Smokey's Battle.

Well, sitting here this cold October morning I am staring at my blank blog page and wondering where to begin. I am creating this blog for my students, clients, family and friends, so figuring out how to address everyone is quite perplexing. I will be trying to keep this blog focused on horses and the horsemanship journey. So I guess I will begin with me and my partners.

I am a cardiac radiologic technologist, a mouth full, I know. And I have spent the last four years traveling around the country filling in shortages. Which is actually how I came across Parelli, but that's another story. Well for the last year I've been doing what I call local travel, but truth being it's not really all that local. At first I was in Michigan for 5 months, about 6 hours from home, then I went to Chicago for 8 months, about 3 hours from home. Normally when I travel my husband, dogs and horses all follow along. We basically pack up and move every time I switch jobs. We'll with these jobs being that close to home and the state of the economy I began to go it alone. My husband stayed home and cared for all he critters while I went and worked only to come home on the weekends. Needless to say I spent ALOT of time on the road.

So that last year has left my personal journey with my own horses somewhat in a slump. Although I still grew and learned a lot by helping others I came in contact with, my relationships with my own horses suffered. Due to lack of time and me being a left brained extrovert when it comes to Parelli I got direct line. So not only was I not spending time with them daily but when I got home on the weekends I spend the whole time trying to make up for the lost time. Well, needless to say our relationships dwindled. Not necessarily with my left brained horses. Duncan and Blue, since they don't get a lot of attention, were happy to be played with. They, of course, didn't mind my progressive attitude, they LOVED it. I was never boring to them. I had spent all week thinking about what we were gonna do that weekend. However Smokey, my main horse and my levels partner, was to say the least not exactly thrilled. I would come home to him with the same thoughts from the week about all the things we could do to progress. And our relationship got worse and worse and worse. He is innately a right brained horse and tends to be more introverted. He was also given to me as a wild, couldn't be touched 8 month old so people aren't really a necessity for him. Well, I played week after week with the horse I once had when we were together everyday, when he trusted me and loved to be with me and play with me. Not the untrusting RBI I had in front of me. I would blow him up week after week and think why is he being so defiant, thinking he was reverting to his wild days being that he was out on pasture with his herd. He had no need for people once again and why should he. Everything he needed was there in the pasture and when I came it was all pressure. So I wasn't reading my horse, the lesson I was teaching so many students. He wasn't being defiant he was trying to survive, to get away.

Now I have been home and unemployed for over a month and have been slowly trying to build back the relationship we once had. I was very frustrated at first nothing seemed to be working. Then I remembered the water trick we learned at the Parelli center. My horses are out on pasture together. They only get a bit of grain in the evenings and their water tank never runs dry. Ah-ha. He needed a reason to need me. To trust me. So I went out and removed the water trough and have been leading or bucket watering them for almost two weeks now. Plus the occasional bucket of molasses water. WOW. This stuff works. He needs me now, he is pushing the other horses out of the way to get to me first, he used to hide in the back. After about three days I started to see the difference. Makes me wonder how bad I messed things up that it took three whole days. So once I started to see the change I started playing with him again, only this time I acted like he wasn't my horse, that I know and love. I acted as though he was a demo horse that I didn't know and read him every step of the way. Only 20 minutes in the round pen at liberty so I couldn't make. My round corral is nothing but some 2 1/2 foot poles with a strand of rope around the top. If he wanted to go he could, no problem. I rewarded the slightest try and WAITED and waited and waited. Well I have done quite a bit of damage but after a few sessions like that we are back to being playful and progressive. Although not a lot, just fragments here and there but better. Still have some right eye unconfidence to work on fixing but other than that he's back. Last night at feeding time he wouldn't leave me alone, in an extroverted way, not an introverted way. Usually he'll just stand there an let you pet him with his head hung low and not any real enthusiasm. Instead he was pushy and frisking me for cookies, following me around, running the others off, for almost an hour. HUGE for a RBI. I'll take a more dominant pushy RBI any day.

So little by little I will get him back to where we once were and be ready to go for black. Sting that is. For those of you who don't know it is the black belt of the Parelli world. And until recently was almost unachievable. Until next time, try to keep it natural, at least I am.