Morning with Linda Parelli!

Dearest C! And T! I am so very proud of your shiny new blog! <3

My adventures recently follow thusly:

Well this morning we got our very own up close and personal time with Linda Parelli. How very very cool. As an entire class [80 some odd people] we got to sit out in the [chilly] morning and watch a new savvy club dvd segment being filmed. With Linda. And two students with mismatched horsenality/personality problems. There was an extroverted person with an introvert horse and and introvert person with an extrovert horse. Very cool. I took a LOT [srsly, a TON] of things away that I can use with Dakota AND Indy.

For Dakota : I need to do less than him, I need to bring my energy waaaay down, I need to engage his mind with subtlety and intrigue instead on just slamming him with a phase four.. and lots of other things I need to soak on.

For Indy: I need to also bring my energy waaaay down. I need to be particular and make her feel SAFE so she doesnt have to go to the blowing up place. Because that is never fun. Safety is a very big thing with her. So I need to make very sure to deal with that.

Today I realised how very much Mo needs to move her feet. As an extrovert she likes to move [sometimes!] and as a left brain horse she is innately very very confident. We have been discussing the ways a horse can be confident and there are five areas : As a Learner, in Themselves, in a Herd, in their Environment, and in me as a Leader. In herself as a horse she is innately incredibly confident. In a herd she is also very very confident – enough so that it makes her a loner by choice on most occasions. In her environment she is most often pretty confident, as shown by the way she walks off a trailer acting like she owns the new place. That leaves her confidence as a learner and in me as a leader. Hmm. I would say that as a learner she is mostly confident but is peppered with mild unconfidence if she doesn’t get it right away. In me as a leader Mo is petty happy. She likes to test me every day, but not to hard, most days we have a working partnership.

SO! As an essentially 98% confident horse, she is happy to move around and explore everything – not run around scared out of her wits! Indy would be the run around scared out of her wits, and I am learning a ton about how to help her and redirect her. Mo needs direction though to. Creative and constructive direction that doesn’t hold criticism for her and her flamboyant self.

If you know Mo, you know she is a total goober and likes to run around flailing happily and hopefully not tripping over her own four feet. On several separate occasions she has so far [in four days] tripped over her own feet, on FLAT ground and almost fallen flat on her face. One time she almost did a nose dive off of a bridge. Hysterical laughter ensued. Sorry Mo.

So today I was making a big effort to observe her since I have sort of gotten the OMG PARELLI LAND LETS PLAY out of my system and I can focus now *coughextrovertcough* I was watching her, and waiting for any lacking in confidence in her part, and I really didn’t see any outside of the pond. She was happy to walk everywhere and even offered up a trot regularly. So we played and I tried different things and I changed it up. We went first into a round corral in the honey comb of the enchanted forest playground to practice our sadly lacking liberty skills. A friend had just shared some horsey cookies with me so Mo was uber enthusiastic!

We played at liberty for a good while, working on yo-yo, sends on the circle, trying a squeeze over barrels [not so good] backing by the tail [SUCCESS!] and sideways – which is getting better! I am getting better at regulating my energy so its not a SEND but a sideways… you know? It was really cool at one point I was standing in front of her and making the sideways motions in my body, crossing my legs over and things and then Mo started MIRRORING my legs with her front legs! How cool!

After that we clipped a line on and went out.. OH WAIT I FORGOT THE COOLEST THING!!

Going into the honey comb, there is a gate obviously, but also, sporadically around the biggest ring there are tree logs of varying sizes that you can opt to jump… WELL!! Mo JUMPED the BIGGEST one SEVERAL times!!! This tree was BIG !!!! maybe up to my waist or so. And she did it.. I was soooo floored… so proud. I couldn’t believe it! And she did it more than once with a very tiny send, it was like she offered it at the lightest suggestion!

My darling darling amazing cool horse jumped this monster log again on our way out and patiently waited for me and my uncoordinated self to clamber over the giant log. Finishing with the round pen we headed over to the different logs, jumping our way over to the back pond where we played squeeze game until we got two feet just barely into the water and I left it at that. From there we went over to a large log circling our way there. When we got there we found a cool set of logs in a semi L shape. The long wide of the L was a short log and the short side was a tall log. I started circling and squeezing Mo over the different logs and then thought it would be cool to stand on the tall log that had a flat space to play. Well! As soon as I got up there Mo sidles up like “do you want to get on?” And it was so cute! I am not supposed to ride for these to weeks so I had to politely decline, but it was so sweet that she asked.

So we played circling and squeeze and tested our lightness and change of direction – because lets face it, there isn’t much room to maneuver on top of a log! Mo did me proud and was excellent. Maybe could have been a little lighter in the canter, but otherwise super great. So I walked around on my loggy loft and Mo kept playing around me until she got the point and we moved on again. Extroverts you know.

On our way we just happened by another side of the pond so we played more with the water and this time Mo went in!! She went all the way in and came back out, got a cookie and we moved on! Its not about the water!

Our next stop was two tractor sized tires lodged upright in the ground with a horse width between them as a squeeze set up. Being the maniac I am, after letting Mo investigate them, I climbed up onto one and got her circling around me. That was all well and good, until I decided to up the ante and get a change of direction from my seat. Shouldn’t be to hard right? Given that I was just working on that? It wasn’t, not technically, but I wanted the change to run through between the tires. Hmmm!!! Mo thought that was really interesting! AND it took her more that five seconds to understand the game! Whoo!

After she figured it out – not to much longer- I realized it was time for the seven games workshop in the honey comb and went back over there to watch and listen. There were bunches of horses inside so Mo and I just watched outside. They were working on friendly game when I got there, so we watched that … er, I watched that and Mo grazed! Then porcupine game, where Avery talked about moving the front and hind end etc.. so when experiment time came I decided to see how my lead by the leg was. Well darnit if it wasn’t really light!! I was so proud of Mo! I tried her back legs then, with my carrot stick/savvy string around her back legs to test that one. She was distracted eating so at first it was not so good but then I got her attention and she did it amazingly – and THEN when I stopped she didn’t even want to start grazing again because I had been INTERESTING!!

When they got into driving game I was noticing how I was really really thirsty and how Mo kept licking me [srsly, constantly!] so I moseyed my way back over to the lodge ish area. On the way there was a bridge traffic jam so while I waited my turn I went over and played follow the weird white birdies. Hopefully such exercises will prevent them “ OMG KILLER BIRDS” issue while riding! Crossing the bridge has never been as issue with Mo, and when I get the chance I want to play with backing over it.

At the lodge area, still on the playground side I realized I had a problem.. no hitching rail and Mo isn’t allowed indoors. Hmm… luckily there is a round corral right there, and since they don’t want us leaving horses unattended, there was thankfully a few people there that I asked if they could watch Mo for me and they agreed. It was only a few minutes while I grabbed a cup of water, but I appreciate it none the less!

Mo is so adorable, she watched and followed me when I left and then through the big windows, and then got all happy looking when I came back out. Awwww!!

Once I finished my water, I noticed the big green ball in this particular round corral, so I went over to get it [Mo at liberty] Mo came about halfway then found some interesting sand and ignored me so I just started bouncing the ball around her doing approach and retreat etc.. Another horse who was scared of the ball came in and her owner took advantage of my bouncing to help her horse approach and retreat enough to get her nose on the ball! How awesome! After enough retreating for Mo, I decided that her look wasn’t an “umm Im not sure” look but a “ Pfft… I do do balls” I walked right up to her with it and started bouncing right next to her. That didn’t bother her so I bounced it high and sat it on her back for about ten seconds before I couldn’t contain my self any longer I had to hug her and tell her how awesome she was!

After that grand finale with the ball we moseyed out of the playground to get Mo a drink – she has finally found the world of molasses water, and it took her literally seeing another horse drinking out of it right in front of her to convince her it wasn’t a poison attempt! What a goofball. Now she [well today] only drinks the molasses water.

After getting a drink we moseyed back around and encountered Carmen and the Killer Golf Cart! Mo’s reaction isn’t your typical OMG reaction when you think of a horse being afraid, but it was an OMG for her so we went over to visit Carmen and investigate the cart and convince Mo it wouldn’t eat her. In fact she tried to eat it. Whoo! Even when Carmen drove away we were able to follow her, with me driving from zone 4/5. Cool stuff. I have been practicing my driving a lot more now I find, and we are getting pretty good!

We tried the pond one more time, making it more of a circling game and Mo went in awesome and pretty deep to, playing and splashing around. After that it was pretty late so we walked around, met up with Iris and dried up our horses in the sun and then brought them back to their pens and went for supper before going home to J’s for the evening.

Hopefully more tomorrow!

:-)
S