Disjointed

Hey All,
I have to get ready for work soon but I wanted to put up a quick post so I don't get so terribly out of the habit of writing again.

I am working two part time jobs right now, which means I am almost done with a 13 day stretch of no days off. I was hoping to get tonight off, but alas, I was called in. Trying to keep my shit together so I can be professional and awesome at work, even though I felt a bit like crying when I found out I needed to go in tonight.

I have been working with Rocky on listening to my legs better, and it has been going well! The first two days I couldn't hold the reins in my hands without cuing him, so I left them draped over the saddle horn until I needed to pick one up to correct him. Today he did very well, doing circles wherever I wanted him to across the arena.  Yay!

Rocky was wonderful tonight, actually. He did all of the obstacles I pointed him at without fuss or spook, including a ditch filled with plastic bottles and the ever terrifying tarp on the ground. I praised him for his good behavior and took him on a nice trail ride which made him sweaty.  As a reward he got to graze for a while with his cooler on, happy boy!

Well, that's about all I have time for today, I hope you all are doing well!

I want to be here right now, with a yummy drink in a pineapple with an umbrella.

ACTHA Ride, Day 1

I'm baaaaaaack! And super excited to share my weekend with you all!  This last weekend I did my first ACTHA (American Competitive Trail Horse Association) rides, and I am really proud of how it went.

My mom and I drove out to the ride location on Friday night, arriving around 6:30 pm. We put our horses out in their paddocks, unpacked the horse stuff in a tie stall and then found our lodging. We stayed in a bunk house with showers, toilets, and electricity!  Gotta love "roughing" it!

Here is Rocky in his paddock on Friday, he handled unloading with aplomb.  He backed out of the trailer, alertly checked out his surroundings, then walked calmly with me to his pen.  The horse directly behind him in the picture (in the green blanket) is a 30 year old Arabian gelding named Ace- more on him later!

After unpacking all of our stuff, we tacked up and rode around the arenas for a bit.  I did some ground work first to help him adjust to the new location.  His attention was constantly being pulled to other things with all of the other horses plus the new surroundings, and he was a bit edgier than normal. He snorted at a picnic table, for example, but decided it was not a horse-eating picnic table after getting to smell it.

After the height of his nerves was dissipated, we rode around the outdoor arenas for a bit. We went into the one with less people at first, until I discovered why there were so few people using it. The footing on the property as a whole was generally sandy, but the arena had a lot of deep sand.  I could feel how much harder Rocky had to work to even walk through it, and it was deep enough that I started to worry about someone pulling a tendon.

The other, larger outdoor arena wasn't quite as deep as the smaller one.  The outside rail was the best place to be, but the middle was bogged down with sand.  We worked in a lot of circles, doing figure 8's at a trot and then cantering a few 30 meter circles.  Rocky was still more excited than usual but in a manageable way, so we ended there for the night.

Saturday morning was cold, about 50 degrees with 40 mph winds.  I hadn't brought long johns so I only had jeans on the bottom, on top I wore a T-shirt, sweatshirt, and my winter jacket. The wind was the worst part, blowing up the dirt and sand while making everyone squinty and cold. At the end of the day I was picking sand out of my eyes and ears- not pleasant!

My barn owner, Silver, came to the ride with her Quarter horse stallion, Tucker, and her Arabian gelding, Walker. Silver's mom, Jane, rode Walker while Silver rode Tucker. My mom came with her Norwegian Fjord gelding, Tapper, and another barn member came with her Friesian sport horse  Haley. Together with a friend of Silver's who was riding her GORGEOUS Friesian mare, we made up the 2nd group to leave at 10:15 am.

Haley, Friesian Mare, Walker, Rocky, and Tapper.

Here is our group photo at the end of the ride on day 1. This is everyone except for Silver, who took the picture. I captioned it with the important information, mainly, the horses' names. :)

Before getting into the ride specifics, I'd like to note how the scoring system works. Horse and rider are scored separately for each obstacle.  These scores are then added up into one final score that determines what your placing is for that ride. You or your horse can earn "pluses" which means that you did something extra in a good way.  If two people's numerical score ties, the tie is broken based on the number of pluses that were earned. A score of 1-4 is considered below average, 5-7 is average, and 8-10 is very good.

Now onto the actual ride! Our first obstacle was a green tarp we were supposed to go over. For those of you who read my blog regularly, you'll know that Rocky does NOT like to walk over things he hasn't seen before.  He refused to go over it within the time allotted, which was 30 seconds. He earned a 4/10 for his refusal, and I got a 7/10.

Obstacle 2 was cantering from one cone to another. We were to trot to the cone, canter, then drop back to a trot after the second cone.  We picked up the canter a little late- my fault for a late cue- but we still both earned 8 points!

The third obstacle was a turn on the forehand.  This obstacle was located in a terrible place at the top of a hill, in the middle of a four way intersection of trail. There was a length of hose in a circle you were supposed to put the horse's front feet in and then pivot around, but it was too big of a circle and messily placed.  The whole thing was not very well set up.  Rocky stepped into the hose without an issue, which had been worrying me. I think I rushed asking him for the turn, wanting to finish in time.  I should have relaxed, paused after his halt, and then taken my time tilting his nose before asking for him to move.  He went in a general circle, but I think it's fair to say we just botched that one.  Rocky earned a 4, I got a 6.

The fourth obstacle was a campsite!  There was a tent set up that we were to walk around in a circle.  At one point you walk within four feet of the tent between it and a tree.  Rocky was alert, and as I asked him to walk toward the tent he started to shy a little away from it.  Once he saw the path between the tent and tree, he marched through with confidence and completed the obstacle without a problem.  We both earned 8's for it, and I got a plus.  I believe my plus was for guiding him gently when he started to shy.

Campsite obstacle!

Our second-to-last obstacle was called Frog in the Pond. You walk up to a puddle and halt next to it. The rider then tosses a stick into the puddle, causing a splash. Your horse is to stand quietly for this, then walk on without issue. I was the one who messed this one up.  I was concerned that Rocky would try to shy away from the puddle, so I kept looking down to make sure we weren't getting too close. The judge had said to keep your eyes up except for when you toss the stick- my bad! Rocky got a 10 for his calm stop, he waited patiently without caring that I threw something, and walked off nicely. I got a 7, most likely for my eyes. Oops!

Final and sixth obstacle!  This one was on the far side of their sandy arena.  The wind howled across it directly at us, so I closed my eyes against the whipping sand and let Rocky take me where we needed to go.  I am so glad I spent the time I did working on opening and shutting the gate at Silver's!  For this obstacle we didn't have to shut it at all.  You open it, hold it open for 5 seconds, then ride through it leaving the gate open. The judge commented after we finished that it was very nice- very nice indeed, for we both scored 9's!

At the end of the day, Rocky and I got an overall score of 88 out of 120 points. The top score for our division, which was Pleasure, earned a 100 that day. I got 13th place out of 19 riders.  Silver got 8th, and her mom got 5th. My mom got 2nd in her division of Scout out of 6 riders, and our barn member got 4th in Scout.

I was happy to complete the ride and earn some good scores!  Next time I will not rush through the obstacles, trust Rocky more, and work on the few things that need some fixing.

Coming soon, Day 2 of our ACTHA ride!

A Little Healthy Competition

A few posts ago, I wrote about my riding goals for the upcoming year.  Most of them pertained to doing an ACTHA ride, and well... I'm doing it!

Mother's Day weekend this year, I will be doing not just one but TWO Competitive Trail Challenges (CTC). One is on Saturday, and the other is on Mother's Day Sunday. My mom has decided to white knuckle her way through the weekend with me, and we are both very nervous.  I also have a good mix of excitement added in, but I'm pretty sure my mom is just scared to compete.

We are driving almost two hours to get there, and we're going up on Friday.  There will be capture the flag on horseback Friday night, and on Saturday they have a zip line you can do as often as you'd like for $5. I think the weekend will be fun and a great experience for all of us. We are practicing different obstacles to prepare ourselves as best we can, but I need some help.

I really want to be able to turn on both the forehand and the haunches, as well as side pass well.  However, while I can get decent turns on the forehand and haunches from the ground, I need help learning how to ask for them from the saddle.  Additionally, my side passing is... well, I can sometimes get a nice 3 steps in a row but not consistently, and I could use the help of someone who actually knows what they're doing.

The great thing is, I could easily take some lessons from Silver and probably do pretty well by the second weekend in May. The bad thing is that my money is running dangerously low, and just going to do the rides is going to stretch our income as it is.

Still, I'm thrilled to be doing my first ever *real* competition. I spent a lot of time this last weekend working with Rocky on not being scared of a plastic sled- he is consistent in his fears, and the sound/movement combination of a sled makes him very uncomfortable. A perfect desensitization tool!

We Built This City on Ice and Snow

I went up to the barn yesterday, bundled up in all of my winter gear and excited to work with Rocky and Ella. When I got up there, Ella's owner had her out already and was just about done messing around with her.  We chatted for a bit, and as I was talking I gestured upwards with one of my hands.  I noticed Ella shy away a little, eyeing me suspiciously. I continued the movement over and over.  My arm swished past my body, making more noise than usual due to the fabric of my jacket.

Ella edged away, her ears back and nose in the air.  I followed her, keeping roughly the same distance as the one that had startled her.  When she stopped trying to sidle away and seemed to relax a little, I stopped waving my arm and rubbed her neck.  She blew out softly, already seeming to understand that a neck caress is soothing and means that she has done the right thing.  She flinched a little when I repeated the exercise, but didn't try to move away again. Her owner, Bryan, remarked that he had never thought of desensitizing a horse with something as simple as an arm movement.

We talked about it for a few minutes, and I encouraged him to foster her natural curiosity about things that he knows won't hurt her. If she is spooks at something, let her walk up and smell it. She'll learn to investigate things rather than run away from them.

I asked if he minded me working with her in the round pen, and if he wanted to watch.  He was happy to hear this, and led her through the barn.  She snorted and went sideways a little when exiting the other end of the barn.  Bryan was going to keep leading her to the round pen, until I stopped him and had him let Ella smell the potted plant that had made her shy.  Within seconds she was trying to eat the brown, brittle plant stems. I reiterated that every spook is an opportunity for learning, and the more she is shown that the horse-eating-thing she spooked at will not hurt her, the calmer of a horse she will be.

We let her go in the round pen to buck and trot around for a few minutes.  I also wanted to see what the footing was like without putting pressure on her to follow my directions.

Half the round pen was icy, but the other half seemed okay.  The last time I had her in the round pen, she had cut across the pen, skipping the now icy half completely.  I decided to give it a go, and stop if the footing became too much of a problem.

She remembered some of the lesson from four days previous! I had to walk up to her to encourage her to move out the first time, but after that all it took was a snap on the ground with the whip in the center of the round pen to send her off when she was getting sticky.  Once she purposefully walked in the correct direction off just my point, most times it took pointing and clicking to achieve it.

Ella was doing pretty well going right, so I decided to work on sending her to the left.  Unfortunately, she became braver about the other half of the round pen when traveling to the left.  I had to back off completely when she went over there, as the ground was smooth ice with a dusting of snow.  Several times her feet slid around.  I finally decided that I needed to stop the lesson.  I wasn't able to cue her properly and she was putting herself in danger on the ice.

I moved on to desensitizing her to the lunge whip.  She was fine with it rubbing down her neck and sides, but was flinchy when it touched her butt.  When I rubbed down her left hind leg, she kicked out when it touched just above her hock. I kept rubbing when she kicked, so she tried to move away from it while seriously considering kicking again.  After a few seconds, she stopped her movement and stood still for me for a good 10 seconds.  I took the whip off her leg and praised her.  I put it back, and she huffed out a breath, then relaxed.  She didn't try to kick out the rest of the session.

It's moments like that when I know I'm doing the right thing here, teaching her not to kick and how to relax. Bryan had said he picked her feet without a problem before I got there, but I worry that he trusts Ella a bit too much.  He also doesn't know how to desensitize a horse properly, and would have removed the pressure when she struck out rather than keeping it on, effectively teaching her that if she strikes with her feet, scary things go away.

Ella also tried to push into me when she got uncomfortable with what I was doing. I curbed this by keeping my hand at her eye level.  Every time she attempted to push into me, I tapped her face with my hand.  Ella would throw her head back in alarm, but back off.  After a few times of running into my hand, she figured out that she needed to keep a respectful distance.

By the end of our desensitization, she was standing quietly while I flipped the string of the lunge whip over her back and butt, then dragged it back to my side.  I let the string flip around the far side of her from me, curl under her belly, and then I would drag it back across to me.

Overall, I'd say we ended on a successful note with her desensitization.  I had her stand tied for a bit, and she pawed a little at first but then stopped.  I was able to release her after only 10 minutes or so, when she stood quietly with one hind leg cocked in relaxation.  Smart filly.

Arena vs. Trails

The last two times I rode Rocky in the arena, he was sluggish.  The first of those two times, he seemed tired and I figured that he was because he had been switched to a different pasture the day before.  Getting acquainted with his new pasture mates, figuring out the pecking order and exploring the new area probably didn't lend itself to a "full nights sleep."

When I squeezed with my legs, he would pin his ears before reluctantly following my cue.  His steps lacked energy and his canter felt all wrong.  When I let him stop and rest, he seemed sleepy.  So I figured he was tired, crabby, and didn't want to be pushed.  I gave a mental shrug and let it go.

The next time I went up to ride, a few days after this last incident, I took him out on the trails first.  I rode along the outside of the arena, and when he was given the opportunity to head down the trail, he went with no real cue from me.  Rocky seemed happy to head out on the trails with renewed energy.  I soon discovered he had too much of the wrong type of energy.   He was hesitant to go unless Bear took the lead, but Bear was more interested in guarding our rear.  When I asked him to trot he sprang forward, head up and ears perked alertly.  He huffed as we went, and scanned the area with his head higher than normal.

Rocky tends to keep his head fairly level with his withers, through no training of mine but as his natural, comfortable head set.  When his head stays up with his ears sharply perked forward, he's on high alert. I took note and let him trot for a minute, hoping to burn off at least of little of his nerves.  At one point, he stopped in his tracks and stared into the woods.  I asked him to flex his head around and he did, then spooked a few seconds later.  We turned in a circle until he stopped himself, his nose still near my toes.  Flexing is truly a wonderful thing, and I am never more grateful for learning it than at the times when it keeps me from being on a horse running for the hills in terror.

I flexed his nose to my toes in both directions until he seemed more settled, then asked him to continue.  He was hesitant still, and seemed to be nervous.  I think it may be the changing seasons, plus my lack of desensitizing lately that has brought us back to this point. I ended up getting off where there were two boards over a weird hole in the ground.  I sent Rocky around this obstacle in both directions, and once he tried to scoot away from the hole in fear.  I was glad my feet were firmly planted on the ground!

After a few minutes he relaxed with the hole and let me mount up. I decided to turn around, not wanting to keep pushing him when he wasn't settling properly.  I rode him through brush on the way back, trying to keep him occupied as he still was on his toes.  He huffed his way through it no problem, but at any moment it felt like he was going to spook, bolt, or slam on the brakes.  When we got back to the barn yard, his nerves dropped.  When we entered the arena, the ear pinning and shuffling gait took over again.

He lacked enthusiasm and his canter still felt off, even though he had seemed fine on the trails.  I finally asked Silver to watch us go, just in case he was lame somewhere that I wasn't noticing.  He hadn't been tender when I groomed him, and I checked his spine and ribs to make sure nothing was out of place there.  He was fine, no "ouchy" spots.

I got him to canter while Silver observed, and she confirmed what I had suspected: he was fine, just arena sour. Now, I had only ridden him in the arena the last two or three times I had been out, before that it was a decently long stretch of trail rides.   In all of her wisdom, Silver pointed out, "Let's be honest, we work our horses harder in the arena than we ever do on the trails."

It rang true, and I figured out that I needed to do a few things differently.  First, do several sessions in a row that consist for the most part of desensitizing.  Not the half hearted, short lived concessions I had been making, but genuinely working on it.  Second, do as much work with Rocky as I could outside of the arena.  If we did need to work inside the fence, I would not tolerate his nasty attitude.  Everybody is allowed to have a bad day but his behavior would surely escalate if I allowed him to dictate what we do by him being nasty.  That's a good way to teach a good horse to be mean.

It made me wonder about horses that are worked exclusively in an arena.  A horse that Silver bought had been in training to be a reiner, and was terribly arena sour.  She hated being in it.   The mare doesn't mind now, but she had been worked only in an arena for almost a year.  The naturally sweet mare had become nasty with it, until given the opportunity to get out of the arena and to do more than stops and spins.

There is a dressage horse at my barn that doesn't seem to mind working in the arena all the time.  His owner has taken him out on the trails once or twice a year, but he spends most of his time learning to be graceful within the arena.   He puffs his way around with enthusiasm, and seems to enjoy the work he is given.

I think it comes down to having the right horse for the job you want to do.  Silver's mare could have been a great reiner, she has the bloodlines and the conformation for it.  She doesn't love that job, though.  The dressage gelding had become known at his last home as "dangerous," and would dump riders.  He never got turned out, though, and now that he is turned out 24/7 and not a lesson horse, he's an absolute snuggle bunny.  (And by bunny, I mean huge Warmblood).

Rocky likes going for trail rides, and I feel lucky that I have a horse that enjoys the same things I do. 

Rocky says hi :)

Difficult Conversations

Welcome, Mugwump Chronicle Readers! (and all others, of course.)  Mugwump featured a past blog post I wrote on her blog today, and one of the reader comments inspired me to write a follow up.  The original blog can be found here.  It's titled "Lemons," and is about my experience of buying Rocky, falling in love with him, and then realizing that he has HYPP N/H after receiving his registration papers from the friend I bought him from.  One of the Mugwump readers asked if I ever talked to "Rite," my friend who sold me Rocky, about not disclosing his HYPP status to me prepurchase.  Here is the answer:

When I got Rocky's registration papers in the mail and saw the dreaded "HYPP N/H" letters on the side, my heart sank.  One of the people I boarded with at the time had been concerned that her horse was HYPP positive, and had mentioned a few things about it.  Essentially, I knew that it wasn't good but not any concrete details.  I headed to the internet and did some research to learn what exactly I was dealing with.

I was still grieving the loss of my first horse just three months earlier, so seeing that my new horse I had already started falling in love with may have a seizure and drop dead was terrifying.  For a while, I sat and cried with my laptop, wondering what I should do.  I didn't want to return Rocky; HYPP notwithstanding, he was exactly what I wanted in a horse and my rational brain knew that horses can have accidents or other sudden medical issues.  I had learned that fact all too well with the untimely death of my first horse.

I felt such rage at Rite, for misleading me, for breeding Rocky in the first place, for continuing to breed his HYPP N/H sire at will.  I thought about how she feeds all of her horses a rich alfalfa diet, and came to the conclusion that she did not have the same panic response that I did.  The potassium in alfalfa can set off HYPP symptoms, but she didn't seem to either know or be bothered by that knowledge.

Finally, when I had processed the situation enough on my own to not send a nasty, horrible email, I did send one.  I don't remember exactly what I said, but I tried to keep my feelings in check the best I could.  I asked if Rocky had ever had HYPP symptoms, what they were and how severe they were if he had experienced them. I think I commented about being surprised to see that he was a carrier on his papers, and that it would have been nice to know earlier.

She responded by saying that he'd never been symptomatic, nor had Checkers, his sire.  Rite explained that if he were to have an attack, it would look like "he was standing on his tippy toes" with his hind end, and that it would go away after a little bit.  I stared at that email for a long time.  I didn't know what to say; she knew enough about HYPP to know that it would be a muscle seizure, but apparently not enough to know that he could choke to death?  Obviously choking to death would be a worst case scenario, but it has happened.

I finally decided that nothing I could say to her was likely to make a difference. She was an adult, had made her choices and chooses to believe that HYPP is not a big deal.   Rite recently talked about gelding Checkers, and I was very supportive of the idea.  Other than that, I chose not to pursue the matter any further.  I think that Rite honestly believes HYPP is not a real problem, so she thought she was acting fairly. 

In many ways I have been very lucky to have Rocky.  He has a great mind, tries hard, is sweet and steady.  A good deal of those traits come from his breeding, as both Amber (his dam) and Checkers are good minded, calm, and try to please their rider.  He also came with the upbringing I wanted, having received all proper vaccinations and farrier care.   Rocky was also desensitized from a young age, again adding to his value as a trail horse for me.

Rocky's good traits that he got from Rite added to my decision to let this thing lie.  I couldn't see any good come from "having it out" with Rite, and at the end of the day, I love and want my horse. 

If you had been in my shoes, what would you have done?  What do you think the "right" course of action would be? 

Back to Basics

Rocky has been spooking more lately than he has over the summer.  I think it's because I have focused my attention on sensitizing him to my cues without putting much (if any) time into desensitizing him to the world at large.  He was so steady for me this summer, I think I took his calm nature for granted rather than doing upkeep on him like I should have been.  He hasn't done anything major, but I want to nip this in the bud before he gets worse. 

The last time I took him out for a trail ride, he spooked a few times at some grouse that flew up and away from us in some pines. At first he just stopped and snorted, side stepping a little but otherwise just watching the trees intently.  Bear helped out by trotting over to where the grouse had been, sniffing around and then looking at me to see where I wanted to go next. He's a good dog.  Later, a grouse flew up from somewhere behind us and Rocky scooted forward a few feet in alarm before coming to a stop mostly on his own- my reflexes were a bit behind. Oops.

Overall, he still did what he was supposed to do as far as not taking off in a mad panic, but he still wasn't as quiet as I like him to be.  My barn owner has put up a horse obstacle course designed for desensitizing, so Rocky and I have been spending a good chunk of time with that.  So far, she has hung a tarp between two trees that has been cut in strips, so it flaps in the wind or hangs there, depending on the weather.   There is also a line hung with plastic bottles that rattle and bounce off the horse as they move through it.  Two tires that can be stepped through or around make up one of the last obstacles.  Rocky doesn't like them but he really doesn't like the last one- a tarp that has been stapled to parallel boards.  He is positive that tarp is going to swallow him whole or something equally disastrous will happen.

We spent a good hour and a half on the ground tarp a few days ago.   He stops, scoots backwards, snorts heavily, and generally exhibits great distrust of that obstacle.  By the end of that time, I was getting him to back over the boards with some success.  He drags his feet terribly when he backs up, so it was a good exercise in encouraging him to actually LIFT his feet up.  A few times he would drag the tarp thing toward him with his backwards shuffle, and his eyes would get big as he hustled off it.

 It's a work in progress, but we'll get there.

Deer shack!

In my last post I mentioned fulfilling the childhood dream of riding at my family's cabin, also known as the "Deer Shack." It was the first time my mom and I trailered out for a ride on our own.  We got going about half an hour behind schedule (which is usually right on time in the horse world...) and it took us about 45 minutes to an hour to get to the cabin from the barn.

We tacked up and I did some ground work with Rocky before mounting up, as he was a bit snorty at things around the cabin.  After some lunging and sending exercises, his thinking brain was back on so we headed out.  My mom and I brought our dogs to come along, and they were very excited to go out on the trail.  Dexter, my mom's black lab/newfoundland mix, likes to cut into the woods or run ahead, checking things out.  Bear moves between my mom and I, guarding us from the sides and rear.  It's a good system, and the horses like the feeling of security.

We got out on the four wheeler trail after crossing a meadow, and Rocky was in the lead with a confident stride.  Normally when we go out on trail rides with a group, Rocky ends up in the back and middle of the pack.   He's not a fast guy, in fact, there have been jokes made about how slow he can be.  Tapper is slower than Rocky is- to the point that we can turn around and ride back to where Tapper is plodding along.

We did that for a bit, and then we came upon a stand of young poplar trees.  Rocky stopped and his head shot up, eyes wide. He then began to side step.  I asked him to flex and he refused, mouth and neck hardened against my ask so that he could stare into the trees.  At this point I'm getting worried, because he is clearly alarmed at the trees and is resistant to following my directions.  I look over, and Tapper has also frozen, his eyes showing white.

Tapper has been generally unflappable to this point, so the fact that his front feet are planted and he looks like someone just told him he will never get grain again made me go "aww shit..." I then look at my mother... who is trying to look over Tapper's head to see what he is scared of.  She looks mildly concerned, but more curious about what's going on.

I take all of this in and realize that one of these horses is going to try to flee the scene very soon, and when one goes, the other will be with him like a shot.  I start pulling harder on my rein to get Rocky to flex, and tell my mom that she should flex Tapper, too.  She goes, "oh, yeah, he does seem kind of scared..."

At this point, I'm scared.  My mom can't afford to get hurt, and I would really rather not get hurt myself.  My response to her casual statement?

"NO! You need to flex him NOW!!"  It made my mom jump, and she quickly began to pull Tapper's nose in to her boot.  At about that time, Rocky finally gave me his face a bit so we stood there and flexed our horses until they were at least responsive to us. After they had relaxed a bit, I explained to my mom that when Rocky is really scared, I can feel his heart beat through the saddle.  This was one of those times, and I could tell that Tapper was ready to panic, too.

We had a good laugh about it later, joking about my mom "getting us killed" by trying to figure out what the horses were so scared of rather than addressing their fear.

The rest of the ride went well, but we had to hurry back as the skies were starting to get stormy dark.  We made it back in time for a few sprinkles to start, but we decided to take some quick pictures anyway.

Rocky, Bear and I. You can see the storm coming in the back ground!

Bear and Dexter were tired boys on the drive home!

It was a good trip, and I can't wait to do it again!

Tube of Death

Yesterday I discovered an object that scares Rocky more than any other object I have found in my 3 years of owning him. He has snorted at it consistently when walking past it, but yesterday, he actually spooked and tried to quickly turn around to get away from it. Obviously, somewhere in his mind, this object was going to eat him. The object in question was partially under snow, patiently waiting to leap out to devour my faithful steed. He just knew it was going to get him.

I was going to put a picture of it in here, but I couldn't get it to work. http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/43557?feat=509635-GN1
Go ahead, follow the link. I'll wait.

Are you back? Ok. Yup, it was an L.L. Bean snow tube. I know the price scared me, too, but that thing was terrifying to my poor horse. So, instead of going for a trail ride like I had originally planned, we spent TWO HOURS desensitizing him to the snow tube. By the end of the two hours, Rocky would stand calmly while the snow tube whooshed its way across the snow to bump into his front and back legs, slide all the way around his body, including in front of him. He still snorted when he sniffed it, but he was determined to stand still and appear calm while I moved the tube around him. He would also walk quietly next to me (rather than trying to push himself in front of me so I would protect him) while the tube dragged behind him. Not attached to Rocky- that was still too scary- but if I had the tube in my hand and Rocky in the other, I could walk on both sides of him while pulling the tube behind us.

This is the same horse that often takes a nap while I try to desensitize him to other things. I can drag a tarp off of him, both from the ground and while riding. If he steps on it while I'm riding him and its dragging around, he carefully keeps going. Calmly. I don't know what it is about the tube, but it scared his horsey brain to no end.

At the end of the two hours, he was mentally exhausted. He looked so tired it was a little comical. Rocky tried so hard to be calm and not give in to his flight response that he started dozing at his tie post almost as soon as I put him there.

And now I should head out there today to see how scary the tube is today- and before we get the massive snow storm we are supposed to get.