The tempature here got up to around 0 yesterday so I took the cover off Nalle, and now he really lives up to his name! (Nalle = teddybear). When the first snow came he got really cold but now it seams like he have acclimatized.
Today we didnt do anything more than feeding and hanging, due to all the fireworks I knew I wouldn't get 100% of his focus if I asked for it, it would really have been "playing the 7 games with pressure".
Let's hope 2011 will be a better year for horses and humans than any other year before it, happy new year!
fredag 31 december 2010
torsdag 30 december 2010
and a humble thank you
thank you for reading my blog! I would rather have 30 people reading my blog that share the same dream and idea than 1000 people who think Im a circus-clown, so thank you it warms my heart.
What can I do for you today
Had an hour before work today to spend with Nalle so I took him to the arena to see what side of the round-pen he woke up on... and it turned out to be the fun side!
I gave Nalle his food and took off his cover, after eating up he went to find a nice place to roll.
Or at least that's what I thought... he found a the place, layed down... and waited for his treats!
I gave it to him and then he got up again without rolling, he's starting to figure out that I want something from him that got to do with laying down and that "something" results in treats. I still cant ask him to lay down, he's starting to get his weight back when I lift his front leg but he dont know what I want and he get's abit frustrated.
He's knows he gets treats for doing something good, but what!
I dont want to over-do this so I will keep using when he wants to lay down and roll abit more. It's a very intimate thing and I dont want to mis-use any trust, he's ok with me doing so much already with him when he's laying down and I dont want to put any pressure or "work"-thoughts on those situations.
Tomorrow after work I'll go see him to give him some new years-eve-apples and see what he wants to do, instead of taking a long break due to all the snow we're doing alot of "what can I do for you today".
That's a quote I carry with me since the clinic with Kristi S Smith this year, a very nice way to approach your horse.
Putting in alot on our trust-account that I hope to be able to use when the conditions for learing and improving things are better, it also give us time melt all the things we've learned during the year.
At the beginning of this year my goal was to be able to go trail-riding alone without problems and canter without Nalle bucking like a rodeo-horse, this summer we spent hours alone finding new paths and some months later it felt good cantering without reins or even bareback. After managing that we got some homework to do to prepare for the flying lead changes, but that can wait for a little while.
As long as there is snow we will do what Nalle likes best, canter like the "breath of the desert wind" that he is on snowy forest tracks or just hang around playing games in the snow that need more brain than legs... ;)
I gave Nalle his food and took off his cover, after eating up he went to find a nice place to roll.
Or at least that's what I thought... he found a the place, layed down... and waited for his treats!
I gave it to him and then he got up again without rolling, he's starting to figure out that I want something from him that got to do with laying down and that "something" results in treats. I still cant ask him to lay down, he's starting to get his weight back when I lift his front leg but he dont know what I want and he get's abit frustrated.
He's knows he gets treats for doing something good, but what!
I dont want to over-do this so I will keep using when he wants to lay down and roll abit more. It's a very intimate thing and I dont want to mis-use any trust, he's ok with me doing so much already with him when he's laying down and I dont want to put any pressure or "work"-thoughts on those situations.
Tomorrow after work I'll go see him to give him some new years-eve-apples and see what he wants to do, instead of taking a long break due to all the snow we're doing alot of "what can I do for you today".
That's a quote I carry with me since the clinic with Kristi S Smith this year, a very nice way to approach your horse.
Putting in alot on our trust-account that I hope to be able to use when the conditions for learing and improving things are better, it also give us time melt all the things we've learned during the year.
At the beginning of this year my goal was to be able to go trail-riding alone without problems and canter without Nalle bucking like a rodeo-horse, this summer we spent hours alone finding new paths and some months later it felt good cantering without reins or even bareback. After managing that we got some homework to do to prepare for the flying lead changes, but that can wait for a little while.
As long as there is snow we will do what Nalle likes best, canter like the "breath of the desert wind" that he is on snowy forest tracks or just hang around playing games in the snow that need more brain than legs... ;)
måndag 27 december 2010
Nothing means nothing
If someone was watching us play tonight it might have looked like we were doing nothing, I took Nalle to the arena, took his cover off, gave him food, gave him a carrot while rolling around, let him run around like a crazy person for a while, put the cover back on, got up and rode back to the pasture.
But there's something I always keep at the back of my head, nothing means nothing. Therefor I think it's very important to always be aware of what you are doing, even if you just spend 5 min with your horse feeding it. In our world I did this: we went to the arena with the goal to have no pressure just fun and the thought "what can I do for you today", I knew he would love to roll in the snow to scratch his back after wearing his cover for some time while I was away, I always knew that he probably would like to run around for a while since they dont really can do that in their pasture.
Nalle got some problems with arenas, they're boooooring, or to be honest, I made them boring this spring when we were trailerloading, the first weeks he didnt like that at all. Now he got no problem with the trailer and we can make trailerloading fun, but arenas are still abit tricky.
I know I change how I think when we're playing in an arena compared to playing in a field or in the forest, I dont want to but I do think abit in terms of "work" in arenas. So we've been eating alot in the arena and doing fun things lately, he's learned so much this year so we dont have to "work" on anything for a very long time... So I gave his food, took the cover of, scratched him with the stick while eating and slaped the ground making him more insensitive to the stick (I've been feeding him around other horses so much chasing them around with the stick slaping mother earth so he dont really care about that anymore... nothing means nothing!).
After eating up he ran away to find a got spot to roll on, I followed him with a carrot ready, after he had done his scratching and was still laying down I gave him the carrot making him wonder "what can I do to get another one, hm... ".
Last week we started testing if I could lay him down, he was almost down on his knees so hopefully it's not that far away. He got no problem with me walking up do him, sitting down beside him or even sitting/laying on him if I find him resting in the pasture, he also allows me to sit on him while he's getting up so I would like to be able to lay him down to complete the circle ;) or in correct terms, be allowed to lay him down.
After the carrot and some thinking Nalle got up and started to canter, oh my he can canter!
It's interesting to watch them run on their own, Nalle can turn and canter the other way as good as any "cow-chaser", he looks like he's flying and everything is so easy for him. He ran around for about 10 min with his "arab-tail" up, pointy ears and a smile on his face. When he was done he came to hang with me for a while before putting the cover back on.
After that I got up on a barrel asking him to come sideways to me so I could get up. Im trying to save the things he's not yet doing willingly and easy to last to make them sort of a treat, "if you do this for me it's game over". I got up and then we rode of to open the gate and get back to the pasture, we're starting to hang of the opening part but we still cant close it behind us, it's a good thing we're arent cowboys driving cattle...
Today he got to the gate and stoped at a good spot, he knew what was coming, but then he changes his mind and turned around so he had his other side to the fence, perhaps it's easier for him passing that way, made a mental-note about it.
All this text to describe "nothing", makes you realise that nothing really do means nothing!
But there's something I always keep at the back of my head, nothing means nothing. Therefor I think it's very important to always be aware of what you are doing, even if you just spend 5 min with your horse feeding it. In our world I did this: we went to the arena with the goal to have no pressure just fun and the thought "what can I do for you today", I knew he would love to roll in the snow to scratch his back after wearing his cover for some time while I was away, I always knew that he probably would like to run around for a while since they dont really can do that in their pasture.
Nalle got some problems with arenas, they're boooooring, or to be honest, I made them boring this spring when we were trailerloading, the first weeks he didnt like that at all. Now he got no problem with the trailer and we can make trailerloading fun, but arenas are still abit tricky.
I know I change how I think when we're playing in an arena compared to playing in a field or in the forest, I dont want to but I do think abit in terms of "work" in arenas. So we've been eating alot in the arena and doing fun things lately, he's learned so much this year so we dont have to "work" on anything for a very long time... So I gave his food, took the cover of, scratched him with the stick while eating and slaped the ground making him more insensitive to the stick (I've been feeding him around other horses so much chasing them around with the stick slaping mother earth so he dont really care about that anymore... nothing means nothing!).
After eating up he ran away to find a got spot to roll on, I followed him with a carrot ready, after he had done his scratching and was still laying down I gave him the carrot making him wonder "what can I do to get another one, hm... ".
Last week we started testing if I could lay him down, he was almost down on his knees so hopefully it's not that far away. He got no problem with me walking up do him, sitting down beside him or even sitting/laying on him if I find him resting in the pasture, he also allows me to sit on him while he's getting up so I would like to be able to lay him down to complete the circle ;) or in correct terms, be allowed to lay him down.
After the carrot and some thinking Nalle got up and started to canter, oh my he can canter!
It's interesting to watch them run on their own, Nalle can turn and canter the other way as good as any "cow-chaser", he looks like he's flying and everything is so easy for him. He ran around for about 10 min with his "arab-tail" up, pointy ears and a smile on his face. When he was done he came to hang with me for a while before putting the cover back on.
After that I got up on a barrel asking him to come sideways to me so I could get up. Im trying to save the things he's not yet doing willingly and easy to last to make them sort of a treat, "if you do this for me it's game over". I got up and then we rode of to open the gate and get back to the pasture, we're starting to hang of the opening part but we still cant close it behind us, it's a good thing we're arent cowboys driving cattle...
Today he got to the gate and stoped at a good spot, he knew what was coming, but then he changes his mind and turned around so he had his other side to the fence, perhaps it's easier for him passing that way, made a mental-note about it.
All this text to describe "nothing", makes you realise that nothing really do means nothing!
fredag 24 december 2010
Savvy xmas!
Spending xmas on one of the big island on the eastcoast of Sweden. They've got a phenomenon here called "fåk", which is more or less a snowstorm but it snows sideways and it comes enormous amounts of snow. Apparently they have closed the roads on the south part of the island now and everywhere you look it's white. Wonder how we're gonna get back home on monday...
My horse-xmas-gift to myself this year is to try and take pressure of training. It's good to be ambitious and it's important to have goals but when you put to much energy on that you tend to miss all the things you learn on the way and all those little things your horse does for you and if you've got a horse like mine, all the things they learn themself. Sometimes I find myself on the wrong track going that way, not very often and I dont get very far until I notice and stop myself but it's not a nice place to be in. If I take the pressure off and I appreciate all the little things the risk off getting wrong will decrease. One way of doing that is that im always trying to see the positive things when we play and remember the things not going so well as something we will have to get back to later but I dont let it "get to me", it's much more fun to play the next time if you have positive memories from last time. One way to do that is to blog about it :) To my horse this year im giving a promise of trying to "be the best me I can be", a very used phrase but I've finally found out how. During these two years we've been playing I've learned alot about who to be for my horse, what to do and how to do it and I'ld like to say that we're doing pretty good. Being the best me is working even more on those things and trust myself, im doing right and im doing good, if I do it even more I'll get even better and I will finally be the best me I can be.
Savvy x-mas!
My horse-xmas-gift to myself this year is to try and take pressure of training. It's good to be ambitious and it's important to have goals but when you put to much energy on that you tend to miss all the things you learn on the way and all those little things your horse does for you and if you've got a horse like mine, all the things they learn themself. Sometimes I find myself on the wrong track going that way, not very often and I dont get very far until I notice and stop myself but it's not a nice place to be in. If I take the pressure off and I appreciate all the little things the risk off getting wrong will decrease. One way of doing that is that im always trying to see the positive things when we play and remember the things not going so well as something we will have to get back to later but I dont let it "get to me", it's much more fun to play the next time if you have positive memories from last time. One way to do that is to blog about it :) To my horse this year im giving a promise of trying to "be the best me I can be", a very used phrase but I've finally found out how. During these two years we've been playing I've learned alot about who to be for my horse, what to do and how to do it and I'ld like to say that we're doing pretty good. Being the best me is working even more on those things and trust myself, im doing right and im doing good, if I do it even more I'll get even better and I will finally be the best me I can be.
Savvy x-mas!
onsdag 22 december 2010
Time for some rest
Had this years last lesson some days ago and the day after we had a great trailride. During the lesson everything worked like a dream and he had 100% focus on me with an happy relaxed attitude, felt like a great last lesson! The trailride wasnt supposed to be a trailride... the plan was to do some zone 5 driving build confidence with all the new snow-monsters out there, but he relaxed after a short while and I got tons of snow in my shoes so I got up on a big stone asking him to carry me, he said "what's taking you so long, get up so we can get going again!". Rode bareback in warm cozy pants not made for riding, more like ski-pants, so when we were going downhill I bounced around. A few months ago that would have made him uncomfortable and before that he would have bucked me off, but not now. Didnt even get a dissatisfied look, not even when he got "ants in his pants" and started to trot down.... He really shows his emotions with every inch of his body and that day he only showed happiness, the day after I got fever so we havent done anything more than hanging sharing some undemanding time and protect your herd of two. Going away for xmas and the plan was to keep playing with him until I went but now I think his xmas-break will start abit earlier instead.
lördag 11 december 2010
lördag 4 december 2010
What I've learned from my horse
I've always found it hard to describe someone, even myself even thou I know myself inside out. But I finally found a way to describe my horse, he got a strong integrity and he always got a fox behind his ear. If he think you're trying to take his dignity away he will do everything he can to get you emotional and take over the leadership, since you dont deserve to be his leader and you cant be if you cant control your emotions. But, when you've got his trust and respect he will try to do everything for you. He's one of those horses with very high demands on you as a leader, I've learned so much from him and we've only been playing together for two years. Horses really are the best teachers, I've been forced to take control of my emotions, to stay calm in all situations so I can be a strong safe friend to hold hands with when it gets scary, to be creative and use my imagination so he can use his brain and we can build our language and to reward the smallest step to get to the big goals.
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