Life Changes

Life is good! I'm finally living on my own, in a gorgeous little farm house, and I am so happy! Sora is being boarded at a really nice little boarding stable and I have access to two outdoor arenas and a nice sized indoor which is just as wonderful as I always thought it would be. There are a couple of people at the stable that seem intent on making my life (because of my style of training) miserable but that is for a different post. What is important is that Sora is happy and I see eye to eye with the stable owner on horse husbandry so that is wonderful as well.

The only other bad thing is that the only access I have to the internet is on my phone so lengthy posts are not possible. I have been following all my favorite blogs but because of a glitch I can't seem to comment on them. Now that I am more settled in I am going to try to do more short posts to record our progress so hopefully there will be more content on here soon.

Training is mostly going well. Due to one of the people who is making my life miserable I was contemplating selling Sora for a whole weekend but now I am so glad that I came to my senses. The good is that we have progressed to where I am very comfortable riding her either with a bitless bridle or just a cordeo in the arena and we are working on leg yields in the cordeo. The bad news is that we are still struggling with the trot and she remains very spooky outside of the arena. I am working slowly on the trot but the spookiness has me sort of stumped. I am not at all reactive when she spooks (and I am very proud of myself that I have come that far) and I am working to desensitize her to things almost daily. She is more confident with me around then when she is on her own so I don't see that I'm doing anything wrong. I am beginning to think that she is just a very spooky horse but that is just not a comforting thought. Because of that I have decided to take a step back and do more of what I really love with her just in the arena where she is confident. Her side passing is getting polished and we are just starting to work on some of the other behaviors/movements such as bow and rear. The best thing for me is feeling soooooo comfortable on her back especially since most of the people here seem to think I am going to die :D

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!

Nerves and Expectations

So, to start out I'd like to give you a little history on me and my horse/horses.

My horse is named Sora AKA TF Lilly's Shoshana. She is a registered Arabian that is three years old and currently about 14.2 hands. Sora is bay with four short white stockings, in that way she takes after her grandpa, Desperado V's markings :~)

I bought Sora almost exactly a year ago as a Dressage/trail/driving/everything prospect. I knew going into it that I really wanted an Arabian. I've had a few horses and ponies before but ever since reading "The Black Stallion" I've REALLY REALLY wanted an Arabian. I've sort of always held them up as the perfect horse (I know, I know, every young girl wants an Arabian. I guess I just never grew out of it lol.)

I did put quite a bit of research into the breed. Dressage is my passion so I knew I needed a horse that was capable of at least not embarrassing me as a dressage rider. I was pleased to find how many Arabians make WONDERFUL dressage horses. (see links)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4w4HQvIVf4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCtTS4RYy7g&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrhLRs7AqEo&feature=related

I also wanted a short horse (for reasons that I will go into later) and so Arabians fit that as well. Finally I wanted a loving horse that would bond to me and would learn well. I've trained horses in the past but this would be the first time I was training my own horse.

Sora turned up in an ad on Equine Hits. I had finally managed to sell my previous horse (who I will talk about on a later post) so I was ready to start looking around. I had been looking at the same four Arabian fillies for the past two years. The problem was that now that I was finally ready to be serious most of them were sold and one of my favorites looked hideous in a more recent picture :(

I was looking for "the last time" through the Arabian fillies available in the area and on a hunch decided to call "Lilly's" owner because of this picture.

She was the right size, my favorite color, and had great bloodlines. I actually didn't think anything would come of it (people never seem to respond to questions about horse ads *rolls eyes*) but her wonderful owner emailed me within the following hour. We set up a time for me to see her that week.

I bought her the evening of the day I went to see her and she was delivered about five days later. I had looked at a few other horses and honestly I probably should have looked around more but than maybe I wouldn't have the most perfect horse in the world. In this case I listened to my gut and it was right!

She is the best, most beautiful, and smartest horse in the entire universe lol!!!
She's wet because she just had her first bath :~) awwww!