Horses ARE my cure

Hello, update here for yall

So, Ive only doen 2 of the patterns so far, touch it and figure 8’s. We are in the middle of moving our house and shop so no time for play… Touch it is good to use on my LBE because i can send them really fast and then ask for their attention really fast by having something for them to stop at. Doing this with hay or an obstacle has really worked with my filly, Jojo. She gets real snotty during the allow so having something for her to concentrate on is really great.
Yesterday i went out and had a great liberty sessions. It started out with me just doing some undemanding time but Jojo was a bit frisky so off we went. We were running all over the place and eventually i had her trotting to me with her ears forward and both eyes. It was great! She would run off and I would get her attention and back up and ask her in and she would come! it was so cool! Then Cherokee joined in. We moseyed to the back of the pasture and I did a few squeezes with him over a log. Im trying to get him more responsive to my body language so we did a lot of half squeezes (stopping w/ zone 3 over the log ) and did some grooming. JOjo had run off to the front of the pasture and was trying hard to get my attention. She was pawing at barrels, standing on things and just looked at me like “come on! i want to play!” But i waited and eventually she gave up and came trotting back over to join us lol Then Cherokee and Jojo then did a joint squeeze. So cool! I cant wait to be savvy enough to play with 2 horses! I walked off and Cherokee followed but then exploded and ran up to the front of the pasture. Of course, Jojo followed. I stayed behind thinking this would be a great chance to work on my draw. So first i just walked around (both of them were watching me) and then i sat down and then I laid down. That caught Cherokees attention so he just HAD to come over and check that out. They came over and we just stood around for a while. JOjo then started playing dominance games with Cherokee really close to me so i sent her off. They ran back to the front, turned and looked at me lol So i crouched on the ground and waited. Cherokee came right over running lol We then moseyed back to the front and i was walking around with Cherokee following me. He got distracted and stopped following me. I got about 15 feet away when he realized i was not near him. He bucked, farted and ran toward me. I realized just in time to pick up my carrot stick and send him to a barrel. He went, stopped, touched it and looked at me wanting his treat lol
Jojo and I had a good roll to.
When i went back to the house all 3 of them were waiting at the gate, ears forward watching me go. They did not leave untill i was in side the house. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?

well thats it,

Karie

So ive found out that the key to all of my horses hearts is threw food and play. Magic is mostly food but she likes to play too. But with Jojo and Cherokee its mostly play as long as there is a reward for good bahviour. So during feeding time ive taken to creating more draw and send by playing the catching game and then sending them to a pile of hay. Cherokee and i were actually doing this at a trot the other day! And Jojo was so intuned that she was actually waiting for me to back up and re-send her. How cool!

On a funy note, during feeding time Cherokee HAD a habit of eating his food and then checking out Jojos bucket. We used to tie them up when feeding but ive decided i can handle them with out them being tied. Anyways, Cherokee was walking toward Jojo, i ran over to him and gave him a “you better not!” look. Of course, he did so i gave him a warning to get his head out of that bucket. No good so i had to go to phase four. As usual that got his attention and he ran off bucking. I drove him back to some hay and pet him. The next day he tried this again. At phase one he stopped, turned on his heels and went to a pile of hay! how cool! He was so fast and atheletic in the way he moved! now if i can only get him to do when I ask!

Lets start out with dry vs. mud. How does it affect your playing?

Me? I find i play better in non mud enviroments. Same with the horses. And let me just say, the mud has been CRAZY here. Some parts are about a foot deep! I got a taste of predator frustration a few days ago during a session with Cherokee. I hate it when i go RB… The mud was not that deep but it was half dry so it was like a thick paste. My savvy string kept getting stuck in the mud (i would go to use it and find that i had to REALLy tug) and ive been having a lot of problems dealing with my LB dominant gelding, Cherokee. Lots of attitude on his part. Ive realised that I need to get better at dealing with the horse that shows up. Cherokee loves to pusch you around but is very sensitive. This is something i need to remember more often because sometimes i wipe the look off his face too hard and get a “why did you do that” look… Im trying to better my horsemanship, my patience and play drive. I need to be more playfull and creative. Anyways, back to the mud. It rains here heavy about 3 months out of the year so ive decided that untill my horsemanship is better and I have a better partnership with Cherokee I wont be attempting much play during the wet months unless I have a none mud surface to play on. Im tired of setting my self up for failure and feeling cr@py afterwords… Im sure the horses will apreciate the undemanding time, too.

The other topic of todays post is playfullness vs. dominance. This is related to Jojo, also a LBE who has been giving me some snotty faces lately. See now, what I tend to do is look at the snotty face and think “what am i doing, why is she doig this” and i completely block out “what am I NOT doing” Turns out i was in a way letting her push me around. This behavior is magnified when food is brought in to the picture so that’s where Ive started working. Usually i go in to the pasture and Jojo walks behind me, with a snotty face. Kind of like “go faster!” And I usually ignore it and have her back away from the food bowl and wait until i say so to eat. Well, this just was not working! So, i pointed to her bowl and drove her in front of me fast. Kind of like “if you want to go faster, then let me help you!” The first day it was like “WHAT! well this is what I think about that!” and she bucked and tossed her head and ran around. When she gets to her bowl she has to back up and wait. Its been getting easier every day, yesterday she actually ran off (bucking of course) to her bowl with a simple hand gesture. This morning she bucked once and calmed down pretty fast. What ive discovered is that I cant cure dominance in a LBE by saying “dont do that” but by matching playfullness with playfullness  while still being assertive and not letting her push me around. How interesting! And boy am I seeing the rewards! She has a calmer, softer look on her face after eating, is starting to follow me with her ears FORWARD again and turns and looks at me with just a look at her HQ!

Oh, and Jojo has a new trick. Its actually an old one, just refined. After eating she goes and picks up her bucket and brings it to me lol She has even discovered a way to keep it from falling out of her mouth! when it slips she lowers her head and puts the bucket on the ground and pushes it back in to her mouth, while still moving!She also has this adorable little habit of going, getting a bite of hay and then coming back to me to finish it lol. When she is done with that bite she goes, gets another one and comes back! how cute is that!

Something i just realised while typing all this down is that I am only as playfull as my enviroment. Ive noticed that if I dont have toys then I end up making the session boring. Not just by not having something for my LBE to play with but because my imaginations stops when the toys dissapear. How interesting!

Jojo has been doing so good at driving at liberty. She used to just shrug off but ever since getting more assertive she is listening a whole lot better. She will back up at phase one from the carrot stick so thats a nice tool to have with a pushy LBE horse. I was walking around and she was following me so i thought “hey, why not get her to do some stuff” so I squeezed her over a log at liberty. Magic was on my side so Jojo did not want to come back over so I directed her to go around the log (about 10 feet of log for her to go around) and she did! I started walking next to her and asked her to trot and she did! Now, she is a LBE so she could not help but throw a few bucks in as well. Playfull horse. Im usually a bit timid of her energy, especially since I got on the wrong side of a playfull kick and could have broken my leg… Anyways I stopped, she stopped a few feet away aswell and turned and looked at me. It was such a great feeling to be able to get her going and shut her down just as easy. What was really cool is that i was able to build enough energy in my self and she listened to the carrot stick so well from about 6 feet away from me on the other side of a fallen tree with branches! Talk about having my socks blown off!

When walking back to the fence I noticed Jojo putting her ears back like she did not like something. I stop and next thing i know Magics face is in my face. Jojo was acting like that because Magic was glued to my back and I had not realized it lol I knew she was walking with us but I had no idea she was that close.

Ive learned a lot these past few weeks and one is “DONT BORE THE LBE WITH SLOW TASKS!” Something that is harder for me since im more of a introverted type of person. Playing with my sisters hyper dog Roxie has helped me unleash some of my extroverted tendencies. Its so fun to just have mindless energetic fun! and forget about what others might think.

I also learned some interesting facts about geldings and signs of dominance from male horses. Something so subtle that i never really realized it!

Oh,  my Patterns got to my grans house in Pagosa so I should be getting them sometime the end of october or the start of November. YAY!!!!! Too bad i cant just wish them here and they show up… but its worth the wait. Hopefully by time they get her it wont be so rainy.

Tomorrow Apache will hopefully be going to her new home and I will be staying home for 4 days!!! So expects lots of pics, videos of writting some monday!!!

Fellow Savvy Seeker,

Karie