Boinnnnngggggg
We've had a spring day! It's been absolutely lovely. Temperature well above zero. No wind. Now, what can I worry about next ....ah, got it, spring grass, and when I'll have to keep Jazz away from it. ...... Always something with horses, isn't there?
I bought bedding for Campero today. I'm not going to mix him with Jazz because he is so savage with anyone new on his patch. If he needs company, Buttie can have that job. So he will live in the stable and go in the barn for more room when no-one else is in it.
Jazz and I did a schooling session in the barn, in walk, focussed on active listening. He has now got submission, but if he is to manage higher level work, he has to be waiting, listening and ready to react immediately to any aid I give him.
So I rode without using the reins and worked on getting him to listen to my seat. We walked around in a long relaxed outline, and when my aids said "turn off the track" he should have turned, no matter where it was that I asked. If he didn't, he got a poke with the inside aid to remind him. He got that quite well until there were noises outside - a snowblower (yes, more 4 ft drifts overnight), and some banging from SH in the workshop, which he was more interested in than my aids. I upped the intensity of the "reminder" aid and he came back to listening to me.
More difficult was walk/halt, when he simply did not want to answer that aid at all. I could tell he heard, because often there was a momentary slowing, but then he carried on walking. The only way to reinforce that was to give a pretty sharp rein aid if he did not stop. It was no good giving a gentle squeeze, because all that was teaching him was to stop to a gentle squeeze. I had to make it worth his while to stop when he felt that my hips were no longer going with him, so a sharp aid was required. He got that lesson pretty quickly, he's not daft!
Radar had the day off and seemed perfectly happy with that arrangement :-)
C
posted by cptrayes @ 5:21 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Have to laugh a bit here. The last time I tried Tucker w/o reins, I had the same issue with the walk/halt thing. Then I added my little "purr" and he got the messsage sort of. But that slow continued walk is all too familiar. *G*
Four foot drifts? YOu did get a bit of snow then. It's always strange when the day after is balmy, is if the world wants to forget the torment of the day before. We're on "hold" here awaiting some evil monster of a storm ready to rage up the coast. And just as the grass was starting to show again....*sigh*
Hi Caroline, I'm a long-time reader of your blog (from way back on EE!). Just wanted to say very best of luck with your latest addition. Am always very interested to learn more about the link between dietary sensitivities and hoof problems, my horse is proving to be one such puzzle!
Danni x
There was a strong wind Jean and that causes really bad drifts because our road sits between two high banks. There can be an inch in some places and four feet in others.
Danni Hi!! Fancy lurking for all that time :-)))) There's a great thread on UKNHCP.myfastforum.com at the moment about copper, zinc, manganese and chromium. I never thought that minerals could be so exciting!
C
I'm shy!
Thanks for the link, more reading for me. Diet is almost as interesting as hooves!
.org not .com sorry.
Diet is so incredibly bound up with hooves that it's getting difficult to split one from the other! And soooooo incredibly absorbing and interesting. I am dreaming of copper, zinc, chromium, manganese and iron! We are high in manganese here which can depress zinc. If you supplement zinc that can depress copper. And my horses are showing the blue eye ring that cows would have if copper deficient. Aaaaaagggghhhhh!
Our research is taking us down similar lines, we have two long term chronic cases and I recently sent a hair sample off to a lab in America for mineral testing. Results came back with worryingly high levels of some toxic minerals, and other minerals out of balance. These are horse that have no access to grass at all. I can cope with the balalnce (I think), it's the toxicity that is worrying me so I have now sent soil, sand, arena chipping surface, pellet bedding and two different water sources off to a lab in Scotland for testing.
Selenium and Vitamin E can help the horse deal with toxicity, but if you feed too much of that they can cause problems in themselves.
I agree Aaaaaggggghhhhh!!
Tracey (Cloud_Cirrus)
It is so fascinating, isn't it tracey?
Jean the navicular is of no concern at all. If we can make his feet comfortable with no shoes on he will land heel first and the navicular will cure itself. The big challenge is to control the insulin resistance sufficiently to give him pain free feet that he can actually walk on.
C
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