Worry, worry, worry

My poor dear mare... Today something was blowing up her tail, and I for the life of me could not figure out what it was. From the moment I got her out of the paddock this morning she was not her usual self.

Yesterday we did our same round pen lunging, but with real tack on. I wanted her to get used to the feeling of stirrups banging on her sides. She's worn a saddle before, but in the past when I saw her be lunged with the stirrups down it greatly bothered her. She still gets a bit nervous whenever things are at her side that she can't see - myself included - and this is something I want to rectify before I even attempt to get on her. Having the stirrups pulled down spooks her more than anything I've seen this far, which is a rather large problem. Having her spook away from me while I'm trying to mount her because the stirrup leather snapped and scared her would just... not be good.

After a good thorough brush down (as much as I love grays... they get so bloody dirty) I checked my saddle on her (perfect fit... imagine that), fit my bridle to her head, all of which she was an absolute champ for. No flinching, snorting, stepping away unless I asked her to (which now only takes a gentle touch of your hand rather than having to throw your whole body against her) or general upset from her at all. I was so proud, and shoved carrots in her face any time she did anything I even remotely liked.

She's so cute. Even with her satellite dish ears. 

I had tried my raised noseband on her, but as all my tack has been bought at one point or another for either a thoroughbred or a small thoroughbred warmblood cross, it didn't fit, and I had to put her in my figure eight. I prefer these nosebands anyway, as I much prefer the freedom through the jaw for them to chew and move the bit, but I hadn't wanted to introduce anything so new just yet. Thankfully, it didn't seem to bother her in the least. She allowed me to buckle it around her face, fuss with all the straps, and stood like a large gray statue, only occasionally looking at me to beg for a treat. The noseband I have was bought as a single piece (rather than part of a whole bridle), and Pessoa makes their nosebands so bloody big it's even large on her, despite being a large warmblood. If you ever decide to buy one of their bridles... make sure to try it on before removing tags or anything. They're stupid big.

But damn, does she ever look good in my tack.

The lunging consisted of much of the same, working on walking quietly away from me, long, low, and stretchy. I make sure to take everything one very small step at a time with her because of her trust issues. E-line horses have quite the brain on them (horses by the stud Escudo, for those of you out there that don't know what I'm referring to there) and I am very over cautious to make sure that I do NOTHING that she could take negatively. Mares especially from this line have a tendency to not forget wrongs that have been done to them. A cousin of Ellie's for example, E'toufee, was flipped over when she was young. She has never forgotten it, and was ruined for riding. Once she decided she was done, that was it. Done. I don't want anything like that to happen with Ellie, so I've been very careful with everything I do with her. One new thing a day, unless she seems to be taking everything very well, in which case I will introduce one more, and so on. 

Having the stirrups pulled down on my saddle made her spook away from me a bit, so I took a few minutes to gently snap the stirrup leathers against the saddle. I didn't do this nearly as roughly as I could have, as it seemed to be scaring her quite a bit. I did it a little on both sides, crooning and petting her the whole time. This will be the next continuing project. We did our lunge work, walking and trotting in both directions, and called it a day in the pen. 

To the left to the left - 

To the right to the right!

(Also, I apologize for persistent text sounds in both videos.)

This was early on in the lunge session, as you can see I hadn't pulled the stirrups down yet. I wanted to see how she reacted to the saddle in general first. 

I had tried pulling her mane once before, and she hadn't seemed too overly bothered; more curious as to what I was up to. It was too cold to hose her off, so while I waited for the little bit of sweat to dry so I could brush her down, I tried doing a bit more. To my complete surprise, she allowed me to with little fuss. I hate pulling manes with a passion (I get bored and I'm so OCD that I end up taking forever), but as she was being so good I did more than I initially intended, and got about half her mane pulled. It looks SO much better. I'm no pro, but when my horse is nice and quiet I can usually do a halfway decent job. I'll let you be the judge. 

Half pulled mane. More like 3/4 now that I look at it.

Today, like I mentioned early on in the post, my poor mare was overly worried about something. This was the worst I'd seen her next to the first day I met her. I'm not sure if it was the change in temperature (it was in the 50's yesterday, and in the high 70's today), something was bothering her out in the paddock, if I smelled different, I'm not sure. She flinched at every brush, spooked at the saddle pad, snorted all the way to the round pen, and even lept away from me at one point when one of the stirrups bumped her side. She did settle down and go to work after just a few minutes, but once we were done, she was still worried. I didn't do much different today, especially considering how upset she was. Instead of trying long lines I opted to just lunge her in side reins. I didn't want her to get more upset by something she is already distrustful of (ropes) on a day when I can't seem to figure out what's got her so bothered. We worked in both directions, lunging with side reins and working for longer than normal since she's going to have the day off tomorrow.

Video from today, not much different from yesterday's. 

After work she got a bath, which in itself is nothing special to write about, except that after, when back in her paddock (and still soaking wet) she did this to me:

*sigh* That's going to be a nightmare to clean. 

Oy. Horses... why do we love them?

Tomorrow we're off to see another farm, so she's going to have the day off. See you on Thursday. 

Day Two: More of the getting-to-know-you

Yesterday I didn't write much (read: at all) about my first meeting with Ellie. The post had gotten rather long, and my initial intention was to write a summation at the end of the week to avoid daily posting, but I don't think I'm going to be able to do that. I have so many thoughts and ideas about what I'd like to do with her as far as her training, as well as observations I've made regarding her behavior, that I think a daily post on the days I work with her is necessary (for my own sanity as much as anything else, I've been able to think of little else because it's all floating around in my brain).

Day 1 - Meet and Greet

Yesterday Ellie and I didn't really do much. When I arrived, Andrea brought me out to her paddock, which she shares with two three year olds and an older yearling. The capture process didn't seem too overly complicated; she was able to walk right up to Ellie and halter her (with the aid of a bucket of grain, some of which she dumped in a feed bin in order to distract the younger beasts). I watched patiently as she brought her into the barn, tacked her without trouble, and brought her to the ring. The mare seemed a little unsure of me, but that's to be expected, I'm a complete stranger in a world of people that haven't paid her much attention.

The lunging was the most interesting part for me. Andrea put her in side reins, which were attached low by her elbows, though fairly loosely, so there was only the slightest pressure on the bit. When asked to move out on the line Elysian immediately jumped away, breaking into a brisk trot with snorts of alarm. Andrea in NO WAY is at all confrontational with this mare. In fact, quite the opposite is true. She talks to her, croons to her, and in general is very kind and gentle with her. I don't want anyone getting the idea that she is the way she is because of Andrea. Ellie was mostly wild until about six months ago remember, she is unused to human contact, and is completely new to most of the things we ask horses to do. That being said, let's move on.

Andrea did not lunge Ellie long, perhaps five minutes, trotting in both directions. Elysian continued to snort, but she did stretch down, accepting the bit while trotting in both directions. Andrea brought her back to the barn, untacked her, and hosed her lightly to demonstrate to me that Ellie was ok with this. Beyond that, I stood around grooming her for a little over an hour, chatting with Andrea, one of her boarders (who owns the yearling Ellie lives with, whom Andrea bred), and a young lady who came to ride, both of whose names I'm embarrassed to say have slipped my mind. I can remember horses I rode when I was six, I can't remember the name of a woman I met yesterday... My memory confuses even me on the best of days.

Ellie was tolerant of my touch while grooming, even relaxeing after awhile, cocking her hind leg and sighing (not sure if this was in contentment or resignation, but she did it). She allowed me to brush her down, rub my hands all over her, brush out her tail (oh her poor tail... I'll get to that later), as well as her mane. Andrea let me know that she's never pulled her mane, only cut it, so I tentatively pulled a few of the longer strands here and there, which didn't seem to bother her, so there's hope for that. Perhaps once we get a bit farther along in the Trust department we'll try that one. She needs to get used to me standing up over her first. Andrea had also told me that she also did not particularly care for having her legs touched or her feet picked up, and gave her a little bit of cocktail any time the farrier came. Right, something else to work on. I ran my hands up and down each leg, picking it up for a few moments, and praised her like she'd just won the Olympics when she allowed me to. Once she was mostly dry I brought her back out to her paddock and turned her loose with the other monkeys, where she promptly rolled in the biggest pile of dirt she could find... Typical.

Day 2 - Learning New Things

Today I arrived while Andrea was out getting grain, so I showed myself out to her paddock. I had brought with me a large bag of baby carrots, so I hoped (key word here) that I would be able to catch her as easily as Andrea had the day before. Ha ha, silly me, what was I thinking? My first mistake was letting the monkeys know I had food. Ellie is gthe lowest rung on the totem in her little herd, so when the food came out she got pushed to the back... Great. That wasn't exactly the end goal I was hoping to achieve  The yearling, Niko, is by far the leader and the boss (even though he's the smallest of the four) and was the biggest of the mooches. Any time I would get close to Ellie he would herd her off in an attempt to get all the food to himself, aaaand... it worked. 

See that grey butt in the back? Yeah... that's Ellie. 

Thankfully, after an hour of walking around the paddock after her, Ellie finally let me catch her long enough to slip the halter over her head and get her over to the gate. This... is where the mooch once again gets himself in the way. Niko decided he wanted more of my food, and cut in between Ellie and I (underneath her lead rope), causing her to spin and bolt, ripping the lead rope out of my hands. Lovely. Now I have nothing to catch her with, and she's running around dangling her lead rope... wonderful. 

About five minutes later Andrea came out to the paddock, she had obviously returned sometime while I was being mauled by babies, and she brought grain. Oh that magical grain. She had Ellie caught and out of the paddock within minutes

Note to self: tomorrow bring grain. 

Today I noticed, while walking after her for an hour, that even when alone Elysian didn't particularly care to be caught. After eight years of doing nothing but living in a paddock and eating, I probably wouldn't want to be caught either, especially since she only gets caught to go to work. Again, logical, right? I'm very much hoping that this will not be the case tomorrow if I bring grain with me, but only time will tell. 

I didn't want to do too much with Ellie today, being as she still does not know me and definitely does not trust me. After watching her go around on the lunge line yesterday, I had gotten the idea that maybe a lesson in basics would not be a bad place to start. I gave her a light brush down, clipped a lunge line to her halter, and headed out to the round pen. 

All I wanted her to do today was walk calmly and quietly on the lunge line. The goal was to get her to just walk. Horses are herd animals, the fight or flight response being first and foremost in their mind when confronted with a problem. Needles to say Ellie has the flight response down pat. It doesn't seem that she was ever abused, but she's definitely none too trusting of humans. Asking her to walk around me is asking her to trust that I am not going to hurt (i.e. eat) her. 

We started to the right, and at first she wanted to do exactly what she had done yesterday with Andrea - jump away and break right to the trot. I kept the line fairly short, and asked her to stop, which she did, almost immediately. Ok, so she has whoa down, that won't be an issue. After a few minutes (in which I am thankful I have freakishly long arms) she got the idea and was walking around me like a champ, head down, listening to me repeat the walk command like a broken record. Perfect. I stopped her and praised her heavily. 

The left seemed to be more of an issue. She again, when asked to move away, wanted to move right out into the trot, though this time she did not leap away from me like I was a rattlesnake... A small improvement, but a notable one. I brought her back down to the halt, and once again repeated the same triangle maneuver that had gotten her to walk away from me to the right. Took a little longer, but after trying to trot away two or three times, and one instance of stopping square, snorting and confused, she finally got the idea and walked calmly around me in a large circle, head down, with me crooning and repeating the walk command once again. 

After switching directions a few times to make sure she had the idea, I asked her ever so gently for the trot. To my glee she trotted out quietly, no snorting, and even came down to the walk after hearing the command a few times. I switched direction, and repeated. Same result. Time to call it quits after more heavy praise. 

We stood at the gate for a few minutes while I praised her, at which time I noticed she kept flinching away from the coiled lunge line. All right... let's do something about this. Ever so gently I rubbed the coil of line up and down her neck, chest, shoulder, and flank of both sides. Once she had settled into that (which took a few minutes... she didn't flee, but wasn't exactly happy about it either), I gently tapped her with the rope over her sides and back, letting her get used to the feel of that as well. We will be doing much more of this. 

The mare is sharp as a tack, and I don't think her training is going to take long. The trust and relaxation I'm hoping will come once she realizes the same person is going to continue to work with her and love on her. 

Only time will tell.

   

She certainly is a stunning girl.