Month: January 2020

There are some downfalls to having your horses at home and one of them is mud.  I knew winter rains would bring some mud but didn't it to be quite like this.

In this photo, Beege is having a big yawn from possibly processing some major thoughts about being alone (without Odin the Mustang) for a little bit or we might've finished up some clicker training in his dry stall.  I gave him a little porch by flopping a stall mat over the entrance so he has an outside place to hang out that isn't mud.  There are non-muddy options but he has to travel through mud to get to them.  The same is true for Odin's space.  Hopefully this summer the mud will be mitigated.

So how is the equestrian journey supposed to continue during mud season when the footing is treacherous so most groundwork and riding are out of the question?  My solution is this book:

The very first lessons begin in the stall or a small, enclosed space like a paddock.  Both my horses enjoy this training and I can do a few minutes every day simply to remind B to calm down and O to respect my space.  These are perfect training sessions for wet, muddy, short daylight days and they both become interested when they see me setting up a potential new game.

With a weather forecast like this:

I see a lot of small exercises, which is relationship building, in the near future.  And when it's time to ride again, that relationship building will mean a lot.

The other day I mentioned in this post that I had listened to a Horses in the Morning podcast episode in which Mary K Kitzmiller answered my written question about trailer loading.  She had great advice and helped me figure out where to go with Odin, which I practiced yesterday.   She also had some great not-to-dos about which I immediately felt guilty but then realized that now that I know better, I will do better.

One thing MKK said was that if he doesn't want to get in the trailer, don't punish him by making him move his feet.  Remembering back to a recent session where O didn't want to get in the trailer when I did ask him to move his feet, I felt guilty.  And he did get in the trailer and we got to go for a trail ride that day.  He also got back in the trailer after the trail ride without any fuss.

Thinking back, I wasn't punishing him by asking him to move his feet.  He was kind of rattled by the training (I had him over threshold, which is not the goal) so I allowed him to move his feet in a safe place away from the trailer and I wanted him to move his feet in a way that wasn't just running around and bucking.  I wanted him to engage his brain rather than feel like he was running away from A Scary Thing so I asked him to change directions, jump up a little terrace, and when he was ready I asked him to transition down to a walk then halt.  My goal was to make sure he was with me and listening to my cues.

My next goals are to work with him in such a manner that he doesn't go over threshold, so that we don't have to move his feet.  I may ask him to move his feet in order to make sure he's paying attention to me and can follow simple cues such as move your shoulder, move your haunches, be soft in the rib cage but I think that most R+ (positive reinforcement) trainers would agree that doing a little ground work now and then to check in is good horsemanship.

Here's a 54-second video of my R+ work with O on Saturday.

B has lots of yawns when I bring Odin back up to the barn.  Often we go up front to work on the gravel driveway and away from his lounging area.  Up front is out of B's sight.  At first he protested loudly and frequently.  Now he protests a little and less frequently but clearly O's absence gives B a lot to think about.  In fact, B was yawning when I fed breakfast this morning so I'm not exactly sure what happened during the night to give him deep thoughts.  Maybe he was still pondering that he's okay in spite of O's temporary absence.  I really don't know.

It's hard to see but I have B's right front foot wrapped as he's had a deep abscess that is taking a long time to heal.  The vet was out about 10 days ago and dug a little channel for it to drain then wrapped it in layers of poultice, vet wrap, duct tape, padding, elastikon, and more duct tape.  This muddy area between his stall and his lounging area isn't ideal for his fragile feet but it's what we have for now and this layered wrap stays on for several days.  He very well could be feeling better because this morning he went for a roll, a buck and a fart before returning to his breakfast.  The buck and fart lifted my heart a bit.

In yesterday's post, I mentioned some advice I received from trainer Melissa Deal about treating him for ulcers.  I couldn't find a source I liked for the product she mentioned so I reached out to a multitude of sources and started feeding him a little bit of slippery elm (one of Melissa's suggestions), Redmond Daily Gold, and am waiting for Ultra Guard from Smartpak.  At first he didn't like the slippery elm so I disguised it in his dinner with soaked beet pulp. He seems to like the Daily Gold so I will likely keep that one.  What I'm hoping for is to reduce or eliminate all his bodily dysfunctions so that his brain can work.  How many of us have clear thoughts when we're distracted by a belly ache or sore foot?

When you take too many big steps and things are still difficult, it's time to backtrack.  I found myself dreading trailer training because Odin doesn't like it and I don't like him not liking it.  I don't like backtracking either because it takes me further from my goals.  Or does it?

Recently I've been perusing my sources of horsemanship advice that make me feel positive.  I listened to an August or September episode of the Stall and Stable podcast, in which host Helena discusses adding "The Compassionate Equestrian" to her reading library.  During the episode she interviewed Melissa Deal of Victory Land Dressage located in North Carolina.  Their discussion was about compassionate equitation and how it can help you achieve your horsemanship goals.

The timing was perfect since frustration was definitely keeping me from my horsemanship goals, not only with Odin the Mustang who is my riding horse, but also with my retired thoroughbred, Beege.  I signed up for one of her virtual lessons and was immediately surprised by her first suggestion, which was that Beege had ulcers.  I was surprised because he's been retired for years so it didn't occur to me that he could develop ulcers (again) from just ordinary household stress — stress from moving Odin to an adjacent (but different!) paddock, stress from pain from arthritis and a nagging abscess that is taking a long time to surface.  In short, many things stress B out that doesn't stress O out at all.  So I'm trying some nutritional supplements to see if that helps him feel better.  She also gave me a list of 6 basic things to work on, including targeting,  head down, standing on a mat (in one place) — all the things that horses need to learn before they can move on.  And she gave me a realistic number of times that the horse should be successful at these exercises before moving on.

I also realized that in my own library I have a positive reinforcement book by Alexandra Kurland that lays out this foundational training in a step by step format.  The virtual lesson plus the book helped me have a great day with both my horses yesterday.  I found a kid's lacrosse stick at the Goodwill the other day, duct taped the head to make a hand-held target.  Both horses really enjoyed that lesson.  Also, from Goodwill, I found some bath mats that will serve as stationary places to stand.  O prefers to pick them up and shake them but he gets the idea of standing in one place.

And finally, I listened to an episode of Horses in the Morning podcast, in which Mary K Kitzmiller answered my written question on air about helping O be comfortable in the trailer.  He gets in fine but doesn't like to stay in.  The short answer is to let him out if he wants out and ask him to get back in.  Eventually, after 100 times (or maybe 1000) he'll realize it's okay and be fine with staying in.

The hard part for me is knowing that doing this 1000 times is going to take about 3 years but if I attempt to coerce O into the trailer it could take a lot longer, maybe never.  However, I'd rather be a compassionate, positive horseman than a frustrated, anxious one.

Some day, not long from now, it won't be January any more.  The mud will dry out, I won't worry about the horse trailer getting stuck, about O losing his footing on the squishy surfaces and it'll be safe to ride again.  For now, it's January, it might be raining, or snowing and freezing, and that's just the way it is.  Thankfully January doesn't last all year.