Mister Attitude

A few posts ago I talked about how Rocky was getting cranky working in the arena.   What I didn't mention is that he was also becoming increasingly irritable when I was saddling him up.

About a week ago Rocky was flatting his ears and angrily swishing his tail when I went to throw his new saddle on him.  Now, this saddle should fit him perfectly; I went to great lengths to make sure of it.  I started to panic a bit, thinking that maybe it didn't fit him, I would have to get him ANOTHER new saddle and that I didn't have the money to do that.

I felt Rocky's back for pain, and he was fine except for his shoulders- he did seem to have some pain at the tops of his withers.  I had Silver double check what I had done, including my saddle fit.  She agreed that his shoulders were a bit sore, but couldn't find anything wrong with his saddle fit.   A few days later, I checked his back and shoulders for pain right outside of the pasture.  Nothing.  I checked again at the tie post, and again, no pain response.

I had Silver come over (she is so helpful!) and double check that indeed, Rocky had no pain anywhere throughout his ribs, back, and withers.  He started cranking his ears back and swishing his tail as she did it, which he had done a bit with me but was doing more of now.   She concluded that he had no ouchy spots- he didn't flinch or do anything to indicate he was hurting- but instead, he has an attitude problem.  He was giving her the evil eyed, flattened ear look while she was just petting his back.

I was surprised.  Rocky normally has a good reason for being irritable, he has never been so crabby for no reason other than his attitude.   Last night, I think I figured out why.

Like most things Horse, there was more than one reason for his behavior.  I'm going to back up through time here, to explain a bit more about Rocky's past.  Specifically, his past with other horses.

As a young colt, Rocky grew up with his dam and maybe one or two other horses.   He spent most of his time on his own, or vaguely socializing with some other horses. When he was two and a half years old, his breeder/trainer Rite moved him to a barn with an indoor arena so that she could start riding him during the winter, and so he could be completely weaned from being with his dam.  Her property was not large enough to provide a real separation between them.

At the new barn, Rocky was picked on by the other horses to the point that they ended up putting him in an outdoor arena they weren't using.  By himself.   He didn't mind that, he got every scrap of hay they threw in there for him and he could still see other horses.   Then I bought him.

I took Rocky to college with me, where he was suddenly in the most social situation of his life.  There were 8 other horses there and no unused pastures to put him in by himself.  By this time he was three, and spent his first month at college standing off to the side in the pasture, unsure of how to interact with all of these strange horses.  He finally started to warm up to some of them, including a very tall Thoroughbred.  Sunny was sweet, but he stood at about 16.3hh to Rocky's almost 14.3hh.

When Sunny started trying to play with Rocky, Rocky was game until Sunny would rear.  Then the height difference became all that much more apparent, and Rocky would give up.   Over time, Rocky started to learn how to really play.  His front feet left the ground a little bit more each time Sunny would rear.   By the time I graduated college, Rocky had figured out how to be a member of a herd.  He was affable with everyone, not understanding when another horse didn't like him, but he was to the middle or low end of the hierarchy.

Fast forward to about a month ago.  Due to Rocky's cheerful nature with other horses, he was allowed to move into a mares-only pasture.  The mares in this pasture are low-end of the totem pole animals, and in this venue, Rocky seems to have found his stride.  He's the dominant horse in his pasture for the first time in his life.

Do you see where I'm going with this?  Pretty soon after his move into this new pasture where suddenly, the happy-go-lucky fellow is King has made Rocky reevaluate his place in society.   He knows how to boss other horses around now, pinning his ears or swishing his tail to put them into place.  Sound familiar?

Yeah.  He's testing me. Am I really boss, or should he take over?  Because if he takes over, he doesn't want to work- so don't you dare put that saddle on him!

When I had Silver do the final pain test, she told me that he has an attitude problem, and that I should be asking more from him.  She's right.  However, I'm getting to the end of my knowledge zone again.  We now have plans to do a lesson once there is snow on the ground so that the footing isn't so hard, and we can see where Rocky and I are at in our horsemanship journey.

After I had the confirmation of "no pain all attitude," and especially now that I am realizing the hierarchy test Rocky is putting me through, I am going to start paying more attention to making sure he isn't being insubordinate.  He is a quiet horse, which lends itself to laziness and not wanting to work.

I finished saddling Rocky up and started lunging him, confident that his ear pinning was something I could correct him for doing, and not something I needed to worry about causing him pain.  I asked him to trot, and he flipped his tail at me, tossing his head as if to say, "Screw you lady, I don't wanna."  I snapped the lunge whip out so it smacked his rump, and he leaped forward in shock.  He flicked his tail at me again, his ears going back in protest.   I repeated my cue to go left at a trot, and raised the whip in warning.  His eyes lost their fuck-you glare, he flew out around the circle and watched me to make sure he caught my next cue.

The rest of the session was very much him saying, "Yes, ma'am!"  It doesn't take a lot to put him in place, Rocky is still at heart a middle of the pack horse.  Mister Attitude just got a little big for his britches, that's all.

Micro Esteem

I have a degree in psychology, and I am trying to get good at noticing micro expressions.  Sometimes. (A micro expression is a tiny flash of emotion that people unconsciously will do, and is referred to in as a non verbal means of communication.)  So yeah, micro expressions.  Learning to read them, meaning notice that someone made the expression, figure out what emotion was shown, and then use that information to better understand what the person is truly thinking versus what they are literally saying. It can be very helpful at my job.  I work with teenagers at a residential treatment facility, and sometimes catching a micro expression and commenting on the feeling behind it can get you into more honest conversations with people.

For example, I was talking to an 18 year old male client, and I told him that he seems to be a sensitive person.  He flashed the expression for scorn and then smoothed it away in a heartbeat, because as humans we tend to not want to insult others.  He tried to be polite and say something about how "that's possible."  But his face told me he not only didn't believe he is a sensitive person, but his initial gut reaction was to be scornful of the very idea of being sensitive.  I pointed this out to him, and explained what I meant by sensitive.  After my explanation, he admitted that he can be emotionally sensitive- which is why he puts up protective "walls" around his feelings.  But I digress.

The point is, learning to read and respond to micro expressions at my work place has been helpful.  Not so in my person life.  I.E., with my mom.  I often wish that I could just not notice what my mom thinks about things.  I want to take what she is verbally saying at face value, and ignore her body language.

This is where I explain why I mentioned my degree in psychology at the beginning of this post.  It's because I can make excuses for other people's behavior all day long.  I'm good at it, at explaining it, rationalizing why someone might be doing what they are doing, etc.   Having insight into others is a double edged sword.  I can rationalize that my mom has a lot of things going on in her life right now that are really stressful, so if she looks at me with that "you look fat" face, or "you need to stop gaining weight" look, it's only because her mom is floundering downhill with Alzheimer's.  

The thing is, right now I feel like my mom thinks I'm fat, she doesn't like or understand my husband (he doesn't like going outside very much! He plays video games- a lot. Eep!), and she doesn't like my dog (he's "aggressive" and "doesn't understand" the word "come." Uh, yeah, he does, sometimes he chooses to ignore you, or stare at you blankly.  He does get it, though. She is upset that he likes to come when you are using a high pitched, read: happy tone of voice.  She "doesn't play that game," meaning using a different tone of voice to call him.  Nope, she puts a shock collar on her dog so that if he doesn't come, she can shock him.  Different strokes for different folks, I guess).

The thinking I'm fat thing... to be fair, I am overweight. I finally got myself some new bras yesterday because they were half off, and I don't like to spend money on myself, but I found out I went up two bra sizes.  Thank God I don't have that horrible 4 boob thing going on anymore, but up two sizes? I was grateful she wasn't there with me, not because I feel that terrible about my new bra size, but because her presence would have made me feel ashamed.  Even though she is overweight, too.  Women are tough on each other.

It's why I almost didn't get my new coat, because nothing seemed to look good on me yesterday- at least to her.  She gave me the once over, a half hearted "that's nice, but isn't that just like the other coat you have?"  Her face screamed that she was not impressed.  Nope, not really. I confirmed this when I brought it home to show Justin, and asked him if he thought it was the same as my other jacket.  He looked at me like I was crazy and said no, the two coats were completely different. (By the way, I love my husband).  This coat has a tie around the waist, which actually gives me a waist.  I think I look good in it.

I tried on this dress, it was lacy, black, and sexy.  I put my new Spanx on under it, the first Spanx I have ever purchased, and went, "Wow! My butt looks smooth! My sides are nipped in! I've got some cleavage going- which, what is the point of having big boobs if you never show them off- and the skirt is a decent enough length that I don't look slutty!"  I came out of the dressing room, as my mom had told me she wanted to see. Haltingly, she told me, "Oh, cute. Yeah."  And nodded.  She looked at me a few seconds longer, then asked, "Did you see yourself in a full length mirror?"  Who wants to be cute in a dress designed to be sexy, with a v neckline and black lace?  Um, yeah, I saw myself in a full length mirror.  I thought that my husband would love this dress, and want to get me out of it at his earliest opportunity.

I couldn't buy it then, not with the way she looked at me in it.  Her micro expressions were all negative, all condemning my cleavage and curvy (but now smoothly curvy- thanks Spanx!) torso. I did buy some boots that she wasn't overly impressed with either, but dammit, I can wear these every day.  And I like them. The dress would be a date-night dress, and we can only afford so many of those.  I suggested wearing the boots with skinny jeans, and she quickly told me, "Or just like that," meaning with pants over them.  Apparently I look bad in skinny jeans, too.

When I told my husband about it, wanting his honest opinion, he told me that the boots look good this morning (with skinny jeans, thankyouverymuch) and that he thinks I'm sexy anyway.  But that dress sounded good.

I did get $75 in Kohl's cash so I think I am going back to buy that dress on Monday.  Sexy date night, here I come! Negative micro expressions be damned.

Perception

The last time I was at the barn with my mom, it didn't go very well.  There were two main issues, one of which was my sister and the other was my dog.  I don't want to go into the whole thing with my sister, but I do want to talk about what happened with Bear.

I see Bear's behaviors one way, and my mom sees them another way.  When I am at the barn with Bear, and my mom/her dog, Dexter, are not there, I have no issues with Bear.  He listens to me, plays nice with the other barn dogs, and generally behaves himself.  When Dexter is there, Bear wants to play.  The two dogs have grown up together, a month apart in age, and Bear loves to play with Dexter.  Dexter has mellowed more so than Bear has in this department, and sometimes just flops on the ground rather than running around.  Now, here is one area my mom and I have differing opinions.  Bear will stand over/near Dexter and "chew" (gently, without hurting) Dexter's cheeks, nudging him and then standing back.  He will do this several times.  My mom sees this as Bear asserting his dominance over Dexter, and yells at him every time he tries to do it- which is fairly frequently.  I see it as Bear trying to play with Dexter, giving him space to get up, and then asking again to play.  Does it have some dominance aspect to it? Yes, but when they play I see Bear allowing Dexter to chase him/push him down, which is a passive role.

It seems to me that Bear is willing to switch roles from "dominant" to "submissive," but often Dexter chooses to lay on the ground.  Sometimes when Bear asks him to play, he does get up and play.  Sometimes, he doesn't.  To me, there isn't a clear boundary of when it is okay for Bear to ask Dexter to play, and when it isn't.  To me, Bear gets yelled at a lot for trying to play with Dexter.  To my mom, Bear is constantly trying to assert dominance over Dexter so she yells at him.

Bear is not an aggressive dog in protecting himself.  I have seen dogs snarl/bark/intimidate Bear, and he runs away with his tail between his legs.  He isn't trying to be Pack Leader, at least from what I have seen.  However, he is protective of me and others that he cares about.  When a dog runs up to me, he comes over and inserts himself between me and the other dog.  If it's a dog he knows, like Dexter, he is casual about it and easily lets me pet Dexter.  If it's a strange dog, he rumbles deep in his throat, his tail goes up and he thrusts his chest out at the other dog.  Essentially, he is saying "She's mine, I don't know you, back off." When I tell him it's okay and make a point of petting the other dog with him, he relaxes and nothing more happens.

The last time we were at the barn, one of the barn dogs was acting dominant toward Dexter.  I didn't see what happened, I only heard the dogs' voices.  I heard Crusher (the barn dog) make a dominant sound, and then seconds later I heard Bear's rumble.   There was a flurry of barking, then my mom yelling at them. Bear came to me when I called, and my mom started to tell me that Bear 'attacked' Crusher. I tried to tell her that he was being protective, but she then began insisting that Bear had meant to attack the other dog. (By the way it sounded and Bear's typical behavior, he didn't bite or try to bite the other dog. I think he ran up to Crusher in an assertive way while rumbling, as that is what I have seen Bear do before.) To be fair, I didn't see what happened at that moment.  Here's what happened after, though: I put Bear on my lead rope and tied him near Rocky.  I was done with him being yelled at and didn't want him interacting with the other dogs anymore.  He accepted this just fine. 

I kept Bear on the lead the rest of the time at the barn, as I was finishing up anyway.  During that time, Crusher behaved assertively toward Dexter, to the point that I heard Crusher rumble at Dexter and possibly push him down.  My mom then yelled at Crusher and put Dexter in her car.  Crusher then hovered outside the car, and my mom had to urge him away from the car. 

To me, that proves that Crusher was probably trying to push Dexter around, Bear saw it and intervened to protect his buddy. 

My mom believes Bear was acting aggressively toward Crusher, because Bear is an aggressive/dominant dog.  I believe Bear thought he was protecting Dexter from Crusher, and so he postured in a dominant way.  Can Bear be dominant? Yes, of course. He can also be submissive- he regularly submits to one of the other barn dogs, and is quite humble about it.  Again, I only see Bear's dominant/aggressive side come out when he believes he is protecting someone else.  It's in his breeding as a German Shepherd to do that, but he has always listened to me and backed down when doing so.  I have never seen him genuinely attack anything, only posture and rumble which tends to be intimidating enough.

Which of us is correct?  Obviously I think I am, but either way, I am tired of Bear being yelled at.  For a while he didn't even want to come in the barn, and would hide by my car unless I was going out for a trail ride.  I have worked to make his last several times at the barn more positive, he has started to regain confidence in entering the barn again.

My plan for the future is to tie him up while Dexter is there, unless we are going for a trail ride.  That way Dexter can get away from him, lay down all he wants and Bear doesn't get yelled at- for trying to play or asserting dominance, whichever way you look at it.

The Poster Debacle

I may have just done something bad. And by bad, I mean potentially harmful to my relationship with my sister. I am really hoping that she won't be angry with me. Let me explain.

Over the weekend of December 17, my family all met at the halfway point between where my sister and the rest of us (Mom, Dad, Justin and I) live. I believe I blogged about it previously. It went really well, no snide remarks or hurtful comments, blah blah blah. Anyway. My sister's boyfriend, "B", and I got to actually talk for the first time... ever, really. And they're pretty serious about each other, or at least that's what I'm hearing from my sister, "K."

B told me about himself, including that his dream was to be a comic book illustrator, and he went to school for it for 2 years. I thought, COOL! and had a great idea. I asked him if he would make Justin, my Dungeons and Dragon playing, gaming, nerdy husband into a comic book hero. It could be this awesome poster, and could also include our household pets whom Justin adores, as his "sidekicks." Super cool, right? B and K seemed excited about it too, and B said that he could do it and asked me to send him pictures of everybody- Justin, Bear, Bennett, and Fox.

In the beginning of January, I sent out the email with pictures and descriptions of what Justin's outfit should look like, preferred weapons, etc. and asked if they could have it done by the end of January for Justin's birthday. K said that should be fine, so I waited until the week before Justin's birthday (last week of January) and emailed back asking about a date that it could be finished. No reply. I talked to K on the phone and she said that she reminded B about it, and he said, "Oh shit, I completely forgot! I feel like such an asshole," and that he began working on it that night. I thought, 'Ok, it might be a bit late for Justin's birthday but it's been started, so that's not so bad.' 2 weeks go by and still, I hear nothing.

I email back on February 13, asking if B could just let me know how it's going, if he can still do the poster or not, and if so, when I could expect it to be done.

Nothing.

I emailed again on February 20 (for those of you not wanting to count, I waited another week) and asked the same questions as I did in the last email. At this point, I just want to know if I am getting a poster or not. I told him that Justin had asked if I had been scammed, as he was still waiting for his birthday present.

Nothing.

So today (6 days after the last nice email I sent), I sent this:
Hey B*,
I wish I had another way to contact you, but this is all I've got. Just forget doing that poster for me, it's way past when I wanted it and I have heard absolutely nothing from you about it. So I guess I am telling you that you won't hear from me again about it. I'm really disappointed, not just that I didn't get the poster, but that you have failed to say anything to me about it, even "I don't know" or "I can't do it." Either of which would have been fine, and much better than waiting for almost 2 months with no reply. I was really excited about this opportunity, but I would have understood if you had told me that you didn't have time, didn't want to do it, or that I would need to wait X amount of time for it. Perhaps you have a legitimate reason for not responding to any of my emails, but at this point I feel disrespected and angry that I wasted all of this time waiting for nothing. I really hope that you are better at communicating and more respectful to my sister than you have been to me. I don't like to bring her into this, except that she deserves to be with someone who will be a great partner and honestly, your complete lack of follow through on this endeavor concerns me. I apologize if there is some reason I have not heard from you that will explain what has happened here in a logical way.
Sincerely,
(my name)

Also, when someone emails B (at his business email address- by the way, he owns his own business- and it's the only email I have for him) I think everyone at the business (or at least my sister, who works part time for B) also gets the emails.

So I'm hoping she doesn't read it and get pissed at me, and/or that it doesn't cause a rift between them.

I feel like I wasn't too over the top, or hateful, or disrespectful, but I also feel like he needs to know how I feel about what happened. I also waited to write it until I was calmer about it (there was a day last week that I was absolutely furious, and wrote an extremely nasty email in my head).

A part of me is hoping that he reads it and sends an apology email stating that the poster is done and he's sorry for not saying anything sooner.

Another part of me is scared that he'll be pissed. Yet I am also halfway expecting no reply at all, simply a continuation of the non communication.

Which should be interesting if they come up to visit in April...