And... Exhale.

My new job started this past Monday, which means I can finally get settled into a routine again! For the past month, I felt like I was running at full-speed, with barely a chance to collect my thoughts. Two different jobs (training at the new one while finishing up the old) really didn't leave a lot of time for Gwen. I did get down to the barn a couple times a week, but I was so mentally exhausted we didn't really do anything besides graze/groom and walk around the ring bareback. So our games have gotten a little hazy as a result. When I've got it together, she's great. But when I can't remember what's up and what's down, we go to pieces.

But while we might not be on our A-game in the games-department, our relationship has REALLY gotten great!  For the past week and a half, Gwen has started meeting me "half way" when I go out to get her from the turn out. When I get close enough for her to see me, I'll give her a little 'Hi pretty girl,' call. In the past I might have gotten an ear flick. Now I'm getting two eyes, two ears, and a lifted head!  I've begun making it a habit to really slow down my pace, and kinda lumber (exaggerating my body sway, to look more relaxed and less predator-stalking). It started at 10 feet; I was lumbering my way towards her and she took a couple steps in my direction. Next day it was further, next day further. Now, I can stop about 15-20 feet, and she'll walk the rest of the way to me, and follow me back to the gate without needing her halter.

But today I got one of the greatest rewards to date. All those past times, there was nothing contesting her attention. Today, there was hay on the ground. I noticed as I walked out that they had been fed recently, and figured this would be a day where I'd have to halter her to get her to the gate (since all previous times when hay was involved, she had no interest in walking away from it). To my complete and utter astonishment, she LEFT HER HAY and met me "half-way" and then followed me back to the gate! I couldn't believe it! I am so amazed, and really, really touched by this. It was awesome!

Since my new job is literally across the street from the barn, I'm going to try to visit Gwen every evening. On those days when I don't get out until after 6, I'll probably just make it a quick trip, with some grooming and undemanding time. On the other days, when I have more time in the evening, I'm going to start pushing myself to get back on track as far as our games/play sessions go. I've gotten really lazy, and it's time we got back at it. I really want to pass our level 1 online, and for that we need practice-practice-practice! Me especially. I need a ton of work when it comes to being OK with people watching me. I didn't realize I had such a problem with spectators, but clearly I do. Whenever I even think someone might be watching us, Gwen starts acting like she has NO CLUE what I'm asking her to do. And I know it's my energy that's got to be getting to her. Time to get over the stage-fright!

In the mean time, enjoy pictures of the new baby at the barn!! He was born a week ago last Sunday. In these pictures, he's only two days old!

Sooooo cute!!

Baby! And mama's leg!

Look at that face!

Pretty blue eye!

His mama is a foundation-bred Quarter Horse named Slate. His daddy is a sorrel paint named Bandit. You can't see it in the photo's, but the coloring on his legs is actually a shimmery silver color! Unfortunately, he'll probably lose that as he grows up, and it will either turn black, or go gruella. He's so freaking adorable! And he absolutely loves people. They recently opened up his stall, so he's got a double-sized area. He gets let out into the arena with mama at least once daily, so he can run around and kick up his heels. When he's a little bigger, he'll get to play with he OTHER baby at the barn (who is a month or two older than him, I think...)

J

Fun Times!

I definitely did not intend to wait this long to post again! But, a ton has happened including... a new job! Hurray!  And with the new job comes a pay raise, double hurray!! I'm so excited! Not only is my job LITERALLY across the street from the barn, but I'm making more and will be getting regular raises which means, with fingers crossed, I should be making enough within the next two years to buy Gwen!! So that is my goal: save and work hard, and be able to purchase my pretty mare by summer of 2014. It's a lofty goal, but I have faith!

Speaking of Gwen... I did get down to the barn two Friday's ago, with the boyfriend and a camera. Of course, as soon as you put the horse, and the person (me) in front of a camera, we promptly forget everything we ever knew about anything. Our circling was terrible, our backing was terrible, our yo-yo was terrible, our touch-it was non existent... seriously, it was sad. I was embarrassed, and very very humbled.  It was bad enough that I've decided not to post the footage. Not out of vanity, but because I feel like it's a really poor example of what we're capable of. When the camera is not involved, we're so much better.

I know all of our "problems" that day were due to me. I don't consider myself camera shy, but there were a number of factors going on that day that were "new". It was the first time my boyfriend was watching us, and it was the first time we were being video-taped. I wasn't nervous, but I guess I felt a little pressure to show-off how good we are. Gwen certainly reacted to it, though not in a performance-enhancing kind of way. It was a bummer, since I was kinda hoping to video my Level 1 audition... but obviously we need to work on keeping our cool under pressure. We called it quits very early on, and went back to grazing.

After that terrible Friday session, I came home and thought a lot about what went "wrong", and also how to work on Gwen's attitude toward being ridden. I decided that I was probably asking a bit much of her all at once, and that breaking down the steps might help. So I really broke it down. On Monday, after grooming, I looped the lead over her neck and hoped on bareback, and then just sat there while she got to graze on the patch of grass by the turn-out. And that's all we did. I sat, she grazed. It was great. When my butt finally couldn't take any more (she's kinda bony...) I slid off, brushed her down again, and then turned her out.

Tuesday was a rinse-and-repeat kind of day. More sitting and grazing, and that's it. I didn't even touch the lead-rope. It was there purely for safety reasons. It's kinda fun to sit on her while she grazes. She gets to eat and doze, and I get to practice balancing myself on a horse once again. I haven't ridden seriously for almost ten years, and my body has changed so much since then (gained a little weight, balance has shifted, not fun). It was harder than I expected for me to just sit/move with her while she grazed, and keep relaxed and not tense up. especially when she shifts her weight to one extreme side. 

Sitting and Grazing!

Wednesday I did it again, lots of grazing and sitting, and balancing. I introduced some very minimal requests (such as moving away from the fence, or moving out of the bushes) but nothing too demanding.  Then I was gone Thurs, Fri, Sat and Sunday due to personal and work obligations.

So today was my first day back at the barn. I decided we'd riding in the arena today. I looped her lead around like I normally do, and then we walked over to the arena. We weren't the only ones riding, but it wasn't overly crowded. I spent a good five/ten minutes working with her on the ground first. We did some flexing, a little "standing and doing nothing" with the friendly game, played a little touch-it. And we did all this while I was wearing my helmet, and she had the lead knotted around her neck like I usually do when I ride. Everything was feeling really good, especially after our long hiatus from playing any games, that I decided to give riding a whirl. I hopped up on her, spent some time standing and flexing, and then asked her to move off at a walk and follow the rail. If we had been alone in the arena, I wouldn't have cared about direction, but as it was I had to make sure we stayed out of the way of the kids having their lesson.

We weren't perfect, but we did SO MUCH BETTER than every other time I have ridden!  I got direction changes without much complaint/argument. Only once or twice did I really have to be persistent about where we were going, otherwise she followed my suggestion very nicely. I tried to stay as relaxed and loose as I had been those earlier times (the sit-and-graze days), and made it a point not to ask her to do anything with my leg, since she seems to dislike it. I found that if I ask for a turn/direction change with both reins (as opposed to just direct-reining) she does a lot better. I am by no means an accomplished rider, but I think we did pretty well today! I'm very optimistic, and would like to continue riding her a little bit each day.

Happy horse after riding! Yummy grass

J

Riding.

My relationship with Gwen has hit a snag. Or, rather, I've found a snag in our relationship. On the ground, we're doing fantastic! Way ahead of where I thought we'd be, after only two months (Has it really only been two months!? Wow.)  I can tell by the way she reacts and responds to me when we're in the turn-out. When I walk up to her, she stops eating, gives me an eye and an ear, and pays attention to where I go. When I start to walk off, she happily follows after me without any pressure on my part. I simply have to start walking and she follows. This is beyond amazing to me, and the fact that it has now happened consecutively, means that I know it wasn't a fluke.

We're doing amazing on-line. She's attentive, happy, and willing to do what I ask. I rarely have to go beyond phase two, and we're fine-tuning our phase one. She'll walk and trot in the circle game, going off voice-commands alone, and we're working on canter with amazing results (she's been fussy about canter in the past, but this is not something I'm concerned about as she's making gigantic leaps forward each time we play, and I'm confident that what I'm doing is helping her be confident at all three gaits). She Yo-yo's like a champ, is yielding her forehand reliably (if a bit touchy on her right side still) and will touch just about everything I lead her up to, including the dreaded bridge (which I actually got her to walk over today, yay!). 

We've been doing SO well, in fact, that Monday and today (didn't have time to be at the barn yesterday) I decided to take it a step further and start riding again. Nothing fancy, just looped the lead around her neck and hopped on bareback. Monday, all I did was lead her to the mounting block, hop up on her off-side, and then we just stood there. Literally just stood at the mounting block and did absolutely nothing (well, lots and lots of friendly game while on her, but that's it). When I was ready to hop off, I asked her to move a few steps away from the block and then dismounted, and we ended on that.

Today, after a on-line, I got on her again. This time, I did not use the mounting block, but instead mounted off of the bridge. This was a non issue, though I think I surprised her, as I've never mounted her without the block. As soon as I was on her back, it's like I had a completely different horse. I'm so bummed out.

She gets defensive, locks up, super tense, makes really grumpy faces (that persist after I've dismounted until I've "rubbed" them away), doesn't want to move. I've touched on this in the past, when remarking about her behavior when I'm on her back, so this was nothing new. Previously when I've ridden her, she's displayed annoyance at my legs. What I mean is, when I ask her to move off of leg pressure, she tends to tense, and swing her head around to "bop" my leg with her nose.

Knowing this, I decided to adopt an approach that involved absolutely no leg pressure whatsoever. Since she goes off voice commands so well on the ground, I just wanted to use those. Since we were the only ones in the arena, I just left the "reins" loose across her shoulders. She got to pick direction, etc. I just wanted to dictate speed. We did a bit of walking, but when I asked for trot (using voice, and a bit of encouraging clucking) I got the same reaction I used to get with leg pressure; grumpy face, head swinging back toward my legs. This completely stumped me, as I was making sure I didn't put ANY pressure on her with my legs. We eventually got a few steps of trot, but she was so tense and jerky it was uncomfortable, and she was so clearly miserable that I didn't try to move her when she slowed down/stopped.

Instead of trying again, we just stayed parked where she'd stopped, and I did lots of rubbing on her, and talking to her, and finally just dismounted. Her grumpy face stayed until I rubbed on her head a bit, and she "came back to herself" for lack of a better explanation, and became the happy Gwen I'm familiar with. I did not want to end there. I was pretty determined to make some progress with "riding", if just to get her comfortable and happy-faced (or, not grumpy faced at least) with me mounting. So, we played a lot of friendly game with her by the mounting block, and then I did a lot of "leaning over" and rubbing on her side, then swinging my leg over, sitting for half a beat, and then dismounting off the other side. She seemed relaxed enough through it all, and didn't try to move away from the block while I was getting up/mounting, but I don't know if this is "progress" or not.

Basically, I'm stuck. I don't know where to go from here as far as riding is concerned. I'm more than willing to work on this for months/years if I have to, but I just want to know that what I'm doing IS going to help her, and isn't just making things worse. It's as if she doesn't realize that the person that's on her back, is the same person that's on the ground with her. Seriously, it felt like after I dismounted and played on the ground, she went from grumpy to "Oh, it's you! OK, let's play" and she was happy again. Right now, I'm pretty discouraged, and don't even want to ride, because I'm not sure if it's helpful.

This is definitely a plea for help/advice, so if you're reading this, I highly, highly encourage comments and advice. I'm pretty confident that it's something I'm doing. My boyfriend has agreed to go to the barn with me on Friday, just so that he can video me working with Gwen on the ground, and on her back, so I can see what's going on. I will definitely try to post that video, and will be seeking advice/comments/thoughts on it.

Keep in mind that I do not actually own the level 1/2 DVD's yet, and have only see the level 1 stuff that's posted on the Parelli Connect page. Purchasing the level 1/2 is something I very much want to do, and I wonder if it will help out with what I'm experiencing as far as riding Gwen. Is this simply a case of needing to work more on-line? Do I just need to do a LOT of "sitting around doing nothing" on her back? Any advice is welcome.

Thanks for reading,

J

p.s this is not a sleepy face. This is her post-Grumpy, coming back to Happy face. I get an ear, but she's clearly not happy. :(