Click and Trail

Our First trail ride at the new farm!
Sunday the BM and I went on a short trail ride down the road. Bodhi was tentative though well behaved on the way out. He was doing a lot of stumbling which was a clue to how little he was paying attention to his feet but I could tell he was trying to stay calm so I mostly stayed out of his way. On the way back however he became quite anxious and even began to jig! I could not believe it! Bodhi, Mr. lazy was a jigger. I corrected the behavior with a halt every time he started to prance though he did it on and off pretty much the whole way home. I would have done more complicated busy work like serpentines and circles but I was already slowing poor Satin and BM to a crawl! I am anxious to go out again to see it the jig is a new habit or if it was just the jitters for his first trail ride in a while. I hope that my calm but consistent response to his little dance routine will soon nick this cute but annoying behavior in the butt.!

We also did some clicker work. He is out in the largest pasture on the farm so I brought my clicker, treat pouch, and a bridle with me to get him. I put on his bridle in the pasture and managed to climb on board. Since we have never ridden in this pasture before I knew he would be more forward than his usual ring self so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to work on our walk and halt cues. I am hoping that this tune up will help us on our next trail ride! "Clicking" for relaxed walk after trot, and then only clicking for an immediate response from trot to walk got me a wonderful transition and a intently listening horse in about 10 minutes. I then rode him up to the barn exchanged a bridle for a halter and lead rope and went in to the jump ring for some additional clicker fun. I have decided to teach him to pick things up and hand them to me (So essentially to fetch.) He will pick up his jolly ball and fling it for treats. I picked a small orange cone as our target for this exercise. Using targeting with the lunge whip I had him biting the cone within 5 minutes. It was then only a matter of minutes before Bodhi offered to lift the cone all the way up to my hand level. I grabbed the cone and clicked. He offered the behavior a few more times until he had his perfectly timed extinction burst. Note to self; always pick training objects that over zealous little haflingers can not destroy(why did I have to teach him soccer!) Once I got him back on track and picking it up, I decided to do some free lunging work while I had the clicker out. We were in the pasture with jumps so it is much larger than our normal ring. Once I asked him to move forward in a circle around me he kept going instead and jumped over a small fence! Whoops not what I was after. As I was contemplating what to do next I lost his attention completely and he trotted off to go see the horses over the fence. I went to get a lounge line :). On the lunge he went back to work and I clicked for good stops and turns. I took the line off again to see where we were now on our stop and turn cues. Much better! Now he was free lunging in the big pasture stopping and turning. Good boy! We went over a few of the small fences for fun and called it a day. I love clicker training, and Bodhi does too. I really need to make a point in incorporating it into more of our work together. When the BM showed up I proudly showed her what Bodhi and I had been working on with the cone. He picked up and dutifully handed it to me and I clicked and smiled. I then turned away to talk to the BM for a bit. I had dropped Bodhi's lead (unattached) on the ground and Bodhi reached down picked up and put it in my hand! This horse is such a quick study it is almost a bit creepy! I cannot wait to see if Bodhi's trail behavior will improve with our clicker training. Not only does clicker work create motivation to listen, and a help keep the animal focused in new situations, I think it builds confidence as well. It is great for any horse that is having confidence or attention issues.

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Catching those ponies

Bodhi update: Bodhi jumped! Well sort of. It was only set to one footish and the execution was not pretty, but he was clean and careful over each obstacle(100% improvement there!) He was also very eager and did not seem as tense or worried about the whole idea as last time I schooled him over raised objects(about 4 months ago). He seems to be maturing so fast all of a sudden. My good boy is growing up! We have a dressage lesson on Saturday which I am looking forward to. I am also thinking about clicker training him on trail to give both of us more confidence. That idea is still brewing and I have not decided how I will execute it.

Now for something completely different.

My favorite "natural horsemanship"trainer is Julie Goodnight. I really like her practical approach to horse training in general. She does not seem as gimmicky or *magical* as some of the other more popular clinicians. She is also a great example of how competent and amazing a female horse trainer and clinician can be. I guess she has a show on RFD TV though I do not have television. Has anyone else seen it? If any one is curious about Julie she gave a nice short interview on Horse Tip Daily today on an issue near and dear to my heart. Hard to Catch Horses. Bodhi was extremely hard to catch when I first got him though I am proud to say he has made a full recovery from his naughty ways. Now he will either come when I call (though very slowly) Or stand quietly when I come out to get him in the pasture. Julie gives great advise in the show and I recommend it to anyone with that particular affliction. Her website has tons of resources as well.

I hope everyone gets some nice rides in this weekend. Enjoy the cool weather. Bodhi the shagster is sure loving it.

Dentist appointment

~Bodhi with a hangover and swat in his itchy ears~

Bodhi got his teeth done yesterday. It went well though at first it was a little scary. Bodhi is a cheep date so to speak and really became a little too drowsy with the medication. He fell to his knees at one point which made me grimace but quickly got right back up again. The tooth that was missing from a kick (so the previous owner reports) is probably not going to grow in at all. Evidently if horses lose a baby tooth in trauma the adult tooth fails to form. Poor Bodhi. Besides his MIA tooth he has now officially lost all of his baby teeth! The last one fell out a few weeks ago. Bodhi is now all grown up!

The Vet said Bodhi looked great. We taped him at 1015. She said she would rate him a 5+. This is good though I feel like he could use a little bit more muscle tone. Any advise out there for conditioning my rotund pony? I ride as it is 3 to 4 times a week for about 30 mins to and hour. We work on collection, transitions, and lateral work at all three gates. He does not have much stamina for the dressage work however and gets really tired after 30 mins or less. I don't blame him as it is a lot of work to learn to move his young body in the ways I am asking him to.

On a side note I am always worried about over working him, especially since he is a small horse and I am average sized woman. Now that we have an accurate guess on his weight I feel better...
120+10 pounds of saddle(?)/1015=12.8% or about 13%
I have always heard that horses should not carry more than 17% though I have heard from haflinger owners that they can carry 20%. Either way even if my saddle weighs more than that we are still good. hmmm I wonder...
120*.13= 15.6 So if I was to have a rider in the proportions of my self on Bodhi than I would be carrying a large cat or a small monkey. I think I could handle that!
No more complaining Bodhi! :)

Bodhi goes bitless!

The Picture is of Satin,my barn manager's horse sporting her new bridle. Kathy said she was a very good girl.

Tried Bodhi out in a Cook's Bitless Bridle yesterday. Overall I give it a thumbs up!

First on the quality-- My barn manager purchased the Beta full sized bridle in brown. It looks very nice and the quality seems to be very high. The bridle fit her 16 hh very drafty type Appy's head as well as Bodhi who is bordering between Arab and Full and measuring in at 14 something.

I did some in hand work and some lateral work on the ground first to gauge Bodhi's opinion on the "head hug" action. Bodhi was in a super lazy sluggish mood so he could care less and was practically asleep so I decided to try it under saddle.

I was very conservative with my contact at first and left him alone to warm up. He did his normal routine of stretching though he was very stiff and sluggish. We then moved on to transitions, some serpentines and then a bit of canter work. Bodhi's bad habit is to stiffen his neck and fall on the forehand making it difficult to turn him. He has a very short neck and he is a draft so pulling is an art form for him! Even at the canter though (which is when his vice is worst) He was very respectable of my leg and rein. I was impressed. The one time he got stiff and stubborn was when I wanted to turn him away from the people at the fence line (We had attracted a few curious on lookers to witness our experiment) I gave him a few good tugs and got him going. He did not seem at all offended by the bridle's pressure so that seems to work as well. The only part I did not like was he was very "up" and I could not get a steady contact or any feeling of give. It may be out of confusion since he had not bit to give to or it could have been an off day for him as far as stiffness in the neck and back. In a bit I would have asked him to take some contact and pay attention with louder aides until I got a desired result. With the bitless I did not know what the cause was so was not about to fight about it.
After our ride I walked him around the barn areas to see how he was in the bitless in his spooky areas. It could have been just the day and not the bridle but he seemed much more relaxed around the hay barn and the quarantine cat pen (which he is terrified of by the way-- maybe it is the smell of cats?). If this does in deed turn out to be the case I think his spookiness is related to my nerves translating through the bridle to him. That has always been my hunch. I do have some nerve issues I am working through so the bitless may be a way to spare Bodhi of some of my more subtle stiffness in my upper body in the meantime. A good thing for sure.

Synopsis: I found that our lateral work was pretty good! He turned well and gave laterally with little pressure. He did great in his downward transitions though he always stops well! I am a bit worried that I will not be able achieve the same amount of contact and lightness in order to practice in a more advanced frame needed for dressage. Another few rides are in order to really come to any conclusions though. This bridle may be a great thing for trail, pleasure days, and also to use when other people want to ride Bodhi.

Liberty work and making friends.

The New barn is a quiet one. I usually do not see the other boarders for weeks if ever. To my surprise when I arrived yesterday there was not one, but two other boarders already grooming and fussing over their charges. One was the boarder my husband has named "crabby Abby" here name is not Abby, though she is indeed a little uptight. The other I had not met before but she seemed sweet. She was the owner of the old TB cross "JW" that I had taken a special liking to.

Bodhi got his feet trimmed yesterday by a new farrier so instead of riding I gave him a bath and then took him into the riding ring for some liberty work. Our liberty work is really developing. Bodhi now stays close to me and will lunge at the walk and trot around me as if I had a lounge line attached. I have found I can turn him by turning my own shoulders into the circle or out to widen the circle or change directions. We worked on cantering down the long side of the ring and then circling at each end at the trot. I try and match my feet to his feet and that seems to really translate well for him. If I want him to trot out I lengthen my stride and if I want him to collect I collect. He has always had a hard time cantering on the lunge line but I have found instead of chasing him with the lunge whip around a circle if I just change my trot to a "lope" beside him he quickly matches it! He even got his bad lead once (with a snarky little buck to show me how much he protested) He stops on a dime when I stop moving my feet and say whoa. I probably look like a crazy person but it is an amazing to play with my horse in this fashion. It is a very proud moment for me. I never thought he would be the type to choose to stay connected and play when he could just go to the other side of the ring and avoid me. He is a clever boy who avoids work like the plague.

I was so engrossed with my Bodhi bonding experience I did not hear JW's owner walk up to the ring until I heard her voice. Bodhi and and I both stopped and looked over to her as she repeated "Don't you want a lunge line?"
I could not shake the feeling of being reprimanded for something-"Oh, no thanks! I'm fine"
"It's no trouble at all I can find you one"
"Thanks but I am doing some liberty work with Bodhi today so I don't need one"
"Liberty work?!"
At this point I had flipped my whip in Bodhi's direction and he began to circle around me at a slow jog. He was stretching his neck all the way to the ground. I asked for halt which he dutifully gave.
"That is pretty good. JW would just run away and eat grass." I guess that was a compliment but I still felt like she thought I was a little crazy. Maybe liberty work is taboo in some circles or disciplines? I am not sure. I always feel like I am the last one to figure these sorts of things out. I felt a self conscious twinge and ended the session anyways. I felt like I was finally breaking down the barriers of communication and on the verge of discovery and she made me feel like I had put my saddle on backwards. Oh well.

Why Horses? How I see it

Two blogs that I follow Tucker the Wunderkind and Eye on the Horsee posted some wonderful pictures that illustrate why they choose to have horses in their lives despite the cost in time, money and sometimes sanity!
Here are a few of mine. I hope anyone who sees this will share with me the pictures they feel capture that special feeling one get's with equines.
The Pictures are...

-Dancer, The nervous TB mare, coming up to me after liberty work

-Velour my first true equine partner getting a pre-ride stretch like he got everyday that I owned him (5 years) or rode him (10 years)

-Bodhi caught looking beautiful and wild during a lesson one day.

-Bodhi and I sharing some quality time in the barn isle after a ride

Bareback, bitless and carefree?

Bodhi and I are well. The rain has kept us from doing a lot of riding and the accompanied blues from all these gray days has kept me from posting. Bodhi and I are still struggling with the canter work. We do best bareback so I have ridden the last two times that way and had some nice canter departs. It is really hard for me to sit back and straight at the canter and my trainer thinks (and I think she is right) that it is causing Bodhi to go on the forehand. I think this issue with my posture is the last major cross road I am hitting from my change over from hunt seat to dressage. I have not found my groove yet at the canter so everything just feels wrong! Ech! I am a dressage rider now but it is so hard to let go of the old comfortable ways of riding. Practice is what it will take of course and I seem to find my balanced place better when I ride bareback so I will stick with that.

Since I have been riding a lot bareback I have been getting Bodhi very light with seat and leg aids and really trying to think "reins for headset only" as my trainer always reminds. That got me to thinking why do I need to stick metal in my horse's mouth to accomplish this and would he not be softer if I tried something like a bitless?
SO I am thinking about Dr. Cook's Bitless Bridle

It seems well regarded....Has anyone personally used it?

Although it is expensive and I feel not essential (I already have two nice bit bridles for heaven's sake!) I feel compelled to try it. The website offers a one month trial period so if I do not like it I don't have to buy it. Can't lose right?