Better.... with a caveat

 Monday we got thunderstormed out so I didn't get to work Ruby, but today I did. 

So- she was easy to catch. Followed me around and stood nicely for haltering. 

First thing I did was start where we left off; at the mounting block. It only took a couple of tries for her to stand in position without moving her hip away. (Not saddled.)

She was easy to saddle. I could see her have a fleeting thought about resistance when I put the saddle pad on her, but only a moment. Saddled her with zero issues. Took her into the round pen for bridling (which I do in case she pulls away.) She had one step back with her head up and then let me bridle her. 

All saddled up and ready to go! I did ask her to give to the rein before I stepped on, and she was so much better,. 

Well.... 

Off to the mounting block, outside of the round pen, stepped aboard and asked her to move out. Since she was doing everything right, I figured she would just head on out and we would have a nice ride. I believe in the power of positive thinking and having a purpose, visualizing what I expect etc. 

She had other things in mind. She got anxiety and was all over the place. I tried the old tried-and-true method of asking her to go, then when she turned back towards her comfort zone to make her work small circles, then loose rein and ask her to leave again. Rinse and repeat. Only we didn't even get the small circles. She was spazzing all over the place. Got her to stand still and stepped off. Discretion is the better part of valour. Sadly walked her over to the round pen to think about things. I was kind of at a loss as to how to proceed. 

Sitting on my mounting step, I had a little heart to heart talk with her, not mad, just sad and really wanting to have her just trust me and enjoy our journey together. 

She came close and hung her head in my lap. We had a peaceful moment there, so I decided that I would ride her in the round pen. She was agreeable to that. 

I rode her for about a half an hour, working on getting her to move her hip off my leg for the beginning of teaching a side pass, rode her through the poles in various combinations including backing through the L - after she knew what I wanted when I asked her to move her hip over to leg pressure. 

It's kind of like riding a half broke colt sometimes and at other time like riding an old seasoned trail horse. And really, that's pretty much what she is. I can teach her the finer points of understanding lateral movement as time goes on and work on getting her to use her body correctly, that will come with time. 

My upcoming plans include hauling her to Shayla's to get some help from her, and to see how she is riding away from home. I think once she's away from the farm here she will leave her emotional baggage behind. 

Rude Ruby

 The last couple of times working with Ruby have been a bit disheartening. Yesterday in particular. 

I had in mind to ride her down to the river and check the water levels at the bottom of the pasture. We got heavy rains for about 4 days and the river came up at least a foot. Our pasture and lawns are loving it! We are still getting thunderstorms rolling through now and then. There were several tornado sightings out on the prairies as that system went through. We had the green clouds but no downspouts. 

Today's thunderheads, Ted says it looks like Marge Simpson

Anyway, back to Ruby-Roo or should I say, Ruby-Rude. 

Go to catch her- she says nuh-uh not happening. Persisted and got it done. Then up to the trailer for fly spray and saddling. (She loves her fly spray, the horse flies are still here).

Since she was giving me the stink eye, we went into the round pen (very nice, one step at a time) and I walked her through my little maze on the ground and backed her through- yup she had that down pat. Then I took the halter off and longed her....  Well, maybe 15 % of the time she would flick an ear at me but mostly had ears and head looking out at the great wide world. Anywhere but at me. So I worked at getting her to connect but she just went around like a robot . A grumpy robot. It took half an hour before she gave me any connection at all; she would connect for 3 or 4 steps and then stop and look away. With her whole head and neck, not just her eyes and ears. When I got her joined up for a quarter of the way around the pen, and realizing that it was all she was going to give me, I called it and let her rest tied to the trailer.

You brought that sweat on your ownself, Ruby!

 Go to saddle her.... and she tries to take me out with her hip- 3 times. I don't know how she was allowed to get away with that in the past but it Isn't Allowed here.  Sticking a thumb in her flank to stop that sideways motion isn't very effective when I have my hands full of saddle- I no longer am able to throw a saddle up one handed- so I found a pair of little pliers and held them in my hand and pretended to throw the saddle up; when she tried her wipe-out maneuver she met the pliers.  Took 3 more tries before she allowed as how I could saddle her. So that earned her some time standing tied while I plotted considered my next move. 

I moved her back into the round pen as she started pawing and I didn't want a hole in the lawn. She stood a bit better there but this pawing thing has to stop. She will get some hobble training as soon as I get a set that fits her, mine are too big. 

Once she stood quietly for about another half hour, I decided to see if she was going to be worth riding. So in I went, bridle in hand....

And got a flat out no. Backing up, head elevated, not opening her mouth yada yada yada. I could feel that the blind canine tooth she had last week has finally erupted, but it is very close to her incisors and in no way comes in contact with the bit. So no excuses there.  Well. Once bridled, I figured I'd better see how willing she was to steer, so I picked up the rein as if I was on her back and asking for a lateral give. Uh huh, yeah right. Left side, she gave begrudgingly but on the right side.... (sigh) it took me over four minutes to get a baby give. Reward with a mini release, ask again. Several asks later got an actual lateral softening. Three more full release/ asks and got a reasonable response. 

Well then! Lets see if she will stand for mounting! Off to the mounting block we went. I asked her to step up to where I could put my foot in the stirrup, she stepped up...almost... asked for another step and she stepped up... and swung her hip away. I took my little dressage whip and leaned over and asked her to move her hip back in line.... for the next 20 minutes..... When she actually finally stepped to the right spot, I let her rest there for a few minutes and then called it .

Back in the round pen to take her bridle off, 4 tries before she did it right. Halter on, then a practice session to see if she would let me unsaddle then throw the saddle back on. Not pretty but got it done. Took her to the trailer and tried a few more times, as this was the major issue at the beginning. I had to get Ted to come throw the saddle on her while I held her and corrected her when she tried to move. Finally she stood. Phew! 

Not in the least bit concerned about her rudeitude. 

This whole session took about 4 hours including the time spent standing tied. 

I have been considering all this behavior. It's possibly related to her past, but I believe in working with the horse in what she presents on any given day. Work with the horse you have. She may have been allowed to bully her former owner and not have consequences. That may have ingrained certain of these things in her as habits. However, this is a new page in her life. Shutting me out is what she tries to do with that "look away" avoidance behavior but it  will not get her out of work. I feel that she has no desire to connect with people, and have felt this for a while, so I have been working on being present for her and letting her know she is "getting gotten" as Warwick Schiller says. This is something I worked on all winter when there was little else I could do in that cold weather. It led to her getting easier to catch, letting me touch her everywhere although she was still reserved about face touches- I'm ok with that- and having her follow me around in the pen or pasture. So this session was a real set back, which kind of surprised me. 

I have needs. I need her to let me catch her, saddle her, bridle her, and stand nicely for mounting. Those are so basic. If all she wants is to go down the trail, I'm fine with that, the finesse stuff will come with time. But those 4 things she needs to be rock solid on. Not just when she feels like it. 

Today she gets a day off. Tomorrow, I will go over all these basics again. That will be my program until I feel that she has let go of whatever it is that is making her shut down. 

Schooling Ruby

 The weather did an abrupt about face- from hot to heavy rain and thunderstorms. Welcome to monsoon June. It rather disrupted my horse plans, but I did get a couple of sessions of ground work in. I wanted to try her out on obstacles on the ground to gauge how she will be for riding them. We have a local arena that's really big into the cowboy challenge events and I am hoping that it's something Ruby and I can do. Because it's pretty boring to just ride the pastures here!

Prior to that I had the blue tubs in the middle of the pen and led her over them- the usual evasions to the side to avoid stepping over them before she allowed as how she was ok with actually stepping over them. 

She goes around with her nose stuck  out, and I worked her a bunch until she stretched  down and relaxed.

Nice extension but not a nice expression.  (Side note- I have called 2 farriers, still waiting for someone to call me back to get her feet done. )

More relaxed but not what I consider to be soft. I think she will be a work in progress for a while. 

Afterwards I had her tied to the trailer (which has been parked, unused except as a tack room for the last month)  and all of a sudden she panicked and pulled back. That is very unlike her, she is very good standing tied. Upon investigation I discovered this: 

Swallow's nest in the horse trailer! I think the mama bird dive bombed Ruby. I can't have my mare being worried about being attacked when she's tied there so I checked it out- there were eggs that hadn't hatched so I made the executive decision to remove the nest. 

 I'm sure the mama bird will be able to build another nest somewhere, just not in my trailer!

Next day our morning session was ground work again, this time I set up some posts in an L shape for her. She hasn't been yielding her hip when I ask (riding) so this was a way to give her a reason to move her hip over. I took one of my spurs, which I haven't ridden her with yet, and pressed it where my leg would go. It took 3 tries of using a fair amount of pressure, then the next times all I had to do was just softly touch her there and she moved over nicely, each side. Once we got that figured I worked her in the L . Walk through, back through. A couple reminders with the spur for the hip over and she got it every time. 

We also did some exercises with the rope and the slicker. 

She was not in the least concerned about the rope dragging around her hind legs. As far as the slicker went, she was fine with it too, being draped over her butt, her neck and over her head. She has this funny thing she does where if she doesn't like something, she just turns her head and looks away.  If I don't look at it it doesn't exist.  She did that with the slicker when I presented it to her on her right side, so I just held it there until she turned back and looked at it before I put it on her back. 

The other thing I worked on was the gate. The other day when I rode her through the gate, she a) wouldn't give her hip so I could handle the gate properly, and b) rushed through it. So I worked on leading her through. First try I let her pick the pace to see what she would do, and she hurried through. So then I asked her to go through one step at a time. 

I was happy with that! After that I took her for a walk and let her look at everything- trees, game trails the mailbox, and even the poplar fluff that is laying on the spruce boughs looking like snow. 

My goal is to put her through her paces to see if she is going to be a safe trail horse for me. Some folks think that a trail horse is on the low end of the spectrum as far as training goes, after all they are not being asked to perform the way a competitive arena horse is, but there is a lot that goes into the making of a good trail horse. You are literally trusting them with your life in situations that include dangerous terrain, wild animals and unexpected encounters. That foundation of trust has to be on both sides. So because Ruby is a new-to-me horse, we have a lot to learn together. I want to know how she thinks and reacts and she has to know that she can trust me. 

Journey on!

27 years

 Well. That went by fast!

Here are a couple of scenes from our wedding day. 

Live music for the ceremony! Fiddle and guitar, as well as classical oboe for my ride down the hill.

Said hill in the background. Steeper than it looks!  Hats off for the prayer.

That truck is about 100 years old now. 1920 something. Our getaway truck!

Neither of us are as slender as we were then.... oh well....

Findings

 I started doing the Masterson Method on Ruby since the days are too hot and smoky (again) to do much else. So in the cool of the morning I worked on her for a couple of days. 

I already know that she holds a lot of tension and stiffness/brace in her neck. So when I started with the bladder meridian work I wasn't at all surprised to find that is where I got places for her to release. She also had a few spots the first day in her lumbar area. It's all connected....

The second day she had a big reaction in one spot on the right side of her neck. As my hand approached a spot midway down her neck (I was using air gap pressure) I could feel that there was a knot there, and as I hovered over it she jumped like it was an electric spark, and then gave a big release. 

I also did the front end work on her- head lowering, lateral flexion, head up, and the 3 scapular release methods. Once again, a lot of tension. But I'm finding that she isn't really expressive in her releases yet, sometimes just lip twitching and soft eye and sometimes, (less often) yawning and licking and chewing. 

This morning it was hotter earlier, so I tried working on her in the shade of the shelter. Only did the bladder meridian as I could see that she was already quite warm as evidenced by distended nostrils and shallow quick breaths even in the shade. As you can see in this photo of Velvet, who was in the deepest shade of the shelter. 

Not much sense in continuing, so I left it for another day. We are getting wind and thunderstorm warnings, as well as a forecast of a few showers so I hope it cools off enough to ride a bit. I want to see if she still braces in her neck or if she will be softer when I ask for a lateral bend. 

Side note- I'm calling Velvet bred as she didn't come back into heat. 😄

I have an excuse...

 for not posting in a week. I have been busy fencing. We have so much grass here and if I don't get it grazed down it just dries up and becomes a fire hazard. So we fenced off a few acres for the mare's next pen as their original one that they have been grazing since winter is getting short. 

I had a supervisor doing QA and QC. 

Better turn that insulator a couple more times!

We put in 30 posts and 3 strands of hot wire rope. The heat is brutal  so I could only work in the mornings, and 1 evening. But we got it finished today!

That board fence in the back is where their first pen was. We only had to fence 2 sides of this pen. 

Happy mares!

They only grazed for a short while then went and hid out in the shade of their shelter to get away from the biting flies. They have lots of distance to go for shelter and water, so they won't just be filling their faces 24/7. I may lock them out of the new pen and just have them in their shelter pen at night if they get looking too... fluffy. 

Velvet is 29 days post breeding and hasn't come back in heat. I will keep checking her for a few more days just to be sure. I will start checking Ruby back around the 17th. For inquiring minds, I just lead the mare to a safe spot over the fence from Beamer and let him holler at them. If they aren't in heat they let him know- pinned ears, striking etc. If they are in heat, they squat and pee a little bit. 

We have a heat warning for the next few days. I want to get back to working Ruby so it will either be early morning or evening for that. I did take her out for another ride, but she was nervous so I kept it short. Not having someone to ride with makes me more cautious with a mare I don't know really well yet. I found a good post by Martin Black on ways to work from the ground to get her more focused on me that I can do in the round pen, so that will be the next step. I think a horse that is worried on the trail or riding out alone isn't connected with and trusting in the rider, so it looks like I have a lot of work to do with her before we get to that point. 

I found a guy locally who does feet/teeth/bodywork as a combined way of assessing the horse so I may haul over to him. Ruby is very stiff laterally in her neck, which may be from the years of needing her teeth done. I think my next step with her will be to do a lot of the Masterson Method on her first before I spend the money on anything else. See what I can do myself first. 

She had become much more friendly and wanting to interact with me. Even lets me touch her face - I attribute that to  having her teeth done and a bit of hand feeding a bit of grain. I want them to come to me, even if I have to treat to make it happen. Build the desired behavior and  let it become a habit. 

We have a bunch of new birds around here. We have seen Baltimore Orioles, blue Herons, Gold finches, several birds I can't identify yet and of course baby birds like these starlings. 

It may be difficult to keep the cats from getting them when they start to fly. May have to lock them up in the barn for a couple of days. 

Mr. Innocent.

Mr. Handsome

 I closed off a new grass pen for Beamer. It is close to the mares but not over the fence from them. Of course, when I turned him out in it today for the first time I made sure I had my good camera at the ready. Enjoy the photo shoot!

Age and arthritis haven't slowed him down at all!

                                                    Yes I know he needs his feet trimmed.

He can still strut his stuff! The girls are checking him out. 

Oh those smells!

Always handsome

Although he looks thin in that photo, he really isn't, as you can see in the next photo. 

He lost his winter fat over the last month with his breeding duties using a lot of his energy. One more mare coming in for breeding and then he should be done as long as all of them caught. 

Did you say another mare for me?

I built him a cowboy curtain to keep the pigeons from flying in there now that we closed off their access to the upper part of his barn. Messy creatures. The barn swallows still fly in to their nests which is fine. But 10 pigeons were not fine!

He was very helpful.

When the flies get to bothering him, he stands in the barn and sticks his head out the curtain so he can see what's going on but not be bothered by the flies. Smart boy. I thought he was going to trash it, but apparently he likes it!

I love this horse so much. He makes me happy just being around him. Being able to see him out my kitchen window is a great way to start my mornings. He is the gentlest, kindest stallion I could ever have hoped for. I sure hope I get one final filly off him. But if I get two I will be doubly happy!