plant

If a Haflinger was a plant, what kind of plant would she be? Maybe a fern? A Venus Flytrap? An Hibiscus? I don't know, but Shyloh seems to grow a set of roots whenever it is convenient for her. Sometimes, those roots seem to take place right on my foot!

Today started the day of lunge lining. Beth gave me some feedback for the horse that will try anything to get out of using her rear end. And lunge lining was part of the solution. And I can't stand lunging. Part of it has to do with my lunge line. Upon its purchase, I had bought it to color coordinate with the lunge whip. . .a pretty turquoise, because matching is the most important part of equipment, right? My pretty turquoise lunge line is thick and heavy and not suitable for my clumsy self. It makes it hard for me to wind and unwind as I am using it. Luckily, Kathy had a nice, light, lunge line for me to borrow. 

I took Shy to the round pen to get started. I opted for the round pen over the arena because the round pen is outside and it was so nice out. I warmed Shy up, then attached the side reins (brought out a notch) and did spiraling at the trot in each direction. I felt Shy did good, she kept up a nice forward motion and she looked good to me, but she still needs to get more impulsion. 

After our session, which wore me out more than her, since I had to keep driving her forward, I decided to treat her for a walk down the street. I thought it would be nice to get away from the barn. . . it had been a while. I forgot to take into consideration that Shy has never walked down the street by herself. We have always gone with a buddy. 

I am a trillium!

So, off we went. . .for two steps. And Shy planted herself. I got her moving for two more steps, then plant. Two steps, then plant. It was frustrating, but I was bound and determined to make it to a certain point down the road. 

This was our end point!

We finally made it. . .after Shy planted her self to watch every car pass, near and far, planted herself to sniff the road, planted herself on my foot when climbing up a ditch to check out some corn, and planted herself in the middle of the road just for fun. 

This road looks like a good place to set roots. . .

Corn! And a bit of grass.

The way back was a different story, of course. We had no problem going toward the barn. Shy was a dream with a nice pace, no planting, and no spooks. But there were not any spooks on the way out, either. Yay!

On a mission to get back to the herd!

When we got back, Kathy asked if we walked two miles. . .um, no! Just to the corner and back! I guess planting is much preferred to bolting, though!

ground poles in the round pen

Here are two short videos of Shyloh going over a set of ground poles. . .

This one is with no side reins.

This one is with side reins attached.

Any thoughts? I notice (since I have seen the whole thing in live action) that she seems to keep a more forward trot without the side reins. She also seems more willing to go over the poles. I am thinking it might be because she is using her head to help balance herself over the poles. 

With the side reins, she hits the poles a lot more. Not sure exactly what that means. . .

But, on a more positive note, we did hills the other day and they seem to be getting a whole lot easier for Shy. We did five sets, which we ran pretty much continuously. . . which means not stopping on the top of every hill to see all the land.

Is this the beginning of some muscle??

Look closer. . .

Stop looking at my butt!!

Anyway . . just more of the same, alternating between ground poles and the hills. Hopefully I will have a book review soon, as soon as they get in! And some new exercises to try.

the hills are alive . . .

I spent the weekend on the beautiful west coast of Michigan for my friend's wedding. We stayed at a wonderful Bed and Breakfast, it was so cute. Wrap around porch and balcony, dainty little library under the stairs, gorgeous grounds. . .it was a dream! The reception was also at this B&B and the wedding took place on the beach of Lake Michigan. It was quite the mini-vacation for me and Mike.

On to Shyloh. . .Based on previous experiences of me not seeing Shyloh for a number of days in a row, I was under no impression that I would be warmly greeted with nickers and neighs. Shyloh did not disappoint. As I went to get her in the pasture, this was her response as I called for her. . .

I got a bigger greeting from Robbie :(

I brought Shy in so I could groom her and get to work on that rear end. And of course, Shy had somehow managed to get hurt in my absence. 

Somehow, it is on the inside of her left rear. This is after I cleaned it up.

I warmed Shy up in the round pen, with her new saddle pad. She was not impressed. After a few warm up walks and trots each way, I stretched her legs out.

Now she matches her boots!

Then we moved on to the hills! Hills, hills, and more hills! These hills are not alive with the sound of music, though. Just the sound of mini horses and dirt bikes and cows. But, I got some video. 

Does it look like Shy is using that rear end? After that, I hosed her rear end off and started bringing other horses in and feeding them. It is getting dark noticeably earlier now. Sad face. 

We are sticking to the plan of hills and trot poles until I can see some improvement in her rear end. Then we will take it from there. Does anyone know how long it takes for a horse to build muscle?

Long legs on the shadow photo!

king of the mountain

Or princess of the hill. In all my blah-ness, I often can't see the big picture. But thanks to the uplifting comments and suggestions from Carrot Top, Martine, 4RRanch , Camryn, Dreaming, and Danielle, I pulled myself out of my self-pity funk and put Shyloh to work.

I dragged some poles out the the round pen. I set a single pole up and a set of three up on the opposite side. What an hilarious disaster to start with! Here is my drawing of the initial path Shy took. She acted like she had never seen a pole before and refused to go over them!

Can you follow this? Try this pattern times 3!

But once she got over herself, she was great! I had Shy do a ton of trotting in each direction and I could see her working her rear end. Being able to see makes a huge difference to me.

Work it!

Work it real good!

After that, a light bulb popped over my head. Dreaming had mentioned using the manure pile as a hill,  but it is not high right now and it is so yucky. But we do have asphalt hills!

I am still not sure what they are for, but hey, we were gonna try them out. Shy did go up them once with a tire half attached to her!

Shy surprised me by actually going up the hills without much problem. I could tell she was really working herself to get up the hills so we did not spend much time on those. These options were much more fun than being in the arena!

Climbing up! We can do it!

At the top! Made it! Tallest Haffie in all the land!

In between hills, she wants to take the short route.

At the top of the tallest hill!

We did the hills again another day and Shy is getting more and more comfortable with them. We can go over all three hills without having to stop at the top and survey all they land around us. The first time we did the hills, we did a there and back, there and back. I counted that as two sets. The next time we did three sets. I plan to keep increasing our sets to work those muscles! And bonus. . .it is a workout for me too!

Princess of the hill! She can keep an eye on all she owns from here

Gotta go down down down down. . . 

Shy went to the other side of the mountain to see what she could see. . .dirt bikers.

because you can't get enough

. . .of the super exciting round pen videos. Right?

Here is the video from today. We spent a short time in the round pen. Shyloh did not seem up to it today. Definitely not the canter-y and buck-y Shy from last time!

How does she look? I have my suspicions, but I am not sure if I am being extra paranoid or what. . .Chiropractor comes tomorrow. . .it seems like forever away.

Wind in the mane!

Also, I need a clone. It is so difficult to take pictures and video while I am trying to work this horse! I need my own personal recorder. Ha!

I wanna stay here and eat grass! I promise I was not pulling hard at all!

semi at liberty

After working with Shyloh on the mat clicker training the other day, I just knew that there had to be a better way. While she did stand on the mat, I had to prod her, and tap her legs, and basically make her get up there. So I did some research. . .and I found this website. Aha! I just knew that there was an easier way for Shy to learn the mat!

When I got to the barn, I got Shy ready for our clicker training session. I even used a handful of grain - a prime treat - to reward her behaviors. I kept her lead line attached and called it semi at liberty because another horse was working in the arena and I wanted to have something to redirect Shy with if she lost interest or got distracted. 

Holy what a difference Batman! I clicked Shy for stepping closer and closer to my new mat, a piece of wood I found at the barn. Being the curious horse that she is, this was an easy task for her. Click and treat. Then when she put a hoof on, click and treat. Then went she put both on, click and treat treat treat! No whip, no pulling, nothing. It was all on Shy! She was doing it because she wanted to do it. Awesome!

My apologies for the video. . .heads cut off, sunlight gleaming in. . .I could have chosen a much better spot to practice! And all of Shy's smiles got cut off.

When she started pawing at the mat, I would walk her away and start over. It was so much fun to watch her work through what was wanted of her! Of course, she went through her repertoire of tricks, checking to see if each one was the desired behavior to get her the precious grain. It was amazing when she finally got it! I stopped our session and gave her a break.

Then a while later, I went back to it, giving Shy even more freedom. I sat at the mounting block and clicked when she chose to step on the board all on her own! Yay pony!! But then Beth got the hay cart out and Shy was highly distracted and kept trying to walk out of the arena. So I had her stand on the mat, clicked and treated, then put her in her stall. I am so excited about this new work we are doing! And so glad that Shy is figuring it all out. 

In off-ness news, I think the news is good. I put Shy in the round pen with just her halter on and had Beth watch her. Shy walked/trotted/cantered/bucked! Ha! Beth did not believe that she ever bucked! At a slow trot, Shy was slightly off, but Beth also noticed that she seemed to twist herself a little to compensate for something. And with her canter to the right, she would often switch up her back leads. But when Shy had a nice forward trot both ways, she was fine. Then Beth had me tack her up with the surcingle and side reins. Immediately, she was off. But not off off, if that makes sense, more like a guarded off. We are back to our initial thinking that she is protecting any would-be pain by stepping short because she is using muscles she is not used to using. When she is without tack, she is able to compensate by using other muscles. 

So, the new plan is to round pen forward trots and walks with the side reins and not use transitions. Let Shy know and feel that forward movement is not painful and work the muscles that she needs to do those movements, while still keeping a close eye on her for and more short tracking up. If she does well with that, then slowly move on to transition work. 

I feel good with this plan, as Shy has no heat or swelling in any legs, hooves,  hips, or back. The chiropractor comes out Monday and I will double check the plan with him and get his opinion on her status. Whew!

monday musings by shyloh #50

So I was in my pasture, just chilling with Robbie and looking for scraps of grass to eat. . .

We are cute. And the same size :)

. . .when Allie showed up and tried to get me. At first I was like no!! and ran, but then I heard the *crinkle* and stopped. I let Allie put the halter on me and she gave me my peppermint. Yum.

The Allie tried to walk off with me. Magically, I grew a set of roots. Ha! I was not moving! I knew what she was up to. . .she wanted me to work. And clearly, I was trying to eat with Robbie. After a couple taps on my butt, I took a few steps and rooted myself again. Ha! I did this all the way out the gate and into the barn.

I guess I was not sending my message across clearly, because Allie continued to tack me up in my round pen gear. When she was done, she tried to get me out of the groom stall. I was firmly planted in place. Ha!

The threat to get my "best friend" aka the dressage whip (not to be whipped, but to be tapped until I move) was enough to get me moving. Even if Allie does not use the whip for evil, I still hate it!

Once we got to the round pen, I thought my time would be better put to use grazing than walk/trotting. Allie disagreed and tried to get me moving and I tried to convince her otherwise by not moving. 

Stand and stare

She really, really wanted me to do all of this (but faster and with more enthusiasm). . .

Believe it or not, but I am actually moving in this photo. 

And I really, really just wanted to do this. . .

Darn side reins prevent my grazing!!

Allie won and I was forced into physical labor once again. I had to walk and trot and walk and trot and walk and trot. Then switch directions and do it all over again. However, if I had to trot, I was going to make Allie trot, too. And if I had to canter, you better believe Allie was cantering, or whatever the two leggers call it. She says she is trying to get ME back in shape, but frankly, I think she is the one that needs the workouts!

But once I got started, it was not too bad. I am real good at round pen work. And we did it together. Ha!

I am quite the good looking Haflinger! Although Allie needs to wash my mane. It is not quite the blonde it should be.

When I got done, I got to eat my dinner hay and rest up for the night. Rumor has it that I have a show coming up this weekend!

Excuse me. . .I'm still hungry!

i'm lazy

Really. I really think that is the real issue with me lately. I am just plan lazy. Even though Shyloh's hips and withers were sore, I could have been working her in the round pen or on the lunge line. But I was being lazy. I can come up with a million reasons why: tired from work, tired form working at the barn, tired from thinking of all the housework I have piling up. . .but it just comes down to the fact that I am lazy.

Much easier to do this with Shy than actual work. . .

Today, I pulled myself out of my lazy funk and worked Shy for about 20 minutes in the round pen. Yay us! I am really hoping that next week we can get a consistent ride schedule between Beth and myself. I am hoping Beth can work Shy to put time and miles on her to boost Shy's confidence. And I asked Beth for lunge line lessons so I can work on my position and balance on Shy. And finally get that trot down. 

I warmed Shy up with some walk/trots in both directions, with just her halter on. Then I put on the surcingle, bridle, and side reins and did some more walk/trot work. I worked a lot on transitions. Going left, she was able to transition smoothly into the trot, but going right, Shy often gave her little hop up into the trot. Ugh. But then considering we have not really worked on it, Shy is out of shape. But she did do exceptionally well at reading my body language, so that was a plus.

Eat Shy's dust!

After our little session, I loaded up all the tack on Shy and she became my pack horse back into the barn.

Carrying all the tack!

Tacking her up, I noticed that Shy, yet again, scraped her head. What does this horse do? I swear she gets more surface scrapes than any horse I know!

I promise it is there! Just really hard to see. It is right on the edge of her blaze.

We are on the second clutch of barn swallows. This little guy was not able to fly back up. He was so cute! So me and Kathy put him in a tree by the barn. 

The goal is to work Shy in the round pen Thursday and possibly ride. Possibly. . .

foiled again. . .

The question being, who was foiled? I think Shyloh was foiled, then in retaliation she foiled us, but eventually we got the upper hand and foiled her! Finally, I hope. So today's score is Shy - 1, us - 2.

For today's lesson, Beth had a plan. Well, Beth always has a plan, but Shy works very hard on upsetting the plan, so the plan is constantly changing. The plan is to address Shyloh's scooting. She scoots into transitions, she scoots when too much leg is used, she scoots when she doesn't want to do something she is asked to do. I should have named her Scooter. 

Beth has concluded that Shy is scooting to get out of using her rear end properly. She is not used to using those muscles and is fighting it every step of the way. So we started off with some round pen work. With side reins. The purpose of the side reins was so Shy was not able to raise her head and scoot into her transitions. This was to encourage her to use her rear end. It was also teaching her to accept the contact of the bit so she would not evade it. The hope was that this would translate to the saddle. Another plus of the side reins was that Shy couldn't dive for grass. Woot!

Beth set them on a loose setting to get started. Shy was not pleased. I swear she was glaring and thinking hateful thoughts at us. Then the side reins were tightened a bit. Shy was even more upset. When asked for a canter, she almost bucked out. She thought about, almost did it, then for whatever reason, decided against it. 

Shy is so unbalanced at the canter, she will often pick up the correct front lead, but the wrong back lead. After she was able to do it correctly, Shy was done in the round pen and I saddled her up.

Our hopes of round pen to saddle translation were dashed. Shy started scooting all over the arena as soon as Beth put some leg pressure on her. To Shy, leg pressure means go forward NOW! We are trying to teach her that leg pressure can mean other things. After our initial disappointment, Beth had a idea. She went searching through her plethora of equine related gear and pulled out a German martingale. 

Beth explained how it was used. Similar to the side reins (which are dangerous to ride in), the German martingale encouraged Shy to use her rear end by not letting her head pop up for the scoot. When Shy held her head in a rear-engaging position, it released pressure. Beth said that she would not be riding long in this; since it was forcing Shy to use muscles she has been avoiding it and did not want to over do it. Beth also stated that the German martingale was not something we want to rely on, but just to get Shy to understand how she needs to move. 

Shy actually did very well in the German martingale. Only one small scoot. And Beth discovered that Shy is able to do lateral moves. So lateral moves will now be part of the training regimen. I am going to have the fanciest trail horse out there! 

dressage pony

Shyloh had her second dressage lesson today. It was another great lesson. Beth makes it look so easy to ride Shy that I just want to hop up there and get going. But then I remember that I have no idea what I am doing and we would be a disaster!

Beth started with doing some in-hand work with Shy. She attached some side reins to help Shy get into her headset and worked using her hand in the place that her calf would be as the inside leg, while keeping contact with the outside rein. Funny thing: Shy is such a stickler for the "rules" that she went fine when Beth was on the "correct" side of Shy, but when she moved to the other side Shy refused to move! Beth was gently tapping her with a dressage whip, which when used on the other side sent Shy into a boot-scooting frenzy, but on the "wrong" side, Shy would not budge! After quite some time, Beth got Shy to move those legs.

Once Beth got on Shy, she commented that the groundwork relaxed Shy and they did not go through the normal tenseness that Shy does during a warm up. Shy immediately worked on dropping her head, smart pony!! But once Beth asked to to pick up the trot, Shy had a much harder time lowering her head.  They worked a ton on walk/trot transitions. Shy needs to learn to use her rear and work muscles that have not been in use. 

Beth also tried to post the trot, but Shy had no idea what Beth was doing and it was making Shy nervous, so Beth just sat the trot. The fast trot make Shy tired quick, but she kept working and doing what Beth asked. By the end, Shy even managed to work up a slightly damp girth area. I swear it takes a lot for this horse to sweat!

Here is the video I put together of the lesson. Beth said Shy has done 80% better today. She likes the thinking work that dressage offers. Shy likes to figure out what Beth is asking her to do. I am glad we decided to try this route with her!

The hard part for me is learning the dressage vocabulary. I do like the way Beth explains it and I like how Beth is using a more classical and European approach. It is much simpler and does not use all those crazy contraptions to get the desired results. She takes her time and makes sure Shy is getting one concept before moving on. If Shy is having trouble with something, like lowering her head at the faster trot, Beth breaks it up into smaller steps so that Shy is successful and is able to put it together. It is really amazing to watch! 

Can you see improvement by the end of the lesson?

a lesson

Our lesson today was really good! I learned a ton. . .but I think, most importantly, I learned that Shyloh already knows all this and completely messes with me.

I made a comment yesterday that I do not have to fully groom Shyloh before my lesson, I just want to run a brush over her and pick out her feet. This was because I scheduled the lesson right after work and I was not sure how much time I had to bring her in and groom. Well, I came to the barn and was greeted with this. . .

Muddy pony! Eyes are closed in pure pleasure of making me work!

Never before has Shy rolled outside in the mud! And it was still wet mud, yuck. It is clear that she heard the words "lesson", "work", "tomorrow", and "5:00" and she was trying her hardest to make things difficult for me. Or she has an episode on animal identity disorder and thought she was a pig.

So, I groomed Shy up as best as I could and tacked her up. Discovery number one, which explained the majority of Shy's behaviors on the long lines. . .the bit was backwards. Dumb me! I had a feeling it might have been, but I was not sure. I corrected that and got immediate results later in the lesson. Discovery number two was that Shy's brow band is too small. Not overly small, not painfully small, but snug. Apparently she has a freakishly weird shaped head. Her forehead is ginormous!  I guess I am in the market for a new brow band. 

Now that the bridle was corrected, we began to lunge. Shy did pretty good on the lunge line and we worked on her transitions. They are rough. Not smooth at all. Beth (she is the barn owner/lesson giver) wanted to try side reins to see how Shy did. We were not sure if Shy ever used them. Beth found some pony side reins (grr! she is NOT a pony!), and attached them. Shy was a bit apprehensive about what was going on, but it was mostly because she does not like Beth that much. It's true and Beth knows it. But it is mostly because she does not spend much time with her aside from feeding and turning her out. Discovery number three was that it appeared that Shy has used them before. She was fine with them being on her and responded very well to them. Beth kept the side reins very loose and explained to me the reasoning behind using them for Shyloh.

Discovery number four was that Shy has really adjusted to the routine of being inside at the barn. According to her time schedule, if she was brought in from outside, so she should be fed. Every time we went past the arena doors, Shyloh made an attempt to stop and stare out the door in longing for her dinner. We trotted her on the lunge line in both directions until she decided that she was not going to stop. She must learn to listen to me, even if she thinks she is hungry (though very clearly she is not!). 

Next up, I attached the long lines. I got a much better response now that the bit was correct. Discovery number five was that Shy is much more responsive when I am correctly positioned and when I keep my hands close together. And that was an accident! I had looked down to make sure my hands were the same distance on each long line and put my hands together and her response was amazing! We worked on turning and straight lines, then we did trotting. Again, Shyloh is very extreme in her transitions. Ask for a trot and she takes off. Ask her to stop and she puts on the brakes. So, when I asked for the trot and she took off, the bit was pulled and she stopped. So we worked on easing into the trot and back into the walk. 

By now, she just knew that she had hay waiting for her to eat  (in reality, Beth had not fed yet) and pretty much only had food and getting out of the arena on her mind. We must have attempted the trot past the arena doors a million times before she did it without stopping. Finally we did succeed, with the help of a driving crop. Just having it in my hand was enough for Shy. Then we ended on a good note.

Shyloh has too much attitude for a little girl! I call her the most compliant horse with the biggest attitude. Shy does what is asked of her, but she will sure let you know that she she not happy about it. An evil eye here, a tail swish there, a toss of the neck. It is quite funny! We have a bunch of things that we are going to work and a direction that we need to head. I am glad I took this lesson and I look forward to another in a few weeks to see how we have progressed!