Did someone steal the dynamite?

This morning I haltered the beasts while they were still in their stalls eating breakfast, when they were done they didn't get just turned out into the paddock, but they got offered water and put back. One by one, they came out to the highline again. Same routine, no fireworks from any of the domestics.

The Cisco Kid drank a couple of gallons out of the bucket then allowed himself to be lead to the tree and was promptly secured to the highline. I went over and started messing around with Cracker Joe, just ignoring the mustang except for every once in a while I would go by with a treat. He just stood playing with the rope again. After 10 minutes of fun with Cracker, I decided it was time to raise the heat on the Kid. I took off my long red scarf and started waving it around. I was about 10 feet away to start with and he watched for a while, then started looking sleepy. I moved directly in front of him, waving it from side to side to stimulate both sides of his brain. Pretty soon he was licking and chewing. I held the scarf up to his nose, then started rubbing his face with it. Nothing. I started flipping it around on his back. No big deal. No buck-snorting, no panic, nothing. He looked quite casual. Damn!!! I need a bull whip to start cracking around here!!! What happened to that wacko mustang? Who put this fake mustang in his place??? Well, finally after 20 uneventful minutes on the highline, I unclipped the lead. As if to prove he was no impostor, he spun around on his haunches and lept away. I am looking forward to learning how to ride that spin! It's pretty.

So the fun with Cracker? Well, I tied a couple of slobber straps onto the ends of a lead rope and hooked them to the side rings of his web halter. I sat on his back and asked him to give me his nose around by my knee. The goal was to get the lateral flex from just the raising of the slobber strap. We have a ways to go for that one, but Cracker is a very willing trainee so we had fun.

Billy called from the back of Jemez Dancing - such is the wonder of a cell phone! He said the Wiley Mustang had pulled out all the stops and tried every-which way to get rid of his rider including rubbing him off on the fence. Billy was just sitting on him in the roundpen and not pulling on his head at all. Let'em buck, duck, or bolt, Billy can ride! He used to ride saddle broncs so JD is just a wannabe to him. They rode in the round pen for an hour or so and the report is that JD is coming around. I couldn't tell if that was Billy's pun or not. I requested that he focus on training the Ex-Wiley Mustang to be a pony horse and he said he would start him out ponying the broke horses over at his place before he latches onto any of the broncs.

He also said that Rita was doing well. He was stopping by her corral everytime he passed by and rubbing on her. He tied her up and put a saddle blanket on her. I did notice that he didn't take her halter off.

I have to go to my waitress job tomorrow so they get a day off in the home corral.

Rita and Jemez Dancing head off to Billy's place

Things can change quick out here. Billy Hibbler called up and said he was ready to come get Rita. My hubby called moments later and said he was coming home to go for a mule ride. They got here about the same time. Billy was hauling a little black horse named Troy (because he looked like he could have a Greek army inside of him).

We asked if Billy would like to ride with us; he could ride Jemez Dancing, the sometimes bolting mustang. So we all got saddled up and headed out on the great trail ride. Actually we didn't have a lot of time because the sun was already behind the mountain, so we made a loop around the pond and went down along the Largo. The sand is deep there and it is my favorite place to ride a spooky animal. We followed the sandy bank until the edge turned into forest and we crossed the cottonwood bosque and through some lovely meadows that have yet to be thrashed by the range cattle this year. We turned up through the wormwood and sagebrush and JD tried to get excited about the brush popping. Billy was just riding in a halter but he is a cowboy.

There was something about the light that made the golden mustang look like he was glowing, and he and Billy cut a fine figure. I was thinking of how good they looked together and suddenly I was asking Billy how much he would charge me to take JD home with him and ride him for 30 days. The price was reasonable so I made Billy promise not to turn him into a roping horse and to ride him in a bosal. He said he would only rope off of JD in an emergency, like if he got to the roping arena and realized he didn't have the right horse. He says it makes them really calm.

We emerged from the popping brush on a wide trail and it put us on the big wide sandy Largo road only a mile from the house. We were doing great until a semi truck with a road grader came rattling around the bend. I motioned for them to slow down and they did. These animals live in a paddock next to a road where all kinds of big stuff comes rattling by EVERY DAY, but Chester likes to freak out about big trucks, so he bolted up the cut bank and into the brush. Cracker took about 3 flying leaps past JD and JD saw it was time to ignite the rocket fuel. It was a race between Cracker and JD, but the short legged hinny never had a chance. Billy had a night strap on his saddle and JD ran straight. I was riding an Australian saddle with no nightlatch, so I was fairly apprehensive about the situation. Riding Cracker at a gallop is like riding the side bars on a old fashioned locomotive!! No one fell off and we were all on an adrenaline high for the rest of the ride.

So, when we got back to the yard, we drug a bale of hay into Billy's truck and started loading horses. I already had the halter on Rita, and I snapped on a lead rope. When she arrived at our place, the only way to get her to her pen was pony her off another horse. I wasn't sure she could go all the way with me, but I started walking backwards and asking her to follow. Across the small paddock, through a gate, across the big paddock where the mule tried to nip her neck, through another gate, and into the paddock where the trailer was parked. She did it!!! I was proud of her. She is broke to pony so we used Troy to pull her into the trailer. Then, with Rita and Troy safely tied, we loaded up the still saddled JD and away they went.

JD will come back with the bolt taken out of him. Hopefully he will come back with the skill and discipline it takes to be a pony horse. Billy will do a good job. Maybe he will win some roping jackpots with my boy.

Patricia

Walking Backwards Sometimes

It was kind of cold and snowy, but I made myself go out and clean the stalls. Just being out and about turned it into a lovely afternoon. The clouds went south and the wind stopped. I've started putting my muck pile in a new spot. Last winter I wanted to focus on getting the cottonwood park ready for a lawn, so there is 1 years worth of muck piled beneath the forest. When I have the equipment over here, I will cut down the remaining rabbit brush, spread the fertilizer, and plant some grass. The new pile is going to be the winter base for my new round pen. Well, it's not actually a pen, its more like a 20 meter circus ring. Now there is gravel because it was an old school parking lot, so muck might not be a lovely thing in a wet climate, in New Mexico it will be fine for the winter.

Rita seems to have turned a corner. She is now joining up. I can give her a stern look and she will march right up to me. I pet her and give her horse cookies. I think feeding actually trashes the herd-dominance relationship but for her it might be the best thing. One thing I do when I want them to hook on and go with me is if they turn around I stomp my foot lightly as I turn to go back for them, sometimes that alone will get them to turn back. It also seems to help to turn and face them and try to keep them from turning their heads away. They can follow better that way, but it takes total focus as you have to watch them and walk backwards.

So many people have told me that you never look a mustang in the eye. I am skeptical of this. Mustangs look at each other all the time!!! They look at me. I don't look at them a lot, but I do use my eyes with them. I would like to have seven people to help me do an experiment with this. I would put the horse in a square pen made of two panels on each side. The divisions between the panels would be the boundaries of blocks within the pen. Each pen would have four of these blocks. The blocks would be diagonally assigned to two treatments: Everyone look at the horse if it is in a "all-eyes" block, no one look at the horse if it is in the "no-eyes" block, measure the amount of time the horse spends in each kind of block. I bet the horse actually chooses to be looked at as long as they are soft looks. You could have three treatments: intense stare, soft look, and no look. Well, next time I have seven friends and a mustang on hand, I'll give it a try.

When you are looking backwards, the animal seems to get confidence from your focus.

Reviewing Resistance Free Training

I got a package from Winning Ways today containing Richard Shrake's Resistance Free Training. I recognized immediately that my methods and Shrakes have a lot in common. One of the biggest differences in his fundamental approach is that he uses petting some endorphin-releasing spots as the reward where I use food. Knowing what I know now, I would say to NOT use food for simple domestic horses that have never been taught that humans are never to be trusted. Food overcomes a lot of mistrust fast. My spooky rehabs did not like to be touched to start out with, so touch could not be used as a reinforcer.

I would encourage anyone to study Shrakes methods. He is very aware of teaching the reader better horsemanship skills and his choice of drills and practices is brilliant. If someone follows his guidelines, they will become better set up to be a good rider. For example, he says follow the horse on the longe and step in time with its back legs. He never says it, but if you do this, you will have be leaps ahead in your riding ability.

I can't say much for the production and editing of his materials. His writing style is wandering and there are lots of typos, especially in his Manual. The flimsy mailing package had burst apart in the US mail and it was only by the grace of the post office that it arrived here intact. The dvd wouldn't play the last five minutes of the program. But these issues have nothing to do with the quality of the content, which is first class. And hey, he is a nice guy.

My plan is to work through his book with my critters. I think that his methods, since they are based on positive reinforcement, would be appropriate for mules as well. I tried using the circular motion rub on Rita's withers, but she told me she would rather just stick with the sweet feed for now.

Speaking of Rita -- today's lesson was I dangled the halter by its neck strap and she had to put her head under it and move through to where my hand and the halter were at her poll. We (she & I) experimented with getting her to nose her way into the nose part, but it was not easy with a one handed animal trainer and our failure was not because the little mare didn't try. She will nose into it as a result of learning to find the loop in a rope, but I need to wait until I have a different treat that I can keep in my pocket, instead of grain in a can. To her credit, I can set a #10 can of sweetfeed on the bench in front of her and she knows the only way to get it is to please me. Cans are nice because they are just a bit too small for the equine nose. You carefully hold the can while they explore it a couple of times and they will realize there is no direct access and will not bother it (at least while you are paying attention to them).

It's really cold... supposed to get to zero tonight. I feed them extra when it gets like this. Everyone but Rita has a good windblock. I would turn her out with the others but someone would get hurt. At about 10pm, I will take them all a round of hot bran mash. They will know they are loved. Last year we had an emergency plan for temperatures below -20° of bringing everyone inside. I have a large room with a concrete floor. We practiced going indoors until everyone could handle it. BUT this is not something I have even contemplated with either Cisco or Rita. If they can't stand tied outdoors, I don't think they should be allowed in the house. If I were blessed with a huge pile of money coming my way as a windfall, I would buy panels and stall matting, so that coming in would be an easy option. Well, the universe can send me a check when ever it gets ready.

Yrs,
Patricia

Each in its own time

I have to admit that I actually know how I sabotage my equine training. I am way too erratic and proceed far too often without a plan. Being without a plan when you have one or two animals is one thing. Being without a plan when you have more than six in training is just suicidal. Horses like familiar patterns of activity. Everyday I surprise my critters with some spur of the moment training agenda. This is regrettable. In fact, everyday I think about committing my plan to paper, and some days I actually do it. It takes a lot of time to have it all thought out. Every one of my animals has a weak spot and generally that is what I focus on, barring some group wide training experiment in process. I am going to spend some time getting organized to be a better planner next week when I have to be running the restaurant at Navajo City.

I rarely halter or tie the animals, but I know that I need to force myself to halter them everyday and tie them for at least a minute or two. Well, they actually catch me all day long... any equine that is roaming the yard is likely to follow me around and if I go into the paddock it is only moments before I have an entourage. Normally I clean their hooves at liberty, but when they are all crowded around, it is really quite dangerous to be lifting hind legs, etc. You have to get them one at a time, or at most two. Okay, you can probably do three donkeys if you take turns doing all the right fronts, left fronts, right hinds, and left hinds so no one ever feels too neglected for more than a moment. But now I am trying to force myself to find the halters, put them all on, then work my way though the lineup, grooming and cleaning hooves, then removing halters to signify that they have been processed. Nine halters is a tall order. I hate the buckle on Solomans halter.... I wonder if it can be fixed by bending the catch?

I couldn't get Rita to let me halter her, but we broke it down to smaller chunks. I first just wanted her to touch her halter, then I wanted to touch the halter to her neck, then rub the halter on her neck, then lay the halter on her crest, then dangle the halter over her neck. We got that far without too much stress and quit on that for the day.

Later I went in and wanted to just pet her withers. She wanted no part of that plan. She is funny in that she is hyper dominant and she shies and bolts, but she shows no signs of submission normally. I have tried getting her to join up with round penning, but I never got any signs of submission until today. Today, she was not changing direction when I asked but rather just looking at me like I had a lot of nerve. So I stepped right in front of her, square to her face, my shoulders high and I stomped on the ground. She yeilded the space immediately but didn't freak out in a panic. We had to do that twice before she decided not to mess with me and just follow orders, then she joined up and came in with a humble attitude. Petting withers was okay, and infact it must have felt pretty nice judging by the soft look in her eyes. I am trying to interact with her at least four times a day and she is really starting to come around. Hopefully I will be able to get some antibiotic on that nasty cut on her leg.

The surcingle was too small for anyone so I found another cinch and buckled it onto JD. I hooked the driving lines to his halter and ran them though the surcingle rings and asked him to "walk on". I have seen this animal bolt away too many times, so I am totally shocked to watch him just walk around the lot like a big old draft horse. Actually I couldn't be totally shocked, but I just forget about all the afternoons we spent getting to this state. He was super good and responded to my request for gee and haw quite well. Someday I will feel brave enough to ride him out of the lot. It would help to have someone to ride with. Actually I would like to have someone who rides vaquera doma ride him because he is super light and totally responsive.

Cisco is doing well with his longeing and whoa at the longe-trot. His problem is sideways bolting in a panic, so this is teaching him to face up in response to a pull on his lead rope and the command whoa. He is rather proud of himself. You can see it in the way he comes in for his reward and then prances off in the new direction since we alternate directions after every stop. He has a noble attitude. He is going to be the most awesome horse to ride if he ever gets beyond auto-panic. Hey, if JD overcame auto-panic, Cisco should have no problem. JD was actually abused by humans, where as Cisco has had only the kindest methods of training since his capture from wildness. Except probably he was traumatized by the BLM cowboys since he kind of freaks out about anyone wearing a black cowboy hat. Well, they had to geld him after all. Sorry, Cisco, well get into the funny hat box later in the winter.

Paisley has reached a very exciting plateau in her ground work. She will now dance with you. She will follow your hand around the corral and keep in synch with you whether you are walking fast or running. She will slam on the breaks and rocket backwards if you stop and back swiftly. Paul Dufresne challenged me to get the horses to dance and ride them from the ground without contact. Paisley is well on her way to doing it. I was pretty proud of her when I realized that dancing was what we were doing out in the big paddock running around having fun with each other.

Paisley and Chester wanted a horse treat when I was working with Cracker Joe. They looked so pitiful so I went to the fence and asked them to stretch out. I thought they wouldn't do it for me across the fence and then I could just ignore them as the penalty for non-performance, but sure enough, there they were competing with each other to see who could stretch the farthest. I had to give them rewards. Chester doesn't really get a fair shake, since he is not my mule, I always have reasons not to mess around with him. This, naturally, breaks his poor little mulish heart. He loves to be the trainee and he will do anything for you. He got to get his feet cleaned and I brushed out his short mule coat so he was happy.

The donkeys are mastering the response to "back!" Soloman will take five steps, Tobiah only two. I don't expect Zekey to perform at his age, he just gets the treat anyway. The donkeys all do well with giving me their feet for cleaning. It took months for them to realize that they had to perform for their treats, but now they are open to the concept and we could probably move on to new areas.

It was one of those days when everyone is doing good. The light snow falling was actually heavenly because it provided a sense of intimacy with each animal having its turn.

My advertisement for an assistant is coming out in the Caretakers Gazette. I am hoping that someone who wants to work with equines will land here as a volunteer for at least a couple of months. It's not a traditional horse kind of job, but I dare say that whoever goes along for the ride, will come away knowing something very useful in the rehabilitation of troubled equines. If you know anyone that might be interested have them contact me 1-505-568-9131 leave a message if I am out.

Yrs,
Patricia

Post Thanksgiving Relapse for the Mustangs

We were putting in a new woodstove in the guest wing so I didn't have much time to spend with the animals. I doubt if they really missed me while I was gone to Mom's. On the way back, I picked up a new kind of horse treat. Rita spit them out.

Both Rita and Cisco had relapsed in their training. Rita snorts more but Cisco snorts just as loud. It's not a nice horse sound and it almost always means that the horse is about to exit the vicinity. They had a hard time coming up to me. Cisco wouldn't allow the rope to be on his neck. Rita wouldn't let me pet her right side. Isolation is generally prescribed and then you have to just spend enough time with them that they remember that the human is the source of all good things. Within 10 minutes they were each sticking their heads through the rope loop and letting me scratch the scary part.

This week, Cisco gets to try something new in the way of learning to tie. I picked up a surcingle at the Socorro pawn shop. After he consents to wear it, I will run the lead rope through a side-ring and tie it to his tail, with just a slight bend to his neck. He can jerk his head back and bolt, if he likes, but it won't get him untied. The surcingle will ensure that the rope stays along his side and doesn't get tangled under his feet or flipped over his back. He is not going to like it. But, I will have stepped out of the corral and it will be between him and his tail.

If it works well, I think Rita will be due for a treatment too.

Yrs,
Patricia

Learning Disabled Mustang

This posting was stuck in limbo yesterday when the server went down.

This morning, I posted something to the BridgeAndTarget group on Yahoo.

I have a new mustang to work on. Rita is 2 years old and was captured when she was 1. The first owners, who have other horses, had no luck with her and she was given away to a trainer that usually does well with very broncish horses. He had no luck with her and so he said if I could get her to settle down, she was half mine. I didn't want her, but I saw the opportunity to learn something new.

She is about 12 hands high, has a stout little body and a bulging forehead. She panics over most anything and doesn't respond like a normal horse to natural horsemanship methods. You can't keep her with other horses because she attacks them.

I was browsing through Linda Tellington-Jones's book that has stuff about horse personalities and it showed a horse with a similar but less pronounced head profile. Linda wrote that horses like that were usually learning disabled and impossible to keep with other horses because of their aggressive tendencies. She said it was probably a good thing that the horse in her example had been put down. Yikes!!

This got me very curious so I looked into a couple of other books with horse phrenology stuff in them. Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling has a category called the "Peasant" where Rita would fall. Hempfling says they are extremely difficult but can be turned into general riding horses if you are willing to take the time. The old time head profile books all have very negative things to say about horses with her lumpy face.

Not knowing that I had a learning disabled mustang, I have been out there doing bridge and targeting with her. She is doing just fine. From panic scale of 10, she is now not going any higher than a 7. I think this mare really needs the control that operant conditioning gives her. It may also be that those kinds of horses have more brains (hence the bulging forehead) and can think for themselves, so they are
unmanageable. More like a donkey with a big panic button.

I don't know, but I will keep you updated as we go along. Right now we are learning "neck", "shoulder", and "face" and targeting a rope. She has a really big cut on a hind leg, but there is no chance of getting near it to doctor it, until she lets me touch that part. I have cut back the quality (but not quantity) of her feed since she is a tiny mustang and can survive on almost nothing, so she will be keen for
those rewards.

Yrs,
Patricia

This afternoon, I had a follow up:

The more I work with this mare, the smarter I think she is. She learned to stick her head in a loop of rope in about 10 minutes. She was willing to let me touch her neck, her shoulders and her face BUT ONLY WHEN I ASKED TO TOUCH THE SPECIFIC PLACE FIRST (Lucky for me, Kayce showed me this!) She never freaked out today and only snorted when I was reaching for a body part I hadn't asked for.

I took off the halter she has been wearing for a couple of months and gave her a good face rubbing. She really liked it.

When I return the mare to the cowboy, he might not appreciate her learning style. I think I will train her to stand on a pedestal so he can't pretend she doesn't know anything. He'll have to start out by getting soft enough to get on her pedestal. Or maybe I can find her a better home. You never know what will happen next.

Yrs,
Patricia

New Mare in the Corral: Rita Mae

There is a little liver-colored mustang mare in the ox-pen corral. She arrived this afternoon with Billy Hibbler. He has had her for a while and not had the time to get her past her wildness, so she is a resident in therapy now.

We started out with a little work towards conditioning a terminal bridge. I edged up to where I could feed her some grain while I was standing facing the other way. She was snorting, but she must have had grain before because she sniffed toward me like maybe I wasn't a mountain lion after all. I said "X" in my normal voice and she bucksnorted and hit the pipefence on the other side of the corral, falling down in the process. Next time I managed to get close enough to feed some grain, I merely whispered "x" and gave her a handful. Pretty soon she was standing and waiting for me to say X and dip her out some more sweetfeed. Good start.

She is going to be my experimental animal for ESCT (Equine Stress Control Therapy). My new manual arrived today and we are going to see what it will do.

The good part about this mare is she is really little. Cisco the mustang came over to sniff her across the fence. He is 16 hands tall and starting to fill out. He looks like a monster compared to her. Her old name was Bugsy..... that just isn't going to do it, no wonder she acts like she is buggy and bug-eyed! I think I want to rename her after my best friend, who sometimes goes by the alias Rita Mae.

More tomorrow,
Patricia