The Full Story Of The Rodeo

By Neversummer September 6, 2017 Uncategorized 1 Comment

I heard about another kiddie rodeo so I called to get the kids signed up. Turns out it was not so much kiddie rodeo but a fun/play day. When I called about it I was assured that it was usually over by four, we would have no problem making our previously scheduled engagement. Then my good friend Paula called and asked if we wanted to enter and ride with her. I happily told her we were already entered but would love to ride with her. Did I mention her new living quarters trailer?

I resumed loading practice with Onna, (she had not been interested in going home after our last adventure) got our barrels back out and made my daughter go around them and got as much as I could ready. When Paula showed up that day we loaded everything, including Onna who hopped right in and were off. The children stayed behind with their much beleaguered father, who would feed them lunch and bring them later so they didn’t have to sit out in the hot sun any longer than necessary.

We got there early but the grounds were packed. Paula drove her big, long rig right in and found a spot anyway. The spot might have been the point at which we could no longer go forward but hey, it worked! And we were right behind the rest of the family who were there competing or watching. It was perfect.

Once saddled we went in to warm up. I debated hard which horse to ride. Paula had very kindly offered to let me ride one of hers because Coyote is off a little. I was going to take him to ride anyway, he isn’t limping  I just worry too much about my boy, I thought it would be an easy day for him. This was much better, but now I had a young horse that I had never ridden and would like to get used to. Paula assured me that he had ponied a horse, once or twice and had been “OK” with it. I am a chicken rider, not one who rides chickens 😉 but a rider who is chicken, thought I should clarify that, and the “OK” part didn’t reassure me. I also had Onna who did great last time but last time was not near the mad house this time was and I was going to put my small children on her. I chose Onna to warm up.

In the arena it was crowded. By crowded I mean I could almost see the ground occasionally as people walked trotted and loped endlessly to the left with the occasional stop and back thrown in. I’ve shown horses for years but I had never seen a warm up like this.  I tried to discern some sort of pattern, was the outside track for walking? No. Maybe the inside and loping to the fence? No. Everywhere for everything, cutting back and forth and through then slamming on the brakes and backing into the rest of the horses doing the same thing. I guess more people can fit in to a rode, each run last a few seconds as opposed to a cowhorse event where each rider gets approx. four min. There were lots of people. I don’t think the pictures can show just how crowded the parking was, maybe that made it seem worse.

I didn’t want to do anything but walk Onna in the warm up. She needed to learn that it was a calm place with nothing to be worried about. It wasn’t but it would be nice if she could think it was. That done we went back to the trailer where I switched horses. Luckily Paula showed up about then and I was able to get on with her there and her horses buddy that she was calling for so desperately. Tee Bird is a she so if I refer to her as a he anywhere forgive me I seem to keep doing that. Once on she was fine, with her buddy. I was a bit nervous on a new horse in that madhouse of a parking lot. She wanted to be with her buddy pretty bad but once we got that settled she was great. She never spooked as children on foot and children on horses galloped about, she wasn’t bothered by ponying Onna, she didn’t even get upset about the idiots that thought this was a great time to play football, throwing the ball over the heads of horses walking down the narrow isle between parked pickups and trailers and the tents set up all around the arena full of people and more vehicles.

My daughter did the goat snatching (deribboning? something), where you run up, dismount, and grab the ribbon off a goats tail. I let her go on her own and they were both great. She can’t quite get all the way off on her own but she’s so close. She did the poles, they’ve been doing great practicing at home so I let her off the lead. It was a mistake, I thought she was going to die. There was some over steering and I was sure Onna was going to leave, Onna is a patient forgiving little mare and kindly didn’t run off. My daughter got a little far off the side of the saddle once but managed to pull herself back on. All in all it was a good run. And she did barrels, that was their best event of the day I think. I ponied but was able to let them go around the barrels by themselves after the first.

My son only ended up getting to do poles. I had been going to ride Onna like last time but Tee Bird was doing really good and I felt safe just riding her with him in front of me. We didn’t quite fit in the saddle but it worked and I hear he looked happy, pointing at the crowd and smiling. He left with his exhausted father to make our previous engagement before he got to do barrels. there was no way this show was going to be over by four as previously predicted. It was after five already with many classes left to go.

It was a fun day, hot and dusty, long for the kids but their cousins were there watching which helped a lot to keep them entertained. They seemed to enjoy this one that I thought had everything conspiring to make it slightly miserable and I think we will try to hit a few more next year. My daughter is just starting to ride off of a lead line and with a winter to work on it she should be doing good by next summer. My son is difficult. Maybe he will develop a lick of sense and make an effort not to fall off, maybe he will grow enough to reach the stirrups or maybe he will keep going in front of me. Princess Onna is great, we are using clicker training to help her learn how to do these things. She handles the crowds and all the scary things involved like a pro I couldn’t have asked for a better horse for the kids to learn on. As for me? I’m learning about this whole rodeo thing. It’s still not my thing, I’m discovering that I am a dressage queen at heart but, I am slightly competitive. Maybe I’ll have to show Rusty how to run a round a pole 😉 I can see why people think a horse that’s been rodeo-ed on should be so broke they have to put up with a lot. If nothing after hauling Rusty to these things a good old normal horse show will seem like a vacation!

 

 

 

Follow The Leader

By Neversummer September 6, 2017 Coyote, Rusty 1 Comment

Tanna came to see us! She’s off to college now and we were thrilled when she came to see us on her limited time home. Coyote has been off since he came up lame, but he’s not limping. We grabbed Rusty and Onna and rode around the yard.

Then I decided to try Coyote. It would just be a short ride, my daughter wanted to ride her horse and I’m not willing to put anyone else on Rusty yet. It was perfect. Tanna has a great seat and had no problem riding Coyote bareback. Onna’s little girl was happy to have her horse back and to ride with Tanna. I got to put more time on Rusty. I wish we could do this all the time.

The “barrels”, empty lick tubs, were set up in the driveway still and we decided to play with them. An enthusiastic game of follow the leader was begun. First it was my daughter and Tanna, and the goat, Baa, and Rusty. After I got done videoing I got back on Rusty and joined in. We took turns being the leader and were declared disqualified by little miss queen of the world if we didn’t trot to the finish. Aside from helping her to remember the pattern and practice steering it was a great way to work on Rusty. We also practiced steering. We worked on being in front, in the middle and behind. And trotting to the finish was the perfect time to work on whoa.

We were so glad to see Tanna and had fun training all of us while she was here.

 

Taking Our Medicine

By Neversummer August 21, 2017 Coyote No Comments

Coyote came up lame. He’s twenty now so I guess I should expect the effects of a life time of hard work to start showing up. He spent most of his youth as a ranch horse on a ten thousand acre ranch where no four wheelers were used. He has never worn a pair of shoes and, until this year, never been lame except from injury. Trying to kill himself because he is delightfully neurotic type of injury, bleeding needing the vet type of injury. Earlier this summer he was favoring his right front a little. I watched him and didn’t ride, decided that he had been stomping flies too hard. He was better in a couple of days.
Then a month or so later I went out to find him standing with his front leg held out and shaking. The leg not him. I called the vet, she sent Bute home with a friend. Coyote hates Bute. The first time of giving it to him was ok and it went down hill from there. I couldn’t catch him anymore, having a very lame horse run away from you is an interesting experience, I had reached a point of putting the medicine on my fingers and shoving them into his mouth as he tossed his head in the air trying to avoid it. I was talking to my mom about it and told her that I knew there was a way to train him to take it willingly but it seemed like too much work. Then I listened to myself and realized how stupid I was being. The next time I went to doctor him I took along my treat bag and went to work.
First I clicked and rewarded him for touching the syringe with his nose, then his mouth. Once he was no longer trying to run away we got down to slipping the tip into his mouth, then holding it there. In no time at all I could put the syringe into his mouth and he would stand. That made me think that I should have been filming this. So I decided to get the last little bit on tape. Better than nothing at least.
Of course as soon as we worked on this the limping went down to nothing. I think he is mostly better. We don’t know what caused the issue but it appears to have been a soft tissue injury. It could have been stomping flies, sticking his leg through gates, like he likes to do, wear and tear or any number of things, hopefully he is done with that now, I plan on him lasting well into his thirties.

 

Good Ponies

By Neversummer August 5, 2017 Uncategorized 1 Comment

See that black dot over the cornfield as we look across my daughters horses neck? It’s hard to see, I was busy at a time when I could have gotten better pictures. It was farther away in this picture. Can you tell what it is?

It is an airplane.

A crop duster to be exact. This one, and this is what he looked like as he flew towards us as we were out for our ride. Maybe a little higher…

He was not spraying these fields at the time. Fortunately. He was just headed past. Headed past, flying low, directly over our heads as we were out for a nice morning ride. Alerted to his approach by the low rumble of his engine, we watched him come, as he went forward the high winds were blowing him sideways. I wondered if he was high enough to clear the power lines. I wondered if we should run.

Running seemed pointless, we couldn’t get far enough away in time to make a difference. The horses weren’t worried yet and if we told them they should be they might change their minds. I must admit that getting off never occurred to me, so we stood and watched. The horses were more interested in grass and he went over our heads without them paying any attention. After he was past and I realized everybody was going to live it occurred to me that I should hurry and get a picture. it was too late by then to get a good one and thus we have Princess Onna with a little black dot over her head in the distance but we know that black dot is the little yellow crop duster and our horses are not afraid of it!

The Funnest Day Ever

By Neversummer August 1, 2017 Clicker training 1 Comment

My daughter has decided she wants to be a cowgirl, so when my friend asked if we wanted to go with them to the junior rodeo at our county fair I said yes. We haven’t hauled Princess Onna since we got her, my daughter has only been riding off a lead line for a month or so, and neither of us have any experience with poles barrels or any rodeo type stuff. Oh well, it was a play day more than rodeo and little kids could be lead or ponied, the rest of it we figured would work its self out.

With only a few days to prepare we sat some empty lick tubs out in our “arena” and started practicing. Onna has had some halfhearted clicker training, I’ve been using it to teach her to understand a small child’s confusing cues. Now I applied it, a little, to going around barrels and poles but mostly to stopping. My little girl rode her around the barrels, I clicked as she went around and rewarded when she got back to me in the middle of the pattern, then ran alongside as they gaited to our designated finish line clicking when she stopped. The patterning was iffy but the whoa at the end was solidly trained.

I admit I’m not a barrel racer, I’ve never had any interest and still don’t but having the barrels out there and a goal to our riding helped both little girl and Rusty work on steering. We will have to keep them out and continue working with them.

The work we did was successful. When we got there I rode Onna around then put my little girl up and lead them around. Onna settled down quickly. I led her through the barrels, the first event of the day. Onna was fine and running to the finish line nearly killed me. After that I put my faith in her training and let got of the lead rope. They sat outside the arena waiting without being held. Children climbed on and off of her while she stood, leg cocked, resting. Onna followed both me and her riders cues as we went in for the poles. When we rounded the last pole we ran to the end together and they beat me then stopped and waited. By the goat thing, what ever that was, I sent them off alone to finish. There was no fighting the stop or running off. They calmly stopped together our training paid off.

I must admit it was hard taking our Morgan into the sea of quarter horses, my helmet wearing child into the midst of cowboy hats and, mostly, my treat bag and cookies into the arena. It’s hard to be different and even my good friend that we went with laughed at me a little. There were some comments made to my husband, waiting, holding the other child, about how that horse was sure trained to eat treats good. Lots of comments were also made about how good Princess Onna was, how beautiful she is and how well behaved she was for her little rider and my good friends son asked if he could wear our sons helmet. Being different is good, I’ve always said if you’re going to be weird you better be good and I’ve always been weird. If my daughter decides that this is what she wants to do I guess we will see about clicker training a rodeo horse.

 

 

Begging To Work

By Neversummer July 27, 2017 Rusty No Comments

I turn Rusty out to eat grass, or tried to.

See this blog is still about Rusty, I haven’t left him completely for Princess Onna and her child.

After letting him out the gate I tried to shoo him away from me and my sandaled feet. I went in the house, leaving him in the yard, I’ve been forbidden to bring him in the house, and put a load of laundry in. As soon as I was done I went out to check on him and he wasn’t there. I looked around the house and found him waiting by the tailgate of the pickup. When he saw me he called out to say hi. “Was I ready to come work yet?” he asked.

How could I tell him no?

I grabbed the bag of treats we had been using with Princess Onna and we played. Just a quick run through of the basics. I did pause to put boots on, with my capris first. I thought about getting on but decided that a halter and helmet, at least, would probably be necessary and resisted the urge. He happily performed next to me and protested heartily when I told him I was done and to go eat grass. He refused to eat if he didn’t get to play for the food and I had to put him back in with the others.

It was fun even if it was brief and it lead to better things…

 

The Good And The Bad

By Neversummer July 19, 2017 Clicker training 1 Comment

I had a whole post thought up about the downside of having children who like horses. How hard it is to catch and ready them while keeping kids from killing themselves, how hard it is to pony one while riding double with the other, how hard it is to force myself to go out and do the hard stuff instead of just skipping it in favor of something easier. It is hard. It isn’t fun, not like going for a ride without kids is fun. I never got around to writing it though. Because I keep realizing more and more that it is so worth it. (And the post mostly seemed like whining.)

Every time I watch this kid ride I know it’s worth the fear and frustration and struggle. She does such a good job. Her determination to get to where she wants to go is amazing. She is determined to ride by herself, tired of being ponied. And she wants to go fast. Yay, fast. She seems to tiny to ride by herself. I try to remember that I wasn’t too much older than this when my mom got her fiery young Morgan gelding, four to my five I believe. All I wanted was to ride him. She let me. She swears I didn’t get run away with and fall of of him every time I rode him. Just almost every time.

She has a wonderful little mare though, and wont be getting on my young horse. Her mare is gaited, the best thing ever in a kids horse. Smooth and easy to ride, none of that being bounced out of the saddle at a trot. Onna is patient with her child and willing. Onna puts up with unclear cues and yanking on the bit like Coyote never would. Onna stands quietly for her little girl to shimmy up her side. She’s determined to mount from the ground, so I stand at Onna’s head and feed her cookies to help make the experience less obnoxious. She can almost do it. Between the stirrups and her short stirrups she has a ladder, she just has to figure out where and how to hold on. She want to be able to get on and off from the pickup too. It’s a wonderful training opportunity. I offer clearer aids as Onna’s riders short little legs ask for a side pass or to yield haunches, then click and reward. Hopefully we will have Onna trained to her little riders unique cues by the time they are both ready to go it alone.

The perfect princess pony for a perfect little princess. May they grow old together and continue to be the perfect pair.

She Likes Horses!

By Neversummer July 14, 2017 Clicker training 2 Comments

My daughter likes horses right now!!
Usually she tells me that I am the one who likes horses, she likes princesses or something along those lines. I am usually sad about it but careful not to push her towards horses. Now, when the flies are terrible and the days hot she loves horses and wants to ride. I am doing my best.
Some days it’s bringing Princess Onna in to brush and play with. During one of those days she decided that Princess Onna should learn to fetch the rubber chicken. She started, all on her own, teaching Princess Onna to target the chicken. It may not have been perfect, often the reward lagged a ways behind the click but I was impressed by her initiative and abilities.

Of course now I’m going to have to sneak out there and work with Princess onna. She’s tired of targeting and wants to move on to the real fetching. I don’t want her to get bored with it and give up.

 

Beyond Thrilled!

By Neversummer July 11, 2017 Clicker training, Coyote, Rusty 1 Comment

Not because the new fly spray worked. There was no new fly spray. I was in out nearest “big city” and didn’t stop at the feed store. I thought about it but decided I was going to wait until I went through our town and stop at the co-op. They would have the fly spray I wanted and it would keep the business local, so on and so forth. I stopped in and looked around while the group talking finished their conversation and maybe even bought something. I found the fly spray. There was a bottle of horse spray for twenty some dollars, how do people afford to by anything labeled horse? I go through that in a day trying to get them covered. There was a bottle of hard core cattle spray concentrate, same size as the horse bottle and same price but a concentrate that would probably last me for years. I read the label carefully, I am unable to comprehend labels and directions as much as I love to read these things are like a foreign language to me. If I have to buy things unusual for us at the store I regularly bring home the wrong thing completely and have to send my husband back to properly read the labels. (Of course, reading up on it there are many people not fond of Permethrin, maybe I’ll do more reading and see what I can find)
Anyway, I stood for a very long time reading and rereading the label. At first I thought I had found the stuff I wanted, upon a reread I saw that it said Non-lactating dairy cattle. It is a very important difference between lactating and non-lactating. Anything that can be used on lactating dairy cattle is safe for horses, and people. When the old guys were finally finished talking I asked if they anything else, they didn’t, I left. I might have been a little grouchy, I am now in the process of ordering it off Amazon.

But I digress.
I did get a spray nozzle. That part of the day made me happy. I watered flowers with it then took it back to the corral closest to our house and wired it to the fence. I then lead the horses into that pen and carefully locked them in. Then I turned the hose on! They were not happy.

I had the nozzle set on a fine mist, it wasn’t squirting them. I left them to sulk in the corral for awhile then came back to offer encouragement. I asked Rusty to come to me as I stood near the edge of the mist. When he did I clicked and rewarded. We moved backwards, into the spray, with Onna following, until they were both stand right in the middle of the spray with water dripping off their bodies. Coyote couldn’t stay away if the other two were getting food and he joined in the fun too.

I left to care for children and they wondered away from the water but when I came back they happily waded right back in. I left again and they left again so I decided it must not feel that great. Opening the gate i let them out into their usual quarters. They snorted, trotted around and all rolled thoroughly. If the water doesn’t help repel flies maybe the mud will.

I would call it a rousing success. Not exactly in a fly repelling sense but definitely from a training point of view. I taught Rusty to target the nozzle with water spraying out of it. That is an awesome accomplishment for a horse who has always been scared of water!

 

 

Bugs

By Neversummer July 10, 2017 Coyote, Rusty No Comments

I was determined that I was going to start working with Rusty. It was going to be a priority, I was going to make time for him. When something is important you find a way, whether it’s getting up extra early or forgoing our few child free moments sitting quietly together on the couch in the evenings.

Sunday afternoon found the children tired of playing outside and ready to crash in front of the tv for a while and my husband home parked in front of his computer. I was going to sit and look at mine when I remembered my determination to get out and work with Rusty. So I did.

The hundred degree weather had faded to a comfortable spot in the low nineties and a gentle breeze was blowing. I hauled all of my paraphernalia out to the pickup, my staging ground. Then went and called the horses. They came at a gallop. Not their usual enthusiastic looking for treats coming but a crazed, bucking, kicking, terror driven rush. When they got to me I saw the cause. They were being swarmed by flies. A cloud followed each one as they kicked their bellies, stomped desperately, and ran about trying to loose them.

I had known the flies were bad. I watched them standing in the hot, dusty lot swishing each other to keep the pests away, but I had never seen them like this. I brought Rusty out and let him graze for a bit while I got supplies. When I came back with fly spray and treats he was gone. They were out galloping around their pen and he was frantically running the fence line calling them. I walked to the end of the fence and called Rusty, again. He answered with a long, high whinny and came at a gallop. It’s hard to stand and wait with him come straight at me but I held my ground and he stopped short of smashing me.

Back at the pickup I started coating him with spray. I watched flies scatter at the spray then land right back on the wet hair. Using most of the bottle, I made sure to save some for the others even if it didn’t seem to be helping much. The flies appeared marginally lighter and I went to spray the others before going in search of something, anything better. They were desperate.

I had read that Vick Vapor rub is supposed to help, as long as it isn’t rubbed where the sun will shine on it, causing terrible burns. I smeared it across Rusty’s belly, he got to be my tester. The flies landed right up to the edge of the smear.

We have some great stuff we use around the house when we have problems. It’s industrial strength, dairy rated spray in an aerosol can. I read the label, it said it could be sprayed directly on dairy cattle as they left the barn, anything rated for dairy is safe for horses. Rusty was loose with the others by now, he got too frantic when left out alone even with grass to eat. The flies were making them lose their minds. Haltering each one individually, I went to work with the aerosol can. Most horses, most of the time don’t take the loud hiss of aerosol well. Rusty and Princess Onna relished it. Even though it’s approved for dairy use I was hesitant to spray them to drenchingly with it. They got a quick misting with a little more on the legs, then happily accepted treats. Coyote said no. He was not letting me anywhere near him, with or without the spray can. The flies hoard seemed to thin.

I went back to the house for my last attempt. Not at keeping flies off altogether but for their eyes and bellies. I grabbed my jar of Swat. They, fortunately and knock on wood, haven’t needed it much for injuries. It is mostly used when nose flies show up for that one wondrous week in June, turning normal sane horses into head tossing, rearing, dropping to their knees and rubbing their nose in the dirt, monsters. Who can blame them though, I would do the same if a bee like bug kept trying to fly up my nose. I coat their noses with Swat, including the inside of their nostrils and it seems to help a little. Mostly when the nose flies show up it’s best to give them a large tank to stick their noses in and give up on riding for awhile. Last night I gave them big greasy circles around their eyes, noses and lips. All except Coyote that is. He was still not letting me near him, he would rather suffer.

By the time I gave up there was no time left to ride, even if the flies had allowed it. I went back to the house defeated. My attempt at riding had failed. On the bright side I was able to offer the horses some relief from the sudden terrible attack of flies. Standing in the barn doesn’t seem to help. I took them in the other day, in case they had forgotten it was there. They ate the cookies I offered and followed me back out, they haven’t returned. Today maybe I will try to find a way to hook a sprinkler to the fence. I doubt they would go in the water as good as it should feel. Fortunately the swarming attack of the flies did seem to be an event, not a constant. I will pick up new fly spray next time I get to town. The bottle of concentrate is a couple of years old and maybe it lost some oomph over the years? It’s a dairy grade cattle spray and used to be great stuff. Poor ponies I need to figure something out!