Rescuing Rusty

It has been crazy busy getting ready for Christmas, going to Christmas programs, doing all the things. I have been riding Rusty, he’s been doing wonderfully, I just haven’t had time to sit down and write about it after. The Spanish walk has slowly been transferring to under saddle. I found, finally listened to Rusty and figured out, what I had been doing wrong. My tendency is to apply some rein pressure when I ask. I think he needs to be on the bit and forward motion controlled. He thinks I need to drop the dang reins and leave him alone to do his thing. He has this, knows what to do without being bothered. I started leaving the reins alone, he started giving a good forward Spanish walk without any fit throwing.

We’ve been doing lots of “trail riding” out through the yard. Building our confidence so we’ll, hopefully, just be able to ride normally someday. The yard is full of fun obstacles and scary things to ride through, buildings, stacks of hay, tractors and vehicles, but much less scary to him than the wide open fields. We’ve ridden out to where the driveway leads out of the yard and looked around then turned back. He did well. I decided that on this ride we were going out. We took a trip around the yard first to see how things were going. They were not going well. The weather was beautiful, warm and calm and building into a big drop in temp that night and snow. He could feel the change coming I’m sure and was hyped and on edge. The first few times I brought him back to a walk. As he kept wanting to trot I gave in and we did a big figure eight around things parked in the yard. He finally settled a little and was willing to walk. We circled the quanset and headed down the driveway.

He was a little quieter, although still very looky, ears permanently perked. We made it to the point where the drive opens into the fields. Cows and electric fence on one side open wheat ground on the other. Not to far off was regrowth intend for the cattle’s winter grazing. If we could just make it to there he would be able to graze, food makes everything better. He was on tiptoe the whole way but we made it. I could feel his body relax as he ate. We sat until I got too bored to wait any longer and asked him to move out. We walked a little grazed a little, jumped over the pivot tracks, maybe over reacting a little 😉 In the end it turned out to be a good ride. He settled down, still looky but not so much on tiptoes and no longer leaping the tiny little pivot tracks. And we made it back alive. Life is good! 🙂

This is how he still comes for me to get on though so he must not be minding the scary stuff to much.

We aren’t adding any steps, just practicing the ones we are getting. I am trying to add a cue other than my voice. I haven’t settled on what to use. Rusty as seemed a couple of times to work well off a weight shift and light squeeze, I have to be careful though because he gets confused about what I am asking. He thinks I want him to turn on front or hind quarters or walk off.

We’ve been continuing our walks out of the arena. Down our big hill 😉 into the dump.

Out around the yard. I was in the process of worrying whether our walk was getting too predictable and if I should change it up a little before he came to expect to go to the same spot every time, when he trotted off. Apparently it was getting to predictable. It’s a fine line between repeating something until it’s comfortable, and habit. So we took advantage of the trot to work on whoa and redirected our course. We chose a different spot to graze.

After getting some good eating in it was time to meander some more. It is interesting to me that he is so happy to ride through our yard, full of scary stuff. Before his small breakdown I looked at the big open field and thought it looked like such a nice place to ride, away from the scary things. I didn’t ask him what he thought. He has no problem with the stuff in the yard, he thinks the field is pretty scary. Until life becomes less stressful for him and he is riding better I will let him have more say in where we go. I did push him a little today though.

We rode farther into the stack yard and up to the top of the hill by where a large group of cows were grazing. It was new for us and a place where Coyote dreads to go. For some reason he hates that spot. Apparently Rusty feels the same. He was getting tighter and more worried as we got to the top of the hill. His head was up. ears going a million miles an hour, I got off. No reason to get in a fight. He had been good for the whole ride, it wasn’t  a long walk back. Getting off is almost as good a reward as food.

The whole purpose of this video is that stop. The first one a couple of seconds in. Look at his butt drop. His head goes up just a hair but not because I’m pulling on him. The reins barely even move, when they do it’s my tendency to raise my hands, not because I’m pulling. I think after that we do a very lackluster rollback. But it’s all about the stop.

We’ve had some really good rides lately. I tie him up to groom and saddle, he’s coming around to that nicely. Then we do a little ground work and go for a walk. First we would circle the chicken coup. It’s scary back behind there. Then we started going down the little hill into the dump, make a circle, then come back up the hill. I threw in some whoas on the hill and at the top and bottom for extra interest.

We have been working on our Spanish walk, yay! But after we finish some arena work I’ve been letting him make the loop around the chicken coup. He has started wanting to head that way himself, he wanders around and looks at the scary things. Ever since his total meltdown when I tried to ride him in the fields North of the house I haven’t asked him to leave the arena. Him wanting to venture out was a big step forward and I loved that it was him who asked to take it. Today when I told him he could go he followed the tracks of our pre ride walk exactly. He went to the hill above the dump and asked to walk down it. It is the steepest hill we’ve ridden down and it was a little scary for both of us I think. He did great though and walked on around the branch we go around every time, then back up the hill. I cheered him on the whole way. After that he went on towards the shop, up to the gas tank and sniffed it. I was dishing treats out like crazy.

On our last ride I had given him his head and he walked happily through the yard past all the things I think should be scary and to the “good” patch of grass clear south. I thought the grazing was good positive reinforcement for going out on a ride and apparently he did too. We headed back to the same place. It was a fairly meandering rout, we stopped to look at the other horses, checked out the equipment, spooked lightly at scary spots on the road. I did my best to stay completely neutral in the saddle and let him go. He takes much more steering when I ask him to go home.

I can’t overstate the soft feel of this horse. He is so soft and responsive. Of course he is also as wiggly as a worm when he doesn’t know exactly what is being asked. The slightest little shift and he responds. It sounds silly. It’s hard to explain. He’s just fun to ride.