Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Little Things

After what seemed to me to be the longest winter I’ve ever lived through, spring has finally come to the rescue and I’ve realized once again that it is the little things that make Greener Pastures such an astonishing place for me.
When I arrive in the morning, I am greeted by our barn cat, Trixie, who is always ready for her breakfast. Trixie is a sweet little anima and feeding her is always the first chore of the day. A small, grey tabby cat, she is always willing to climb into a warm lap and be petted. I don’t think Trixie is much of a hunter though, since I often see mice scurrying around the feed barn. Or perhaps, well fed by the volunteers, she has established a fragile détente with the rodent population and has adopted a “live and let live” policy toward them. Whatever her motivation toward the mice, she will often curl up on top of the stacked hay and sleep once she has consumed her breakfast.
The recent stretch of warm weather has accelerated the grass and daily more new shoots are emerging turning the pastures from their winter tan into an emerald carpet. Everywhere I look I see trees with the fuzzy red crowns that herald the appearance of leaves and the air is soft with fresh earth scent of spring. I’m told that the fresh earth smell actually comes from bacteria that thrive in the damp soil of spring and if that is so, then I am grateful for those little creatures.
On Thursday, I heard the raspy, prehistoric croaks of our colony of great blue herons again filling the skies as they squabble over nest and mates. Quiet during most of the year, the herons become vocal during breeding season. They have returned to their rookery by the river and are frequently seen overhead as they travel between nests and the Sassafras in search of food.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of movement and turned to see a fox running through the lane that separates our pastures. With his red tail trailing behind him like a flag, he ran as if being chased by some unseen marauder. I called “Tally Ho” after him and watched him disappear over the hill into the hay pasture.
The horses are all shedding their winter coats. It must be itchy for them because they lean into the curry comb when they are being brushed. I took a curry comb into one of the fields and even the hard to catch horses seemed happy for my attention. I brushed Cooper until April came and pushed him away. She closed her eyes and stretched her neck forward as I worked the loose hair from her coat. I think she would have purred if she could have managed it. After a few minutes, I felt a soft touch on my arm and turned to find In-The-Crease looking for attention. When Crease came to us last year, we could hardly catch her, and now here she was coming over to be brushed. I used the curry comb to loosen the mud and brushed her coat until it was beginning to shine.
The perennials in the healing garden are beginning to show signs of life. I like to bring Sonny out of his pasture and sit on the wall of the garden while he grazes on the new grass that is particularly lush right behind the gazebo. Like a kid in a candy store, he hardly knows what spot to choose first and I feel like I am giving him a big treat. Just one more of the little things that makes Greener Pastures so special!

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Conquering the Canter

Last fall I took my horse Sonny to a three day clinic given by the 5 Star Parelli Instructor Carol Coppinger. It was a great clinic and Sonny and I did pretty well until it came time to canter. We were a mess. I was a bit freaked out by the fact that there were a dozen other students on horseback standing in the indoor arena while I was trying to get Sonny to canter. Sonny was unorganized and a bit unmotivated to canter so all he offered was a faster trot. Together we managed to almost plow into one of the other horses. It was embarrassing and I made a silent pledge to improve.
To tell the truth, Sonny doesn’t have the smoothest gaits in the world. His left front foot is a bit crooked and his trot can be big and bouncy. His canter is not the rocking chair gait shown by many quarter horses and he has trouble taking his right lead. In the four years I’ve had Sonny; I have never been able to get him to canter directly from a walk. When asked to canter, he usually speeds up his trot until it is impossibly fast prior to finally kicking it into gear. The faster he trots, the more unbalanced and unorganized I become so by the time we finally get to the canter, I am usually not even close to my balance point. It’s not pretty. Impulsion can also be a problem for Sonny and he can be a bit lazy. He doesn’t always want to go forward and if there is grass anywhere in the vicinity, he would much rather eat than move.
To make matters worse, I am probably not giving him the clearest of signals. My last horse, Max, was a school master. He had been professionally trained and shown before I bought him and he would canter from a dead stop with just the slightest application of an outside heel. He never missed a lead, ever and it didn’t matter if my weight was forward or back, he would compensate and pop into a beautiful smooth canter.
Realizing that Sonny and I had our work cut out for us, I dipped into the Parelli vault and found video clips of Pat demonstrating canter leads and Linda explaining how the rider’s body weight affected the horse’s ability to lift his front end into the canter. Then I watched the level 2 and 3 Freestyle DVDs where Pat demonstrates the canter on a loose rein. Holding his inside rein forward and reaching with his other hand to touch the horse behind the saddle automatically shifts his weight in a way that helps the horse move off on the correct lead. This made sense to me and I was anxious to see if it would help Sonny and I get off on the right foot.
The first day of our “conquer the canter” program, Sonny and I warmed up at the trot. I had decided to start by working on his left lead, which is the one he takes more easily. Once he had settled down into a nice relaxed trot, I asked him to downshift into a nice active walk and walked down the long line of the arena. When we reached the corner, I held the reins forward with my inside hand, reached around with my outside hand to touch Sonny on his butt, pressed my outside heal into his side and made a kissing sound. Sonny took a few steps at the trot and popped into a canter. I was amazed. I cantered down the long line of the arena and a then asked for a trot. Four times we repeated this pattern. Each time Sonny trotted a few strides and then stepped into a canter. By the fourth time I was so happy I was laughing out loud and rather than pushing the issue to see if I could actually get a canter from the walk, I stopped, fed Sonny a cookie and took him out for a trail ride.
On the second day, after warming up, when I asked Sonny to canter from the walk and he popped right into it. He didn’t even try to trot; he just rocked back and stepped off into the canter. He gave me several good transitions. . On the third day, I worked on building impulsion by using a yo-yo game. I trotted him down a long line then ask him to stop, back up and trot off directly from the back up. After repeating this a few time, I could tell by looking at Sonny’s ears that he was really paying attention to me. When I finally asked him to canter, he stepped off into a lovely loping canter that would be the envy of most western pleasure riders.
By the fourth day, Sonny was actually starting to anticipate what I wanted and offering the canter before I asked. He even offered me a right lead canter, something I hadn’t started to work on yet. Impulsion was no longer an issue and Sonny had so much energy that I found myself actually trotting and cantering 10 meter circles, something we had rarely done in the past. I was just amazed at how far we had come in such a short time.
For me, one of the best things about Parelli Natural Horsemanship™ is the feeling of accomplishment that comes from working through a problem. Both Sonny and I had issues with the canter but I think the main issue we were having was that I was getting in Sonny’s way. Whenever he would speed up into his big bouncy trot, I was tipping forward putting my weight on his forehand. This was preventing him from lifting his front end easily into the canter. Once I got my body into the correct position and got out of his way, it because much easier for him to move into the canter.
So now that we seem to have the left lead canter departures working consistently, our next task is to get the right lead canter departures. Then it is on to simple lead changes and I am hopeful our goal of achieving level 3 in Freestyle during 2010 is something we can actually achieve.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Reward of Undemanding Time

Frequently since I began studying Parelli Natural Horsemanship™ I’ve heard Linda Parelli say that one of the best ways to build a better relationship with your horse is to spend “undemanding time”. But working at the horse rescue, I discovered that finding the time to have undemanding time with my horse Sonny was not always an easy thing to do and our relationship was suffering. So I was desperate to figure out a way to spend more time with Sonny while still doing my regular rescue chores.
One of my main jobs at the rescue is to do ground work with the horses in our round pen. Our round pen is situated behind our tack room inside a larger fenced area that originally lacked a gate. While the round pen has a mostly dirt surface the rest of the paddock has some nice green grass, and since Sonny’s favorite past time is eating, I figured that if I could keep him in the paddock whenever I was working with horses in the round pen, I would be able to spend more time with him. A lead line tied across the opening in the fence was more than adequate to contain my easy going horse, since he was much more interested in the grass than he was in pulling a Houdini and going for a stroll.
This turned out to be a pretty good strategy for both of us. Sonny was able to graze undisturbed on some tasty grass and also got to visit over the fence with the retirees whose field adjoined the paddock. I was able to do my work with the other horses and still slip Sonny a treat or a scratch with out asking him to do anything and to observe his behavior more closely than I’d had the opportunity to do in the past. An added benefit seemed to be that the presence of my good natured quarter horse so close to the round pen had a calming effect on many of the rescue horses when then were separated from their buddies and brought to the round pen for work.
I think the benefits of undemanding time became more clear to me one day last summer when I had finished with the rescue horses and was ready to begin playing with Sonny. Sonny has never been a difficult horse to catch, but that morning when I started over to him to put his halter on, he walked away from me. I followed and just when I had caught up, he trotted off again, not stopping until he had reached the opposite side of the round pen.
“Hmmmm” I though, “That’s interesting. I guess he’s not ready to go to work!” Out loud I said, “OK Bub, have it your way.” I decided to see how long it would take for him to come to me. I went and retrieved my half finished cup of coffee and then picked up the mounting block that was outside of the fence, carried it over to the wall of the tack building, sat it down and parked my self on the top step to see what would happen next.
The horse rescue is a beautiful place. With over 100 acres in pasture located along the Sassafras river, there is a great sense of tranquility. It was warm morning and there was light breeze stirring the leaves in the trees. A red tailed hawk was circling above and it was very pleasant sitting there smelling the freshly cut grass. Across the round pen, I could see that Sonny was watching me as he continued to graze and he was slowly moving around the perimeter of the pen in my direction. I ignored him and concentrated on enjoying the sunshine on my face and the taste of my lukewarm coffee.
Slowly, Sonny grazed his way to the edge of the building and then disappeared. When I saw him peeking around the corner, I rested my head against the building and closed my eyes. I could hear him approaching. I’m not sure how long it took, maybe a couple of minutes, but when finally I felt his breath on my neck, I took a deep breath myself and exhaled a long sign. That’s when he touched my arm with his nose. I opened my eyes and looked into Sonny’s soft brown eyes and smiled. Sonny never moved while I sipped the halter on his head. He just blew softly and finished chewing his last bite of grass. We went on to have a fabulous session with Sonny being more responsive than he had ever been to this time and I knew that by letting him tell me he was ready to play rather than me forcing the issue had been a significant event between us.
Sonny and I have come a long way in our relationship. I know there are times when I want to do too much too soon but I like to think that I am better able to read his moods than I used to be and that I am much more willing to give him the time and space he needs so that he is mentally ready to “play”. For his part, Sonny seems to want to spend more time with me than he did before and we are starting to work more at liberty.
A few months after I had started bringing Sonny to the round pen paddock, my friend Jane watched me play with him in the round pen.
“Who is this horse?” she jokingly asked me. “He can’t be your Sonny. He’s like a different horse from the last time I saw him!”
It was at that moment that I knew with certainty I had reaped the reward of spending undemanding time with my horse.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Learning Patterns

When I first saw the Parelli Patterns DVDs I was intrigued that horse were patterned learners because from my career in corporate America, I knew that people also had learning patterns. I’ve used that understanding to help accelerate my own development as a horsewoman and to help train volunteers at our rescue. The key to success is recognizing the patterns.

Like most rescues, The SummerWinds Stable is a non-profit organization run by a group of dedicated volunteers. While many of our volunteers are horse knowledgeable when they begin volunteering with us, others come with little knowledge or experience working with horses. For their protection and the welfare of our horses, we need to teach them the basics of horse handling quickly. When an individual understands learning patterns, he/she can take charge of that learning and accelerate it, getting up to speed more quickly to become a contributing member of our volunteer community.

My first step in working with a new volunteer is to try and understand how they prefer to learn. Researchers in education have identified four distinct learning patterns. They can be seen in the way people deal with sequence (order, planning and organization) precision (accuracy, detail and information) technical reasoning (problem solving, relevance and autonomy) and creativity (ideas, uniqueness and expression). I can discover a lot about how someone prefers to learn by listening to them talk.

If a person ask for directions or asks me to show them an example or says something like, “First can we……”, I know he/she is comfortable using sequence as a preferred learning pattern. Because this pattern deals with order, organization and planning, the learner wants an orderly and organized approach. In this pattern a learner wants to do things step by step. They like to have specific directions and to know and follow “the rules”. They like to see an example or a model before beginning. They make and like to work from a list. They want to know what to expect and they don’t like to improvise or do something without practicing first

If a person asks me lots of questions and wants specifics I know he/she is comfortable using precision as a preferred learning pattern. Because this pattern deals with accuracy, detail and information, the learner wants lots of detailed information. In this pattern the learner will ask lots of question. They want the facts and would be happy reading something before starting. They may want to take notes or write down what you are telling them. They may correct you. (Don’t you really mean….?) They may want long and detailed explanations for things.

If a person just want to get in there and try to do something and is asking me why something is important, I know he/she is comfortable using technical reasoning as a preferred learning pattern. Because this pattern deals with problem soling, relevance and autonomy, the learner wants to understand the purpose of what they are doing and wants to try things for themselves. They often want to work alone. They are not afraid to just get in there and get their hands dirty. They may watch rather than talking and they like explanations to be short, practical and relevant.

If a person comes things with a sense of fun, wants to just play, has a lot of creative ideas and isn’t afraid to try new things, I know he/she is comfortable using creativity as a learning pattern. Because this pattern deals with ideas, uniqueness and expression, the learner wants to see the bigger picture. They are not afraid of taking a risk and my not be too interested in directions or rules. They love to improvise and are not afraid to fail. They want to freedom to do things their own way.

A mistake I’ve made in the past when training someone was to assume that they learned best the same way I did so I would train them they way I liked to be trained. I prefer the precise pattern. I love words, take notes and give long, detailed explanations for everything. While everyone has the ability to use all four learning patterns, most people have patterns they prefer to use and they may have patterns that they avoid using. By designing methods to be consistent with the way an individual likes to learn rather than how you like to learn, you build rapport more quickly and train more effectively.

If you would like to read more about how people use patterns when they are learning, visit the Let Me Learn website at letmelearn.org/.