Miles Meets Couscous the Goose

Miles the border collie, Nase the house dog, and I all headed in to town today to run errands.  We all needed to be out of the house and out of the way so that a realtor could show our place to potential buyers.  (8.5 acres, water rights, cute farmhouse, 3 stall barn, large loafing shed, arena, round pen, fenced pastures...  let me know if you're interested!)  So the dogs and I made a trip to the bank, stopped by the tack store to drop off a saddle to have billets replaced, quick stop at the mechanic's to check the seals and ball joints on the truck after they were replaced this month.

Our last stop was my friend's place to return a book I borrowed ages ago.  She wasn't home, but another friend of ours was there to work her horse who lives there as well.  Since I was already dressed to ride after working several horses in the morning at Bit of Honey, Miles and I joined her and I rode the cute chestnut mare.  We walked, trotted, cantered on both leads in the pasture, rode over the ground poles grid, and Miles of course assisted.  No matter where we are riding or teaching, Miles is always ready.  Nase waits in the truck.  He's a more timid soul and prefers to be safely tucked away under the bed, but if that's not an option the back seat of the cab of the truck will suffice. 

As we were tacking up the horses we were greeted by a friendly neighbor who generously offered to let us use her arena anytime.  While we were visiting we noticed a large white goose parading around her pasture with her two horses.  Apparently there were two geese to start with, one named Tofu and the other (who we met) named Couscous.  They were thusly named because her vegetarian husband had initially and jokingly declared them to be Christmas and Easter when they first arrived.  Tofu had been dispatched by coyotes, but Couscous is still around, and considers herself to be part equine.  She will sleep in the stalls with the horses, and she ran around honking at one of the horses when it rolled in the pasture.

Miles is accustomed to chasing the wild Canadian geese off our property at home, and assumed that he was to move Couscous the goose back to her own pasture.  He started to chase Couscous, who honked a bit and ran on the ground back to her horses.  Miles was quite puzzled, since Couscous didn't fly, and the flying is the best part about the wild geese for Miles.  While Miles did stick with us for our complete ride in the pasture at my friend's place, he did keep one eye on Couscous the Goose, just in case.  Miles will spend hours at home running the length of our pastures, barking at the sky as he attempts to herd the flocks of flying geese across the property.  He'll also try to herd the falcons, turkey vultures, and bald eagles.  He's done this since he was a puppy, barking and running as fast as his little legs would carry him.  When he was small I worried a bit about who was hunting whom!  He even loves the excitement of thunderstorms, since they roll in from the west off of the mountains, crossing our pastures and then disappear off to the east.  Miles, as an all powerful superhero border collie, will run the pasture, barking at the thunderclouds, herding the storm off of the property.  It's quite an accomplishment to control the weather, almost as curious a phenomenon as the grounded Couscous the Goose.

Bo Decides to Play

I had a really fun session with Bo yesterday.  Because he wasn't ready for the kinesiotaping, I have added some different stretches and exercises to his PT routine.  So now in addition to his left, right, and "downward dog" carrot stretches I'm also doing some hoof circles and gentle forward limb stretches with each leg.  I think he's enjoying them, he makes all kinds of happy sighs when we're doing them.  His entire attitude is changing, he's eager to come greet me at the gate and stands quietly for all the stretches, I don't even need to halter him.  He just is turning into an amiable sort.  He follows me around his paddock and is friendly to the people here he knows.  He's still cautious with strangers, especially if they look like riding lessons (read:  young kids and adults new to horses), but Bo had become kind of a love when I work with him.  He immensely enjoys his grooming time, has gained weight and muscle, and generally has become a more contented gentleman. He's about due for some new progress pictures showing his changing topline.

He demonstrated a big change in his demeanor yesterday afternoon when I took him out for his walk over poles with the bells on his pasterns.  Usually he's very calm and measured in his walk, and once he's warmed up a bit he starts to take longer strides with more swing in his step.  Yesterday, however, he was ready to PLAY.  He followed me around as usual while I set up the poles patterns, but once we had walked over them all he began pawing in the freshly worked arena dirt like he wanted to roll.  I told him we can't roll just yet, and he started to jump around and squeal at Miles the dog!  Bo really wanted to play with me, roll, then race around and frolic.  This playfulness is very new for Bo, his current owner hasn't seen a cartoon-y side to him at all before.  I have to wonder if Highboy has been convincing him how fun it can be in all his efforts to get Bo to play with him over the fence.  I got Bo paying attention again and we walked to the round pen, where I turned him loose and he could play without building up too much speed because it's a smaller area than the arena.  He just jumped around a little and mock-argued with Cole over the fence, then settled down to do his stretches.  I'm really pleased with the physical changes I'm seeing in Bo now, as well as his temperament changing to something more playful and happy. 

Llama Day

A friend of mine trains mustangs and rides with them all over the west in the Makeover competitions.  Her newest mustang, Diez, needed a little camelid practice for his upcoming competition in California, and since my neighbors have llamas and alpacas we were happy to oblige.  I took Taz, my quietest client gelding, on the ride in case Diez needed moral support.  We rode from my place past the alpacas, past the gigantic tree trimming trucks and the chipper, down the road and through the field to get them to their group lesson at my neighbor's place.  Once we had dropped them off Taz and I turned around, trotting through the fields and making our way home.

Letting Diez check out the location prior to mounting

Quiet at the alpacas

Quiet on the road

Quiet arriving at the barn

Taz and I delivered our charge safely to the destination!

Headed home

Proof I was there, too.

Bo's Taping

Dr. Landes came out on Friday to see Bo and was really impressed with how much better he's doing already.  Much less reactive to the ulcer points, overall less body sore, so we didn't treat him with acupuncture or laser but chose to give him some more time in his current program before re-treating.  Bo's next recheck will be on the 24th with the rest of the horses.  Dr. Landes and I agreed that Bo needs more time to recover, get comfortable in his body, and be moving correctly before we start eventing conditioning, which is ultimately what his owner would like to do with him.  This is to make sure that when we get to conditioning, we're strengthening the correct muscles and not the compensatory muscles.  I did put kinesiotape on Bo Friday afternoon and we walked over poles in hand in the arena, but he fatigued fairly quickly.  He began hitting the poles regularly with his feet at about 10 min. instead of the half an hour he was doing without the tape.  I removed the tape on Sat. since it also changed his resting posture into a more uncomfortable stance, more similar to the posture he had when he arrived.  These were fairly subtle changes, but definitely significant.  His system is not ready for that kind of stimulus yet, which he told me by his body language.  The reaction to the tape is a reminder from Bo not to push him too hard too fast.  I'll give him some more time before I retry that, in the meantime I'll increase the difficulty level of his pole work but keep using the bells.  All good progress for the guy.  He also got his feet trimmed this week and now has much more balanced barefoot hooves which will give his nervous system and muscles better information about where he is in space and make it more likely that he will use the correct muscles.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Cute overload of the day: A six year old girl had her first riding lesson with me and Cole this afternoon. I explained to her about taking a deep breath before you ask Cole to walk or to halt. When I told her she was good at breathing she replied, "yes, I do breathe a lot." Then when discussing scheduling of further riding instruction, her mother asked her how Tuesdays would work. She responded, "well, I do have school on Tuesdays, but I could come afterwards and that would probably work well." Love it.

Centered Groundwork with Sparky

Yesterday I had my first opportunity to work with both Sparky and her owner in the same training session.  We began with some basic techniques from Centered Riding, to put ourselves and the horse in the right relaxed mindset for communicating effectively.

There are four basics in the Centered Riding program, and I often incorporate them into riding instruction, training horses, and especially ground work with a horse.  Sparky with her heightened sensitivity and great intelligence is a classic example of a horse who needs her handler to be very self-aware and calm.  Breathing is particularly important, since in her sensitivity she cues dramatically off of the human's breathing patterns and body language.  Her owner and I began by working on our own awareness of where we hold tension and how we breathe.  If the human is breathing quickly or shallow, Sparky will do the same.  Fast irregular breathing stresses her out, and makes it much harder for her to concentrate because she interprets the quick breathing as a danger indicator and it puts her on high alert, making her distractable and frustrated.

To start, the owner and I both found our "centers", also called the center of gravity.  This can be found by placing one hand on your belly, with your thumb on your bellybutton.  Your hand will be quite low.  Then you place your other hand on your low back, across from the first hand.  The space between your hands is where your center of gravity is located.  Anatomically it's a little higher in men than in women, but you can change the height and stability of your center of gravity merely by thinking about it.  It's a weird phenomenon but it works.  Once the space between our hands was mentally located, we both practiced some deep breathing, with the exhale moving the hand on our low back.  Breathing is a beneficial practice for a lot of reasons.  (I had a 6 year old girl come for a lesson today, and when I told her she was good at breathing she replied, "yes, I do breathe a lot.")  For Sparky it's important because she needs her handler breathing deeply and staying balanced to keep her attentive and calm.

Once we had located centers and developed some deep diaphragmatic breathing, we "grounded" our feet.  This is a process which essentially draws your brain's attention to where your feet are in space.  It's done by locating a spot on the bottom of your foot, and stimulating it with a specific series of tapping.  This spot is called the "bubbling spring" in Tai Chi, or for those who are more biomechanically oriented it is  a nerve bundle that is the balance point for your foot.  By doing this "grounding", the brain basically "wakes up" your foot, or becomes more aware of the balance point in your foot.  Grounding the owner's feet caused her to have a much greater awareness of her entire body, and increased her ability to perceive her posture.  These are very important things for working with Sparky, because she is so super vigilant with regard to her handler's balance, breathing, and posture.

We had a great session in the round pen for having done some of this horseless work on ourselves first.  Sparky was much calmer and slower moving than normal, and it was a direct result of us humans being more centered and stable in how we communicated with Sparky.  The owner's homework was to practice breathing, centering, and grounding.  All these things will be our foundation for improving the owner's communication and relationship with Sparky.

How You Know when You've Domesticated the Horse

Many days I have definitive proof that we have domesticated the horse.  I find all of the horses lying down at the same time taking a nap in the sun with no one awake to watch for predators.  Today was particularly endearing, as Cole and Taz usually are arguing (well, mostly Cole does the arguing), but today I found them asleep on the ground together, their noses only about a foot apart.  Garmin was down with them, too.  Samson looked on from nearby nodding his head in resignation, as though he had advised them to lay off the booze the night before to no avail and now his herd is sleeping it off.

Garmin, Cole, and Taz asleep while Samson supervises

Highboy