Featuring…

• Trail ride with Emma, Maddie, Zoey, Les, and Kali
• Penny’s first bath
• Les’ fabric paintings
• Kira (10) and Gideon’s (13) second lesson with their Mustangs
• Kali and Ilo
• Simone (6) and Thistle
• Elijah (5) and Thistle
• Anna and Sargento

Trail Ride

After Spring’s terrible weather, we’re anxious to get out on the trails and migrate this summer! Les and I took Maddie, Emma, and Zoey out on a trail ride across the street from the ranch. Fortunately we are right across from the Badlands Wilderness, which includes an expansive 29,261 acres. We’ve been riding on a new trail with an awesome hill. It’s very hard to find hills in our area! This one has a nice, wide forest-service type road, which is great for the kids and dogs. Maddie and I have been going out and practicing trotting duration and it was cool to see that Peanut could come back and do a mellow walk with the group without issues. Wallie is still a little nervous out on the trails, and Zoey, being 8, tends to forget everything as soon as the pony’s life comes up while riding, so Zoey showed good thinking and chose to walk Wallie instead of riding him. Maddie and I each rode Wallie for awhile, just to help him learn the ropes, and he made a little progress. It’s interesting because Wallie tends to be more consistent at shows and Peanut tends to be more consistent on trails. Peanut is LBE with RBE tendencies and Wallie is LBI with RBI tendencies. I’m sure there is something to that but haven’t quite figured it out.

Thistle led the way on the way out. She made her way to the front, even passing Koa and Ilo, who would logically be above her in the herd. Thistle’s uncontested path to the front of the band interested me in terms of alpha leader theory. Presently there are a lot of articles circulating the dog potentially debunking alpha leader theory. The argument is that  individual animals display “agonistic behavior” when it comes to their most prized resource, referred to as “subjective resource value.” Herds and packs may not have “overall hierarchies” as originally thought, but instead have different pecking orders when it comes to different resources like shade, food, and water. I have noticed that individual horses also seem to value certain resources differently than others in the herd might.

So, Thistle led the way out, and interestingly, also wanted to lead the way back. To help her settle in, I took the opportunity to do a lesson with the kids on the varying degrees of flexion. I had the kids practice using a suspension rein to put the pony’s weight on her haunches, then yield the sidebody to create a turn on the center (this is a good video to explain the movement, but we were doing it with vaquero style reining as we are riding with rope halters). The kids are finally starting to get how to use their hands this way. It’s hard, but will ultimately give the kids the ability to take a very slight flexion to regain the horse’s attention, versus disengaging the hindquarters completely and starting over. Being able to take a slight flexion and release immediately builds a finer degree of communication and will help kids and ponies stay connected in distracting environments. If anyone knows of a good resource for vaquero bosal riding, let me know. I’m collecting information about it!

Penny’s First Bath

Gina prepared Penny for her first bath by doing lots of clicker work with the hose. Penny, being a very confident little mare, went from truly being very scared of the hose to pretending to be very scared of the hose for her own enjoyment, almost imperceptibly! After about her 3 clicker sessions with Gina, Penny was ready to  just go for it. Gina hadn’t been exposed to much pressure and release training in the past, but bathing Penny made for a really interesting example. When I turned the hose on, Penny reared and struck at the spray with her forelegs. She tossed her head and stomped her feet a little, and definitely created some commotion, but she didn’t behave like what one would normally expect from a frightened prey animal. Had Penny been really scared, she would likely have displayed the typical flight-mode maneuver – running over the top of the human (ie., bunching up with the herd), then flying around in a circle when the human fails to let go of the rope. Instead, Penny mostly retreated, but did not make any huge attempts to put the hose in the dust behind her. Because she did not hurry to run me over, I felt that Penny was present, thinking, and ready to learn. I put my thumb on the hose and Penny reeled backward. I sprayed until she leaned ever so slightly forward, then immediately released the spray. Though she could have chosen to stand still because the aversive disappeared, she danced because her energy was up, so I aimed the spray at her chest and continued on. She reeled backwards, I let the rope slide but kept her with me, and when she leaned forward, the spray stopped. In about 5 minutes, Penny was standing quietly letting me spray her all over. She even rubbed her face in the spray a little, which is the start of most of her playful behaviors. She loves to toss her mane and shake her head!

There is a time and a place for pressure and release as a teaching tool. To know when to use it, you just have to remember to ask yourself what the horse is motivated by – safety, comfort, food, or play. Penny is mostly motivated by play. She gets bored easily and loves to have an audience. However, because she is a baby and because she is a horse, her first instinct is often to be afraid. Given that, Gina did a great job making Penny feel safe by getting her used to the hose slowly with clicker, comfortable by getting Penny confident in her environment and in the mode of teaching, and created Penny’s motivation through the use of food. As it follows, the last necessity for her learning was to turn bathing into a game. By spraying Penny with the hose until she came forward slightly and stopped pulling away, I gave Penny an opportunity to win the game. Of course the human’s intention is paramount in this type of training, and every other. Energy is everything to horses and I took care to maintain a playful expression and demeanor while getting Penny used to the water.

My choice to use pressure and release with Penny’s bathing training was reinforced by the fact that when we turned her loose in the round pen to roll, she bucked and romped and pranced all over the place,  buzzing by us like Tom Cruise with air traffic control in Top Gun. If Penny had been really disturbed by the bathing, she would have run round and around the round pen with her nose looking out. Instead, she kept trying to engage us for play

Les’ Fabric Paintings

Les painted these about 3 years ago when we were at grad school in Colorado. They are made from fabric from thrift stores and painted with discarded house paint. The images are all of horses. My favorite one isn’t shown here. It’s a beautiful corduroy horse, a lot like the horse from the Science of Sleep. We have to pick that one up from the book store where it was hanging. It’s about 5ft square and really great!

Kira and Gideon

Kira and Gideon came for their second lesson. Their mom has trained over 40 BLM Mustangs, most from failed adoptions. Marietta is an amazing trainer. We had her judge the outdoor trail course at our Play With Purpose shows and she taught the kids so much. She also did a bridleless flag carrying presentation to open both shows. If you haven’t seen it, watch it now! Back to Kira and Gideon – they remembered most of the 7 games from their first lesson. Both are working with horses at are a little challenging, as all Marietta’s animals are rescues. For their first lesson, we learned the first 3 games and learned about sending. I set a bunch of obstacles up as squeezes by the rail. They sent the horse next to the rail, through the squeeze, and stayed on the outside. That got the horses a little further away from them. It’s a great way to get started.

I have a new trick for teaching circles – I tell the kids we are going to travel from one end of the arena to the other with the horse circling around them. I help them send the horse and then they start walking. All they have to do is keep walking and move the stick when the horse stops. Sure enough, the kids learn Travel Together very quickly. Since learning to play with flow is such a challenge, this is a good way to get started moving with the horse straight away and reduce the whole “stand around looking confused” phase. Travel Together is essential to making ground play fun.

Kali and Ilo

Ilo and I have been working on suppling. Ilo is a very muscle bound little mare. She’s a stocky Mustang from the WY BLM. I’ve been using the suspension rein technique I mentioned earlier in this post to activate her hind quarters, plus using Linda Tellington-Jones idea for an impulsion rope behind,  some stretches to open her hips, and volte’s while longeing. The idea behind the volte, in our case, is to make the smallest circle the horse can make while staying united. This article is kind of similar. Things are working awesome and Ilo is calmer, more synchronized, and more flexible!

Simone and Thistle

Gina gave 6 year old Simone her second lesson. Simone started out doing Stick Together to synchronize with Blue Man but we were moving the ponies to a new pasture outside and their prancing got Blue fired up. After switching to Thistle, Simone did seatwork on the longe and  a tiny bit of trotting on the longe. Bareback, of course, since that’s how we start the kids out. I got some adorable pictures of Gina, Thistle, and Simone. It just so happened the girls all matched today, right down to Simone’s white boots with pink toes.

Elijah and Thistle

Lucky Thistle did 3 lessons in a row Friday. First she helped Alicia, a 5 year old with sensory processing difficulties, then little Simone, then Elijah. Five year old Elijah was in from out of town. His grandma is pony-shopping for him. Elijah had only ever ridden a little mini at the fair so this was his first real lesson. Les taught Elijah the basics of Friendly and Porcupine and they played with a ball and stomped in mud puddles. Thistle is the most amazing pony with little kids. Elijah’s grandma said she couldn’t believe how calm all our ponies are (yay!). Elijah was too nervous to ride, so Les had Elijah tag him for the pieces of mounting up on Thistle, then for little tasks while riding. It must have worked because when Gina taught Elijah’s lesson today, he was on and off riding 3 times and begged for more.

Anna and Sargento

I’ve been working with Anna and her Lusitano, Sargento. Sargento is a huge horse. He’s only about 15h but is built like a Percheron. I’ve been helping Anna to get Sargento’s weight on his hindquarters and limber him up. We’re working on piaffe and taking levade when Sargento offers it. You can see he’s showing good elevation in his canter, now. He’s really heavy and out of balance but he’s Anna’s primary riding horse so we’re just doing whatever we can to get him put together more so she can keep going with him. It’s been cool to work with a Lusitano. He’s a different sort of horse. Very smart but gets very nervous and emotional.

So, we’ve had a busy few days for just getting back from Alaska Tuesday evening! Next stop – Bend Pet Parade. Wish us luck!

The video we showed Linda Parelli, which made it possible for us to do a spotlight

Video of our spotlight at the tour stop:

Woke up at 4:30am. About 8 hours of sleep in 2 days combined. Took 9 horses and ponies to the Parelli tour stop. Filled the arena with PonyPros. Blew even our own socks off. The Parellis were amazingly generous with us. They gave all the kids halters and lead ropes, plus the levels 1-4 pack, and gave Les and I four-week scholarships to the center in CO. Feel like I need to sleep for days, but it was worth it Can’t believe how awesome the kids and ponies were. Check out the photos of Linda when we showed her our video, told her we had 5 more kids at home, and that we boarded 30 minutes away.

Some quick facts:

• Blue Man has only been with us for 4 weeks. This was his first experience traveling off property for an event. He was rescued a year ago by Mustangs and Mohr, then came to us at the very end of April. At that time, he had basic groundwork but had not been started. He has 1 ride on him now and is, as you can see, having a ton of fun with Parelli!
• Thistle has only been with us for 2 months. She was 10 years old and was ranch raised, so had had no training before coming to us. This was her second time ever in a trailer and only only her second time away from the home she was born and raised on. Look how awesome she is now!
• Thistle’s partner, Emma, is a 6th grader and has only been involved in horses for 3 months. She has learned all this from PonyPros in just 12 weeks!
• Peanut and Wallie are only 4 years old. This was only their second time hauling out to a different arena. They have been with us for about 9 months now and were unstarted when they came to us.
• Casey is an adopted rescue horse. Conner has only owned him for four months.
• Koa is an adopted rescue horse. This was her first time ever hauling out to a strange arena.
• Celebrity has only been with us for 2 months. Chloe, age 12, was his partner at the tour stop.
• Sam is a rescue pony who used to stand like a tri-pod because he was so fearful and in so much pain. He used to run to the other side of his pen and smash against the panels when someone walked by. He has been with us for almost 2 years now.
• Because the horse who Katelynn normally works with is a rescue who is not strong enough to travel, this was Katelynn’s first time ever working with Sam. Talk about a good pony and natural student to put it together so fast and so well!
• Our dream is to have an Atwood Ranch style program for ponies and to have the best kids program in the world.

There were a huge number of successes today…

-Zoey, Maddie, and Emma stood on their ponies for the first time.
-Zoey and Maddie stood on Peanut and Wallie bridleless in cordeos.
-Emma and Maddie jumped the barrels, and jumped them bareback nonetheless.
-Chloe sat like a frog on Celebrity, cantered him, and jumped him over a bigger jump.
-Blue Man got ridden for the first time. Chloe put the first rid eon him.
-Cinnamon got ridden by someone other than Kali for the first ride. Chloe put the 4th ride on him.
-Desiree rode a horse for the 4th time in her life, getting to ride Celeb. It was her first time trotting bareback.

Apparently PonyPros and ponies flourish in tornadoes and monsoons

Today was Morgan, Katelynn, and Lauren’s second lesson. As part of our program, kids come out for a minimum of 3 hours a week. We’ve found kids don’t improve with less time that that. We theorize that kids need more than one hour a week because working with horses is like learning a new language, you need to be immersed to become fluent. So for the cost of just one lesson, our kids get 3 hours of horse time per week – 1 hour-long lesson and a 2 hour self-directed session on the weekend. Morgan, Katelynn, and Lauren are going into their third week of the program and they have improved so much! Taylor was sick today, so had to miss out.

Morgan’s seat is 5x better than it was just a month ago. She’s looking awesome! She now has a long leg and length through her torso. What a huge difference!

Katelynn and QuickDraw sidepassed a pole while riding for the first time. It was amazing to see Katelynn put the aids together to make it happen – blocking a little in front so Q didn’t walk over the pole, then forequarters/hindquarters on the outside rein. We don’t use much leg in our lateral movements because we don’t need it – just a little reminder here and there if we want quicker movement sideways.

Lauren added some work without hands to her seatwork repertoire. Work without hands is really cool because it is a big perceived risk but is actually even easier than riding with holding on to the pommel because you can sit correctly. It’s always fun to see the kids faces when they realize they can let go!

Gina has been working with Blue Man on the basics. He is rocking at sideways and jumping the barrels. He looked like a pro today! I took him for awhile to feel him out and he jumped a single barrel on the wall from a walk first time I asked. Later Gina worked with Blue Man on Hippity Hop, which prepares the horse for riding. You lay on the horse like a surfboard and paddle (ie., rub the girth area) and slide backwards off the rump. We do Hippity Hop before sitting in the horse in straddle because it is easier to get off if they get scared and because it is even tougher for their nerves than sitting on then. So, you know if they can handle Hippity Hop, that they’re ready to ride. Hippity Hop is tough for the humans, too, though, because it does require a lot of upper body strength and coordination, especially when you’re working with a 12h pony! I jumped in at the end and laid on Blue a few times to help get him over the hump. I ended by sitting on him in straddle for the first time. Soon as we have some decent weather he’ll start his riding career!

Wednesday was a madhouse! Maddie and Zoey had a make up lesson and their nanny’s daughter, Desiree, wanted to ride. We say “yes” as often as possible, so Desiree got to join in the lesson. She rode Celeb and let me tell you, I have never seen a girl in a tutu on a pony before, but it was seriously cute. Tutus and horsehair – every little girls dream.

Celeb’s new name is Rusty. Spencer, the little girl who is buying him, renamed him and it is perfect. Celeb loves it. Rusty is a perfect fit. It’s rare to have a new name that immediately sticks, but this was one of them! Doesn’t he just look like a Rusty?

Rusty was unbelievably good with Desiree. Desiree is 8 and has only ever ridden a horse 3 times before in her whole life. She took one riding lesson with us last summer and has had a few ground lessons, but mostly just watches while Maddie and Zoey ride. Desiree is normally quite timid, but that’s an 8 year old girl thing. We’ve found girls feel really mortal, so we are careful not to push kids at that age in particular. Instead, we let them watch and observe, and then, poof, out of no where, they jump on and ride like they’ve been riding the whole time. We have started telling our students who are not sure they want to ride, “I will teach you if you get on and start to walk, but you have to get on on your own,” so that we’re not in between them and the horse. It’s amazing because when they are no longer afraid, they just get on and go. Desiree didn’t even use a mounting block – jumped up on Rusty herself. She had watched Maddie and Zoey enough to know how to steer and, of course, when there is no fear in the way, ponies do just what they’re told. Desiree rode all around the arena, getting on and off a few times on her own experimentally, and walked over the poles like a pro. All the while, bareback in a tutu Can you believe we’ve only had Rusty for four weeks?

The arena was packed the whole time and you couldn’t hear yourself think over the sound of little girls giggling, lol. Maddie asked me how to know if she was in the right position over a jump. I told her stick her arms straight out to the side and if you can do that, then you’re in the right position. Maddie started out with one arm and eventually progressed to two arms. It was awesome! She could drop her reins right before the jump, then let her hip angle close and allow her body to naturally assume two-point in the air. Very cool!

Chloe tried it next, riding Thistle. Chloe worked on having her hand behind her back instead of out to the side, which helps exaggerate the closing of the hip angle. You can see her working on it in the photos. Wacky hand positions is my new favorite way to teach jumping. We are, after all, all about letting the body find the position naturally. This way, I don’t have to say much about closing the hip angle or letting the hips drop back – I just set it up and let them find it, same as with a horse

Zoey worked on her confidence with Wallie. She trotted around in her Western saddle and cruised over some poles and small jumps. Wallie is getting a new saddle pad soon, which will look very cute with Zoey’s breeches and helmet.

Katlyn had her third lesson on Sarah. She’s trotting in the treeless English/Western hybrid and riding some off the longe at a walk. She and Sarah get along great. Sarah was particularly worked up because Gina had Penny Lane out for a walk and Sienna, who has adopted her, was quite frantic about where “baby” was. So, for their warm-up on the ground, I had Katlyn circle Sarah from one end of the arena to the other so she would learn how to travel with her. It was tough, but they made it!

I think that was about it…plus Les and I riding Koa and Ilo. Did I mention I took these photos from Ilo’s back? It was a long day!

Max Schneider, from Parelli Central, said our videos were, “wow…amazing.”

We are doing an open house the Friday before the Parelli weekend in May! Join us Friday, May 21st, to see our kids and ponies in action! Tickets are free to Parelli, so be sure to come to Bend for this event! The Parelli’s stop in Central Oregon is only one of 6 US tour stops.

*The videos could only have Katie Drake or Mary Ann Kennedy songs, so that is why some of the songs are the same in the videos.

Zoey, age 8

Maddie, age 10

Emma, age 12

Conner, age 12

Chloe, age 12