Side Passing Mister Attitude

 When I took Rocky out of the pasture, he gave this plow a distrustful sideways glance, shifting his weight away from it while still following me obediently.  I took him over and he blew snortily at it, then started to really smell it.  Within seconds he was nuzzling the plow and taking experimental nibbles. Apparently the horse-eating plow became a possibly edible fixture.  This is the Rocky I know and love, though; he can be unsure of something, but after examining it he quickly determines that it's okay.

Because he calmed down so fast after being worried about the plow, I decided to take him out for a trail ride.  Sometimes when we are out on the trail, I don't feel like Rocky is really "with" me.   He does what I ask him to, but his mind is elsewhere.  I spoke with Silver about it, asking for guidance.  She told me what I already knew about moving his feet, but I explained that doing figure 8's is not enough to engage his thinking brain.  He knows how to do figure 8's well enough that he can trot through them with minimal effort.

Next she suggested doing roll backs down her fence line, until I explained that we don't know how to do those. She told me that once we have enough snow on the ground to have decent footing, she'll run Rocky and I through our paces to see where we're at, then work with us from there.  I'm excited about that upcoming opportunity.

Still, I got myself thinking about things I can do with Rocky out on the trail that will help him tune in to me rather than space out.  Here is what I came up with:

 

Can you tell what we're doing? It's not very polished yet, but it definitely gets Rocky's brain working.  We have been able to do the building blocks for this for a while, but I haven't progressed to side passing until recently.  From the ground, I have been able to get him to yield his hind and fore quarters, crossing his inside leg over his outside one as he steps.  He pivots around one foot nicely, doing 360 degree circles as he yields.  Previously, I had done some work in getting him to side pass from the ground, and he was doing okay.  I wasn't consistent enough for it to really stick, but when I started up again recently he had some memory of our earlier work. 

So far, he does better moving to the right than left as that was our first lesson.  He wants to move forward and gets confused that he is not supposed to go forward or backwards.  The last time I took him out, he was able to get 3 good steps at a time.  Like I said, it's a work in progress but it was great out on the trails.  Whenever I felt his mind wander, I would ask him to yield his hindquarters, then sometimes try for a step or two of side passing.  It worked, and we went exploring through the brush trying to find the trail we took with Silver the last time we were out with her.  After 20 minutes of searching and slapping through scrub bushes, I gave up and returned to the well marked path. 

He had been perfectly happy to tromp around searching for the trail, and was equally enthusiastic to return home- so he thought.  Instead, we continued on known trails to get back into the woods on the other side of the property.  We went through the woods here, and I didn't often have to stop and ask Rocky for his attention.  We even went up the super steep hill that I had refused to ride up or down with Silver last time. At the bottom of the hill when I stopped to take this picture, a grouse exploded up from the grove to our right, and flew away with snapping wings.  Rocky jumped in place with surprise, and then calmed down within a second or two. 

  

I took a few seconds to gather myself after the grouse had left, then asked him to go up the hill.  He went without hesitation.  I gripped his mane, leaned forward and let him do his thing.  His front feet slipped twice, but he caught himself without trouble and continued hauling us up.

 

 This is the view along the back of the pasture line, the "main artery" if you will to other trails.  Bear is waiting patiently for us up ahead, and we practiced side passing down this fence line.

 

At the end of the ride, Rocky's nose was frosty and his neck was steaming.  I covered him with a cooler until he was mostly dry, then put his blanket back on him. 

 Oh, and he stuck his head through some pine branches a few times.  I think he was going for a medicine hat look...but, you know, the photo negative version.

Softening

Rocky likes to stick his nose out.  He generally travels in a long, spread out manner, his nose leading the charge.  He moves like that even in the pasture, so it's just his natural way of getting from A to B.  Most of the time, especially as he's been growing up, I have ignored his stuck out nose.  Okay, to be fair, I didn't know how to ask him NOT to root his nose, but I also didn't want to push him into travelling in a frame (or collected) before his growing body could handle it.  There are so many differing opinions about how to push or not push young horses!  General consensus, however, is that a 6 year old is just tipping past "young horse" into "mature horse" territory.

We're there.  Rocky turned 6 this spring, and sometimes I can't believe that I have already owned him for 3 years.  This last year, I have started working with him using Clinton Anderson's methods, and have seen a lot of improvement from both of us.  The biggest thing so far (for me, anyway) has been flexing him horizontally- asking him to bend his nose to touch my boot while I'm on him.  He has been getting lighter and lighter about doing this, and each time I ride him I let him warm up to it, but then I can ask him to flex with just a couple of fingers. It's awesome.

Last fall, I started learning how to ask him to "vertically flex from the poll-" to tip his nose towards his chest when I pick up with the reins. Now, for my stuck out nose horse, tipping his nose towards his chest did not initially make much sense.  To ask for it, you put the horse in a snaffle bit that would be uncomfortable but not painful for the horse to lean against. Then you pick up first with one rein, sliding your hand toward the bit and pulling back to hold steady pressure on the horse's mouth.  You do the same with the other rein until the horse has steady backwards pressure on his mouth, again enough to make them uncomfortable but not enough to be painful.  

Then you wait, hands holding reins on your thighs until the horse is standing still and they figure out to give to you.  You're waiting for them to bump their nose in, giving to the bit for just a second.  Then you release the pressure, rewarding them for that give.  The first time Rocky and I did this last fall, my arms were shaking from holding his big head. He didn't get it, and stood for probably 20 minutes at a time pulling against the pressure. It didn't help that the bit I was using was too thick, giving him too much to lean against.  I now have a snaffle that isn't thick, with nice copper inlay. Alright, it's my mom's bit that she isn't using right now, but I digress.

That's where we started, Rocky leaning against the bit for 20 minutes or so before giving me the slightest nose bob.  Of course, you can't try something just once and expect them to get it... so I ended up sitting in the arena looking like I wasn't doing much for over an hour. Ah, horse training.

Since then we have much improved, I forget to practice but Rocky is a smart horse and quickly picks up where we left off.  Thank goodness for forgiving horses! 

Yesterday he started flexing vertically from his poll when I would just pick up the reins.  He wasn't consistent about it yet, but lightness is coming into it.  He's finally started to really *get* it, and he definitely had his thinking cap on.  I am pretty sure his 'thinking cap' pushes his ears out, because when he is really concentrating, his ears go out to the side and his eyebrows wrinkle. It's not really a pretty look... but I love it because I know how hard he's trying to do what I'm asking.

We got the vertical flexion at a standstill, and even started working on it at a walk! I had to put my spurs on to help him figure out that he now needs to move and flex at the same time, but it didn't take him long to start to catch on.  We worked on it until he started getting it fairly consistently in the arena, then went for a short trail ride.  He gave really nicely even out on the trails! 

After the ride was over, he was tired but happy. 

On a side note, I just spent about half an hour trying to get my phone to connect to the computer so I could put the picture I took of Rocky at the end of this post. It's not working and I'm getting mad at it, so I'm going to post a different picture.

**UPDATE: I just realized that the photo I uploaded here previously is one that I put in a different post.  Oops! Here's a new photo instead:

Rocky and I going through some water!

A new look for Rocky

The last two weeks have been really busy so I haven't been able to get out to the barn very much- as in, twice, which is why I wrote the Snow White review rather than more Rocky stuff.  C'est la vie.  I've got a great trail ride to tell you guys about, but before that I want to talk about my time at the barn yesterday.

Pretty, new fly sheet!

Rocky got a new fly sheet for my birthday, and he looks so shiny and clean underneath it! (knock on wood) I groomed and tacked him up as usual, then did some flexing exercises and worked on trying to be light, asking him with the lightest touch and then raising the pressure if he resisted.  I tried to be conscious of asking lightly every time I used a new cue, rather than falling into the trap of staying at the last pressure level that worked. Thanks, Mugs!

He responded pretty well, but he'll be better after I have been consistent with him for a few days. I can't blame him for being a little off after not being worked with for about two weeks. 

So after doing that I thought I would take him on the small trail loop to work on leg yielding across the trail, more lightness exercises but in a different environment.  He wasn't thrilled with going out on the trail, instead trying to get me to let him go down the driveway- which ends at a big highway.  I said "no thanks" for today, and then proceeded to ask, then tell him not to eat grass/leaves/ferns while going down the trail.  I ended up popping him in the head with the end of my mecate rein, which got him up and trotting but at least proved that I was serious about the not grazing while working thing. 

A few minutes later, he tossed his head and I saw a flap of skin under his mane come up to reveal a one inch by one inch wound on his neck.  It was right on the top of his neck, hidden under his mane.  I gasped and leaned forward to look at it.  It was about a third of the way down his neck from his ears, and every time he shook his head the flap jiggled.  I finished the loop with him and had my barn manager look at it.

Yeah, it's kinda gross.

See the flap? It's to the left of the raw wound.

You can see daylight! and how deep the wound is.

She gasped, too, but then relaxed after seeing that it wasn't as bad as it initially looks. I could tell that she felt terrible about not having noticed it before I did, but I assured her that I had completely groomed and tacked him up without knowing it was there- I had skipped brushing his mane. She advised me to shave the mane around it, clean it out and see how strongly attached the flap of skin was.

I shaved immediately around the wound, then cleaned up his bridle path as long as I was there.  I stood there looking at his neck, which had a clean bridle path, then a chunk of mane the length of my palm, and then another patch of shaved neck. Awkward.  I decided to shave off all of his mane to the wound, sortof like the show Arabian bridle path.  Rocky looks like an Arab now! (ha....ha...not.) But it does look better than it did. I braided the rest of his mane in a french braid going down his neck so that it would stay out of the wound. I thought it looked pretty, and I did a decent job for my first attempt at that type of horsey hairdo.

Shaved bridle path, braided mane.  This was the day after I originally did the braid though, so it's  messier than it was yesterday.

The flap, on the other hand, was just the wrong amount of attached- enough of a deep attachment (about a thumb width) to make me not want to pull it off, but not enough that it looks like it will reattach. So now we need to wait for it to die and fall off.  In the meantime, I put triple antibiotic ointment on it and put him in a stall so his horse friends won't help him get it full of dirt.  He happily clomped through his stall and out into the run attached to it to sniff the ground and try to get some grass. 

He will live, and his mane will look awkward growing back in, but it was pretty horrifying to suddenly see that flap of skin come up under his mane.  C'est la vie.