Joe: Part 2

It took almost no time at all to get the saddle on Joe as he flew through most everything I threw at him. He is extremely willing to do almost anything I ask of him, as long as it doesn't take too much of his precious energy. If it involves moving fast or thinking quick it takes him a little while to catch on, but once he does catch on there are no more problems. The only recurring problem that I've found with Joe is one that he has no control over. As a colt he got somthing jabbed in his right eye and now has extremely limited vision on his right side. Now when he is running counter-clockwise in the roundpen or out in the pasture he has to constantly turn his head to the right so he can see....and the rest of his body follows. As you would expect this made any steering at more than a walk difficult until I earned his complete trust. To get him to trust me I did a lot of work in the roundpen before I ever took him out. By doing a lot of turns into the fence and making him trust me instead of his bad eye I slowly started to gain his trust. After 2 or 3 days of nothing but flexing/turning into and away from the fence on his bad side I started to feel that he was ready. When I did take him out of the roundpen it couldnt have come more naturally for him. Then when i took him on the trail it was even more natural, the only thing that i could find to try to scare him was a horribly monstruous refrigirator that lives deep in the woods and is extremely territorial. Other than that he couldnt have done anybetter. Sadly when the owner came to pick him up a couple of days later I was stuck in bed with the flu and didnt get a chance to show off everything Joe could do. Remember I REALLY dont mind if you leave comments or email me at thebartjr@gmail.com!! Thanks

Joe: Part One

Somewhere about mid-way through January I was given the chance to work a horse for one of my local riding buddies, Jerry. I had already worked one horse for him, Jack, and now I was to be given the chance to work another, Joe. Since Jack and Joe came from the same local halter stud I pretty much knew what to expect... a slow moving, scared of nothing, good weekend trail horse. As with all the other horses I have started/worked with, on the first day I put him through his paces just to see what he might already know. I can honestly say that I wasn't exactly surprised that I could do just about anything I wanted to to try to scare him and he just wouldnt budge. Some might say "Oh thats just wonderful, less work for me," and in a lot of ways it is a good thing, but... if he is afraid of nothing, then how do I get him to do anything!!! Normally, using traditional natural horsemanship techniques you use the horses natural fears to first sensitize the horse to get it to move its feet and do what you want, and then desensitize the horse to the scary object. With Joe, I have to rely almost completely on his willingness to please by doing what I suggest... its that or find a cannon to try to sensitize him.

Training Questions or Comments

Recently I recieved a comment from acjumper but im not sure how to contact them. If anyone else has any questions about training feel free to email me at thebartjr@gmail.com, i check my email every night so ill be sure to get back to you soon...thanks

Fancy Flyer

Just after Christmas we had an opportunity to start another Hanoverian for a local breeder. Since I had got the chance to work with the last one my dad trained (who was very easy) I thought "No Problem right." Wrong!! Its not that he has a bad attitude or anything, he is just scared of The World. The most nervous animal I've ever worked with. Though he is scared of just about everything and everyone, he is very willing to please. Anything you ask of him he'll try, though he may jump out of his skin in the process, he will try and thats all I can ask of him. After the first couple days of working with him I began to realize that this was going to be a demanding experience. His just doesn't retain the trust in fearful obsticles as a horse normally does, its almost like I had to desensitize to everything everyday. Finally when we started establishing a daily routine he began to figure things out a little quicker. With a normal horse you carry his fears just to the edge of his comfort zone and retreat, with Flyer you carry him beyond and bring him back. His comfort zone is really about the size of a pea. For the first time since I have started training horses I actually skipped ridding bareback for the first couple of rides(normally I am at least riding bareback by 2 weeks and it had now been three)... I know, I hated it too. But it started to take up entirely to much time just jumping up and down attempting to lay across his back. So I decided to go ahead and desensitize him to the saddle which took a little more than a days worth of throwing it on and off....and on and off (its a light saddle). The day after I threw it on and off so many times I decided to go ahead and cinch it up. He didn't freak out as much as I thought he would, partly because of the boat bouys that we put on the surcingle a couple of days before. Currently I can get the saddle on him with little fear that its just gonna eat him up! I've been on his back for 3 days, flexing left and right, and forward motion and stop. This normaly happens all in one day. With Flyer, 7 days and counting. ...more on that later. Remember to please leave comments/criticism or just email me at thebartjr@gmail.com

T's New Home

Soon after I got rid of Blue a story that was a little closer to home came to my attention. A friend that everyone calls Shorty had gone his whole life not having a horse. Through our trail rides Shorty has always been near and you could see the desire in his eyes to own his own horse. I cant even begin to explain how helpful and friendly Shorty has been to me and in building our new barn. On several different occasions he had stopped by the house to help with the barn or just say hey and has never asked for anything in return. I knew that I wanted to do something but I didn't know what. Then it hit me, my baby boy, T, that I couldn't afford to keep on my own, but also didn't want to sell(I never wanted him to drift too far from home), would be the perfect Christmas present for a more than deserving friend. Just as quickly as the idea was thought up it was put into action by my dad, Helena, my sister and I. On the first Friday after Christmas my dad called Shorty up and asked for some help with putting tin on our barn. More than happy to oblige, Shorty came by the house at about 9:00 that morning. After a long, cold day of work on the roof we decided to call it a day. Just about that time Helena called to see if we all wanted to come over for a hot meal and some good gossip...perfect timing. It was all going as planned until Shorty said that he had to get home to feed a buddies horses. After a lot of convincing we got Shorty to come over for just a little while. Dee(my sister) and I left to "take T and Scarlet to another pasture up the road" while Dad rode with Shorty to go by the store for some "beverages." Dee and I soon arrived at Helena's where a rag-tag pit crew unloaded both horses and moved the truck faster than we could get out. T was hidden in a far corner that Shorty was escorted to, eyes closed and all, to see HIS horse for the first time. I'm not giving any names but several tears of happiness were shed. I couldn't be any happier, T had a wonderful new home and he was guaranteed to never drift to far from home. PLEASE leave comments or email me at thebartjr@gmail.com to tell me what you think...tips, hints, criticism, etc.

Bye-Bye Blue

First off, sorry for waiting so long to post. Lately I have gotten a little wrapped up in school because I'm now halfway through my senior year, YEAH!! But, excuses aside, I've got great news. Just a few days after Christmas Blue's girl, Paige, came down for what would hopefully be her last visit before she took Blue home. Since she was going to be down for a couple of days, I wanted her to come and work with him while I was around. Basically all I had to really encourage her to work on was being the "alpha horse." Backing down from Blue had already gotten Paige in trouble once when he kicked at her. Once he figured out that kicking was all he had to do to get rid of her he decided to stick with it for a while until I showed her how to "redirect" his energy. After showing Paige some exercises that helped her demonstrate her superiority like yielding the hind-quarters and backing him out of her personal space, she was really ready to ride. Of course after a month and a half of almost constant riding he was no problem for her to ride. Unfortunately, Paige had to get home for a family dinner and we didn't get to do all we wanted.
A couple of days later Paige was ready to come and get her horse and take him home. I sure wasn't going to pass up another day to work with her and Blue together so by the time she got here I had Blue all tacked up. After the last of the basics, which took almost no time at all because they're both fast learners, I showed Paige all of Blues tricks (i.e. standing on the saddle with the tarp and vaulting on to him while he was trotting around the round pen). Needless to say she was impressed but I still had one more trick up my sleeve. Just when Paige was ready to dismount and go home I told her to ride to the center of the round pen. If she was up to it I was going to get her to stand on Blues back. After a little confidence and balance building, Paige took the final bend out of her knees and stood up straight and proud. With my final consent that Blue was ready to go home she packed him up in her Grandpa Joe's trailer and we said our final goodbyes.

Blues Tricks

Yesterday was one of the funnest days yet with Blue. When I went out to get him from his stall he actually turned his back to me. My first thoughts for the day were ohh no this is gonna be one of those days. After a little redirecting of energy I had his mind where it needed to be. It only took a couple minutes of of fast moving orders and getting his feet moving as fast as his mind and he was ready to willingly listen. Since he had gotten a pretty good workout Tuesday I was just going to take it easy on him for the day. Because it has taken him so long to catch on to the two rein stop I worked on that for about 30 minutes... its not that he isnt soft he, just collects and doesnt stop for a couple of steps. Afterwards I wanted to do even more desensitising, since he is going to a fairly novice rider, so i got out the tarp which he has already mastered on the ground... but I wanted to test him under saddle. Once he was reintroduced to it I mounted up and shook it all around while standing still. He stood perfectly still with his head down and I could already feel my head getting bigger. Then I started to walk him around while shaking the tarp. Though he didnt completely freak, he did start to try to run from... in the round pen, it was almost like he was running in circles! It didn't take to long before he was back down to being the same old boring Blue and once again I could feel my face just swelling with pride... this used to be a wild mustang that had more than once tried to knock my head clean off. Since I was feeling almost invincible I decided to try something that I had only done with one other horse, I was going to try to stand on the saddle, which was on his back, wave the tarp all around, and try to do anything else i could to scare him... Dun Dun Dun! I rested the tarp on his neck and hopped to my feet in the saddle. Once I felt at least a little steady I picked up the tarp and shook it around his shoulders, barrel, head, and tail. Not even a flinch!!!!! By this time my head was growing so big that I thought I better hop down off my "high horse"(sry i had to say it) before I just up and floated away. So I hopped down and started messing around with other things like "cowboying up" into the saddle, which is basically jumping into the saddle without stirrups. Of course Blue didn't have much to say about this so I starting prepping him for me to crawl under hime. Maybe 2 minutes of prep and I tried it. And what do you know, it worked!! One more stint of standing on the saddle with the tarp and I was ready to call it a day, and what a day it was. In just one day I had stood on the saddle and done everything I could to scare him, "cowboyed up," and crawled under him(which I do not reccomend to anyone). Man I love this horse!! Please leave comments and tell me how cool I am...or what i can do better. For other questions email me at thebartjr@gmail.com. Thanx