I'm way behind in my posting and have had several sessions that I have not written about.

Not going to catch up now or probably ever.  

I did want to post briefly on how awesome my horse was this weekend.   We went camping and had several friends meet us out at that site.  Tucker took 7 newbies for spins around the arena and was as patient and pleasant as I could have ever expected him to be.  They all had minimal to no riding experience so I know it was probably not the greatest experience for him.  It was also pretty hot out there, but he let everyone get on and showed them around.

Towards the end he was getting a little fussy and tossing his head a bit and not wanting to stand still, but given all he had put up with I cut him some slack.

He's a great horse and we have been having lots of fun lately.  We are headed into the heat of summer here and I have been giving some serious thought to reducing my time riding.  Does anyone else do this?  I will still probably head out there some evenings and maybe some early morning weekends but as the days get hotter the available time to ride gets less and unfortunately I am already short on time.

We've had more rain so the barn was muddy yet again.  I was not comfortable to ask for more than a walk due to risk of slipping in the mud.  I was actually kind of glad because it gave me the chance to play with muddy pits.  Tucker really did not seem to have a problem with the mud.  He would have preferred to go through the less muddy route given his own choice but when asked he would trek through the muddier one. 

I also took the opportunity to work on the fear of chickens he has.  It's a problem because chickens are a permanent fixture at the barn now so we need to play through it, but chickens are one of my least favorite things to play with.  He is getting better about them and can actually look at them without losing his mind but he still does not want to get too close to their pen.  Lots and lots of approach and retreat and I know eventually he will get there.

I'm a couple days behind posting on my last ride, but things have been a bit busy of late.  I went out Wednesday night and the barn had finally started to dry up a bit.  I rode in the small paddock and we worked mostly on circles and maintaining gait.  He had a nice relaxed (read: slow) trot and was pretty good about listening even with the large pile of hay working as a distraction.  It was a brief ride maybe 30 minutes in length, but I felt like we both had a session.  He was rewarded with enjoying that big pile of hay at the end of it.

I had a really nice bareback hack on Tucker today around one of the pastures at the barn.  The mud finally cleared up and I managed to get my butt to the barn to spend some time with my horse and I am certainly glad I did.  Bareback riding over uneven terrain is certainly much more of a leg work out than riding with saddle, I suspect I will be feeling it tomorrow.  It felt like forever since I had ridden, but he did great and was pretty solid plodding through the high grass in the field.  He had more energy and was much more responsive than I would have thought given the fact that our temperatures are creeping up to the high 80's and low 90's.  He had one little spook at scary drain pipe water run off area but other than that life was good.

I have been thinking about my horse a lot lately and how the Parelli program fits into our life at this point.  I had an extensive conversation about it with one of my friends last night.  I explained to her that while I have learned a lot from Parelli and I think they have helped me immensely in my relationship with my horse, I just really do not see any need to go any further in the program.  I certainly do not see any reason to dump any more money into their pockets.  I know there is so much further Tucker and I COULD go, I'm just not sure I want to.  I love being a "happy hacker" (as Lisa-the friend from last night-referred to it).  I'm sure I could have a deeper relationship with my horse by going further into the program, but I'm not really sure I feel the need to devote my time and energy to that.  I know it sounds terrible, but Tucker and I are happy being trail partners and maybe that is all this partnership is meant to be.

I am in no way saying my horse is perfect, he still gets right brained (especially over farm animals) and he we still have to work through things, but for the most part he does everything I want him to do so I can hack around the barn, ride the trails and take him camping.  There are things we need to work on but, I feel pretty confident that the skills I have learned from the program so far will help me deal with those and get throug them.  As things pop up I will handle it with the tools I have been given.  If something shows up that I feel unprepared to deal with I may revisit lengthening my journey into the program, but I think at this point I am going to focus on just enjoying my horse, riding where and how I want in places that interest us both.  I will worry less about how much time I spend on patterns, tasks and games and just do what feels right at the time for Tucker and I at that moment in time.

We have had an enormous amount of rain here and it is cutting into my time with Tucker.  It sucks and I miss my horse.  Even when it is not actually raining at the barn, which is rare the mud is so thick it is hard to walk around let alone play with my horse.

:(

Tucker certainly tested my emotional fitness.  Yet again I discovered another farm animal that my horse is terrified of.  This time it was the chickens.  I handled this much better than I did the pigs.  I did lots of approach and retreat, focus on me, hit the threshold/play there/back off and one great big shout out to penella22 for suggesting the getting him to lower his head game.  Anytime I ran out of ideas I would go back to that because at least we were doing something.

The problem was he was not "getting over it" quick enough for me.  I found myself thinking  "they are just chickens" and "what is his problem."

I think I did a good job of not losing my cool on the outside with him, but I certainly felt it on the inside and I know horses are keen enough to sense and pick up on that.  It ended on an OK note and know I certainly have something to play with going forward.

It is always a good idea when you are going to the barn to ride your horse to remember your set of keys so you can unlock the front gate and unlock  the trailer where all of your tack is kept.  If you are going to forget the keys it is better to remember  you forgot them close to home instead of when you pull in the driveway of the barn.

Needless to say my day with my horse did not go as I had planned.  I had no halter, no carrot stick, no saddle, no rope.......oh well I had an enjoyable time with Tucker anyway.  He got a really thorough grooming and we played a little as I groomed him.  I toyed with how light of pressure could get him to move various body parts.  Sometimes he was paying attention to me and responsive, but sometimes he was more interested in the hay available to him and it took an act of congress to get movement.

I also helped Lance comb out Freckles' mane because she had one serious witch's knot.

Sometimes even though thing don't go as planned they can still turn out pretty good.

I had a wonderful weekend with my horse.  Lance and I took the horses to the campground for some trail riding and things could not have been better.  We had some really enjoyable rides.  He was a little scared of the cows he could see across the road while he was in his stall but other than that the weekend went very smoothly.

He did have a moment where he tried to lay down with me while I was still on him.  At first I thought something must be wrong, so I got off, got him moving and tried to figure out what was going on.  In the end I think he was just being a troll and trying to eat grass.  We were standing in the middle of some very green and lush grass waiting for Lance and Freckles.  Tucker was trying to eat but I would not let him put his head down, that was when he hit his knees.  I'm making note of it because it is not something he has ever done before, but he is probably food motivated enough to try something like that.

We both overdue to get out on trails and away from the arena and this weekend provided just the opportunities we needed.  I actually feel like he enjoyed being out there as much as I did.  I'm probably humanizing but he did seem relaxed and happy out there.

Yesterday I realized I'm really not a very good horseman.  I just have a really good horse.  When things were really crazy for him I was pretty useless.

Someone dumped two pigs at the farm which caused all the horses to go completely CRAZY.  I have never seen Tucker so scared of anything for such an extended period of time.  Of course all the other horses going equally insane did not help.  There was no place on the farm I could retreat to that got him thinking and focused back on me.  No game, object or tactic I played with caused him to calm down.  The truth is it chipped away at my confidence.  He was in an elevated and terrified state and I knew any kind of pressure from me would result in a complete meltdown and explosion and I just did not know what to do with him.  Every movement of grass caused him to completely go out of his skin.  I eventually just let him go and watched him run and prance around, head high, continuously snorting.  He was scary to me in that state because there was no thinking going on.  It was right brained on steroids.  What if he acted like this while we were out on the trail?

Where do I go from here?

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I played with an extremely responsive horse.  I was expecting the exact opposite as temps got to the 90's for the first time this year and that usually means a slow and lazy Tucker.

I really focused on doing some stretching for myself while I was riding.  I was pleased that he pretty much stayed on the course I sent him on so I could work on my exercises. 

I was feeling very bored in the arena yesterday and feel well overdue for a trail ride.  I'm glad we are going camping next weekend.

I love my horse.  Even though I had not played with him in two weeks, when I took him out of the pasture today he was as consistent as usual.  I had a nice bareback ride.  Nothing too strenuous but I did ask for some challenge since it had been awhile.  I played lots of games that required him to pick up his feet so that I could really get him moving.  We played lots of games over poles, a tarp and around barrels and/or cones.  It was a really nice session.  He happily caught me in the pasture and when I put him back out he even chose to hang out with me instead of go eat the hay.  What a huge compliment that was coming from him who would rather eat than anything.

No playing this weekend :(

For reason why see my "real life" journal fiesta831 

Tonight's session was...well kind of foggy.  I had to put one of my dogs to sleep yesterday and I went to the barn tonight in hopes of getting a little bit of horse therapy.  It was nice that for a bit I was focused on something besides the sadness of yesterday, but really I did not think about my horse much or really much at all.  I just kind of passengered along while making small talk with the barn owner.  It was odd but a nice distraction for a bit.  Now, back to reality.

It had been over three weeks since I had actually ridden my horse so it felt really good to be back on him today.  It was nice to be out there and I had one of the other boarders to ride with.

Tucker was a little lazy and I was feeling a little off in my seat I guess because it had been so long.  It took about 20 minutes before we both relaxed into the ride.  I think I was feeling stiff and out of practice and that in turn caused him to not move very nicely.  It was pretty cool when I felt things give the right way though.  It was like we both exhaled and started to be in tune with each other and the ride after that went much smoother.  We worked on transitions, flexion and a couple patterns.  I have to be really careful when doing any of the patterns because the bore the heck out of Tucker if we are in the ring.  If I spend too long he gets to where he will not give my anything.  It does help if I work on the patterns in some place a bit more interesting like in the pasture or pretty much anywhere besides the ring.  He still bores and would rather go out and explore the fields.

It rained for the past three days and the barn was a nasty mess.  It was also extremely windy today so I decided not to ride or really do much of anything with him since I did not want any slips in the mud.  He was filthy so I spent some time grooming and he really seemed to enjoy the attention.

I think these days where I show up but don't really expect him to do much are very good for our relationship, but they are not doing much for his physical fitness.

Today I got to do something with Tucker I never got to do with him before.  We played friendly game with a goat.

For the goat's protection I kept them separated by a fence.  The goat was scary at first but soon became interesting and then became an object of fascination.  Tucker wanted to get as close to it as possible and would even run up and down the fence to stay with it as it walked around.

It was a riot!!!!!

I've let several days slip by since I saw my horse without posting about it.

For the first time in a long time I was chasing daylight when I went to play on Wednesday night.  I did not think I would have time to do much of anything, especially when I saw him and he was COVERED in mud from all the recent rain.  He was easy to catch because he had not had dinner yet and I'm sure he held out hope I was going to feed him.  No such luck, I was there to play.

We started with a brief session of ground games.  I need some help being more imaginative.  He have played every game with every obstacle that I can think of.  I'm just not really sure what else to do with him when I'm on the ground.  I then hoped on for a bareback ride and it was so much fun.  By that time the barn owner had started feeding everybody and when we were pointed in the direction of the barn Tucker would bring his energy up and go running towards it.  "WEEEEEEEEEE we are going to the barn!!!!!!!!".  As soon as I would turn him any other direction his energy came down and he would plod along.  "DAMMMMNNNNN we are going away from the barn."  It was cracking me up.

Since it was dinner time I ended the session and brought him in to eat.

Paige and I took Tucker and one of her horses to the State Park for a trail ride.  The temps were in the low 80's and the horses were just perfect.  Tucker had to do A LOT of trotting because the other horse is a much faster walker than he is so it was tough for him to keep up.  It was good for him.

We had a nice picnic after the ride and reflected on how much we enjoy getting out there with our horses.

With temps in the mid-70's it was impossible not to enjoy the horses today.

We had several boarders come to barn so we could have a social ride.  It was not as formal as the play days we sometimes do, but it was nice to have several people out there to chat with while playing with my horse.

Tucker did pretty well.  We stuck to the arena because that is where everyone else was riding.  He had some very nice sideways game while I was still on the ground.  He went over poles sideways in a square and he stepped on them a bit but I was pleased especially since this was the first time I had asked him to do it.

While in saddle we did not play to many games other than to walk around with the other riders giving me a chance to chat with the other boarders.

I love spring!

It had been a week since I had seen my horse and I had no idea what I wanted to do with him today which ended up being a really good thing because when I got to the barn it was an icky, muddy, nasty mess.  Worse than I have ever seen it.  The snow is still melting and causing a constant source of water/slush to the place.

It ended up being UT with a few cookies thrown into the mix.

Hopefully this weekend will be a bit more promising.