Played about 1 hour. Yesterday seemed to go somewhat backwards with Maya, but I realized in retrospect that I was able to read my horse better and to cause her to be more left brained when she went right brained. We jumped a ditch online, which at first was a very right brained event, to the point of me having to move my feet as the rope slid through my fingers just to give her enough drift (I had her on a 12' lead going for a walk) but we progressed from her trying to jump it THROUGH me, to her jumping it RB away from me, then progressively more confident until a lovely soft hop over the ditch and we called it quits.

Put your foot on it she seems to be bored with a little, so I'm going to build that pedestal - she even went to the point of putting one foot on the bucket lid, but only partially, so I asked for more - and when I did she put the other foot fully on it and looked at me, I swear, as if to say "Will THAT satisfy you?! Sheesh!" She was also quite insistent on getting cookies, so I've slowed those down a bit - and I won't be bringing any more to the paddock randomly for a while, that seems to be what tipped the scales to the point of distraction.

All we can do is try our best to adjust, adjust, adjust!

I love my horses - I'll be in Vancouver for the next few days, so I'm going to miss them. *snuffle* But I get to see my family, so that's wonderful, too.

Till next time...

Went and took Maya out yesterday, her usual gig when I approach her with the halter is to allow me to approach, sniff the halther and then casually saunter off a few times. Normally, I outpersist her but yesterday I put some pressure on her as she left. She cantered away and I walked along behind her. She curved around and started to come towards me, so I kept walking in the same direction (which was now away from her). She stopped, so I arced my curve towards her and she kept turning to face me. Casually I approached with halther offered for a sniff, and I could tell the moment she relaxed and was going to STAY STILL. That was a first, usually it takes a good while to have her catch me. She must have liked having her brain engaged with the put your foot on it!

We walked down the driveway and then I saw that my electrician had just arrived - he didn't tell me he was coming, but I was expecting him yesterday and he didn't make it. He went to work, I got a phone call from my neighbours saying they'd be here in 10 minutes to help me pull my truck out from where it was stuck, so I decided we'd just "put your foot on it" a couple of times and put her away. It seriously took THREE little tries (and the 2nd try her foot knocked the lid out of the way) to put her foot on the bucket lids. I swear she had a look on her face like "Whaddaya think of THAT?! Eh? Where's my cookie?!" I was so proud I could burst. So we moseyed back to he paddock, I gave them a few flakes of hay and we called it a session.

That rocked.

Today I'm going to build a pedestal out of a really sturdy oak pallet that I have kicking around and we'll see if we can't advance our "put your foot on it" Whee!

I haven't been this excited about *my* horsemanship journey in a long time, and that's saying something - cuz usually I'm pretty excited. What ELSE can we try??!

I'll have to either bring a chair down to the gate, or just sit on the ground and back her in (as per Pat Parelli's challenge on the February Savvy Club DVD) but since I haven't been riding much, I have been sending her through puddles and ditches and rushing water and other things, so I think I've got that down from the ground. Here's hoping we can have some saddle play soon, too. Seriously, I think we'll just incorporate what we've learned on the ground with put your foot on it and we'll aim for the biggest puddles we can find, to start with.

Learning new things...

I did play the day after the last post, Maya and I went down the road a bit and hopped over and through rushing ditches full of rushing water, played circling game and porcupine game a bit of sideways without a fence, but I think we need to go back to the fence or find a nice big log in an open area. We are now somewhere between a ball and a chair on porcupine - much better than a boulder!

Today we went back to the same spot, but I took some bucket lids and a 4' 1X4 with me to start playing "put your foot on something". I think she's starting to get it - it was so fun to have that purpose and watch her trying to figure out what the heck I was being so particular about. It also came in handy when we went up the road past Tommy's later and I must have missed a threshold or fifty, she kind of took off, gently but a bit snorty, into Tommy's field so I went with her, but I could see that she was unconfident - we jumped a stream a few times, played circling game and I noticed that she was snorty, impulsive and tried to lay down and roll a number of times on the circle. She succeeded, once. How interesting that I have a horse that lays down and rolls when shes *unconfident*! Anyway, on the way back home, she was still snorty and jiggy so when I spotted a couple of short boards on the side of the road I used the opportunity to play "put your foot on it" remembering that Linda says it's a great way to get a RB horse to start using her LB. It worked! At first she was trying to walk around all over the place, but I was PP in the PP (passively persistent in the proper position) and watched as she started to go, "Whoa? Huh? Oh!" and she put her foot on it! She got cookies for the first few times she put her foot ON the object as well as immediate release of all pressure, and she got a cookie that time, too. The last one. =) Then we walked back down to the bucket lids LB the whole way. When we got to our driveway she wanted to go that way, but I paused, blocked her, then got friendly and asked her to go down to collect our bucket lids with me. We put her foot on 3/4 things, picked them all up and headed home. YAY! A new arrow for my horse when she's unconfident! Get her brain busy. I swear she was thinking, "Phew, that feels better!" When she was LB again. Played for about and hour and 45 minutes.

Yesterday played with Maya a bit in the paddock, driving game from zone 3, lead by the foot, porcupine and driving backwards. She's good at put your nose on something, especially since I usually pick clumps of old grass that are beginning to be uncovered. ;-)

Played with Bailey, too - I didn't read her indignation/uncertainty properly and proceeded to try to get her to give me her opposite front foot - the head toss, tail swish and almost nip weren't enough to stop me and they should have been. Her final choice was to offer to kick me in the head (which I declined by ducking out of the way). When I told Matthew he said "you shouldn't do those things alone!" I just said, "No, I shouldn't mis read my horse so badly!" Now I know. Sorry Bailey. We started again with friendly from the side I wanted to pick up, then progressed and it was better.


Today Bailey wanted to stick her head in the halter but I wanted to play with Maya so I approached her, she left I retreated, re-approached and this time she stood still while I scratched her and asked her to put her nose in the halter. We walked down the driveway to the road where the ditches (not very deep) are flowing with spring run-off. She had a nice drink from one after a couple of retreats to build confidence and then we walked down the road near the nieghbour's house - there we squeezed over the creek, through the creek (ditch, but more like a creek right now), rolled in the snow and nibbled on new buds and trees. Then we went to the road and played circling game, falling leaf, backwards s-s (she really gets offended on the right side of her body during falling leaf). We got two laps of circle. I find if I have to be firm to send her, she keeps going, but if I get firm when she stops on the circle she gets upset and unconfident, so I brought her in, sent her again and this time she made three laps to the right. Best yet with no stops. She didn't want to go left very much, but we persisted, yo-yoing her back and then leaving her there until she could stand, bringing her in and back again, THEN sending. Not as good as to the right, but if I keep up daily play we'll get there in no time.

We then moved on to porcupine. Ball or Chair? Neither. Absolute, immovable BOULDER in the hindquarters with the carrot stick. Can I lean on that, mum? Can I bite it? Not quite the answer I was looking for, so to give her the idea I switched gears and we played hq driving game FAST and then went back to asking softly for porcupine, SLOW. I got two continuous steps (with one good disengaging cross over) and QUIT - accross the creek once more for a roll in the snow and then back to the paddock with a stop for some shedding blade action and nibbles on dry winter grass. About an hour all-told.

What I really love is when she gets so in synch with me that when I trot off, she trots off and when I stop suddenly, she stops suddenly. SO. VERY. COOL. That's usually on the way back to the paddock, so I figure I'm doing *something* right.

Today I just went to the paddock, shed, detangled manes and tails after a long winter and played at liberty with my three girls. Mostly it was the catching game with Maya, friendly game and driving game with Jasper (to keep her away from dumping out my bucket of grooming tools) and a little friendly, driving, yo-yo and squeeze with Bailey. I spent about 2 hours out there.

Observations: I need to play more online, though their draw was fairly good today, I could easily disconnect them by asking too much, being rude. How small can my phase one be?

I realized the other day that I have the same circling game problems with all three of my horses. Send is okay, then they peter out just behind me and come to visit. Then I get firmer and they get right brained and try to run off. Obviously it's something that I'm doing too much of, not enough of! So I played with that with Maya and asked quietly with loooooong phase 1 and corrected as gently, yet consistently as I could when she stopped on the circle. We ended up with 2 walking laps each way (a level 1 pass!)

I also realized that I need to play every day, not just once a week - that's a whole lot of hours spent horsing around with just other horses - not enough time for me to prove that I'm a good leader. That same day I took Bailey out, thinking to take her back to the driveway and shed her out, but as soon as we left the gate, she started to get unconfident - so I changed plans and just let her eat stray bits of hay near the gate, asking her to back up to new piles of hay or yield her hindquarters/forequarters to move her to other choice spots. Then I put her away. She was pretty unconfident the whole time, but I think that a few more days of that and she'll be able to move further away. We'll see. Learning to read her and not PUSH too much. Hooray for L&HB.

Enough for today.

The first post in a journal I should have started long ago. I am a student of Parelli Natural Horsemanship. I study using the Levels packs (currently Level 1/2), clinics and playdays with Fawn Anderson and with other friends that I met through the Parelli Savvy Club.

I began the journey two years ago in January, when I was in 2nd year clay at Kootenay School of the Arts. I must say I was a bit distracted from my schoolwork during the latter part of that year. I also broke my finger in March of that year leading my waaaay too right brained yearling through about 20 thresholds. She finally couldn't keep her feet still at all, and twisted the leadrope around my ring finger of my left hand. The result: what I thought was a sprain turned out to be a spiral fracture. That was on my birthday. I had one month of throwing (forming the wet clay on a potter's wheel) left until the end of school - so much for that!

I'm happy to say that I've come a long way since then, though I also know that I have a long way to go. Thankfully it's a lifelong journey, just as my love for horses is a lifelong love.