Sue – How Do You Interupt that Negative Fear Behavior?

Posted inSue - How Do You Do!
I've not been able to get Sue to circle online without her going into the fear zone. Even the "S" turn manuever gets her riled up and rigid. She gets deep into fear before we hit the "S" of the turn and doesn't recover too much when we managed our direction change. She's sort of like a freight train to try to get turned and going the other way. I've been doing half circles on the wall and that has worked reasonably well to interupt that fear. BUT Tonight..we played…

Sue – How Do You Do in Arena Chaos?

Posted inSue - How Do You Do!
The arena was filled with horses. One horse and "new to us" rider  didn't even know we were fearful. She was new. We rode in an organized chaos. We all rode in a straight line somewhere and first stopped and did hindquarter perfect turns. Then we trotted, stopped and did our hindquarter perfect turns. After we did that for a while, we started at the walk again and did perfect forequarter turns...and then again at a trot. How do you think Sue did with horses going every which way? She was…

Sue – How Do You Spell Progress?

Posted inSue - How Do You Do!
This was a three hour group lesson in brutal heat. We started at 9:00 am and by noon everyone was very willing to STOP. Last night I had watched the latest Parelli pod cast. It was about horses that are scared to have horses behind them or meet other horses. Talk about right on time Pod Cast! Pat rode his pretend fearful horse, Cash, in the round pen. Linda's job was to canter around the outside of the round pen. Cash rode on the rail inside and when she got…

Sue – How Do You Do with Friends?

Posted inSue - How Do You Do!
I set aside my fears tonight and it felt good. We got to ride outside in the big arena with dear good friends. That felt really good. We warmed up really good. We are trying to do the hill climbing that Linda Parelli recommends so that Sue will be better balanced. Sue gets to trot up and down a small hill.  She also got to jump over some logs. What a fine time she had. Our friends were in the arena. Our good friend Jane opened the gate for us.…

Nova’s Notebook – The Beginning

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Pat Parelli is always telling us how he's got yearlings on up that have happily learned the level 1, 2 and 3 tasks. Since Nova is at Pine Dell boarding stable, I decided that she should become a level 3 baby. I've given Jennifer Vaught this task. This is what she looks like at 18 months! Jenny has fallen into the "I Love Nova" club. Jenny reports that Nova is bright and light. Nova is fox trotting and trotting during her training sessions. We've not seen any sign of the…

JR’s Journal – Susan’s Big Blank Duh Look

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JR and I were in a combined L2 and L3 clinic today doing just lovely. We do have a horse in the clinic that tends to get upset when another horse comes near him or touches him. I knew that from being in an earlier clinic with him...but I got too close. All of sudden we heard the squeal, the back up to kick, only we were too close. The horse whirled and then the head snaked at us. Ears pinned and teeth barred. The horse went in for the…