The Mythical "Go" Button

Today I decided was the time to work on encouraging Sora to go forward. This was something that she was overwhelmingly good at. When I first got her the barest move on my part would send her racing to the other side of which ever field we were in thanks to her previous abuse and lack of human contact. In other words she was extremely right brain dominant. Now she is so left brain dominant that it is almost hard to get her to move.

This summer I trimmed her hooves right in front of our garage door without any type of restraint, she wasn't even wearing a halter, while my dad revved his Ducati in the garage which made a sound like an airplane taking off. Not only did she hold still, she was actually relaxed. Regularly she stands still in front of me while I jump up and down, cluck, wave my hands around like a nut case and throw a rope at her. I actually am proud of this because it means she will be a willing and nonflighty riding partner, however she does actually need to move sometimes as well and since I am against using pressure, such as a whip, I need to think of a different way of teaching it.

Today I got started by jogging with her jogging next to me. With me moving she happily matches my speed right along next to me but won't go fast or slower. I tried getting her to outpace me by swinging a rope next to me but she was having none of it and I was worried, although she gave me no reason to be, that if I increased the pressure she would kick out at me as she passed. I therefore gave up on that method and started doing some free lunging.

In AND a horse that will lunge freely in a perfect circle around you without a single piece of tack is spoken about in hushed tones but thanks to Sora's high food motivation it was something that I could ask for fairly quickly. The problem is getting her to turn off and leave the circle which is necessary at points both for AND and for my purposes today. The pressure of flapping a rope at her and clucking wasn't working very well so I started to reward any tiny movement away from me and it started to work.

After some work, and exhaustion on my part, she actually started to run in a line away from me, getting extra grain for a canter or gallop. I would wait until she was a couple steps away and then call "check" and she would spin and gallop back to me for her treat. Eventually she was going several strides away from me and I changed up the game a little.

One thing that many people in AND are able to accomplish quickly that I've always had trouble with is mimicry. Sora will do many things to mimic me such as backing up, pawing, almost rolling :) and so on and she will trot or walk right next to me but she won't mimic me from a distance. As soon as I start to move in the same direction as her and not point my front at her she just falls into the circle and comes right to me. So today I used one of her established tricks, backing up when she is in front of me facing me, and would get her started out "lunging" and then start moving in the same direction. This is something that I have tried before but I tried it harder today and in different ways. It was quite rough but I actually got her to mimic me cantering which is what I really want. The reason for this is that if I can get her to canter mimic me at a distance and learn to mimic canter where she can move faster than I can, I can get her to mimic canter right next to me at a slower pace and therefore teach collection at that gait. Something that I am striving for.

Oh, and the picture is two year old Sora from before I bought her although right at this moment her mane doesn't look that much better :/ I truly meant to get some pictures but my camera battery was uncharged. I'm hoping to get pictures this weekend since it has been so terribly long.

More Progress

This morning it was incredibly nice outside and I had a day off work, finally :), so I spent some time working with Sora. It was pretty rough because we are both out of practice and have forgotten a lot about the training that we did before but we made some good progress.

After the trouble we were having yesterday I decided to step back a step and make sure I could yield her shoulders and hindquarters individually, both towards me and away from me. She actually did really well with her shoulders which I didn't expect because at on point she was really sticky with them in either direction. However, I did have more trouble with yielding her hips. All she wanted to do was back up so her head could be closer to the treats. I did manage to get some really nice yields from her after backing her up to a fence but after a couple good ones I took a break from that and spent some time working on getting her to yield from a cue from the Cordeo.

She remembered this one really nicely and will either move towards me when I pull the Cordeo lightly towards me or step away when I push it towards her. She also backs or stops at a backwards pull. I was really happy with that and decided to end on a good note. I am hoping that I will have a chance to spend some time with her after work tomorrow but even if not I will have a chance again on Thursday. If she does really well I might even sit on her again or ride Jackson and work with her from his back :)

Welcome 2011

I am so happy to welcome 2011! 2010 was crazy between work, lack of money, starting a new part time job and stress over the fact that after two years of grad school, constantly looking for work, while my classmates got jobs all around me, I still don't have a job.

2011 will be a year of changes for me. First I'm sure I'll find a job, hopefully sooner rather than later, which means that I'll finally get to move out of my parents house but more pertinent to this blog it will mean moving Sora and boarding a horse for the first time in my life.

I'm sure I'll miss having a horse right outside the house, feeding in the beautiful mornings with the birds singing, getting to make choices about how to care for her and getting to see her out the window. However, right now I can't wait to board. Partly because we don't have a good place to ride, no good footing, and I have no one to ride with or talk about horses. I also don't have a trailer so I'm completely stuck here. There will be so many good things about having Sora in a boarding facility and while I'm sure I'll have some complaints once she is actually there, right now I can't wait for the freedom that comes with not having to feed three times :) and mostly I just can't wait to have a nice, safe arena to ride in and people to ride with!!

In other news I just want to say how lucky so many horses in the blogs I read are to have such wonderful people. A couple of weeks ago my hoof trimmer, Erika, invited me to come with her after she trimmed our horses to help with a foundered pony (the owner's words). Once we got there we realized it wasn't founder, just a case of neglect. The ponies poor hooves looked like elf shoes and it took us almost two hours to get them looking anywhere close to normal. I was incredibly impressed with what Erika was able to accomplish and the pony looked relieved to be able to walk.

There were also two other horses on the property and as my trimmer put it they were "lucky to have weak hooves because they could self trim." The worst part was that no sooner had I left to come back home then Erika texted me that the horses had no water and were licking frozen puddles to drink. She couldn't even find any type of permanent water trough but finally found a bucket to give them water. I almost cried and it was nice to be able to come home to Sora, standing in her clean shed, in her puffy blanket with warm water only a few steps away.



Finally, the master list of goals for the year.

1. Strengthen Sora, especially her back to prepare for some light riding
2. Do more to desensitize her to the saddle
3. Perfect my hoof rasping technique and Sora's hoof holding technique
4. Reduce the amount of treats Sora gets and increase the time between treats, especially with the behaviors Sora is good at
5. Push Sora a bit more working toward behaviors that are more perfect and her to perform better than just adequate

Further Goals

Yesterday I had a lovely time with Sora. I worked on her hooves, mainly getting the quarters down on her front two feet. This is something I was neglecting and that my trimmer reminded me about last time she was here. They are looking much better and I'm hoping to take pictures to send to the trimmer soon. I also worked a bit more on the back feet but I've learned that if I don't push it and go at Sora's pace she is much more willing to do more the next day so I was careful not to push her past her comfort zone. We also did a few simple movements like yielding her shoulders away and then into me, backing with me and some more with her front feet. I had a lot to remember about my body positioning and she was a patient (fairly patient anyway :-) teacher.

I also came up with some more goals for the new year. The first is to reduce the amount of treats I feed Sora and to build up more time between treats. Mainly I just need to be smarter about this because I don't always pay enough attention and then Sora gets two handfuls of grain for a simple trick and when she does something really spectacular I'm completely out.

I did make one big change with treats this winter and Sora is getting Purina Senior as treats instead of the unhealthy snacks she was getting before. The senior is a low sugar palatable feed that Sora loves and the grain instead of cookies tends to be easier to feed without getting fingers caught in an anxious mouth. It's also so much healthier thanks to the low sugars.

My other new goal is to push her more when I think she is getting a behavior. Too often I settle for just the beginning of the behavior because I'm so amazed by my incredible horse that I don't want to push. However I realize that if I ever want to make any kind of real progress its time to see what she can do and begin pushing her gently to work harder for rewards.

Hopefully everyone in the midwest will survive this incredible ice storm we are supposed to have. As if our weather hasn't been crazy enough this year already!

Hey Soul Sister

Today was wonderful because I finally felt like a wall that Sora and I have been struggling with has been crossed. We were having trust issues and it felt like either I would cross the wall and Sora would smack into it or, more often, Sora would cross the wall and I'd smack into it. Today I feel like we both gathered ourselves and jumped it together =)

It started with me feeding hay. Sora as usual got to come into the barn for her grain and easily left when I asked. However as soon as she was out, instead of going to eat hay, she spun around and wanted to come back in so I opened the door and let her. I filled my pockets with treats (I always assure Sora that we've had a bountiful harvest so not to worry) and we did some simple behaviors like leg lifts, shoulder targets, backing and yielding, all of this halterless. She was good so I invited her to come out the other end of our barn. This leads right onto our lawn where we keep the VERY tasty grass. She followed me softly out and started grazing just as I hoped she would. However unlike normal she kept coming to me to get treats!

I spent a little time with her before leaving to get the cats some food. This gets kept in the garage or four LARGE raccoons fight over it which tears our barn apart. I was a few steps away from Sora when she started following me! I was so ecstatic and Sora got a jackpot but I didn't really think she would come any further. Happily Sora proved me wrong and came all the way to the door with me, waited for me to go and come out and then followed me, at the trot!, back to the barn. I had run out of treats at that point so I had to race in the barn to get her some and she trotted next to me all the way in. We went back out and spent some more time together and in the end I didn't even need a halter or rope to put her back in with her herd. She did really want to come back with me though =)

My sister, Hanna, has agreed to come out and get some more pictures of us as soon as her schedule is a little lighter. She just finished auditioning for several of the biggest music conservatories in the country and is now getting ready for two different concerts so she has a lot on her plate. Hopefully more of her wonderful pictures will grace this blog soon =)

Invisible Connection

I'm enjoying this more and more. I realized a few days ago that this is really always what I wanted when I thought about having a horse. I dreamed that it would be like it was for Alec Ramsey, riding bareback and bridle less on the beach with a horse that actually wanted to be with me rather than being forced to put up with me. Reality was sadly very different and Bucky completely shattered that dream in so many ways. Because of that I really forgot about that dream, wrote it off as an impossibility but now it's actually getting closer and closer.

Yesterday I went out to spend time with Sora. I brought two carrots but didn't really plan on doing any training. I used the carrots getting Sora more comfortable around the mounting block but then she wanted to leave me and go with her herd to graze so I let her. She ran out to them and I could tell she was interested in running around and playing so I went to play with her and we had fun =) She ran and bucked and reared. Finally she stopped so I just sat on the grass and we spent some time together. One of our horses chased her and I chased the horse and then she was stuck to me like glue.

Sora just stuck by my side and she kept wanting to just smell me. She'd press her nose up against my hand and just stay like that for several seconds. It was wonderful and when I left she wanted to come with me.

Today the weather is nuts and I don't know if I'll spend much time outside but I have tomorrow off so I'm hoping to start teaching her a new behavior. Now that we're getting better at communicating maybe it's time to start teaching her to rear, or maybe I'll chicken out and teach her how to bow =)

Finally one of my sources of inspiration

Herd, not Human

A change has happened with Sora and my relationship. Starting earlier this week I finally became a treasured member of Sora's herd rather than simply Katlyn. With that said, I am a very treasured, respected and valued herd member that never gets kicked at, bitten or run over. However that really isn't that strange as horses generally don't do these things to each other anyway except in extremely rough play or when vying for dominance.

Currently not much training is going on but there is a lot of learning happening with both of us. I'm learning how to be and remain congruent with positive and appropriate energy. Sora is learning how to read my body language and how much more delicate I can be than a horse which means that it does hurt me when she snaps and that I react with fear if feet start flying too near me. The thing is that right now all she needs as a correction is the fear. She backs off just as I do when she gets fearful and nothing more needs to be done since we respect eachother.

The more specific work that has happened has been working with the Cordeo and teaching Sora that I would like her walking next to me when we are "working" but that she can be where ever when we play.

I have come to a few powerful realizations. First, that working with/playing with a horse either at liberty, doing groundwork or on their back is not dangerous (at least no more than walking to your car) as long as there is respect from and in both parties and as long as both parties are fairly alert. Basically the things I always saw as impossible, dangerous or stupid simply aren't with the type of relationship Sora and I are working on. I wasn't thinking about the fact that riding, for example without a bridle, isn't dangerous at all if you are able to listen to what the horse is telling you. If the horse tells you something is scary or dangerous you climb off and that a horse that respects you just won't buck to remove you, only to show exuberant mood (if at that point you can't stay on that's hardly the horse's fault lol).

These are simple things but I am discovering that I tend to be fearful of everything in my life (the fact that my first few experience with horses were with horses that did want to hurt me didn't help at all). Sora is the same way and we are teaching and learning from each other. A good example of this is when I climbed on Sora for the first time ever bareback yesterday. She wasn't sure she wanted me there and I could tell she thought that feeling me move that clearly was strange but she didn't want to hurt me! She values my friendship and respects me. Even though she knows that I wouldn't hurt a hair on her if she expressed herself that way (natural fear response), she also knew that I would climb off the minute she needed me to. Because of that even though I had a rush of adrenalin and was shaky she stood stock still until I gathered myself a little and when I lost my balance (I haven't had a chance to ride all winter and am disgustingly weak in my core) she stopped and waited for me to regain my balance. All of this in a halter, on a windy day with completely loose reins.

Sora has been learning a lot from our time together as well and has never been calmer. I've realized that if I were to tell someone that something was dangerous and they ignored me it would only heighten my fear whereas if they responded to it and then ignored it I would feel completely safe. I've started to acknowledge everything Sora tells me is scary. I look, smell (breath deeply) and sometimes “shy” while remaining calm with an in control, leader sort of attitude, and most of the time after acknowledging the scary I go back to what we were doing. Between that and the increase in time I spend with her she is now calmer than any other horse I've been around. This is all because of trust. As a member of the herd she knows I'm looking out for both of us and wouldn't lead us into danger. She also sees that I respect her decisions and pay attention to the things she thinks are scary. Yesterday I went to save a rubber ball from the wind and when I tossed it over the fence into Sora's pen, the wind took it and threw it against her legs. She just stood there looking at it. She was ready to run but since I didn't and just smiled and waited she came over to me relaxed not even really looking at the ball. Very impressive (at least to me) from a still three year old Arabian filly.

School is Torture

I have been quiet recently because of school. I'm in Midterms and have a short term class final in a couple weeks. Because of that this is copied from my training journal on the AND forum.

Things have been great with us! Starting Wednesday I had three really good days with Sora. I didn't write earlier because school is nuts right now. In the span of two weeks I have two accounting quizzes and a final and a public policy final. Today I finished one of the accounting tests and after Tuesday the public policy final will be done. Because of that its been tough to work with Sora.

Wednesday I took her out to our arena/pen to play a bit. I had forgotten that we have grass growing everywhere in that pen and Sora has never been able to ignore grass even for treats. I wanted so much to push her or chase her a bit but i didn't. I just walked around, not really ignoring her but not asking her to come either. I had almost given up when she came over to me for a treat. She stood nice and calm without mugging and got one but then walked off to graze again. Once again I let her go and after only a few more minutes she came to play! She was glued to me for the rest of the time I was in with her and we had FUN. She was rearing and spinning and "cutting" me as I played keep away but was extremely polite the entire time and only forgot herself and tried mugging once or twice

Then on Friday morning we tried Karen's idea of patrolling the fence line. It was windy and cool and although Sora was calm I decided I wanted to play a little. I found a tree to beat on (made Sora confused since that's not one of the "scary trees") but the best part was when I shied. We were waaaay up in the pasture away from her herd which makes her looky anyway and then I "shied" snorting away. She raced off but came right back to me! Trotting like she was floating over the ground and I could tell she was teasing me. Not scared at all just laughing that I'd shied. She always comes back but normally she stands and looks for a long time first. This time she just came straight back.

Then tonight I needed to work on her hooves. She's barefoot and with the guidance of an incredible barefoot trimmer I've been doing it myself now for about six months. The trimmer also happens to do Reiki(sp?) and is an animal communicator so I know who to go to if I ever have trouble

I normally cross tie her, which she's good for, and she gets tons of treats. This time though I'd read about someone on here who sits on a stool with the horse's foot in their lap and I realized that would really help me as I'm not that coordinated yet with the file so I decided to try it. I put down some hay to help her be calm this first time, didn't tie her or even have a lead rope on her halter, and then I carried a stool and tools over to her. As I was setting my stool down next to her she was already lifting her foot wonderful obliging girl that she is she held it up for me as I sat down. She was really good with every foot except the hind right which she is normally nervous about. She was actually better than normal with that one too.

I love doing anything with her feet because she was impossible with them at first. I had people suggest to tie them up but I could never do that. In the end I decided to just wait for her and one day she picked them up with just a touch Now she's so good that she actually waits to set the back ones down until I step away. Her own decision, not something I ever asked of her, so that she doesn't step on me i think

I'm trying to get some pictures but I don't have anyone here who's really willing to take them and when I try all I get is nose

So as you can see things are going GREAT! I also managed to sell both my saddles so as soon as my rebate check comes I'll be able to buy a saddle that will actually fit her!!! I'm SOOOOOO excited!

Now, back to stressful studying.