Day 32

First off,
Merry Christmas!
I hope everyone's holidays were great.

For Christmas, I got Brie and Nina carrots (the usual) and peppermints (the rare treat)! Brie hasn't had a peppermint in so long because of her insulin resistance that she forgot what it was and spit out the first couple before remembering how good they taste! I let my brother ride Brie first today, as a challenge to him to see how well he would do. He actually did pretty well! It was a good change of pace for Brie and myself, both of us were getting stuck in that "winter routine" rut since we're stuck indoors.
While my brother was riding, I played around with Nina. I tried my Parelli games on her, the few that I know. She's good with the Friendly Game and the Porcupine Game, but still isn't catching on to the Yo Yo game yet. It's a little frustrating when here I am at one end of the rope, waving it around like a madman while she just blankly stares at me, not knowing what to do. I'm pretty sure that's an error on my part. I really need to get around to watching the rest of those DVDs, I've only watched the first two so far. Maybe on New Year's Eve when I have nothing else to do that night I'll watch them.
When I got on Brie, I was determined not to ride around in a circle on the rail like always, and we didn't. We made serpentines, I even "rode" my name in the sand. I tried to get her to canter but that ended up in a gallop. She can't seem to get her back feet to go the same speed as her front feet when I'm trying to canter her. Thoughts on this? Suggestions? My mom's been telling me to let her gallop and then try to bring her back to a canter. She's also been telling me to use a round pen, but oh! We don't have one! Thanks, Mom.
I'm very excited for 2010. I'm confident that it will be a productive and stunning year, a year like no other with Brie. I hope that you are successful with your horse goals (and others) as well.

Day 31

Super cold today. I feel like I'm redundant when I say I'm so proud of Brie, but I shouldn't feel that way. It has taken so long for her to get to this point and I'm happy I didn't listen to everyone who told me to give up on her, that she'd never be worth anything, that she never would win anything. I have a feeling we'll have a huge success at the shows this year. I can't wait for the first show in April.

Nina is still under training. I can't picture her actually working, even though I've shown her and placed while half asleep, but that's another story. She just seems like too much of a goofball to be phased by anything, and that can be a good thing. I guess I'm just eager to see how good she is when Ray is done training. I wonder if she'll turn out to be Fino like everyone has thought, because that would end up being a true underdog story.

Day 30

The calming supplement is working really well for Brie. She was very responsive and now that I have more of a handle over her I'm working on making a more noticable differnece between her corto and largo. I have a really good feeling about this show season and I'm anxious for it to start.
I also worked with Nina today. While Ray is training her we're not supposed to be riding her, so I played Parelli games with her. I played the Friendly Game and am teaching her the Porcupine Game. I started the Yo Yo game also, but she didn't really grasp that one, so I'll focus on the Porcupine Game until she gets really good at it and then move on to the Yo Yo game.
It's so cold over here, and I'm waiting til snowfall to take some pictures of them playing.

Day 29

I didn't get to go to the stable on Saturday. But I went yesterday! So this is a very late (and very short) post.

Brie was absolutely perfect!
She was so good. I got her out of the paddock no problem. She was very calm when I rode her. We even went outside and she had minimal freak outs!
I think it's due to my Parelli training =] and due to the new supplement we got her started on, Calmex-V.
I can't wait for this weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Days 27 & 28

I'm getting increasingly exhausted on the weekends and often go to sleep before I write these, so bear with me.

Day 27

When we arrived, Brie and Nina were outside in the paddocks. My mom told my brother that she'd give him ten bucks if he could catch Nina and get on her bareback. He did! And she just stood there. I went over by Brie and she came up to the fence and sniffed me, then proceeded to walk away. Once my brother got off Nina and went back in the stable, I played around with Brie and successfully got the halter on her and lead her back into the stable.

I finished the second disc of the Parelli Level 1 set. I learned the Porcupine game, the Driving game and the Yoyo game. I only got around to plaing the Porcupine game, it's kind of hard to play the other two when we don't have a round pen.

She was just a little crazy. She was very good inside and in the outside arena I discovered that she officially knows how to canter on command! I just have to work on getting her to slow down, because her canter is super super fast, almost like a gallop.

My mom rode her outside and she was pretty crazy. She ran into a few trees.

After all of this, Brie and Nina got their feet done. We flew up a farrier from Florida again, the same guy from last time.

Day 28

I got Brie out of her stall! She didn't even turn around to kick me! Not once! I'm so proud of myself.

The blood was kind of near the soles after the farrier, but he was still there so we asked him about it. He said she was okay so we rode her.

It was an amazing day. She kept at good speeds and she cantered on command again! It wasn't just a trick! My mom rode her and didn't get upset with her. A very good day.

Now we won't be able to ride Nina for a month because Ray is training her. It makes me kind of sad, but we can still play with her. Now I can teach her all of the games! And I have to give Ray some credit. After just a week, Nina is looking much better with her gait and headset.

And those supplements I said I ordered for Brie? yeah they didn't work. So we're trying a new supplement, Calmex-V I think it's called. It has valerian root which is supposed to be really calming, so we'll see how that goes.

Let's just see how she is at the end of the month.

Day 26

(originally started at 1130pm last night)

Today was a not so good day.
And thinking back about it, it's been my first not so good day in a while.
It started with trying to get Brie out of the stall. With the Parelli knowledge, I tried the same thing I did yesterday but she kept giving me her butt. Discouraged and thinking my horse hated me, I cried (which was bound to happen when you try something new) and was upset that my mom had to help me get her out. She came out, I brushed her. When I tried to get on, she kept moving. I wasn't even anywhere near the mounting block! She kept fidgeting around and moving, so I made her turn on her front legs, which she was doing when she was moving. Finally she stopped (only because my mom started looking at her ughhh) and I got on. Slightly disheartened, I figured I'd jump because she loved that so much.
Wrong.
She kept refusing the jump, and finally I got her to accept it, only after she reared up before it while deciding whether to spin around and run away or go over it and stood like that for a whole 5 seconds, without moving, which is actually pretty long to be balanced on her back legs. She hop-skipped over the jump and after that she had a better attitude.

I can't really be mad at her. This is the first time that's happened for a while now. And I can't be mad at myself for the whole stall sour issue, because so far, Parelli hasn't addressed that. I guess he assumes you can at least get your horse out of the stall without killing you.

I plan to watch more of his DVDs this week if college doesn't kill me first.

Day 25

So, based on the method I learned in the first Parelli DVD, which I finally got around to watching yesterday, it took me an hour to get Brie out of her stall. But I felt good, because I did it! And without getting kicked or angry at her.
Basically I sat in her stall for a while, she came up to me, smelled me, touched her nose against my hands and I pet her. I never made eye contact with her, because this is what predators do and we don't want to come off as predators to a prey animal. I went and got her halter and she immediately ran into the corner of her stall. So first I stood outside with her halter, then I stepped inside and stood there, then I started walking around her stall with the halter. She got curious and came up to me, and I rubbed the halter on one side before she shoved herself in the corner again and I couldn't get her. I kept walking back and forth, then started swinging the halter back and forth as I walked. She looked at the halter as it swung and kind of reached her nose out to it. So I took the lead rope and started swinging it at her. I swung it around her legs, on her back, her butt, her tail, her neck, until I got close enough to pet her with the other hand. I held the rope around her neck and then rubbed the halter on her. She finally put her head down and I put her halter on.
I was so proud of myself!
The other thing I worked on was mounting while she stood still. I took her away from the mounting block today to do this and she stayed pretty still.
I rode her in the outdoor arena. Ray finally moved in today, so he watched. He worked with Nina more, because he'll be training her for the next month.
I went over the super long sound board outside and Brie didn't get scared she'd fall off of it because now they leveled the sand with the board.
Then we practiced cantering! I was so happy with Brie, she got it at the first signal in both directions! She didn't mess around halfway gaiting/halfway cantering. I can't wait to try again tomorrow to make sure it wasn't a fluke.
New goal:
Be able to mount on the mounting block by the end of November.