Spring at Last

Spring at Last!

It has been such a long winter.  When we could get on the trail or just the hill leading to the river, I took my "Ace Number One" trail horse, Cole.  I just worked with Trifecta in the arena.  Of all the horses I have ever had, he is the horse that I enjoy arena riding with the most.  He barely spooks, (unlike Cole, Cruiser and Ranger,) doesn't go too slow, (unlike Mingo and Dante,) doesn't go too fast, (unlike Cruiser and Cole,) and seldom does anything dangerous like bolting, (unlike Cruiser and Cole.)  We do have problems and frustrations, but working them out and succeeding is one of the joys of training.  I have also been able to ride him outside a lot in the last month or so.  Our current barn has a very large outdoor arena with all-weather footing and great drainage.  Mud is minimal in this muddy time of year.  

Still, as much as I enjoy riding him in the indoor and outdoor arenas, I am starting to get excited about trail riding with him again.  We have only been able to cross the river the last few weeks.  I have been taking Cole out with Kevin and Starry.  Ellen is still not ready to cross in her head, but I think it will be soon.  And then it will be time for Trifecta.

We have been reviewing the "Bus Stop Game."  That is where I take him to the end of the driveway, and we watch the cars go by.  Sometimes, we will cross the street, walk to the next house, cross the street and come back home.  The first day I did that, he was horrible when a car came by, and it discouraged me.  Since then, though, he has been better.  We don't get a lot of cars when we ride to the trail, and it isn't that far of a ride on the street, but we get enough to make it important that our horses are traffic safe.

Ellen often does this with Dante, too.  It is a running joke with us about the driver's reactions to Trifecta versus Dante.  With Trifecta'as dazzling blond mane and tail and naturally higher head carriage, we get a lot of people slowing down to look at him and waving.  Dante--none at all.  Of course, any knowledgeable horse person can recognize how beautiful Dante is, but the general public doesn't know any better and they go all ga-ga over Trifecta.

On one of the warmer days that we had, I decided to lead Tri down to the river.  Ellen stayed up at the barn so she could ride Dante without Trifecta distracting him.  (One of my most difficult challenges with the little guy is keeping him away from the other horses--particularly his best friend, Dante.)  

My biggest problem with Trifecta is that he gets just so very excited about going down the trail.  He just loves it so much.  He walks fast, his head is up--looking all around and he is so fascinated about everything.  All of our horses seem to like to go down the trail, but Trifecta takes it to a whole new level.  After a break of many months, I wasn't sure of what to expect from him.  I remember that last spring, he was pretty bad the first few trips.

He marched down the driveway with much enthusiasm, as always.  My goal was to try to make it as calm an experience as I could.  We stopped at the end of the driveway and waited for a few cars to pass to review traffic, but there weren't any.  After a minute of standing we proceeded down the street.  We only made it a couple of driveways when I saw a car approaching from the front.  I decided to stop him in that driveway so we could watch.  As it passed, I heard a car coming from behind, so we just stayed put.  Once that one passed, I asked him to walk, and he jumped up into the air with glee.  We call it "The Lambert Leap."  Dante, the full Lambert Morgan, does it all the time on his transitions when he is excited.  Trifecta is only half Lambert, so it only happens half the time.  

After that one expression of his emotions, he then walked steadily to the trail, so I clicked and treated him.  That is one of the great things about having a clicker trained horse.  Once you get the behavior you want, you can easily show your horse that that is the best behavior.  The hard part is getting the right behavior to start with.  Ellen and I have taught our horses the command to put their head down and walk forward on a lead rope and in the saddle.  (It backfired with Cole when he morphed the command into doing his silly walk, but it still does settle him down.)

Once we got to the trail, I worked on head down, walk and whoa.  We stopped a lot just so Tri could look around.  Without all the leaves off the trees, he could see everything, such as the traffic and people on the other side of the river and all the birds and squirrels.  I clicked him for his stops and for walking like a gentleman.  Sometimes he got a bit too fast, but he did remember our big training success from last year, "control."

For a long time, he had a very hard time just walking down the 2 very steep sections of the hill.  He would rush down, out of control.  Ellen, who was usually walking next to me, had the idea to use hand signals showing slow, careful steps and saying the word, "control."  After he started to understand that, I would ride down the slopes without her and just say the word, and after a while it worked.  He learned to control his feet down the slopes instead of letting gravity take over.  I am pleased to say, he did very well on the slopes with his control command.  To make it easier for him to succeed, I did stop him and re-start 3 times on the first slope and twice on the second to break any momentum he may have been building up.

Once we got to the bottom of the hill, I just let him stand for the longest time to look at things and settle down.  

He has always done better going back up the hill than going down the hill, so I knew the biggest challenges were over when we turned around to go home.  A few times he walked too fast for me to keep up and a couple times he tried a slow trot.  I stopped him a lot to let me catch up, catch my breath and to encourage him to settle down.  The trip up was very uneventful, and for that matter, so was the trip down.  I just took my time and rewarded him with clicks for doing the right thing.  When we got to the street, I let him stand for a while to watch traffic.  There was a truck with a small trailer that had some odd machine on it that caused him to take a couple uneasy steps, but he settled down right away after it, and that is important.  There were no cars on our walk back to the barn, and he went steadily with his head at a normal level--and of course he got some clicks for it.

Whenever we do something new or review something old like this, I do do a lot of clicking and treating, but I fade it off and replace it with verbal praise and neck rubs--with intermittent clicks and clicks when he does super great.  I find clicker training to be the best way to communicate to him when he is doing what I want.  The hard part is often just getting that first correct behavior, and with Trifecta, it is often overruled by his general enthusiasm.

But he is a good horse, and when I can bring that good horse out, he is a real joy to ride.  Trifecta has the potential to become an outstanding trail horse.  Time will tell...

Everything

 Everything

It has been a very long, cold and snowy winter.  It started way back in November this year.  The river froze early and stayed that way for months.  When it finally thawed, it washed up a huge pile of ice blocks on our trail that leads to our river crossing; making it impossible to cross.  It took weeks for it to melt.  When it finally did, Kevin and I planned our first trail ride--only to find that the hurricane force winds we had the day before knocked 3 trees down across the trail on the hill leading to the river.  

A few days later, on St Patrick's Day, my sister and I met at the barn for our morning ride.  We decided to ride in the indoor arena since it was very cold.  I had Cole saddled up first, and I brought him into the arena, while Ellen was finishing up saddling Dante in his stall.  I ride English, so I was running down my stirrups when I heard an enormous bang.  My first instinct was to grab Cole's reins.  He is a great horse that doesn't need to be held while I mess around with the saddle, but this was too much for even him.

He handled it well--just pranced in a circle around me and stopped and listened.  It was so loud that the walls shook.  Ellen rushed into the arena and asked me what the noise was.  I told her I didn't know, but it was still going on.  The first big was followed by a series of smaller bangs that faded off after probably 30 seconds.

We were both perplexed.  Ellen went outside and looked around but saw nothing.  We decided to ride--hoping that whatever it was wouldn't repeat itself.  I wondered if it was an airplane exploding since we are right in the flight path and very close to the airport, but in just a few minutes we could hear the planes going overhead.  Than we thought it could have been an earthquake since the barn was shaking, but would an earthquake make such a loud noise?

I asked her what Dante did, and she said, "Nothing."  While it was going on, I didn't think to look and see how the other horses in the stalls alongside the perimeter of arena were doing.  Cole settled down so quickly, himself, that I wondered it this had happened before.

We had a nice ride.  When it was over, Ellen got a text from her boyfriend saying that it was a meteorite.  Later reports said that it was a 7 ton asteroid that crashed into our atmosphere at 45 mph and broke into pieces.  It unleashed the energy of 250 tons of TNT.  We weren't far at all from its path, so we got the full force of the sound.  I wish we could have seen it, too.  They say it was a once in a lifetime event, so no, the horses never experienced it before.  Maybe they handled it so well because, like us, they just didn't understand it.  Or maybe they are just good horses.

The whole thing was quite a cool event.

Over the years, Ellen and I have experienced so many crazy things.  There have been countless trees that have fallen close to us--one right next to us.  We have both experience car crashes by the trail, too.  People have brought strange things on the trails.  Canoes and kayaks in the river really confuse the horses.  We've been attacked by geese.  All sorts of things.  Well now, we can say that we have experienced everything.  

Trifecta and Dante Out in the Snow

  

All horses doing well.  We hate the weather--snow storms and extreme cold--but we still trudge out to the barn to take care of them and ride then inside on most days.  Hurry up spring

November Ride

November Ride

Each season presents different sorts of challenges on our rides.  Last month, the problem was with acorns.  It seems it was a bumper year for them, and it was dangerous to go out on a windy day.  I, alone, got hit 3 times this year; once in the hand, once on the leg and once on my head.  The helmet was very helpful... There was one time when I was waiting downs the trail for Ellen to catch up, and it was literally raining acorns everywhere.  (That was the time I got hit in the hand.)  There were several times when each of our horses jumped unexpectedly for no apparent reason, and then immediately calmed right down.  We blamed it on them getting hit with acorns.

In November, our challenge is the leaf blowers.  The park seems to be obsessed with blowing the leaves off the street and the paved bike paths.  These are not your everyday leaf blowers.  These are riding mowers with leaf blower attachments.  They are very loud and annoying.  Most of the time, the horses don't care, but now and then they are blowing in a spot that complicates our ride.  One day, we were on a hill looking down towards the street.  We didn't want to go down it until blower passed us because we needed to cross the street and we didn't want the horses to get worried about it.  The park worker decided that he wouldn't just travel down the street, but he would pick a section and go back and forth like a lawn mower.  We were trapped on the hill for a while because we had no idea where he was going next.

The other morning, Ellen and I were on a ride with Dante and Cole.  Instead of crossing the river, we went across on the river ford.  When we got back on the trail, here came a leaf blower; also across the ford.  We were glad we were up ahead of him this time and not trapped in any way.  We rode to the end of our trail, turned around and headed back home.  The blower caught up with us and passed us.  Through the trees, we could just see the blower--and of course we could hear it.  The horses were fine, and we were happy we dodged that bullet.

As we continued down the trail, we saw another leaf blower coming across the ford.  Such luck--two in a row.  We had a great view of it because we were, once again, on a hill looking down at the street.  The blower crossed the ford to our side--and then decided to go back and forth on the grass to make sure that not one leaf was left.  Ellen normally leads across the ford because she is more comfortable with leading.  I was riding.  We had to cross the street between the leaf blower and the ford.  I knew that Cole wasn't bothered at all by the noise and the activity.  Dante has had so much leaf blower exposure, I felt he would be fine, too.  The question was--how would Ellen feel.

Anyone who has been reading my writings over the years knows that Ellen has a lot of anxieties. She tends to take little problems and blow them all out of proportion.  It is called "reality distortion."  She has a hard time evaluating the situation because her brain gets in the way with all the "what ifs."  A river that is up to our horses' knees appears belly deep to her.  It takes a lot of courage for her to tackle things that the rest of us don't worry about.  She really is the bravest person I know.

I didn't know what she was going to do.  She was in the lead, and much to my amazement, she just marched right across the street and walked Dante to the ford.  

Before I could step on the road, and car suddenly appeared coming around the corner.  There was no way I could cross and catch up with Dante.  We couldn't figure out where the car came from.  The driver did see the situation, and he stopped and let me cross the street.  I gave him a big smile and waved a thank you, and he drove off.  We were still on the street when a police car came around the corner with his lights on.  I just started to mumble, "No siren, no siren."  There was no siren--at least for about 30 seconds.  Evidently, he stopped the driver that just passed us.  We think that he appeared so suddenly when we were crossing because he was speeding.  

Finally, we got across the ford, and I had a chance to talk to Ellen about her bravery.  I asked her how she did it.  She said that she didn't listen to the "what ifs."  Instead, she looked at Dante, and he seemed calm.  She knew he would be all right and so she just marched along with him.  Ellen used her keen powers of observation--and interpreted the world as it really was--not distorted.  I was so proud of her--she was terrific.

December's big challenge is typically the weather--as well as January and February.  At least there won't be any leaf blowers.

How We Worked Out Our Hill Problems

How We Worked Out Our Hill Problems

If you have been reading about Trifecta's trail adventures from the beginning, you will know that he has had problems controlling his speed going downhill for a long time.  I don't think this is an uncommon problem with young horses at all.  That is, unless they lived in the mountains of West Virginia like Dante.  Cruiser and Cole had no control over their feet going down hills, and I was able to teach them how to do it in just one session by going up and down the hill over and over until they slowed down.  I did it with Cruiser in the saddle, and I did it with Cole on foot.  After just one session, I only had to fine tune their training.  

That didn't work with Trifecta.  He would rush down the hill, we would turn around and do it again once or twice and he would seem fine.  The next time--he would be back to rushing again.  Sometimes he would do well for one or two times--and then he would revert again.  This went on over so many rides.  He just didn't seem to be able to consistently control his hindquarters.

It helped if I stopped him when he got too fast so he could get himself together before proceeding.  Sometimes I had to stop him multiple times to make it down a short slope.

In the early days, he had trouble going uphill, too.  He would put his head way up into the air and with great no coordination, rush up.  Ellen solved this problem for me.  Most people with clicker trained horses teach their horse to lower his head on command by pointing down.  It is one of the easiest things to do.  I also taught Trifecta to lower his head when I was in the saddle by jiggling the rein.  Ellen recognized that Trifecta's problem was that he wasn't using his head correctly.  While we were going up a steep slope, she walked beside him, bent over and pointed to the ground to encourage him to lower his head--it worked like magic.  The very first time, he discovered it was easier to walk up the hill if his head was lowered and he used it like a fulcrum.  That became his verbal command.  "Fulcrum."  I never had any more problems going up hills after that.  We just "fulcrum" up.

The down hill problems persisted.  I am so glad that Ellen has spent a lot of time walking with us on our rides because she figured out how to explain to Trifecta how to go down hills.  We started to realize how much he was paying attention to the way that she was moving.  Ellen showed him what we wanted.  We decided on the command, "control," because he needed to get control of his body.  We have 2 short, steep slopes we have to go down to get to the first river crossing.  Ellen tried shifting her weight back, deliberately placing her feet and making hand motions to simulate his front feet.  My job was to lightly squeeze alternating reins as he stepped down.  I didn't think that that would help him--I was doing that to teach him a cue from the saddle.  

As we would go down the slopes, she would say "control" and use her body language.  He would watch her--and then he started to match her steps.  I couldn't believe it when it seemed to work.  This wasn't the instant cure like "fulcrum," but it was helping.  It didn't take long before he started to watch her hands whenever we needed controlled walking--such as going down the steep river bank--another thing I had been struggling with.

Lately, she has intentionally left me alone to go down the slopes.  I say "control" and give him his rein cues, and it has been nothing short of amazing to me.  When he is really good, I will give him a click/treat to let him know, but I don't do it all the time, and he doesn't seem to care.  I think this is another instance of us showing him how to do something easier--and he likes it better.

Back to Trifecta's ability to follow hand signals; we had one other extraordinary incident.  A few weeks ago, we had some much needed rain, river bank was muddy.  If we ride the horses way on the left side of the trail, the mud isn't so bad.  There is a lot of mud if you ride down the center of the trail.  If we go way to the right--it is horrible.  That morning, Trifecta saw all the mud and decided he would try going on the right side since it didn't look as muddy as it actually is.  When I realized what he was going to try to do, I stopped him and tried to guide him to the far left--but we would have to cross the muddy center.  I called to Ellen.  She came over, talked to Tri to get his attention, walked to the far left, stooped over and with both hands pointed exactly where she wanted to go.  Wouldn't you know that he immediately marched across the bad mud to the spot she pointed where the mud wasn't as bad and then marched down to the river.  I was simply shocked.  This wasn't something we trained for--he just deduced what we wanted him to do.

Sometimes we just need to think outside the box when we train horses.  With Trifecta, it is a common occurrence.  

A Most Wonderful Ride

 A Most Wonderful Ride

I rode Trifecta out with Kevin and Starry--something we have only done a couple times before.  Ellen planned to join us on foot, but we decided the river would be way too cold for her to cross.  She said she would drive down to the park and meet us on the other side of the river.  Just in case there might be a problem, she would wear her old shoes so she could cross and help us out.

There was one thing that Kevin and I were a little worried about.  With the last rain, a large log was washed up on the shore right where we cross.  When I rode Trifecta down the hill the day before, he saw it and got very worried about it.  I didn't take him down the river bank to see it, since I didn't plan to cross, but I allowed him to stare at it for a couple of minutes.  He doesn't get worried about many things, so I took his concerns seriously.  Kevin was a bit worried how Starry would do, too.  His vision doesn't seem as good as it used to be, and sometimes he thinks the most normal things are a threat.  That is why I was really glad Ellen would be on the other side of the river.

Leading down the street, mounting and riding down the hill went so awesome that I thought someone switched my horse with a much older, more experienced one.  Trifecta led the way down, which always makes Starry a happy horse, because he just doesn't like to be a leader. 

When I made the turn to go down the river bank, Trifecta immediately saw the log and his head went way up in the air.  Before he could act out, Ellen started calling him on the other side of the river.  He was so happy that she was there that he hurried down the river bank to the edge of the water--then he noticed the log again.  His head went up, and his eyes got big.  I told him to go walk up to it and take a look.  He was torn between curiosity and caution, but he got close enough that if he really stretched his neck he could touch it.  I told him to try, so he did.  When he touched it and realized it was just a piece of wood, he immediately, and I mean immediately, decided it wasn't worth one more moment of his time.  Instead, he turned and looked across the river.  By now, Starry was also by the river and was unconcerned by the log.  Trifecta focused on Ellen and decided crossing would be the most fun thing to do.

He did get a click for stepping into the water.  He then crossed like a gentleman, walked up the river bank and turned to the right.  Now, this is really big because on the last few rides, he has been fighting me about wanting to go to the left--refusing to follow Ellen or the other horses.  I clicked him for it and gave him his treat.  When I restarted him, he tried to spin to the left.  

I have been experimenting up at the barn with how to thwart this behavior.  Even up there, he had been getting stubborn, trying to explore areas where I didn't want him--and then things would spiral out of control.  All the big trainers suggested keeping him moving to control his feet to deter him from wanting to go the places I didn't want him to go.  That did work when he would enter the indoor arena when I wanted to ride past the door, but it didn't seem to help anywhere else.  On the trail, our disagreements involved him wanting to go on little trails that lead to the river or out to the street.  His worst spot--and the spot where the whole habit began was at Willow Bend.  I went through a couple weeks of extreme frustration.  

With a lot of thought and observations, I decided he either enjoyed the conflict or felt that it was what I wanted.  I decided to try something new--I would stop.  It seems counter intuitive to stop him--because stopping can also be misinterpreted as a reward--but keeping him moving just kept things getting worse and worse.  I just had to make sure I stopped him when we were facing the direction that I wanted to go.

The first time I tried this at the barn, he was trying to go down the driveway that goes behind the barn instead of staying on the track.  I forced him into a turn and stopped him so he was facing the track.  We stood for about a minute, I asked him to walk and he did--right back on the track.  This didn't solve all my problems; we still had a lot of work to do, but now at least I had something that had a chance of working.  We practiced it a lot up at the barn.

So when we went up the river bank, stopped for a click/treat and he tried to go to the left--I circled him around to face the right, stopped him for a few moments and asked him to walk where I wanted him to--and he did!!!  The plan worked even out on the trail.  

We headed out on our ride.  Trifecta was leading with Ellen walking alongside us.  He was really behaving well.  When we got to those little trails that were giving us problems, I could feel him bending to go down them.  I just bent him the other way--a thing I was working on with him in the arena for the last few weeks for just this reason, (shoulder-in) and it worked.

The next big test was Willow Bend.  There I had to turn him to the right and go down a short slope at the same time.  Ellen walked with us on the left side to discourage him from wanting to go straight instead of turning.  I felt him bend--and down we went!  This is the first time I have been able to get him down the slope without even a little resistance--and usually a lot of resistance.  He got a click for that, too.

I told Ellen that I thought I would trot a little.  Since Kevin was planning to just walk, she said she would fade off and walk with Kevin.  Trifecta marched on down the trail, but he didn't seem too keen on trotting.  I had him walk a ways so we could get around a bend and no longer see Ellen and Starry.  I then asked him to trot, which he reluctantly did.  I kept him going until I could feel him moving in a more forward manner and clicked him.  When I asked him to trot again, he went more willingly and much faster.  After a while, we stopped and just walked.  

The park had been working on the pedestrian bridge earlier, but it seemed like they were done so I was going to ride until we reached the next river crossing--our usual turning spot.  We were nearly there when I started hearing pounding and electric saws.  That really disturbed the little guy, so we just stood to allow him to listen for a few minutes.  As I started to turn him to go back towards home, he tried to zoom forward.  I made him stop and stand and then tried again.  This time, he was a little better, but still wanted to rush.  I don't know if it was because of the construction noise or because he wanted to get back to his buddies--who were now approaching.  We managed to work through everything, catch up with them and then headed on home.

He was walking much faster, so we practiced stopping and waiting for Starry to catch up a lot.  It is a good lesson to learn; patience.  At the river crossing, we left Ellen, who I am certain was happy that she didn't have to cross the ice cold water.

I decided to try letting Starry go first up the hill.  Immediately, Trifecta wanted to walk up to him and start playing.  This became the biggest challenge of the ride.  I just wouldn't let Tri get close enough to Starry to harass him.  After a few minutes, Trifecta settle down and followed behind Starry at a safe distance.  About halfway up the hill, we practiced stopping and waiting for Starry to get further ahead--the reverse of stopping and waiting for him to catch up.  It is funny how the exact same exercise is emotionally completely different depending on where you do it.  We were about 2 thirds up the hill when Kevin was able to stop Starry and Trifecta peacefully passed him--the final test--and he passed.

Overall, I was very pleased with the ride.  Of course, it wasn't perfect, but I saw improvements and we both had fun.  I can't wait to do it again.

Fairy Floss Update

  Fairy Floss Update

I have had Fairy Floss for more than a year now, and she went from a special needs cat that I wanted to help in tribute to my previous cat, Thunder, to being my best little pal.

As you may recall, I adopted her from the Cleveland Animal Protective League because nobody wanted her.  She has skin allergies that were hard to control.  She was at the APL for 6 months, except for a short time she was out for adoption and was returned because of her allergies.

I was able to manage them fairly well through last fall and winter, but they flared up in the spring, so we were back to the vet.  We did some experimentation with bathing, worming and medicines before the vet figured out where most of the problem was stemming from.  A blood test showed that she was allergic to a number of things but most allergic to yeast--and she was getting yeast infections in her ears.  Now, I treat her ears once a month and flush them out twice a week.  She is still itchier than the average cat, but she is so much better and doesn't need any other sort of treatment.  The hair is growing back on her belly!

Then there was the incident with her torn ligaments in June.  Most of the problem was caused by her getting tangled up in my legs, but some of it might have stemmed from all the steroids she had been on to treat her allergies.  Steroids can cause ligaments to weaken--which I am positive contributed to Cruiser's torn suspensory after we treated him for a few months with steroids for that awful cough he had.  Anyway, the operation was a success.  I did everything the vet said, and she healed quickly, but she still had a little limp.  The vet felt she may never have full extension of the leg after the operation.

Once she was cleared to have regular activity, I set up a physical therapy box for her.  It is a long, low box with three poles to step over in it.  So, she has to step over the side of the box, step over each pole and step out of the box.  If that wasn't enough, I put a small box outside each end of the physical therapy box for her to step up onto each time.

You may wonder how I got Fairy Floss to participate in her physical therapy sessions--with clicker training, of course.  She was a clicker cat before that accident ever happened.  I had her jumping over jumps and through a hoop, climbing up boxes and spinning.  It took no time at all to teach her a physical therapy routine.  She just loves it.  She would go through it 12 to 15 times a session.  

Wouldn't you know it--my instincts were right.  She no longer limps; even at a trot.  

The silver lining to the dark cloud of the accident was that the x-rays showed that Fairy Floss has severe arthritis in her hips.  I am now treating that, too.  She can run faster than ever!

She has become extremely attached to me and follows me all over the house, sleeps with me at night and loves to cuddle.  The only way I could have a better cat was to get Thunder back--she is that great.  She lost her home because her previous owners got a baby and she became depressed and quit using her litter box--a terrible thing to happen to a cat.  I am so happy I was able to give her a happy ending to her sad story--and she did the same for me.

I am so glad to adopted special needs cat.