Nov 11, 2012

Back to Work

Hey!

Some moms, when they find out their kid is about to get married, call the florists and the caterers. Me being me, I called the bobcat and the excavator. What I was thinking when I volunteered to have the reception at our house, knowing that we had neither yard nor patio, no place to sit, and that we lived virtually in a dog toy graveyard, I have no idea. Be that as it may, the wedding came off splendidly. We *do* now have a yard, a patio, and the dog toy graveyard is no longer a main feature. The heavy equipment left three days before the Big Day, and I was still planting trees and hanging lights till literally 45 minutes before I was supposed to be at the church. It was a perfect SoCal evening, with an almost full moon and a gentle temperature. It was relaxed, sweet, lovely, and wonderful, and man, am I glad its over.

I miss writing two or three times a week. Heck, I miss riding, too, and the boys have been totally neglected while I ran around with concrete and bricks and potted plants. But things are settled now, and I am catching up on body clipping and feet trimming and will ride again today, hooray!

Let’s go back to how we addressed Brian’s cross tie issues. This approach, of small therapeutic doses endlelessly repeated, worked well with him. It works well with all horses, and is a big part of why my horses, no matter their pasts or backgrounds, are well behaved and trusting and obedient. And so with Bryan, this was the basis of all of the work that we did whether mounted, on the ground, or during free work.

The consistency of The Rules goes across the board. Every time we handled him it was the same; no slinging your head around (thereby cracking the human in the face) no stepping past the human; no dragging behind the human; no screaming when attached to the human; no jumping on top of the human…I think you get the drift. As usual, every horse we would take in would grasp The Rules quickly; horses aren’t dumb and they crave and honor leadership. Natch, B, not being the sharpest marble in the drawer, took a longer time than the others.