Day to Day

Well as happy as I am to have Seven doing well I also have other things not so great to think about. Steve does not have a job and so we are living off of my income right now. I have been selling things I don't need to create some income to help out. It has at least been working pretty well. I finally sold a rabbit I need to move out, and I had hoped that I had another one sold but it turns out that isn't what happened. The people some of my friends were in contact with can't be reached. They maybe had something happen. I will advertise her on some of the groups and try to take her with me to SAFF the end of the month. Steve has a few ideas as of now to get some income flowing and we have to enlist the help of a friend to get started. They have both worked on building flatscreen boxes for Cowboy Church and we had the idea to build tack boxes and bit boxes and sell them. The local tack shop has agreed to showcase the items for us to help us get started. He is hoping to get together with Larry this weekend and maybe build one to get going and be able to buy some tools to be able to build them at home. Once they get one complete I will post a photo on here. If you are interested in the rabbit for sale she is a sable point pearl Giant/French cross angora. Her photo is the one you see at the top of my blog. Asking $85 with pedigree and $50 without pedigree. She is 10 months old but has never been bred. Her fiber output is good. Email me if you are interested in her and I can deliver her at SAFF.

Breakthrough

Well after reading some articles that were interviewing Harry I decided to experiment with the round pen technique. So back to the round pen we went. I left Seven's halter on and turned him loose and as usual he just stood at the gate. I decided to use my stick and tied a plastic bag on the end. Every time Seven would lose his interest and his attention was drawn elsewhere I made noise with the bag and stick. At first it took a bit to get his attention back to me. He just stood there looking at me and I left him alone. Then he decided to move and when he decided to leave I helped him. When he stopped he turned and faced me I was quiet. You could see his attention being drawn away with the flick of an ear and then his eye. He mostly just stood there but when he chose to leave I would help him leave quicker. Steve was watching and said by the end I shook the bag 45 times. This was about a 20 minute session. As it drew to a close you could see Seven wondering what the answer was. I could keep his attention longer and longer. Finally he walked up and stood by me. Yay!!! Good boy Seven!!!

New way of thinking

Well it might also be a new way of being. Steve had told me last week that my horse was a pansy and so was I. Great words of encouragement huh?? He said I was afraid of hurting Seven's feelings. So I would do things softly to get him to perform the tasks that I asked him. It worked but I soon found out that Steve was right! Harry's clinic helped get me to see this. Seven will do things for me with the outcome being he gets a cookie, this isn't wrong but it isn't good for respect or seeing me as a leader. He would be slow and sluggish and it would just be a trick for a treat. It looked like he was focused on me but really he was thinking about how he could get the cookie and not really thinking about me at all. So, into the round pen we went and got some new communication going. Now at Harry's clinic I so thought he was telling the people to be too rough. I mean kicking your horse isn't really what parelli teaches but it is the same principle. I saw Linda whack a horse in the nose pretty hard because he wasn't paying attention to her! Same thing with Harry's teaching. If you don't get the response you want when you ask for something softly the consequences are you will get bopped!! This actually got the horse's attention back to thinking about what you are asking. A "wake-up!!" Then he went back to being soft again. The horses caught on pretty quick!! Harry's students didn't really use a stick or lead rope to ride so all the have are their hands and legs to ask with. You could use a lead rope to help you but you just smacked yourself to cause a sound. It was always on your leg. Harry also was good at getting his life up. So that is my new way of thinking. Get my life up and I hope with some experimenting that this will work. Seven didn't know what to make of me yesterday as we started to communicate in this different way. Steve got in and helped and we eventually got Seven to chose to be with us. He also had me watch him with his horse and as that happened and Seven was in the field I must have been pretty interesting to him because he came over and stood with me. I figured he would have not wanted anything to do with me. Or was he thinking he would get a cookie???

Harry Whitney

Well I have a lot to put into words! Harry Whitney. What a nice guy!! Made me feel right at home and so did Ronnie Moyer! A great time of fellowship, meeting new people and sharing thoughts!! Ronnie did a great job of combining one's walk with the Lord to one's walk with the horse. Great analogies to how the horse thinks the way he does just not as extravagant as the human. The biggest thing I ended up with was the way we want our horses to be with us is the same way God wants us to be with him. I had a dream on Sunday morning about that and it changed my perspective. I was confused about it and God straightened it right out. Horses do not have bad motives about people, they either are thinking about you or they are not! You just have to figure out the way to keep them thinking more on you and less about other things. It doesn't mean that their minds can't wander but when it does do you know how to get it back?? God explained it to me as "a safe place". God is my safe place. So you should be your horse's safe place. He should look to you for wisdom and guidance just as you should look to God for those things. Now in either case it doesn't happen all the time does it?? You aren't always hooked up to God and your horse isn't always hooked up to you. Even though you can take God with you, do you make choices that he wants you to make?? Your horse is the same way. he makes choices that you either like or dislike. When you make a wrong chioce there are consequences to what you chose, especially if it isn't good. Same with the horse, he has to face the consequences of his choices. Soon both learn to make better choices. Since I was just there for Saturday I missed out on the beginnings but got to see the endings. Everybody turned out alright. Got to meet Eden and that was great!! Hi Eden!!!