imagine horses must feel the same way.

Unfortunately, I never did really find anything that would help my kids in my class "own" their own learning, though I tried many things. Just the fact that I wanted to be a helper instead of a dictator changed things for some kids. But not a whole lot. It's a fascinating concept. I like reading about it. Thank you everyone for your contributions.


----------



## gottatrot

@knightrider, I had the same psychological thing in basketball. I could run for miles and miles, but in basketball practice I always wanted to stop and felt tired, because I never knew what the coach was going to make us do. She'd have us run ladders or do other drills, and it was one more, one more, one more. That being out of control psychologically made me unmotivated and tired. When I was deciding how far I wanted to run, I could easily do far more strenuous things.

I've seen how young/green horses in particular can seem tired before they should be physically, because they worry about how much you are going to make them do.


----------



## Knave

My grandpa talked about “pulling the plug,” on a horse. I think it is a further version of what you are saying. He told me the story of a colt he started, and I don’t think it was young, because it took horses longer to grow up back then due to poor feed and tough living, and they had such high expectations of them once started.

It was a horse of the neighbor’s that they asked him to start. He spent a small amount of time, maybe a week, of halter breaking, groundwork and saddling and riding in the corral. He didn’t believe in much corral riding, and saddled the horse and pointed him out through the brush. He said after a quarter mile the horse stopped with his plug pulled. He was disgusted with the animal. He knew what happened, or believed he did, and he told the neighbor to come pick him up.

I wasn’t there of course, but I don’t think that particular horse’s plug was pulled. I don’t think it’s possible to pull the plug of a horse without truly overdoing it. I think it was what you are saying. He didn’t want to. He was overwhelmed and stressed and had no idea what would be asked of him or when he’d get home.

My father always told me that confidence was the most important thing to teach a horse. “Always make them feel like they are winning,” was what he would say when I was young. He taught me to not ask a question of the horse without preparing him with the answer to it.

I also think about basketball practice and working out when I am working on a horse at arena things. I think about coaches, the good ones I’ve seen, and I relate it to training a horse. I think about school teachers too, and try and notice the good methods and think of how they relate to a horse. I think we can combat things like that tiredness by keeping it interesting. It blows my mind when a teacher can make a really good lesson for their classroom out of something I think is rather boring. The way a coach can make a practice really fun and yet still work on specific drills and condition their players. Those players have more endurance and try, and the teacher has students with more attentiveness and excitement.

I think, grandpa’s colt was simply over faced and confused. Granted, grandpa started hundreds of horses back then, so obviously the colt was an outlier. Maybe he struggled with his head, like a student who can’t figure out math because they convince themselves they are wrong. In this day and age we have time to deal with individual issues that come up in horses, and we can try and excite them about their education and work.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I like to 'always leave them wanting more'. Mix some scratches and kisses and kind words in. 

I can't seem to do that with people ,just horses lol


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> My grandpa talked about “pulling the plug,” on a horse.


The phrase I learned for that was "salted up." The horse says, "I don't know what you want. I can't do it. I'm done."


----------



## Knave

@knightrider pulling the plug is different. I agree with what you think about the colt. Pulling the plug means a horse will never take a step with a person on his back again, excepting maybe a plodding walk. They give up on life. It got too hard, and everything they once were disappears. I have heard a person half proud explain they rode colts at work until they couldn’t go anymore, left them on the mountain where they sat, and picked them up the next day.

That person, although I disagreed with the mentality, must have come just shy of pulling the plug. The mare I rode too hard, who couldn’t pick up her head at the end of the day, grandpa told me I was lucky I hadn’t pulled her plug. I wasn’t proud of it by any means. Ashamed.


----------



## gottatrot

I am curious about something with horse brains. I know horses are great at mapping and remembering landscapes exactly as they were, and even a new flower blooming is noticed. So I am wondering why it is difficult for horses to remember how to get out of a field by a gate.

Both Aria and Hero had the same problem recently when turned out. The setup is a long aisleway with six fields, three on each side. Two of the fields have open gates, so when I turn the horses loose in the aisleway, they end up wandering into one of the fields. The gates are not in the corner closest to the aisleway gate, but set in the middle. So what happens is the horses wander through the gates grazing, and then when I come to get them again, they go to the corner of the field and get stuck there, not remembering how to go back the other way to find the gate and exit the field.

Tonight Aria was still in the aisleway, but Hero had gone into a field. When I came to get the horses, Aria came down to the gate to greet me, and Hero went to the corner and whinnied since he felt he was stuck. Then he galloped back and forth around the field, never managing to find the open gate and come out. I had to walk down there and stand in the open gate, and get him to walk to me before he remembered that it was open and he could go through it. 

Is it because they don't see fencing well, and so it seems mysterious that they ended up in the field? They just randomly find a hole and wander in, but don't register that it is an opening unless you bring them in and out of that spot regularly? 

I had a great ride on Aria tonight, around the round pen and perimeter of the outdoor arena. Kadeera's owner was there; I hadn't seen her in some time. We chatted, and she is still hoping I will work with Kadeera (Arab/QH mare) for her. Her goal is to be able to ride her on trails. She showed me where she has Kadeera's tack at the barn now, so I told her I would try to find time to work with her mare and let her know how it goes. 

It surprised her to see me riding Aria around outside the arena. Apparently going outside of the fence seemed brave to her, on such a green horse. I've never found it particularly more fun to be on a bolting horse in a round pen or arena, versus in the open, and actually I've found it helpful sometimes to have more room rather than smashing into a fence right away. But I know I am unusual in that I'm more worried about getting free of a saddle than falling off, and more worried about hitting things on my horse than having the horse run for a distance. 

Aria still has a little difficulty following turning aids if they are a different direction than the one she wishes to go. But she is responding well. We trotted more than we've done before, and that was quite fun. She zooms around. 

I used Hero's new sheepskin saddle pad on her, and she seemed very comfy in it. I'll probably have to get one for her too.


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> I am curious about something with horse brains. I know horses are great at mapping and remembering landscapes exactly as they were, and even a new flower blooming is noticed. So I am wondering why it is difficult for horses to remember how to get out of a field by a gate.
> 
> Both Aria and Hero had the same problem recently when turned out. The setup is a long aisleway with six fields, three on each side. Two of the fields have open gates, so when I turn the horses loose in the aisleway, they end up wandering into one of the fields. The gates are not in the corner closest to the aisleway gate, but set in the middle. So what happens is the horses wander through the gates grazing, and then when I come to get them again, they go to the corner of the field and get stuck there, not remembering how to go back the other way to find the gate and exit the field.


Horses tend to want to go in what would be the shortest path from A to B if there was no fencing. Their brains evolved free-range and they could go wherever they could see, before fences. So it takes a bit of learning for them to go around to a gate that's not the shortest path for where they want to go. Essentially we're building "traps" for horses, like fish traps for fish!


----------



## TrainedByMares

I feel the same about riding in the round pen. If you've ever clanged your boot off the metal panels at speed, you know! I need both legs! It may be that every horse and situation is different,even day to day and as a trainer, you make the call to ride inside or outside of the round pen.

I read once that horses have the mentality of a four year old child and that concept may apply to the fence/gate perception that they seem to have. When an outside stressor is introduced, such as mommy calling, it's getting dark, etc. perhaps slight panic sets in and thinking becomes clouded. 

I'm glad you and Aria had a good time!


----------



## bsms

I've wondered myself. I don't thin the "shortest distance" thing truly makes sense because horses in the wild often need to go from A to B via a circuitous route. Even out on the plains I assume there are places where going _around_ is much safer than going direct. My rancher friend once kept a herd on a plateau for the grass, but water was a mile away. They had no real issues with eating, then walking on a zigzag path to get to water - which he said they did a few times a day.

But like you, I see no sign they understand "gates". Even with the corral mine live in. If they get out, there is a larger enclosed area to keep them from wandering. We use horse pellets to entice them back inside. And they _want_ the pellets - but may stand at a solid corral panel, looking forlorn, with an open gate just 30 feet away!


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> I've never found it particularly more fun to be on a bolting horse in a round pen or arena, versus in the open, and actually I've found it helpful sometimes to have more room rather than smashing into a fence right away. But I know I am unusual in that I'm more worried about getting free of a saddle than falling off, and more worried about hitting things on my horse than having the horse run for a distance.


I thought I was unusual because when I am on a fractious horse who is jumping and dancing around, the last place I want to be is in an arena. I want to be out on a trail where there are interesting and distracting things to consider as we ride. I feel like my horse can relax on the trail and not be focused on where the gate is, how close the barn and stablemates are, and so on. I never could convince beginners that they would be safer heading further out on the trail when they got nervous. They'd want to ride around near the barn, which I feel is the hardest place to ride your horse.

So, a long time ago, when we were all on Horsetopia, I created a survey to see how other riders felt. Do they feel safer in an arena or out on the trail if their horse was misbehaving?

To my surprise, the breakdown was exactly 50/50. I had about 12 people answer and 6 felt more comfortable in an arena; 6 felt more confident out on the trail. @gottatrot , you and I are not alone!


----------



## egrogan

When I was coming back into riding, I was explaining to someone how I was much more comfortable riding a canter out on the trail, up a good hill, than I was in the arena, and they just couldn't understand that. It made perfect sense to me; the horse _wants _to canter when climbing a hill with good footing, and they _want _to stop when they get to the top of it. As opposed to in the arena, when they _don't _want to canter and launch into that crazy running trotting gait with a timid rider who is not committed to really asking for the canter depart.


----------



## Knave

Many young horses buck at the top of the hill @egrogan.  lol. It depends on the horse for me I guess, where I feel more comfortable. Never do I feel truly comfortable in the round pen though. I’ve ridden in it out of necessity before, and when I was young that is where we started colts.

I guess I would still, if I had access to one easily, because it does simplify things. I have hit my knee on the panels at a run, and I don’t don’t like it!

As to the gates, I wonder if it does relate to stress. I find a calm horse can find his way out, but an anxious horse gets stuck. I know they do know though. The first day we took Oakley and Lucy out of that corral I noticed something shocking to me. Oakley was very small. We take the panel apart to open that corral as there is no gate.

Anyways, we took them out and eventually put them back. I was out doing my cow, and I watched Oakley run that panel we had opened back and forth and crash it a couple times. She seemed really confused, like we had pulled a trick on her. She knew she got out there, but now it was solid again.

It kind of blew my mind. For a little while she acted like a grown horse, running a fence, upset. She wasn’t upset though, watching her, she was more confused and maybe irritated. After a few more times in and out she accepted that we make the opening there.


----------



## egrogan

Knave said:


> Many young horses buck at the top of the hill @egrogan.  lol.


Good thing I didn't know that 🤣


----------



## Knave

@egrogan it is pounded into us from childhood. We usually won’t let a colt lope up a hill because of it, but even not loping we watch them. Sure, older horses do fine, but horses who are inexperienced or prone to buck do so at the top of the hill, so you have to be sitting for them. My dad explained to me why he thought it was once, but I can’t remember at all. Maybe it relates to how the saddle sits and pulls the back cinch tight, but I don’t remember.

If they buck on the way up you can ride them easily enough if you manage to keep them pointed up. Try your very best to not let them get pointed down. A horse who blows up going downhill can be almost impossible to ride.


----------



## bsms

Knave said:


> Maybe it relates to how the saddle sits and pulls the back cinch tight, but I don’t remember.


Never had the problem but I never have used a rear cinch either. I _have_ had horses hop in a bucking-like fashion going up a steep spot but they weren't bucking. They were just struggling to get enough thrust from the hind legs to keep us in a canter. I don't think Mia had ever been in the open before I had her. She had to learn to pick her feet up over rocks. She'd do the hoppy-uphill thing, but settled at the top. A Quarter Horse has more power from the rear so may not have those issues. I don't know.


----------



## Knave

I think maybe that is why @bsms. For a young horse, when they get into that motion of learning to go up the steep hill, they are already set up when they get there? I phrased it as a question on purpose. I just can’t remember what he told me. I think maybe that position pulls the cinch tight… I don’t know. I do know it happens though. I’ve had it happen and seen it happen many times. I always watch a person on a colt go up a hill half excited, but when I do it I’m not so excited about it. Lol

I think Cash tried me a couple times going downhill at the bottom, but not up. I don’t know why for sure. I think it was because he was really uncomfortable going downhill, and that I figured related to the nerve damage. He’s so big it’s not like I throw him off balance. He was big as a two-year-old.

Going uphill he feels amazing. He is different, and Queen too. I’ve never felt horses like them, but I’ve also never ridden mustangs before them. They aren’t like your Mia or most quarters. They flatten out and trot uphill. Their back gets lower and wider it feels like, and you feel sturdy and solid. I’ve seen mustangs a lot working, and most do that trotting uphill. They don’t lope uphill. Yes, I could ask either to and they would willingly do so, but they know the best method of travel up steep embankments and the like.


----------



## gottatrot

Interesting about the poll, @knightrider.

Thinking about gates, it must come down to stress because many horses get gate sour in arenas and want to slow down or stop by the gate. They also congregate near gates at feeding times. But I'm still not sure they understand the concept of why they pass through the fence exactly. My thought is that it has to do with vision. They probably don't see a gate the way that we do.

I've had horses buck at the top of dunes many times. Those are short hills. Many of our hills on trails are very long though, and horses won't buck at the top of those because they're too tired by the time they get there. Especially if they're just learning and do some leaping forward/crow hopping along the way. A super steep 3/4 mile or so hill is ideal for cantering horses that are starting out. 

I don't think it is the cinch that makes the horse buck at the top of the hill, because I've had them do it bareback too. I've thought that the motion is almost like bucking, and then at the top they finally get their hind legs strongly under them so they can't resist. It seems that if the wind comes up under their tail they are most likely to do it, LOL. I'd feel that Amore was always tempted at the top of a dune, but most of the time I could talk her out of it. If a tail wind hit us, she couldn't resist. Horses seem to have that same temptation when landing after a jump sometimes, and will throw in a buck.

I'm waiting to canter Aria for the first time when I have her on a good hill. I think it will help her since she has a forward balance point and I'm large on her. Better than trying where we might have to circle or have a downhill balance.

Hero sometimes bucks when we were on steep downhills. That is the worst as @Knave said. I'm getting better at riding that, but it's easy to get off balance. Second worst is when a horse bolts down a steep downhill. It's super hard to get any leverage when the horse keeps dropping away during the stride. You basically have to throw yourself down into gravity, and then taking the moment you are dropping to use your core to pull. If that makes sense. 

The vet finally confirmed my appointment for Hero on the 29th, so I hope she can give me some answers. Aria seems like she is having more trouble chewing again also, a year after her last dental float. I suspect the opposite tooth is growing into the space where she lost a molar.


----------



## SueC

bsms said:


> I've wondered myself. I don't thin the "shortest distance" thing truly makes sense because horses in the wild often need to go from A to B via a circuitous route. Even out on the plains I assume there are places where going _around_ is much safer than going direct. My rancher friend once kept a herd on a plateau for the grass, but water was a mile away. They had no real issues with eating, then walking on a zigzag path to get to water - which he said they did a few times a day.
> 
> But like you, I see no sign they understand "gates". Even with the corral mine live in. If they get out, there is a larger enclosed area to keep them from wandering. We use horse pellets to entice them back inside. And they _want_ the pellets - but may stand at a solid corral panel, looking forlorn, with an open gate just 30 feet away!


@bsms, let me re-word that for you to the most energy-efficient path, which in flatland pasture situations is also usually the shortest. They will go where they would if there were no fences, until they learn that they have to go the more energy-expending route through a gate. In the wild they will learn where the obstacles are too, and then find the most energy-efficient safe route around those. It's also how they set up regular travelling paths through terrain, including large-enough fields humans keep them in. Cattle do the same, ditto donkeys etc. Energy efficiency is important for survival, and fencing is a recent phenomenon in the evolutionary history of the horse. In the wild, most obstacles, like fallen trees, are easy to go around and not all-encompassing except for gateways.

Exceptions may apply, but if you look at the aerial footage of animal tracks, they tend to be fairly straight terrain permitting or gently meandering around obstacles.


----------



## SueC

Just in PS, large herbivores have a grazing mode and a travel mode. When they enter travel mode, what I explained above applies. Apart from those common "programmes" they also play and explore, for which they use neither mode. If horses are zigzagging through a pasture, and not avoiding obstacles, they're probably still checking out the food for later reference.

Hope that de-mystifies things a bit.


----------



## bsms

SueC said:


> Exceptions may apply, but if you look at the aerial footage of animal tracks, they tend to be fairly straight terrain permitting or gently meandering around obstacles.


The Rockies may be an exception, then. Game trails do a lot of strange things here. I mean, things look really good heading south out of Kanab Utah, but then you find out the Grand Canyon is in the way! On my short vacation to Show Low, we talked about that driving back. Things can look so simple, and then...an impassable crevice going for miles. Heck, this is not too far south of my friend's ranch in Utah:














That said, it is more "Bighorn Sheep" country than where horses would choose to live. The horse country looks more like this, where trails ARE more direct:


----------



## gottatrot




----------



## gottatrot

I found this book at a used bookstore:








It's very interesting, about an 18 year old British girl who wins the race across Mongolia. It's more of a travel book than a horse book per se, written to appeal to people who aren't necessarily into horses. She's the niece of Lucinda Green, a famous British eventing rider. Quite funny to me is that she had hamsters as a child, and comments about seeing the hamsters in the wild on the plains of Mongolia as she is riding through.


----------



## bsms

Book ordered...only $6 including shipping from Amazon. Also ordering "_Zulu Rising: The Epic Story of iSandlwana and Rorke's Drift_" - but that isn't a horse book, unless you count the ones who raced away on their horses as the battle started, or the handful ordered to TRY to escape on horseback with the colors. I suspect Rough Magic will be a lot less bloody, though....


----------



## egrogan

I've read _Rough Magic _and thought it was really refreshing to hear the story from the perspective of a young person- so many people you hear talk about things like the Mongol Derby or Tevis are much older, so I appreciated Lara's take.

In a similar vein, I just had this one arrive yesterday: On the Hoof
@bsms, I think this one might be up your alley- the guy who did the ride had already done solo crosscountry trips flying and on a motorcycle, then decided to try it on a horse.

I can't remember if we've talked about the documentary series _The Ride_, but it follows a couple of South African guys who do the Mongol Derby. It's on most of the streaming services if you haven't watched it.




There is also a series with the same guys doing the Race the Wild Coast ride in South Africa





I'm really conflicted about these ultra ultra extreme rides. I found it incredibly distressing that a horse was killed at Tevis this year, another was airlifted out after also falling off a cliff, and only ~40% of riders/horses completed successfully. There's training and pushing yourself to achieve an intense challenge, but when we start killing our horses, how do we keep justifying that it's worth it to make it so hard? I don't want to derail your thread, but I have been really musing on this since hearing about Tevis while I was vetting at Vermont.


----------



## Knave

I can see what you are saying @egrogan. I could take and do a massive trip if it wasn’t a race, like those boys on unbranded, although they did kill the one horse and hurt the other, I think those were accidents, which may be what does kill horses in most scenarios.

Yet racing a horse that far does seem like ultra marathons for people. I could train enough to do a marathon I think, but I can’t imagine running 100 miles myself. I imagine it could kill me. My horses are like that. We work hard. Bones, fit, I think could have done very well in an endurance ride, because that’s who he is. I think he’s the only horse I’ve had that I figure could be really competitive in endurance. I can’t really imagine pushing a horse as hard as those ultra ultra type things though. Yet, I can’t imagine pushing myself as hard as an ultra race either.

I could see pushing a horse that hard in a life or death situation, like you read about in old books. Trying to save yourself or another, but those stories always break my heart.


----------



## bsms

Writing about jumping, VS Littauer concluded in the 60s and 70s:

_"But there then occurred in riding what has often happened before in other human activities: *man's ambition to attain the barely attainable took over* jumping; it forced many international horsemen to drop Caprilli's method and to search for other, more forcible means of making horses negotiate almost impossible combinations of obstacles. 

Today many of these horsemen will rightly tell you that Caprilli's basic tenet, that "there is little in common between ring riding and cross-country riding" could be altered to "there is little in common between cross-country riding and international show jumping."…

...*Artificial jumping problems, and the correspondingly artificial means of solving them*, have placed such jumping just around the corner from the tanbark of the circus._"

Sounds like endurance racing may be encountering what happens when man wants to win. Hope I'll be proven wrong!

Ordered "On the Hoof".


----------



## egrogan

Knave said:


> I could take and do a massive trip if it wasn’t a race, like those boys on unbranded, although they did kill the one horse and hurt the other, I think those were accidents, which may be what does kill horses in most scenarios.


I haven't seen unbranded so not sure about the reference (I will look it up!), but what you said is what leaves me conflicted. Of course any of our horses could have a paddock accident today that would result in them dying. Just this week, a woman I know had to put her horse down because he severed his entire hoof off after he got it caught in a drainage ditch in a back corner of the pasture that had collapsed because of some rain, but no one noticed the metal pipe was poking out until the accident happened. Awful stuff. On our ride earlier today, Coalie almost fell because he trotted over a hole on the edge of the trail just wrong and completely lost his balance. Accidents definitely happen, even when you're not doing something extreme.

I have a harder time accepting the horse at Tevis dying as a tragic accident, I suppose because my perception is that being on those extremely narrow, twisty trails with no barrier preventing a fatal tumble over a cliff does not feel like a reasonable scenario to ask the horse to be in in the first place. I don't know, it's just leaving a bad taste in my mouth that this happened and it isn't making anyone stop to question whether or not the "challenge" has become too over the top at the expense of horses, and it's time to reassess. It's sort of like what Denny Emerson talks about with eventing (and what Littauer was saying above)- how many more horses and riders need to die before that sport adjusts what is just accepted as a "challenge?" What would it take to transition to something where it's unlikely horses and riders will die unless it is in a true accident, rather than from a preventable obstacle humans dreamed up? I was talking to him last weekend at one of the vet checks, and he was really upset that the #1 ranked horse in eventing had died on course a few weeks prior- but this was before the horse had died at Tevis. I'm curious to know his reaction to the Tevis situation.


----------



## bsms

There is a reason I don't mess around with Cholla...the Tortilla Mountains are NW of Tucson


----------



## Knave

@egrogan I have ridden in many cases where you would die if your horse slipped. In my later years it has been a “have to” situation, but in high school I did it once for a pack trip. I was on Runt, and boy did she hate it. She was petrified, which made me more petrified of course. She did manage it, and after that you could take her on absolutely anything without her thinking twice about it. It was on something like that, where I had to keep turning her around and she jumped over herself to do it, that she split that old scar. That was a “have to,” but because I confused the directions, not because I was told to which I thought at the time. Later I was told “no horse has ever made it down that canyon. It’s impossible.” Well, Runt made it up and down several times that day, although it did end her career.

We have to traverse dangerous terrain, but it’s not for fun. I have ridden in places where the job was worse, and the terrain would about make you cry. I don’t love it, but the right horse makes it feel okay. I wouldn’t hesitate to take Zeus on anything ever. He is so smart and lets no fear bother him. Bones had a cat trail on a steep mountain powder out from under us as a three-year-old, and although he managed to save us by scrambling and giving his all, he is so so scared of that kind of terrain, and it makes him dangerous to ride.

My grandpa took a horse I rode when I was tiny called Buck (a fancy young buckskin that won a race for me by accidentally running away once when my uncles were young and decided to race at work. I was like five and he four and my father was ready to kill his brothers and not at all happy I won the race.) up to hunt in some really steep country in Wyoming I believe. Buck got so scared he would faint. Grandpa ended up selling him after that because anytime it got too steep he would just pass out cold.


----------



## Knave

I loved Buck and was sad he was sold. Looking back, I never remember anyone riding him besides myself. I think probably it was due to his phobia. It is part of why Bones works better for big girl than myself. She doesn’t take him into sketchy situations as often as I needed to. He is getting better too about those things, as they both get older and are more competent.

I was so tiny when I rode Buck. I wouldn’t have taken him onto anything particularly steep. I would have always been stuck behind the cows, half counting on him to do the job, and probably he understood that job really well. He was the only really young horse I rode until I was nine.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks for the recommendations, @egrogan. On the Hoof looks interesting.

Very sad about the Tevis accidents. I agree, some things are too hard on horses or dangerous, and questionable ethically. The Mongolian race doesn't sound too hard on the horses, since even though the riders go 1,000 km, they switch out horses about every 25 miles. 

After riding a couple of 25 mile LD rides, I realized a several of our horses could have done 50 miles but 100 miles sounds crazy. I don't think every horse is physically or mentally capable of more than an LD distance, even when sound. If Halla had not been injured I would have tried a 50 with her. I think she would have done well and enjoyed it.

The ride we did up by Mt. Rainier was very challenging, although not dangerous like the Tevis. But a lot of riders did not finish. We had trained on that type of terrain, but I think it would have been easy to get a horse in trouble going over 50 miles when it was so steep and slippery in places.
You can see in this photo how narrow the trail was. The rider behind me has kind of disappeared in the brush.








I worked with a woman who had gone over a cliff with her horse, and the horse hit his head on a tree. She was pinned between the horse and the tree, and then he started having seizures and smashed her leg to bits below the knee. The seizure eventually freed the horse from the tree and he continued to fall down the cliff and died. She was rescued from the tree and had a long recovery with rods left in her leg. I would like to avoid riding where something like that might happen. 

I didn't finish Unbranded because I felt they were being stupid and putting the horses at risk (as in the short video @bsms posted). Probably I was taking it too seriously, but I saw so many things that could have gone even more wrong, and I couldn't take watching it. My sister was hiking with a group into the Grand Canyon and they had to wait while a mule that had fallen was cleared away. She was told it happened on occasion.

It's hard for me because I have always loved watching racing and the Kentucky Derby, but I disagree with the breeding practices, and the treatment of the horses that leads to injuries and deaths. Same with eventing and dressage, which have become so extreme. I am looking for a place to take jumping lessons and I want to try cross country, but I am sure beginner novice will be exciting enough for me, and the risk of injury and death goes up astronomically as the obstacles get higher and more challenging.

In my opinion, it is the extremes of sport that become detrimental to horses. Higher levels of competition and showing begin to be more about winning and prestige than the welfare of the horses. Even though I can be a competitive person, I feel obligated to enjoy horses at the levels where I feel they can enjoy what we are doing also. 

My friend who owns Nala adopted a mustang and has had her some months with a trainer. The trainer loved the mustang so much that Nala's owner gave her the mustang. I thought that was sweet.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> they had to wait while a mule that had fallen was cleared away.


Oh my gosh!!! What happened to the person who was on the mule?


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> Oh my gosh!!! What happened to the person who was on the mule?


They said it was one on the pack string. There have only been a couple of mules that have fallen with riders over the years, so I am not sure if they take easier routes with the ridden mules or if they are carrying heavier loads when packing and it is easier for them to slip?

I saw this photo on FB today:








Apparently bison have heart and lung capacity that is much larger than a cow, so they can run faster and farther. I guess they are similar to bears in that they appear slow when you see them standing around, but they're quite fast. I had a black bear run across the road in front of my car once, and was very surprised at how quickly it crossed.


----------



## gottatrot

Hero and Aria stuck in the corner again today. "Where is the gate? How do we get out?"


----------



## Knave

Both horses are looking wonderful!


----------



## gottatrot

I feed my hamster at 10 pm sharp whenever possible. DH teases me, because she controls my behavior. If you've never seen an angry hamster, you might not understand. Here are some pics from online:

















They have an amazingly withering glare, and an unhappy hamster's whole body expresses the emotion. Abbey can turn and give me the "cold shoulder," like this one. It's a slow turn followed by a hard glare with squinty eyes. Frank disapproval.









If I have to go to work early and show up to feed Abbey, she comes out with an angry stare and disapproving posture. She'll condescend to take some food from me, but then she'll stalk off back to bed. If I feed her at the right time, she'll be fluffy and adorable with perky ears.








If I am fifteen minutes late, she'll be angry with me, and the later I am the more disappointed she is.


















Hamsters are enormously expressive little beings.


----------



## egrogan

I have never been around a hamster, but those photos show some pretty clear body language anyone could understand! 🤣


----------



## bsms




----------



## gottatrot

I had time today to evaluate Kadira the Arab/QH mare for the first time. 

Her owner describes herself as an intermediate rider, and has owned Kadira since she was an untrained youngster. She's had her to a trainer to be started, but has not been riding her (for at least the two years I've been boarding there) due to two issues. The first is that she has never been able to get her horse to trot in the arena. The second is that she tried riding her outside of the arena a time or two, and her mare "bolted," so she is worried to take her out again. Her dream is to be able to have a walk/trot horse she can ride in the arena and on leisurely trail rides.









Kadira is youngish, I think less than ten, and around 14.3 hands or so I'd say. 
She was very interested in the attention when I went into her field, and trotted behind me to the gate. She led very easily over to the arena.








First I lunged her to see if she was sound, and to check her breathing. She has some issue with allergies and breathing at times, which her owner says has not been bothering her lately. I did not notice breathing issues, considering she is quite obese. It's difficult to see in the pics, but I was squishing through fat rolls when I cinched her up. She makes me feel Aria is in the "slightly tubby" category in comparison. I did notice she has a flappy false nostril, which you can hear in the video when I am lunging her. Those don't actually interfere with breathing, although they are loud. 

Since we ran into no issues, especially considering she hasn't been asked to work for quite some time, I tried her with a saddle and bridle. There was a choice of an Aussie stock saddle or a synthetic Abetta type western. The Aussie appeared too narrow for her current state, and I was skeptical that the synthetic would straddle her either, but it actually fit well enough.

My impression was that she would prefer a different bit from her loose ring snaffle, but who knows what state her teeth are in, and she didn't show serious resistance or dislike. When I checked to see if she knew what it meant if I tugged on a rein from the ground, she pinned her ears and flung her nose back toward her barrel, so some trainer had spent some time doing the "rubber neck" response that some call flexion. It was the same on the other side, so I stopped doing the test and told her I found it aversive too.

I made a video, trying to show how I handle and assess a horse I've never observed being ridden and only have some clues about what she might be like. I tried zooming in so I wouldn't be so far away, but I don't have very good camera awareness so I'm too close at times and also out of the frame a lot. Oops. Before I got on, I checked to see what she thought about my weight in the stirrup or saddle, but she planted her feet as though trained to stand nicely, and I felt comfortable hopping right on. 

It took a little incentive to get her to trot, but it was very doable. Her canter was rather unbalanced on the lunge, so I didn't try it out and hope to get her in a little bit of shape and balance first. Also I considered that her owner doesn't actually want her to canter. But if I take her out on trails, I'll try to make sure it isn't too exciting for her and also that she has a good ability to come back to a trot, just in case. 

I didn't put any music on, so you can hear how silly I am with my tone and reassurances while trying to be positive with a new horse. 






Tomorrow I am possibly going to drive up and ride with my good friend in the north, hopefully she has an exciting horse for me to ride.


----------



## SueC

I don't think there is anything silly about your tone and reassurances, it's fine - those "singing" tones are helpful for horses to understand our meaning when a person or thing is new to them. Especially the bright tone and drawn-out words when praising.

Looks like you're going to have some fun there.


----------



## gottatrot

I wanted an exciting ride today, and of course my good friend gave me one. I rode Loki, the mustang, and she rode Lufa, the Belgian/Haflinger cross. 

Lufa is a gorgeous, big horse. Lots of go, stamina, a super horse for my friend. He is trained to pull a cart and do all sorts of things and she bought him for a dollar. He was in a jumping lesson program, and began kicking and mowing down the students. I don't think he appreciated so many beginners, and I guess they thought he had serious issues so they rehomed him. He seems like a big sweetie now, in a stable home with good riders, although he will kick you apparently if you sneak up on him. 

She does not ride with her leg like this, she was trying to get his head forward for the picture.









We put breast collars on, and I wondered if we needed them. We went up and then back down one of the steepest roads I've ever ridden on. I don't think you can see how the road just disappears past my friend's horse, but on the way down I decided to get off and lead Loki, and my friend followed suit. She would probably have ridden down, but it was too steep for me. After walking up it, the horses were heaving even though they are in shape. It was about 70 degrees, so not too hot but it felt hot to me. My friend is 5'10" so you can see Lufa is a big horse.









My video was very short, because I am terrible with phone footage.





After we walked down the asphalt road, we came to where it turns to gravel. We always used to let the horses canter here. But it is a short hill and cars might be coming on the other side, so we usually slow at the top. When Lufa trotted, Loki sprang into a gallop. I brought him back to canter, but maybe held him a little too much because he crow hopped, twice, and then seemed to settle. I thought he was done, but he attempted to launch into a full gallop again, and I held him to a canter. Then he threw in a big jumping buck, high in the air. I told him that Hero bucks more forcefully, and then we trotted a little before walking.

We threaded through a narrow wooded trail before exiting onto a logging road. We trotted and cantered on a few more sections, and each time Loki tried exploding off, and eventually would let me rate his canter. He has a big trot, but seems to prefer cantering. Maybe because Lufa has a big stride too. The road had some sharp curves and downhills, so I needed to not go off on an uncontrolled gallop.

We rode about 8 miles or so, and at almost halfway, there was a long, steep uphill where the downhills are not steep and the curves are not too sharp to hit at a gallop. My friend said we could let the horses go. Finally, I turned Loki loose to enjoy his gallop. It was quite hilarious. I enjoyed a few moments of brief raw power, and then immediately he backed off the pace. He had absolutely no motivation to run far and fast. Later my friend told me he has the heart of a sprinter. Soon I was pushing him along to keep a canter going. 

After we went up the super steep hill and back down, Loki didn't care to do more than some long trotting and steady cantering on the way home. He was out of gallop. It was fun to ride a horse that felt very sound and strong in the gaits. 

I looked at all the pony and horse carts my friend had at her farm to get some ideas of what Aria might fit into.


----------



## egrogan

Sounds like such a fun ride! Isn't it amusing how photos can't really capture steep hills. Sometimes I look at pictures of where we rode and realize people must think I'm making it up when I say a hill was crazy steep, because the perspective gets so obscured. Steep enough to walk down is plenty steep to me!


----------



## bsms

Doesn't look nearly as steep when I'm on the ground versus on Bandit's back. It doesn't feel bad going up, but coming down? I've taken to going off trail to the left in the picture, then cut across the trail going right, then return to the trail just as it is about to cross the wash. It is the only spot along the wash that doesn't have a vertical bank. The wash isn't wide but there is so much cactus and rock anywhere Bandit would land that I don't want to try jumping him over. Besides, it doesn't seem fair to ask him to jump from a downhill slope to an uphill slope when we never even practice jumping on level ground.

When I took up riding 14 years ago, I wanted to learn jumping. But the Sonoran Desert is just NOT a jumping-friendly environment!

My youngest was home on leave last week. We took Trooper and Bandit here. Trooper followed Bandit zig-zag down. When we returned, Bandit hopped his way back up. I told my daughter to hold the horn if needed. She said she always did up a hill if only to use her hand as a cushion if she was pushed onto the horn. But Trooper being Trooper, he just took smaller steps and slow-walked to the top. Not bad for a horse who is ridden maybe a dozen times a year!

That miserable [expletive] will NEVER like me, but he's a darn good trail horse. You couldn't ask for a more reliable horse for a beginner. And no matter how much he dislikes me, he rides fine for me. But it is hard to enjoy riding a horse if you can hear him swearing at you under his breath.... 

Heck, I think I can hear him questioning my parentage when he's FOLLOWING Bandit and I!


----------



## gottatrot

That hill looks steep, @bsms!

Vets are some of my favorite people, because they help with the needed answers for our animals.

The vet came out today, and needless to say I was a little apprehensive. Acinatx and Phantomhorse have had very bad news about their horses recently. 

The vet had her assistant lunge Hero while we watched. He went fine to the left, but did some of the hopping and cross cantering to the right. It was hot, in the mid-70s, and Hero only did one small little rear/buck but the girl lunging seemed rather intimidated. I was sorry about that, but he was quite good for himself, actually. The whole time during the exam and everything he didn't try to nip or kick anyone, so he's come such a long way.

The vet did flexion tests, and the left hind failed. She showed me how if she crossed the leg under his belly it really hurt him. So we did xrays of both stifles.

Basically, my previous vet misdiagnosed him. This new one is a very good lameness vet from an equine hospital. The other one was more of a country vet. After the previous xrays, the vet had told me she thought he had slipping stifles that were inflamed, and showed me some roughening on the left stifle which she said was mild arthritis, probably from compensating for the bilateral stifle inflammation.

This vet showed me the same roughening, and it's not near the bony part that locks the horse's knee or hangs up. Rather, this is his primary issue, and it's an OCD lesion he's had since development. Basically, there is a flaw in the cartilage when it is developing and it doesn't end up smooth and clean like it is supposed to. So his kneecap slides over this rough cartilage and it feels like someone who needs a knee replacement. Downhills are especially painful just like with people with bad knees. She doesn't think his stifle ligaments are getting hung up, and he is bucking when his knee hurts as a reaction to that pain from the left knee.

He doesn't have signs of arthritis in his stifles. The vet said certainly as a TB he has arthritis in his hocks by his age, and she thinks the Equioxx I've been giving the past several years have probably helped his hocks feel much better and also helped a bit with his bad knee. 

Here's the good news: She injected the knee with a steroid and joint lubricant, and said there is a good chance it could help him feel a whole lot better for several months at least. I'm supposed to give him a few days off and then try him out. No exercise restrictions, but she said to avoid very steep hills, and thinks if I work on his core strength it will help him too. There's a more powerful joint injection we could try also called Pro-Stride if I want. 

But here's another reason why I love a good vet. She showed me a divot under Hero's neck up by the larynx and had me feel where there is a gap in the cartilage. It means that he was a roarer, and had surgery at the track. She said that probably they thought the reason they couldn't get him to run was because he was a roarer, and then did the surgery, but he also had this OCD lesion bothering him. I never would have known this about him! Hero has a much better attitude nowadays, but if anyone had a reason to be grumpy, it's him. Imagine all the negative associations he has with being worked, feeling unable to breathe well, with a painful knee grinding away. All these people trying and finding him difficult to work with. 

We didn't do Hero's teeth since the vet didn't want to release any dental bacteria into the blood stream after opening up the joint with a needle. I thought that was smart. Aria had her teeth done, and it went much faster since she only had a few points and slight wave mouth beginning again. The previous year it was a big mess, she'd only been handled a couple of months and the vet had to sedate her three times due to her head thrashing. A barely handled horse, and we threw her in a dark stall and used a power tool on her. Yikes. This year she only had one sedative, was a little antsy but only moved away from the drill several times, and the mouth problems were easier to correct. Phew. 

My last vet would dose horses very heavily, and it was safer to handle them but I did hear she had at least one horse die from oversedation, so I feel much better with this vet. 

The vet didn't think Aria was particularly overweight. A little chubby, but her belly is mainly a lack of muscle tone and roughage sitting around. She said she could feel her ribs and spine, and her fat pads are small. Not heading toward metabolic issues or anything, even though she looks like a little tub. The vet was glad to hear I am riding and using her, and thought I seemed small enough for her. She said she thought Aria was glad I was her owner. They probably say that to a lot of people, but it warms your heart anyway.


----------



## TrainedByMares

Sounds like you received alot of good information. Poor Hero! He's been through a lot. He is very fortunate to have you on his side. I hope the injection improves his life.even just a little bit! I like your new vet!


----------



## SueC

Looks like you got a good one. Out of luck here I think, the horse specialist hospital is a laughing stock as it's an octogenarian who never correctly diagnosed a thing on my place and pronounced terminal illnesses where there weren't any, and when I discussed it with my farrier (who found the abscess I wanted drained that this vet had said was sudden-onset hip arthritis the horse didn't have) and a few locums who came out and did actually good jobs (but left the practice) who laughed and said they thought the same, working with this guy. And then, next practice, came the dental experience with Sunsmart and the fact that the other two didn't eat better either. Now the farrier does their teeth, and finally they can chew properly again. Not looking forward to needing a vet and trying to find one, although I have a really good one for my dog.

The joint injection may be similar to something a 3yo race mare I knew was given. She had wear arthritis from working too hard too young, in the front fetlocks. Got hyaluronic acid injections which lubricate the joint and encourage cartilage repair. A while later, was put in conditioning work and started again slowly and raced sound for three more years and retired sound.

That was almost as good as the horse with terminal cancer near the eye (in the tear duct too, from where it could not be removed, it had regrown each time) who had a last experimental treatment with TB vaccine in situ. The idea was it might alert the immune system to the cancer while it was busy with other things in the local area. The tumour regressed and never came back. Doesn't always work but this one got lucky.

It's great when you can get a good professional who cares.


----------



## Knave

I loved this! I am glad you were right and kept pushing for medical care. He is lucky he is owned by you, because I obviously had the wrong idea, and I would have never found out what was actually happening.

I am happy for him though! How amazing is it for him to finally get some relief?! I’m happy for you too, because now you will get a chance to see him in a different light. It could be that your whole relationship turns around! I realize of course that it could still be just alright, but even in that case he will be blessed to have the relief and that is because of you.


----------



## gottatrot

My friend sent me a picture of me riding Loki the mustang.
He's pretty good sized for a mustang, maybe 15.2 hands? My friend asked when the last time was that I'd ridden in a western saddle. It was funny because I had ridden Kadira in one just the day before! But before that it had probably been several years at least. 








My friend said Loki is out of shape for jumping right now, but a girl who rides him jumps him up to four feet. He's a great horse.


----------



## gottatrot

Hero was still a little sore yesterday, after the injections. 

Here are pictures of Hero's stifle xrays, and I added some arrows to hopefully show the problems. On the left, if you look at the contour of the bone, it has variations in shading and is uneven/jagged. On the right, there is a sharper line and it is smooth. That means when the left femur bone was forming, it did not completely turn into bone but instead was incomplete cartilage (probably mostly calcified by now). So the surface is jagged and interferes with the soft tissue in the joint with movement. 









Here is a different view of the femur, and on the left there is a rough edge and on the right a smooth, defined edge. This is a common area for horses to have developmental lesions.









On this video you can see how the stifle fits together with the soft tissues. If you pause at 1:35, you can see how the green joint capsule and other soft tissues would be impacted by a roughened surface along the femur.





I was looking through some old videos of Hero at various times, and discovered that he kicks out with his left hind about 90% of the time vs the right. I'd never been able to narrow it down like that before. So obviously it is a pain response.


----------



## gottatrot

Rode three horses today....it was great!

First, went out with Maybelle the mule's rider on Aria, and she did her longest trail ride ever. We went for an hour, and she did extremely well. I did not get off, and rode her across the narrow bridge both ways, and up and down the steep hills. She is such a great pony. 

She spooked twice, very small startles and both times they were things that would have seriously spooked a lot of horses. When we were walking by a garden shed at the nursery, some sputtering water pipes started up next to us. Later, a kid jumped out of the back of a minivan wearing a flopping inner tube around her waist. Right after the startle she was fairly calm each time.

We cantered for the first time. I urged her forward when we were going up a hill, and she went into it smoothly like it was no big deal, cantered several strides and then dropped out of it. We also did some extended trotting. She had plenty of energy, and was independent minded. When Maybelle went one way, sometimes she'd choose another. She also took the lead at times. 









Next, I rode Hero. He's had a week off since his stifle injection, and I thought he seemed to be moving better when I led him around. He was much more forward and only did one small hop at the very beginning, then did quite a bit of trotting for me. This was a big improvement, so I am hopeful the injections will really help him. 





Then I rode Kadira, and took her outside of the arena. I discovered what her owner is afraid of. She's apparently barely been out of the arena, and seemed a little worried but went around fairly well. Whenever I cue her she acts surprised, so she's quite green. Hero came running over from inside the arena, and spooked Kadira. 

She has one of those spooks where she puts her head high in the air and gallops forward several steps. I was overly relaxed and got left behind, it must have looked quite funny because I was well behind the vertical with my torso when Kadira stopped. After hauling myself back upright, I settled her down and she did the behavior a couple more times when my helmet scraped under some tree branches and made a sound. I was with her for those, and had her do some focused work, turning in small circles and moving her hindquarters. Then we went around a bit more, and ended with her calm. She just needs more experience, and I think her spooks will settle into something more reasonable. 

After our ride, I put her in with my two for several minutes. She's rather lonely and was very excited to see my horses. She's alone in a back field away from the other horses. All the rest have horses either over the fence or in close view, even if they are alone in a field. Hero and Kadira were very interested in each other. Aria was over it pretty quickly. After I led Kadira away, she and Hero called for each other a few times. People ask how long it takes for horses to get attached to a buddy...it can only take a couple of minutes sometimes.


----------



## bsms

She has that, "_Yes, we can do just about anything!_" look about her. Of course, so do you... 🤠​


----------



## Knave

That is all excellent! I’m so happy for you!


----------



## gottatrot

I always have theories...

Hero really dislikes any bit that puts pressure on the tongue. I found this model online that shows all the cranial and facial nerves.
Equine Cranial Nerves Model Part II - 3D model by ERC

I was reading that the hypoglossal nerve relates to the pharyngeal paralysis they do the surgery for (roaring), which Hero had. It is dark green on the model.
It also relates to tongue motor movement, so I wonder if the surgery might make the tongue more sensitive to pressure.

Lately I've been using the hackamore on him. He seems more comfortable in it. I'm not a hard core bitless person, having ridden horses that would never be safe to ride bitless, at least not in certain scenarios. But there are many cases where bitless is really the best option for the horse.

I am not sure yet that I've found the best bitless for him yet, so will keep experimenting.


----------



## gottatrot

I rode Kadira today. People who say some horses can do fine alone...I wonder if it is really true. Kadira came running when she saw me, and after I left she galloped the fence line and called. I've never seen a horse do that for a human after a ride. She must be so lonely.

Her bit is an O ring snaffle, with a bar over the center joint (myler type), so a decent bit. However, she seemed somewhat unhappy and chompy with it. So I tried a baucher mullen happy mouth and she liked it much better. She immediately closed her mouth and held it on her tongue. 

I walked Kadira around the area and down the road a little ways to see if she seemed spooky or upset. She seemed fine, so I got on and rode around the same area. No spooks or gallop-ten-feet-from-a-standstill today. 

She knows how to be saddled very well, and bridled but someone hasn't been gentle because she is a little apprehensive about the bridle going on and off. She stands like a rock when I get on. She doesn't know how to disengage the hind end, so we worked on that, and she can barely turn in a circle. We worked on both following her head with her body around a circle, and also displacing her hind legs to the side when I had her bend her neck (aka one rein stop). 

It's amazing to me how people teach horses to go forward on straight lines and stop. OK, but what if the stop doesn't work right now and you're running fast? I don't care so much about stopping, because every horse will stop when they are calm. I want precision turning so I can decide where we are going when the horse gets excited and out of control. 

Kadira is very sweet and seems quite happy to be getting attention and out of her field to do something. I suspect she is very bored and lonely living out of sight of other creatures.


----------



## egrogan

I must have missed why she has to be alone?
Sounds like a productive ride though!


----------



## Knave

I also missed why she is alone. I will say I’ve had a couple human lonely horses though for sure. Partner was the most crazy human lonely horse ever, and he wouldn’t pay a bent nickel for a horse to be around. Queen is very centered on being with me, and the horses don’t mean anything to her thus far when I’m outside. Oakley runs the fence like a panicked horse when someone leaves her too, and she’s with her mom! Lol


----------



## gottatrot

On the boarding property, there are many fields with shelters. They all have horses in them, and a few of the owners just have one horse like Kadira's owner. Her field with the shelter is in the back behind the arena and round pen. In her field with the shelter she can see some of the horses if they are all in their winter pens too.

All of the horses also have an extra field with no shelter they can use for summer turnout to let their winter/shelter field rest. Kadira's is behind some buildings and when she is back there she can't see any other horses. Every other field is next to one with another horse in it, but hers is isolated. I assume she is in the summer field for two reasons: one is so the owner doesn't have to feed hay, and two is so the winter pen can grow in some grass and not be as muddy when it is wet. Personally, if I had just one horse I would ask someone if we could put our horses together. 

Last summer Kadira was turned out in the lower fields (which technically one is my horses' turnout) next to the other horses, but she is very overweight and her own turnout field is a lot less green and lush. If I kept my horses in their turnout fields in the summer, their regular field would grow a lot of grass and they would get quite fat. It would be fine for Hero, but not Aria. So I only turn them out for grazing and recreation every several days while I do chores, and their regular field is an acre so they have plenty of space. Since they are on it 24/7, they keep it grazed down but not to bare dirt. It also means the barn owner can feed when I am not there, and she gives them their supplements each morning in their shelters.


----------



## gottatrot

I signed up for a jumping lesson next Saturday. It has taken me a very long time to find anyone who has lesson horses, does jumping lessons, and will even consider less than weekly lessons. 
They are reluctant about scheduling one lesson a month, but it is an hour and a half drive to the closest place I could find, and so I am hoping it will work out. I want to learn, but I also need time for my own horses. I feel that at my level and with all the riding I do between times, I could still progress even with a once monthly lesson. 
This place has a cross country course, so who knows what I might end up doing?

Maybelle the mule's owner and I are planning a ride tomorrow and I'm going to trial Hero to see how his stifle is feeling on the trail and hills. I am thinking about ponying him out while riding Aria, to see how he does without a rider, and then riding him back if he does fine. The vet will come back in two weeks to do Hero's dental float, so I am hoping to give her a good update on how the injections are doing for him.


----------



## gottatrot

Got pics of ponying Hero off Aria as we headed out today.

It did not go well. Hero had two huge spooks a couple blocks down the road. Next ten minutes were him rearing, kicking, and rushing. It was all I could do to keep the horses traveling onward. 

At the bridge Aria hesitated and Hero pushed her off the road. When we went through some trees I got off and led them. I got on again after the bridge and Hero was soon rearing, kicking, striking. Very upset. 

It was tricky getting them into the woods and I had to get off again. Even walking Hero was difficult. At the end of the trail, I got on Hero to see if I could manage him better under saddle. He reared, kicked going up the hill and Aria stayed way back.

Soon he was stuck and hysterical, and I got off and walked him home, kicking and rearing as he went. 

My friend on Maybelle was too patient. I apologized and said I wouldn't put her through that again. We dropped Hero off in his field and took Aria and Maybelle on the back trail. 

Aria was a delight, she improves every ride. We cantered up the hill again, and did some forward trotting. She is so smooth I can almost sit all the way down on her fast trot and not bump out of the saddle. She is careful about the Boston Terriers and slows to avoid them. So sweet. Amore would have aimed for them.

Some elk crashed out of the bushes and crossed our path, and the horses just waited before continuing on like nothing had happened.

I am seriously thinking about retiring Hero. His stifle should not be worse after the injection, and something is wrong with him. I've dealt with horses that were complete psychological messes, and they all improved to some extent, even if it was slow progress.

Hero has OCD but it must be something more. Vision, neck, PSSM, I don't know. He gets worse over time. Trails are misery for him. Circles in the arena are harder on the stifle, and he doesn't care for them. The disciplines I can think of are too physically demanding. He's not mentally stable enough to drive. I can't think of an occupation he would tolerate other than pasture pet.

@PhantomHorse has Link at age 6 with a progressive condition. Sultan and George on the retired list, and Phin taking a year off, probably retired from competition. I so admire her positivity. It wouldn't be so bad to retire a 14 year old that was never healthy in the first place. I still have a sound pony and opportunities to ride. 

Hero is not fun to ride, but it's truly not the antics, because Amore was a spook head and Halla was super hot. They might have had moments where they were unhappy, but with Hero it seems like he _never _enjoys the ride. Not even 1% of the time. That is why it is not fun. I want riding to be a mutually enjoyable activity. Aria was zooming up the hill today behind the mule and I could feel her enjoying it.

I think the only thing I would miss about riding Hero is that he is big and comfortable to sit on. Everything else is not fun, we don't even have the periods of trotting and cantering in a nice rhythm like we used to on occasion. 
I have a lot of nice tack for Hero, but that could be saved for another horse. That can't be a reason to keep riding him if he is miserable.


----------



## SueC

It's never easy when we come to realisations like that about a horse's injuries. Our chestnut Chasseur is paddock sound only, because of tendon problems which were in large part congenital, and came out after a couple of years of racing, in which he managed two wins and a couple of placings. He had treatment and a long spell and very long careful lead-up into the next campaign, but broke down again when he got to the fast work stage of training. Just as his mother had (which is why I was always against breeding from that mare, but they just hoped it wouldn't inherit). So they then retired him altogether so he would at least be paddock sound.

He is that, and I suppose he might have been usable for light riding, but by the time I adopted him he was already in his early 20s. I didn't have time to ride more than one horse and he was and is happy pottering over our large range with other nice horses for company. He is the soul of good nature and I just enjoy having him around.

You could give Hero 6-12 months in the paddock and then see if he responds well enough over time to the treatment you are giving him to maybe gently come back into light work. Sometimes injuries like that can improve if they are just given enough time and rest at the same time as treatment. With a horse like this I would avoid lungeing or anything else on circles forever after. Maybe after giving him a long stretch of paddock rest you could just walk with him too, on a lead, and maybe take up horse-accompanied cross-country running - you've got the stamina as a runner. I'm just thinking out loud what may still be possible down the track.

Whatever happens, you have at the very least had a go and you have given an ex-racehorse another chance, plus you are providing a retirement for him. So you made a big difference to this horse. Don't forget that, even though of course you wish it could have been more. I'm sure you will find ways to enjoy his personality. If he gets bored maybe you could even trick train him, which would potentially give both of you something fun to do.


----------



## bsms

Very sorry to hear about how Hero is doing. I suppose two of mine are 99% lawn ornaments but it isn't physical. If they were younger I could sell them without a problem. I don't really like having horses who just stand around but I also don't like any other options I can think of for Cowboy & Trooper.  It is part of horse ownership that most of us don't think about when getting a horse...and of course one that doesn't bother the folks who go thru horses every year or so.


----------



## knightrider

So sorry to read about Hero's antics. As others have said, you have given it everything you had.

On the other hand, how wonderful you got Aria and decided to ride her! Of course, I wanted you to ride her from the start, because I have two 13 hand Pasos that I ride everywhere . . . and I am tall. They stay sound, don't eat all that much, and don't have health issues. Just think how close you came to not getting Aria! If you hadn't befirended that difficult person and gotten mixed up with her dysfunction, and then decided you would train Aria yourself, you never would have enjoyed all the pleasure she gives you.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I note the contrast between the pictures and the text. I wish you were just around the corner from me, I would try to help you.


----------



## Knave

I think that’s the right decision. Just stop making yourself use him! Make yourself take care of him of course, but lose the guilt about not using him. He probably would prefer it that way. Lol. I wondered if being ponied reminded him too much of the track, and he just pressured up.

I am so happy that Aria is doing so amazingly! That is excellent! She looks a lot bigger in the picture ponying. It’s amazing what filling out does for a horse.


----------



## gottatrot

I should mention that the only reason I thought it would work out well to pony Hero off Aria out on a ride with my friend is that I ponied him off her a short time before the stifle injection and he was very well behaved. He in general has acted better when ponied than being ridden, and I've thought that was because he had done it a lot at the track. The one day I rode Aria out and rode him back, he was very calm and not spooky. Is it possible the joint injection has made him feel worse?


----------



## Knave

It’s too bad there’s not a thinking reaction. Lol. I don’t know. Do you think if he felt better it might actually make him act worse? Sometimes I think if a horse is held back by something, and you get it fixed, then they can be hotter horses.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> It’s too bad there’s not a thinking reaction. Lol. I don’t know. Do you think if he felt better it might actually make him act worse? Sometimes I think if a horse is held back by something, and you get it fixed, then they can be hotter horses.


That's what DH said. Maybe he's feeling better and that is making him super hot. I guess I would have to test that theory out...ponying would not be the time to do it, because I couldn't just speed up to get the energy out and remain in control. Hmm...maybe I will try riding him alone and see if he feels like he wants to go.


----------



## Knave

Or, you could stop feeling like you have to ride him and just let him sit! Lol. I so understand, because we are similar in thought, but from the outside it’s so easy to just say “don’t be so hard on yourself!” Lol


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> So sorry to read about Hero's antics. As others have said, you have given it everything you had.
> 
> On the other hand, how wonderful you got Aria and decided to ride her! Of course, I wanted you to ride her from the start, because I have two 13 hand Pasos that I ride everywhere . . . and I am tall. They stay sound, don't eat all that much, and don't have health issues. Just think how close you came to not getting Aria! If you hadn't befirended that difficult person and gotten mixed up with her dysfunction, and then decided you would train Aria yourself, you never would have enjoyed all the pleasure she gives you.


It is so true...having Aria is an amazing gift. It does prove how things that seem difficult at the time might actually end up turning around and instead of being negative in our life, might be very positive.

My truck broke down when we were moving here a couple years ago, and at the time it was a disaster. But it's so great now that I have such confidence knowing my engine is new and powerful, and I feel I ended up with a better vehicle. 

I am seeing the positives of having a pony. I was thinking about it the other day, how her hooves are so tough and large in comparison to her size, and she moves out over gravel like it isn't there. I can tell that the more I work her, she's going to be like Amore and go straight from fat to muscle without any ribby weight loss issues in between. 

If Hero had not been having issues, I probably wouldn't have considered riding Aria and only focused on driving her. So that has been a good thing, too.

What is interesting is when we think we're putting ourselves out to do something, and then it ends up that rather than giving up things, we're getting tremendous benefits. I put myself out to save an ugly, starved horse and she turns into Halla, my favorite ride of all time. I put myself out to take a little starved pony, and it turns out she's Aria, the sweetest horse imaginable, who I can tell is going to be a super pony in a year or two. 

Don't get me wrong, working with Hero has improved my riding and horse handling skills a lot, and he's been very good for me. I hardly blinked the other day when my friend's mustang threw in a huge buck with me. I think because he is a jumper, he leaped high in the air and then went kapow! and I know before I had Hero that would have thrown me for a loop. When Hero rears now I'm like, "Oh, please." Riding him has probably helped me more than I even know. I have to be grateful to him for that.


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> It is so true...having Aria is an amazing gift. It does prove how things that seem difficult at the time might actually end up turning around and instead of being negative in our life, might be very positive.
> 
> My truck broke down when we were moving here a couple years ago, and at the time it was a disaster. But it's so great now that I have such confidence knowing my engine is new and powerful, and I feel I ended up with a better vehicle.


OK, everyone! Let's come up with more "flowers growing well in compost" stories for @gottatrot! 

My biggest: Totally devastated when I got a paralysed vocal cord in my late 30s. I loved teaching and from one moment to the next I could not speak, just like that. I also loved singing in the choir. The specialist I finally got to see six months later (by which time I began to make croaking noises interrupted by fits of coughing and choking) told me the nerve was permanently dead and I'd never speak properly again without surgery. I declined the surgery because the larynx is delicate and when people slip, things can get even worse - as happened to Julie Andrews. Also because I didn't want a 50% airway, which is what the surgery would have done to bring the nerveless vocal fold into the "speaking" position permanently. I enjoy hiking and cycling and didn't want to become a roarer.

So we changed tack, big time. We bought the place out here and designed and owner-built an eco-house, planted over 6,000 trees and bushes, manage 50 hectares of sclerophyll for conservation, do lots of DIY food growing on the 12 hectare pasture strip of our place, and we financially fly by the seat of our pants. Because we bought the place I was able to have my old Arabian mare on my own place and Sunsmart and a couple extra I knew and wanted to offer retirements to. I've always loved writing and had done it professionally in the past; I then wrote for ten years for independent Australian magazines before giving it away when the pandemic started, to concentrate on fun projects. I meet really amazing people through our eco-farmstay. None of this would have been possible without one of us prepared to be a fulltime smallholder and dog's body, and I don't know I'd have stopped teaching if I'd not lost my voice.

Which these days is quite usable, because of brain plasticity etc etc - my brain software has learnt to drive the altered equipment reasonably well, though I can't project reliably, have lost quite a swathe of my top and bottom singing notes, leak air when speaking, get fewer words per breath, have to fight monotone and voice cracking and it's an effort etc etc. And I can't tell you how much I cried after the diagnosis, how hard I grieved the loss of the profession I loved and of my professional income, how hard it was to deal with ignorant people who, when I got to the "Mickey Mouse voice" squeaky high-pitched stage of getting a voice back, kept telling me to, "Speak properly, why don't you!" but at least they were only being rude at that point; in the previous stage almost everyone who didn't know me treated me like I was intellectually handicapped and spoke to me like I was a backward three-year-old, slowing down and simplifying their vocabulary...so that was really, really bad, and most especially because until you lose it, you have no idea how much your voice is a part of who you are and how you interact with this world.

But now when we look around and we take stock of our lives, we feel that it was weirdly a good thing to have happened or we'd never have done what we did subsequently - and would have missed out on many things we now treasure. Of course, I'd still love to have my old voice back, but it's never going to happen. And it could have been worse.

The other really big flowers-out-of-compost story I know from my own circle is a friend whom I first met just before that happened to me, when she was newly arrived in Australia with her husband and two really lovely daughters of then 10 and 12. She is one of the most positive (without being unrealistic or toxic), kind, well-mannered, fun and creative people I know. When I asked her why she had emigrated from South Africa, she told me their house had burnt down and they weren't insured, so they decided to start over in another country because otherwise they would always be dwelling on that. They have now been in Australia about 15 years, and she can list reams of people she's met, experiences she's had that she treasures and would not have had, and beautiful things she would never have seen, if her house had not burnt down. Plus, they've re-built their lives, which were financially set back 1-2 decades. They and we now wouldn't want to live the lives we didn't get to live - although of course that's academic anyway.


----------



## Knave

I think good always comes from bad, if you look for it.

I won’t go with any bad things, but I will say I didn’t want Queen at the time. I wanted a colt from that area, and knew it was my only opportunity, but Cash was so young still, so I didn’t want one during the time.

Now, Lucy went out, and we didn’t expect it, and look at how much we needed Queen. The timing was perfect.

I was so sad HeiHei died, and yet I wouldn’t have ended up with Queen, because it kind of opened the door for me to know I could take a colt even with bad timing.

I really disliked Keno, but I wouldn’t have gotten Cash without Keno, and look at where Keno is now. I watched Keno and his kid compete in the team branding! He came out and I walked up and told him I didn’t like his horse, joking, and Keno pinned his ears at me and threatened me. I rubbed his face and growled at him and away they went. It worked out for everyone!


----------



## egrogan

I never would have gotten Fizz if Izzy hadn't been sick with Lyme. When Izzy got diagnosed, and her top line started to disappear, I knew the right thing to do was retire her. But I was finally starting to feel confident in my riding, I had met phantomhorse and was inspired to try endurance, and Izzy being sidelined made me think hard about what I wanted to do next. I still vividly remember how nervous I was to talk to the BO where we boarded about the possibility of adding a second horse- I had no idea if she had room, or if I could afford it. But when that conversation went well, and the money would be manageable, off I went shopping. I was really discouraged by the first few horses I test rode, for one reason or another. And then one day, I climbed on Fizz, and felt ready for the next adventure!


----------



## gottatrot

The plan today was to do a brief road ride with Hero and no Aria, to see if he seemed just energetic rather than unhappy about riding.

After chores, the horses were still in turnout and I took Kadira out for a ride. She was very happy to see me again, and I took her down the road a little farther than she'd been before. She was eager to show me that she remembered how to move her hindquarters when I asked her to bend her neck. 
There was no spooking. She was snorty and obviously nervous when we ended up farther than she had been, but she didn't prance and it was all internalized. 

There were three horses in fields at the far point of our ride, and Kadira did not want to leave them. I had to do some persuading to get her to walk back toward her pen. As I was untacking her, my friend called my phone to see if I wanted to go for a ride. So I ditched my plan for Hero and went to get the horses, and then tacked up Aria.

Maybelle's rider brought Mikey along too, and we went for a four mile ride. I felt safe enough to get my phone out and take a pic just before we entered the woodsy trail. You will notice the angel pony is waiting for me to give instructions even as her friends are walking away. Hero considers this one of the scariest parts of the ride, because there are often people and machinery moving around, and we are thinking about entering the woods. 








At one point we are at least 1/4 of a mile from the horse fields, and Hero can apparently see us with his binoculars on top of his hill when we come around the corner (we can see his shelter far away), because we heard him start whinnying. He looked like a little dot, so I don't know how he could figure out that was us. Maybe he can smell that far.

We did even more cantering and trotting today than the last time. It was quite humid, but Aria never breathed hard and after the ride was barely damp under her saddle pad. I don't think she's having trouble carrying me at all. She's very steady on the steeper downhills, and also has this trot where I can hear that it is two beat and she is trotting, but I don't move up and down. When she doesn't want to go very fast, she does this. It's like I asked her to trot, and she is complying, but the most minimal trot a horse can do. LOL.

She loves to whoa. When I say it she just plants her feet. Then I scratch her neck a lot and give her treats. Her neck is so short, as you can see in the photo. She'll take the lead or go behind, either one is fine with her so far. Especially on the way home she doesn't mind being in front. She's starting to move off small seat changes already, so I don't always need to use much rein.


----------



## bsms

"Angel Pony". I like that!


gottatrot said:


> It's like I asked her to trot, and she is complying, but the most minimal trot a horse can do.


We called that Mia's "Happy Feet" trot. Technically I suppose it was a trot, but she just kind of flicked her feet and pretended to trot. It was incredibly comfortable to ride - much more comfortable than her walk! Bandit, OTOH, has NO IDEA what a "Happy Feet" trot is.... 🤨

The only picture I have of it. You can see her feet barely clear the ground - and her speed was just _slightly_ faster than a walk. But it was glorious to ride....


----------



## Knave

I’m not sure I know the gate you are talking about.

However, what an excellent day!! I am just thrilled about how she is doing, and boy has she progressed crazy fast! I realize Queen was so young when I started messing with her that I didn’t do much forever, so I am seeing where the mature body came in handy, but I also still think she’s progressed really well.

I feel like both Queen and Aria have been started in a way that was traditionally slower, like “you need to be comfortable with this, and me too, before we try that,” but so far I do not think either horse has displayed that as having been a bad idea. This is my experiment you know.

Here, there is a kind of expectation of training I’d say. Groundwork varies from person to person, but at two or three it begins. Many come from about where Queen and Aria were, because many, at least in my life, don’t believe in messing with a horse until you are going to start it. I have noticed that theory has seemed to change a lot, and now I am seeing a lot of people messing with their foals.

Anyways, after whatever groundwork it is that a person does, he then steps on and rides the horse in the roundpen at all speeds. Walk, trot, lope, and even run. There might be three days of that, but usually no more and sometimes less. Then, the gate is opened so to speak. Lessons go quickly, and horses learn a ton of information very fast.

So, you know I am trying to keep Queen on the duller side for a time because she is such a hotter style of horse. I haven’t seen the negative yet in her. At moments I see it in myself, feeling that human emotion of… I don’t know, not measuring up to my competition? Yet, she seems to be doing very well in my opinion.

Reading about Aria, I feel that you have taken a similar route as myself. Of course I had all that time I messed around with Queen as a yearling, but a similar route if she wasn’t so young is what I think I’d have tried. I was always told a horse is ruined if they aren’t loped the first ride, or a horse is ruined if you aren’t doing this by this point. I think some of those statements have a validity to them, but I also want to prove it can be done differently with a good result (to myself).


----------



## bsms

I strongly suspect a lot of great horses were NOT loped on their first ride! I think a lot of people are content to ride the horse's body - to sit the horse. I prefer to think of things as "Riding the horse's MIND": If I can ride his mind, riding the body is easy! We should teach horses to do things WITH us instead of doing things TO them or ON them. It takes more time but it sure ends up feeling better to me!

That is what gives me a kick about Aria. The pictures show a horse eager to do things WITH her rider, and confident that her rider and her can handle whatever is tossed at them.

Denny Emerson wrote:

"_Here's how the two words, "He ought" and the three words, "He knows better" run counter to __Jack Le Goff's__ advice on how to train horses:

Le Goff said, 

"*Boldness comes from confidence. Confidence comes from success. So it is the mission of the trainer to create lots of situations that as much as possible guarantee success.*"...

...Jack Le Goff's advice is to *start by creating little successes*, rather than to get into battles to "make him settle down". The only way you can make a horse be calm is by drugging him. You can longe or gallop to exhaustion, and he will be quiet, perhaps, but underneath the tiredness will still be nervous.

So what is so wrong with trail riding with a buddy at first, or doing tons of quiet transitions with a mild bit rather than by cranking him into a harsh bit, if it makes him calmer?... "teaching him a lesson" should not be the normal "go-to" method if the goal is to build lasting confidence.

Or maybe Le Goff is the one who didn't "get" how to train horses? Maybe we are smarter horse people than Jack Le Goff? Sure. Dream on..._"


----------



## gottatrot

Took me a while to respond..sorry.

@bsms, Mia's happy feet sounds just like Aria's. I wonder if it is an Arab thing? Not for Halla or Amore though...

@Knave, I definitely have been going slow too. I think what @bsms posted about small successes is brilliant. I have not seen any downside with going slow. 

I feel that Aria is probably the slowest and fastest horse I've started. I am building slowly, but working on things as they happen naturally, and I feel this is helping her understand why. So her mental progress seems to be going very fast in comparison to the time spent working on something.

I think when I make horses go in circles in an arena it takes a long time to associate things. On the trail learning to steer and turn, Aria is making rapid progress. But it is easier for me because I am just riding, and teaching as we go with low stress.


----------



## bsms

IIRC, Baucher believed resistance was rooted or caused by physical tension in the jaw and neck. Based on human behavior, it seems far more likely resistance is rooted in human aggressiveness and expressed thru tension in the jaw and neck of horses. Part of my problem with "natural horsemanship" is that round penning is not natural, yet many natural horseman folks round pen out the yin-yang!

Once a rudimentary idea of stop/go, left/right is established in an arena, it seems obvious that horses would learn most naturally on a trail or even OFF a trail. In a place like this, thinking about left or right and my guidance on what will work best tends to make a lot of sense to a horse:














The horse is kind of puzzled himself, and someone giving direction - particularly direction that works - well, that makes sense to a horse. It helps the horse, and the person becomes an enabler rather than a bully.

I tend to think the same of riding lessons for new riders. Doing circles in an arena, with an instructor in the middle telling you about your position, and where the focus is entirely on how the HUMAN is riding, teaches riders the opposite of what they need to become good riders! The Cavalry taught by giving a 5-10 minute lecture on some aspect of riding, then having the students follow the instructor on a cross country route the instructor thought would practice what the lecture covered.

James Fillis (late 1800s), VS Littauer (mid-1900s), Denny Emerson and others paid a lot of attention to not provoking resistance in the horse, which seems to me a more productive mode of training. I understand how to use a round pen and agree it can be very useful for short times dealing with specific training issues. But...I think natural horsemanship should teach horses and riders by taking both out on and off trails, in an environment that can offer progressive challenges. Unhappily, many riding schools don't have that option - even IF they considered doing it!

Aria is lucky! The horses @Knave has are lucky too. They work, but their riders think about how much progress the horse has made and how much they can push without the horse blowing up - and all in an environment where there are jobs to do, so the focus isn't on how much the human can dominate the horse. Knave and gottatrot _coach_ horses, which is so different from dominating them! I have no idea how most lesson horses survive a year or more without wanting to kill every human they see....

PS: I think Baucher evolved as a horseman - as all horseman do until they die - and I really like what he concluded:

'Let him think that he is our master, then he is our slave.'​
And what Moyra Williams wrote in 1960:

"As soon as a person is prepared to follow his horse, his seat will come automatically. _His only problem then is the eternal one of the educationalist and the politician_ - that of getting what he wants out of his subject. _This is an art, not a technique; it is a skill, not a science._ When to give in, when to press forward; when to exert authority and when to withdraw it - these are moments whose recognition cannot be taught by rule of thumb. They can only be recognized by the sympathetic - by the person who is not entirely engrossed in his own welfare. Only two laws can, I think, be said to hold for all occasions. _The first is "Know your goal before you set out"_, for the unguided horse, like the mass of human beings, will go nowhere if left to itself. _The second is "Don't give orders without a reason"_."​I know I've posted both of those quotes before, but I find them worth reading again and again. It is a bit like when I read the Gospels: Although I've read them many times before, as I change, what I learn changes.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I really like the Moyra Williams quote. And gotta love: " Although I've read them many times before, as I change, what I learn changes" So true with many things.


----------



## Knave

Thank you @bsms! Gotta, it is so much easier to teach a horse with a job. I feel like that is part of why Queen didn’t want to lope circles. I could easily get her to lope outside, but the idea of going in a circle irritated her. I’m sure she struggled with her balance too, but certainly now the argument comes for the irritation, like it once did with General. Those two horses aren’t wrong, circles are in all reality kind of irrelevant and are a thing we ask which is condescending. We ask them to work like we ask the child to dig a hole only to fill it in.

Now, the child will understand that as a punishment (no, I never made my children dig holes for punishment. Once I was punished by digging a pipeline by hand with a tractor staring at me, but I highly deserved it.), and I think some horses who haven’t seen a roundpen or arena think like the kid with the shovel. It’s punishment because it’s work for zero logical reason. Now, hopefully we get them past that if we want them to be good in an arena and play our games, but I find many enjoy the idea when they realize it’s a game, and those who don’t enjoy it eventually might as well be kept out of the arena. If they don’t like it they’ll never be particularity good at a game, and what is the point then?

@TrainedByMares I like that. I think we all should change as we go. We meet new horses, or understand our own better, and we grow. I like to remind myself that it doesn’t mean we were wrong or bad, but just that we are different.

Little me would have done things in a certain way that I would never do now. Granted, a young me might have been able to accomplish more, but I partially blame that on the mare I rode, who was like a superhero with her athleticism, and also on that I was still fearless. I wonder if I would ride a mare like her today. Today I would be trying to change the horse, and then I just rode her and loved her for what she was, and so the me that was then was the one that I needed to be for that horse.

Each stage of life has changed my horsemanship, and each horse I truly focused on has changed it too. Bones, for example, took and made me learn how to make a horse desire to do something. He had to learn it himself and in his own way, and he had to love it. Without that I could never have gotten through his neurological problem. General, prior to Bones, made me learn to actually teach rather than pressure. I didn’t luck into things with him.

Cash brought back a little more pressure, but I used the things I learned from General too. Cash reminded me that sometimes you have to earn respect, and that not everyone works from an emotional place. I don’t know what Queen is specifically teaching me now, but I am definitely trying a new approach.

I think sometimes we think about things we once did with disgust, and sometimes that is earned. With Runt I used to tie her head around in the round corral when she was getting on my nerves. I didn’t even really understand the concept behind it, and now that I do I realize how much better ways there are to go about that. Yet, overall I think I was riding Runt about as well as one could have. I shake my head about everything I didn’t know.

I hope one day I do the same looking back at Queen. I also hope I have some empathy for myself too, knowing I worked with the information I had as best as I could.


----------



## gottatrot

Such great posts! So much to learn from. It's so true that we learn and change as we go along, and the horses are always the best teachers. Horses also help us forgive ourselves for how we've been before. 
More experience helps us trust ourselves more too. It's the same with other things in life. 

At work the other night, I knew it wasn't a good idea to take a certain patient. Just like with a horse, you wonder if you're having reasonable caution, or are you just being paranoid? Two doctors, the respiratory therapist and the two charge nurses all listened to my concerns and they all convinced me not to make a bigger fuss and to accept the patient. I thought we should send her straight to a higher level of care. Even though she seemed very stable, as they said, within two hours, the patient started deteriorating rapidly. It wasn't that I was smart or intuitive, it was just that I was using deductive reasoning and thought the chances of this happening were very high based on over 20 years of experience. 

It felt strange though...I knew I didn't cause it to happen, and I certainly didn't say "I told you so" or anything like that, but it did take a moment for the others to get on board with the idea that what I had predicted was happening. Then of course we all scrambled and probably my warnings made everything happen faster. I had been watching very closely and we caught everything quickly. I think the doctor was a bit reluctant to believe that my worries really were coming true. When you reassure someone that it's a long way from this state to that state (the one I was worried about), it's difficult to hear that we got there in only two hours. 

My point is that our experiences can help us very much, and this is especially true when it comes to horses. Now I'm off to be a beginner again at my riding lesson this afternoon.


----------



## knightrider

Ohhhh, can't wait to read about your riding lesson! I wish I could take lessons, so I enjoy other people taking them.


----------



## SueC

gottatrot said:


> More experience helps us trust ourselves more too. It's the same with other things in life.
> 
> At work the other night, I knew it wasn't a good idea to take a certain patient. Just like with a horse, you wonder if you're having reasonable caution, or are you just being paranoid? Two doctors, the respiratory therapist and the two charge nurses all listened to my concerns and they all convinced me not to make a bigger fuss and to accept the patient. I thought we should send her straight to a higher level of care. Even though she seemed very stable, as they said, within two hours, the patient started deteriorating rapidly. It wasn't that I was smart or intuitive, it was just that I was using deductive reasoning and thought the chances of this happening were very high based on over 20 years of experience.
> 
> It felt strange though...I knew I didn't cause it to happen, and I certainly didn't say "I told you so" or anything like that, but it did take a moment for the others to get on board with the idea that what I had predicted was happening. Then of course we all scrambled and probably my warnings made everything happen faster. I had been watching very closely and we caught everything quickly. I think the doctor was a bit reluctant to believe that my worries really were coming true. When you reassure someone that it's a long way from this state to that state (the one I was worried about), it's difficult to hear that we got there in only two hours.
> 
> My point is that our experiences can help us very much, and this is especially true when it comes to horses. Now I'm off to be a beginner again at my riding lesson this afternoon.


Yep. And now imagine how things would have gone if you'd also had people in the room who didn't have medical qualifications and they were telling you that you were overreacting, neurotic, just plain wrong etc. Including some religious people who were telling you they had prayed for the patient so nothing untoward could possibly happen, and other religious people who said that if anything untoward happened then it was the will of God, and others who said it was ultimately all unimportant because the only real important thing was the afterlife and everything that happened on earth would then be seen as a comparative blip. Plus a few people who told you that your medical knowledge was suspect as was all of medical science, your personal experience was biased and alarmist, and you should go see a therapist about your neuroses and negative attitudes and tendency to think the worst.

And some of those people said you may as well turn off some of the supporting equipment for the patient because it was unnecessary, and withdraw a few of the drug therapies they were on, she'll be right, and maybe give them some ivermectin just in case, big pharma is, you know. Just be positive. You'll see.

And then you will have a small inkling of what life is currently like for the ecologists, climate scientists etc, yours truly included, whose job and passion it is to look after the wellbeing of life on the planet as a whole.


----------



## bsms

Edited. Not worth discussing.


----------



## gottatrot

We did a little shopping in the city so got back late last night. We also had to drive slow because we were on a rural road that seemed to be some sort of bat highway and we grazed at least two and wanted to avoid hitting any more. 

The lesson went well. The instructor watched me tack up and then evaluated me. She said she puts everyone she doesn't know on Charlie the thoroughbred, because he is trustworthy and she also knows how he responds to different types of issues people might have. 

It's been a very long time since I was in a jumping saddle, and I struggled with my lower leg position. With my stirrup short, it felt like my core was behind the motion at times. I made a short video of the lesson - near the end I am doing some exercises where she is making sure my two point is stable. I think she'll start me over some low jumps the next time. 

I liked the exercise where I lean far forward in two point and then straighten up, and then lean back down again. It seemed helpful for learning my jumping position. It was very hot, in the 80s, so the two pointing seemed like more work than usual, especially in the jumping saddle. 

The instructor seemed like she would be able to help me learn a lot. Charlie was a gem, but he is an older boy and I won't be riding him for jumping. When I arrive next time, I'll be expected to get my horse and tack him up myself.


----------



## knightrider

I'll bet your instructor found it a pleasure to work with you!


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> I'll bet your instructor found it a pleasure to work with you!


How nice of you to say! I gave it a lot of thought ahead of time, wanting to come across as humble and eager to learn. I wanted to seem fairly competent but not like I think I know everything. A lot of people really oversell themselves as you well know, and I understand this is a new skill with lots to learn. My experience jumping has been very limited.


----------



## baysfordays

I loved reading this! I had no clue you’ve written books! That’s amazing!


----------



## Aprilswissmiss

I just came across this thread and really enjoyed skimming the first page. I know this was a while ago for everyone else, but I was tickled reading the "holes in training" discussion because it reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend last week. We were at the stable, finishing up with a ride, and she was watching me school the BO's thoroughbred. I told her she is welcome to throw constructive criticism my way because, in my opinion, she's a better rider than I am and of course I'm far from being perfect and haven't ridden with a trainer in five years.

Most of the criticisms were completely accurate, but a few were things that she - a dressage rider - did not realize that hunters do, which is what I was trained in. She said my core must be weak because I couldn't glue my butt to the saddle as I was approaching a jump, and I was instead doing this "weird hovering thing" where I wasn't sitting nor in full two point. I told her that I was trained as a hunter to maintain a half seat approaching a jump because a full seat can convince a sensitive horse to stop at a jump, and two point before you're ready will throw you off balance. The concept was foreign to her! She also told me I needed to raise my hands when I was taught as a hunter to keep my hands nearly resting on the withers.

I just got a kick out of the apparent disconnect between our two styles of riding. People can have "holes" that aren't actually "holes" in their training, too!

Sorry, don't mean to derail. I enjoy reading the training and riding philosophy discussions on this thread but likely won't have time to read through the whole thing.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks, @baysfordays! 

Very interesting, @Aprilswissmiss, I agree about how there are many different styles of riding and our point of view can make something seem "wrong" that is right in another discipline. I'm afraid I've had such a conglomeration of lessons and experiences that my style is not pure in any direction. "Whatever works." 

I've been told I have an accent what I speak sometimes, and that's also a strange conglomeration of having traveled to all parts of the US and other countries that have strong accents like Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. Sometimes a word will just pop out sounding the way it would in Texas, New Jersey or Ireland.


----------



## gottatrot

Today I trimmed hooves and after doing Hero's and Aria's front hooves, I decided to finish her hinds another day. Whew! It's very dry right now and Aria's walls are a half inch wide and hard as rock. It took all my strength to cut through them with the nippers, even half cuts, and my nearly new rasp had trouble making headway. She has great hooves.
Hero's aren't looking bad either. They're finally getting some sole depth, and he's walking over the gravel without difficulty.
I have this picture of Aria on my desktop right now.









Had a discussion with DH after riding Hero today. I think the right decision is to retire him. I've ridden him four years and am certainly the most stubborn, bullheaded person I know. I can't get him to enjoy being ridden, and whether that means he has a large amount of pain or a small amount of pain with very little tolerance, it doesn't matter. The end result is the same. 

When I trimmed his hooves, he seemed more easy on the hind legs, so my impression was that his stifle does feel somewhat better after the injections. Especially being handled on the ground, he's come so far and is not difficult 90% of the time nowadays. 

I tried getting him to move out today where he is very comfortable, on the straight roads right by his own field. I could get him to trot about ten feet, and he would walk slowly just fine. When I first got him he was aggravated about being saddled, bridled and mounted, and now he is calm and pleasant, doesn't mind a bit. He doesn't mind if I sit on him, and walks away calmly. So all of his "behaviors" have improved except for if I ask him to move out under saddle (or on the lunge). I kept trying and got several rears, spins, some kicking and hopping. I gave praise if he responded, I whacked him hard a few times, and then I stopped and just sat on him and we stood there being friends. Then I thanked him for carrying me so many times, and told him I thought perhaps we should move on to other things besides riding. 

When the vet comes Friday, I'll discuss this with her. 

I'm planning to ride my pony a lot, to try to learn to jump, and those should keep me busy for a while. We finally listed our house up north, and it's pending now, so if the home inspection goes well in a couple weeks, I should be able to get my horse trailer soon, which will open up more options. We are talking about maybe even getting a house on property in a year or two. If that happened, I could have three horses. For now, I can ride Kadira also, and can always meet up with other friends if I feel the need to ride a "big" horse. 

Lots of my friends here on the forum have retired horses, or ones that are mainly pasture pets. I'll remind Hero how lucky he is sometimes, but of course I'm lucky to have a good horse friend like him, even if I don't ride him anymore.


----------



## Knave

Well I think that is excellent news!! I know it was a really hard decision, and I’m sorry you had to make it, but I am proud of you for doing so. I think you’ll both be much happier.


----------



## gottatrot

The vet did Hero's teeth today, and we talked about his issues. She brought up that some horses have a type of "roid rage" after a steroid injection, after hearing about how wild he was on the trail ride. However, my friend pointed out that he wouldn't be calm and happy the rest of the time, he'd be angry about being saddled, be pestering Aria, and etc. Roid rage wouldn't happen selectively only when being ridden. 

I wondered if he could have pain in other areas like his back and neck, so the vet offered to do xrays. It turns out he does have kissing spines, right in the area where a rider sits. The vet said it seems like a milder case, and it could be treated with injections. It wouldn't explain why he would be upset when ponied as well as when ridden. However, to me it confirms my decision to retire him. Now I know he has a back problem and a stifle problem, and the vet said almost certainly he has hock arthritis. Who knows if he has other issues we haven't found? How could I ever get him to think positively about riding? 

Working has never been a positive experience for him. From roaring to the OCD and then developing kissing spines, he's had issues from the beginning. I would have to give him a pain free experience for a few months to change his mind, I'm sure, and there is no way I could be certain of doing that. I don't even think "less pain" would be enough for him, because of his negative associations. 

I asked the vet if she thought he should have injections periodically if he was going to be a pasture pet. She said no, and that he wouldn't need to be on Equioxx unless I noticed him having trouble getting up and down or losing weight. However, talking this over with DH, we think he should stay on Equioxx just to make his life more pleasant if possible. 

The vet said riding is a hobby and it's supposed to be fun. She thought if Hero isn't fun to ride, then retiring him is a valid option. 

It was funny, Mikey had his teeth done too, so we had the horses down at my friend's barn where Maybelle and Mikey live, to do the dentals. I had put Aria in the pen with Maybelle, and we had Hero and Mikey in the barn. When we decided to do Xrays, I had to bring Hero up to another barn that had electricity. I decided to leave Aria behind with Maybelle. After I had led Hero about fifteen feet up the road, I saw Aria back up and then whoosh, she ducked and ran right under the electric fence tape. A second later she was walking up the road next to Hero. 

I said, "Guess you're coming along too?" Then I held her halter and walked her along with us to the other barn. She stood happily while Hero had his xrays done, and the vet tech scratched her all over, which she really appreciated. Everyone seems to like Aria.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> Everyone seems to like Aria.


We do too!!!! So glad you got her!


----------



## gottatrot

Something that made me feel good was that the vet told her tech, "I couldn't have touched her (Aria) the way you are doing a year ago. She was still almost a wild pony then." So nice to see how far she has come, trusting people and enjoying their company, standing tied quietly with cars and xray machines rolling by, dogs running around, etc. 

When I get my trailer I'll start taking her new places, and I suspect that will soon make her even braver. I hope to talk Maybelle's owner into letting me drive them together to some close trails and the beach a few times to start out. 
If all goes well, our house will close on the 21st of Sept. I will get a cart for Aria soon after the trailer...I plan to store it in the trailer.


----------



## gottatrot

Here is the xray of Hero's back. You can see where the back starts to go up toward the withers on the left. The problem is in the last two spaces on the right side where there is touching of the vertebrae.








Horses are masters of reading body language. I know it seems out there, but Hero was very calm and happy today, as if he knew he was retired! I was wondering if there was some very subtle sign from me that I had no expectations for him anymore. 

I was thinking, what if he was a horse with no ambition all his life, surrounded by those with ambitions for him. He does have ambitions about eating good food and fighting with geldings, but those are the only two I know of. But it could be hard to have ambition if you have physical problems too.

Today I got on Aria, and she just walked off down the road. I took her on the back trail where the elk come through and it is deep, dark woods. Hero about dies of fright just being led on this trail, but Aria went right along with only verbal encouragement.

We trotted and cantered, and I trusted her to canter facing toward home also. She didn't spook once. She gives off a vibe like she has been ridden for years. She just relaxes and goes. If someone bought her they would not even know she is green.


----------



## gottatrot




----------



## Knave

There is nothing in your last post.

She just sounds amazing! That makes me super happy for you.

I am glad Hero was relaxed as well. I hope you are feeling a similar feeling!


----------



## gottatrot

I was inspired by @Knave's idea of having a video to summarize a year of a horse's life, so I made a video of Aria's first year.






Quote of the day: "Every time I try, I gain a little."

Off topic (boring unless you are a computer nerd):
I was also trying out a new video editor, which is much better than my old one but is a little more advanced. I didn't quite get all the black flashes out, but hopefully I'll get better at using it.

I've probably mentioned that DH and I are computer nerds, although I'd say at an "intermediate" level. We certainly can't gallop on our own across open country, LOL. We built the desktop my husband uses, and if we ever get to where we can't replace parts, we'll probably build another one. 

We just recently decided to switch from Windows to Linux. I use a laptop mostly, so we both reformatted our hard drives and changed over. It was a little intimidating...my younger brother who is a more advanced computer user has been using Linux for years, and I remember when it used to be for programmers only, with all kinds of commands to run. 

However, nowadays people who are not as advanced can use Linux too. Basically, Windows always leaves a back door open to their system, and you don't really own it, you just lease it from them. It's vulnerable to viruses and all kinds of things can go on your computer without your permission. Linux is free, and you own it, and can make any changes you want at any level if you have the capability. 

But, for example, to get a certain youtube downloader program that wasn't designed for my system to install and work today, I had to go into the command prompt and manually install a couple of things, and override a file. Still, almost every fix like this is easily found on Google search. 

Probably boring...anyway, I have a new video editor called ShotCut, and it's better than Windows Movie Maker. So that will be fun to use to make videos.


----------



## Knave

I love it!!!


----------



## gottatrot

Today I took Aria out on another solo ride. This one was more challenging. What is great is that she heads right out for me. She's not a lonely horse, but of course now and then she reacts a little to the fact that Hero keeps calling for her. We definitely disturbed the peace of the neighborhood because he called for the entire time we were gone, about 35 minutes, and we could hear him the whole way! 

Part of me thinks I should just wait and see if he adapts over time (but he's not a very adaptable horse), and another part thinks I should try to find a solution for him such as putting him in with another horse when we go. I definitely don't want him to be hollering the entire time if I take Aria somewhere in the trailer! He sounds like a weanling foal. 

Aria did excellent again, and we went up to the nursery and back. There were two difficult parts. The first was when we went over the bridge, which would be scary for any horse. Someone had turned over some dirt on the other side, and she got halfway across and considered spinning around and heading back. I felt the thought as she skidded to a halt and stopped her turn, and then with some encouraging words and body language she kept going. After that I had her stop and gave her a couple treats. The short pony neck comes in handy because I can reach her mouth.

We trotted partway up the next hill, and then she got nervous. The house at the top always has cars and activity going on. Today there were dogs, people and such but also a large fire going. It was very smoky, with flames shooting up, and Aria continued along until we were quite close, and then she started snorting. I decided to get off and lead her by. She came along with reluctance, and then calmed down as soon as we went into the woods (where Hero is never calm! LOL). 

I walked her to the nursery, then got back on. We turned back because I was running out of time, and also I figured that was quite an accomplishment to do such a scary ride by herself. She hesitated a little but then went right by the fire, and then wanted to rush for a minute before calming down. The rest of the ride we listened to Hero calling and I told her we didn't need him. She only called back to him once, when we were getting close to home.


----------



## twhvlr

Gosh, were you blessed with a wonderful gift when she came into your life!!


----------



## gottatrot

Hero is actually a calm horse as long as you don't do anything that scares him or hurts.
He's thinking life is pretty good right now.









It was quite windy today so I decided to be responsible and continue Aria's education some in the arena. I haven't taught her to stand for mounting yet...she just stood well for the first couple of rides because she wasn't sure if she could move with a rider. We worked on the cue "Stand," before and after the ride. 

We also worked on small circles, serpentines, stepping over to leg cues, backing and steering at the trot. At speed, steering was a little sketchy, but we managed some circles and veered in the general direction I wanted. 

I'll have to watch @Knave's video again to see how the feet are supposed to properly move. I've never done disciplines where that type of movement was critiqued, so I just try to get the feet moving over, and to get the ability to go sideways, do tight turns and back up. 
So far I don't have a reason to put a bit back in, because Aria is very light with the crossunder type bitless. 
I've ordered some shorter reins, because the regular length ones keep getting around my stirrup. Her neck is so short. 

It's easy to give her treats for things, and she appreciates neck and mane scratches. 
She isn't getting less wide with exercise, she's just getting hard muscles down the sides of her barrel. I can feel her ribs, she just has a very wide barrel (remember the pregnancy scare last year?) It seems like she must have big lungs in there, which is great since she is carrying me around. She just tends to be stocky.


----------



## Knave

I love how serious she is. She holds her head up in a way that looks proud to me, almost like she would be making fun of any other horse around. I think she’s proud of herself, and she should be!


----------



## gottatrot

I'd never actually braided Aria's mane before, but I think it's hard to see how cute she is with all that hair.










We did a short ride today. I thought about going further, but she did so great it seemed a good idea to stop and keep her thinking positively.

I rode her down the road past the feed store, past all the various vehicles, pallets and even flags. Farther down we passed by a swamp, and fields with cows close to the road. I had ridden Hero down there a couple times with Mikey, but it made him super nervous and usually he spooked and jigged. Cow-bears!!

There were peacocks in the bushes, and a deer was also moving in the bushes right next to the road and startled me. Aria just kept chugging along. On the way out I was thinking we were moving along really well. Then we turned around and her walk got bigger and we were moving along _really _well. But she doesn't jig or try to run. 

It seems like Hero is getting more used to us leaving. He whinnied less often, and didn't bother with leaving the vicinity of his shed. Several times his whinny was muffled and I could tell he had hay in his mouth. I think if you are eating hay, you're not very distressed lol.

I did make Aria go back past the home field, and got off to talk to Kadira's owner. Aria was a little restless but soon just stood and nuzzled treats out of my hand or grazed while we talked. Hopefully I have talked Kadira's owner into doing a little ride around the property on her horse with me on Aria soon.

I always said Amore had not been off the property where I bought her in over ten years, and so she had a lot of adapting to do. Aria also was never off the property where she was born, was less handled than Amore, and is so much more adaptable. She's the least spooky horse I've ever had, by far. To me it seems a horse's personality is the most important factor. Training and experiences are important too, but you can only change a horse's innate personality so much.

I kind of feel like Hero, Amore and Aria all have/ had great imaginations. But Hero and Amore used theirs to imagine the rustling bushes contained three headed, 30 ft long anacondas, and Aria imagines butterflies and bales of alfalfa rolling out in front of her.


----------



## gottatrot

There's another reason I needed Aria to come into my life. I've been realizing that I was biased against smaller horses and ponies. It's a little hard to explain, but I slowly had developed a feeling that bigger horses were better somehow. 

Back when I boarded at an Arab barn, everyone seemed to believe that if you got a tall purebred over 15 hands, maybe up to 16 hands, that would be a most amazing horse. 

Over time, I rode with taller riders, and I developed this idea that riding bigger horses might mean you were a better rider. I'd say I needed a taller horse in the future, so I could let my bigger friends ride. But it also felt necessary for me to have a bigger horse. Bigger would be faster, more athletic (excepting draft horses), more fun and challenging.

I was remembering just before I got Hero, after Halla died, thinking of adopting from the Arabian rescue, but thinking all the horses were under 15 hands, so too small.

Unconsciously, all the things in Halla's personality that made her more fun to ride than Amore, I related to her being two inches taller. You are probably laughing at me as you read this, but I never spelled it out to myself quite like that.

Lately, I've been really dissecting my beliefs regarding this. For one thing, there is a common idea about ponies being difficult. I was thinking back, and realizing all the ponies I've ever known have been the opposite. Game, hardy, handy. The minis I've known have had outstanding temperaments and work ethics. The Icelandics I've been around, two POAs, a couple Quarter ponies, a Welsh, a Shetland, a Hackney...they all were equines that were reliable, had good attitudes and were trustworthy. "Never complained," like @bsms' Cowboy. 

I am a featherweight category rider. I've been on a couple of horses that were close to 18 hands. There is a loss of nuance on horses that big. Your weight and seat do not affect their balance, and so there is never that fluidity and subtle influence you can have where a horse feels your intentions. Instead, they follow their own balance, and you sit on them.

Whereas with a smaller horse, they actually have to learn a different balance to carry a rider, and this influences their athleticism. 
A 15-16 hand horse, I'm realizing, is no better or more difficult to ride than a smaller horse.

I could say more, but it is opening up my mind a lot, realizing any of the horses at the Arab rescue could be great partners, despite or perhaps because of being sized less than 15 hands.


----------



## knightrider

I couldn't agree more. I became prejudiced as a teenager in 4-H. I was told by several judges that I was too big to look good on my 15 hand 
horse, and I decided that I could only ride 16 hand horses or taller. I was in my 30's at a dude ranch in Colorado where the proprietors saw that I could ride and asked me if I would like to ride their daughter's fancy barrel horse. I was pleased that they trusted me with a horse they normally would never let dudes ride, so I agreed to take this 14 hand pony for the week. She was astounding, amazing, fabulous to ride. I loved everything about her. I especially loved her quickness and responsiveness.

About that time, my parents had taken a young girl under their wings to help her along. She had a Welsh pony stallion that we took turns riding when I would visit. He was 12 hands, and you couldn't ask for a better horse to ride. He was everything you could want. I rode him many a mile. This young girl was tall and slim like I was, and she had no qualms about looking too big on this pony. That sealed the deal for me, and I began riding little horses and replacing my 16 hand horses with little horses when it was time. It doesn't bother me in the slightest when my legs hang down below the belly, and I have no problems with balance and other things that folks warn about. Hooray for little horses!

@gottatrot, I think you look super on Aria. Your legs don't even go down below her belly.


----------



## Aprilswissmiss

Little horses rule! I absolutely agree with your sentiment about the communication you can miss with a larger horse. It's like riding a couch with a few fancy buttons versus a zippy dirt bike that you can really maneuver with your whole body. I won many hunter/jumper classes with a handy little Arab/welsh pony, and handy really is the perfect word to describe the feeling of perfect responsiveness, balance, and fluidity.

The hunter/jumper scene also conditioned me to think that the only way you could have a worthy, competitive horse is if you bought an imported warmblood. It took me a while of handling and riding them (and getting kicked in the face by one) to realize that they're just not what I want in a horse at all. It was further solidified when I moved into the driving scene and found myself working at a barn that ONLY had ponies, and they were all superb athletes! And not to mention, generally less injury and illness prone, easier to feed, and easier to handle.

At this point, I really don't want a horse over 15hh. 13 to 14 would be ideal. April is already a bit bigger than I need at 14.3. And with me being 5'2" and 120 pounds, the ponies really do suit me best. When I research breeders for fun, it's a bit frustrating to see a lot of them breeding traditionally small sturdy breeds for height - "this Morgan stallion will add tons of height to your mare's foals!" "this Fjord gelding is all that you could want at 15 hands!" Meanwhile, all I want is something under 14!


----------



## Knave

This is interesting to me! So, in my world, the most athletic and catty horses have been small. On occasion you might see a talented cowhorse who is bigger. The horse my mother took to the world wasn’t small, probably 16, and my dad showed a 16.1 that was really handy. Yet, overall, in my mind little horses are better athletes.

There has been a trend of wanting bigger horses here now, and half drafts have been popular cowboy horses and a 15hh or bigger bred up horse is pretty bragged up. Cutting breeding has gotten tiny. (A cutting I took Bones to everyone called him big! Bones is a dainty 14.3.)

Now, these little horses have so much try and athleticism they are half insane. However, they do struggle pulling calves at brandings. They try hard, and rarely complain, but they are easy to upset about things in that scenario. That was the only negative I could actually see. I have heard bigger men say they just don’t hold up for them at work either, and I think that is true, and so the push for a little more size does make sense.

I am pretty light though, so small always has appealed to me for the athleticism I believe it is attached to. My bias was the opposite. I do enjoy having Cash. He tries hard and can pull absolutely anything. I don’t feel sorry for him on long days. Yet, Cash wouldn’t be called an athlete unless one was speaking of power.

So, I’ve been worried Queen will get big. I am afraid her athleticism will just fade away if her body becomes too large to maneuver easily. I was talking to a friend though, and she said that if a big horse is athletic in his/her youth they don’t lose it when they reach their size. I have to remind myself of Lucky, who was an overall big horse and a stellar athlete.

It’s funny how opposite our biases are, isn’t it?


----------



## Aprilswissmiss

Knave said:


> This is interesting to me! So, in my world, the most athletic and catty horses have been small. On occasion you might see a talented cowhorse who is bigger. The horse my mother took to the world wasn’t small, probably 16, and my dad showed a 16.1 that was really handy. Yet, overall, in my mind little horses are better athletes.
> 
> There has been a trend of wanting bigger horses here now, and half drafts have been popular cowboy horses and a 15hh or bigger bred up horse is pretty bragged up. Cutting breeding has gotten tiny. (A cutting I took Bones to everyone called him big! Bones is a dainty 14.3.)
> 
> Now, these little horses have so much try and athleticism they are half insane. However, they do struggle pulling calves at brandings. They try hard, and rarely complain, but they are easy to upset about things in that scenario. That was the only negative I could actually see. I have heard bigger men say they just don’t hold up for them at work either, and I think that is true, and so the push for a little more size does make sense.
> 
> I am pretty light though, so small always has appealed to me for the athleticism I believe it is attached to. My bias was the opposite. I do enjoy having Cash. He tries hard and can pull absolutely anything. I don’t feel sorry for him on long days. Yet, Cash wouldn’t be called an athlete unless one was speaking of power.
> 
> So, I’ve been worried Queen will get big. I am afraid her athleticism will just fade away if her body becomes too large to maneuver easily. I was talking to a friend though, and she said that if a big horse is athletic in his/her youth they don’t lose it when they reach their size. I have to remind myself of Lucky, who was an overall big horse and a stellar athlete.
> 
> It’s funny how opposite our biases are, isn’t it?


I think there's a big difference with breeding for height versus bone, and it probably explains a lot of what you see. I feel like horses with big bone are more appreciated in western disciplines than english. Say 14.2hh to a western rider and they probably think of a well-built quarter horse carrying an adult man and western gear. Say 14.2hh to an english rider and they probably think of a dainty Arab or large (but light) pony best suited for an intermediate level child. 

I think that's where my frustrations come from with breeders breeding for taller horses - they go for tall but tend to lose a lot of bone in the selection process when they could be going for short but decent bone. I'd rather take the latter than the former any day. It's like the Icelandic breeder I talked about visiting - the one I rode was a clear two hands shorter than April, but SO MUCH sturdier of a ride!


----------



## Knave

That’s likely true @Aprilswissmiss, but a lot of the cutters have lacked bone. Some have it, but like Bones many are dainty. A big boned little horse I feel can do most anything, but I don’t find them quite as athletic as the dainty ones, more of the time.

Zeus has a lot of bone, and he is strong for work and holds up great. He is a fjord though. He’s athletic enough, and can get any job done, but I wouldn’t say he is athletic in the way a dainty cutter is by any means. Of course he has his pros above them.

I agree though that it is definitely thought of differently. When I hear someone say they are riding a 13.2 pony, like the one poster, I imagine a shorter Zeus, and I think they are fine. I imagine some of the thicker quarters, and not usually the dainty ones.

I don’t turn my own head up at those dainty little horses though, but I’ve seen it becoming more common for people to do so around here. It’s only because they aren’t holding up to work with big men. Some do of course, but there is a risk there I guess.

My big horse is the horse I have most been asked to sell. It blows my mind. Yet, most people who have asked about him are big people. Big people see him and not only see who he is at work, but imagine he could hold up under their riding I guess.

I agree there is a massive difference between him and a fine boned tall though. A fine boned tall, I feel, struggles much more than a big boned small. Yet, people imagine it is the height that makes them strong.


----------



## Aprilswissmiss

Knave said:


> That’s likely true @Aprilswissmiss, but a lot of the cutters have lacked bone. Some have it, but like Bones many are dainty. A big boned little horse I feel can do most anything, but I don’t find them quite as athletic as the dainty ones, more of the time.
> 
> Zeus has a lot of bone, and he is strong for work and holds up great. He is a fjord though. He’s athletic enough, and can get any job done, but I wouldn’t say he is athletic in the way a dainty cutter is by any means. Of course he has his pros above them.
> 
> I agree though that it is definitely thought of differently. When I hear someone say they are riding a 13.2 pony, like the one poster, I imagine a shorter Zeus, and I think they are fine. I imagine some of the thicker quarters, and not usually the dainty ones.
> 
> I don’t turn my own head up at those dainty little horses though, but I’ve seen it becoming more common for people to do so around here. It’s only because they aren’t holding up to work with big men. Some do of course, but there is a risk there I guess.
> 
> My big horse is the horse I have most been asked to sell. It blows my mind. Yet, most people who have asked about him are big people. Big people see him and not only see who he is at work, but imagine he could hold up under their riding I guess.
> 
> I agree there is a massive difference between him and a fine boned tall though. A fine boned tall, I feel, struggles much more than a big boned small. Yet, people imagine it is the height that makes them strong.


Getting even further into the semantics of small vs big, lol, is the difference between bone and heaviness - when I think solid bone, I think of sturdy legs with solid feet, but not necessarily a wide barrel or short thick neck or heavy draft-like muscle. The most athletic horse I've personally ever met was a 14.2hh speed jumper with a relatively light body but solid legs and feet. She could clear jumps taller than herself with room to spare and could rollback 180 degrees at a gallop in a fraction of a second. She certainly wasn't drafty or heavy, but she definitely had thick, sturdy legs and feet.

I think of Connemaras, certain foundation Morgans, and Icelandics when I think of horses that have sturdy legs and feet but light bodies, and are still just as athletic and handy, such as...

This Connemara:








This Icelandic:








This Morgan stallion that I can't get enough of:








They're definitely not draft legs on thoroughbred bodies, but I think it's a perfect balance between thick legs/feet and light bodies to make sturdy lasting partners without compromising on athleticism.

As opposed to an english version of dainty, like:








The top three horses don't really have proportionally larger barrels than this horse does, but they do have more bone and feet.

I'm not familiar with cutters, so it's possible we have slightly different definitions of dainty  and who knows, thick bone might not impact the athleticism of a jumper as much as it impacts the athleticism of a cutter, I'm not sure.


----------



## Knave

Here is Bones then who I think of a dainty, but tough. He’s cutter bred, but not particularly small at 14.3. Not his best cutting pics, but I didn’t want to search. Now imagine him a hand shorter. I think that is dainty, although I think he is tough as nails and handles work very well with no stop. I don’t know if weight for years would effect him, but I doubt it.


----------



## gottatrot

@Aprilswissmiss, wow, the bone on those horses! It really must help when it comes to carrying weight. 

@knightrider, I saw other photos of you on Windy on the trail rides thread too. You really do look great on all your horses. When it comes to legs hanging down, I've found it to be rather irrelevant when it comes to sizing the rider to the horse. Horses with slab sides will have your legs hanging much farther down than a horse with a wide barrel like Aria.

I've had my legs hanging down as far or farther on tall, narrow horses as I have on short and wide horses. This horse was 16 hands but my leg goes all the way down.








Halla was two inches taller than Amore, but my leg hung down farther a lot of the time on Halla because Amore was wider.








Nickel was 17 hands.








Aria 13 hands. My foot is in the same place!








My leg is actually shorter on Hero's 15.2 hands than on Nickel, because he is wider.









As usual, my horses are smarter than me. Today I decided to ride Aria on the back trail through the woods, in the evening. 

I thought about taking Kadira for a walk or pony along with us, but when I went to say hello to her I could hear that her heaves was affecting her. There have been wildfires in Oregon and even though the air hasn't been noticeably smoky, I've had mild congestion myself. Kadira did not seem in any distress and wasn't coughing, but just the excitement of seeing us had her breathing making an audible sound, so I thought she should not have even mild exercise. Poor mare. It probably doesn't help that she is so overweight.

We headed into the woods just past Kadira's field, after a couple of moments of hesitation on Aria's part. About a hundred feet into the woods, Aria stopped. I tried to get her going again, but she was giving me a hard no. So I decided maybe it was too scary at dusk, and thought perhaps there were elk down the trail, although she had passed those before with a little encouragement.

I got off to lead Aria, and she still did not want to take a step. I turned another direction, and was hit with a whiff of a very strong scent. It was very musky and did not smell like an elk. Then I saw that there was some bear poop on the trail. Judging by the strength of the smell, the bear was quite close to us. Like I said, she must think I am so dumb because I'm sure she could smell the bear before we ever entered the woods.

So we walked back, and Aria wasn't even worked up. At Kadira's field, I got back on and rode her back home. I figured even a short ride is good practice for her, and the bear disrupted our plans for a longer ride. I've had horses that are hysterical over nothing, and Aria was really just rather polite about saying, "No thanks, I don't want to go say hi to the bear."


----------



## gottatrot

Yesterday I had my second jumping lesson. This time, the instructor was finishing another lesson and told me which horse I would be riding and where to find him.

My horse was a paint named Heart, around Hero's size. He had a spot shaped like a heart on his shoulder. I feel sorry for lesson horses. When I showed up at his stall, he stood there looking at me with a resigned expression. "Another new one, eh?" What amazes me is that the horses don't know you, but yet they obediently let you take them out, brush them, tack them up, and don't complain at all. 

I feel like it is not my business, but do notice how many horses like Heart have atrophy behind the withers from wearing poorly fitting saddles, and also how they are shod, hooves contracted and frogs off the ground. 

My lesson was a solid hour. We were outside in an arena with lots of jumps set up. Near the end of the lesson, the instructor told me she would have raised some poles for me, but I had not realized I should put brushing boots on Heart, and she said he has a tendency to hit poles sometimes, so she didn't want him to jump without boots on. 

It felt better to ride in a jump saddle than the last time, but I still am having some trouble staying solid in two point. I was careful to choose a saddle that was a little smaller and seemed to not have the stirrup bars too far forward, so it fit better. But having my stirrups short enough that I could stand a foot out of the saddle, along with the forward bars and knee rolls means I'm having to learn a new way to balance. 

It is a ton of work keeping a lesson horse going! It wasn't that I cued constantly, but Heart tended to gradually drop off his impulsion without regular reminders, very subtly I guess hoping I wouldn't notice that his gaits would get slower and shorter over time. He also would drop out of gait sometimes.

The instructor had me doing progressive grid work, so first going over stretches of trot and canter poles along the long side, then I'd have to trot through some on the long side, pick up the canter and do a sharp turn to canter over some down the middle. Next I had to switch between trot and canter poles in a smaller circle on one end, and finally we ended up doing figure eights with a couple of lead changes and switching between trot and canter poles with tighter turns. 

Of course every time I went over poles I was supposed to get into two point. Heart seemed to know that if I was focusing on getting up in two point over the poles, he could drop out of the gait. So I kept losing him halfway through the poles - I had to get him really going forward before we came to the poles if I wanted him to stay in a canter or trot. 

Finally I remembered the advice to stay seated until the horse starts to rise over the jump, which I've read many times. Right at the end of the lesson, I was able to get some really good impulsion from Heart by sitting until he lifted in the canter for the first pole, and then when I went into two point he was able to keep the next few strides going through the poles. That made me feel successful.

After the lesson, the instructor showed me Heart's boots so I can put those on the next time and be ready for some actual jumping. 
I am very sore today, and during the lesson my heart rate was high sometimes and I was breathing hard. Trying to relax, of course! I've not had extended periods of trotting and cantering for a while, so was very out of shape for it. I think at the end Heart could feel that I was weakening, and was trying to take advantage of it, LOL. 

It did crack me up that Heart's bridle had a Pelham with roundings, so I had wondered when tacking up if he was one that might try taking off. Maybe he has that issue when jumping higher, but with flatwork and poles it was the opposite. He allowed a nice, soft contact but certainly never pulled to go faster. 
DH was reading a book during the lesson, and didn't realize I would have liked some video. Oh well.


----------



## TrainedByMares

It better have been a good horse book he was reading! Lol

I found an interesting article about jumping spiders in saturdays Lancaster Farming paper.


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> It better have been a good horse book he was reading! Lol
> 
> I found an interesting article about jumping spiders in saturdays Lancaster Farming paper.
> View attachment 1135457


He was reading a true crime book, I think, haha.

That is so interesting and cool about the spiders! I was able to zoom in and read it.


----------



## knightrider

Why couldn't they have REM sleep? Why couldn't spiders dream? I think @SueC would like this article too. Thanks for sharing!


----------



## gottatrot

No riding time this week...did our last ten hour round trip drive up to our old house, signed all the papers to finalize the sale and got paid.
It was stressful but DH has nerves of steel and his decision to wait for the right time in the housing market was a good one. We probably missed the perfect time by 3 weeks, but still did great.

So now there is money for my horse trailer and pony cart, so I just need to make some decisions and in the next few weeks, get them! Pretty exciting.

Aria's mane is down to the top of her front leg now, so I'll probably have to start braiding it if I want it to stay untangled through the winter. Like any good pony, she's putting on her winter coat faster than Hero, the ineffecient TB.

I got some great hay finally, and could write poems about it. We had a bad hay year last year and I am sick of the dust and dirt. Everyone in our area was feeding either really stemmy sub par stuff, or else this hay that had nice green leafy substance, but had been rolled into big bales and then chopped into small ones.

The chopping process made it full of hay dust, but somehow the process also seemed to involve rolling up part of a dirt road, and I kept finding big dirt clods and concrete chunks, as if it wasn't dusty enough already.

Hence the warm and fuzzy feelings, and urge to wax poetical over the bright green, dust free, clean, and fluffy hay in the barn.

The last time we were at the barn, there was a small, white rooster running around. No one has chickens anywhere near the property.

When we were leading the horses back up the road after turnout, we walked past the rooster. All of a sudden he rushed at Hero, and flew up at his face! Hero jumped in the air, but was so startled he didn't aim when he kicked out. The rooster went strutting off all proud.

The rooster was nowhere to be seen today, so hopefully his owners found him.

There is also a peacock at the barn who is in love with my chrome bumper. He waits for me to drive up and then stares at himself and pecks.


----------



## TrainedByMares

There once was a girl named Gottatrot
Who greatly cared for the hay she bought
When quality was down, she wore a big frown
But now that it's up, she smiles alot!


----------



## TrainedByMares

That's some of my best poetry, right there


----------



## gottatrot

That is a lot better than anything I came up with! LOLOL.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I'm cleaning stalls right now, that's why I'm so creative! Lol


----------



## gottatrot

I have been searching for info on the difference between two pointing with a shorter stirrup vs the longer stirrup I am used to. It has been puzzling me about why I am having issues in my jumping lessons. I think I found the answer in this article.
Points to Consider: Jump with the Motion of Your Horse

Apparently it's not the stirrup length, it's the speed and impulsion. Which makes sense to me, because I'm used to riding very forward horses, and have not noticed struggling to stay in two point before.

The article describes sitting in a light/half seat during arena jumping, and staying up in two point as speeds get faster, as in cross country. 

Truly, the horses I've been riding have been barely getting up to a working trot, and loping rather than cantering. Which means their momentum is less forward. My thought was that I was supposed to two point _out_ of the saddle, but all the jumping videos I've been watching online show people in what I would call a half seat between jumps.

That is what my natural tendency was at my last lesson, to allow my seat to touch down lightly during strides (vs what I call a real two point, which is having the seat never touch the saddle). Next time I am going to try to do what I saw in jumping videos, which was to maintain the angles of two point while staying in a light seat, and only maintaining a true two point when actually going over obstacles. 

I think it is too difficult to stay aloft without impulsion from the horse. I'm used to having that, so have usually considered two pointing "easy."


----------



## gottatrot

Tonight I really wanted to ride but the hooves were getting quite long. By the time I was done trimming, doing chores and retrieving the horses from the far edge of the turnout pasture, there was only ten minutes before dark. I still tacked up Aria and rode the ten minutes. I figured it was better than nothing, and it's always good to keep her thinking she'll be ridden often. 

It started raining when we were five steps away from the barn, but Aria kept going just fine until we got down the road and she saw that they had put a big blue tarp over the burn piles. She wanted to turn around, but kept going with encouragement. Then the mare Patty bolted around the side of her shelter, I guess we spooked her. Aria jumped a little, but she never spooked very hard and even though she was scared we went around the outside of the arena, checked out the tarp and then headed back home before full dark. It was sad to have so little time, but I was proud of Aria for going along with my idea of a ride in the rain, and it was rather windy too. Finally feeling like fall here.

Even though it seemed like I was barely riding Hero, today he was able to hold his legs up much better than usual and I can only conclude he is feeling less sore. He has been going to turnout without any antics or spooking, and he just seems more calm and contented in general. It's good to see him like this.

I always talk about how frustrating it is that Thoroughbreds have such terrible issues from poor breeding. I took a pic today of a piece I trimmed off the same part of Hero's hoof vs Aria's hoof. The wide one belongs to a 13 hand pony, and the narrow one to a 15.3 hand horse. That is just wrong. 
It's not changeable either, just genetics. Hero gets biotin, hoof minerals, 24/7 turnout, all the things they say you can do to improve hoof quality. But his walls will never be thicker than that.








It was rewarding to have the hooves nicely trimmed. They were suddenly quite long because we've had a little rain, and the retained soles shed out. 

I watched another video about how easy it is to get on a horse without having the saddle slip. The man in the video mounts with no girth, and his saddle stays put. I've never been able to get on a treeless saddle without it slipping, unless I have the girth tight enough. I tried it again for the millionth time, and my saddle came over. 

I've come to some conclusions: The combo of my particular lack of vertical spring, long bone ratios and muscle strength, plus very round horses means I can't get the techniques to work. I have tried facing forward, facing the horse and frog-legging, using mane and not pulling on the saddle, etc.

With Nickel or Nala I could mount without a cinch and never pull a saddle over. Their backs have some shape over the top, and the panels bridge over it. Even with a treed saddle on Amore, Halla, Hero or Aria the saddle would slip significantly if the girth is too loose. With treeless, there is just no way without a mounting block. But I have decided that seeing if I can ground mount is the test to see if my girth is tight enough. When I have been unable to get on from the ground and used a mounting block due to having the girth loose, later in the ride I've had a very loose girth. The treeless saddles do get looser as you go because the pads and panels warm up and compress down after a few minutes. 

I know many of you can mount and the saddle stays, and I want to say kudos, but I can't do it! 
The good thing is that I've had no issues with stability in the treeless saddles once I'm on, just when mounting. 

Next week I'm starting a 12 day vacation, and I think it's the longest I've had off in several years. After that my schedule will be strange for a while. One of our night supervisors is off for a while, and the other quit, and I'm the relief. So I've agreed to switch to 12 hour shifts for a lot of October and November. Hopefully with more days off I can motivated to get out to the barn earlier some days, and do some extra riding!


----------



## egrogan

The hoof trim pictures are fascinating. I'm glad Hero seems to be in better spirits.

I laughed at the "lack of vertical spring" comment. I think Fizz's saddle would stay put if I tried to mount from the ground, but I always find something that gives me some elevation to get on. Fizz and Coalie and about the same height, and M and I are about the same (short) height too, but she mounts Coalie from the ground all the time. I think though she and I are both short, she's "leggier" than me, and more flexible, so it works. Coalie is more of a barrel shape than Fizz, and I think sometimes his saddle wants to list to the side, but for mounting, it works for them...


----------



## Knave

I think a whole lot of it depends on the saddle and horse. Bones I could get on without a cinch. He also has some massive withers. Husband can get on Lucy without a cinch, but she also has decent withers.

Take Cashman and compare the ability of his getting on the mare with no cinch, to slipping a tight saddle sometimes. I weight less, and I have slipped the saddle on a not quite tight enough cinch on him more than a handful of times probably. He has no withers at all.

Queen and Zeus are mildly better built than Cashman, but both have little for withers, and both have saddles slip. Zeus much more than Queen, because his little girl just doesn’t pay a ton of attention. lol.

The English saddles? They just slip. The nice one I have would sit on Bones, possibly Lucy, but the cheap one the others ride I can think is super tight and still roll it. It makes me understand the mounting block idea a whole lot more. Queen I made husband give me a leg up last time, because she doesn’t know what a mounting block is.


----------



## gottatrot

Today was 85 degrees, and I debated riding but decided to wait until tomorrow when it will be down in the 70s. Aria does have a bit of winter coat on already. Plus, Maybelle's rider should be able to go along tomorrow.

I was remembering today how much time I spent thinking about what discipline Hero might like, since he seemed unhappy so often. As he politely and cheerfully was asking me for a treat, I realized that people need to put the "retired" discipline on their list to consider, because it seems Hero was always dreaming of retirement. He seems to have finally found some peace. I'm thinking someone told him both his sire and grandsire were retired to stud by age 5, and he just thought that was the path he would also take in life. I guess if your dad and grandad retired at age 30 and you still found yourself working at age 60, you might resent that. 

Abbey would like you to notice the art carving she made out of a nut shell (lower left). She is thinking about selling them to save for more sunflower seeds.








She thought she was looking pretty cute tonight.


----------



## Knave

She is adorable.


----------



## gottatrot

Had a lovely hour long ride on Aria today. Went with Maybelle's rider, she ponied MIkey along. 
I tried using my phone for video, but accidentally reversed the screen so it was taping the inside of the case for 20 minutes. Oops. 
I only got a few seconds of the "bear trail," which had no sign or smell of bear today. 
Aria Bear Trail

Gi the boston had a field day with a group of peacocks, making them all fly up into the trees. Even the babies flew; we didn't know they are old enough to fly. She got in trouble. 

Hero called out for us quite often, but mostly was eating hay.









After the ride, Aria only had a little sweat under her chest and girth area. When I asked her to go as fast as she wanted up the hill on the bear trail, she actually galloped for a little. That was very fun, her gallop feels full of energy. Even though I know she is not actually moving that fast, it feels fast on little horses. 

Our ride has some good challenges for green horses. On the way out there was a horse trailer parked near one of the fields, with a table and chairs newly set out. A rider came down the road toward us on a prancing horse, and passed by. I thought for sure he was gaited, but his rider said no, just having naughty legs. They sure went high and to the side. At the bridge, there was a truck parked just on the other side, and a big machine for digging holes. 

At the top of the hill before the nursery, there is a property that has tons of items such as trailers, piles of dirt, and other things that move each time we go by. The scariest item today was a new chicken coop, which looked very cute but had ducks inside that made an ominous sound from in the darkness. Other than a spurt forward or two, and not wanting to stand still to wait while our friends reorganized at times, Aria did great. 

Her mane is getting so long, I tried some loose braids recently because it gets snarled every day, but she tried rubbing them out (of course).


----------



## knightrider

Aria sounds wonderful. Not the least bit boring . . . but safe. What a perfect horse! I am so glad you decided to try riding her. And the best thing is that you look fine on her!


----------



## gottatrot

I was trying to figure out here if Hero was being defensive of Aria and his field, or aggressive to this big bull elk. He's quite used to the horses, so didn't seem disturbed.





I zoomed in on him, but I wasn't going close!!


----------



## gottatrot

On Tuesday Aria and I went out with Maybelle's rider. Aria had the biggest spook I've ridden so far on her. We'd just crossed the scary bridge, so the horses were a bit wary, and then a deer popped out of the bushes right behind us. Both Aria and Maybelle shot forward, but we were facing a dirt ditch and hillside, so they scrambled through and up it. This made their legs go crazy, but Maybelle's rider rode it well, and Aria lost a boot so I had to get off and put it back on. It was a little impressive that I was able to put a hind boot on right after a big spook, some Arabs and TBs I've known (won't mention any names) would not have been able to stay still enough to make that possible.

On that same ride we had two different horses take off galloping in fields next to the road, one really snorting and bucking, which did get the horses a little bit "up," but Aria didn't try running. 
Then when we were heading back home, all of a sudden I said, "What am I looking at...cows?"

Sure enough, there were six cows loose and ranging across the road in front of us. One had big horns, and one was twisted and curved down which gave her an interesting look. Maybelle's rider got on the phone to see if we could figure out whose cows they were. Maybelle was raised around cows, so she just stood and looked at them with her huge mule ears pointed forward. Aria began to snort a bit. I wasn't sure I could ride her through the cows, so I got off. We discovered that the cows had come from a farm down the side road that branched off just in front of us, so I took Aria behind me and began pushing the cows that way.

She was wary, but the cows moved away from us, and I hoped it gave her the idea that cows are what horses push and boss around. Soon the cows took off running back toward their home so we let them go and hoped their owners rounded them up.

We spent the next two days on an outing in the city. Met up with my brother for Italian dinner, and went to the huge bookstore in town which is like Disneyland to us. I saw a book that was a bit too expensive, but maybe I'll get it soon. "The Working Equitation Training Manual." It had lots of exercises for teaching horses working equitation. Might be a fun thing to try with Aria, since she has the right build for it and probably the right temperament. Meaning, able to be motivated to go forward and work, but also not over excited by cues.

My biggest worry in the city was that it was supposed to be around 80 degrees both days, and we had our dog along. Thankfully we found some good solutions; a shady parking garage in downtown, and then we went to the Japanese gardens the next day and found a shady hillside where the temperature was nice and cool. The gardens were peaceful and beautiful.



























Yesterday I rode Aria alone on a short ride. It's great because even though she's nervous to go some places like around the edge of the woods at dusk, those are places I could never get Hero to go at all. 
At one point I found a little offshoot trail and pointed her down it, and she just jumped right down a little hill and into the bushes. A couple minutes later, I looked forward and saw that the vegetation was getting very low and close. But then I realized...ponies are the ideal trail mount. She looked ahead and saw her path was clear, and I just ducked down and we went right through the trees that were so low a bigger horse could never have made it. 

Aria has a very difficult shape for saddle fitting, and I've been riding her treeless so far. However, yesterday I tried my L & R dressage saddle on her, and her shape has changed enough from riding that it fit her just fine. 
I think the difference is that her shoulder has gotten bigger and defined with some muscling and that has given her back a little better shape for keeping a saddle in place.


----------



## Knave

Boy is it hard to imagine where she came from looking at her now! You’ve done so excellent!

Sometimes it takes something going wrong for me to really start trusting a horse.


----------



## gottatrot

Me too! I forgot to mention that yesterday someone came pushing a very loud wheelbarrow around a corner and we could only see a shape moving through the trees. Aria really wanted to turn and leave, but I told her it was OK and she just jumped a little and we stood and waited until she saw it was a human with a wheelbarrow. It seemed very brave of her, but also I was testing the limits and found out that she could handle something that scary with me asking her to stay and it didn't make her panic or bolt. These things help build our trust in each other.


----------



## gottatrot

There is a lot of emphasis placed on training a horse to be polite and to have certain manners.
I think I'm learning that some horses only need to be handled to learn impeccable ground manners. Others will never be polite, no matter how much time you spend trying.

By polite, I mean up to a point. Of course you can teach a horse not to run over you and bite you and push you around.

But take Hero, for example. I've spent inordinate amounts of time correcting his behaviours and he still naturally has somewhat rude body language and poor space awareness even though he can stand and lead politely for much longer than he used to.
Pick up his hooves a thousand times and he'll still never have them ready for you.

Halla was the same. She never would agree to adopting the human's ideas of space or follow rules unless she felt like it.

Amore and Aria are of another persuasion. With both, simply handling them without setting boundaries turned them into polite horses. I've never taught Aria to maintain space, or not pull on the lead, or follow softly. She is just naturally polite. From the start she took treats gently and her method of mugging is to have hopeful eyes.
Hero will start rooting through your pockets if you let him.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> There is a lot of emphasis placed on training a horse to be polite and to have certain manners.
> I think I'm learning that some horses only need to be handled to learn impeccable ground manners. Others will never be polite, no matter how much time you spend trying.


Oh, the snarky comments and rolled eyes I used to get when people tried to handle Magic on the ground. "You need to teach her some manners," I heard over and over. She was who she was. I had 6 or 8 horses that I had trained before I got Magic and they had fine manners. Magic just didn't. I got her as a yearling and for 2 years, all I did was ground work and tricks. When I retired her, I told the people on the farm where she was that they could ride her. She was gentle for the most timid of beginners. They were all afraid of her. The next horse I got after Magic was Shadow, an untouched 4 year old. She had lovely ground manners all her life. 

It was annoying to have people chastise me for not training my horse properly. Especially because she was an amazing horse--super fox hunter, push button show horse, great competitive trail horse, and loved me with all her heart. Who could ask for more?


----------



## twhvlr

I’d venture to say that we all know assertive, pushy, seemingly rude people. Sometimes when I meet someone for the first time I think, “ I really don’t like him/her.” Then I take the time to get to know them and realize that they don’t mean to be rude, it is just their somewhat abrasive personality. Often I end up really liking them. Why wouldn’t it be the same with animals?


----------



## gottatrot

Jumping lesson #3 yesterday:

It was fun! I rode Heart again. You can see in the photo why he is named heart, from the spot on his right shoulder. 
It's great to have my instructor who is willing to advance me along with only one lesson a month. We had an evaluation lesson, then did poles and gridwork in two point, and this time after a little bit of pole work she put me over some low jumps. 

I think the hardest part as a beginner is so much trotting. She had me trotting up to the jumps, then going into two point right before and practicing making sure my reins were loose to allow for the forward movement of the neck. I also was supposed to ask for the canter as he took off, and land cantering. 

The timing of getting into two point at the trot is trickier than with the canter. When cantering, I could feel the push off of the jump and get into two point with the right timing. With the trot, it was harder to tell when exactly to get off the horse's back (trying to post until the last moment, trying to get the timing the same as if I was sitting in the canter up to the jump).

At the end of the lesson she had me cantering to the jumps, and that was easier. First I did single jumps on big curves or straight stretches, then I did one at an angle and practiced asking Heart to land on the correct lead to change directions after the jump. Finally, I did two jumps in a row, trotting up to the first and then picking up the canter between jumps. It was all fairly challenging for someone new to jumping, but very fun. 









The first time we came around the corner and I was heading toward a higher jump, I felt a slight anxiety. I think that was leftover from trying to learn to jump on horses that didn't know how to jump, and thinking about if the horse would jump super high or take off wrong or duck out. So immediately I told myself that Heart knew what he was doing, so all I had to do was think about going into two point at the right moment. Then I relaxed. 
I can tell that feeling the motion and getting all my timing right will just require doing it a few times. Just like learning how to canter and post and two point, etc.


----------



## gottatrot

It's that time of year here where riding or working horses requires the right timing to get things done before dark and when it's not raining. Today the timing did not work out. It was raining, and then dark.

It has been challenging finding a blanket to fit Aria. Last year's rain sheet was too big and gaped at the neck. I asked for recommendations on the forum, and sent away for one from Horseware Ireland. Unfortunately, it did not fit, and an issue I have is that when it comes to pony sizing, the sizes jump by a few inches at a time. So even though I liked the cut of the blanket, it was too small and the next size up would have been way too big.

Finally I was able to get one from Schneiders that seems to have a better fit around the neck and even though I wish it draped down a little more around her legs, and that there were more color choices, I guess purple is close enough to her color of burgandy. For some reason I thought there would be lots of choices for ponies but there are a lot less than for horses. She wears a 61", which apparently is not a common size.



















This is last year's 64" with the neck problems. I think she'll be drier and more comfortable in the new one.


----------



## egrogan

Bummer, I know I recommended the Horsewear blankets because they seem perfect for Morgan body styles and I thought they might work for Aria too. Sorry it didn’t work out but glad the Schneider’s seems to be ok.


----------



## gottatrot

egrogan said:


> Bummer, I know I recommended the Horsewear blankets because they seem perfect for Morgan body styles and I thought they might work for Aria too. Sorry it didn’t work out but glad the Schneider’s seems to be ok.


The style was perfect, if they'd only had an in between size. I was hoping they ran a little large when I ordered, but not quite large enough. I appreciated the advice!


----------



## TrainedByMares

She looks good in purple!


----------



## gottatrot

DH was teasing me today. We saw a motorcycle stopped at a red light, and when it turned green, the motorcycle took off. Without thinking, I exclaimed, "He reared!" Of course immediately afterward I remembered it was called a wheelie, but it sure made DH laugh. 

We had a nice day after several rainy ones, and Maybelle's rider was able to go out for a ride with us.









On this side the view is all forelock.









We did about a 45 minute ride, going carefully in spots because it was slippery. Maybelle's rider fell on Mikey several years ago and broke her pelvis when he landed on her. A year later she fell off Maybelle during a big spook and broke her hip. It was obviously very slippery right at the spot where Mikey had fallen, so we went slowly and I tried to stay on flat areas whenever we were off the gravel.

When we got to the nursery, there was a wide, flat area of clay. I thought it was probably slippery, but we were only walking. A moment after that thought, the water pump turned on in the shed right next to us, and Aria spooked forward. In a split second all her legs slipped out and she fell flat on her side. I've unfortunately been on horses that fell down a few times now, and the experience allows me to move without thinking. I was free from the saddle before Aria neared the ground, and pushed off at the last second so I was clear. I rolled to the side. We both jumped up, and everything was fine. I was up so fast, my pants didn't even get muddy from the clay.

After the fall, Aria was a little hot for the rest of the ride. Still, she was very manageable and on our way back, we stood near the duck house which she is convinced is full of hissing devils. She side-eyed it for a while, which I am sure helped her realize it's not that scary. 

I told Maybelle's rider I haven't fallen off Aria yet, but I don't think that one counted since we both fell. Did you fall off a horse if you bailed because they were hitting the ground? LOL.


----------



## Knave

I’m glad you came out of it safe! I have the worst tendency to stick in the saddle. I don’t know why my brain won’t do the smart thing.


----------



## gottatrot

It's weird because you make decisions and act, but your rational brain does not have any say. You have to follow instinct and really don't have much power over what you do. You just do it. 
For some reason your subconscious brain has decided it has gone better for you in the saddle, and mine has decided it should get clear.


----------



## Knave

That’s exactly it I guess. It makes me mad at myself though!


----------



## TrainedByMares

I'm glad you're okay! That would be unnerving, and your quick reflexes prevented a possible bad wreck. I think you are supposed to say " I'm getting off now" before you dismount if it's not to be considered a fall! Lol


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> I'm glad you're okay! That would be unnerving, and your quick reflexes prevented a possible bad wreck. I think you are supposed to say " I'm getting off now" before you dismount if it's not to be considered a fall! Lol


Next time I fall I'm going to try to say that super quick.
"Gettinoffnow!" 
That should work, right? It does seem polite to let your horse know too.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> Did you fall off a horse if you bailed because they were hitting the ground?


I made it every time off Isabeau before she hit the ground except once. I was in the process of dismounting, and she was squirreling around so much, I hadn't managed to get off. That made her mad, so she hurled herself to the ground and I didn't make it. I never expected her to come over while I was in the process of dismounting!

I usually do make it off as the horse is going down, but I didn't once when my horse Shadow slipped on a muddy spot. I also didn't a few months ago when Windy got tangled in vines. Both times happened so quickly and so unexpectedly, I just didn't make it.

The funniest one was when I had a young green Cyclone at a foxhunt. We were all ranged along the top of a gravel pit waiting for the hounds to follow the scent of a fox who had run along the bottom of the pit, about 30 feet down. In those days, Cyclone did not wait patiently, and after about 10 minutes, he began rearing. With each rear he got closer and closer to the edge of the drop-off. Suddenly he was up, and underneath him was nothing but air. I yelled, "I'm not goin' down there!" and leaped off. He went plunging, rolling down the embankment without me. Amazingly, he was unhurt. I picked my way down, got back on and finished the foxhunt. I was in my 20's in those days--it was a long time ago. Didn't do my saddle any good at all.


----------



## Knave

@knightrider did he learn to be more aware of his footing?!

A girl I rode with a lot in high school rode a big horse called Frisky. Frisky ended up being a really great horse, but I always assumed he was a difficult to start horse because of the way she talked about him when her father was still using him as his main horse.

Frisky was a horse you could trust with your life in a dangerous spot. Their country was hard country. It took me a bit of getting used to to be quite honest! It was very hard to ride, but watching Frisky navigate it was awesome.

One day she told me he wasn’t always that way. Her dad was packing him somewhere; he didn’t want to ride him because he was one of those horses who always dropped a leg off the cat trail. Frisky did just that, and he ended up rolling off a very steep and rocky embankment.

I guess her father was sure he would be dead. So, he was shocked when Frisky stood up and shook, and managed to struggle his way back up that mountain. He ALWAYS watched his feet from that day on. Frisky never stumbled, and he could do anything.

One day we were riding and for some reason she jumped this nasty gully. It was a big cut out of nothing. I don’t know how those things become… I don’t know why she jumped it either. It was really wide, and Frisky almost didn’t make it. He caught his fronts on the other side and started to fall into the gully, and he scrambled. Somehow that horse managed to be standing on the other side, and she learned as much of a lesson as he did when he fell.

I had a lot of respect for him. He was a big ugly bay horse.


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> @knightrider did he learn to be more aware of his footing?!


Oh yes, he stopped rearing when he got to be about 5. Never reared again. He was such an amazing horse. I was just 21, had just graduated college and gotten a teaching job. I had no money, but I wasn't going to live without a horse for another MINUTE! I picked him out of a herd of unhandled horses in Waxahatchie, Texas. His sire was a thoroughbred, and his dam was an appaloosa. I paid $200 for him. Nobody to guide me, no vet check, nothing. I had already started about 4 colts by that time, so I wasn't worried a bit about getting him riding. Everybody in Texas taunted me about being so young and training an unhandled junk colt. It was hard to deal with. I thought Cyclone hung the moon--he was everything to me. He was pretty easy to break and really fun to ride.

When I moved to Maryland, he was coming along really well with his training and I started showing him. Then I learned that he was super athletic and super talented over fences. Being half thoroughbred, he was highly reactive, so he made a lot of mistakes in the show ring, but when he didn't make any mistakes, he always got a ribbon, even if there were 30 horses in the class.

A few years later, I had taken him to a fancy high caliber horseshow. A snooty girl in our hunt club (who looked down on me because I was a very home-made kind of horseshower) asked how he had done at the high class show. I said he got two thirds. She looked him up and down and then said, "Well, of course you would, with THAT horse."

THAT horse was the one that I picked out unhandled, got no help with his training, and was teased regularly that he would never amount to anything.

He was hit by a car and killed when he was 6 years old. It almost killed me. I just couldn't get over losing him. He was the first thing I had ever done that was just amazingly successful. It took me years to get over losing him, and I am fighting tears right now just writing about him. He was my whole world.


----------



## Knave

Oh @knightrider, that breaks my heart. I am so sorry for you, but glad you got to know him while you did.

Sometimes I think about heaven. I have this vision of how, when I die, certain animals will meet me there. Not all of the animals I owned. In my mind some belong to someone else once they pass on, like they never really were meant to be mine. Yet, in my mind as well, there are those very special ones, and they are meant to always be ours. I feel convinced we will meet again.

I know there are different thoughts on heaven, and we aren’t really to understand it, but the thought comforts me and for whatever reason I believe it.


----------



## Knave

@knightrider, I think Runt will meet me in heaven, even though I feel guilty over her end. I also think HeiHei may be there waiting, ready to start. I didn’t get to know HeiHei long, but I feel he was meant to belong to me.


----------



## knightrider

My brother became Buddhist after doing a stint in Viet Nam. He has a little Buddhist charm on his rear view mirror. Whenever he sees a dead animal in the road, he touches the charm, says a prayer of thanks for the animal's life, and prays that it goes to whatever heaven skunks, possums, kitty cats . . . go to.

I found that so charming that I put a Christian angel on my rear-view mirror and bless the animals that way. We joke about all the tire re-treads and other miscellaneous trash we have also accidentally blessed and sent to heaven.


----------



## bsms

I think @gottatrot posted this years ago:


----------



## gottatrot

knightrider said:


> ...I had no money, but I wasn't going to live without a horse for another MINUTE!...


You and I are kindred spirits for sure.

I wish there was a way to both like and not like posts like the one about Cyclone. It's an amazing story with a tragic ending. 

Talking about sure footed horses. What is strange is that Amore was often awkward and I think she fell down more than any horse I've known, ridden or unridden. Yet she was probably the best I've ridden for going through rough footing and brush. She moved like a cat and would lift her legs high, and had tough skin. We could go through and over things that might have lamed, tripped or scraped up another horse. No problem. 

I think it might be different talents to be sure footed vs steady footed. If that makes sense. I think Amore was so good at going through and over things because she was light on her feet and would get her legs up quick. But I think that makes a horse less stable when the footing is slick, because they might have only two feet quickly on the ground, and if those both slip they'll lose their balance and fall. 

Yesterday, the mule was going in front of us, but she didn't slip. I noticed she moved her legs slow and kept her hooves close to the ground, making no fast movements. Mules are supposed to be sure footed, but maybe the talent is also "steady footed."


----------



## Knave

Cash is like that! He’s the horse I’ve known who has fallen the very most. He stumbles, but he doesn’t fall like he used to before the chiropractor put his ribs back. Yet, if the footing is dangerous, he is sure footed! It confuses the crap out of me!


----------



## Aprilswissmiss

April is similar - she has fallen under/onto me twice, once on wet grass and another in the arena. She's gone down on her knees during spooks before and has lost her footing many times on slick surfaces.

My theory is - since she's a very, very distractible and unfocused horse - she doesn't turn on her brain unless the terrain is particularly treacherous, at which point I can trust her to get us somewhere safely. She's tripped over six inch high logs and face planted on the trail because she was too busy staring off at some bird in the trees. Her eyes are never on the ground unless they absolutely HAVE to be, at which point she notices everything.

But I also agree with you that she is very light on her feet and her feet are in the air a lot more often than they're touching ground especially at the trot and canter, so I'm sure that contributes. But oh my god I just wish every now and then she would pay attention to the footing when it's not really tricky because it would save us so many slips and face plants.


----------



## gottatrot

I was responding to a thread about a horse with stifle issues, and it got too long so I decided to add more here.

I honestly think more of TB's issues come not from being started too early, but from genetic issues from poor breeding practices. My example is my OTTB who is a mess, and his grandsire was Mr. Prospector, who was heavily used in breeding TBs. 

This quote is from a comment in the Thoroughbred Daily News:

"When inbreeding to any horse, though, it’s important
to realise that you may intensify not only its virtues but
also its vices or faults. This has to be a consideration
with Mr. Prospector, even though his conformation and
bloodlines were sufficiently impressive for him to top
the Keeneland Summer Yearling Sales at $220,000 in
1971. *Everyone knows that he did have some physical
flaws: his head was plain, he turned out from one
ankle, his hind-leg was a little straight and his feet were
small. Everyone knows too that his racing career was
interrupted by sore shins, a chipped fetlock and a
fractured sesamoid*."

He was not alone in stallions that were used heavily in breeding and inbreeding despite physical flaws or early breakdowns, because they were fast. My TB inherited from Mr. Prospector extremely straight hind leg angles, a slight turnout on the same front leg as his grandsire (which apparently came from Mr. Prospector's sire, so was a trait that usually passed on), and tiny feet. Most of his issues he was born with: his stifle cartilage did not fully form in one knee, leaving an OCD lesion, his larynx collapsed and he had to have surgery for roaring to race, and he has kissing spines like so many TBs. He gets hoof abscesses and has thin soles. 

Studies seem to show that exercise when a horse is young makes them stronger and their hooves develop better. I think we often think TBs are used too heavily when too young, but more likely the opposite is true. They sit in stalls far too much while developing, and are only taken out for brief workouts. A friend bought an Arabian show horse that had been kept in a stall for most of his 8 years. She brought him to the beach for a ride, and when they cantered he fractured his femur taking a wrong step. 

When I posted on the forum about the plethora of health issues I've seen in OTTBs around my area, many people on the forum said they'd *had* TBs that lived long and healthy lives. After the thread was finished, I realized that the horses I'd been seeing that were so unhealthy were younger TBs, and looking at sites that rehome TBs nowadays, I see more and more conformational issues. 

I believe that more TBs _used_ to live long and healthy lives, but as more horses are bred with less diverse lines, there is more genetic bottle-necking, which compounds the issues. In Hero's pedigree, there are names that appear two or three times. Raise a Native is in there three times. He was a horse that won all four of his starts before breaking down unsound. Native Dancer, Raise a Native's sire had chronic inflammation and bony osselets in his ankles by age four, so had to retire. Thoroughbred breeders continually breed unsound to unsound, and then blame the track surfaces and racing practices for horses that break down. 

From what I've seen, the younger a horse is when you buy him nowadays, the more likely he is to be more heavily inbred and to have more problems. All of the horses I've known with serious health problems were younger than 15 in the past 15 years. Prior to that, I knew a few TBs that were healthy, sound and older. 

I believe that some things we blame on horses being worked are things that were not caused by working and riding. Amore was not backed until she was almost 12. Her lifetime usage was a lot less than other horses, so I thought that would mean she'd probably be able to work longer. Yet she developed back arthritis in her mid-20s to the point where she had to be retired. I feel that must have been something from genetics, having Cushing's, or other issues but I don't think it was from being used. She also was a heavily inbred horse.


----------



## baysfordays

I’m saddened by the whole thoroughbred thing, breeding, racing..how people drug, and so many conformational issues, etc.
And there’s more and more thoroughbreds at auctions and kill pen auctions.

my cousin bought an ottb who was drugged when she bought him, he was built like a tank and he was really pretty, sadly, after multiple trainers and vets,she found out he has tons of health issues (from the track, and hereditary) and he will never be able to jump again or be worked much, its just so disappointing. I’m just hoping thats not the outcome for my dude.

I’m hoping they will start breeding the bad things out of thoroughbreds, I know a few breeders who are breeding tbs strictly for hunters and jumpers and they’re gorgeous.


----------



## Aprilswissmiss

I've always said I love to ride TBs but I don't think I'll never own one. For every story of an OTTB living a long and healthy life, there are five more living short and broken lives, unfortunately. The well-bred and sound TBs are incredible athletes but I would personally rather not take the risk.

My BO's OTTB is fifteen and hasn't had any problems. He had over 100 starts, believe it or not! He was certainly used harder and longer than most TBs. He only won a couple races and given how slow he is, I'm impressed even at that. He does have to his advantage a slightly heavier quarter horse type build than most TBs. He's barefoot and his feet are happy that way. I think he was bred right and used hard and so far, so good.

I think any horse turned out on varied-terrain pasture from a young age has an advantage over other horses with similar genetics. It's a shame to see so many horses stalled 24/7, both for their mental and physical health.


----------



## Knave

I agree so much with what you said! It’s not just thoroughbreds either. I think quarters have the same problem. Bones and Lucy aside, who are still pretty youngGeneral and Sassy were both pulled out of being hard using horses very young. General was started later in life, and I didn’t pound him for a show horse because he didn’t have the talent of a show horse. Sassy I pounded hard and went down the road, but one must remember I didn’t own her until she was seven, and she wasn’t liked by her prior owner.

Both were well bred horses. General had extensive ringbone at 11, I gave him to a little boy who rode him until 16 or 17, and they had to put him down. I probably would have much sooner than them, for I don’t like seeing a horse suffer. Sassy I gave away as a broodmare at 10 or 11. Navicular. How many show horses end up with navicular? Lots and lots in my world.

We see a ton of arthritis in reiners and cowhorses. It isn’t uncommon at all to hear of someone injecting four and five year olds! Talent is the only thing bred for anymore.

There aren’t a ton of ranch horses in the overall population if you think about it. Some of them are coming up with their own breeding plans, saying the horses hold up better longer. They still are putting a lot of cow into those programs.

I understand that completely, because I also want a cowy horse. Yet, I look at Queen. I know she might be the outlier in the horses off the mountain, but that mare is an athlete and has cow. Even though I started her particularly early, I believe she will hold up for a long life, like the old horses used to. There may be something to buying a horse from the blm, without such man made selection.

I think Zeus will hold up too. His father was on the place, pulling the plow at 30!

I think we need to be willing to think outside of the box anymore. I think that is the only way we will find long lasting horses, or at least the best gamble to do so. Maybe we take horses like Queen and breed them to higher caliber studs. I don’t know…

I do know breeding has gotten more intense. With the ability to extract eggs from a mare, a no name mare no longer cuts it when someone is selling colts. It used to be the mare side wasn’t very important.

It is an important thing to consider.


----------



## Aprilswissmiss

Knave said:


> We see a ton of arthritis in reiners and cowhorses. It isn’t uncommon at all to hear of someone injecting four and five year olds! Talent is the only thing bred for anymore.


Same in the english disciplines! More so in jumping and dressage. I've seen so many broken down warmbloods getting pushed to their limits in their early teens by injecting over and over. One of my dressage friends said her barn owner _preventatively _injects all her dressage horses because it's not if they'll need it, it's when. But of course, never lets them out on pasture because they'll gallop down the fence and lame themselves... The blatant breeding and stalling to produce and preserve young talent over health, longevity, and attitude is the biggest reason I got out of the english show scene. I'm liking the endurance scene the more I learn about it.


----------



## gottatrot

Thoroughbred breeding is a travesty, and I agree with @Knave that we ruin horses in general with breeding practices. Dogs, too. I agree we need to think outside the box. Far better to breed two horses that are not even the same breed but have good, complementary conformation than to breed based on pedigrees that include horses with terrible flaws. Friesians have terrible issues, so do Tennessee Walkers. Lots of breeds where horses have been bred for certain traits for showing or competition. 

This guy is 7 years old on the Canter USA website. He is $2,000, supposedly useful for low level jumping. He's had a Sesamoid fracture at age 4, and has arthritis and small inoperable bone chips.
Look at his lower legs. Would you jump him?


















Just pulling up a random page on a rehoming website, I see that 2/3 of the OTTBs listed say flatwork only, and have photos like this one with a 3 year old and a bowed tendon. I suspect some of the others will have issues that haven't been discovered yet. 
There are lots of horses with post-legged conformation, super long pasterns, and/or long cannon bones.


----------



## Knave

We really do need to start doing something different. Young talent will rule all of the money games, but at least we need to, if we breed a horse, start thinking about old talent. We need to put the old horse first. Obviously we did not with Oakley, and I hope she lasts a long time. Her mother is bred from old school cutters, the last out of the mare and maybe even the stud she was out of, at least the second to last foal crop from him. The stud has more new aged bloodlines, but they are from separate sections. If Oakley goes lame young, hopefully we will have learned our own lesson.

If I ever breed a horse myself, it will be Queen. I’d like to see a cross with a fancy bred horse and a horse like her. Yet, hopefully she lasts me so long, and Cash too, that we have this discussion many years from now. Lol


----------



## Aprilswissmiss

Knave said:


> We really do need to start doing something different. Young talent will rule all of the money games, but at least we need to, if we breed a horse, start thinking about old talent. We need to put the old horse first. Obviously we did not with Oakley, and I hope she lasts a long time. Her mother is bred from old school cutters, the last out of the mare and maybe even the stud she was out of, at least the second to last foal crop from him. The stud has more new aged bloodlines, but they are from separate sections. If Oakley goes lame young, hopefully we will have learned our own lesson.
> 
> If I ever breed a horse myself, it will be Queen. I’d like to see a cross with a fancy bred horse and a horse like her. Yet, hopefully she lasts me so long, and Cash too, that we have this discussion many years from now. Lol


That raises a question that's been floating around in my head - how acceptable is it to use a mustang mare for breeding where you are? Here, the mere thought would be received with a huge collective GASP from the entire equine community. I imagine it's more acceptable where you are given that you see them as using horses and most people up here see them as little desert mutts.

I say this with an underlying joking tone, but I almost wonder if we would be better off just grabbing random backyard horses with sound histories, good brains, and relatively decent conformations for breeding instead of always going for the best of the best and bottlenecking populations. All of my BO's home bred horses are from her (now gelded) grade paint stallion and her morgan/appy mare. Both came as foals from very questionable backgrounds without any sort of papers, but those two horses have been sane and sound their whole lives and right now in their late 20s happily keep up with the rest of us on the trail. They probably wouldn't win any type of competition but they're solid, safe, able-bodied citizens with no maintenance, and their foals have been dreams for trail riding homes. I know the ethical breeding standards typically insist upon papers and breed improvement at the bare minimum, but I'd rather have one of these horses than anything being marketed for higher level competitions in almost any discipline.

Hopefully the modern breeding scenes can start pulling themselves together and normalize breeding lifelong sound and sane horses so that the above isn't necessary to get a horse like that.


----------



## Knave

@Aprilswissmiss oh, it would get a gasp for sure. People here would rather shoot them than look at them. My buddy has a really nice cutting stud though, and if the mare turns out like I imagine she might he wouldn’t question breeding her.

Now, if she hits the show pen and does amazing things, I would think some others would be interested in the cross as well, just to see what it did.


----------



## gottatrot

Most of our "pure" breeds have had outcrossings in the past that were considered necessary to add certain traits and improve the health of the breed. That was old school thinking, and I believe much better than the current belief that somehow horses with mixed lineage are lesser. Of course some of the outcrossings were done in secret, so the breeds would seem "pure." 
I understand that when there are traits that make a breed unique, you want to keep those. But I believe you can add other genes in now and then while still keeping the main traits you want to keep potent. 

Just look at how mustangs have self-selected for good bone and big, strong hooves in order to survive. Of course they didn't need many things to survive that we think are good in riding horses. They didn't select for pretty heads, or easy riding gaits or size. That being said, many of the horses that mixed in over the years did provide smooth gaits and even colors that people like. 

A problem with using show records as a basis for whether you should breed a horse is that the horse in question should still be considered critically. Is he successful despite having conformational issues because of drive and heart? That would be a horse like Seabiscuit. 

Is he successful because he's on an expensive regimen of shots and therapies to keep him going? Or is the success because of aesthetics in a halter horse that some humans think are pretty but are detrimental to health? I don't think even a winning horse should necessarily be bred on. I'm much more willing to think so if the horse is winning in performance that requires skill on the horse's part and not just a pretty "frame" as in hunt seat or pleasure classes. 

But as @Knave said, even in some of the skill classes, the horses are winning so young you can't tell if they will hold up to hard use and be sound in their later years. Any horse that retires to stud at five or six is suspect in my book.


----------



## Knave

Husband believes there is a performance aspect of them not holding up too, but I don’t think I do with Sassy and General as examples. I do understand what he is saying though.

He also believes that riding a horse young, and exercising that horse is healthy. He reminded me I’m not running down the fence with Queen, or letting her really make big slide stops or any of that yet, where futurity two year olds are often doing that.

So, he questions how many stress fractures are created with such intensity. I just don’t know, and maybe he has something right in that. A lot of those horses are retired by 7. Your running thoroughbreds are all out of money games earlier than that right?

Yet, historically the futurity horses in cowhorse did hold up for longer than they do now. They also weren’t quite as talented.

We’ve talked about the kids that way too. Look at big girl, something seems to happen to those kids who are at the top of a sports game. Yet, those who don’t play quite so well hold up and have better long term health. All of our stars end up taken out in their later high school years. They tear their acls most often, but other things happen to them too. There are surgeries and such to try and get them back into the game.

So, if we compare a horse to a human, maybe too much intensity young is detrimental, but those who aren’t at the top usually are benefited.


----------



## gottatrot

That makes a lot of sense, @Knave. I tend to believe in "non forced" exercise for young and growing animals. With dogs under a year old (two for a big dog), if they are loose and running free, I don't restrict them because I feel they can decide when they are tired or hurting and rest. But I will restrict how many miles I will go with them running on a leash, because to me that is forced exercise and I think in that case it could be over done and cause damage. Same with a young horse. If they're coming along on a trail ride loose, like Phantomhorse is doing with Puck, they'll be fine. But I wouldn't lunge a baby around in circles for a half hour, or run a two year old up and down a fenceline repetitively. I'd let them hop over a jump, but I wouldn't have them working around a course.


----------



## Aprilswissmiss

Knave said:


> Husband believes there is a performance aspect of them not holding up too, but I don’t think I do with Sassy and General as examples. I do understand what he is saying though.
> 
> He also believes that riding a horse young, and exercising that horse is healthy. He reminded me I’m not running down the fence with Queen, or letting her really make big slide stops or any of that yet, where futurity two year olds are often doing that.
> 
> So, he questions how many stress fractures are created with such intensity. I just don’t know, and maybe he has something right in that. A lot of those horses are retired by 7. Your running thoroughbreds are all out of money games earlier than that right?
> 
> Yet, historically the futurity horses in cowhorse did hold up for longer than they do now. They also weren’t quite as talented.
> 
> We’ve talked about the kids that way too. Look at big girl, something seems to happen to those kids who are at the top of a sports game. Yet, those who don’t play quite so well hold up and have better long term health. All of our stars end up taken out in their later high school years. They tear their acls most often, but other things happen to them too. There are surgeries and such to try and get them back into the game.
> 
> So, if we compare a horse to a human, maybe too much intensity young is detrimental, but those who aren’t at the top usually are benefited.


I know for a fact breeding for the fastest thoroughbreds does produce animals with lighter bones and feet, but I'm not sure I can explain the others as easily. More mass at the end of legs means more energy needed to swing them front and back and overall slower movement too. It's why horse muscles evolved closer to the body, leaving only bone, skin, and tendon to be moved. If you indiscriminately breed faster horses together over many generations, you're going to actively select for thinner, smaller bone and hoof. Then we see all the thoroughbreds with the same sized bodies on toothpick legs breaking down by age 3.

There's probably a similar mechanism underlying the performance vs longevity in other breeds and other disciplines but I wouldn't be able to guess.


----------



## Knave

I know Queen has worked really hard this year, but not repetitive injury type hard. I actually haven’t allowed her to do anything particularly fancy, not necessarily because I even thought a lot about her soundness, because she is so tough, but because of her mental health. She takes things to too much of an extreme, and I want her to be confident it what she does, and not have any anxiety attached for any reason.


----------



## gottatrot

It's tricky to know how hard to work a horse. I think just evaluating their mental and physical health is mainly all we can do. How they're holding up. I'm feeling a little insecure now, thinking that if Aria was that stunted, her nutrition could have been poor enough that she didn't have good bone development. But I think all I can do is see how she holds up to work, and just watch for signs that she is having issues. 

A positive is that after an hour ride carrying me, even with her winter coat mostly on now she doesn't breathe hard or have more than the tiniest amount of sweat. So I'd think if she was having any pain or issues it would show up physically. But I've been thinking of seeing if she could do low jumping with me, and I guess I'll just have to try her over some poles without a rider and see how she feels about it and if it makes her seem sore or anything. Good horsemanship comes with a lot of soul searching, but we need to trust that we know how to read our horses, I think.


----------



## Knave

I think you can read her. I think she’ll be lots sturdier than you imagine. I don’t know why, but I’ve thought that since day one with her. Lol


----------



## Aprilswissmiss

I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get everything "just right" when at the end of the day, the difference is probably negligible. It's not like cutting a mile off of a trail ride once a week is going to radically change their life, and it's not like we're asking them to go do olympic eventing. I sometimes question whether or not I should be trotting April on the side of the road for miles and then I remember that she constantly fights me to go faster and she's never once been sore after any ride we've done. I think we're all doing just fine.


----------



## gottatrot

If I did eventing with Aria, I think she'd be like this pony and keep eating as she goes.









Too adorable not to share.









Saw some good memes this week:



























And another one I couldn't find the meme for:
"Whenever I go out in public, I wonder if I'm more barn sour than my horse."


----------



## bsms

Fitness from an old guy's perspective... My wife and I aren't likely to run a half-marathon. We set that as a goal, and some books on running "old" were pretty good. They all emphasized that for an older runner, progress is rooted in not being injured. We did a 10K a few weeks ago. I had sprained my back 2 weeks prior so only did some walking in the week prior. My goal was to do the 6.25 miles in 10 minutes/mile, and finished in 59:30 (about 9:30/mile). My wife finished in 89 minutes (14:15 min/mile). But pushing up to a half-marathon poses some problems:

1 - Time. All the training schedules emphasize one long, slow run a week, and the distances needed for a half-marathon take a LOT of time. Even at the 10K level it takes significant time. And life gets in the way. I want to ride Bandit during the next 6 months, not just run - even though I'm more a runner than rider by nature.

2 - Cost. Local 5 & 10K run $40+ so $80-100 for the two of us. Meanwhile, in the last 15 months, I've gone from paying $15 for an 80 pound sack of hay pellets to $25. Sometimes $27! Add in the cost of meat and even eggs (if they have them) and....hmmm. Pay $100 to spend a couple hours sweating or keep horses, dogs and us eating. Choices!

3 - Avoiding injuries. The sheer repetition of leg motion and foot impact isn't an issue at 3 miles. Manageable at 6 miles - but it requires care! I think it is exponential rather than additive. Double the distance makes it 4 times harder to avoid repetitive stress injuries. Not in our knees, which is what people expect. In places like lower back, or sole of the foot.

I read a lot of research and it looks like, for health goals, the sweet spot might be 3-6 miles. Under 3 and you lose some benefits and don't gain much protection. 5-6 miles, and the benefits aren't increasing as fast as the risk of injury. Pushing it to 13 miles? We aren't 20 any longer!

Applying that to horses...

One book argued for "micro-rests" - doing 20 seconds of walking every half mile, for example. It argued just that tiny rest was enough to relax things that were starting to strain. My _feeling_ is that it is true. So simply breaking up the exercise with a horse - doing some galloping, perhaps, but maybe every half mile slow to a walk for a hundred yards - and I wish I had a half mile where it was safe to gallop! Varying the terrain. We have nothing BUT hills here, so at least Bandit never walks on level terrain very long. Trails force a runner to slow and are more tiring both because you have to lift your legs higher and because they are uneven - and maybe rough trails or cross-country is better for a horse than smooth roads.

We can't change the genetics or early experiences of our horses, but I think sports horses are injured from too much repetition and too little rest. The running books all agree that rest days are critical. That is when you build more strength. 

We push them too hard. I can feel the strain on my heart when it is hotter out - particularly if I didn't bring water. I can feel the gas tank going empty around mile 5. And I can feel the strain of an uphill. One place I run here involves a 300 foot climb in the 3 miles out, then of course 300 feet downhill over the 3 miles home. HUGE difference in feel, even though the easy section comes when I'm already tired! But how many competitive riders blame their horse for "being lazy"? How many riders don't even notice (much like someone in a car) an elevation change of 100 feet per mile?

The bad breeding is obscene, but it is a symptom of the same problem:_ Who cares about the horse? _Thin legs make a horse faster. If he is a cripple at 5 but won money, who cares? And of course, beat the horse is he acts pooped rather than ask if he has a REASON for being tired! Too many training schedules are set by humans without regard for the horse's behavior. That obviously won't be an issue for the folks on this thread, though, and I think THAT is the critical factor. Listen to the horse. Give the horse some freedom to object. Give the horse exercise and also rest.

BTW, my sheep ranch friend has horses who MUST cover 20-50 miles/day. He provides 2 horses to the herders so they can be ridden every other day. But it still wears on the horses, so he has extra to swap out a horse after 3-6 weeks so they can come back to the home ranch and recover. But it is still a hard life and most of his horses will break down around 20 years. But he uses horses because there is no other option. He'd LOVE to be able to use ATVs or trucks, but they NEED horses. And the men don't spare their own bodies either. That is necessity for them. But we recreational riders have a choice. The pity is so many will make choices without regard for what we know about exercise and fitness and just as bad, the horse's spirit!

End rant! But it is nice to read posts from people who genuinely are about their horses, including @Knave on a ranch where work has to be done regardless. I'm also glad my rancher friend has both sheep and cattle, and assigns horses to either one based on the horse's preference. For example, Trooper was a great sheep horse but hated working cattle, so he pulled nothing but sheep duty. I love reading Knave's journal and the thought that goes into which horse is ready to do what job.


----------



## gottatrot

Great post, @bsms!

I've said that a half marathon is long enough for me because of the time spent training. But also I feel I know I'm capable of going farther if I wished to train for a marathon, but don't think there is any real benefit for myself. Doing a long run for a half marathon almost puts me into a coma. The race itself is different, I've done several. There are lots of people, the course is interesting, and the competition keeps you going. But training for ten or eleven miles, which is the most I usually did, made me almost comatose. And who has time?

In my middle age, I've learned more about alternative ways to train for horses and humans. My sister has done lots of half marathons, and she rarely even does a long run ahead of time, I think the most she'll put in is nine miles. Instead, she puts the mileage on her body by doing split runs. So she might run 5 in the morning and 3 or 4 at night. She says her body can't really tell the difference between taking a break of a couple minutes or a few hours, and she's never had an injury from running.

When I first started running, in my teens and early 20s, I believed that the most a runner could take off was one day a week. I read about cross training, but I didn't really believe in it. I had lots of injuries back then. Shin splints, achilles tendon strain, knee pain, etc. Nowadays I put in two or three runs a week at most. Walking at the barn and work, horse chores and other activities keep me fit in the meantime, and I keep my fitness while not having injuries.

I've learned from Phantomhorse and others that many endurance riders do similar with their horses. One of her friends trains her endurance horses by only walking between races. For the 25 mile and 30 mile rides I've done, we never did more than about 15 miles, and only a couple times in the month before the rides. Our horses were quite fit and managed the longer distances easily. 

It's still a common belief that you have to ride horses daily. They certainly benefit from a day off after a harder ride or workout, just like we do, for muscle healing and recovery. They can stay very fit even if ridden two or three times a week, just like us, and if they are turned out can keep a basic level of fitness with even one ride a week.


----------



## Knave

I am like you. I think I could do a marathon. I’m not sure I want to though. I like long run days, but they are so hard to fit in! I enjoy how my body feels after a real long run. I feel better. Yet, the time commitment is massive! Everyone on here knows how much time that takes away from horses. lol


----------



## gottatrot

I'm starting through the exercises in my new book which is the Working Equitation Training Manual.
It seems like it has great basic things to teach a horse (and advanced), and I think it will help me with having short and interesting goals for the days I can't get out on trails in the winter.

Exercises 1-3 were about stopping square, standing still and some easy transitions. The goal with transitions is similar to dressage, meaning the horse learns to do them at markers. I'll need to bring cones out soon so we can be very precise. I rode Aria bareback in the arena, and had to fend off Hero a bit when he realized I was giving out carrot chunks, but he wasn't bad.

Aria is already pretty good a halting, so I'm working on having her feel my body language more and also to make it a little more gradual than a dead stop. We also did a trot to halt transition for the first time. She was great about standing still, although I need to work on that a little more while mounting. I practiced lifting my arms and swinging one around, since we'll soon be lifting things off of barrels and hopefully eventually learn to do things like canter around a barrel and lift a pole out of it. 

If Aria enjoys this type of obstacle work, I think she has a good build for it. I was comparing her to Andalusian conformation and find her similar enough that I think she might be good at collected work.

















I don't have great conformation shots, but I notice that similar to an Andalusian, Aria's neck ties in low to her chest in the front. She has a sloping/laid back shoulder and her hind legs are set back. The horse in this picture has a little steeper croup than Aria, but many spanish horses I've seen have a similar croup angle to Aria, like the Lusitano in the bottom pic. Aria's cannon bones are fairly short, and when she is on the level her knees and hocks are at about the same height. So she's probably balanced enough for collected work. 

Aria differs with her sprung ribs vs the tendency to be more slab sided with the spanish horses. Even though the horse has barely any withers, I suspect she is easier to saddle with that long, flat girth groove, which I envy. 








A Lusitano


----------



## baysfordays

gottatrot said:


> Thoroughbred breeding is a travesty, and I agree with @Knave that we ruin horses in general with breeding practices. Dogs, too. I agree we need to think outside the box. Far better to breed two horses that are not even the same breed but have good, complementary conformation than to breed based on pedigrees that include horses with terrible flaws. Friesians have terrible issues, so do Tennessee Walkers. Lots of breeds where horses have been bred for certain traits for showing or competition.
> 
> This guy is 7 years old on the Canter USA website. He is $2,000, supposedly useful for low level jumping. He's had a Sesamoid fracture at age 4, and has arthritis and small inoperable bone chips.
> Look at his lower legs. Would you jump him?
> View attachment 1138103
> 
> 
> View attachment 1138104
> 
> 
> Just pulling up a random page on a rehoming website, I see that 2/3 of the OTTBs listed say flatwork only, and have photos like this one with a 3 year old and a bowed tendon. I suspect some of the others will have issues that haven't been discovered yet.
> There are lots of horses with post-legged conformation, super long pasterns, and/or long cannon bones.
> View attachment 1138105


If he were mine, I wouldn’t jump him.
Poor thing 😔 Hes such a cutie too, I hope he gets a good home ☹


----------



## gottatrot

I haven't ridden Aria past the feed store when it was open before. Today I decided that was where I wanted to go, so we just did it. There were people chatting out front, but no hay loaders going. The big doberman faced off and stared, but I know she is a well behaved type and Aria is not scared of dogs. She took several steps, but just watched us go by.

There was an elk herd lounging across the river, which concerned Aria some. I experimented to see if she is the type to be soothed by going faster when nervous. Amore, Halla and Nala all used their brains better when flitting by their fears. 

I laughed because Aria seemed to feel if she went faster, the things that concerned her were coming too fast to evaluate and process. We went trot-halt-trot-halt a few times before I had her walk instead, and she felt much better about that.

She did great. We're still working on standing still for mounting. She'd rather wander off.

I was shocked tonight to learn that a doctor I work with was charged with animal abuse. She was someone I never would have suspected. A good doc and seems caring.

People told me she was a horse person, and I'd tried to chat now and then. One thing I noticed was she didn't seem to want to talk about horses much, the way most horse people do. We did chat about other things. 

But I gathered that she had a young warmblood with a trainer, and an older warmblood she did dressage lessons on. Being a doctor, I imagined her horses were at one of the fancy barns in the city. People also said she had expensive show dogs.

It turns out she has been charged in other states, and actually had 11 horses on a property, several pregnant and some in poor condition with long hooves. I can't imagine...didn't she have paid helpers? I've known her to regularly work 10 twelve hour shifts in a row, so it seems impossible she would try to do the care herself. 

But...there must be a mental disconnect somewhere in this since it has been an issue in the past.
If anyone is curious, I can pm you the link to the online info.


----------



## baysfordays

Sounds like you and Aria had fun!

also that’s sad about the doctor, I feel like those people have a mental disconnect like you said, how can someone hurt animals/neglect them and not have a care in the world? Wouldn’t they have guilt? 
If I don’t hoof pick my horses everyday I have guilt!😆
A neighbor of mine has neglected one of their horses.. thankfully they just sold him to some great people, but it’s sad how some people can abuse horses or any animal and it doesn’t bother them. 
anyway, it’s crazy who people are behind there “mask” or “outter layer”.


----------



## egrogan

Yay Aria! It is still amazing to me that your horses regularly ride past herds of elk and accept that as normal. If cows are scary, I wonder what elk would do to Fizz’s brain! Usually when we see deer it’s just one at a time, and that’s not a big deal.

I read about that doctor animal abuse case elsewhere on the horsey internet. The article I read was discussing how a lot of the breeders of those nice warm bloods were upset they had not been contacted by the rescue that was awarded the horses. Apparently the rescue very quickly adopted them out, meaning they were lost to the breeding community because of no-breed contracts. Rescue is so fraught and I continue to have such conflicting opinions about it…Anyway, glad the animals are in a better situation at least.


----------



## gottatrot

I also read that the breeders were upset the rescue did not contact them. I am assuming the breeders had a buy back clause in their sale, but the article I read said they would just be considered "prior owners" with no rights. That was interesting to me, because a lot of people online seem to believe and assume that if you sign a contract saying a horse has to go back to a rescue or a breeder, then you will be held to that legally. But apparently at least in this case, the neglected animals could be sent wherever the seizing agency decided to send them.

At least some of the dogs have also been adopted, and as I understand it all of this was very recent. So I'm wondering if there was inside information being passed on, meaning the dogs were supposedly show dogs and the horses were probably very expensive, so I could see acquaintances of rescue workers being quick to adopt the animals for the typical adoption fees at a rescue. 

I remember when I first had the issues with my coworker that ended with her leaving me with Aria, I was venting to this doctor my thoughts about how she was underweight, and how could anyone not feed a horse and put their care first, etc. Now I wonder what exactly I said and what someone with her history was thinking.


----------



## egrogan

gottatrot said:


> I remember when I first had the issues with my coworker that ended with her leaving me with Aria, I was venting to this doctor my thoughts about how she was underweight, and how could anyone not feed a horse and put their care first, etc. Now I wonder what exactly I said and what someone with her history was thinking.


Wow, that is a wild thought! Who would have expected someone who seemed so put together would be acting that way behind the scenes...


----------



## gottatrot

I'm usually very sensitive about considering other peoples' beliefs and feelings in personal conversation. That being said, if it offended someone that I was outraged about animals having poor treatment, I could care less. I'm more along the lines of our dear @Foxhunter who would take a crop to someone for mistreating an animal.


----------



## Knave

That blows my mind! It seems unimaginable for a person of such means to do something like that! It’s not because she’s a doctor for me. I guess I suppose some doctors must disconnect from the idea of suffering, and I also don’t like most doctors. Lol

Yet, I always assume people with money who have horses have them taken care of to an excess. It would be like working at the Arabian ranch to me, where perfection is required in each action.

You would think your going and discussing the crazy coworker and a similar situation would have seemed to create a wall between you. I imagine her avoiding you. Lol. I would be interested in the article. Why those horses didn’t go back to the breeders interests me.


----------



## gottatrot

I wonder if breeders who sell very expensive horses don't check as many references, because I personally have had the assumption that if you're going to spend so much money on a horse, obviously you're going to feed them. 

I've read that some killers and psychopaths have ways and areas where they compartmentalize. So they can be kind to their wife and family, but then torture someone else. I've read online people saying that this doctor must be terrible to patients. It might be difficult to believe, but she is a very good doctor. We've known her to spend a lot of time figuring out ways to get things written so the insurance will cover the more expensive medical equipment at home a patient needs. She is very safety conscious, and does not tolerate any delay in care. She'll also sit down and explain things in detail so people can understand their treatments. 

I'm still not sure how people can get away with not feeding animals properly. My animals are too bossy! My cats "almost died" because I slept in this morning, they get really frantic if their meal is a couple hours late. Even Abbey, the hamster starts kicking her bedding around with her back legs impatiently while I'm trying to get a handful of seed treats out of a bag for her. And I think Hero would just tear apart his shed and fencing if you didn't feed him. 

DH said whatever is the opposite of animal neglect, that's what our animals expect from us. Our picky cat just looks in the bowl and then glares, because he wanted "fresh." I would buy the most expensive hay for Halla, and she would pull it down into a pile so she could pee on it and not have splatter.


----------



## TrainedByMares

I don't know, maybe the neglect shows contempt,perhaps not so much for the animals but for the people who would otherwise own them or like to own them. 

When I was involved with the cars, I met guys who had high-end musclecars out rotting under a tree. Nope not going to sell it.


----------



## baysfordays

people like that shock me..
I know people who just buy expensive horses to look at, and will neglect them.. for me, it doesn’t matter if it’s a dirt cheap horse or an expensive horse, I’m going to take care of them the same!

Lol my cat will be up by 3am, asking to come inside..shes at the point where it doesn’t matter how many different water bowls I buy her, or scrub, she will ONLY drink out of a plastic “party” cup..lol! She even picks the color..🙄😅


----------



## gottatrot

TrainedByMares said:


> I don't know, maybe the neglect shows contempt,perhaps not so much for the animals but for the people who would otherwise own them or like to own them.
> 
> When I was involved with the cars, I met guys who had high-end musclecars out rotting under a tree. Nope not going to sell it.


Aha, that's a good theory. Very interesting...


----------



## egrogan

TrainedByMares said:


> When I was involved with the cars, I met guys who had high-end musclecars out rotting under a tree. Nope not going to sell it.


That is an interesting analogy, and makes sense as an explanation. That happens here too with old houses. There's a gazillionaire who went on a spending spree and bought up a ton of old farms and camps that were in really bad shape, and either fixed them up or tore down the houses that were too far gone and turned the property back to farmland. You can argue whether or not it's a good thing to have one rich guy own thousands of acres in a small town, but there are definitely houses in the neighborhood that are now literally crumbling- roofs fallen in and trees growing up through the middle- but **** it, no way those people were going to sell to someone who might fix the house up.


----------



## gottatrot

baysfordays said:


> ...Lol my cat will be up by 3am, asking to come inside..shes at the point where it doesn’t matter how many different water bowls I buy her, or scrub, she will ONLY drink out of a plastic “party” cup..lol! She even picks the color..🙄😅


Oh I know! We have four water bowls in the kitchen for three small pets. One cat will only drink out of the old ricotta container, the dog likes the blue ceramic one, and the other cat won't drink if anyone else has touched it. Then one day they'll all be crowded in trying to drink out of the same bowl because the other three aren't good enough.


----------



## baysfordays

gottatrot said:


> Oh I know! We have four water bowls in the kitchen for three small pets. One cat will only drink out of the old ricotta container, the dog likes the blue ceramic one, and the other cat won't drink if anyone else has touched it. Then one day they'll all be crowded in trying to drink out of the same bowl because the other three aren't good enough.


That is too funny!!


----------



## Knave

I wonder if she knew with the horses… I mean, she did know with the dogs, and apparently she was letting the dogs get into the cows, so that was bad… yet, for a minute let’s presume she didn’t know much about livestock. I don’t know about the dogs, so I’m not including dogs in this story.

When we brought Zipper home for little girl, he had been terribly neglected. I have no idea how he survived on what she was feeding, to be frank, and they had damaged his legs beyond repair. Yet, she had no idea. She showed us Zipper with pride. We didn’t educate her, because she was getting away from horses and what would be the point.

Zipper lived well here, and he was so wonderfully safe that we allowed him to go to a true beginner. Zipper’s life went to hell again. Maybe some are born to suffer, I just don’t know.

Yet, I just have this small question in my mind about what she actually knew about livestock…


----------



## gottatrot

I have to think she knew, because if she was simply ignorant, she would have at least recognized as a doctor that an eye ulceration was a problem, and would have had a vet see the horse. This is a very intelligent person, who went to Cornell and was in charge of whole departments at big hospitals like Swedish in Seattle. 

Also horse professionals are saying they felt very duped. It sounds like some people are saying how could her horses get bred with vets coming to inseminate them, and the vets not notice how bad the horses were on the property. But someone who was involved said that she would buy a mare, have the horse shipped directly to a farm where they could get bred, and the vet would see the very well bred horse on a fancy farm and think nothing of providing services. 
This was one of the mares she bred while at one of the farms, and obviously no vet would have qualms about breeding this horse. It was only after the horse was bred that she went to her farm to be starved and neglected. 








I also have to assume there were feelings of guilt or hiding/sneakiness, because how else could someone spending that much money on these incredible warmbloods not want to talk about them? When I asked about her horses (on multiple occasions), why wouldn't she at least say she had a horse bred by this incredible Hanoverian stallion, and show me a picture? Or a photo of this mare? I think she thought I might ask questions, want to come and see the horses, and then report her. 

Halla's owner was like Zipper's. Truly very ignorant. Also very stupid, but I guess that is beside the point. She was proud to show us the horses and come to take them away for training, even though they were emaciated. Someone told her horses needed to eat about a flake of hay, and so she threw them a flake of hay when she remembered even though Halla's buddy Jack was almost 17 hands and a TB. What was crazy is that the hay she bought was really high quality. She just drove 25 minutes into town once in a while and bought two bales at a time.


----------



## gottatrot

I made a couple mistakes yesterday.

I turned the horses out in the field close to their home field. This was the second time, and they're not used to it. Last time they were excited and galloped around, and they did that again. The field has woods along one side, and Hero is scared of the woods, so I think that is why. So I should have considered that.

Next, I safely got the horses back out of said field, and then turned Hero back around myself. A moment happened in the sequence of moving parts where Hero was on one side of me, and a tree blocked his other. At that moment I saw his head snap up, looked in his eyes and saw them go blank. And I knew he was going to spook and I had no time.

I opened my mouth to holler and then he trompled over me, first stomping on my feet and then knocking me flat. It's kind of funny to be pinned and knocked at the same time - you're supposed to go flying but can't. Then Hero leaped away, and I hopped up hopping mad, and "abused" him by swatting him with the end of the lead rope several times. 

He responded by looking a little crabby, spooked away a bit and then later when I was brushing him, he gave my arm a chomp. 

I was thinking that horses add injury to insult. First, they insult and then cause the damage. Lol.

Aria was let loose in the process, but she came running back after a moment to get caught.

Well, Hero was crabby. The weather has been cold and perhaps his chronic pain is a bit worse. He also might have aggravated something running around.

I told DH that I have toyed with the idea of boarding Hero at a retirement type facility with full care so I could keep another horse with Aria. But he can have 60 days of pleasant behavior, and then throw in something wild. 
I feel that even with cautious handling, Hero can hurt someone. So he stays with me. He was looking fine and handsome anyway today.

One foot is barely bruised, the other a bit swollen and bruised, nothing seems broken. I walked around OK at work overnight. Grade 1 or 2 lameness.

It's funny how when horses run over me (this is at least my fifth time - Amore at least once, Halla twice, and twice now with Hero), I always imagine what is going to happen, really instantaneously. But that never happens. I always envision myself squashed flat, but 95% of my body always avoids being trampled.
Maybe that will help if you ever are in that second of slow mo where the horse is coming over the top of you. Lol.


----------



## Knave

That is frustrating as all get out! Cash is the only time I’ve ever been run over by a horse, and honestly a part of me holds it against him still. Not in a grudging sort of way, but I think I will always watch him when I lead him. It knocked me dingy, but I was shocked to stand up sound. I was pretty sure I should be dead.

The next day I was staying with my grandfather, and telling him the story. My mother overheard and was really rude like she didn’t believe me, “Okay then, show me the bruises.” I for one almost never bruise, but I don’t see why I would say something happened that didn’t! It still irks me. Lol. Anyways, I was in fact sound.

I think I would be feeling opposite of you. Like maybe it was my last straw and he would go to the retirement place. I really don’t like not being able to at least trust a horse on the ground!


----------



## baysfordays

It hurts to get run over, I have a few times and also got ran over by a cow so I definitely feel your pain. I’m glad you’re ok though and I hope you heal up fast!


----------



## egrogan

I can only think of getting knocked down once. I was leading Izzy and Fizz together, and something caught Izzy by surprise and she spooked sideways into me. She immediately jumped back off me, but she had knocked my feet right out from under me and I was on the ground before I even realized what had happened! Fortunately both horses stopped and looked at me like it was extraordinarily odd that I was on the ground, and I got back up as quickly as I went down.

It reminded me that I always felt safer staying in the saddle with Izzy if she was having a meltdown over something. She would stay with me while I was on her back, but it was every woman for herself on the ground! 🙃


----------



## gottatrot

@baysfordays, getting run over by a cow does not sound fun. I can imagine they would be less agile at not stepping on you.

To be fair to the Arabians, they never meant to knock me down. Amore was too sweet to hurt humans and only ran me over by closing her eyes and wishing I had disappeared. Halla only knocked me over due to space challenges, trying to run somewhere and misjudging how wide she and I were. 

Hero is different. He doesn't really care if he hurts a horse or human. It's not like he tries to or wants to, he just prioritizes himself first. I think a lot of horse breeds, like many dog breeds, were bred to work with humans. I don't think that temperament has been a recent priority in TB breeding. 

That being said, I've known TBs that seemed generous, noble, magnanimous, gentle and tolerant. I wonder if older bloodlines shine through at times. Those horses are priceless gems. Horses like Hero and the late Wonder are of a different persuasion.

I have far less issues with my horse being untrustworthy at times and putting me in danger than I would with having him hurt someone else. Even if that person was more talented and could handle him better than me, I would know the risk and that he just can't be 100% reliable, even with the best handling. So if someone got hurt, I would feel too responsible.

I understand that is strange and not usual. Friends sell horses to people who they thought could handle them, and shrug it off if it goes badly. They did their best. Logically, I'm on board with that. But I can't personally pretend I'm hoping for the best if I deep down know things could go wrong.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> then he trompled over me, first stomping on my feet and then knocking me flat. It's kind of funny to be pinned and knocked at the same time - you're supposed to go flying but can't.


This exact thing happened to me with unpleasant results. And it was all due to my foolish pride. My cousin is an expert rider. Her dad jumped on board when she decided horses were her thing, trailered her to shows, paid for coaches and lessons, and even became a show photographer, all on a shoestring. My parents discouraged me every step of the way, and I had to fight for every horse thing I did. At the same time, I super admire my cousin--she is a great companion, helpful, loving, and giving.

So, she gave up riding (burnt out) years ago, and just for grins, went riding with me at a park while she was visiting. I was so thrilled to take her riding. When we finished, she took our Tico to wash him while Chorro wasn't untacked yet. If it had been any other person, say a young person I was bringing along, I would have said, "Hey, stay here at the trailer until Chorro is untacked and we'll go to the washrack together."

But I didn't want to look helpless in front of my cousin. I said to myself, "Chorro will be OK. We can manage this." Instead Chorro completely freaked out, spun around on his leadrope, and landed a hind foot on my foot. Instead of getting off, he spun back, knocking me to the ground, but remaining on my foot, crushing my toe. I was so embarrassed that I had gotten hurt, I didn't tell my cousin.

Later I went to the podiatrist because it just wasn't healing. He said the nail bed was permanently damaged and would never be OK. 



Knave said:


> I for one almost never bruise,


I don't either. I don't get any sympathy because it doesn't show. Hurts, though, doesn't it?


----------



## baysfordays

gottatrot said:


> @baysfordays, getting run over by a cow does not sound fun. I can imagine they would be less agile at not stepping on you.
> 
> To be fair to the Arabians, they never meant to knock me down. Amore was too sweet to hurt humans and only ran me over by closing her eyes and wishing I had disappeared. Halla only knocked me over due to space challenges, trying to run somewhere and misjudging how wide she and I were.
> 
> Hero is different. He doesn't really care if he hurts a horse or human. It's not like he tries to or wants to, he just prioritizes himself first. I think a lot of horse breeds, like many dog breeds, were bred to work with humans. I don't think that temperament has been a recent priority in TB breeding.
> 
> That being said, I've known TBs that seemed generous, noble, magnanimous, gentle and tolerant. I wonder if older bloodlines shine through at times. Those horses are priceless gems. Horses like Hero and the late Wonder are of a different persuasion.
> 
> I have far less issues with my horse being untrustworthy at times and putting me in danger than I would with having him hurt someone else. Even if that person was more talented and could handle him better than me, I would know the risk and that he just can't be 100% reliable, even with the best handling. So if someone got hurt, I would feel too responsible.
> 
> I understand that is strange and not usual. Friends sell horses to people who they thought could handle them, and shrug it off if it goes badly. They did their best. Logically, I'm on board with that. But I can't personally pretend I'm hoping for the best if I deep down know things could go wrong.


It wasn’t fun, cows seem to definitely have less respect for people, it didn’t help this cow hated me for no reason..😆


----------



## Knave

@knightrider it does! I’ve hidden stupid mistakes like that too. It’s like you don’t want certain people to know you’re fallible.

Gotta, I don’t like turning horses I think are dangerous either. I am surprised at how well it worked out with Keno, but I was very clear about all of his problems, and the man who took him was reckless and also very talented. Lol

I have always been clear about what a horse is when I sell it or like Keno, give it away. Two horses make people believe what I say. I didn’t have to worry with Keno, because I grew up with that boy and he knew exactly who I was and that what I said would be accurate.

Yet, when I traded Lilly, the man who took her was in for a rude awakening that I don’t exaggerate. When we turned Charlie I was also very clear about his issues. Charlie was good to ride, but bad on the ground. He was hard to catch, and I made it clear what I mean when I said hard to catch. The horse was danged near impossible to catch.

The first person who tried him, we were going to give him to if he worked. We didn’t tell him that though. We wanted him to look at him as if he were buying a horse, so we really knew where he stood. He told me the catching would be no problem, and I was at work when he called me angry “I have to go. I’ve been trying to catch this horse for an hour and a half.” I was all, “I’m at work. I’m not really sure what you want me to do about it. I told you this would happen.” He agreed I told him, but he hadn’t believed me.

A little while later the horse ran him over leaving the trailer. I don’t know why, but Charlie had worn out his welcome. After that husband sold him to someone I wouldn’t sell a horse to. He had no more empathy left for Charlie. Charlie was just Charlie.

He ended up being the star of that guy’s show, because as I said, Charlie was a great horse once you were on his back. Charlie became pretty known around here, and finally someone offered the guy too much money to refuse and he moved on. I haven’t heard anything about him since.


----------



## gottatrot

@Knave, I like your stories. It makes me think I should keep an open mind in case the perfect situation came along.


----------



## phantomhorse13

Playing catch-up on HF posts, so forgive my delayed response.



gottatrot said:


> @Knave, I like your stories. It makes me think I should keep an open mind in case the perfect situation came along.


I think this is always a good idea. While I understand your not wanting to feel responsible for someone else's injuries, it's always possible a different situation can be an unexpected fix.

You talk about wondering if some of Hero's behavior is related to pain. That certainly seems believeable to me, so makes me wonder if his living in a drier environment might make his aches less. But maybe a funky stifle isn't the same as arthritis-type pain, which is affected by weather? I also wonder if things like woods making him nervous means he would be happier in a place that is wide open? Perhaps if @bsms is ever looking for a companion, Hero would appreciate living in Arizona!

A friend of a friend wound up taking a mare from down south who had been retired from riding due to increased crabbiness and sensitivity as a companion. The original owner did lots of testing but never could figure out a reason for the mare's behavior. When she moved up north, it was like someone flipped a switch after about 2 weeks. Only thing anybody could figure was that she was allergic to something in the environment down south (despite negative allergy testing). Just goes to show, the horses will have the final say!


----------



## gottatrot

phantomhorse13 said:


> ...You talk about wondering if some of Hero's behavior is related to pain. That certainly seems believeable to me, so makes me wonder if his living in a drier environment might make his aches less. But maybe a funky stifle isn't the same as arthritis-type pain, which is affected by weather? I also wonder if things like woods making him nervous means he would be happier in a place that is wide open? Perhaps if @bsms is ever looking for a companion, Hero would appreciate living in Arizona!...


Good thoughts, thanks!  @bsms is a friend, so I wouldn't inflict Hero on him. LOL.

I hope it is clear that I love and enjoy Hero, but I guess talking about his difficult qualities helps me work through and accept that who he is does not relate to my failing him as an owner/trainer. While I know I am not as strict as some, and let things slide if they don't bother me, I still am very consistent in horse handling. It's not that he's naughty because he intimidates me or I don't give him guidelines.

For example, I hand feed many horses at the barn. They're mostly pasture pets that have minimal handling, and the owners don't have them on any special care and just throw them hay. So when they stand at the fence and look at me hopefully, I'll pick a handful of grass for them or give a tiny piece of carrot. Every single horse follows the rules and takes things gently from my hand with lips only, waiting politely until it is offered. Hero is the only horse I hand feed that requires reminders not to use his teeth or push with his head, etc. He is just not as naturally polite as most horses.

We've had a long break from rain this week, so I got Aria out for a ride today. It wasn't very cold, in the low 50s, but the horses still had their winter coats poofed out so they looked really fuzzy. 
First we went behind the property into the woods, and did the steep grassy trail where we'd come across the bear. There were no bears or elk today, the only issue we had was that the RV parked by the horse trailers had a big white cover put over it, which of course made it really scary. But Aria went by with a little encouragement.

I love her little gallop, it feels for a moment like she's going to go blasting off, but then she'll back off the speed right away, as if she realizes suddenly how much work it is. If I don't encourage her forward, she'll fall into a canter and eventually a trot. 

I was thinking today about how when you start an unknown horse, there's no way to know if they'll go out fine on their own or if they'll be a lonely type. It's great that Aria has already proven herself to be one that can go out on her own just fine, and she's not spookier without another horse there. It seems to help when I tell her things are all right and encourage her past things that frighten her, but she still trusts her own judgment more than me or other horses. 

After we went on the grassy trail, we went down the road past the feed store. The cows were out in a field near the end, and one was only five feet off the road and stood staring at us. Aria did not think she could go past that, so finally I got off and led her. She wasn't easy to lead by either, but I managed to convince her it was fine. That was a good lesson. It's great because even when she's scared she doesn't do things like bolt around in circles, or start jumping in the air, or crowd the handler. She's still really manageable, and after I walked her past the cows, I was able to just get back on and keep riding. She calmed right down.

Of course Aria is still super green, but she has many great qualities already. She's so sensitive she already follows my seat and goes where I am looking. She is self propelled, so if I get on she'll just start walking and keep going at a good pace. That's something I really appreciate in a horse. She's a very smooth ride. Today, even when we were close to home, I asked her to trot, knowing that she felt calm and was not trying to rush. We worked on transitions, and she always slowed when I asked her to, even heading back home. 

I'm reading Lorna Doone, and it's been amusing me that in the book men who were not good riders or needed a calm mount were given native ponies to ride. 

When I rode up the hill to the horse shed, Hero went bucking around the back and we heard him kick the shed really hard as he went by. He was not happy we left him all alone. Aria and I both just kind of shrugged.


----------



## Knave

I am so happy for you.

I agree completely about the lonely thing. It’s a gamble. I know some people think it’s about training, but I don’t think that’s true. Yes, you can train them to force themselves to handle it, but there are degrees of lonely and I think they are inborn character traits. I hate finding out that a horse is going to be lonely, especially when it is extreme. Bones is lonely, and it is pretty danged bad. It’s not so bad you can’t separate at work where you can still see people without a problem, but once you are all alone with no visible horses the problem is pretty overwhelming. I won’t even do it in steep country, where he is already uncomfortable. It’s impossible to make him think through both problems. What kills me is that I can leave from here alone and never will he even think about being in the smallest amount lonely.

Queen doesn’t seem lonely yet, although she whinnies, and Cash isn’t lonely. Lucy is a little lonely, but not much. Zeus was lonely, and is the only horse I’ve seen actually somewhat overcome that issue. He thinks different though.


----------



## baysfordays

I love reading your journal, you and aria are a dream team!!

that’s true about the lonely thing, actually yesterday I took my gelding out of the barn (my mare was stalled at the moment) and she freaked out, reared, tried to jump _over_ the stall divider, and was kicking the walls Etc, I ended up letting her out to her paddock because I didn’t want her to hurt herself, she’s always been the panicky type and since she’s going blind it’s getting worse. 
my gelding was worried about her, but once she was in her paddock she was still freaking out but my gelding couldn’t care less which I was so thankful for. I guess she has to kinda learn to deal with it, sad to say, but she’s so old, I don’t see a way to teach her it’ll be ok when her buddy leaves.
I’m worried about when I get another horse to replace her, I’ll definitely want a rideable and not old horse, so I wonder how my gelding will react?? 
I don’t think he cares too much, but I know he gets really jealous 🙄


----------



## phantomhorse13

Far from thinking you failed Hero in some way, I think Hero couldn't have found a better owner. I suspect had he wound up with anybody else, there would have been some harsh battles.. and wouldn't surprise me if Hero found himself on a truck to Mexico or Canada.

I have found myself doing a lot of thinking about the lonely concept, as DH and I are starting to look for new partners. Horses that are already under saddle, you can ask current riders about their preferences.. but how do you begin to know what an unstarted one is going to be like? In my own personal experiences, youngsters that seemed to be independent from the herd did not necessarily translate into horses that were not lonely under saddle. I need a crystal ball..


----------



## Knave

Definitely a crystal ball @phantomhorse13! I don’t see any way possible that one could guess that. I suppose you could lead a colt away and see what they do, but I don’t think that really tells you anything. They are too young, in an uncomfortable situation, which could make them appear better or worse. I just don’t think you get any information of value about that until you are actually faced with riding them off alone.

I don’t even think riding them off from their home let’s you know. All of my lonely horses have handled that just fine. I don’t know why. Maybe it is because I ride them alone to start them most of the time? Yet, those first times of leaving the herd of horses riding together to separate and do your job, that is when you just know. Lol


----------



## knightrider

Knave said:


> I don’t even think riding them off from their home let’s you know. All of my lonely horses have handled that just fine.


Mine haven't. When I was young, all I ever did was ride alone, and I guess I never thought about it. My horses always rode fine alone. 

Chorro was the first horse that I remember was a mess riding alone. Since I was training him alone, I just thought he was a mess. Then I started riding him with my neighbor, and discovered he did pretty well. I got Chorro as a yearling, so I had to wait 2 years before I could ride him. I pretty much get all my horses unstarted, so I have no idea when I get them how they will ride solo.

Isabeau took about 6 years to train her to ride out alone. I had to try all kinds of things to work through her problems. I couldn't even get her out the gate. I could lead her out the gate and walk her for a mile or two, then mount her and ride her home. That was very tedious. If I tried to force her to go alone, she'd just rear and come over on me.

Windy goes out alone beautifully. I could ride her out all day long. It's coming home that becomes a super problem. She bounces on her hind legs to the left and right, throws her head, leaps around, and acts crazy. I'm not that great of a rider that that sort of riding doesn't bother me. It bothers me a lot. If I get off, it's a loooong walk home. The closer to home we get, the more antsy she becomes. The 2/10 mile driveway is the hardest and worst. Sometimes I stay on until the driveway and then lead her in. She's fine once she's being led (sometimes, sometimes that's pretty hairy too).

Chorro and Isabeau WOULD NOT lead on a group ride for anything when they rode badly alone. Windy is perfectly happy leading the ride all day long, as long as there are other horses with her. Chorro and Isabeau now happily lead rides and ride solo beautifully. I plan to keep working with Windy until I can ride her safely solo. That's the plan anyway. I hope I can be successful. Windy is worth it.

I shouldn't leave out Aci. He rides alone perfectly. He rides alone just as happily as with a group.

Here's another interesting note: Aci gets hysterical when left back in the corral if the others ride out without him. Chorro is unhappy and calls a lot. Windy screams and races the fenceline until we return. Aci and Windy are dripping wet when we return. Chorro is agitated but dry. Isabeau? She is perfectly happy being left. "More hay for me!" she says.


----------



## Knave

I suppose I never thought about not knowing the difference when you always ride alone @knightrider in training. Maybe I just got Bones trained out of it, so to speak, without realizing it was an issue when it is just leaving the house.

It sounds like you got them over it (except Windy as of yet). I’ve never been successful at really changing it, except for Zeus, who shouldn’t count. I am super impressed. I really dislike loneliness, and wish I could fix it. I suppose I could work on it more consistently, but when it rears its ugly head, for me, it is in the situations I cannot create, if that makes any sense.


----------



## gottatrot

To make things trickier, I've known horses that were much better in strange places than at home. My friend's horse Cassie was always super hot when riding at home, but calm and good in strange places. Hero also was much better when I trailered him to new places rather than trying to ride him out from home. 

After a ton of work, I could ride Amore alone but I tried to avoid it. She would keep moving, but walk so slow that it was agonizing as she just crept away. In later years, when I had to ride her alone I would get off and jog with her, because that was the only way to get her moving. She could always go home just fine, at a good pace, and she was great if we rode with other horses. 

I agree it would be nice to have a crystal ball. We have to stay in this house for another year to avoid capital gains taxes, but after that we're considering buying horse property. If that happens I would like to get a second riding horse, and also I'd need a 3rd so when I took one out the other one would have a buddy. So I'm thinking about the challenges of horse shopping, like @phantomhorse13 (thank you very much for your comments about Hero).

Something I'm considering is that when you're not given a horse or rescuing a horse, a trial could be very helpful. Also I've thought that if you buy a healthy, desirable horse, then there's no reason you can't resell if the horse doesn't turn out the way you thought after a couple of months. I've thought that when I get a horse again, I should try not to get attached until I decide if it is going to work out, and to hold out for a really great horse.


----------



## knightrider

gottatrot said:


> To make things trickier, I've known horses that were much better in strange places than at home.


I have seen that also. And vice versa with some horses.


----------



## phantomhorse13

gottatrot said:


> To make things trickier, I've known horses that were much better in strange places than at home.


This is Phin.

Ironically, Phin would ride out from home without a fuss and was the same going out as going home. But the problem was he noticed _anything that was different_ on the home trails and that caused him to spook. And I don't just mean big things like trash day meaning the cans were out, but that car is parked a foot to the left compared to last time. Or OMG the flowers have bloomed! I can remember someone telling me horses didn't understand the absense of things, and I just laughed outright. Phin notices and remembers _everything_.

In a strange place, Phin would still be spooky about things making noise or moving, but he wouldn't know every intimate detail of the trail that was different from the last ride, so wasn't worried about it.


----------



## Knave

That is both Queen and Cash @phantomhorse13! Cash isn’t as bad as he’s maturing, but Queen notices every danged thing that is even slightly different!


----------



## gottatrot

We drove north 5 hrs for Thanksgiving with family. My sister and I did a 5k fun run turkey trot in the morning. My little toe seems broken after Hero squashed it. The rest of my foot is fine. I ran a little a couple days before, so said I'd give the run a try since my foot felt OK.

We did the slowest 5k I've ever done, because after about 3/4 of a mile we were getting cold wind off the beach, and it went through my shoes so my toe ached. So I had to walk a bit here and there, and we only averaged about 10:30 a mile. My sister stayed with me, and we did have fun.

There were dogs, people dressed like turkeys, etc. Two other sisters, about age 7 and 9 held hands the whole race while walking and sprinting in front of us, which was adorable.

My sister has an australian cattle dog with a very difficult temperament. He is 2 now and barely manageable. At the run we saw a cattle dog, and I told my sister that seeing dogs like that one were why I had thought her suggestion to get one was fine. The dog at the run was calm, happy to be petted, and not disturbed by the people, other dogs and ruckus. She was about 25 lbs, and the owner said she had searched carefully for a breeder that focused on temperament.

My sister's dog weighs 50 lbs. He has a dog buddy, always access to a 1/2 acre fenced yard, frequent walks and runs, and my sister has worked with several trainers, including one who works with cattle dogs. The breeder says none of her dogs have had temperament issues. I tend to doubt that, and also wonder why she is breeding such big ones.

Anyway, the dog does OK with DH and myself, but was put away in a room when others arrived because he's bitten my brother and his daughter. We are all very careful to avoid his triggers. My sister is very aware of his moods and trigger stacking if he gets excited. If he growls or shows his teeth, he has to leave the situation and get calm. He helps self soothe himself by putting other things in his mouth like toys and bones.

My papillon is scared even though the ACD is not aggressive with him, because he is fast and loud and my little old guy is almost blind and deaf. We protect him but at one point I was busy in the kitchen, Gil wandered into my sister's bedroom, and then we heard a terrible shrieking from my dog. By the time I ran in, my sister had her dog in the air and it turned out her dog had tried to instigate play, and my dog was over reacting in self defense. But after that I kept my little guy next to me when the ACD was out.

One of my brothers brought his pit bull/lab mix, and with 3 teens, my brothers, parents, plus in-laws there my sister kept her dogs in a room with breaks outdoors. We're all animal people, so the pittie (who is an angelic type that loves every dog and person she meets) and my dog slept nose to nose on one of the couches and we all sat on chairs. It was very reassuring for my dog to have the big friendly dog there.

The teens and I fed celery and carrots to my sister's 2 highland cows, and the kids were very shy of their chomping mouths, which was amusing.

My dad sat the kids down and gave them a talk about how his own dad was a super athlete, which was very cute (he's 87).

The dinner was great since my mom and sister made it (I put things in dishes, set tables, chopped stuff), and we had a wonderful time visiting. We also saw DH's mom in the nursing home on the way up and down, and she was in good spirits.


----------



## Knave

That sounds like a lovely thanksgiving! I still think your 5k was fast embarrassingly. Lol

Not an Aussie, but what we call a Heeler right? I expect most to be mean dogs, although I will admit that the ones I’ve been around lately seem a lot friendlier than those of my youth. Junie B being a mean dog is more a surprise to me, but it is almost as if the heelers and the border collies are swapping temperaments. (In regards to friendliness only)

When I was a kid you flat knew you don’t pet blue dogs (there aren’t many red heelers around I’ve seen. Blue is much more popular in this country for cows.)

Heelers are meant to be more aggressive with cattle than border collies. They are traditionally a “head dog,” and rarely are any good at finesse. I’ve never seen one in a trial or anything like that. What you use them for is a cow that turns back or is on the fight in a field. They will chew them up and be hard to call off.


----------



## Knave

So, I’ve been thinking this morning more about your heeler post.

I think as a kid, all of us learned the skills necessary to not be bitten by that one dog at every ranch named Blue who was a blue heeler and would eat you alive given the slightest considered provocation. We all learned how to be around the Blues of the world, and they were accepted by everyone.

It was somehow as I got just a little older, maybe 7ish, that people getting bit by dogs became less acceptable. It no longer was the human’s fault. I remember my father shooting one of his good cowdogs, because my mother threw a fit that he bit someone. I remember him as being like the Blues of the world, although he was a border collie. If you followed the old rules, he’d never bite you.

Somewhere, right in that time, the blame shifted from the human to the dog. Today one rarely runs into Blue anymore. In fact I don’t see a lot of heelers in use, and those I do are actually quite friendly. I still follow the rules taught to me as a very small child, but I don’t really see mean dogs driving onto a ranch.

Junie B is an oddity in today’s age. I do feel very responsible for her, and I always lock her up when someone comes, because she will bite and she will do it off the bat. Yet, when those people who were on ranches long before myself come around, they don’t bother June. She doesn’t look at them for longer than a couple of seconds. You can see them remember the old ways and go back to them.


----------



## baysfordays

Knave said:


> So, I’ve been thinking this morning more about your heeler post.
> 
> I think as a kid, all of us learned the skills necessary to not be bitten by that one dog at every ranch named Blue who was a blue heeler and would eat you alive given the slightest considered provocation. We all learned how to be around the Blues of the world, and they were accepted by everyone.
> 
> It was somehow as I got just a little older, maybe 7ish, that people getting bit by dogs became less acceptable. It no longer was the human’s fault. I remember my father shooting one of his good cowdogs, because my mother threw a fit that he bit someone. I remember him as being like the Blues of the world, although he was a border collie. If you followed the old rules, he’d never bite you.
> 
> Somewhere, right in that time, the blame shifted from the human to the dog. Today one rarely runs into Blue anymore. In fact I don’t see a lot of heelers in use, and those I do are actually quite friendly. I still follow the rules taught to me as a very small child, but I don’t really see mean dogs driving onto a ranch.
> 
> Junie B is an oddity in today’s age. I do feel very responsible for her, and I always lock her up when someone comes, because she will bite and she will do it off the bat. Yet, when those people who were on ranches long before myself come around, they don’t bother June. She doesn’t look at them for longer than a couple of seconds. You can see them remember the old ways and go back to them.


I was always taught, “don’t get close to that heeler”
Once my dad got attacked by a blue heeler named blue, i swear those things are evil and they are _always_ named blue!! I have only met one blue heeler that wasn’t named blue 😆
My cousin has a heeler, that thing scares the crap out of me.. they always say she’s friendly, but she looked at me like I was her next meal, lol!
Another reason why I don’t own any type of herding dog or anything, I’ll stick to labs and Great Danes.. though I know they could easily bite too. 
A few years ago a friends neighbor had three Great Pyrenees dogs and the one went after the neighbors child, ripped her almost a part.. messed up something neurological and still to this day she’s in pain and has trouble walking and moving one of her arms, they ended up putting the dog down. 
anyway, what you said is true!


----------



## baysfordays

gottatrot said:


> We drove north 5 hrs for Thanksgiving with family. My sister and I did a 5k fun run turkey trot in the morning. My little toe seems broken after Hero squashed it. The rest of my foot is fine. I ran a little a couple days before, so said I'd give the run a try since my foot felt OK.
> 
> We did the slowest 5k I've ever done, because after about 3/4 of a mile we were getting cold wind off the beach, and it went through my shoes so my toe ached. So I had to walk a bit here and there, and we only averaged about 10:30 a mile. My sister stayed with me, and we did have fun.
> 
> There were dogs, people dressed like turkeys, etc. Two other sisters, about age 7 and 9 held hands the whole race while walking and sprinting in front of us, which was adorable.
> 
> My sister has an australian cattle dog with a very difficult temperament. He is 2 now and barely manageable. At the run we saw a cattle dog, and I told my sister that seeing dogs like that one were why I had thought her suggestion to get one was fine. The dog at the run was calm, happy to be petted, and not disturbed by the people, other dogs and ruckus. She was about 25 lbs, and the owner said she had searched carefully for a breeder that focused on temperament.
> 
> My sister's dog weighs 50 lbs. He has a dog buddy, always access to a 1/2 acre fenced yard, frequent walks and runs, and my sister has worked with several trainers, including one who works with cattle dogs. The breeder says none of her dogs have had temperament issues. I tend to doubt that, and also wonder why she is breeding such big ones.
> 
> Anyway, the dog does OK with DH and myself, but was put away in a room when others arrived because he's bitten my brother and his daughter. We are all very careful to avoid his triggers. My sister is very aware of his moods and trigger stacking if he gets excited. If he growls or shows his teeth, he has to leave the situation and get calm. He helps self soothe himself by putting other things in his mouth like toys and bones.
> 
> My papillon is scared even though the ACD is not aggressive with him, because he is fast and loud and my little old guy is almost blind and deaf. We protect him but at one point I was busy in the kitchen, Gil wandered into my sister's bedroom, and then we heard a terrible shrieking from my dog. By the time I ran in, my sister had her dog in the air and it turned out her dog had tried to instigate play, and my dog was over reacting in self defense. But after that I kept my little guy next to me when the ACD was out.
> 
> One of my brothers brought his pit bull/lab mix, and with 3 teens, my brothers, parents, plus in-laws there my sister kept her dogs in a room with breaks outdoors. We're all animal people, so the pittie (who is an angelic type that loves every dog and person she meets) and my dog slept nose to nose on one of the couches and we all sat on chairs. It was very reassuring for my dog to have the big friendly dog there.
> 
> The teens and I fed celery and carrots to my sister's 2 highland cows, and the kids were very shy of their chomping mouths, which was amusing.
> 
> My dad sat the kids down and gave them a talk about how his own dad was a super athlete, which was very cute (he's 87).
> 
> The dinner was great since my mom and sister made it (I put things in dishes, set tables, chopped stuff), and we had a wonderful time visiting. We also saw DH's mom in the nursing home on the way up and down, and she was in good spirits.


Sounds like a fun thanksgiving!! I could never run a 5k!


----------



## knightrider

My horses have been attacked by (1) Great Pyrenees and (2) Anatolian Shepherd and (3) Pit bull. My daughter was bitten by a pit bull when she was 3, but she was told to stay away from him, and she did not. So the dog was not blamed. We found out later the dog bit another child, but that child also tried to pet him.


----------



## baysfordays

@knightrider 
My horses got attacked by a neighbors husky and pit bull Pyrenees cross, my horse kicked one of them in the head and there was an emergency vet call.. Ever since then my gelding has not been a fan of dogs, thankfully the neighbors didn’t get mad at me, but I did have to warn them 3 times about their dogs getting on my property.. it’s so annoying..


----------



## Knave

That doesn’t fly here @baysfordays. People shoot neighbor dogs, and it is the law here. So, they aren’t going to do anything for you if you call and complain about the neighbor’s dogs, but you aren’t going to be in trouble if you shoot said dog as long as it is on your property.

I have to say my dogs were going to my neighbor’s often, and I was feeling guilty (they don’t have livestock, but either way), so I was watching them and getting after them. Then the neighbors told my daughter they were sad because they always fed the dogs their scraps from the kitchen and enjoyed them. So, I don’t worry very much now.


----------



## baysfordays

Knave said:


> That doesn’t fly here @baysfordays. People shoot neighbor dogs, and it is the law here. So, they aren’t going to do anything for you if you call and complain about the neighbor’s dogs, but you aren’t going to be in trouble if you shoot said dog as long as it is on your property.
> 
> I have to say my dogs were going to my neighbor’s often, and I was feeling guilty (they don’t have livestock, but either way), so I was watching them and getting after them. Then the neighbors told my daughter they were sad because they always fed the dogs their scraps from the kitchen and enjoyed them. So, I don’t worry very much now.


Oh wow! I didn’t even know that could be a law. I threatened to call animal control by my third warning, third time asking them kindly to not let there dogs go after my horses because I didn’t even feel safe going into the field, the dogs had attacked people before and they hurt the one person, I wasn’t going to risk getting bit up.. 
people around here either steal your dog, or just let it be.. one of my labs got stolen, I couldn’t do anything about it though.
Your neighbors sound so nice, I’m glad they took it so lightly!


----------



## bsms

FWIW, my friend with the sheep ranch has mostly switched to heelers versus Border Collies. He says they have better stamina out in the desert heat. I think he tries to get less aggressive ones. 40 years ago, Australian Shepherds were used with cattle because they would get rougher than Border Collies and cattle need a tougher dog. Now most have been ruined by the Agility People.

When I was in college I had a German Shepherd/Border Collie mix - weighed over 100 pounds. No herding instinct but so obedient and sensitive to people that he could be used for simple herding like pushing some sheep or cattle down a pasture and out a gate. He was gentle and calm with sheep and as rough as needed - VERY rough if needed - with cattle. But we just visited ranches and he had no instinct. Just lots of good will. Great dog!

In Utah, a dog who is on someone else's property is likely to be shot. My friend once lost close to 100 sheep - many lambs - when a herd of dogs got into them. His Granddad shot a couple of the dogs. He knew where they had come from but the owners pretended they didn't recognize the corpses. He eventually got some money but not near what he lost that night. He's been known in the years since to shoot a dog and hang it on the fence beside the road. Says no one ever claims them....


----------



## Knave

I always thought Heelers were far too aggressive for sheep. I know some border collies make excellent sheep dogs, but ours would be much too hard mouthed. I don’t know how they get them soft like they need to be @bsms. I’m really shocked he uses heelers! I could see Aussies quite possible, or even Kelpies, but never a Heeler! Lol


----------



## bsms

Maybe because they are range sheep and not pasture sheep? I dunno. I was surprised myself.


----------



## Knave

@bsms I’m pretty sure a sheep is a sheep. Here they are all range sheep, and I only have ever seen border collies. I suppose he must have found some spectacular breeding! Sheep are hard. I really don’t think I’ve ever seen a soft enough mouthed dog, but we don’t breed for that I guess.


----------



## Knave

Oh, so all this talk about dogs and running. Today Harley (husband’s puppy) and G*ringo (the forum doesn’t like that word, but he’s the puppy my oldest kept) went on ******’s second run and Harley’s first. They made over 2.5 miles! They are tired babies now.

(You can see the mustang tracks where we ran. I don’t know those horses. I’ve accidentally startled them in the trees, and I heard them run right next to me, and I never could catch a glimpse. I always see their sign and never them. It’s funny, because before the government took over the horses, the canyon that road leads to was one they caught a lot of horses in. It’s called The Horse Trap.)


----------



## bsms

I love Border Collies. Jack is 14 now and I think his eyesight is starting to go. He's been a faithful companion to every sick child or person and even now is never too tired to play with a kid. He thinks I'm helpless without him. It will be a brutal day when he goes. A bit scary to think about.








The white GSD is Jack's soul mate. We figure they are one dog living in two bodies. It will be tough on Sammy too. Samuel T. Dog is 8.


----------



## Knave

I love them @bsms! So, I just read on the internet that the puppies shouldn’t be running. Hmm… they run all over all the time! They are border collies. So the internet said a dog shouldn’t run until a year old, but say Junie B started work around a year. She was especially mature (border collies seem to vary on readiness for work. Most are not ready at a year. They judge that based on their work and command and if they have any fear still.), and so she went and did well.

I’ve never seen anyone not take a pup with them when the pup could keep up on regular activities, like riding. I haven’t taken them riding because they aren’t aware enough of their surroundings, and a horse is a lot harder to keep up with. Junie went very young, but she was very aware of her surroundings.

Anyways, I had never heard that before! I guess it relates to hip problems and the like, which border collies are not known for by any means. They do sometimes get arthritis, but they’ve had so many broken bones and hard damage by old age that no one would think of anything being the cause besides a really hard life…


----------



## bsms

Trying to figure out how you keep a Border Collie from running. Thinking....thinking....not coming up with anything....🤠


----------



## boatagor

@Knave I usually see that recommendation for forced exercise. So for instance, I run with my dog on a leash attached to a waist belt, and they recommend you don't do something like that for 18 months or whatever, until the dog is grown. I think most dogs are so happy to be out, they don't necessarily let you know when they've had enough and they'll keep going until exhaustion, and that's obviously not good. A puppy just running and playing will just stop when they're tired or need a break. But I think it's probably similar to some people insisting you can't back a horse until 4-5 years old. Completely depends on the dog, distance, temperature, footing, etc.


----------



## Knave

Thank you @boatagor. (Sorry for clogging your journal Gotta.)

I think what I will do is let ****** go if I run outside, but mostly I don’t because it is so cold right now. Then, when spring comes, I will let him go with me again. I don’t use a leash on him, although I did with Junie when I started running with her, because we were running beside a road, and where I have been running this last year has been safe.

I won’t take him if I choose to go 3 miles or longer, until maybe spring. It’s unlikely I’ll get many more outside runs anyways, if any. Even today it was 30, and that’s a little cold for the lungs.

I will probably let him go when I ride once I see he is more aware of his surroundings. He pays no attention to a horse now, and he just seems like an accident waiting to happen. I doubt he will outgrow that quickly.


----------



## gottatrot

I love the conversations. Doing some 12 hr shifts so haven't had time to comment, but have enjoyed reading.

I agree with @boatagor that I've heard it is enforced exercise you shouldn't do with a puppy. Like people who leash a 4 month old pup to their bicycle handlebars and ride for ten miles. To me it would be the same as if you lunged a yearling for an hour in a round pen vs ponying them along loose on a trail ride. Forced vs "play" type exercise. One is healthy, one could be detrimental.

I love your beautiful dogs, @bsms.

My sister's dogs, the red heeler in question and his brother (beagle, min pin, chihuahua mix).His name is Mull, not Red, lol.


----------



## baysfordays

@gottatrot they’re too cute!😍


----------



## Knave

That makes sense for sure. No one seems to do any leash work around here with dogs until they are starting them at work. They use leashes on puppies for that, but I don’t understand the concept exactly. I never claimed to be good at dogs; I just got extremely lucky with Junie B. So people use the leash to get direction and control. Some people use rakes and direct them that way… Junie B just always understood my words. I don’t know why.

That Mull, not Red, is pretty. Lol. My brother in law has a red heeler named Charlie. I haven’t seen him work, but supposedly he does. He is so friendly though! You could rob the place and he would help you. I really like him except the drool. He ate a power cord and electrocuted his tongue. It ended up off, whether the vet or nature did it I don’t know. With no tongue the drool is extreme.


----------



## egrogan

Coming in late with the dad jokes, but saw this on a FB page this morning and thought it belonged here  








I think someone mentioned Australian Shepherds earlier...to my knowledge, those are genetic cousins to English Shepherds. I can't recall all the similarities and differences, but I know there are colors in Australian Shepherds that aren't allowed in English Shepherds. Aren't the heelers people have been discussing Australian Cattle Dogs? Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's what I know them as...


----------



## Knave

Yes @egrogan, heelers and Australian Cattle Dogs are the same thing. It took me forever to figure that out! I never heard of an ACD until the forum. We just call them heelers here.

Ausies or Australian Shepards are used here. They are more common, and such pretty dogs, but I’ve never seen a really good one. I’m sure they are out there. I wonder though if they have their own style, like how a heeler is about biting and not usually so much detailed herding.

I’m not sure what the Ausie’s style is supposed to be. I think that people say they are calmer than border collies. They are definitely beautiful. I have yet to see one trial. Is that because they are supposed to be more of a push dog? I really don’t know what they are supposed to work like.

We can’t forget the catahoula or the black mouthed curs. These dogs are too aggressive for someone like me to try and control. I could work with a heeler, but I can’t imagine either of these two. I think you have to be as strong minded as they are, and they still might be too much. I’ve heard horror stories about friends trying to work with a black mouthed cur.


----------



## phantomhorse13

I have seen a handful Aussies that worked stock.. they were more similar to heelers than BCs in their movement IMO but not as bitey as a heeler unless needed (to me a heeler WANTS to bite things, an Aussie or a BC bites when body language isn't enough). I have no idea if the Aussies I saw were typical or not, but they were very effective. They were also bred and raised by the people I saw working them, so very far removed from the show ring or agility arena.

My experience with heelers has been to assume they would bite until told otherwise.. and even then be very aware. I think many people have never been around true working dogs to know they are not "pets" and demand respect. I am always amazed at how strangers will come up and want to pet a dog they don't know, regardless of the animal's body language. And I don't blame the dog as I wouldn't want a stranger running up and touching/hugging me either!

I think you all know I have a BC who I consider to be the best dog in the world. Kestrel is working bred - dad worked both sheep and cattle, but mom had too much bite for sheep. I can see that intensity in Kestrel and have no doubt she would work if given the opportunity. Every day I wonder who is training whom.. 

This is Kestrel herding what we call her sheep:


----------



## gottatrot

We've been having some of the usual winter rain. I've worked hard on grading the horses' field so there is minimal puddling around the shelter, which is the only flat area. Yesterday when I went out there was a large puddle, because the horses had created some "poop dams" that blocked the flow of my channel. Once I removed the dams, the flow resumed and drained the pool. When I first inherited this field, the previous boarder had not cleaned up the manure, so it had created a muck mound near the shelters, that turned into thick slop whenever it rained hard. With work, I've removed 95% of it, and now it drains much better.

I believe my rats have finally passed on. I've been at this barn almost 2 1/2 years, and the rats were there when I arrived. 2-3 years is a long life for a domestic rat, and wild ones tend to live shorter lives. For a couple of months I've suspected there was only one rat left, and the squeaking and rustling from the rafters has been much quieter than it used to be. Apparently the last rat died, because I saw a body near the manure pile. Probably he died in the shed and some critter found him and brought him out. It's a little sad, but I am guessing they lived longer lives because we provided water and snacks.  

Trimming Aria's hooves yesterday was a breeze, and I was remembering how I used to need someone to help push her over so I could trim the hind hooves. She stood eating from a hay net and held her hooves up the whole time for me. It's a nice feeling when you realize the equine you trained has become a good citizen. We've been discussing rider size vs horse size on another thread, and so far I've only seen good things come from riding Aria. Her weight has been easier to manage, she has better muscle tone, and is obviously stronger in the hind end. When I bring the horses to turnout, she gallops off more than she used to.


----------



## Knave

I’m sorry about your little friends.


----------



## bsms

A college room mate had an Australian Shepherd. IIRC, he was more aggressive than a BC but less so than a heeler. As a breed, it has largely been ruined by the AKC and the agility people. I've heard of a few places still breeding for herding but they won't sell to anyone who doesn't NEED a herd dog.

We had a blue merle Border Collie we got from a farm in England. We were living in England at the time. Beautiful dog. She wanted to be aggressive with kids but knew she wasn't allowed to, so would sometimes stand to one side and gnash her teeth in frustration. However, she was an awesome baby dog:














If the youngest tried to crawl away, Leila would block her with her body. Or if need be, lie down on her legs. She also adored playing soccer with kids. She treated the ball as a sheep trying to get away from the herd.

We tried breeding her once to another BC on a ranch. But they were working cattle while she was in heat and neither dog could think about mere sex when there was HERDING to be done!


----------



## Knave

We are beginning to wonder if a Britney did actually get to Junie B once. I mean, we know Ozzy got to her. Everyone knows. They took that show on the road. I was getting calls about all the dog sex. Lol. We also know Pig did not get to her, as we kept him under lock and key. We never saw another dog, and no one real close has a stud around. 

****** wants to work the flag. He wants to look at cows, so he is his mother’s son. Yet, he has this oddly long tail, and his face is different. Also, when he is called he runs to me, sits and looks up at me, and husband says that is a bird dog kind of trait. It makes me wonder more and more….


----------



## gottatrot

Whatever he is...it's cute!!


----------



## Knave

Thanks Gotta! It doesn’t matter for ****** anyways. He has a different job than all the others (except Wylie, who went to a non working home). ******’s purpose in life is to protect and be the companion of big girl. She will move into her own house in six months! She needs someone to go with her and take care of her. That is ******’s job.


----------



## gottatrot

Philosophizing about my decisions today. When I brought the horses out, Hero was very spooky. It was quite cold, in the high 30s and has been very rainy and stormy for several days. 
Aria was also spooky for a moment, but I realized hanging the horse blankets over my truck tailgate looked unusual and scary to her, so I moved them and then she was fine. 

I was very careful walking the horses out, since Hero acted like he might explode in some direction. But we got down safely and the horses were happy to see their buddies in the big field. Hero graciously allowed Smokey, Maybelle and Mikey to sniff his hindquarters and admire him for a while before going off to graze with Aria. After Smokey sniffed Aria's nose, he pranced around for a while in a circle but she was more interested in the grass. 

After the chores were done, I was planning to ride and my thought was that I would bring Hero to the round pen next to the arena while I rode Aria. When I brought the horses up Hero was still acting very wired. He didn't get any Durasole on his hind hooves because when I picked up one to clean it, he sprang three feet in the air after seeing a peacock. I decided that instead of bringing Hero along, I'd just take Aria and leave Hero in the field. 

This worked out very well. I rode Aria in the arena until dark, and she was very responsive. One small spook, but I felt comfortable riding her well into dark. We worked on circles, sidling over next to the fence rails (precursor to sidepassing), and transitions. She is very quick to transition walk/trot/walk/halt with voice cues. 

I was thinking that it was a good decision to be safer and not keep messing with Hero when he was so spooky. It also felt great to have a horse that I felt reasonably safe riding in this scenario, with the weather making the horses sharper, alone and near dark. My safety radar is not well calibrated, and if I was still trying to ride Hero, I definitely would have thought I needed to exercise him regardless of risk. It is honestly a relief to have him retired so I don't feel that obligation.


----------



## gottatrot

Horse keeping on the rainy coast:

I took some photos today of the horses' field and setup. I've boarded places where they said they "couldn't" turn horses out in the winter when it rained too much. I've learned that with the right management, horses can be out even in our weather (75 inches of rain/yearly on average) and it doesn't have to mean they are living in muck pits.

Ideally, the land will have some grading for water runoff. My shed used to have a big lake and mud pit in front when it rained heavily. The horses sank to above their pasterns.
The mistake was that the previous boarder had added large gravel, which had packed down very hard in some areas. Those areas had formed high spots that trapped the water. Then with manure on top, it turned into mud and muck. I had to break the gravel free and remove quite a bit so I could grade it. 

We had a couple inches of rain in the last day or two. With the runoff I've worked on, by removing the old decomposed manure, and grading the hard pack underneath, the water runs down the hill. This means even when it's super wet, there's no puddles or mud that go over a horse hoof. 



















It was a very dry summer, and long, so the field grass got very short. I expect it will recover in the spring. Still, the field is not a big mud pit, with only an acre and horses on it 24/7. I think it's very doable to leave horses out even in this climate.




































Not sure I'd drink out of my water trough, but I think it's pretty clean, LOL.








I've learned from the forum that horses can be out 24/7 in the desert, in the frozen north, in the rainforest, it just requires work from the humans and management that fits the climate. 

Maybelle and Mikey live in a lower field that is flat. It is larger than my field, so retains more vegetation. Their owner uses heavy textile fabric near the gate, water trough and hay feeder, and has added sand in those areas also. On the rare occasion it floods, she has smaller sand corrals on top of the hill she can put her horses in temporarily.


----------



## gottatrot

Today DH was helping lead the horses in from turnout. He was leading Aria in front of me and Hero. 
We had watched National Velvet recently.

When Aria turned her head to look at him as they walked along, I heard him say to her, "I should ride you in the Grand National!"
😆😆😆


----------



## gottatrot

I'm not sure yet if I could consider this, but I would like your opinions.
I found a retirement ranch 3 hours away from me. I am wondering if I could consider it for Hero.
Anchor Ranch: Horse Retirement Oregon. The ultimate retirement home for horses. Horse retirement community.

Negative thoughts I have: If there was a problem, it's quite far away and I wouldn't be able to check on him regularly. I'd have to trust other people.
He's never been good turned out with geldings, and might get in trouble if they aren't willing to put him in with the mares.
If he was turned out constantly, he wouldn't get his Equioxx. The vet thought a pasture pet wouldn't need it, but it doesn't seem right to me to have a horse deal with pain just because you aren't riding him.

Positive thoughts I have: He might be very happy just roaming free on a large acreage with other horses. His pain might improve in a less rainy climate. He is an easy keeper, and probably would do fine on a large pasture turnout.


----------



## Knave

My two cents- if you have the money to afford it, I believe it is an excellent idea! Yes, you have to trust people, but also this is their business. They created this business knowing it would be their responsibility to likely take care of very aged horses at worst and horses with medical issues at best. Either way they had to plan for high maintenance animals.

I don’t think Hero necessarily needs to be high maintenance. I honestly am with the vet on the meds. My father has this rule about arthritis meds, and it makes a lot of sense. It would take a bit of explaining, so I’ll skip it, but arthritis meds are an end resort for us.

I think that sometimes we need to realize that other people are as invested and knowledgeable about horses as we are. You and I both struggle with that in regards to our personal animals. Lol. We are jealous of what is ours I guess. I think though that this is again their job, and they probably manage turn out just fine. Hero would be a dream candidate if I were doing this.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks for the insights, @Knave!

I guess it's a moot point because I brought up the idea to DH and he says he couldn't consider it.
He said he'd miss Hero, he's our friend and family and we need him around. To him it's like if you had a disabled family member or special needs child and you put them in an institution. He thinks that even if Hero doesn't show it, he is attached to us, we're his family and probably the first stable situation he's had in his life. So we need to keep providing that stability for him. 

Of course horses aren't humans, and he'd adapt. There is a point though that even if other people are adept and capable of taking good care of our horses, they probably would never care about them as much as we do, since they're family to us.


----------



## Knave

Okay, I love that. Husband should have gotten massive points for that one Gotta.


----------



## egrogan

I was about to give an enthusiastic yes and then I read DH’s perspective so I’ll skip my reasoning. It’s good to know that option is there for the future though!


----------



## boatagor

I'm so glad your husband feels that way! I think I'm probably the first truly stable home for Dylan too. I didn't even realize he was shut down at first, because he wasn't hard to catch or sour about people or work or anything. I remember as he slowly started to show me which brushes he liked, where he preferred to be scratched, and how much he hated the saddle I had been riding him in for over a year. I stuck my hand under the saddle one day and walked him forward and it really pinched. And he just put up with that for that long! It came with some opinions that cost me thousands in saddles lol but I'm happy he finally opened up. Now instead of me going to get him, he comes running as soon as he sees my car. I know he enjoys spending time with me and I think maybe he even looks forward to it!

Maybe Hero isn't as "vocal" but I think he is probably incredibly grateful that you have stuck with him. I'm also grateful for your journal and reading about your journey with Hero. And also Aria, because it did give me hope that I can find a horse that is what I need and want and can make me feel safe and confident and happy again. When I was binge reading it, I was trying so hard to avoid "spoilers" in other threads, lol. I kept thinking oh I hope you decide to ride her! You guys are perfect together!


----------



## bsms

We've thought about something like that for Cowboy. He's 25, has been ridden a couple of times in the last 4 years and only _kind of_ gets along with the other horses - or us. But he might not get along any better at another place. I doubt he'll ever actually like humans. But...on the whole, it is easier for now to just keep him.


----------



## gottatrot

Thanks everyone for the thoughts. @boatagor, it's great hearing from people who listen to horses. I'm sure Dylan is having a much better life now that he's with you.
@bsms, I can't believe Cowboy is that old already. Time goes by so fast.

Here's Aria after our ride today.








I managed to fit in a quick ride before the supposedly days of rain started and before dark as well.
I took some video while riding, but apparently didn't manage to hit the record button.
Here we are walking home after the ride. I rode past the shelter and did some circles, then got off and let her graze so "home" was not our destination.
Aria Walking

We rode up to the scary ducks-hidden-in-dark-shed place and I rewarded her for being brave (after showing reluctance to go all the way to the ducks) by turning around just afterward. Then she wanted to prance down the hill, but calmed with some reassurances. 

Aria did startle several times on the ride, but I was amazed that a great blue heron flew up next to us and she didn't spook. It's a rare horse that can manage that, since they have such a huge wingspan and fly up like a giant teradactyl. 

I was thinking that the Black Beauty author had it right, calling the pony Merrylegs. It's fun to ride the little merry legs that go tripping along so fast. 

Hero was calm today and didn't mind too much that we left him. When I put his rainsheet on I saw he has put a rip in the outer shell, so I'll have to order him a new one. It's lasted a couple years + I think, so that's not bad.


----------



## Knave

I just love her!


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> I just love her!


Aww, thanks, me too! I wonder how I can be a serious rider, when I'm riding a Thelwell pony? But we're like this:








As serious as anyone, eh?


----------



## Knave

Does it bug you?


----------



## boatagor

I would rather be a happy rider than a serious rider any day 😉


----------



## gottatrot

boatagor said:


> I would rather be a happy rider than a serious rider any day 😉


Yes, for sure!! 

No, @Knave, I'm serious about horses, but as far as riding goes, I've learned that many of the things people work very hard on with horses are either purely aesthetic or else even detrimental. My goal is for us to have fun, but also for Aria to be healthy, fit and to have a great horse life.

I think that once Aria gets more experience, she is going to be very brave. She was determined not to spook at the blue heron and whenever she sees something she'll think about what it might do and not spook. Once in a while Hero will see a deer or peacock and won't spook. Most of the time he'll see them, and then when they jump over a fence or fly up he'll spook. Amore would never, ever relate what a thing was to what it might do. She'd see a deer, stare at it, and then if it flicked an ear she'd startle. 

Halla was often scared, but she tried so hard to give the impression of a very tough and brave horse. She was so funny because she'd pretend she wasn't spooking. So if a deer popped up and she startled, I'd feel her body shiver and then she'd continue the movement down and scratch her head, as if that was why she was moving. She did that a lot. "I wasn't spooking, I just happened to want to make a jump over in this direction." 

I don't know if Aria will want to prove she is brave like that. Right now it feels like she is just genuine, and that things she understands don't scare her. So the more she gets out and sees the world, the more she'll understand and not spook at. 

I'm looking at saddles currently. Which is kind of hilarious because I have four saddles and one riding pony. But the short flap Ghost is old and has the softer panels, so it's more like a nice bareback pad. I had bought a nice, all leather Ghost for Hero but then he retired. The one I bought for Aria is part synthetic, and it works well, but I'd like a treed saddle that fits her really well too. My L & R dressage saddle fits her sort of OK, but I know from fitting Amore that if I can get a saddle wide enough it will sit back farther and I won't have to worry about it sliding forward on downhills. 

So I'm looking at pony saddles and considering a Kent and Masters or Thorowgood, which come in very wide widths.


----------



## Knave

Queen is just honestly unafraid of many things. It surprises me. She’s a sensitive horse, but she is extremely intelligent. She shows me everything, so it is not that she unaware, but she doesn’t usually spook.


----------



## gottatrot

Today's contest: Which shape is worse for saddle fitting? 
Amore vs Aria

I think it is a toss up! Both narrow into a point with no shoulder. 


















I rode Aria in one of the Ghost saddles today. It went fine because I didn't have to try remounting. I avoided the bridge and the cows for this reason.

That being said, it was a challenging ride (not for me, but for Aria), and probably Aria was over faced a little bit. The first part wasn't too bad; we went behind the property on the wooded trail. After that we went down the road, and there was a person I know who was taking down a horse shelter to relocate it. 

If you can imagine approaching someone who is using power tools and then moving big sheets of corrugated metal from the roof on a ladder, and then there was a strange truck and trailer parked next to it with a barking dog tied to the truck. With very little encouragement, Aria approached and then stood mostly still while I talked to the people. Meanwhile, they were still moving pipe corral and sheet metal. 

After talking, we rode past and down the road, where someone had added gravel in various places. So there were stripes and round spots that were funny colors, and you know how horses love that. We also were passed by cars, saw flocks of geese, scared up a blue heron, and a few ducks. 

On the way back I had Aria do some extended trotting, and after we went past all the treacherous gravel stripes and then the construction site again, we made it home with barely more than a slight hesitation on Aria's part and a couple of spooks.

I guess it is all relative though, because when I was talking to the person working on the shelter, I told her about my green pony and how brave she was. She said, "She doesn't look very brave!" Well, her head was up and her eyes were big, but she was mostly standing still and I know even brave Halla would have struggled to go by that scene. Amore or Hero would have never made it. So in my world, it's very brave!

Aria had a little sweat under her chest and between her hind legs, and was breathing a bit faster than usual when we got home. I think it was more nerves than over exertion, since we'd walked for a while already. Plus the air was rather cold and I know that makes me breathe a bit harder too. 

This was the first time I've managed to get video during a ride with my phone so I was proud of myself. Only the less scary parts though.


----------



## boatagor

She sounds very brave to me!


----------



## Knave

Great music. Also, I love her! She moves her head like my favorite horses. When we bridle up with rein chains it is a proud thing when they swing the chains. She would swing the chains.

I think she’s extremely brave! She didn’t even glance at that deer, and there isn’t a horse I have that wouldn’t have had some sort of response to that. She has less riding than Queen and has seen far less things, and yet Queen would have given me the finger I think in the situation you described.


----------



## bsms

gottatrot said:


> "I wasn't spooking, I just happened to want to make a jump over in this direction."


Mia used to do that. She also acted embarrassed if she momentarily showed affection.

And...another vote for "Extremely Brave"! Bandit OTOH might call her "Almost Suicidal!" 🤠 I think she's spectacular!


----------



## Txshecat0423

She is so dang cute just bopping along to the beat of the music…I love me some Lee Roy Parnell! Great job matching the music to her 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## tinyliny

cute how she looks 'both ways'.


----------



## knightrider

I'm way behind reading stuff because I've been camping, but I saw this and had to post it. Hooray for rats!!!!

'My pet rat saved my life by putting out cigarette that would have burned my house down' - Daily Star


----------



## gottatrot

Amazing rat story! 
We have a new rat tenant at the barn. Probably two since rats are rarely alone. DH saw one, very young and small. Our last rats were elderly and so had stopped causing mischief. This guy is knocking over things with youthful exuberance. It is a good habitat for rats, so we figured it wouldn't stay empty for long.


----------



## gottatrot

This is a photo share just for fun. I was looking through some old scrapbooks.
Some of the pics are really old and not sharp so I apologize.

Abbey has been making volcanoes of bedding to sleep inside.









Here I am riding my friend's Shetland pony, Little Feather.









On a quarter horse named Buttercup.









Amore's first time to the beach. Amazing how tall a 14.2 hand horse can appear.









Same beach ride









Nala's rider was with me, on her previous OTTB, Foxy. He was about 16 hands. This was our first trail ride together.









I was trying to find a picture of this western saddle, which I had for a while and used on Amore. It was a Circle Y synthetic and was a nice saddle.









Amore and I at one of our few horse shows.









I grew her tail out so it dragged on the ground.









This was the little Bibi Mustang on her first ride. She was 13.2 hands.


----------



## Knave

Wow Amore looks handsome at the show! You do too!


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> Wow Amore looks handsome at the show! You do too!


Thank you! We were both a bit younger then, LOL.

Yesterday we were in the city so I bought some landscaping timbers to use for ground poles/training. That will be fun to try with Aria.


----------



## gottatrot

Yesterday I did some ground driving with Aria. I've been neglecting it lately because it's just a lot more fun to ride. 

Thankfully the shortest day of the year is in several days, and then we'll be heading back toward more daylight again. This time of year I often end up picking up manure with a head lamp, and that gets rather iffy. Yesterday I took two wheelbarrows of darkish lumps off the field, but I can't guarantee what all of it was. I figure if I get two wheelbarrows worth it must be mostly manure anyway.

Aria thought the strappy harness was less reassuring to have placed on her back than a saddle, and wiggled around a lot. I'm really bad about having horses stand still for tacking up and mounting. It's pure laziness, I just figure how far can they go? But other forum members are so good about teaching their horses to stand so I'm inspired to work on it more. 

Hero is my best horse I've had at it, but he's more dangerous than the others have been. He can stand still for mounting, during a ride, and for tacking up. But if he blows he's going a long ways. I actually prefer the fiddly ones I've had that just danced around a little. Halla rarely ever stood still while being tacked up, or on a ride. Amore would stand fairly still for tacking up unless she was nervous. 

When I said Whoa, both Amore and Halla would stop just fine for a second, and then move along. I could stop them twenty times, for a couple seconds. Sometimes I worked on making the time longer, but if I was inconsistent one time we'd go right back to where we started. And I didn't care enough to be consistent. If I needed to do something in one spot, I'd just circle them and they could both spin on a dime, so we'd step around while we waited for someone to mount, pick blackberries, etc.

So far Aria will stop and stand still on a ride, even if she's scared. She'll also stand for mounting unless she's really nervous. So even though she fiddles during tacking up, she's already better than my other Arab mares were. 

When I was ground driving Aria, I realized she had not yet figured out solidly that a pull straight back on the rein meant to turn in that direction. Under saddle, I've been using more of a leading rein, and with the harness on, the cue comes from straight back where the rein goes through the ring on the saddle. Previously I was using the long rein around her hindquarters to push her over and help her understand. 

But today I gave her some really good releases and lots of praise, and she was able to remember each time that the pull back meant to turn in that direction, without other cues to assist. Except I am adding the verbal cue of "left" and "right," because with driving it is helpful to have verbal cues as well. I use a slightly different tone with each since the words sound similar. 

We ended up doing some really nice circles and were able to easily steer around trees, between objects, and do some sharper changes in direction, which in my mind graduated her to the next level in driving skills. 

We've been so busy this month, and I've had to work extra 12 hour shifts since one night supervisor quit and the other has been on extended illness. Hopefully in January I'll have time to go get my horse trailer so I can have somewhere to store a pony cart after I order it.


----------



## gottatrot

Got a couple of really bad pics of Hero in his new blanket. He was walking away. But it might be the only time we see it clean and blue.


















Adding to funny things non-horse SO's say:
The other night when DH was helping me pick manure off the field, and I was spotting piles left and right and slinging them into the wheelbarrow.
He said, "Not sure if this is a compliment, but it's like you were born for this!" 😄

I keep laughing to myself over the one posted recently by @ACinATX whose husband thought the book "Countdown to Broke" was about how people lose money with horses.


----------



## bsms

It's a bit like the farmer who won the lottery. Reporters asked him what he'd do with it. He replied, "_Oh, I guess I'll go on farming until I use it all up!_"


----------



## gottatrot

Aria was so funny today. I missed filming the first gallop all the way to the end of the arena and back. But she definitely had the zoomies. It cracks me up how she flips her head and tries to spin around. She always flips her head around whenever I come driving up. It's a main way she has of expressing her feelings, good or bad. 

I have these new Haystack wild berry treats that Hero is crazy about, so he stays by the fence until I leave in case I'll give him some more. 






I just got the Denny Emerson book "Begin and Begin Again" today, and started reading it. I haven't read any of his books yet, and it seems to have good insights so far.


----------



## TrainedByMares

gottatrot said:


> He said, "Not sure if this is a compliment, but it's like you were born for this!


Around here, it would be a very nice compliment!!


----------



## gottatrot

I'm guessing it rained an inch while I was at the barn today. The horses went out to the outdoor arena anyway, while I did chores. I figured: a) there are a few horses nearby that are out 24/7 with no shelter and no rain sheets, b) my horses have rain sheets on, c) there are big trees just outside the fence that provide some shelter, and d) even if they are a little miserable, it is something different to break up their day.

I just have to wonder if I am doing anything at all when I try squirting Durasole on the frogs that are saturated and water is still streaming off the hoof when I pick it up. 

It always amazes me when I bring the horses in and they appear completely drenched, but when I pull the rain sheets off they are completely dry underneath, and only the neck, head and legs are wet. 
Well, that was Hero anyway, in his new sheet. I'm not sure there is any solution for Aria. She'll get a little wet underneath now and then and I'll just hope that having the wind breaker is more comfortable than not. It's her neck and shoulder anatomy that are problematic. Her shoulder is long and angled, and her withers are low, so the blanket rides back. Her neck is upright so the water runs down underneath.

I had thought it would be better to have the neck opening smaller, so it sat higher on the neck. However, she still managed to get it down lower so it put pressure around the top when she put her neck down, and her new sheet has the stitching almost ripped out that attaches the top buckle. 

Tonight I put the larger sheet back on since the smaller one was soaked and heavy, and I know she'll not stay dry underneath the smaller or the larger one. I'm still not sure which is best for her. 

Something I learned in the spring is that when you're wearing tall boots and it's raining hard, don't tuck your pants in the boot tops or the water will run down your legs and fill up the boots. Squish, squish. Tonight I remembered and put the boots inside the pant legs.

It really freaks me out when frogs try crossing the highway. Why do they need to embark on epic journeys late at night? I try to straddle them with the truck and wince and hope for the best, but they're so small you don't see them until you're almost on top of them, and then notice the hopping motion that is slightly different from the rain bouncing off the asphalt. I only saw three tonight, hopefully I missed them.

There was one horrible night a few years ago that I try to block out of my memory, where all the frogs in the county seemed to be jumping around on the road I was driving on, for a long distance. There was no way to avoid them all.


----------



## egrogan

I have similar issues with Izzy and the water running down through the neck opening. I have to use a neck cover with her to keep her actually dry, and she really is happier that way.


----------



## Knave

As cold as it is in wintertime, and as hot as it is in summertime, I wonder if the majority of mustangs live here because it is perfect horse weather. More likely probably most other states were more protective of their land and kept the horses ran out. Yet, mine have never seen a sheet or blanket, and they are happy and healthy just the same. I kinda wish we saw the rain you do though.


----------



## gottatrot

Knave said:


> As cold as it is in wintertime, and as hot as it is in summertime, I wonder if the majority of mustangs live here because it is perfect horse weather. More likely probably most other states were more protective of their land and kept the horses ran out. Yet, mine have never seen a sheet or blanket, and they are happy and healthy just the same. I kinda wish we saw the rain you do though.


I do think that's true about the mustangs migrating to where the weather is best. On the rare occasions it has been cold and dry here in the winter, with a little snow, I've noticed the horses are perfectly happy without any sheet or blanket on. Plus the hooves start getting healthier. Also in eastern Oregon the grass is so much more nutritious, and I've seen horses just thrown out in a backyard that look like they are thriving. 
Even if the rain isn't best for horses, I like the mild weather personally. Getting wet is more comfortable for me than having painful, frozen fingers and toes.


----------



## bsms

Concerning mounting from the ground with a slippery saddle...based on another thread, where a joke might be interpreted wrong...maybe teach Aria this:





Kirk Douglas needed to do trick mounting for the movie The War Wagon. He had a trampoline kept out of sight of the camera - a fact that John Wayne found very funny. But one might as well have a mounting block as a trampoline....

No worthwhile suggestions from me. Bandit and Mia both came equipped with large withers. While I expect Bandit to be my last horse, if I did ever get another, a couple of "must haves" would include no taller than 14.2 (vs his 15.1) and withers large enough to look right on a 17 hand horse...

Given Aria's personality, maybe teach her to lie down?

I had Bandit throw himself down on his belly once in a sandy wash. I think flies were bothering him. He just did a belly flop! My stirrups were on the ground on either side as I cussed fluently. He wiggled a little in the sand, then stood up underneath me and off we went. I thought at the time it would make things mighty convenient, but Bandit isn't quite that helpful of a horse on a normal basis.


----------



## Knave

Zeus gets mounted like that a lot @bsms.


----------



## gottatrot

I want to try some of the mounting tips, if it ever stops raining. Funny to think of Aria kneeling down while I get on! Lol.

We had our family Christmas yesterday. It was great seeing everyone, and fun to give them presents. My mom made way too much good food.

It was quite windy and rainy driving back down the coast last night, but no ice or high winds, just minor flooding. Lots of trees came down on Tuesday, and three different cars in OR had trees land on them, killing 5 people. That is so extremely rare, that having it happen three times in a day was shocking.

My sister was driving a short distance home, and she saw six different deer groups fleeing the forest, looking for open fields.

I enjoyed the book by Denny Emerson, Begin and Begin Again. I like how he respects people who do different things, and he points out that riding a cross country course with huge jumps is not really less challenging than riding an endurance horse over the rocky canyons at the end of the Tevis cup, or a ranch horse over treacherous terrain.

We've all actually dealt with challenging things, and none of us need to feel "lesser" in our horsemanship.


----------



## gottatrot

It was raining and raining, but I wasn't going to care. Driving to the barn I was certain that soon I would drive out from underneath the cloud that probably covered half of Oregon. I tucked my pants inside my boots, because it wasn't going to be that wet. As I drove the last couple blocks to the barn, I gave in and pulled the pant legs back out.

The first thing I saw was Aria proudly standing naked in the rain. It was very puzzling; I didn't think anyone at the barn would have taken her rain sheet off without telling me. Then I saw a sad purple heap near the water trough. Rushing in, at first I thought there was a chance for resuscitation, but all signs of life were gone. The rain sheet's throat had been torn out, and the sides slashed to ribbons. I've never had a horse that could get out of a blanket. It was impressive!
Amore used to catch the surcingle straps on fences by hugging too close to them, and would occasionally rip one off. But this blanket appeared to have been murdered.

Well, I've never had a pony before...
She is wearing her second rain sheet so we shall see what happens...

I inspected Aria all over for any sign of injury or distress and could find none. I palpated all over her back and legs, and everything seemed fine. There was a brief lull in the downpour and I convinced myself the rain was easing up, so I saddled up Aria. I was able to mount from the ground to the Ghost saddle using the tips I learned here! Facing forward, I pushed the stirrup forward and braced it against Aria's front leg. She didn't seem to mind. Then I held the mane and reins in my left hand, pushed down hard on the top of the saddle, and did not hop as @Knave advised. The saddle shifted just a little. Success!

Aria headed out like it wasn't raining, but was blowing a bit at the wind and rain. As we passed the feed store, the guys said, "Hey, you're going to get wet!" 
I answered, "Really?" 
They said, "Guess you figured that out already." Ha ha. 
I hadn't brought Aria's boots from home, but there was a lot of mud and the gravel was squishy so I figured she'd be OK. I also realized after I mounted up that I had the hood of my raincoat up and no helmet. Once you're on a wet saddle, there's no getting off and back on again, so I rode with the hood. 

There were a few things to think about from the "Horse Brain, Human Brain" book we're reading in the HF book club. First, I consciously stood farther back and to the side when showing Aria her tack, realizing I often shove things up from her blind spot at her nose. That seemed to help her relax quickly. As we went down the road, I looked at all the movement from the wind and rain, and imagined what it would be like to see much more movement even, since apparently horses see tinier movements than we do. It would almost be dizzying. 

When Aria balked as we came around a corner, I said, "What do you see?" It was automatic. Then I added, "What do you hear and smell?" Taking a deep whiff, I realized the bog we were facing had a strong, deep odor that would probably mask the scent of any predator. There were also about a hundred Canadian geese sitting on it. I almost think it reassured Aria that I was making sniffing sounds too, as if we were both scenting for predators. 

It was a short ride, and wet, but enjoyable. Some thoughts I had were that Aria seems to think of me more as "herd" or partner already, and I think some horses just can't see humans that way. Halla also seemed to want to be a partner with me. Amore tried, but I feel now that her senses were maybe extra sharp compared to most horses and that made it more difficult for her to overcome her instincts. 

Sometimes I am amazed when I think of how much trust it takes for horses to think of us that way. They are herd animals, so are social, which must help. But I was thinking it's almost like two countries who have been at war with each other for centuries, and someone from the enemy country shows up and seems nice, and he wants to be your friend. Do you really trust him 100%? Maybe a part of you would always be watching to see if he would turn on you. For us it would be like being friends with a wild bear or tiger. But most horses seem to have more trust in us than we would have in a pet tiger. 

Another thought I had today was that I really appreciate tougher horses like Arabs. I don't think I'm a careless person, but with TBs you make one mistake and it becomes a big deal. I had no concern after our ride that any harm had come to Aria from going without boots. She took maybe a step or two where I could tell she felt a rock, but other than that moved well. If I tried that sort of thing with Hero, he'd get an abscess or something. 

But of course Hero was wearing his blanket and the little tough Aria probably thinks she doesn't need one. This is getting long so I'll make another post about treats.


----------



## gottatrot

The book we're reading in the HF book club, "Horse Brain, Human brain" shares the opinion that giving food or treats as a reward should be done sparingly. There is a thought that giving treats too often will lessen the dopamine response in the brain, and lessen the reward, it could encourage bad behavior, and also we shouldn't reward our horses just for being alive. LOL. I think I could be guilty of that one. "Oh, you're alive. Have a treat."

That being said, I have not had bad experiences from giving out treats. I can understand that treats could lessen in value if given too often. Still, horses are extremely food oriented. They eat constantly. I've never yet had one that didn't seem to think a treat was a _very_ good thing. I feel that if they were eating grass and came across some patch with clover here and there, each time they came to the clover they would be extra pleased. 

Hero has the potential to be a very pushy and rude horse. He loves treats, and his behaviors have only improved when I've given him treats for being "good." If he is pushy, the treat just doesn't make its way into his mouth. 

What I find interesting is that Aria has figured out exactly what treats are for, and she communicates with me about it. She understands that treats are for things that are new she has figured out, things that are uncomfortable, and things that are extra difficult. When she expects a treat, she tips her nose at an angle toward me in a certain way. It's just communication. 

If we are trying something new and she does it right, and my voice gets very happy, she knows she deserves a treat and tips her nose. If I start pulling on her girth and it's getting tight, she says,"that's uncomfortable, I deserve a treat for putting up with that" and tips her nose. If we go through something like driving around a tree and she steps in a hole and slips, and then stops nicely when I ask, she tips her nose "that was difficult, I deserve a treat." I think it's really cute that she decides when something was "above and beyond," and tells me that it was worth extra payment. 

Maybe this is lessening the reward, I'm not sure. But I feel it is team building because we are communicating with each other, and it feels right to me that she tells me when she thinks something was extra hard or scary.


----------



## egrogan

Still laughing at the blanket murder. I’ve never had horses that are hard on blankets, so stories like this are amusing. Don’t you wish you had it on video to see why she did it?? 😆

Your points on the book are things I’ve been thinking about too. Josie actively investigates things with her nose more than any horse I’ve had. For example, every time I have to put her blanket on, she wants to thoroughly smell it before I put it up over her back. She stands perfectly fine, loose in the pasture, to be blanketed, but she needs her moment to give it a good once-over with her nose first. She’s also very, very snorty. At first, I’d be leading her around and think she was going to explode at any second. But now that I know her better, I don’t actually think she’s that worried while she sounds like shes hyperventilating. Maybe she's just pulling in as much scent as possible?

I was trying to think objectively about the treat thing, and saving them for something that is A Really Big Deal. I probably do overuse them. But I agree that if a horse (or dog) thinks it’s likely you have something tasty for them, they are looking to you more often than not to see what you think of their behaviors. I guess I’m ok with that.

Oh-Josie is the first horse I’ve known that doesn’t like treats. She has some interest in alfalfa pellets, which has been useful in working around her legs and feet, but even with those, if I offer too many, eventually she’ll politely say “No thank you” and stop taking them. Trying to give her something big and exciting (apple/carrot) when she’s done A Really Big Thing doesn’t work for her at all!


----------



## gottatrot

Yes, I wish I had the great blanket escape on video! 

I wonder if Josie will learn to like treats more in the future. It took Aria a couple of months at least to begin liking carrots, apples and purchased horse treats. I did everything with hay pellets because she knew what those were. It took her a long time to even eat carrots. She'd never had treats so didn't know what they were. Now she's decided everything I give her is going to be delicious, and scarfs it down.


----------



## Knave

Okay, that is it! Lol. You guys keep making me interested in the book because of such deep thinking posts. Yet I started the book and couldn’t really get interested. I’ll try again.


----------



## egrogan

I don't know that it's a great read, @Knave, though there are some interesting ideas. I've been reading a chapter or two at a time, max. And I'm the type to usually sit down and read a book most of the way through because I like closure  So it feels like I've been working my way through this one forever!

@gottatrot, I've tried so many different treats at different times with Josie, so far no luck. I gave the horses Merry Christmas carrots, and Josie wanted nothing to do with them! I broke hers up and stuck the pieces in her dinner bucket, and she carefully pushed them all to the side so she could just eat her regular dinner!


----------



## Knave

I am that way too @egrogan. I usually just read a book when I read it. Maybe I will do better simply soaking up the concepts from you guys.

Queen only likes apples and carrots, and whatever from the garden, although I am sure she would enjoy regular treats if I gave them to her. She won’t try human food while we are working. I don’t give her treats because of her bit of a mean streak. We work together and are friends, and she really enjoys that relationship I think. Now, if she were to believe I had something she wanted that I was withholding from her… I just don’t think she’d be fun to be around anymore. Maybe when she is fully broke and I don’t think things could go haywire I will introduce treats to her.

Cash also could not be given a treat. He is too self centered for that. Lol. My mother gave him treats on occasion at her house when we were by the barn. Cash will throw a tantrum while I sit on him if we are by the barn and my mother is on the ground. It’s almost intimidating for me, and it certainly would be if I were on the ground rather than his back. He’s demanding. I don’t like it. I asked her not to give him anymore, and she didn’t, but he still feels the same way.

Then there were horses I never thought about it with. Bones loved treats and I gave them to him constantly. General loved all human food. I enjoy sharing my lunch with the horse I am riding at work, and he certainly loved that. His favorite time of year was when the girls were little and we made gingerbread houses and then I would take them out to him for a few days. Lol


----------



## knightrider

I have had a couple of horses over the years that never had gotten treats. I would hold their mouths closed for a bit. After a while, they all decided treats were nice after all. Isabeau will reject any treat if you used it to try to trick her into doing something she doesn't want to do. Then she won't take the *____* (fill in the blank: apple, piece of bread, banana) for a while. In the beginning it was 2 years. Now it is closer to 2 weeks. I'll win her over finally. I always do.


----------



## gottatrot

The old rain sheet I think of as too big, that gaps around Aria's neck was on her today with no signs of damage or slipping. Most likely the problem with the destroyed blanket is that it was too small. That's what I get for trying to improve things.

It's very good for me to read horse books. I've realized that when I taught Aria to be harnessed, I never got her over the last bit of nervousness about having the strappy, jangling contraption slung lightly over her. My book by Denny Emerson had a couple of points that struck me. One is that the horse must have a level of calmness, or you'll never be able to teach them adequately. Another is that it takes as long as it takes. 

Considering the other book about horse brains I've been reading, I took out the harness today and just stood and waited for Aria to smell it, and to look at it from a side view. I did not approach her until she was calm, and I also used the technique I used when first getting her used to ropes and things, which was to approach but retreat before she appeared nervous. 

Probably I spent 10 minutes putting her harness on instead of 5. But doing it slowly allowed her to stand still and accept each part of it rather than fidgeting or moving away. I think we made important progress. 

It was very windy, so that made it even more impressive that Aria was able to be so calm. I led her to the arena, and we practiced driving more, making circles that were smaller than previously. We also walked over poles, which she was reluctant to do at first without being led. She did really well. 

We're working on the beginnings of sidepassing from the ground. It's funny because she has no idea what pressure on her side means, and will just stand there for a very long time. We progressed from shifting weight off the front leg for praise, to stepping over with the front hoof. She knows how to move her hind end around away from pressure, and the front, but not to step sideways. 

Since Hero was back in his field, I untacked Aria in the arena and let her go, so I could head back and get Hero. She tried very hard to exit with me through the gate. "Don't leave me alone!" But Hero was there shortly, and then they roamed around together. He was upset walking down the road to where Aria was, because of his separation anxiety, but not unmanageable. I had to circle him a few times. He reared while the barn owner was driving by. 

After chores, when I turned the horses back in, Hero was almost cuddly. When I brushed him and cleaned his hooves, he was very still and seemed to appreciate the attention. That's very unusual for him. I'm hopeful that if working was painful for him, he may develop a more positive attitude in retirement. He's at a perfect weight, and looks great. Aria also is at a very good weight right now, down just a bit from summer. It's much easier to maintain her when the grass is poor in the winter, and I can adjust her hay amount. I started her on one of those comprehensive digestive supplements from Smartpak. It occurred to me that even though I treated her for ulcers, and gave her some probiotics for a while, her hind gut could still be a little out of balance from being starved so long. I thought I would try it for a couple of months to see if there was any noticeable difference. 

Hero has a lot less mane than he did when we lived up north. I think the difference is that he was kept on sand up there, and here it is mainly clay soil. Since he grinds his mane into the soil, my theory is that the clay dries and breaks off frequently, and takes some of the hair with it. He's not a horse with movie star good looks anyway, so it doesn't really matter. LOL.


----------



## boatagor

I really love being a member of this forum. Hearing everyone else's experiences and how they handle them is so helpful to me, especially since I have lost my IRL support system. Your post made me rethink how I saddled Georgie yesterday! He moved away when I tried to put the saddle on him, and I did back away the first time he did that, but then I kinda chased him with it because I was in a hurry. It was only a few steps sideways and he wasn't super upset. But I need to remember that he's young, the saddle is brand new so it probably smells different, and it sounds different since it's a tiny bit squeaky before someone is in it. I will give him more time in the future to accept it quietly. I also don't think he loves the tacky too pad I have been using, so I think I'm going to order a wool one. 

I don't think he's going to be a horse that can have treats, which makes me a little sad. Dylan LOVES treats and I love to give them to him, since he's so happy about them. But Georgie is really pushy in general about food and I think treats will bring out some undesirable behaviors. His ground manners are not awesome all of the time and we're working on them but it seems like if he wants something (food) or is a bit nervous, he will just plow into you without realizing it. He's so small that it's not scary but it definitely makes me appreciate how careful Dylan is to keep you safe, even when he's scared. 

I need to start the book club book! I bought it, and finished the Eventing series, but I didn't realize she had written a follow up series that has 2 books already published. I'm on a roll and can't stop until I'm caught up lol.


----------

