Rescuing Rusty

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.

Still playing with clicker training. Learning the ropes, like learning to train all over again and still getting the hang of it. But having a blast doing so.

He and I have been working on the spanish walk forever now. Ever since Coyote taught me how while calving one time I’ve enjoyed teaching it to my own horses. We were calving, moving pairs out of the calving lot into pasture and I could not for the life of me get a calf to get up and go with its mom. These mama cows would eat you alive quite happily so I couldn’t get off to get him going. Coyote got tired of messing around and pawed the calf, the calf jumped up, I spent lots of time rewarding Coyote and we worked it into a cue. And I have the worlds smartest horse.

But lacking other brilliant horses and, fortunately, the proper circumstances we will learn it the conventional way. A way that Rusty has been doing very well at, especially with the clicker. But he is having trouble understanding the transfer to asking from one side and from his back. If I ask for, say, the right side then step to the left and ask over his back we can usually get it, that will work up, I’m sure, to him fully understanding.

From his back is a little harder and I’m sure only needs more time but today we had help. Tanna was back again, yay!, after weeks of cold weather and sick kids. We worked together on the rest of the basics then I sat on him and she cued from the ground. He got it. She gave me the stick back and I asked from his back and once again he got it! On one side, but hey, it’s a start. We quit for the day on that high note.

With Rusty that is. She grabbed Coyote and had a little lesson with him. She has the little mare (Arapaho Jerry) that I used to show so I know exactly what her horse knows and how she rides. They’ve been having a little trouble with side passing so she and Coyote worked on that. He put on his usual grouchy face and she did great.

In the end we were discussing the difference between a half pass and a leg yield, I think her head almost exploded. But I had a ton of fun.

Last time it was all theoretical. I had done a little with Nevel but that was short lived and I haven’t had an opportunity since then.

Now I am absorbed in the practice, the study and the art. Maybe not, but I am really fascinated. Every chance I have I watch videos and read up on it. This lady is my favorite. Our last training sessions have been at liberty and we are working on some really fun stuff. I would show you but for that I would have to have someone to tape it or we would have more bad videos like the last one. On the bright side the lack of a videographer has meant that we will have many more tricks/ skills to show when we finally get to.

I thought I had the starting of horses fairly well down before but this opens up all sorts of possibilities. While I always taught my own horses fun things and installed extra buttons like pawing on command (hopefully leading to spanish walk someday, hadn’t gotten there yet but Coyote learns what he wants when he wants, Smoke went back to my mom and Nevel wasn’t around near long enough. And very useful for calving even if it never got as far as a spanish walk), putting their heads down to graze, or sniff a calf or find an ear of corn, on command and stepping over to the fence for mounting. I thought I was pretty cool and they had lots of extra stuff, that was nothing. I can’t wait to see where we end up.

He was hot, spooky and prancey. Raring to go, a million miles an hour and not willing to slow down and listen to me. Common things we see every day were terrifying, the windmill was going to eat him. There were a couple of times I was actually a bit worried.

What, Rusty? No. Coyote!

My nearly twenty year old, broke to death gelding had a little melt down when asked to pony Rusty. He’s ponyed dozens of colts in his time, maybe that’s why he was so mad about this. He’s reached a point in his life, ok he may have always been at that point, where he has strong opinions about what he does and does not want to do. He did not want to do this.

All in all it went well though. Nobody died.

I put on a saddle and Coyotes big, cow eating bridle, fortunately. We went up the scary lane between the pens in the feedlot. Then through the pasture to check out the baby calves. He, Rusty, followed one around, neck all arched pretty sniffing like crazy. Then its mom came and we had to leave. Out the gate between the trees that always terrifies Coyote. Around the corn stalks through more cows, then back into the pasture. Past the horse eating windmill, splashed around in the pond. He was hesitant at first, hung back then leaped into the water. But no less upset by it than Coyote. Up and down some hills and jumped up and down some banks then back through the corrals and home. With a brief visit with my husband at a tractor.

Rusty and Coyote grazed happily along side the running tractor and squeezed between the farm implements as we talked. That wasn’t scary at all, not like a windmill.