The Spring Skinnies

Yesterday was so windy and damp, and we're so out of the habit of riding, we somehow let the day go by without ever making it to the barn. So today we were determined to go right after breakfast so we couldn't talk ourselves out of it.

It was cold and we had a light dusting of freezy snow on Friday. The pasture is in a horrible state of half frozen mud and shallow pools with a thin layer of ice over them, all under a dusting of snow. Not very inviting, and clearly the horses have hardly been moving. Also, the hay they've been getting lately doesn't seem to be very exciting or something, because all the pasture horses are losing weight. Not so much that it is worrisome at all, and they are all clearly eating, but truth be told the pasture herd has been on the chubby side all winter. Not so much now. Even Bear is looking thin, which is kind of good actually because we would like to get him to a place where he is habitually about the weight he is right now.

You can't really tell in this shot but Bear is pretty lean.

Bear was stiff and Steen was antsy. We gave them a snack and took or time grooming. We rode for 40 minutes, just working on the basics and getting them limbered up again. Steen and I did mostly work at the trot, with a teeny bit of loping thrown in. Steen was mostly good though not very motivated and prone to veering towards Bear whenever he had an opening. But we had some good moments, and it was great to be riding again. I'm hoping this is my last long lull for a good long while.

We got some good stops and backs.

And some good trots.

We stood around a fair bit too.

Ride Time: 0:40
Horseback hours YTD: 9:55

Dog Days

We delivered Elsa to her new home on Tuesday. After having her for two weeks, it was definitely a bit hard to say good-bye. But the home we found seems like it will be perfect for her. She'll have another Border Collie to play with, and a person who did herding with her previous Border Collie and might get some sheep again to keep the dogs entertained.

We decided not to keep her mainly because I was having a lot of eye irritation after her introduction to the house. We tried it for a week but after that I concluded I was just too uncomfortable. Maybe if I didn't work from home it would have been different, but not only is she a house dog, but the sort of dog that wants to be as close to you as possible every minute of the day. Her constant presence left me without any escape from the hair and dander. We will miss her though. It's amazing how quickly you can get attached to a good dog.

Between the extra attention and time Elsa needed and my over-full client roster, the barn got bumped off my list of regular activities for a while. The weather has been disappointing as well, which didn't help motivate me when I did have some free time. But with Elsa off at her new place and spring right around the corner, I'm hopeful my barn time will increase again soon.

A Mellow Ride in the Sun

It's been a sort of harrowing few weeks for me. It's not that anything bad has happened. It's just been busy. I should be (and am) grateful that my little business is booming to the point that it is keeping me really, really busy. I am glad we are close enough to our nephew that a trip out to his first birthday party is possible. And of all the dogs you could conceive of finding yourself randomly living with, the one that landed on our doorstep is pretty exceptional.

But still, having a dog in the house is a lot to adjust to, particularly since I'm here trying to work all day and we don't have a dog-proof yard. Factor in the fact that the dog is one of the most highly intelligent, energetic breeds out there, add a little sleep deprivation to the mix, and it's been a bit overwhelming. Today I was feeling more than a little in need of a break. We left Elsa at home and headed to the barn.

Steen has developed quite the habit of coming to meet me the last several weeks. It really does warm the heart to see him. He catches a glimpse of me, stares for a minute, then makes a b-line for the gate. He's left the bale, tromped through mud, and moved other herd-members out of his way to reach me. Today I was even happier to see him than usual. I feel like the dog has been occupying roughly 70% of my conscious thought processes since we found her. One my favorite things about horses has always been that they give you a mental break from whatever part of your life is stressing you out.

We had a very quiet ride. The sun was out and it was warmish, so we went to the strip. I must admit we spent a lot of time sitting our horses and chatting. Steen was super quiet and attentive. Sometimes I swear they know when you're utterly worn out and give you a pass for the day. He was really almost perfect. I didn't push him at all and he didn't push me at all. We did a lot of mellow work at the walk and trot and I got some beautiful leg yields and transitions out of him. Brian and I worked a bit on a mirroring exercise we learned at the clinic. Then I asked for a little lope but the footing was mushy and Steen slipped a couple of times. After that he was doing this weird hoppy gait, I think because he was worried about the mushy grass. I was afraid he'd pulled a muscle or something so after we wrapped things up and went indoors I loped him inside. We did a few laps in each direction with a simple lead change in the middle and he was great. Actually I had some of the best loping transitions I've had on him. So it was a really nice day at the barn.

We're still on the fence as far as Elsa is concerned. She is really a sweet-heart, and so well behaved I can't believe whoever taught her her basic manners isn't scouring the countryside looking for her. But I'm just not convinced I want a dog. Even a good one. We're giving it a few more days before we decide.

Ride Time: 0:50
Horseback hours YTD: 9:15

This counts as work, right?

I saw a bunch of these on Facebook and couldn't resist making my own:

On a side note, the "mom" here is meant as the royal mom. (Like the royal we.) My real mom and mother-in-law both pretty much knows what horses are all about.

What I got for Valentine's Day

The flowers are from Brian. The dog is a bit of a mystery. She appears to be a Border Collie, probably about a year old. I saw her through my office window slinking around our yard. Then she proceeded to head out front into the street, where she was weaving among the parked cars and looking very lost. I saw she had a collar on, so I went to the porch door and called her. She came running and I let her onto the porch. I inspected the collar. No tags. So I called animal control and no one had filed a missing dog report. They asked if I would mind holding onto her for a few days and giving the owner a chance to show up. I said ok...

That was Tuesday. It is now Friday. I had her scanned for a chip. Nothing. No one has called looking for her. She is sweet and mild-mannered and smart and sensitive. We are trying to decide whether or not to keep her. If we do, we have tentatively decided to call her Elsa.

We took her to the barn on Wednesday. We were hoping she and the barn dog, Chase, who is a Blue Heeler/Kelpie cross, would get on fabulously and romp and play a little. Except Elsa does not appear to know how to play. She gives you the most dismissive look if you do something like throw a stick or a ball or wiggle a dog toy at her. At the barn, first she was obsessed with trying to herd the barn's Papillion, Amber. That was traumatic for everyone involved, so we confined Amber to the stall barn. Then Elsa switched her obsession to one of the newly installed barn cats. She would hardly give Chase the time of day. Finally we just tied her up on a longe line, and once we started riding she just watched us the whole time. She barked at us when we loped, which is definitely not ideal.

Fortunately the horses were totally unruffled by all the excitement. I had some trouble detaching my mind from dog concerns and focusing on Steen, but once we got going things were petty good. It had been 12 days since my last ride, so I was just looking for an easy spin. We did all our basic stuff and then Brian and I tried a new loping exercise. Basically we try to stay a half arena length apart and lope one lap, walk a lap, lope a lap, walk a lap, etc.. This worked really well. I need to work on three major things at the lope. First, picking it up without several steps of fast-trot. Second, keeping Steen relaxed and attentive while running. Third, achieving a quick stop from a lope. So this exercise worked on all three of these things without throwing too much excitement into the mix. I think it worked really well. We loped about five laps in each direction. Steen was tired, but honestly I think it was as much from the mental challenge as the physical.

We'll probably spend a lot more time at the barn with the dog this weekend. Brian and I feel like we should at least keep her for a week in order to give the "having a dog" idea a fair chance. The biggest deciding factor may be how well she adjusts to the horses. I do like dogs, but horses are far more important to me and always will be. Still, Brian and I have been having the "what if we got a dog?" talk somewhat regularly lately. And truthfully, Elsa is really close to the exact dog we'd get if we were choosing.

But a dog is an expense and a responsibility. We won't be able to come and go with the same freedom if we keep her. Our house, yard and neighborhood and not ideal for a dog-ownership perspective, but they could be worse. So we are both pretty torn on what to do. So far she is proving to be highly trainable and already inclined to bond with us. I'd feel bad handing her over to someone else at this point. But I also only want to keep her if we come to believe it really is the best thing for all of us.

Ride Time: 1:00
Horseback hours YTD: 8:25

Exhausted

Life has been busy lately, and as a result I have not seen much of my horse. I haven't ridden since my last post. We were out of town Friday afternoon and Saturday. On Sunday we drove straight from Chicago to the barn to hold our horses for the farrier. We could have ridden after the trim, but we didn't.

We did turn the horses out in the arena before it was their turn to get attention from Duke. There were a few other horses turned out as well, and they were all romping and playing like colts. Steen always gets a tad confused when there is chasing and herd dynamics going on in his general vicinity, as he's a bit out of the loop socially. Yesterday his solution to not knowing exactly what was going on was to rear. He got in several huge rears. One of them he stood up higher on his haunches than I would have thought physically possible for him AND extended his front hoof up and past his head. It was hilarious. I thought he was going to fall over.

This week the weather looks like it's going to be bad, but work shows no signs of letting up either so at least I won't have to be chained to a computer and thinking about all the wonderful saddle time I'm missing.

Outside!

There was a new chiropractor at the barn today, and her treatment involves working with the horse and rider under saddle. We did not feel we needed to get any horses adjusted, but we hung around and watched for a while, then rode.

Since the indoor arena was in use, we went outside. The footing was not ideal. We rode on the strip, and things were mushy. It was our first ride outside in months, so I was curious to see how Steen behaved. All in all, I think he did about as well as I could reasonably expect. When we were in or "comfort zone" he was great. He was attentive and it was nice to feel the extra energy. Between the deep sand in the indoor and the contained nature of that environment, he does tend to get sluggish inside. Outside he had a bit more verve, which translated into him putting more effort into some of our exercises.

However, pushing past the comfort zone did cause some back-sliding. It was nothing bad, just a tendency to focus on wanting to head back to the barn. So I spent a lot of time working on fairly demanding trotting exercises outside of the little bubble on the strip he seems to consider "safe" just to try to engage his mind to the point that he would stop thinking about the barn. This was challenging. I was trying to ride really well and use my seat and my legs to stay in touch with him. It is so easy for me to revert to using my hands when he starts to lose focus, and when I do that he has less to listen to and immediately gets more nervous. We did get some good work in. I got the soft feel at the trot a lot, and did achieve some figure-eights that were consistent both in speed and shape. He was also stopping and standing quite well all day.

At the end of the ride we met up with Brian and Bear and the four of us walked all the way down to the end of the strip and back up. I had been feeling a bit disappointed that Steen had not behaved a bit better overall, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by these last few minutes. Steen walked the whole way down and back with his head down, clearly very relaxed. We walked all the way back up to the barn without one attempt to pick up the trot. He wasn't even doing his power walk.

So, in retrospect I feel better about the ride than I did when it was going on. I can't reasonably expect him to go outside and not worry about anything after so much time in the indoor this winter. I do hope to really work on his ability to ride out without anxiety this summer though.

Ride Time: 1:00
Horseback hours YTD: 7:25