Work is finally slowing down

My busy season at work is slowly but surely approaching its end. While this can be a double edged sword cause slow equals less money, but it always means more time with my horses! I always look forward to winter because it is a break from the heat and the craziness from work. I have so many things I can't wait to work on more with Navi and Pixie. Plus I look forward to working with Jess and Willow to see if I can create a better bond with them also!

Time for updates on all of them :)

Jess is doing well! He just got new shoes with front pads put on a few days ago. Shoes will be a permanent thing for him. While I had hoped to pull shoes and retire him, he just wasn't ready for retirement and he needs shoes because of his thin soles. He also got his teeth floated on Thursday. He had a few sharp points and has worn a few of his back teeth to his gums. Old age is a bummer at times! Otherwise his teeth were in good shape. Good news for going into winter! I have been riding him at least once a week and he is still going strong. In fact he likes to go when out on the trail! He has also been giving lessons to the small children at the barn (indoor riding only). I love the fact that he is the "go to" horse for my trainer. I can't say it enough...he is worth his weight in gold! And currently that is a lot of gold, lol.

Pixie is doing amazing! We are working on our liberty work at higher speeds now. She is getting the idea that just because I am asking for faster doesn't mean she is in trouble. Its pushing her to trust me and for me to see where she might lack trust in me. We still argue and have "I" moments while riding, but if she didn't express her opinion I might worry about her. She has her ideas and I have mine and we are working together to make them our ideas. I practiced driving her at liberty in her pen last night and she did fantastic!  Its amazing the connection I have with her at times. I can't wait to see where we are in three more years :)

Willow is doing wonderful!! I love this horse. I have been trying to ride/work with her more to create a better bond. She is so light and offers so much! Willow is my go to horse for putting friends on when they want to ride. She has always takes care of them and will offer what they are ready for.

And last but not least Navi. Navi is finally back in training. Her knees are closing up slowly and we are getting back to work :) She is packing the saddle once a week. Still no problems there! She couldn't care less about it! We are also working on all of our yields. She does struggle with this. She is a very confident horse still and really isn't concerned about what you ask of her. Some days are better then others, but we are still working hard to have her not be sticky. Her forward is good, but her backing is super braced and slow. We will get it to all come together at some point:)

My baby is growing up!

Navi after her bath

Jess after his bath

Hay!

The 5 tons of hay that I ordered arrived yesterday! It sure is nice looking hay. It will be the first time I have fed a grass/alfalfa mix. Usually I buy both straight grass and straight alfalfa so I can control the amount of alfalfa, but this stuff is higher grass mix and I think my guys will do well on it :) We made it through half the stack yesterday (re-stacking inside my hay stalls) We will continue to pick at the stack through the week until it is all inside. After that is complete I am hoping to have time to update on everything else going on.

Lesson after the clinic

Yesterday Pixie and I had our first follow up lesson after our clinic. It was a great lesson and a much needed review. I have to remember to not nag at Pixie and move quick and light. She responds so much better to quickness than me just sitting on her at a phase 1 or 2. I have to remember if I know that she understands what I am asking then I need move up through my phases and reset right away. We have a ton of ground work homework now that I am excited to start on today :) Rest assured we have plenty of riding homework also. I am to focus on trying to connect with Pixie by being a passenger and waiting to see when she starts asking me questions. We tried for a bit yesterday, and we ended on a good note, but we never made a connection so we will practice more.

Next lesson is on Wednesday with Navi. She is ready to be put back to work and it is apparent she has lost some of her skills. And I am having a hard time getting them back. She is so very different than Pixie. Pixie is super light by nature, Navi is not!  Not that Navi has been bad, she has actually been really good. Yesterday we had a good ground working session and then a fun walk down to the river and the island.

Navi on the island

Having fun in the river

Willow after her bath

Willow all clean :)

My little barn helpers. Laurel and Devan

After thoughts on Clinic

The 4 days spent at the clinic was a lot of fun and challenging at the same time. With so many new words and things to remember such as : Bubbles, speaking to the space, "we" not "I", resets, resets are not releases, lead, dominant, and passive. There were so many concepts covered, some new to me some not. I was lucky in the fact that my horses live at my trainers barn and since Aimee Brimhall is her trainer I was able to take lessons and prepare for the clinic.  And now going forward I can work closely with my trainer to continue and grow. One of the biggest take aways I got was the reset of the phases. It's important not to stay at phase 4 when asking a horse to do something because then they come to only expect phase 4. Also it gives them something to brace off of. This is something that will help Navi and I. In fact it already has...she is already leading much easier! The other thing I realized is I need to make sure I am offering "we" to all the horses, not just Pixie. I realized I tend to be an "I" around Jess because that is what he is offering. Jess would be considered our most "broke" horse as in the amount of training and what he is capable of doing, but now I see that he is also the most disconnected of our horses. He is an "I" horse completely meaning he does everything mechanically, but if something goes bad he isn't going to think of me at all. And that is apparent with our last couple of messy moments. Do I think we have a bond with Jess, of course we do, but it isn't the same as with the mares. Jess has spent his life as an "I" because that is what most if not all rodeo/ranch horses are. They are a means to an end. They do stuff because they learn they have too. I want to go back to basics with Jess and see if I can't get that "we" connection, but in order to do that I have to make sure I am offering the "we" not just riding him as an "I".  Time will tell, but I am excited to try and make a better connection with him. Just think of the things we could accomplish then. We were able to try and make the connection with Pixie and Willow a long time ago, because we had to teach them new things. And they don't take to force real well. This is also exciting for Navi and I because she is such a clean slate that she will never have to know any different. Hopefully this will mean great things for our future riding partnership :)

I want to clarify that "I" horses have the ability to look amazing at what they do. Mechanical can be very impressive. And there are very few people that can tell the difference in when a horse is connected with its person and when it's just doing the motions. But what I learned this week (which is something I always had an idea of) is if there is more force required then the connection has been lost. This is something I am guilty of also, even with Pixie. When something wasn't going my way I moved to stronger aids instead of trying to find the missing piece. I went to a twisted bit and spurs. Now I know bits are only as strong as the hands behind them, but when you transition up for the sake of control it is being used for the wrong reasons. At the time I didn't have the knowledge to get what I wanted without force, then I made the move to my trainers barn and have since been learning. I am happy to say my spurs haven't left my trailer since the move :)

This last week inspired me to grow so much. I can't wait to see what the future holds now that I am armed with this new information :)

Aimee Brimhall Clinic Day 4

Our riding and ground work continued on day 4. In the morning session we learned about the driving game while riding, and for our ground work lesson we learned a circle exercise that involved moving forward to backwards with no stop just a fluid transition from forward to backward. The end hope is they will stay on the circle to back, but for now we just focused on getting the back up no matter which direction they went. Pixie and I did fairly well at this exercise she of course would stop and turn in as soon as I sent the intent to back up, but that was ok. She was listening and we got some great backups that were continued at a phase one. She was far from the circle, but we have a year to practice :)

On to the riding exercise we were given a sting (no string) and told to ride without leg or reins. We were to just practice our front end/hind end yields to a stop by driving from above with the stick.  I must admit I was a nervous nelly for this exercise. I found myself thinking Pixie was going to go back to her old ways and be scared of the stick. Even though she couldn't care less about it on the ground I have never ridden with the stick. I saddled up for this game to give myself more confidence! I had to get over the nervous feeling if I wanted to be successful at this. So I jumped on with stick in hand. What happened...Nothing! Pixie acted the same as if I was on the ground :) So we ventured off to practiced. She would yield easily on the front, but the stopping was a bit harder. Once I learned to relax and turn my body off she found the stop easier. I found the right hand side to be the easiest since I am right handed, but soon enough we got the left side down too. We didn't end up getting a hind end yield that day...she is too forward thinking still, but with practice we will figure it out. Before we broke for lunch we gathered to go over our findings. Mine was that I have to give Pixie more credit. I sometimes still live in the past and she is long over the past. I have to trust her as much as she trusts me!

After lunch we did review to wrap things up. We went back to our indirect rein conversations and practicing circling the barrel. This is a challenging exercise for us. Then we gathered to answer final questions and took the class photo. It was a great 4 days with lots of stuff to remember. Now off to practice for next year!

Aimee Brimhall Clinic Day 3

Day 3 starting the riding portion of the clinic. We started with classroom and simulations before grabbing the horses. We worked on finding the connection while riding in the morning session. This was interesting because almost all of the horses were disconnected for the most part. Pixie was having a lot of "I" moments, but at the same time I was too because I am just as easily distracted. It took us a while to find our "we" during our ride. I should say ride loosely because it involved more standing and flexing and backing then actually moving, lol. We ended on a good note before breaking for lunch though.

After lunch we focused on the porcupine game while riding and moving the hindquarters. This was a good exercise for me because we were challenged to disengage the hindquarters with no leg pressure. We were only allowed to use our indirect rein. And we had to circle a barrel without leg pressure or direct rein. We had to complete the circle using only the horses hindquarter yield. Needless to say our circle was not pretty and wasn't really a circle, lol. By the end of the exercise we at least got a few good circles both directions. It was a hard exercise and something we will continue to work on. It made us work on our phases 1234 and reset to 1234 instead of just staying at 4. After the barrel exercise we moved on to riding on the rail then yielding hindquarters so the horses where facing the wall. Again this was to be done without leg and indirect rein only. By the time we got to this exercise Pixie was starting to get the hang of things and we did fairly well. We struggled a bit with not going all the way around to line up to the rail (we practiced this a lot for fence opening on the trail) But we got over that quickly.

Overall lots of good stuff on Day three. There will be a lot of things I look forward to practicing not only with Pixie, but with all the horses. I have lots of thoughts about things too, but have decided to put those in a separate post after the clinic is over :)

Off to start day 4!

Aimee Brimhall Clinic Day 2

Yesterday was a continuation of ground work from the day before. We got into some more technical  things. We covered the friendly, driving, porcupine, and circle games. We learned some new ways to look at these games and some more ways to practice. Body language is such a big thing! We did some simulation work with human partners and when I was the "horse" I realized just how a tiny shift of the "humans" body meant something else to me. Especially in the circle game, one tiny shift of weight sent a signal of go out or come closer. The way your body is angled can make the difference of going straight or in a circle.

Pixie and I had some great breakthroughs. She has always been a little sticky in some areas when circling and backing. But we made some progress because Aimee showed me how to adjust my phases just a tiny bit. Pixie needs quick and light not slow and steady. She needs me to be very clear but in a light and quick way. I was trying so hard to stay at phase one to make her light I was actually making her heavier in areas because she was unsure of what I was asking. I also realized I have given up the porcupine game without knowing it. I had gone on to driving only in an effect to be super light and continue on to liberty work. I now understand where we need to go back and work on the porcupine game and it will only make other things better not diminish my liberty work. 

In an effort to be lighter and quicker...I bought a new stick and string. My original one was the traditional Carrot stick. I love the feel the lighter weight brings to our play sessions. 

I look back to three years ago when Pixie first came home and realized just how far we have come. We have had our share of challenges, but its nice to be in a spot now where we really don't have problems any more just opportunities. There are a few ladies that came to the clinic because they are having problems with their horses. A few worse than others, but none the less they are there to fix something. I am so glad Pixie and I are not here to fix something, but just to grow as partners. Maybe that is where the "we" factor comes into play. I don't see our imperfections as Pixie's fault instead I see them as something we need to work on together to get better at. It may take us a long time to get perfect at something, but we will get there at some point, lol. Three years if you would have asked me to take this clinic I would have jumped at the chance with the mindset yes, finally a chance to fix Pixie's problems. I was still thinking as an "I" then not a "we".

Today starts the two day riding portion. I am excited to learn lots in the riding segment because I know this is my weaker area. I have grown up riding horses, but just not super well behaved ones. I can ride about any thing...never having been thrown off (fallen on a total of three times) Now I was young then and bounced, lol, or should I say they bounced off me well. I am pretty sure if a rearing horse flipped on me now I would crack in a few places. So I would like to learn how to teach so I don't have to go through a rodeo ride :) And with Navi going under saddle in a year, now would be a good time to learn these things :)

That's all for now, more later. Off to pick up dessert for the BBQ tonight after the clinic :)