Who Inspires You?

I have been asked this question by a few people, so here is what I have said. I like the natural horsemanship training that goes with what the horse already does naturally. This can range from those people who teach the horse to rear on command to those who want the horse to pivot on their barrels quickly. I have done a lot of research on trainers and my favorite few to date are John Lyons and Jonathan Fields. 

I had somehow gotten on John Lyons mailing list and started by receiving a book called Communicating with Cues Part I. I read the first few pages and was hooked, I mailed my check immediately. What followed was more books to complete the series and I loved and continue to love them all. The Perfect Horse series is on my bookshelf and I reference it regularly both for inspiration and for affirmation that I am training the right way. I also got the opportunity to meet John Lyons in person at the Equine Affaire (now called Horse Expo) in Pomona, CA several years ago and he is the same godly man and trainer as I expected from his books.

While at the expo I also met other trainers, including Jonathan Fields who showed a lot of liberty work. After getting home I looked him up as well and watched several free videos online of his training. I joined his viewer video list and continue to get "31 videos in 13 months" Inspired by Horses training series.

Both trainers are about lasting results with lots of repetition rather than fast results. They have helped SS Ranch 77 by continuing to inspire us with how we live and work with our horses.

Do you have a favorite trainer?

Difficult Training Sessions

Even though we wish all sessions with our equines were positive from beginning to end, that isn't reality. I try to keep in mind what John Lyons stated in one or more of his books, "leave the training session with your horse being calmer than when you started." At some times this is much more difficult to do than other times. Here are a few things I've learned over the years: 

Weather can play a factor in training sessions. Whether it is sunny and warm, or cloudy and windy, you can work with your horse and have them be calmer at the end than when you first entered their stall. Remember also that you should only ride (or work your horse) where you can, not where you can't. Though it would be fun to just get on and ride anywhere, you want to keep you and your horse safe. Once when I was riding Seyvilla the weather had been sunny and warm, but it quickly got cloudy and windy. We were out in the field and it wasn't going to be simple to just ride home, the wind was really whipping around us. I had a few options, I could 1)keep riding and hope it cleared up, 2)I could turn around and ride home, or 3)I could dismount and turn back toward home. All options could work well, so in situations like this you need to look at the situation completely to decide what to do. Here are some questions to ask yourself: 1)If I turn around now, can do I something on the way back or when I get back, to have the horse be more calm before I put him/her away? 2)Am I riding with a less experienced rider that might get hurt? It might depend on which horse they are riding and how they are reacting to the situation.

Training updates per horse and some reality sessions:

Shine: Though Shine is pretty great in all situations, he does have some times when he has been too excited at the time of his training sessions that I can't do what I had been planning to do with him. He is turning 5 years old next month, so he's pretty strong on most of the basic training things...giving to pressure, bending, keeping his head down, riding over uneven ground, cantering fast while still listening to the rider, picking up his feet, standing while brushed, etc. However, on some windy days I have noticed him pacing in his stall and at times even nipping at me which isn't normal for him. The pacing started when we realized our neighbor had just bought a goat. Shine wasn't afraid of the goat, but he wasn't used to it either. It took him a few days before he was back to his calm self. I used those days to work more on the basic training steps, to do more groundwork and get him listening to me while still working on a few new things. He was easily distracted by the goat in the next yard, so working on a lot of new training items wasn't super effective. Since I have now been training him for 4 1/2 years I can pretty much tell when it's a "back to basics" day, or a day that I can do a lot of new things. One of the new things he enjoys is helping me check the mail, though even now that he does it great in good weather, there are still days I decide not to do it because of where his head space is.

Soot: We are still not doing long sessions with us on his back as he is still growing a lot! We plan to do more consistent riding when he turns 4 years old in April. As I have mentioned before, riding a draft horse is better to do once the horse is 4 years old. Since he is much taller than us now, we must be careful to work with him to make sure he doesn't push into our space. With our other horses, we can see over their backs, but with Soot we can't, so if something scares him on the side we can't see, we can't be ready to react. This being said, we have noticed that while working Soot in the round pen, he has stopped and raised his head high to look at something far away that we can't even see. That isn't an issue ...unless it is. Do we want him to do this while we're riding or when he's pulling a wagon or sleigh? Not really. We want him focused on what we want him focused on. We are continuing to work with him on this, so he keeps his focus on us. He still loves pulling and even on days that he's excited, he seems to calm down when he sees the tire and knows he's going to be asked to pull. Back to the motto that draft horses love a job to do. Maybe we can use him to help us pull the track area or part of the field in the spring when we work on grading for our riding arena.

Serita: She just turned 1 year old this month, but we need to be careful where we work her because all the surroundings are still so new. She is comfortable in her stall and since it's 24'x24' we can work her in there for now. Recently we were leading her to the round pen and she got excited. She pulled the lead rope hard and was able to get away from us but was quickly caught. This reminded us that we need to continue to work with her on leading so she knows when we're leading she needs to follow our lead and not push ahead. This could have ended more negatively if she had gotten caught up in a fence or twisted her ankle. Thankfully she did not hurt herself or us. Working her in her stall gives us time to work with her on giving to pressure, bending, yielding to the lead rope, and listening to us, then we can work more on leading when we walk outside the stall. She continues to improve, but we can't rush the process or someone (human or equine) might get hurt.

Snowy Training

The training sessions have to be different when you ride in weather. You don't want the horse to twist an ankle or fall down. Each horse will react differently to different weather, so you have to be ready to customize the training to suit each one. Here is what we have noticed about each of our equines now that we have several inches of snow on the ground and more coming this week:

Soot: He is standing calmly in his stall and let's the snow fall down on him. He loves it! He also loves to eat a snowball out of our hand, which is fun. We weren't sure what he would do with the snow on the ground, but when we walked him to the round pen, he didn't mind walking through the snow. He put his head down and wanted to eat it and then when we asked him to trot, he picked that up no problem. He even does some cantering. Soot is part Gypsy Vanner, so he already picks up his knees when he walks or trots. He loves it! 

Shine: He has been in training with us for almost 4 1/2 years now. He is pretty trusting as long as I am involved when he is learning something new. The same is true with the learning and accepting the new ground content, including snow. I have found Shine, more often than not, is standing out from under his cover, letting the snow fall down on his head. He's a goof for sure! When I walked him out of his stall he walked tentative to begin with, but didn't seem to mind the different ground. He loves trotting next to me and stays right with me like we have worked in the round pen. Yesterday, I also rode him in the field here. The snow came up to almost his knees. Again, he didn't seem to mind and we walked and trotted all over the field. It was super fun! He also loves to eat the snowball out of my hand. I think he enjoys trying to eat it and not knock it off my gloved hand.

 

Serita: Since she is so young, the training is especially different for her since she is still learning so many new things. She is pretty comfortable in her stall even with the snow coming down, but when we take her out she gets excited easily. We are working her more in her stall during this snowy season because we know she will feel safe and she listens better since she knows her stall is a safe place. She, like the boys, stands out from under her cover in the snow, and is warm and toasty so we knows she's not getting too cold. We look forward to the coming drier seasons when we can get her out and around the property more to get used to all the new sights and sounds around our property.

Setting a Time Limit

With horse training, you might find that either the horse or rider/trainer runs out of energy before the workout is completed, so how do you know when to stop?

We have 3 horses right now and each of them are at a different point in their training, so we have to answer this question different for each horse. Let me start, however, by saying that when training horses you don't have to use the whole time each day. Work with them for however long it's fun and don't let yourself get too tired, especially if you have multiple horses you want to have energy to work with.

Shine: Since he is almost 5 years old, we definitely have a longer time limit with him. He has a longer attention span and we can get to more advanced skills. Even with the more advanced horse though, you don't have to only have long training sessions. We have decided to touch each horse every day. With Shine, even 5 minutes can turn into time to work on 1 or 2 key points in his training. During the week, we usually have about 15-20 minutes each day that I can devote to his training/riding. With that time we can use it all for brushing (asking him to stand tied during that time), or work on bareback riding, asking him to move away from pressure, give at the pole, etc. 

Soot: He is almost 4 years old, and since he's mostly draft we will be getting on him more consistently in April when he turns 4 years old. With him the above applies. Even with just a few minutes we can get him to yield to pressure, pick up his hooves, stand to be brushed, etc. He is our biggest equine standing at over 17 hands, so we need to continue to work on him not pushing into the human's place, and standing calmly to be haltered, etc. He has to hold his head lower to have us halter him than the other horses. When we do have time, like during the weekend, we hook him up to the tire and have him tow that around. He loves it and we think he wishes we had time to do it every day. 

Serita: Since she's still less than a year old (her birthday is 2/13/20), we need to be careful to keep her training sessions short. She has the shortest attention span of the 3 horses and we want to make it fun for her so she continues to learn and always has a positive outlook on us coming to get her. Sheena is still doing most of the training at this point. When the horse is very young, it's best to keep the training to 1 person so the horse has very consistent training. Even with two people who think they are training the same, it might be a minute difference that the horse will notice. At least that is what we have noticed with our training. We train mostly the same, but have found some differences that might confuse the horse when they are young. Starting next week, we'll start working with her on accepting more weight on her back, in preparations to having a western saddle. This worked for us when we started Shine. Adding small amounts of weight, like the English saddle pad then the Western saddle pad, you increase the weight gradually so you don't ever have a big blow out. This is safer for the trainer and less stressful on the horse, making each training session, even new things are introduced, fun for everyone involved.