Pictures from the past few days

Vegas jumping the log beautifully, Kari crashing
into the log (no she wasn't trying to get out of the
way of the beautiful picture)

Vegas jumping up the bank

Vegas cantering on line in the big field on top
of the hill

Josie cantering in the Enchanted Forest Playground

Disengage!

Discovering the pond was loads of fun!

It's all about the relationship...

Thursday

I honored the relationship with my horse today. It felt really good to finally make things right for Josie. It made me sorry for the way that I have handled things the past few days, but they always say that you learn the best lessons from the mistakes that you make. So in that regard, I am grateful for the journey that I have experienced thus far.

When we got to the pens this morning, Mia and Kristen took off towards the Enchanted Forest. Josie and I followed, but we played the “it’s really uncomfortable to be near Mia” game. Basically, if we were going towards Mia, then she had to do all sorts of stuff. Sideways, backwards, falling leaf, traveling circle. You get the idea! If we walked away from Mia, we just walked in a straight line. Straight lines are way easier than all of that other rigmarole! After a while, I think that Josie started to get the game. The only rest came when we were moving away from her object of desire. Then Mia went over the bridge, which Josie hasn’t felt comfortable going over yet.

We stayed on the other side of the bridge and hung out and grazed for a while. Josie was slightly tense, since Mia was getting farther away. Eventually, Josie offered to go across the stream, so we went over to the other side. Of course she wanted to go towards Mia and Vegas, who were playing in the honeycomb. So we did a traveling circling game at the canter towards the honeycomb. She got very emotional, but I did not. That is HUGE for me. I have somehow made a very important mental and emotional switch this week. I am able to keep a calm focused energy in the face of her mental breakdowns, and not get all emotional about it. We played with approach and retreat again, and then we had to go back to the pens to get to class. It was definitely a provocative, emotional session for her, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a good breakthrough for her, or if I was just feeding the fire that had been smoldering all week.

When we went back to play later that day, she was happy to meet me at the gate of her pen. That is always a good feeling! I had a nice grooming session (since she had rolled after her sweaty emotional morning…). When I went to leave the pen, I decided that everything was going to be on her terms. If we made it out to our afternoon focus session, that was great. If not, then that was great too. I had NO agenda. Surprisingly, even though she was happy to be haltered, and relaxed in her pen, she did not want to leave the pen. I was determined to wait her out until she was ready. She ventured out at one point, but then went right back in her pen. She kept yawning and licking her lips, which is usually a sign of adrenaline. How interesting. Eventually she was ready to come out (partially influenced by Mia leaving her pen, but hey—I’ll take it!) We did not follow Mia to the playground because I did not want to blow Josie through her thresholds, which she will do if she is following another horse. So we took our SLOW time to get out to the playground. It probably took half an hour. And it was GREAT! I had a calm, confident horse that was okay with things. I didn’t ask for rocket science when we got out to the playground. We just did little things, but I was so happy to have a happy horse! You take the time that it takes, and it is SO worth it. We practiced our Savvy Spotlights in the honeycomb. I did one on line, and one at liberty. We won’t be applying to do one at Madison. As much as I would love to, I realize that the horsenality and relationship that I have at the moment is not conducive to success in that particular venue! Which is okay!

We ended the day by crossing the bridge! Amazing what a calm, learning horse will do for you! There is always a reason for everything. I needed to finally take the time that she needed to be okay with things. We have been talking about putting the relationship first all week, and I finally got it right.

BTW, our morning classroom session had two special visitors—Linda and then Pat Parelli! It was great to hear the stories they had to tell, and hear about all of the fantastic new things coming down the pike. I am so grateful to be alive during this time of amazing horsemanship!

Savvy on—
Molly and Josie

Wednesday

Wednesday

It was another fine day in paradise. Sunny and warm, which is exactly what you Wisconsin-ites probably don’t want to hear!

Sorry to give you the whole sordid account of my day, but this is the only journal that I am keeping, and I would like to have a log of events to look back on…

Josie met me with a little more appreciation this morning. I was expecting that since we had a pretty emotional day yesterday. I fed her breakfast, and then went and fed myself breakfast. The food here is great! Anyhow, when I went back to the pens, Kristen had gotten Mia out for a stroll. Mia is Josie’s next door pen-mate. This was a tragic occurrence in Josie’s life, and she was basically a whirling dervish in her pen. Since I wasn’t there when it started, I was basically unable to really bring her back to planet earth. Herd bound-ness really sucks. So I waited and watched. Eventually Mia returned to the next door pen. Of course, Josie immediately went over to her for safety and comfort. At that point I asked Kristen to defend her herd of two (her and Mia) and keep Josie away from her. This was a very interesting exercise because Josie went very deeply right brain introvert coming off of her adrenaline rush from before. Basically her feet were rooted to one spot, she was not blinking for MINUTES at a time, and her breaths were shallow and quick. There were a few breakthroughs. Once she paid attention to me (I was standing at the entrance to the pen). There was some licking and chewing and yawning, and then she went back into her trance. The other was when another horse and person walked by. They got almost by, and then she pulled herself out of her trance to move to look at them. More licking and chewing and lots of yawning. All in all, we stayed with her for more than half an hour. She probably blinked 5 times during that period (which to all of you non-horsey people, that means she was really stuck in a trance and NOT thinking). Right brain introverts can suck so far inside themselves that they are unaware of everything around them. I have not seen that level of introversion from her since I first got her. She definitely is a horse that lacks confidence in new environments. I think she is innately very right brain introverted, and when she becomes unconfident in her environment she becomes pretty extreme. Over the past two years I have gotten her to become more left brained about life, but this experience has shown me what shows up under stress. The bottom line is that I need to become more important to her as a leader to help her through these sticky situations. That will be my biggest goal this year—to become a better leader for her.

So we went off to morning classroom sessions. I wore my Vibram Fivefingers today (see a previous post in January if you don’t know what I am talking about…) They are the most amazing shoes ever! All of the aches in my ankles and knees went away when I wore them, and my posture became so much better! I didn’t even believe all the hype about that, but it really is true! It is such an organic, lovely experience to feel the different substrates that you walk on in a day! When you wear regular shoes, your footfall is dictated by the soles that you are wearing. In these shoes, you are basically barefoot, but with a protective sole. Your foot rolls and contacts the ground naturally, which really feels great! Enough on that. They are amazing and you should all google them to find out more about them! Vibram Fivefingers!

So we split up into personality remudas today. I went to the right brain introvert one. I think I am a pretty even split between right brain and left brain introvert. Basically right brainers do more with their emotions, and are more artistic. Left brainers are more logical thinkers. I have learned to become extroverted through my job, but it is not my innate characteristic. It was interesting to think about the different human personalities and how we relate to one another. All in all, I am really a pretty good match for Josie…

The afternoon play session was awesome! I took Josie out and she was in a really playful frame of mind to start out with. It was definitely time to get out of the pen! I followed Vegas and Mia towards the Enchanted Forest playground. There is a bridge that we have not been able to cross yet. We got all four feet on it yesterday, but she hasn’t had the confidence to cross it yet. (Basically you cross over to an island of really cool play equipment!). Instead of trying the bridge this morning, I asked her to cross the stream instead. She went over with little effort, which was good. We played around with some falling leaf on the other side, then we went to play in the pond. Josie is not so sure about water, but Vegas (the fish!) went right in and inspired her to give it a try. She loved it when she got in there! She splashed and kept sticking her whole muzzle under water. It was pretty funny. We then went and played over some logs (Kari got a great picture of her jumping—which is a great feat because the girl is just not into jumping!). Soon enough, it was time to go up to our afternoon focus sessions.

I went to the change of direction today. It was a really good session. The take home message is to follow your horse’s tail around in a spiral to help suck them in, and then drive them back out the other direction. The key to success is to circle them until they are ready to have a conversation/come in. Don’t ask until they are ready!!!!! That is the key to settting them (and you) up for success. And it WORKS! By golly, it works! We got some really lovely draws and change of direction. Then Josie went totally right brained on me again and laid down AGAIN on the circling game. Definite feedback that there was too much pressure (probably mostly from the environment, some from me). I talked with an instructor about it, and she said that I probably need to be even more careful of her threshold and asking too much since she is so introverted right now. We were in the same scary field as yesterday, so that probably contributed. I definitely have food for thought. I need to go easy on my right brained introvert and not ask too much. It can be so hard in this environment because there are so many cool things to go and do! I just need to honor her need to take things slow and not push her to do too many things out of her comfort zone. So we will be playing with that the rest of the week! I’ve rambled on enough for today!

Savvy on!

Molly and Josie

Viewing Pictures

If you want to see the full size pictures, then just click on the posted pictures and they will come up in another screen. Also, if you would like to actually see pictures of me, then go to Kari's blog! www.parelliprep4ocala.blogspot.com

More pictures!

Will you save me? Buzz escaped from Julia
and came running over to Mia and Kristen

Mia's morning stroll

Jumper Vegas

Jumper Buzz!

Josie, the bathing beauty!

Pictures from Tuesday

Proud Josie

The lodge and enchanted forest in the morning



Mia and Kristen

Kari and Vegas

Right Brain Extrovert!

Tuesday
Everything is about the relationship! If you don’t do anything to compromise the relationship, then you will stay on track and be fine. This is where I went wrong today. It is funny, because I have a lot of knowledge coming into this course, and I have learned a lot so far in this course. But I am still destined to make mistakes that I know that I shouldn’t make! How interesting is that? And the funny thing is, I am totally okay with that! I have given myself license to learn and make mistakes while I am here. They always say that you sometimes learn the most/best by doing things wrong, right??!?!

With that said, I’ll give you the filter of my day…

We started out with discussions on Horsenality this morning. No matter how many times I hear this information, I always glean some new tidbit of information from it. One perspective that I gained was that LBIs need you to go slow to get them interested, whereas RBIs need you to slow down so that you can get their confidence. I had never thought about it quite like that before. LBIs need to be seduced to play with you, where RBIs just need to feel comfortable first.

The other part that I enjoyed revisiting was the 5 areas of confidence. Horses can have confidence in you as their leader, in themselves, in their herd, in their environment, and as a learner. They may be supremely confident in some areas, and not so much in others. The goal is to help them even out and gain confidence in all areas over time. I would say that Josie is most unconfident in changes in environment. This makes a trip like this challenging because it very well may take her two weeks to really become confident to the point that she is at home. I can see how staying for longer periods would really change that experience. HOWEVER, I am having many different horses show up, which is an AMAZING learning opportunity for me! I have to learn to deal with the horse that shows up, so I will gain many more savvy arrows over the next two weeks.

We had a really great session early this afternoon—I kept her pretty left brain and interested in learning. Then we went to our afternoon focus session and things went to pot! We were circling at the top of the hill. I must have passed her through some thresholds without noticing. All of a sudden she got RBE. We were in a new part of the playground which probably contributed. The goal of my focus group was to work on increasing laps on your circle game. Well, we started circling, and she was trotting along looking perturbed. All of a sudden—BOOM—she threw herself to the ground FROM THE TROT and started rolling. How interesting is that! She was clearly coming off of adrenaline. When we started circling again, she wasn’t paying attention to me at all. The instructor said to start rewarding her (stop the game for her) at the slightest try for when she would check in with me. I worked with that for a while with some good results.
By this point, I had a very HOT and tired horse. I decided to take her back to the pens for a bath. This is where everything went to pot. I had been asked by someone to lend out my clippers. They were up in the horse trailer, which is where we were at in the field. So I decided to get them while I was up there and walk back to the pens. So I took Josie over by the trailers. While I was digging around in the trailer, she was at the end of her 22 foot line going—what the hell are you having me look at all of these f***ing trailers for??!?!? Too much PRESSURE!!!!! And don’t even THINK about having me go near one of those damn things ever again! So this is where I went wrong. Please don’t judge me for it! I knew that I should probably stop and deal with the issue. But I didn’t. I was hot, tired, and just wanted to get back to the pens. So I started walking down to the pens with my clipper box and aerosol can under one arm, and 22 foot line and stick in the other. My horse was willing until we got to the part of the path that we hadn’t been on. Major spooking occurred, and she spiraled down to a RBE mess pretty quickly. I certainly didn’t help her avoid it, and I’m sorry for that. We eventually made it back to the pens and I got her brain back (with some supreme effort…). She enjoyed her bath, and then we went for a stroll back up to the trailers with Julia and Buzz. Things went better the second time. We ended the day on a good note.

That’s about all for now. This is an exhausting and exhilarating experience. We come home bone tired every day, but it is good to be in such a provocative zone. Every day will bring more challenges and experiences that will keep filling up my savvy cup.

Savvy on,

Molly and Josie