The Continuing Adventures of Choctaw Lily
Lily standing tied quietly in front of her paddock. She has the large run in shed behind her all to herself. No more photos for this month, just a lot of thinking...
Her coat is quite fluffy and very nice and soft. Even when she seems soaked through from standing out in the pouring rain all day, the underside is relatively dry. There are longer hairs that the water runs off over the shorter, fluffier ones. She has a large run in shed with a thick bedding over the concrete floor, but chooses to stand out in the rain. Go figure.
My favorite so far is Bill Dorrance's book, True Horsemanship Through Feel. Reading it was like having someone express in words how I have felt about horses since I was a kid. Of course, he goes into much more depth than I *ever* could. What a treasure it would have been to spend time with a horseman like that. I would really like to find someone I could work with locally, even apprentice with. Until that time, I will learn what I can, where I can.
My goals with Lily are to progress gently and softly as fast or slow as she can go. So far, I have found her very responsive and forgiving at the same time. I know I have already made mistakes with her, but that is the only way to learn. I am just thankful that I have a horse with a great disposition to learn on. She sometimes fills in for me or lets me know if no uncertain terms that she doesn't like what I am doing.
Today, I put the only saddle I own on her. It is a lightweight, treeless cloth saddle from India. I bought it off a for hire horse when I was there in 1986. She had already had a circingle on, so the girth was not new. We went for a walk with her wearing the saddle and she did not even look at it until we got home again. One turn back and sniff and that was it. She is so easy. She did not even worry at all, even when I tightened up the girth, wiggled the saddle adjusted the saddle blanket, etc.
Lily is better on circling me than she has been. I tried to start with lunging on a 30' lunge line. She did not understand to stay out on the circle. I realised that I was asking for too much in one step, so I am leaving that for later. She will walk and trot in both direction in 25' circle (I walk in a small circle with a 10' lead), halt and wait for me to come to her or come to me when I ask. We are also working on standing still. She ties really well. I can leave her for 10-15 minutes at a time tied short to a sturdy fence with no fuss. She also is fine with walking over a tarp. So these are the sort of things we are doing.
One area we still have farther to go is handling her head. She tends to pull away when I go to brush her. And she always has mud above her eyes from rolling. :) So next is head lowering practice and being calm and still while being handled. Everywhere else is fine.
On our walks in the woods, she sometimes gets frisky and starts to pull ahead and push on me when I try to slow her. I think she actually learned this from me as the first few times I held on to her mane and let her pull me up the hill. It was fun, but probably not the wisest thing to do! It necessitated some retraining later to slow and halt and respond with some distance between us. I like it when I can hold the lead about 2' down with it draping and have her respond. That is the feel I like. :)
I had someone at the barn ask me today about my "philosophy." It made me stop and think. What is my horse handling/training philosophy? This is someone who handles Lily a few times/week for turnout and feeding. She asked me what I do when a horse does something I don't want them to do. I realized that it is not always the same, but depends on what he/she did and what is a balancing action on my part. I started to think about how hard it is to teach people this sort of thing or for that matter, to learn it from someone else in a weekend clinic. There is not really a formula for me. Like, do this when the horse does that. I just wish that I could work with several horses a day and really get lots of practice on this. The horse is the real teacher here, but I have to be sensitive and responsive enough to know what is going on for the horse. I like Dr. Deb Bennett's phrase "100% okay." That is when the horse is with us and we have "feel." :)
I guess this is something all new horse owners go through. I am slowing down on this as I really don't need anything but a halter right now. As far as saddles go, she has a lot of growing to do before I think about buying one. I was a tack junkie before I had a horse, now it is worse!
The vet took one look at her and said, "She looks like a bred mare to me." Great... We went back to her paddock. He tranquilized her and palpated her. It was strange seeing her so wobbly on her feet. Luckily enough, she turned out not pregnant! Whew! I think she would have been okay, but better not to have stressed her young body with growing a baby. My summer would have been very different too. Make that my year(s)! It was not something I was ready for. In a few years, maybe.
I also got to ask him some questions about feed, feet and such. He said she looked in good weight and that I should just keep up with what I've been doing. I forgot to have him take a look at her teeth. I remembered the next day. Not that anything is wrong, I just would have liked to have him explain where she is in the whole teeth growing process.
All in all, a very interesting day.