And double YAYYYY! because the dates have been released and I AM GOING TO STONELEIGH 2009!! It's my every other sentence spoken at the moment, that's how happy I am.
It is actually Tuesday due to video issues but I try and date my entries correctly for future reference. Pics to come, hopefully!
This morning I had a really awesome session with Benji! We had a nice groundwork play and I am so pleased with how well he's doing. After he was calm, listening and was showing lovely lateral flexion I hopped on the bucket and desensitized him to me being up there. I know so many horses who won't stand when their owners try to mount, especially from a block and also horses who will get unconfident and put the block in zone 1. So we played a little squeeze and driving and I was able to get on and sit on him for a minute without him moving off which was cool. So we practised move lateral flexion and some back ups before we set off. I was a passenger for a while and then decided to be brave and trot on him! I was very apprehensive before I tried because his little trot is so bouncy so I thought I'd exit out the side door. I bit the bullet and thought that the worst that could happen is that I'd have to do an emergency dismount. I took a deep breath and asked and I was so amazed at how comfy his trot actually was! I didn't slip once and if I felt a little wobbly I realised it was because I was off my balance point. My mum took a video of our last few minutes before I got off and gave him a well deserved hug!
Note: I was going to upload a vid of Benji and I but youtube, dailymotion and even my beloved blogger won't upload it for some reason. I will try as the week goes on but it doesn't look hopeful. :(
My mum took some good pictures of Lily afterwards: Left brain, confident, pretty and curious about what that thing is in her hand... Hello Mrs Jekyl and Hyde! In the middle of shaking her head she decided that the camera is very scary and deserves a spook. She's so funny. :)
So today I set up my round pen, it isn't exactly round but it's a good size and it's connected to the gate for ease of access! Diane offered me Molly to really try out my new bareback pad on so I scrambled on with very little grace! I'm really pleased with it and felt quite secure. I haven't ridden bareback in more than a walk since I was traditional so I was a bit apprehensive as to if I'd do alright. I beared the Parelli's advice in mind to only go up a gait once I was comfortable in the current one and within 10 minutes I was cantering around the place on it; what a blast! It gave me a chance to assess how my new balance-point-not-groin seat really was with 'the truth' i.e. the saddle taken away and I was quite pleased with how it's coming along. I felt much more comfortable and didn't feel tense in my legs once because I pedalled quite a bit. It was really awesome. I can't wait 'til I'm careering bareback around the yard on Benji or Lily! :) Once I'd done the round pen and ridden Molly I'd been up the yard for four hours so I didn't get to spend much time with Lily or Benji. Tomorrow I'll make an effort to get up and play with them early morning before it gets too hot.
Arran came over tonight to give me a couple of hours lesson. I wanted him to see how Lily and I were getting on and what needed to be improved. He was so happy with what he saw that we brought her back into the herd which was very interesting to see. To begin with Lily was either wanting to be nowhere near Benji or Lily or was lunging at them with her mouth or feet! So Arran drove them round the field 'til they were move synchronised as a herd. I then played with Benji whilst he played with Lily on a 45ft line. I showed him the few areas where we were having problems and once he'd shown me what I could do better we were doing sideways without a fence and yielding his FQ 360° using phase 1 and 2. I was absolutely thrilled to bits. Now I think within a few weeks we will be able to submit our groundwork tasks. Although I might hold up a bit until my riding tasks are done too. After playing with Lily for a bit Arran got on her bareback and walked and trotted her around. She looked very relaxed which is great for Lily. He recommended that I keep up the UDT and friendly game with Lily until my body language is a bit more refined because she's so sensitive. The better I get with Benji, the easier Lily will be which makes sense. I really feel like I'm progressing as a PNH student and that the ponies are beginning to reflect that. All is good! :)
Last night my partner's mum rang up to ask if she could come over with her Dales pony today for some Parelli tuition. I don't consider myself experienced enough to teach in the slightest but she is new to Parelli and I feel that I know enough about level one groundwork to be able to give her pointers and encouragement. She's been interested in Parelli since I started and comes over whenever she gets time off work just for a bit of guidance and some fun. Thankfully the weather was nice today and we had a good time. She showed me areas she was having problems with and I gave her a few tips and she listened and bettered her approach. She hadn't ever done a horsenality chart for Simba, her Dales, so I printed one out for her to fill in. It was interesting to see how much he had changed in my mind from when she had got him and it helped her understand why he did ___ when she did ___. I didn't get Benji or Lily out to join in on the session like I usually do because she had asked for instruction rather than our usual mini play days. She's really getting a good grasp of games 1, 2, 3 and is slowly getting there with game 4. She also took up the gauntlet of having a PPL bareback whilst I led Simba around; she's never ridden bareback nor tried sitting on her balance point before so she said it felt weird but in a good way. Overall I had a really nice time and it helped me personally getting a better grasp of the games by being able to explain them to someone and why they are so beneficial. Pretty cool day!
Yesterday my mum went out with all of my equipment in her car so all I had yesterday was an apple and a camera! Di and I turned Molly and Benji out for a run around in the big field and a bit of a snack. I knew Benji would come back but I had Di's leadrope to tie around his neck just incase. After about 10-15minutes I whistled and Benji trotted very sweetly back into the field, such a good boy. Molly on the other hand was a pain for Diane and leaning into pressure - if she played the porcupine game it wouldn't have been a problem. Lily couldn't go out and play just incase she wasn't as good with the catching so she went right brain for a little while and I snapped a few pics. Afterwards I sat on a bucket and chilled with her and she came over and groomed me for atleast 15 minutes, it was awesome! She then focused on my visor and licked it a bit then took it off my head, that was really cool. :)
Hopefully today will be just as nice; I have a plan and my plan is to freewheel!
Although I have been spending time with Benji I decided he needed 80% of my attention today because I have been spending considerably more time with Lily. Since Lily has come back Benji had been very safety conscious and tense, I couldn't understand why until today.
We were just chilling and working on FG with the 12ft line in zone 3 when it started to rain really badly so we put out butts to face the way of the rain and he looked over to Molly. I thought "ah, maybe he wants to go stand by her!" we were about 15 metres away so we edged towards her. She was stood by their saltlick with her muzzle on it, licking it verrryyyy sllllooooowwwwlllyyy. Benji stepped over into her space sideways (looked very fancy, probably to avoid getting his face rained on!), put his ears back, bit her slowly on the shoulder and then as she moved away he bit her bum to reinforce his first point and then licked the saltlick. Then a little lightbulb went on above my head and I realised all the time I had been watching Molly and Benji interact prior to today; they had been struggling with establishing who the leader was now Lily's home and having many dominance games. Now Benji is initiating dominance games and winning he is back to his usual cheeky self. Who would've thought the smallest pony would be the boss hoss!
I was very glad because I couldn't understand why he'd become a LBe borderline RBi. I know he will still get his ocassional RB moments because, confident as he is, he is still a prey animal. With Benji it's quite hard to tell when he's RB because he gives very subtle signs such as starey eyes. That is unconfidence and if I put too much pressure on him then that is when he'll panic.
We hung out even more and after assessing the situation and his mood I decided that good games to work on would be 1 and 3. I would like both ponies to be okay with me being in all zones rather than just zones 1 or 2 so I thought it'd be cool to see what his driving from zone 3 was like. I only used the end of the line to drive him forwards rather than the CS because I didn't have it on hand and it was much less fumbly. I had to ask him for only a few steps at first to make sure he understood but after that we moseyed allover the place and I didn't correct him for going where he wanted to go for him to build confidence in me being in zone 3. He was very good and he didn't even care that we were wandering away from Molly which is much muchmuch better! I even got a little confident and followed in zone 4 and he was very laidback about it. We went out of the field for a little grazing and he was like "Molly who?". After such lovely positives we hung out for a little more then I turned him back out.
I began building my pedestals today which I'm excited about. We had two old tractor tires just lying around so I've put them together on a little hill and have started filling them with muck. After there's enough muck the top few layers will be sand and soil. Some people have mentioned that they needed plywood because their horses dug holes in the sand but we'll see. I put them together because I thought they'd be a cool jump too and encourage the ponies to jump in the middle because it'll be the area where the tires appear smaller and less wider. I can't wait to use them.
Lily was RB today because of huge tires being rolled everywhere so I sat with her for about 15 minutes and worked on her relaxing when I halter her. She did very well too. Quite a savvy day I reckon! :)
It's so interesting to watch the both of them when I'm sitting in one field, watching the other and vice versa. Benji is feeling insecure because he seems to feel that his leadership is being challenged by Lily. When I catch Benji in an insecure mood he's hard to get through to. When he's chilled he's great, wanting variety yet will panic if I move him too far away from Molly. Provided she doesn't intrude on our play sessions I don't mind playing near her and we'll work on it as we go along. I know a lot of people would be annoyed but I think it's cool that he's buddy sweet because it means that he's not feeling lonely when I'm not at the yard. I checked his feet for heat and digital pulse this morning just as a routine and although I didn't pick them up he wasn't too happy about it so my approach to that needs work. I should've worked my hand from the wither down whereas I came in from zone 1 and touched the bottom of his shoulder. Silly me, sometimes I take his confidence for granted and forget my manners!
Lily is doing well and is settling back in quickly. When she's RB we'll just chill out and when she's LB I'll apply just a tiny bit of pressure so she doesn't get bored. She decided to test me the other day by biting my belt loops so I sent her back, she asked me a question and I let her back in. I noticed she didn't lick and chew though. She did it again, wanted to see if I'd be consistent so I did and left her out a little longer and she licked and chewed. Pretty cool! She had a cut on her hind leg from what I can imagine was her kicking the fence to assert herself to the chestnuts. I took one look and thought "wow, I need to take care of that but how?! She gets upset if I'm any further back than beginning of zone 3" but needs must and it took about 10 minutes to work my way down the first time and after that she was fine with it. I took her out inhand grazing yesterday just about 10 metres away from her paddock, if that and because she was LB when she went through her main threshold she was LB 80% of the time whilst we were sat enjoying the sun. When she got too far away I could yield her HQ from where I was, sat down on the grass. I would focus on her bum and just wave my hand rhythmically a little and she would be like "you rang?!". She's such a sensitive mare but it can be a double edged sword at times.
Wow, okay, not such a quick update then. All in all a great first week back for Lily and I'm looking forward to my lesson on Friday! :)
Quick update: Lily's settled in much better and I am now picking up some dominance vibes from her like I did before she went to Arran's. Being a LBi sometimes I know that will be present when her safety need is fulfilled and if I try to correct her when she is looking like a bulldog chewing a wasp or trying to porcupine my hand, she'll revert to RB within a blink of the eye. I'm going to have to think how I can try and balance our rapport so she sees me as a confidence-bringing leader yet not one she can challenge. Hmm, how interesting! For the most part, Lily will still stick with me when I take her ropehalter off. When she was feeling more confident online today I just played a bit of driving from zone 3 and she was very good. I was going to take her out of her field about 10 metres to graze online as a bit of a change but she just couldn't deal with that at all. I hadn't realised that the little patch she's on has become such a comfort zone for her, we A&R the gateway a little and then left it on that note because I didn't want to push her. It's so hard not to get all emotional and want to cuddle Lily; I missed her so much whilst she was gone. But I resist because her most favourite friendly game is me being there but not asking anything of her or putting any pressure on and I think if I were to try and hug her she would freak out. So after my session today with Lily I went into the chestnuts' field and made a huge fuss of Benji because I knew he wouldn't mind... I'm such a softie at times. Although I've seen and fussed Benji everyday I miss playing with him so I'm hoping to have a short play session with him tomorrow just to keep things going as well as they have been. :)
I spent most of the afternoon up at the stables today and it was great. Lily caught me no problem and we chilled for ages online. It was sunny and quiet so I thought I'd meditate. Some might say that's not such a good idea with half a ton of horse stood near you whilst you sit cross legged with your eyes closed but I was pretty sure it would have a good effect on Lily seeing as I would be calm and not putting any pressure on her. I was right and very, very few times have I seen Lily fully left-brain but today after about 20minutes of meditation and occasionally feeling her breath on my head or her muzzle against the back of my hand, I opened my eyes to find her stood about 1 metre away from me with her head nearly to the floor, eyes blinking, ears floppy and her breath slow and deep. That was really cool. :) I've noticed she's not comfortable with the rope touching her at all, her head goes up and her eyes freeze over if I put the rope over her shoulders before I put the ropehalter on so that is definately something we'll need to work on in the future. She's not getting along with Benji and Molly too well at all, she'd much rather come stand with me even off-line and halterless and if they are stood too close to their shared fence she'll go over, face like thunder and start bickering with them. She got on great with the horses she was in with at Arrans so I wonder what's different. She's never particularly got on well with Molly and they always struggled to figure out which one was the leader and it changed frequently but Benji is boss of his and Molly's herd of two so I wonder where Lily slots in or if they even see her as being part of their herd etc. How interesting!
After having such a positive day with Lily yesterday, I was worried that it was purely a fluke. Today my farrier was coming to do Benji's feet so I sat and watched all 3 of them first to see what had changed. Lily was my shadow(!!), Benji and Molly were down the bottom of their field. I stepped under the fence into the chestnuts' field, whistled and Benji lifted his head up, neighed at me then came trotting up and stopped infront of me. I haven't had a problem with Benji's catching for a long time but it was just so nice having both of them showing an interest in me. To get up to the top gate for the farrier was a bit of a mission through the electric tape, down one field to the gate, through the gate then up to the top of that field and Benji was tense at the prospect of leaving Molly so we did some point to pointing and driving from zone 3 which was much better than last time. We then got upto the top quicker than I'd allowed time for so we spent some UDT grazing whilst I just sat down, made sure Benji didn't get tangled up in my 12ft line and listen to my iPod. He didn't stray far and kept checking in with me every so often and I interpreted that as him starting to have confidence in his little human when his environment was different. Farrier came, hadn't seen him for a good while and he couldn't believe that I still had 'that coloured one', a new one and how little spending money I have left at the end of the month for myself. I said I was much happier that way and that all I needed was a bathroom, bed, kettle and wifi up there and I'd never leave! He sees many horse-mad women a day but he looked at me like it was the first time he'd heard that one. ;) Upon turning Benji out once I'd moved out of the field he turned his attentions to Lily and I was thinking "uh oh, here we go again." but at long last he finally started reacting the way I had imagined he would yesterday. I swear he thinks he's a stallion and was rather offended when Lily showed him about 1% interest.
Now Lily's back I will be solely responsible for poo-picking her field, usually Diane and I alternate between picking the chestnuts' field but I can't ask her to do Lily's too. Arran told me the more UDT I could spend with Lily online the better so I got her to catch me and picked the field with the fork in one hand and her line in the other. There's numerous differences in her that I can see already but probably the most prominent for me has been that she licks and chews now (before she'd just hold her breath, didn't realise 'til yesterday.) and when I am in zone 2 or 3 she will, for the most part, let me stand and stroke her there without her tensing up and trying to put me in zone 1. Before if I tried to do that she'd get very tense and either walk off or become introverted but now she'll turn her head round and look at me, touch the back of my hand with her muzzle etc. which is a huge thing for her. After poo-picking I practised turning her out and getting her to catch me again as Arran taught me and she gave me two eyes one time! I noticed today that if I approach Lily and go to touch her shoulder, if she looks worried she will relax quicker if I stroke her shoulder with the back of my hand. How interesting. I keep getting scared that I will do something wrong and we'll go back to square one but I try to banish those gremlins. Arran's coming to give me a lesson on the 18th to make sure that we're still on the right track so until then I intend on spending atleast 30minutes UDT online a day with her.
I realised where I went wrong last time with her which caused her to lose trust in me. She'd always been hard to catch previously but I had made it worse by putting the task before the relationship. I just wanted to get through level 1 because I knew the further into the programme we got, the easier things would get but without realising, I had put too much pressure on her and she started to see me as a predator rather than partner. Never again. This week is the turning point in our relationship and from now on it's going to get better.
She's black and white... Big boned... A bit scatterbrained.
(Check out the rainbow above left)
Yep, Lily's safely home! The weather tried it's best to make things tricky as it was raining most of the day and a mad storm was directly ahead of us whilst Arran was trying to give me a lesson. She was great for him whilst she was there, doing the 7 games easily and he even rode her a few times. I have been studying my L&HB so I felt that I could hopefully understand her a bit more and I felt much more confident playing with her today compared to last time. Each time I asked her to, she caught me even at home which is awesome. For the next month I'll be spending plenty of UDT online with her and getting her used to being caught/turned out so it becomes a non-event to her and myself (I still feel anxious if she's not walking towards me with her ears forwards, old habit). I really see a huge change in her behaviour in general, not just when catching is concerned and although her fear is still an issue, it feels like an issue I can slowly help her overcome. It's really great to have her back and I hope that things can only improve from here!
Benji and Molly behaved very weirdly towards her, Molly wasn't interested for long and Benji was very overprotective of Molly as if Lily were a colt. She was being very LBi and defiant towards him and Molly was half enjoying them battle for her affection. It was fascinating to watch because it certainly wasn't the reaction I thought she'd get from him. I thought she might be a bit upset being kept on her own but she seemed much more content. How interesting!
"No journey worth going on has shortcuts or easy routes."
I did it again! I forgot to post. This past week I've just spaced out about so many things.
Since I last updated I haven't had a whole lot of time so when I have been up the yard it's to do very boring things like move the fence, poopick etc. I did go up yesterday morning with the intention of playing but as soon as I got up there I noticed Molly and Benji were very spooky. I caught Benji a little while after but he was being bothered by flies and quite tense (I wasn't sure why until just before I left the yard I saw a VERY low flying helicoptor and assumed that he must've flown over earlier.) and I was feeling very unimaginative and was baking from the heat so we didn't do much. I found a chunky wooden pole under one of our bushes that I hadn't seen before so I tried to encorporate that with our play but yesterday he couldn't handle any pressure I put on him and just wanted to go back to Molly. I played in their field and was trying to 'play with the horse that showed up' but with all the stress of Lily coming home I just couldn't think of any strategies. After a little while we weren't doing anything constructive so I gave him a brush and turned him out. As soon as he went off on his way I realised I hadn't picked out his feet and I needed to because the farrier is coming on Monday so I just wanted to check if there were any concerns that I needed to note for when he comes. He had calmed down a little after I'd brushed him and tried to find any itches that needed scratching and when I turned him out he only took a few steps away and didn't hurry off to Molly which surprised me. I grabbed my hoofpick and started friendlying his legs and had no problem picking all of them out. I kept my carrotstick closeby just incase but he was very good. We then spent some UDT together which was really nice but I couldn't do it for too long because I had to fix the fence Molly had knocked down and move the electric tape so they had a bit more shade.
I did have a think about the things that need improving as mentioned in previous blog and came up with a small list of goals which can be found on Benji's page which can be found Here! I haven't set a time limit because when working with animals or children, things don't often go to plan. Although obviously the bath thing will need to be sorted out before Autumn or postponed until Spring but hopefully it won't have to come to that.
I would like to be able to go play with him today but I doubt it'll happen because I am so nervous about tomorrow I am allover the place. I am trying to think of strategies for everything to run as smoothly as possible. One topic on the SC really interested me; it was about humans being vegetarians and if their horses notice a difference etc. and one person noted that they suck on a mint if they're nervous because horses can smell adrenaline on your breath. How interesting! So guess who has some mints for tomorrow. I'm so jittery you'd think I've eaten a jar of coffee. I can't decide if it's more nerves or excitement but they're both getting the better of me. I need a distraction, lol.
Today I watched the L&HB section where Linda is using food as an incentive for Remmer. I think it's in the predator/prey learning section where the barndogs are about and I was like "wow, that's pretty cool, maybe it'll make a few things sharper with Benji" so I took some carrots up. I whistled; he trotted upto me and stuck his nose in the ropehalter, wrong section but ya know... We then played friendly game on the move which was pants but I drove him over to an apple core I left on the ground and he was like "oh my god! did you do this?!" and then to spice up our yo-yo's I asked for more energy and after the first yo-yo in which I gave him a carrot he was practically falling over himself to do it again! Then I was practising bending to a stop with him to refresh his memory in the hopes that I'll sit on him in the next few weeks and that was made better by asking him to bend round with his ears forwards rather than his snotty 'no, go away!' face which made him more responsive and flexible after a real good yield i waited a few moments til he licked and chewed and at this point the rope was already halved over his withers so I unclipped it, walked off and he followed. We walked over to the gate and stopped. I opened the gate, gave him 'the look' and he went through and TURNED and FACED me! I found it hard to contain my excitement and I resisted the urge to open my eyes wide in shock 'cos I knew that would've flipped the switch for my foghorn. Instead I smiled, told him he was a good boy, gave him a carrot and took his ropehalter off. So all in all I only had to off like 4 treats and I got all that, I was mighty pleased! :]
I'm going to have a think and make a list of the next few achievements I want to get with Benji. What needs improving and what I could do better etc. etc. Something to work towards but always putting the relationship first.
My name is Lucy Middleton, I'm 17 years old and from the United Kingdom.
I started Parelli in January 2008 and it has been an incredible journey so far. Pre-Parelli I did the best with what I knew but now I know better; I want to do better!
This is my blog to document my progress as a natural horseman.
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It's not about disposable horses; it's about relationships for life.
It's not about quick fixes and artificial aids, it's about savvy; true understanding and expertise.
It's not about winning and others losing; It's about win-win: you and the horse need to feel good.
It's not about me me me; It's about changing the world for horses, becoming a person of knowledge and influence, and sharing what you know.
It's not about fear and doubt; It's about unconditional love and trust.
Love for the empowerment of others and trust that you'll never ask the horse to do something that would hurt or diminish his dignity.
Reveal your horse. Discover your potential. Live your dream.
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