Long Lining: Transitions

For the last couple of weeks, in between my lessons with Michelle, I have been working on long lining with Jasper with two lines and the bit. Short sessions have been the key, as well as being consistent and soft. I am amazed at the transformation. Jasper has gone from resistant and pushy to willing and calm. I am learning a lot in the process, too. How to keep my hands soft and positioning my body correctly when asking for things such as a turn or transition.
In my lesson last week, Jasper was doing so well, Michelle decided to try some transitions with him. Here he goes from a walk to a trot:

And a nice trot to stop

Even some nice slow to fast trot transitions

And wow, trot with a turn!

I am amazed at his progress. I am this close to getting him under saddle!!

 

Moving up to 2 lines

2 lines

Originally uploaded by cdnmich

 

Things are progressing really well with Jasper and long lining. This video was shot a couple of weeks ago and one week after the previous video (I’ve been a little lax in posting video promptly!) as we advanced to 2 lines on with a bridle and snaffle bit. Notice his spiffy new surcingle and sheepskin pad

He is picking up turns when we ask with less resistance and has picked up really quickly what we are asking him to do. He is still slightly hesitant and stiff in this video but being patient and soft with Jasper has been the key.

 

Jasper Long Lining continued…

Progress is going slowly but well with Jasper and long lining. This video clip is from 2 weeks ago. We moved up to long lining him in the bridle with a bit and one line attached. In this clip we’re giving him the time to figure out what we want (to turn). Eventually, he figured it out!

turn Jasper, turn!

good boy!

“And I’m spent!”

Seriously Jasper, it was 45 minutes,! Mentally, it’s a lot for him, though and that’s why we’re taking it slow.

 

Expo no show

Sorry folks, I didn’t end up going to the Expo so I have no stories or clinicians to report on. Head on over to Nuzzling Muzzles as she has pics and stories from her visit.

I realized I had an enormous amount of work to do. What am I working on ? Well, I would love to tell you and I eventually will announce what it is when I get closer to launching. Let’s just say it’s horse related and I think a lot of you will be interested in it. I’ve been putting my heart and soul and a lot of hours into getting it just right and I’m really excited about it!

I’ve also started riding again and - I’ve noticed that things are jiggling that didn’t jiggle so much before! I’m a little horrified because I work so hard on keeping in shape. I decided that I needed to work on that rather than sitting and watching clinicians probably eating stuff that would make me jigglly -er. So I also chose to mountain bike all weekend.

Went out to see Jasper today and my husband tagged along. It was a cooker today - 93 degrees and very little breeze. Jasper was noticeably sticky so we gave him a nice cold bath and let him graze on grass while he dried out. It was too hot to work!

 

Gearing Up for the Western States Horse Expo

The Western States Horse Expo starts this Friday until Sunday. Although I am a little disappointed in this years lineup (or lack thereof), I am looking forward to seeing some of the clinicians:

Another horse blogger, Tracey at Mustang Diaries, is entered in the Mustang Challenge. She has been training a wild mustang for 3 months and now her and the other competitors have to show their mustangs in various in-hand and ridden work. John Lyons is going to be doing the judging Saturday night. All of these mustangs then go up for auction to the highest bidder ( I must not buy another horse, I must not buy another horse).
Lets all wish her luck! I sure admire her guts….

David Lichman, a 5 star Parelli instructor - which makes him next to God -er, I mean Pat’s level - is working with gaited horses at the show and working with them naturally. I saw him briefly last year and he does some amazing stuff with horses at liberty. But cmon, the mustache? Do you have to LOOK like Pat Parelli too??

Jane Savoie is one of the only english type riders appearing. I have all of her dvd’s but have never seen her in person. She looks like a really good clinician.

Chris Cox - now this should be interesting. On Saturday, his clinic is ‘Colt Starting a Warmblood Dressage Horse’. This is a real western cowboy type dude so I wonder what exactly he is going to be doing with this ‘dressage horse’. Hopefully not calf roping.

Johnathan Field - a Canuck (yeahhhhh!) will be doing natural horsemanship work. This is another Parelli disciple, but the Canadian version! I wonder if he uses a hockey stick instead of a carrot stick. Oh dear, I crack myself up!!
He obviously learned something from the Parellis - he has a 10 DVD set for 500 bucks….gotta love capitalism

I am bringing lots of cash and looking for bargoons. I really need a pair of zip-up dress boots. Yes, I am riding again after a 2 year hiatus! At a farm close to Jasper. I have been riding a sweet 17.2 warmblood with a trot that launches you to Mars! If I can master that, I can ride anything.

And, of course, I will be blogging about the event and each clinician I see. So if you are at the Expo, I’m the one taking notes!

 

Ever Have One of Those Days?!?

Jasper Cantering Nicely

I should have probably just stayed in bed yesterday. I get to the ranch for my lesson and head for the port-a-potty for a quick bathroom break. Unzip my drawers and hear ‘ker-plunk’. Wha? Something fell out of my pocket.
I look down and there is MY PHONE. There WAS my phone to be precise because all that was left were a few bubbles as it quickly sank - I DROPPED MY CELL PHONE IN THE PORT-A-POTTY! GAH!
(Apologies for this if you are close to dinnertime)

AND NO, I DID NOT RETRIEVE IT!
No cell phone is worth that much!

To top it off Jasper was in a strange mood and would not listen to direction. He was pulling on the lunge line and dragging me all over with the ground driving. The complete opposite of our perfect day on Monday. Perhaps he was feeling my discombobulated state!

Ah well, here is a nice clip of Jasper from last week cantering nicely on the longe.

 

Jasper Gets a Massage….

And a mani/pedi, shampoo and cut…okay, just kidding there - that’s what I want!

This clip is pretty cute, his lower lip trembles when he is relaxing, he kind of goes from not sure in the clip to lip quivering, back to not sure…

 

 

 

 

 

Jasper DID get a massage last week. He has had a knot by his left shoulder that has not gone away. Michelle noticed it first and felt it could have been the reason he was reluctant to go in that direction. It felt like a small twig was stuck under his skin - about 5 cm long, thin - and tough. Something needed to be done.

Kat Ripley is a L/SAMP. I had no idea what this was, so I asked. It stands for ‘Large/Small Animal Massage Practitioner’. She has been doing work on an older rescue mare at the ranch where I board Jasper so I asked her to look at Jasper and made an appointment.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first, Jasper seemed a little wary of the whole thing, but at certain parts he would lower his head and his lower lip would quiver.

Towards the end he went into a 2 minute yawn fest. He definitely enjoyed some of it!

 
 
Kat really worked on his knot. Just like when a human is getting a massage, it’s a little uncomfortable when they are working on that knot - but its worth it!

He loved the work around his rear and he promptly pooped when Kat was working on it. She mentioned that horses commonly do that, or pass gas when they are getting massage - - gee, I don’t envy THAT part of the job!

Well, 3 days after his massage, I checked the area with the knot, or I should say the area where the knot USED to be. It was totally gone. I’m so glad. We then had the best session we have ever had.

Don’t you love those times when everything just goes perfect - and nobody witnessed it except you?!?! 

 

Ground Driving Part 2

A while ago, I posted about starting to ground drive Jasper. It did not go well. He kept wanting to turn around and face me. Apparently this is a common problem from what I am reading on other blogs.

For awhile we went back to longeing. Jasper needed to learn forward command better, thus the tough love remedy for awhile there.
Since then, it’s been like a lightbulb has gone off in his head. His attitude is better, he doesn’t get so defensive about moving forward and he tests me much less than he used to.
On the longe he now knows:

• Walk, trot and just added canter into the mix.
• Turning both directions at walk.
• Whoa - he stops on a dime at walk, trot and even canter.

With this positive progress we started back on ground driving and it is going much better the second time around. We started with only one line attached to him looped through the surcingle - no bridle yet, just a nylon halter.

For now this seemed to be less threatening for him. Jasper, being a dominant personality, has had a real hard time with having his head moved around - when it’s not his idea - lol.
So for the last month or so, I’ve worked on lateral flexions from the ground. I remember when I could not even get him to turn his head an inch towards me, well, I used cookies held at the girth area and it worked wonders! Gradually I reduced the cookies. I can now easily guide his head around to both sides.

 

The biggest thing I noticed with starting up the ground driving again, is that he is much less scared than he was previously. We worked up to moving behind him. I would start at his hip and walk around with him, eventually dropping back behind him. There were stops and starts, I would cluck him on or twirl the rope and rather than getting in defensive mode, he would move forward.
Things were going well, so we moved up to 2 lines. He now stops without turning to face us.

I think it had a lot to do with his confidence. He was a little fearful about not seeing something going on behind him. Boosting his confidence by taking a step back, adding in some steps, has worked wonders. It’s a great feeling to see your horse really try! 

We started working on turning around with one line, which took him a minute to understand what we wanted but he eventually got it!

Eventually moving to turning across the arena on both lines:

PROGRESS!!! I LOVE IT!! 

 

Happy Birthday, Jasper!

Me want cake!

Jasper turned 3 yesterday! It’s an important year. He’s growing up, I’m looking forward to this year. I’ll be riding him soon. In honor of his special day, I baked him a cake! NOT! I DID MAKE him a cake, though. Ingredients were oats, molasses and carrot shreds. It’s thick and goopy enough that you can mold it into a cake shape and chill. Pictured below.

My non-horsey husband, bless him, picked up the ‘3′ candle. I could barely set it down in the round pen before he gobbled it up! The cake, not the candle!

mmmmmmm!

And licked the plate!

 

 

Training Update - Jasper Passes the Pinky Test

Jasper and I seem to have gotten over that hump that had me so frustrated. He is paying attention to me more and longeing is not an ordeal. It still takes a bit for him to muster up a trot for me - but I am working on it. He is a draft, after all!

Eyes on me - yeah!

To make things interesting for  Jasper instead of endless longeing, I tried some games yesterday with Jasper that came with this months Parelli dvd.

1. Push a ball
On a longe line, the goal is to get the horse to solve a puzzle, the puzzle being to push the ball. I longed Jasper in the round pen with the ball against the wall. I got him to stop as close to the ball as possible, if he went past it, turn him around and try again. At first he wanted to smell manure, and not pay any attention to the ball. Then he sniffed it. And I eventually got him to kick it for several steps. Sometimes he would push it with his nose.

Is it edible?

He was pretty good! Unfortunately Parellis do not take ~erm~ draft horses into account or the fact that they would rather crush through something like godzilla, than actually play with it. Jasper stepped on the ball, tripped  - and just kept on going. I was expecting the ball to go <POOF> but amazingly, it didn’t!

2. Games With a Gate
Longeing a horse in a circle, past an open gate. This was a good test for me AND for Jasper because it helped with my timing for keeping him going and for Jasper to keep him focused on me and what I am asking him to do. I tried this in the round pen to start and left the door open.  At a walk, I started from the other end and had him head in a circle towards the door and supposedly past it. At first he headed straight for the door and was planning to keep on going to that nice grass! He did knock me a little off balance but I brought him back in and asked for the circle again. He would walk a bit, then try to turn around and head for the door again! Uh uh, buddy. This got a lot of rope swinging to stop him from turning around and continue going. Well, he was going in the right direction now, but now he tried to cut across the middle as a shortcut to the door! More stick waving to get him OUT of my space and back on the circle. I stopped him near the open door and just had him stand there, until he focused back on me.

Me want grass

It took some trial and error but I eventually got him to calmly walk past the door on the longe line without pulling. Good boy!

3. The Pinky Test
Lead your horse around with only your pinky on his halter. It’s not about the pinky - it’s about how light your horse can be.

I would not have done with Jasper if I was worried I was going to lose my finger!  We have worked a lot on leading, backing up, turning both directions. Turning into him into a clockwise circle used to make him very defensive and he would throw his head up. Now he anticipates me, and turns accordingly and lightly. It’s a great feeling! He can still be a bit sluggish so I could not work up to a trot. I am going to work on that on a 12 foot lead.

All in all he did great and PAID ATTENTION! Since he was doing so well, I thought I would throw the bridle on him with the bit and reins attached and work on some turning with the reins from the ground. This was only the second time I had worked with him with the reins attached to the bridle.

I lightly pulled one rein while standing at the side of Jasper to get him to do some lateral flexion on each side. I had been working on this with Jasper at liberty and he had picked it up in a snap. I was worried he would be resistant with the reins and bit in his mouth - but he was amazingly light! With a slight bit of pressure on his mouth, he would turn his head all the way in to his belly on either side.

It was a little hard to take pictures while doing this!

I only did this for about 5 or 6 minutes, then took the bridle off, and he got a big hug and a cookie and happily got to graze on some grass!