The winter of discontent

Ok - so that title is a bit dramatic, but it kind of sums up how my winter felt!

It was dark, cold, snowy and icy and I didn't do much at the barn because I just didn't feel like standing around in the dark after work.  It was also like a skating rink around the barn, so it wasn't really even possible to do some ground work!

I was also really busy with the whole house thing. We decided in February that we wanted to put in an offer on the new house, conditional on us selling our house in town.  The offer was accepted by the sellers and we had 10 days to get our house on the market.

In 10 days, we had the floors refinshed, had 2 carpets replaced, had an electrician fix some wiring issues and we decluttered and re-organized most of the house. It was exhausting but we got it all done.

Richard cleaning the kitchen - with two helpers looking on...

Meanwhile, I tackled the basement.  This is a "during" shot, when I had pulled everything out...No after shot, sorry.  Needless to say, I took everything out of there, crammed it in boxes and stored it in our garden shed!

The living room after decluttering and refinishing the floors - I'm pretty happy with it...

This shelf was covered in the hubby's bike gear before, but the cats liked it after I cleaned it.  Roxie is curled up here

And Charlie resting in the same spot! I guess they liked being tucked in with the books?

We were told by lots of people that our house would sell quickly, don't worry!  But I worried and I waited. We packed up the cats and dog for viewings and open houses a few times per week and one day the two cats figured out how to get out of their carrier!  Luckily we were in a parking lot and not driving, because they were crawling all over the car.  The big cat just sat in his carrier patiently waiting to go home...  :-)

Freedom!  Well...sort of, but not really...

So we waited some more. I was beginning to get discouraged, thinking that we would be stuck in that house forever. Dramatic, I know, but that is how it felt at the time!  We had to drop our price a bit and still the results were the same!  We sent the dog back to my father-in-law in late March (we just had her for the winter) and I found it much less difficult to keep the house clean without the dog hair everywhere. The cats are much less messy!

We finally had an offer on the house in early April, but it still wasn't a done deal. We had a few minor house inspection issues to deal with on our end, but we were able to work everything out.  It was a long, stressful process, but it was worth it in the end!

I'm starting to get excited now, because we move in 6 weeks!  I have a new list going on my whiteboard and I have started doing a bit of packing and re-organizing. I am actually unpacking everything I did to de-clutter the house for sale and re-organzing it because it was all mixed up and I didn't label any of the boxes!

I'm hoping to reduce the amount of "stuff" that we have by a fair bit.  I have the time to do this before moving, so I'm going to take advantage of that. I already have a pile of stuff to donate and I think we will take some stuff to a community yard sale later in the spring!

I probably won't be moving Dolly home (wow - how cool is it to type that!) until July 1 - I want to get my hay sourced and in the barn and make sure the fences are in good shape first.  I also need to sort out whether I'm going to get a companion for her or try her alone...

Monday chuckle...

I'm trying to work on a couple of posts to summarize what I've been up to this winter, but I was sidetracked looking at horse sale ads...  I saw this add posted and it was too funny to not share with you guys!

I so wish people would either learn to spell, or use a spell-checker!

Bread horse for sale


Fluffy is a great horse. I have rode and drove her single and double. Fluffy is bread and due within the next month. Has had a great foal in the past has been bead once before.

I have never heard of a "bread horse"!  :-)

The general public amuses me so much.  I really needed a laugh today and this person has achieved that!

Maybe not farewell after all...?

I guess I should have just taken a short break, instead of completely leaving the blog... As it turns out, I sort of have some news to share and a good reason to start back with somewhat regular writing again. I guess I was a bit too hasty in thinking I could walk away from my blog!

So, I shouldn’t stall too much longer and tell you the news.

We bought a small property in the country!!! With a barn!! And fenced paddocks!!! And a riding ring!!!

I am starting to get excited now that it is official. We went through a very long and stressful process to end up where we are. I think that is the main reason I stopped blogging – I was busy doing house stuff and unsure if it would all work out. Now I can relax, I actually feel like writing about the process and all of the hoops we had to jump through to get where we are.

So, without any further blabbing, here are the important details and a few pictures:

14 acres total, 5 acres fenced. 3 stall barn with a tack room and a big area at the front for hay storage. I guess down the road, we could build something separate for hay and make more stalls or something... (my hubby would divorce me if he read that!) but for now, I will have lots of space. The property backs onto Crown land, which means that we won’t have neighbours behind us. I looked on the Google satellite map and it looks like there are trails up behind the house, but not sure if they are ok for horses or not. Ok, I’m blabbing again. Pictures for real this time:


Front view from the road

back view - yes, that is a pool. Small, but just right for us!

  

Barn and a bit of the backyard



Getting closer...



...and inside the barn! 



The back half of the riding ring as seen from my new bedroom window!

Farewell...I think...

I've been agonizing over what to do with this blog. The truth is, I'm just not that motivated to write anything. I'm still riding and still trying to figure out if Dolly and I can work, but I just don't feel like writing about the same thing all the time.

So, I will bid the blog world farewell for now. It's possible I may change my mind and start writing again,  but I don't know if or when that will happen.

I still plan to keep reading and commenting where I can and I'm on Facebook, so I'll see some of you there.  If anyone wants to add me on Faceboook (does anyone still read this blog, lol?) you can email me at littlekeebler@gmail.com and we can discuss the details.

Happy trails!

A update of sorts...

Phew! I haven't posted here in a long time!  Not much is really going on, so I haven't taken the time to try and write.  The renovations on our house are all done and as a result, I have a bit more free time on my hands.

I've been out to ride 2x in the past couple of weeks. Not much, I know, but I had a really bad flu last week and was out of commission for several days with a a high fever! Not fun at all.

I had a really great ride on Dolly 2 weeks ago - we had just got a big snowfall and the trails were in great shape. I went out with a friend and we walked all over the farm and I didn't have a single problem with Dolly!  It was very fun walking through the deep snow drifts. I wish I had a few pictures, but I was just enjoying the day too much to think about it.

I went out again last night and had an interesting ride, considering I almost electrocuted my poor horse!  The barnyard is a mucky mess of melting snow/ice and manure/shavings that the barn owners have put down to make it less slippery.  There are extension cords running to the water trough heaters and I didn't even notice the cords, since they were half-buried. I moved Dolly over to the mounting block and she started to quiver.  I was fiddling with my girth and getting my reins gathered and by the time I noticed something was wrong, Dolly levitated up and sideways and then did a 180 turn. I managed to hold the reins and had no idea what had just happened!

Dolly stood quivering and wide-eyed and I stood there with my mouth open, wondering what was going on!  My friend walked over to the mounting block area and noticed that two extension cords were plugged in at that spot and she could hear the zapping noise of arcing electricity! There was alot of heat coming off of the two cords, so we quickly unplugged the cords to stop the arcing/smoldering! Unbeknownst to me, I had parked Dolly right on the sparking cord!!!  I felt sooo guilty, but we all had a bit of a laugh too.

Dolly calmed down after a few minutes and we were able to do a short ride.  There is still alot of wet snow on some trails and there is alot of water underneath. So, the horses would break through the snow and then hit water and they were having a hard time with it.  I was able to get Dolly out quite a ways and we even crossed a ditch with a running stream, but between the bad footing and her near-electrocution, she was getting a bit stressed.  I called it and headed back to the barn. I then hand-walked her up and down the laneway (about 1 mile in total) a couple of times and she was relaxed again.

I'm looking forward to getting riding again after a long, dark winter.  The laneway is about 1/2 mile long and is now free of ice, so that will probably be our only option for the next week or two until the snow completely melts and the fields dry out a bit.  We are having crazy warm weather right now and it is supposed to last all week, so I'm hoping that helps!  I'm feeling good about Dolly and my confidence seems to be high right now, so I'm pretty sure we will be able to over come her spinning/balking and make some good progress this year.

House hunting and renos

I just haven't had a chance to post in the past few weeks, since we have been busy house hunting and doing some renos to our current house.

Let's just say it has been hectic!  I didn't think we had a lot to do around here, but when you start looking at all of the little details, it adds up to a lot.

My whiteboard covered in lists and crazy notes!

In addition to the above list of stuff, we decided to have our hardwood floors refinished because they were really beat up and scratched. Our realtor said we could have left them as is, but it would have probably knocked 5-10K off the sale price!  We want to get the quickest sale for the best price and I'm hoping that all of the work we are doing will help us out!

Floors before - Gypsy is not sure about the empty room...

 We are doing the floors in two stages - we just didn't have enough room in this house to get all of the furniture off the main floor.  As a result, there has been a lot of moving furniture back and forth. On Sunday we have to move everything into the finished room so the guys can start on the rest of the main floor on Monday!

After - much better!  The colour is a bit more blond that this picture shows

 I was rearranging furniture and putting files away, when I found a small cat in my cabinet. lol   This cat will crawl into any small opening she can find.  Last week she opened a drawer in my dresser and crawled in and got stuck!  She chewed the drawer a bit, but when she realized she was stuck, she just slept all day and waited for someone to rescue her! It's a wonder I haven't packed her away by mistake!

Charlie helping me put the furniture back... 

 And the house hunting...well, that should really be a post on its  own, but I only have time for one post...  We have had mixed results in our search. I wanted to document some of it for posterity...  ;-)

We decided to go out with our realtor and see a few places to see what we could get for our money.  I had a suspicion that real estate listings are alot like horse sale ads – highlight the good stuff, gloss over the not-so-desirable and mix all of that with a little truth-stretching... turns out I am right, but after awhile it becomes kind of fun to guess what the realtor comments mean!

Gross!!!

House 1

Realtor comments: “Tastefully decorated...”

What it really meant: “Grandma’s dusty rose curtains and lampshades, loon wallpaper borders and a taxidermy lobster!”

This property didn’t have a barn or fencing, but it did have 25 acres of space to expand. It is also very close to a former boarding barn I was at...  The lobster was quite funny (and gross!) - declutter your home when listing it for sale, folks!  J

House 2

Realtor comment:  “House for sale as-is; property a haven for wildlife and fowl”

What it really meant: “Enter this house at your own risk. It might collapse as it is falling apart and was built on a swamp”

This second place was on 50 acres, but at a low price. We could tell from the Google map that a good portion of the property was swampy (makes sense in our price range!). We went to see the house anyways...long story short – it was scary! The house was *thisclose* to being condemned. We were only inside about 5 minutes before leaving.  Yikes!

House 3

Realtor comment: “Lovely hobby farm with a large bungalow in need of TLC and older log building”

What it really meant: “The farm is the only good part, as the large bungalow needs to be gutted! Don’t mind the creepy old house right beside the “new” house!”

This place had some potential, but we were a bit worried about the condition of the house since there were no photos of the kitchen, bedrooms or bathrooms!  I was right - the place hadn’t been cleaned or renovated since 1975 when the house was built!  There was also a creepy old log/wood house (original homestead, maybe?) that should have been torn down 100 yrs ago, but I guess it was still there for sentimental value?!?  You often see old log buildings on farms here, but they are often farther back from the newer house/barns – this one was just to the left of the main house!   The property itself was beautiful – even with a layer of snow... Rolling hills, 10 acres or so of fenced paddocks, hay fields on the remaining 17.5 acres out back.  The price was just ridiculous though, since you would probably need to spend 50-60K just to make the house liveable and 100k+ to make it nice...  So, that one is off the books too – we really don’t want to do big renovations, unless we can get the place for a steal.

House 4

Realtor comment: “Lovely house with custom flooring, cozy basement. Easy commute to city”

What it really meant: “Custom flooring means using two drastically different colours of hardwood because flooring was discontinued and they ran out before finishing.  Small basement means a crawlspace for an elf!  Easy commute to city if you only go in once a month for supplies.”

This place was ok, but it would be long drives for both of us to work each day. Our jobs are just far enough apart that carpooling would be tricky.   This place was on 17+ acres and was in a horsey area of the countryside. There were gravel roads all around and a large boarding stable about 1km away.  The house just didn’t grab us though – it was small and didn’t have a basement for all of Richard’s cycling supplies.  So, even though the acreage was decent, it just had too many strikes against it.

So, the search continues...

Winter Woes

I'm realllllly tired of winter and I still have another 2-3 months of this junk!  I don't have much to report form the horse side of things since I haven't been to the barn much!  Poor Dolly - I hope she is enjoying her winter vacation...

*sigh*

Winter storm warning in effect.
Today: Periods of freezing drizzle or flurries changing to snow at times heavy mixed with freezing rain and ice pellets this morning then to freezing rain this afternoon. Snow and ice pellet amount 10 to 15 cm. Wind becoming east 20 km/h early this afternoon. High zero.
 
Tonight: Freezing rain changing to flurries near midnight. Snowfall amount 2 cm. Wind east 20 km/h becoming west 40 gusting to 60 this evening. Low minus 12.

Wading in to the Real Estate Market

We had two great Christmas presents this year. One came from hubby's work in mid-December: news that his job was now permanent instead of contract. With that news in hand, we realized that one of the major hurdles to looking for a new house was no longer an obstacle. We arranged a meeting with our mortgage guy on Dec 23. He gave us the news that we could be pre-approved for a mortgage and could start looking for a new place whenever we were ready!

So what are we looking for? Well, a property in the country is on the top of our list. I honestly don’t know if we’ll be able to afford more than 20 acres on our budget and with some of our criteria – decent house, no swampy or rocky property and a decent commute to the city – but we are excited about looking. We are in no rush to move, so hopefully we can wait until something good comes up. I would love to be able to keep a couple of horses at home. Some days I think I enjoy watching and caring for horses more than I do riding.

We still need to do some final clean-up and minor repairs on our current house before we are ready to list it for sale. I’m planning to get a lot of the work done, or at least scheduled, this winter so that we can be ready to move quickly in the spring/summer if we find a nice property.

We aren’t looking too seriously at the moment, since everything is covered in a layer of snow. I would be a little hesitant about buying property and not being able to see the land. Is it wet, swampy, clay or is it a fine layer of sand over the hard bedrock of the Canadian shield? (any geologists out there?)

In typical Laura fashion, I am working on a very nerdy list of contractors, tasks and due dates to keep all of this stuff straight. I find my lists get all of the info swirling around in my brain out in one place so that I can sleep at night! Lol  Here's hoping that we can find a great place this year!

Bucket lists and Resolutions

I have been thinking about bucket lists and resolutions alot lately due to the arrival of the new year... I’m sure I’ve tried writing a bucket list before, but the list was probably scribbled on a scrap of paper and shoved in a desk drawer to be forgotten. I sometimes think that bucket lists are like New Year’s resolutions – stuff you dream of doing (and probably should do) - but don’t take the time and effort to make the things happen. And when things don’t happen, you get discouraged.


So, for fun, I’ve combined some resolutions, goals and bucket list items into three categories – Dreams, Do-able and Personal - and I’m going to try and break individual items down into smaller chunks so that my chances of achieving things are greater. (I’m a bit of a nerd, yes...) I’ve been having a hard time coming up with horse posts lately, so this blog might start covering some of my personal challenges as well.

Personal

• Take care of myself – make good whole food, continue exercise program, transition to using more natural products around the house and on my skin
• Continue de-cluttering the house (a work in progress) to get ready to put it up for sale in the spring/summer
• Organize list of tasks for home repairs/upgrades
• Minimize junk email
• Organize important papers and contact information
• Use all of the food that is in my freezer/pantry instead of just letting it sit unused
• Find some sources for pastured raised organic poultry and pork
• Read more books! I read 46 books in 2011 and I think I’m going to set a goal of 60 for 2012...kinda crazy, but why not? Go sign up at goodreads.com if you haven’t already!

Things that are do-able, but will take some time

• Volunteer at some endurance rides
• Work on photography skills
• Learn more about hooves
• Learn more about bandaging and first-aid
• Learn how to braid a mane
• Learn how to create a beaded browband and a ribbon browband
• Sell some used tack and de-clutter my horse life

Dream items that are harder to attain (ie – take some planning and budgeting)

• Attend the Royal Winter Fair Horse Show in Toronto
• Complete a 25 mile endurance or competitive trail ride
• Attend some NFR events in Vegas
• Rescue a TB/STB and provide a good home, or re-train one to do endurance
• Ride out west – Three Bars Ranch in Alberta looks great!
• Ride in England/Ireland
• Ride on a beach - DONE!
• Raise and train a foal

Here's to a fun and happy 2012!!  I wish everyone a happy, healthy, horse-y New Year!

Small pieces of the puzzle...

I've been slowly working on trying to fill in a few of the gaps Dolly and I have in our relationship/training.

Since I discovered that I was being aggressive with her and pushing her away, I've sort of had to start over in my approach.  We are already doing better - I think she can sense that I'm not putting out the agressive vibes anymore and is more willing to do things when I ask her.

I identified two problem areas that I wanted to address first: one was her bit and the other was her nervousness about being saddled.  Those two things have been issues for awhile and I figured that there had to be a fairly easy fix for both.

I started with the bridle/bit situation. I had been using an eggbut snaffle with her, but a couple of people that have been helping me have suggested that she seems to be really sensitive in the mouth and the single-jointed snaffle might be really bothering her.  I tried a few bits and the clear winner was an eggbutt waterford:

The multiple joints on this bit seem to be more gentle on her mouth. I think she has a fairly low palate, so it wouldn't take much for the snaffle to hit her and cause pain.  I rode her at the walk only in this bit and it seemed at first that she was waiting for the bit to hit her, but when it didn't, she slowly relaxed and dropped her head. I think the bit hitting her mouth when she did her spins on the trail might have been making the situation worse...we'll see if that theory holds when I try riding her outside the ring sometime in the near future. 

Out for a hand-walk to get used to the new bit

The second issue was standing still in the cross-ties while being saddled. Dolly has a tendency to swing away and back when you approach her with the saddle.  She is ok for the saddle pad, but the saddle is trickier.  She has been adjusted by the chiro and we've checked her back a few times, so I don't think it is pain, just avoidance.... I have tried just ignoring her behaviour and putting the saddle on regardless of how she behaves, but that seemed to make her tense. And when she got tense, I would get annoyed and the situation would quickly escalate.

I decided to take in my very ancient English saddle that weighs about 10lbs and use that at first instead of my heavy western saddle (that I'm sometimes worried I am going to drop on her back.)  I kept a handful of treats nearby and slowly approached and retreated holding the English saddle. After 10 minutes or so of work, praise and a few treats, she would stand quietly and I could tack her up from both sides. I think I just needed to communicate more clearly with her, instead of getting all annoyed and flustered. 

This saddle is at least 30yrs old!! And almost falling apart...

I then progressed to the western pad and saddle. It took another 10 minutes or so and I had her standing quietly while I took the saddle on and off. I made a point to flop the strirrups and cinch around and to tack up from both sides and she was fine.  I will probably need to keep working on this a bit over the winter, but I'm confident that it is a minor issue and it will soon be a thing of the past for us!

Winter Wonderland? Or just cold and miserable?

I haven't done much (if any) horse stuff in the past two weeks. I've just been busy with Christmas (thank goodness that is over and done with!) and trying to deal with the dark and cold weather that we get this time of year.

 I don't really like the snow, cold and ice - but I'm stuck here, so I try and make the best of it. In fact, I can deal with cold and snow without much trouble, but I really don't like ice, unless it is in my drink. :-) It makes the footing terrible for horses and humans alike, not to mention it makes driving difficult.

 I've been hand-walking Dolly a bit lately, just to get us out in a safe way. I usually try and take a few pictures along the way to help Dolly with patience and standing quietly while I do something. I managed to get a few shots before my hands froze!

 We are usually followed by V - a friend's horse - when we walk.  He is a young arab gelding and is always watching when there are things going on. 

He followed me as far as he could in his paddock and stopped to pose when I called his name...what a handsome guy...

I'm hoping to get a short ride in this weekend, probably just in the riding ring, but it will be better than nothing!

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...