| Archive for It's About The Horse The Free Forum for those Doing Parelli - and a whole lot More! "Anything forced and misunderstood can never be beautiful." Xenophon (430-355 B.C.), |
| cheerios |
Back after a long time.. (& we have an obstacle course nI've not been around the forum much in several months. I had an incredibly busy spring and we've had an incredibly busy summer too. For the summer, I'm helping out full time again at the rescue where I volunteer during the school year.
I have about half a dozen or so horses who I've been starting this summer, so it's been fun having a lot of horses to ride. They're learning a lot and they are teaching me quite a bit too! We've also had a handful of adoptions this summer, which has been great. We are down to 18 horses now, with 3 of those pending to leave. Would love to be down to about a dozen by fall. My biggest fun news is that we have an obstacle course now. At the beginning of the summer, a boy scout troop built us a small obstacle course for one of the boy's eagle projects. We've been getting a lot of use out of it this summer and it has been really fun for working on both ground work and work under saddle with many of our young and green horses. Here are photos of all of the obstacles the boys built us: http://stalecheerios.com/blog/horse-training/new-horse-obstacle-cours/ My favorite is our scary noodle tree, which there is a picture of below. 
The obstacle course has been a great training tool not only for our horses, but for our volunteers. We get a lot of volunteers at the rescue who don't know a whole lot about training. And many of the obstacles are weird or scary, so the horses aren't too sure about them at first. So, it's been fun to work with some of our volunteers and use the obstacles to show them how to break a skill down into smaller teachable parts, reward approximations, and learn to more carefully read the horses' body language to look for signs of fear or stress. This is one of my favorite series of pictures: http://stalecheerios.com/blog/horse-training/chardonnay-meets-noodles/ This is one of our youngest volunteers who did a great job working with one of our big mares with the scary noodle obstacle. One of the fun parts is that for our horses who have been started under saddle, we can introduce them to the obstacles on the ground, then continue playing with them under saddle. This helps give a purpose to riding as the horse learns each specific obstacle and task. For the green horses, it's also been great for working on more precision with steering, as well as stopping/starting in particular spots. Here's a short clip of one of our fillies who I've been starting this summer. She had had about a dozen rides when we took this video. She really seems to like the obstacle course! http://stalecheerios.com/blog/horse-training/awesome-blossom-obstacle/ We would like to continue to add to our obstacle course. We recently bought a dozen ground poles, which we plan to paint, as well as a small mail box. So that's some of the fun that I've been having this summer. We are dying, though, with this heat. Here's our 10 weather outlook. Ugg!! We get up early, get stuff done in the morning, then (besides for hosing off horses) spend most of the afternoon inside. Most days, it does not drop below 100 degrees until about 9 or 10 pm.
So, I hope everyone else has been having a fun summer so far and not getting too overheated! 
I'm currently in the process of catching up on reading lots and lots of forum posts.
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| merle |
Welcome back! It's great to hear from you again. The obstacle looks like a lot of fun. Good luck staying cool. I've been going out to ride first thing in the morning, then hiding in the ac the rest of the day. | ||
| PasoBaby_CarolU |
I really feel for all of you with this heat. I see that big H stuck over Texas and it isn't budging. It's amazing.
That obstacle course looks fun. A friend did one here with 25 ACTHA obstacles to get ready for the ACTHA ride, which got canceled... then we all quit ACTHA after the Treeless Saddle BS. Anyway...looks like loads of fun. |
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| misstux |
I love your new obstacle course, especially the bridge. I also really liked the video with Blossom. | ||
| Copious_Amour |
Mary, thanks for sharing your journey with us. I love what you do for those horses and am so glad to hear you've had adoptions and some more are pending. Good Chardonnay gets snapped up real quick, she's a looker! | ||
| CoolsLadyInRed |
Very nice obstacle course. So glad the boy scouts chose you to do that for. Blossum is a cutey. She sure seems confident with her rider. Thanks for the updates!!!
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| bit |
Mary, we are "enjoying" those same temps here! It's been over a month of this! Been awful! Nice car wash! Hawkie would love picking those noodles off your obstacle! Glad you are back! | ||
| becdubie |
I noticed Mary. glad to hear from you and thanks for posting the pic. I'm gonna make a noodle tree. Rusty needs that he get's freaked out by things touching his sides. I've been workign on that but that three is exactly what we need. |
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| calatar |
Love the obstacle course photos! |