A little fun...

I had coffee with RuckusButt last week, just before Christmas. She gave me a little gift for work; to use if I was feeling stressed out or if I needed a mental break.

Turns out that I used it that afternoon!  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...  :-)

2011 Wrap-up

I am drawing a blank on stuff to write about right now, so I thought I would try exercising my writing muscles by doing a wrap-up of my year. If I had to give 2011 a rating out of 10, it would probably score a 5.5, maybe a 6 if I was feeling generous.

January 2011 started out well – we had a nice 10 day vacation in Florida and the Caribbean. It is such a treat to have a few warm days away from our nasty winters. My Mom was kind enough to come and stay at our house and take care of the critters. 

St. Martin

Not much happened in February and March – in fact, I took a blogging break for a month. I was having some troubles with my legs and just wasn’t feeling like doing much. I did manage to attend a showmanship clinic, which was fun.

In April and May I did a lot of riding with my old pal Rusty, with one of our longer rides going up to about 8 miles. That was pretty much his upper limit though and it was at that point that I decided I might want another horse. I went back through my old posts and found this little anecdote about Rusty:

“Rusty walked right by two little girls squealing and jumping on a large trampoline as we rode by their house (while the other 2 horses panicked) and then proceeded to spook and snort at a regular orange pylon on the road - the kind that you use in riding rings all the time for pattern work!!! What a goof!"

In June, I tried a few rides on Handsome Hank, the Standardbred. Sadly, he was a bit too green for me, as well as too tall. At 16hh, I just felt too high up off the ground! I still have a bit of a horse crush on Hank – he is very handsome and I’m a bit of a sucker for the ex-racehorse types. Someday I’ll get myself a STB – it is now officially on my bucket list. :-)

I also started my new job in June and that reduced my daily commute drastically, which in turn made me much happier! 6 months in to the new job and things are ok – they could be better, but ok will do for me for now. I’m working in a field where it is tricky to advance (due to my technical limitations), so I need to start thinking about some options for the long term.

July led me to Dolly. I had pretty high hopes for her and I still think we have a chance if I can get my nerves and confidence issues sorted out. I’m hoping that taking things easy over the winter will help me there. I really like this little mare, so fingers crossed that we do ok next spring!

August. August is one of the two months that give 2011 such a low score. We lost our dog Max and we are still having a bit of a hard time about it. Both of us catch ourselves looking for him when we get home from work or in the mornings. I’m sure we’ll get another dog someday, but neither one of us is ready for that commitment yet.

Gypsy (on the left) and Max

September and October were pretty quiet as well. I was trying to ride as much as possible. I can’t think of anything exciting or eventful that happened in these two months... Oh wait – I just thought of something. In October, we had some minor renos done on the house and repainted the entire upstairs and main floor!

November. Ugh. November wasn’t a great horse month. Dolly and I started having our issues and that culminated in one very bad ride. The silver lining is that I figured out the problem and I learned a few things along the way. November is also cold, dark and rainy here and it is tricky to be motivated to do much.

And December – December has been good for us because we got the (very good) news that hubby’s job is now permanent! No more contract work for him – the company is in good shape and is growing, so I expect things should be ok for awhile there. And with that news, we are able to start making bigger financial plans. We are even considering looking for a new house next spring/summer!!! We have our mortgage guy coming over next week to discuss pre-approvals. We are going to look for a rural property, but I’m not sure if we will be able to find much in our price range. We are in no big rush, so I hope we can take our time and look for something that will meet our needs.
And that about wraps up the year.  We have a little over 2 weeks left in 2011 and I have to say that I am looking forward to 2012.  I'll have to sit down over the holidays and think of some goals and plans for this next year.

Confidence, part three

Read part one...

Read Part two…

I spent all day Sunday after that disastrous ride pondering my future with horses – at that point I was ready to sell Dolly and never ride again.  After talking the situation over with the barn owner and Endurance Lady, they told me to give it a few days before I made any big decisions.

It wasn’t until a couple of days later that I found the problem.  It is probably evident to you guys as you read the last two posts, but it took me a while to figure things out.  I had to start from the beginning of my time with Dolly to get to the solution. My thought process was that if she and I had had these problems when she was on trial, I would never have bought her in the first place.  I then tried to figure out what had changed since the summer.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

The only significant change was in early October when I started working with that trainer!  When he told me I needed to be more confident and dominant, I took him quite literally.  I was using aggressive body language and aggressive thoughts to push her away, while at the same time expecting her to be close and trust me.  I was bullying her!

Dolly is a sensitive mare and this type of behaviour on my part just doesn’t work with her.  She needs a calm, assertive leader (thanks Cesar Milan), not a bully.  So, once I realized all of that, I ran the theory by my horse friends and they all thought it was the problem as well.  Phew!

I have to thank RuckusButt for the chat we had last week – we talked about our respective horse issues and she helped me confirm some things that I’ve been pondering… and that is that when people are riding and get nervous/scared/angry/anxious/ etc. etc., the physiological response stays with your body a lot longer than we think, allowing the horses to pick up on that long after the event is over.

She has a great line on her most recent post that I’m going to quote, as it really sums up what happened to me:  “I just began doubting myself but there was no reason to change my approach; all I had to do was incorporate my new realization into the mix. Instead, I felt like I needed other ideas but those led me astray for a couple weeks, I think.”  This struck such a chord with me – I doubted myself and let another training method led me astray. Now I don’t think this trainer is the problem, it was my interpretation of his ideas and methods that was causing the problem.  Instead of working on myself, I became someone else and that didn’t end up well!

I went out to this barn this past Friday because Dolly had a chiro appointment. I wasn’t sure if she would even look at me, but she met me at the gate with a tentative “I think something bad happened a few days ago – are you still mad at me? look”.  (yes, I am anthropomorphizing here…)  I had to chuckle at her expression and we went to the barn for the chiro session and just hung out for a while.  I think she can sense that I don’t have the same angry vibes oozing from every pore, so is willing to try again as well.

I feel like I led myself astray for the past 2 months. I just hope I can undo the damage I’ve caused with Dolly... Although the situation isn’t great, I feel like I’ve grown and progressed in my horse knowledge in some way.  Whether I can get over my nerves enough to ride a more sensitive horse or not remains to be seen, but I at least feel that I know how to try – if that makes any sense!

So, the plan for now is to take a step back and re-evaluate. I need to just be myself and hope that my confidence grows enough that Dolly and I can build some trust.  I’m going to work on just having her stand quietly to be tacked up and also do some hand walking around the farm. I may ride or not, I’m just going to tackle that when I feel ready. I’m going to try riding a few of the barn owners horses as well (as the weather permits) to see if that will help my confidence or not.  If I’m still having a hard time riding Dolly in the spring, I may still put her up for sale. I may need to work harder to find a horse that has some get up and go, but that isn’t super sensitive to an anxious rider.  

Confidence, part two

Read part one...

This trainer does a lot of round pen work, which I’m guessing is similar to some of the big name trainers and their “longeing for respect” type stuff.  Our first session was interesting – I learned a lot.  It turns out that I was letting Dolly move me around without me even realizing it. I would move out of her way if she was goofing around in the round pen and I would also let her push me with her head and body. We did some leading exercises and after an hour, I felt like I had a good grip on that part of things.  I’ve made a lot of progress on that front and I feel good about “getting it”…

The other thing this trainer noted was that I didn’t have a lot of confidence and that I needed to be really confident and dominant for Dolly to trust me.  That statement is the essence of our problem and while it sounds simple, it is much harder in practice for me.  I don’t think it is really possible to turn an emotion or feeling “on or off” just like that.    It’s like telling someone that is sad to just “be happy”. If it was that simple, everyone would be happy and confident and there wouldn’t be any problems!  (I’m oversimplifying, but you get the idea…)

After a few weeks, I felt like I was making progress in the round pen, but it just wasn’t transferring to our time under saddle.   Dolly’s evasive 180 spins become more and more frequent and at different spots around the farm instead of just the sticky spot on the laneway. Some times I could get her through it, others I would have to dismount and move to another location.  When this would happen, I would get very angry and annoyed and when the situation persisted, I would start to get a bit nervous that I was going to push her too far.   (I don’t ride her with a crop, so I never did anything physical to punish her – it was all just my voice and probably a lot of tension in my body.)

The situation came to a boiling point last weekend.  I went out to ride and work with Dolly to see what we could accomplish. I had worked with her on Saturday and we had a decent day, so I decided to push things a bit and try again on Sunday.  I decided to skip the round pen stuff, because I didn’t see the need to continue on with it.    She was very nervous and even pulled back a bit in the cross ties, which she has never done before.  It wasn’t too serious, so once she calmed down, I tacked up and just went to walk around in the riding ring.  She was ok for that, so I thought we would try a short hack as a reward.  I guess I was carrying a lot of tension and the two of us just couldn’t communicate.  I ended the ride because we were both getting very upset and anxious and I felt that if I continued, one or both of us was going to get hurt.

I was very sad and frustrated that my situation had come to this point. I’m no expert rider, but I felt that I was ready for a bit more horse than a 20yr old bombproof one.  I seriously doubted myself, my riding future and pretty much everything to do with horses.    At that time, I had no idea what was going on, except that most of the problem was with me.

To be continued...

(I'm not trying to be too dramatic here - the story is just too long for one post!)

Confidence and personality types – part one

I’ve been trying to come up with the words to explain the situation I’m in with Dolly, but it is hard to explain it all. I wanted to start by talking a bit about confidence and what it means to different people, because “confidence” as a concept is what I am trying to deal with.  Please bear with me as I ramble on about this...!  ;-)

Chuck Norris



The Cowardly Lion

I’m not the most confident person – not just while riding, but in my day-to-day life as well. I’m not a “cower in the corner” type either, but I don’t have endless confidence in my abilities. People close to me tell me that I am too hard on myself, which may be partly true... I have met people that are the thrill-seeking, fearless Type As (like Chuck Norris! lol) and then some that are afraid of their own shadows (<--like our friend the Cowardly Lion). I am no Chuck Norris (ha, ha!) , but I am also not completely lacking of confidence either. The basic fact here is that people have different personalities and different confidence levels, and so do horses. I also think that with good experiences and hard work it is possible to increase your confidence in different areas.

Obviously there are endless combinations of horse traits and human personalities and sometimes it is obvious about the horse’s traits – an alpha mare for example - but sometimes it takes more time to uncover what is driving the little horse pea brain that you are responsible for. And, as well all know, some human personality types just don’t work well with certain types of horses.

Dolly is much more horse than Rusty was – not that either horse has/had a problem, but Rusty was a very laid-back, calm sort of guy. Dolly is much more sensitive and requires a different approach. I was a bit nervous riding Dolly for the first few weeks when I first bought her in the summer. It wasn’t terrible fear, but just a nervous flutter in my stomach. I was able to work through that and we rode all over the farm and even over to the neighbouring stable. There were a few situations where she was hesitant – near the tacky, plastic flower covered pony jump field, for example – and we would be able to work through it without much trouble.

As the fall progressed, we started having a bit of trouble going down the long laneway. Dolly would do a little 180 pirouette and stop. I would be able to just one rein her around and keep going, or go around the trouble spot and take a different route. A couple of times, I had someone else get on Dolly and either she wouldn’t try a spin, or she would do one, the rider would correct her and they would keep going without any more troubles. I knew that 99% of the problem was with me – my nerves were getting in the way. My confidence had plummeted and I didn’t really know what to do.

It was right around that time that a new trainer started coming out to the barn once a month. I was frustrated with myself, so I thought that a few sessions with a trainer would do wonders for me.

To be continued...