Horse Buddies

We’ve had another excruciatingly hot summer in Phoenix, It’s been over 110 for the last week, so needless to say neither Fiona nor myself have been in the mood to due much. I have been getting to the barn between 6am and 8am most days. I am usually done by no later than 10am. It is just too hot for me after that.

Fiona has been hanging out with her horse buddy Cinny this week. Cinny’s mom is out of town. I am very proud that she can go out with another horse and hang out without being a complete pain or acting up. Most the time she moves Cinny around by following him and bobbing her head or pinning her ears. He is a very willing pawn in her little game of 2 piece chess. Today I was lunging them and she got too close, too fast and he threatened to kick her. He didn’t do too badly for an old man; he is ~27 years old. She started to “make better decisions” after that. J

She is pretty much healed up from her episode in January where she ran through the streets of Mesa like a meth head. Her soles are still not 100% recovered and still a bit thin. I got her some Easyboot Back Country hoofboots and they definitely help. Exercise is critical to getting her hooves to grow and the boot help her be comfortable enough to work.

Our riding lessons are going great. She is actually getting tired toward the end of them, which is totally new. I think she had too many months off and it is taking her a bit to get back in shape. Same for me, I am learning to canter all over again, which sucks because it wasn’t easy for me to learn that this first time. Hopefully it will come back quickly. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a leisure time activity. We don’t have a schedule to keep.

I REALLY want to do the games at Red Mountain Stables Open House this fall. Even if it is touch and go on the spooking, I think we need to do it. It will help my confidence and hers. I was all set to do it in the Spring, but then we wrecked in January and well..that was the end of that. Everyone cross your fingers that we make it to October unscathed.

Fiona and Cinny hanging out (Fiona is on the left in all the photos):

Fooey, stupid plastic bag......

Here's a new video but first a quick update: Fiona and I are both doing well. We started riding lessons again with the new goal of HAVING FUN!!! I am a co-dependent capricorn, so trying to get me to do things "just for fun" is right up there with asking me to change my eye color in terms of do-ability. However, we are going to give it our best shot, let go and just see how things turn out.

This video really shows how fast this horse has come...she was alittle...reactive before. :) Enjoy!

Progress and Communication with your horse

First, I did few quick follow-up videos on Fiona's recovery since our crash in January. We are both doing great. All healed up and ready to rock and roll.

After the accident, Fiona had thin soles. I am including the XRay's in this post.

What you want to look for is the thumbtacks and look how close the tip of the thumbtack is to the white part/bone. There should be WAY more space between the tip of the tack and bone.

I was thinking the other day about how my ability to communicate with Fiona has improved over time and also how this progression is similar to the progress we've made in communication in general throughout history. It used to be that writing a letter and transporting it was one of the only ways to get a message to someone. This often took months, if the letter had to be sent by ship or horseback. Then came the telegraph, this sped up the transmission but was limited to only a few locations at which a message could be sent. Then came the telephone, then email, then cell phones, etc. Now we can communicate from anywhere in the world and get our message across the globe in an instant.

The progress made in communicating with our horses takes this same type of trajectory. If you start out as a green owner with a green horse, the communication is slow and not very clear. The human can't read the horse, the horse doesn't know what on earth the human is asking them to do. It's a mess and it takes a long time to work out. Then, as the human gains more knowledge and the horse starts to feel of the human, communication takes less time and can even happen over long distances. The funny part is, you can even go "wireless" by doing at liberty work with your horse. I really like at liberty work because if the horse is scared and they decide to run, I am not attached to them, which gives me a feeling of freedom and security.

It's a powerful feeling when you can make one small movement or noise from across the arena or roundpen and your horse responds. I look forward to continuing my work with Fiona and learning how to better communicate with her. Everyday things get better for both of us and she trusts me to lead her through the scary human world.

Here are some videos of her in the arena:

John Lyons and Cardboard Fear (yes seriously)

So I got this great idea to measure Fiona for hoof boots. I decided I wanted to put her hoof on top of a piece of cardboard and draw a template so I didn't have to mess with trying to measure her hoof while holding it. Also, you can slide the cardboard cut out into the boot to see if the shape is close, etc.

I brought my piece of cardboard to the barn, thinking "Oh this won't be a big deal, she walks wooden bridges for crying out loud" Well, I was wrong. I think the introduction to the cardboard started out ok, but I screwed it up.

Fiona looked alittle concerned about the cardboard and the piece wasn't that big, like 16" X 10". So rubbed in on her shoulders and body until she kind of got used to it. Then I tossed it on the ground in her stall. BIG MISTAKE MOM!!!

She flipped out and started running around her stall to try to get away from it. UGH! So I got her to calm down that day around it but didn't try to do too much to fix the issue. That was like a week ago. Today I went back to "fix the problem". Good lord, 3 hours later I did get her to step on it, but she was making me work for it and I was returning the favor.

It was a long and uninteresting process, but I basically let her loose in a small roundpen and set it in the middle. I let her loose because I have learned that I don't like being attached to 1000 lbs of crazy and it hones my timing and direction skills. We wasted about the first hour, while she was teaching me that it's a good idea to get the horse paying attention to you first. She was blowing my off, like a fly on a semi truck. Once I really got on her and made her start working, then she came around and finally would stand near it but I didn't have the confidence or the skill to get her to stand on it without a halter on her. So I halterd her and lunged her over it and then finally made some tight circles around it until she stepped on it for a few seconds. She lurched off of it, after those few seconds, but I let her go back to her stall. She worked really hard for that step.

I got some VHS tapes (yes I know it's lame) of a John Lyons Symposium from my aunt and uncle in Vail, AZ. Aside from all the FABULOUS HAIR, the information in the videos is really great. The first couple of hours he is breaking a arabian mare (go figure right). He works this little horse pretty good, but he does this demonstration where he makes the audience stand up while he is talking and "forgets" to tell them sit down, well...eventually most of the audience sits down on their own. He uses this as an example of how eventually a horse, even one with a lot of energy, will calm down and start listening to what you are trying to teach them. That was a really good lesson for me. I sometimes think Fiona is just going to keep going and going forever. There were a few times today where that happened. She just wouldn't give in and she was convinced that leaving was the best option. But, eventually she "sat down". She decided running was looking like WAY more work than that cardboard. Even if she didn't stand on that cardboard for 15 mins or even do it in a calm way. She did do it. Eventually everyone sits down, good lesson!

Another positive note, we did ride again. It was a short ride in the roundpen, but no wrecks. Actually there were no issues at all. She was a little stiff at first, but we worked that out and she rode like she always has.

Bad first follow-up.

Here are some pictures of Fiona's damage. Her right front shoulder got the worst of it.

Her front legs got some minor cuts, nothing big

The vet is coming tomorrow to unwrap her back leg and determine if more work is needed there.

This little horse is tough though. She is acting like nothing is even wrong. I saw her today and she looked at me like "Are we going riding? Come on..let's go!"

Another really bad "first"

After what happened yesterday, whether or not I am rescuing this horse *might* be called into question. :) We took our first ride off the property even though I still felt in my heart it was a little premature, I thought we'd make it back in one piece and we did....sort of.

Fiona started out the morning in a pretty foul mood. It took a bit to get her saddled and for me to get on. Once I was up, she was a little fussy but settled down pretty quickly. We hacked out with a new acquaintance from the barn who is a calm person and GREAT with her own horses. She rides bridleless and bareback all the time. It's really cool.

The ride outside the property was mostly wonderful. We rode across the street and into the desert on state land near the farm. She was calm during the entire ride in the desert. We went over small washes..around bushes and even trotted a little on the way back. She likes to trot out of dips! It was like she was just born to be out there riding. It was CRAZY!

When we walked back across the street and headed to the park to let the horses eat. Fiona spooked going into the park and bolted. I had her circling and almost got her stopped when she spooked at a grate on the outside of our circle and she leapt the opposite direction to get away from it. I just couldn't stay with her and I came off. I hit my right back/hip really hard on the ground and sprained a finger trying to keep hold of the reins. The scariest part for me is that Fiona took off, in the wide open near a street.

I went to the ER in an ambulance. I don’t have any broken bones just LOT'S of pain and swelling. So I am fine.

Fiona decided to turn this event into Tour De Mesa and ran about 2 miles before the police fenced off an area to keep her in and the woman I was riding with and some wonderful man caught her. She is cut up really badly. She ran through a barbed wire fence and fell a couple of times it looks like. She managed not to get hit by any cars which is just a miracle because the entire run was on main streets until she went through that fence.

To say the least, I feel AWFUL!!!! We are both lucky to be alive. You might think that an event like this would cause one to give up or walk away or set lower goals but my emotions are exactly the opposite. I want to get back in the game and keep working toward our existing goals. I am sure that sounds insane to some people, but it really is that important to me. More importantly, I still think we can get there.

It will probably be a week or two before we are both back in fighting form. I am walking pretty slowly and Fiona will need time for her stitches to heal up, but we will be back at it soon.

If I can give someone advice based on this catastrophe it would be: "Never go against your instincts. If you have an inkling that you are not ready, then wait until that feeling is gone."

Wow, what a difference a summer can make!!

So, this summer in Phoenix, AZ has been the hottest, nastiest one we've had in a while. It's not been easy to get out to the stable and do the work that really needed to get done with Fiona. I mean I am from AZ, born and raised, and this summer almost did me in. We were over 110 for 30+ days. Not good!

Despite the weather, Fiona and I have taken HUGE strides forward. I was hoping to have a lot more pictures and video to share at this point, but we are were we are with that. I have a few videos to share of our lesson this morning. These videos are not very exciting to watch, but the represent a year of some of the hardest work I have ever had to do in my life.

Getting my confidence to a level that I felt comfortable taking Fiona out in a WIDE open space, has taken WORK. I don't mean running my horse sick or running myself sick, or fighting with her everyday, or "making" her listen to me. I mean working on myself. I had to believe in myself on a whole new level. I was so scare of this horse when we started this journey, that I would literally worry myself out of doing anything with her. "She's going to get scared", "She's going to get hurt", "She's going to run away"...the excuses were limitless. I had to get to a place where I believed she could do this and that I could handle the worst even if she didn't make it through. I am still not sure I would have held it together if things really did go wrong, but I was brave enough to try and we reaped the rewards. Fiona and I now have the whole world to explore (granted we will be exploring very slowly at first).

Thank God Samantha Lynch was there with us. Sam is our shining light in this whole process. I know that sounds corny, but Fiona and I were in a very dark place when we met Sam. She has been like our trustworthy and steady guide from that dark place to this sunny park across the street.

Earlier this year, we were trying to get Fiona to do an obstacle course clinic Sam put together. Sam was working her on an obstacle and Fiona spooked and ran Sam down. This was no fault of Sam's, Fiona is fast and strong and just caught her off-guard. Sam dusted herself off, we caught Fiona and got Fiona calmed down. I told the stable owner later that day, "Sam and I are a good combination because we are both too stubborn to stop working with this horse" Boy, was I right! We've just gone slow and steady and Fiona's doing great! I told Sam early on, that I knew Fiona and I were long shot but I asked her to stick with us and we'd make her proud. I hope we have, but if we haven't...it's ok..we are not done yet. We will still make her proud. :)

Here are the videos. Enjoy! Oh and a special thanks to Sprinkles, our escort/guard horse.