Rescuing Rusty

I was going to ride him, the weather was good, someone was home, the wind wasn’t howling and I had been working him regularly. The time was perfect.

I pulled him from their pen and he spooked his way through the gate. I saddled him and lead him to where I planned to ride him to start with some ground work. He took off running and bucking. Where was my horse? The one who responds willingly and happily, who doesn’t care about tarps and balls or anything else I could throw at him.

Today was apparently not the day.

We worked through it and I bounced the ball off his saddle for awhile but decided the coming weather change had blown his mind and I was not getting on just yet. A perfect time will come for real, eventually.

I took these after he settled down quite a bit.

Some girls, I am told, like jewelry and things like that. I think I got the greatest present the other day, not the fanny pack though that was great too, I got a tarp! You know one of those big plasticy things that go over, things.

I took it out to play with with Rusty the other day. Our first try:

By the second day he had settled down though

My daughter chose a ball for us, pink and purple of course. We had been targeting a ball getting ready, now we had a ball specially for this, it had stopped snowing and I had a moment.

He walked up to the ball and touched as soon as he got in the round pen. I clicked him but he didn’t want a treat, there was some grass. I guess that works. I left him to eat some grass so he wouldn’t be so desperate for it when we started working and got the rest of my stuff.

When I came back we got down to it. He immediately grasped the concept and within a couple of minutes he was kicking the ball. He was doing it loose but the grass was such a distraction I wanted to make sure he was paying attention.

This is the way to sack out a horse. He thinks it’s a fun game, things are bouncing around under his belly, life is good. I have been thinking lately how well this ought to transfer to teaching a horse to work cattle properly. Teach him to target the cutting dummy and he’d be working it in no time. It really isn’t any different than a ball or the end of a whip. The possibilities are endless.

That is the question.

It’s been cold, raining and even snowing a little outside, that has given me time to catch up on some much needed house cleaning, sadly it must be done once in awhile, and to do some thinking.

As training methods evolve some parts become obsolete. Even if “everyone does it” how do we know if we need it or if we should let it fall by the way side? By we I mean I of course.

I teach all my horses to step over to a fence, gate, the pickup, what ever for mounting. For training purposes it allows me to sit on them long before their first ride. They see me out of the other eye and on both sides and feel my legs around them. They get squirmed all over, legs across their butts and toes in their sides. Basically they experience being ridden without the commitment to staying on the mounting requires. I’ve only done the ground work on a couple of horses that still bucked after doing it this way.

So, They still need to learn to be mounted. Don’t they? Or is it taught through the rest of the process? I was standing in the stirrup leaned over Rusty’s back the other day thinking how nice it was to be able to click him and offer a positive reward for what seemed like such an uncomfortable thing for me to be doing to him. It’s got to be uncomfortable with the uneven weight twisting the saddle around on his back. We’re trying to teach him that riding is ok, that I wont hurt him. How am I accomplishing that by, not hurting him maybe but not making it enjoyable either?

I understand and agree with the original purpose of the exercise, to get them used to seeing you out of the other eye and used to weight on their backs and a toe in their girth. I can see where they need to learn that method of mounting, maybe, maybe once they’ve been ridden for awhile and dismounted a few times it would just fit into the rest of the training. Because if they’ve already experienced all that is the practice still accomplishing anything? This is all philosophical, I’ve already done it and don’t think I will be doing it again with Rusty, but for next time and the sake of argument is there any point to it?

I will never forget the look of horror on my poor husbands face when, in Walmart one day, I told him I wanted to look for a fanny pack. Even once I explained that I wasn’t trying to make a fashion statement, in fact I promised never to wear it out in public, but that I wanted it to carry treats in. Spring is well on its way and summer is coming. My sweatshirts pouch works perfectly but already some days have been warm enough to make it uncomfortable. I’m not wearing it when it’s one hundred degrees out this summer, I don’t care how handy it is.

It was still more than he could handle so he decided we would look for a real official treat carrying bag. Apparently there are such thing. So we looked and found just the right one, in purple even. Of course I can’t find the exact one now but this is close. Only in purple of course.

I love it! There are a few draw backs. I am constantly hooking reins, lead ropes, saddles, any random thing it seems on it. But other than that it is very handy and so much more stylish than a fanny pack.

If someone had been home today, or maybe even if my husband had answered my text*, I so would have gotten on him today. It just felt good, he felt right. He was listening despite the grass in the round pen, he was quiet and responsive and stood nicely for the saddle. He let me stand in each stirrup and lean over to pet him, enjoyed using the clicker along with that. And sat on him against the fence with the saddle on for the first time, needed to get that done. As always he was fine with it. But my husband would kill me for getting on here alone even if the horse didn’t. I’m not completely stupid, so even though I doubt he will offer to buck I will wait. And you can never be too prepared.

This weekend Tanna came out again. She helped me finish trimming his front feet, still haven’t gotten those back feet. Then she played with him with me. And we went for a nice little ride. She rode Princess Onna, bareback in a halter. I think that’s how she rides most of the time, only in a snaffle. She said she had put a saddle on her horse, Jerry, that morning. I keep saying that we need to do this at her house and we never make it over. I want to see how she and Jerry are doing. Jerry was my horse, a nice little mare that I used to show in ranch horse stuff. She was pretty good and Tanna will be, it would be fun if they could learn to cut together. Of course that’s me speaking not her. I should let her decide what she wants to do with herself and her horse.

*We have a nice little safety in place where I’m doing things like this while home alone. I call/ text him tell him what and where I’m doing and when he should hear from me by. If I don’t let him know I’m done he calls. If he can’t reach me he will send out the search parties and/ or rush home. Fortunately that hasn’t happened. Yet.

I got a marathon training session in on Rusty The other day. At least that was what it felt like. One hour. Back in the day I had up to six horses that got an hour every day. This time it nearly killed me doing one. I am so incredibly out of shape. But it was fun.

I have been letting actual saddle training fall by the wayside as I play with teaching him tricks and adding even more buttons and levers than I usually put on a horse. I realize that all this is adding to his brokeness and helping him be ready to ride but it’s not putting a saddle on him. So I brought him up to the round pen, because it’s close to the house and I don’t have to carry a heavy saddle as far, and brought out the saddle.

The round pen, sitting unused, has grown a little grass. It blew his mind. The horses have been taking turns being turned out in the yard to graze, his turn hadn’t come yet. He did good until I put the saddle on then left him to hang out and graze a little thinking that not only would it be a reward for being saddled but might take the edge off his craving for green. Didn’t work.

He was way to distracted to accomplish anything so other than start a fight we went for a walk. He hadn’t been out for awhile but he did good. No spooking, no trying to run me over, he just wanted to walk too fast. I hate to discourage that speedy Morgan walk but he has to learn manners so when his shoulder passed mine we circled. I would like to say the problem was cured, that might be going a bit far, but it is better. After unsaddling I walked very slowly back to his pen. After a few circles he, asking me continually why I wanted to walk so slow, he was willing to walk beside me nicely.

I know this blog is supposed to be about Rusty but how can I talk about him and not the other horses? So…

I finally, after much debate, Sprang for the Horse Tricks 101 Academy. My computer genius husband downloaded some of the videos and put them on our freeNAS so we can watch them at home since our internet is way to slow to stream video. My daughter (three years old) and I were sitting on the couch watching them interestedly. She saw a horse playing with a ball and wanted to know if we could teach her horse, Princess Onna to do that. I said sure. She remembered far more enthusiastically than I would have guessed. So I snuck out a few times to work on targeting. The other day we went out for a ride and when we were putting the horses away she wanted to work on training Princess Onna. Here’s the tail end of our “training”. I have to give treats, she, and I, worry to much about tiny fingers.

Really bad video that is.

No one is ever around to run a camera. It has been suggested that I give my phone to my three year old, and I may try that someday, but we haven’t tried it yet. I propped the phone on the fence and went through a couple  of things. He’s a little rusty (haha). We’ve only been working on biting lately, and he did a bad show of that. Always wants to bite everything but the bit.

As usual I decided I wanted to try something with this clicker training, started working on it then read up on proper technique. So I taught him to paw first. At first that was all I was going to teach. Apparently it’s like teaching a dog to shake, a really bad idea. That’s all they want to do. So I ignore random pawing and keep asking for whatever we’re working on. I still want the paw/spanish walk, someday.

So bare with us. It’s bad but we’re having fun.

I said I was going to work on his manners in bridling.

I read a little about it in my clicker training book, by accident really it was where I happened to be in  the book. I was all excited about working on bridling. It was silly really, but I got out there as soon as I had a chance and started reworking it.

He dropped his head easily enough, was happy to stand quietly next to me in position but turned away as soon as I got the bridle out. With a little work he was sticking his head into the headstall and nipping at the, at the chin strap unfortunately. It’s fun to stand and watch as he circles around me, lips at my sleeve and boots (a great article on teaching manners) and finally plunges his head into the bridle.

I plan to take the chin strap off my bridle and keep working. Wont it be fun to stand out in the pasture holding a bridle while my horse runs up to me and sticks his head into it?

On a completely unrelated note, I’ve been loving this lately. What is up with his coat?

I haven’t had much to say lately. Not so much because we haven’t been doing anything, although at times we haven’t, more I think because we haven’t been working forward so much as broadening our base so it doesn’t feel like we are accomplishing anything new. I am still fascinated by clicker training and working on our tricks but also making use of it to strengthen our basics. Asking him to pick up a foot without me touching it, taking the bit nicely (not sure when that stopped), and building on our responsiveness.

I don’t tie him for anything, not that he doesn’t tie but most of our work is done at liberty. He stands nicely for grooming and to have his feet cleaned. I need to lug my big saddle out and have some refreshers on saddling but it’s so much work. I found my thickest blanket, now I need to find my shortest cinch and saddles are so heavy. If I were younger, and maybe braver, I would just get on him bareback. It’s not like I haven’t been sitting on him forever now that way.

Speaking of getting on him (I do plan to, really I do, it’s just so much work. Even more than the whole putting on a saddle thing. Everything seems to be too much work at the moment, maybe that’s the real reason I haven’t been writing) I was invited over to our friend Paula’s barn the other day. My daughter got to be a test pilot for a pony she has in training and Paula let me, and Tanna, because of course we brought her along, ride her good cutting horse. It was great playing with other horse people and working the dummy. Riding him made me dream, more than usual, of finishing Rusty as a cow horse. He has the breeding for it. And I talked to the barn owner, who is a favorite of ours even outside of horse stuff, about keeping Rusty there for awhile.

They have a gorgeous indoor with deep sand footing and huge out door arena and a big round pen. Perfect horse training set up, and people around, always a plus when riding a colt. Good to have someone to call the ambulance. Once the weather warms up a little more I’ll see about getting him over there for a month. Until then we are going to try to get over to play with them more often, and to saddle Rusty more often.

Good luck to Paula at her first cutting of the year this weekend. Hope we didn’t break her horse too badly playing on him.