Horse Expo Haul and Video

I had a great time this weekend! 

First, the horse expo on Friday was fun. Last year I had high expectations and was disappointed with how little there was to do or shop for now that I have more specialized tack and the expo is at least 80% western focused. This year I had lower expectations and therefore more fun. I also ran into a friend (my landlord from back when I first got Katai), ate some kettle corn, and bought some great stuff at the tack swap.

Other than the kettle corn this is the extent of my shopping this year
 $16 for the whole pile of books :)

I believe I've mentioned that I've been trying to collect the library books that I read as a kid. Unfortunately most of them are out of print so even if I knew the names of the books or the authors it still may be tough to find them but since I don't even know that my best bet has been searching through used book stores or (especially) picking up books at this tack swap.

A few years ago at this swap I found my "holly grail".

Complete with dust cover, I have SOOO many amazing memories
of reading through this book as a kid and dreaming of having my own horse some day

Plus it's got a couple really old photos of George Morris!! Pretty cool :)

This time I found the other book I'd been looking for. This was my other favorite when I was growing up. It's back in print but I really wanted the old hard cover version and even better, this was once a library book which makes it even sweeter!

I loved all of the Billy and Blaze books but this is my favorite.

I also had great rides on Friday and Saturday and today Katai got an easier work out on the lunge. She's been very slightly short on her right front. Both Jane and I think it's more muscle soreness (and possibly a bit of Thrush) and nothing more serious and you can see here that it comes and goes a bit but she did pick up the incorrect (left) lead twice and she NEVER does that. Because of that she might get a quiet day or a day off tomorrow rather than another ride.

Otherwise I've been doing a great job with riding at least 4 times a week and have been to the barn 5-6 times a week :)

This video is of Katai lunging and our trailer loading improvement from a couple of weeks ago. This is just a small clip and she was in an out a bunch more times that day. We've practiced once since that day and I'm hoping to put in some more practice this next week as well.

Weekend Update and Trailering Progress

This weekend was amazing!! Like Teresa at Journey with a Dancing Horse I used every minute and spent a lot of time outside.

Starting on Friday evening I got out to the barn and had a great ride. Katai was a little quiet and not especially forward (when I first started looking into Ulcers) which is unusual for her but she had a busy week so that's likely part of it as well. Jane also mentioned that the massage person turned up that Katai had sore hind legs/stifles and we've been working on increasing her cross over and getting her carrying in the canter so it may partially be muscle soreness too.

Plus I made vegan buddha bowls to
celebrate my 2 year vegan anniversary

Then Saturday I had another great ride. Katai was right with me and we played a couple of times with simple changes across the diagonal. She nailed the transitions and I just need to work on being more organized and less flustered but it was fun to try something new.

Finally (for the weekend), Sunday was trailer training day. You've all seen the pictures from my last post but we ended in a decent place with Katai stepping just into the trailer and off the ramp with her front feet. I was really happy with that but especially that she was stepping forward off pressure which she hasn't been the last several times I've needed to trailer her despite a lot of natural horsemanship type techniques. These were the same things that helped me originally train Katai to trailer load (which she used to do beautifully BUT with a ton of tension to the point of shaking sometimes).

Prepping the ingredients for my buddha bowls :)

Since those weren't working and with my change in training methods/mindset since working with Jane I've been trying something different this time. Mostly I'm trying to keep everything as low stress as possible. I'm not escalating at all and my only rules are that she move forward (eventually) off pressure, face the trailer, and that we make at least an inch of progress each day.

Today I brought her back out to the trailer for a continuation of yesterday's training. If anything I focused on using even less pressure than yesterday and I was SO pleased with her! She stayed really calm the whole time, almost no tension other than that she started to paw twice. Plus, she never reared up and when she pulled back and I held pressure she came right forward.

Again I asked with some pressure (barely an ounce) for her to step up into the trailer after me and she came right with me. I did lots of having her stand for a second and then backing her out, praising the heck out of her and then bringing her back in. Today we got all the way in with her back feet just barely staying on the ramp more than twice! SUCH huge progress especially with no blow ups and she was relaxed when we ended.

Then I brought her back to the barn, she walked calmly back, and then I spent the whole rest of the evening at the barn :) I lunged her (and she was great) and she wasn't as stiff or sore as I thought she might be after all of her shenanigans yesterday.  I'm certainly sore, my hands took a beating and typing was sore today at work. Then I tried braiding her!

This was my first try and I think they turned out decently well. I'll try take a bit wider sections of mane next time but otherwise I'm pleased! Also, I wondered if I could get away with using white yarn for that first braid.  The answer is no, no I can't.

Finally I stuffed her with peppermints and lots of pets, cleaned her stall, and headed home.

Well Now We Both Need Chiropractic...

A lot more like this than the other but I wanted to share the bad parts too

Not trying to pull her down, I know that's a no no.
Just keeping a gentle steady pressure until she walks forward.
It doesn't look gentle because she goes up so quick that  it takes me a second to go with.

This is her go to when she doesn't want to do something

 We got to a much better place by the end where she was standing quietly with her shoulders in the trailer and she was actually giving to pressure and stepping forward when I asked but we have a long way to go.

Also, #mindyourmelon when loading a fractious beast haha

Time for Trailer Practice

Random pictures today, sorry for the lack of media!

This empty room is becoming the man cave
he even had his rawhide in there for awhile

My plan for Sunday was to take it a little easier from a dressage work perspective and to work Katai outside and lunge her. However, it ended up being a cold dreary and windy day so Katai was pretty amped up and I decided to ride instead.

My parent's barn has been steadily falling down over the past few years

 I had a great, if short, ride and the resident trainer (not Jane but the person who rides her young horse) was there and riding one of the training horses so it was great practice for Katai. At the last barn there were routinely other horses in the arena with us but here there aren’t so she was a little excited about it. I was able to keep her attention though with my new riding skills and she was really a good girl and didn’t have any tantrums to speak of.

You can still see a cross tie hanging there :)

Then Monday ended up being beautifully warm and sunny with temperatures in the upper 50s. It was SO NICE!! I decided to use it to my advantage and took Katai for a walk around the trailers. It’s pretty muddy out and the trailer wasn’t hooked up or in a particularly good place so I didn’t even open the door the full way, just got Katai walking around outside.

 We had some hairy moments.

Katai is much fitter than she was so between the passage, rearing, and (this is new) striking out it was like trying to handle a very fuzzy white dragon but I was really proud of how I handled it. I was able to stay really calm and soft and gentle with her but was very firm about keeping her out of my space and not letting her just barge ahead. We had a couple of discussions but they were “quieter” than they would have been in the past. I also stuck with it longer and walked her around a few times and stuck it out by the trailers for a while. We ended with a pony that was stilled amped but quieter and listening.

My amazing fellow boarder printed out this
calendar and marked the shows she's thinking about on it!

Frankly, it’s the first time she’s been out there since December so I don’t blame her for being feisty about it. My goal for the next month or so is just to get her lots of exposure to the outdoors as well as to the trailer. Before I even start working on loading again I want her to be calm near the back of the trailer with the doors open as normally that’s been getting her so freaked out that even thinking about trying to get her loaded is silly. If we can at least get there then I’m not as worried about actually getting her loaded.