Reconsidering Natural Horsemanship

Just adding the link here so I can find it again...

Interesting read, not sure if they have it all right

http://www.bethbehaviourist.co.uk/articles/just-another-deluded-cowboy?fbclid=IwAR2U0sgKcfOqCAeNIYcQcQ9_0gLfWp_Qsa4bjcTczgu3gHGlZ6YcRHisgJs

2018 in review...

I always want to do a review of my year, but I always kind of feel it's 11 months of boring with a month of excitement.

Not this year, this year was HARD for me.

Technically starting in 2017... I was texted that my horse was bleeding on 12/29/17. I had my room-mate drive me to the stable because I was to sick to drive myself. The poor horse's chest was all swollen up, raw and bleeding. I called the vet out and that lead to six months of treating my horse for some unknown infection and scary diagnoses, which in the end turned out to be a summer sore and allergies.

While that was going on Tigger my cat, my best bud, developed a tumor in his nose. Unfortunately there was nothing we could do and I had to put him to sleep. I was terrified that Finn, the horse would suffer the same fate.

I had to ask my work if I could work from home or quit my job and start a wonderful career with Pizza Hut. I am extremely lucky they said yes, I could work from home!

Next was time to pack up the house. I didn't think the Waffle would have sold it so fast. Then it was a mad dash to sort, get rid of and pack up over 20 years worth of stuff. I hate moving, I just sort of get lost in the minutia of it all. So it was very slow and arduous for me. I am thankful for my room mate that did most of the packing.

Then it was time for HearseCon, which I almost backed out of 100 times. I had agreed to split my room cost with my friends. I just couldn't do that to them, so in spite of having to move at the same time I decided to make the drive to Denver. I think it was a much needed vacation. It was one of the best times I have had at HearseCon.

I returned to a much different home 174 miles away from my previous one. My 1500 square foot home on 1.5 acres has been downsized to a 5th wheel trailer on 40 acres. I live in the middle of nowhere and now we work to finish the house we've been building for about 3 years. It's all terrifying and wonderful at the same time.

So for 2019, we hope to finish the house and I am excited to achieve one of my life long dreams, going to Wacken Open Air in Germany!

The saga of Sparkle Farts...

It's Christmas and in my family that means a secret Santa gift exchange. We draw names at Thanksgiving and when we are all together at Christmas, we of course do the deed, and exchange the gifts.


So, adult and child names are just thrown into a hat and drawn. This year my Waffle (a.k.a. Husband) drew his niece of course the gift shopping/purchase was then pushed off onto me. Now our niece is all of seven years old and one of the items she really, really wanted was a, Baby Alive.


You can guess by the name that the "Baby Alive" does all the things that a really baby does, such as eat, drink, cry, talk and yes, the resulting bodily functions. Now as a woman who doesn't have children but does have animals, I really don't see the point in having a doll that does that. Ya wanta feed and clean up after something? I have a horse and four cats, my niece is more than welcome to feed and clean up after. My niece herself has a dog and rabbit (which she doesn't clean up after).


...but a Baby Alive is what she wants, and Uncle Waffle drew her and I am certain that he wouldn't get her the doll. So we were talking about what to get her and some how the Squatty Potty came up and the unicorn in the ads would be perfect.


Through a quick internet search we discovered that there was a unicorn doll that eats and well, you know. This was called, "Poopsie Slime Surprise Unicorn-Rainbow Bright Star." It's droppings consisted of a sort of sparkly gelatin substance. I was laughing and said that if my horse had "Poopsie slime surprise" I'd need to call the vet!


I went to Amazon and added "Poopsie Slime Surprise Unicorn-Rainbow Bright Star" to my wish list.


As I was actually cleaning up my horses not so sparkly surprise... The thought that, I'm sure my mother-in-law wouldn't want to have to fuss with mixing up slime and sparkles so that my niece could feed the unicorn. If only there was a gift that didn't require such maintenance, but was along the same lines...


Amazon recommendations to the rescue, enter Sparkle Farts!


Sparkle Farts is a unicorn plushie that, you guessed it, farts. His story is that he got into the Royal Taco Patch, which apparently gives unicorns terrible gas! Not only does he fart, he also talks with a slight British accent! THIS sounded like the perfect gift from Uncle Waffle!


So I ordered the flatulent Equine from Amazon, and gleefully awaited his arrival.


My mother-in-law asked the Waffle what he got for his niece... He told her about Sparkle Farts.


Now... I wasn't there, but apparently this was quite the unacceptable gift to get our niece! I am really at a loss as to how a doll that you have to fuss with and feed and change is superior to a taco eating unicorn that has gas. Ya don't have to feed him, he takes care of that for himself.


Somehow I have become the proud owner of an Equus monoclonius, that has a taste for tacos and is jet propelled on Tuesdays.

And my niece? She got knitting looms with lots of yarn, personally selected by Uncle Waffle.

I haven't been able to ride in a week due to weather and adulting. I have been extremely frustrated about that. So today when the rain storm showed up at 1:00pm, I was pretty bumbed. Then the rain passed and the sun came out! OH GOODIE! 

Some back story today, besides the rain, Finn has been harassed by cattle drinking her water all day. She's also been pretty amped up and excitable. 

About 4:00pm (I don't know why I'm listing the times as if they are important). I go out to the barn, I notice a cow tipping Finn's water bucket over, it obviously was empty. So my mother in law filled the bucket while I went into the barn. I got Finn all saddled up, but I don't have a round pen, I would have defiantly round penned her today.

So I half ass longe Finn, we both kind of suck at longing... Everything seemed okay, but with all the factors I thought something might happen. So I mount up and I start flexing Finn's head around and I notice things aren't quite right. In fact they are quite wrong, Finn is pinning her ears back and crow hopping! Luckily I was attempting to flex her head, so I already had her head turned as she was trying to hop. At the same time I was kicking her, to make her move forward. 

In my adult brain, I'm thinking, "this horse is gonna throw me." The kid me, "just kept her head turned and hang on!" Fortunately I managed to stay on and stop the rodeo.

But wait there's more! So I told the Waffle where I was going and headed off down the road toward the neighbor that has dogs. Finn doesn't like dogs much, and when I saw that he was on his excavator and there were two little dogs running around, I did turn around. Then I thought, "well, I suppose today is as good as any to get pitched off, Finn needs to see the excavator!" So I turned back and yelled at the dogs to, "git!" The fortunately listened to me and I began riding toward the excavator, Finn looked at it but didn't seem to mind it. We got all the way passed it and she was only concerned when it was behind her, and she wasn't very concerned at that.

More back story here, when we were at the stable in the valley there was a rock quarry nearby and they had huge earth movers and excavators running at all hours. Finn was so fearful of those machines that it was really challenging to take her out on the trail. In fact it was down right nerve wracking because she was SO spooky. I did a lot of ground work with her when her allergies got bad, and that really seems to have helped.

Finn was more concerned about the other neighbors sheds than she was about the excavator!

On the way home she did do her patented "jump stop" spook. It's weird it's like she jumps and puts her legs out wide, like a dog when they are wanting to play. At leas that is what it feels like she does. So I made her do circles to get her head back in the game.

After that she was fine and we finished out a nice ride, can't wait to do it again tomorrow.

The zombie horse... that broke my heart

As you may or may not know, I am having to give my horse antibiotics twice a day for an infection she got in her nose.

Now the stables I board at is gated and just like a gated apartment complex you must punch in a code and the gate opens. The gate at the stable isn’t very reliable.

I had been out with family all day so when I got the meds and was out to the horse for her evening dose, it was drizzling and dark. I pull up to the key pad a punch in the code and the final tone sounds I look at the gate expectantly… Nothing… “Maybe I punched it in wrong” I put the code in again the final tone sounds

Nothing…

Well maybe if I punch in the code and run over to the gate and try pushing on it…

Nothing.

Now probably 20 years ago I climbed the fence to get into the stable when the gate wasn’t working (or I forgot the code). Now at 42? Yeah I want no part of scaling the fence.

I know that I had seen vehicles out on the trail, if I can find where they get in I can drive the Jeep over to the area where my horse’s stall is. So I drive around and nothing… I do, however, find a gap in the fence where I can fit through.

I consider, should I just go home and forget her evening dose? Should I walk through the desert at night on a trail that I’ve personally never been on? Should I go around the fence and get on the drive way and walk that in, even though that is meandering and will be a much longer walk?

Of course, the most logical choice is to walk a trail that I’ve never been on before… at night… in the desert… while it’s drizzling….

On a good note I had a flash light with me, not just my phone.

So, I get out of the Jeep and curse my luck, I grab her medicine and the coffee can full of pellets and strike off into the desert.

Now, I’m not afraid of the animals, if there were any, I know coyotes can be a problem, but I am always more concerned about humans. I didn’t think any homeless people would be out this far and I could probably walk past them, I’m sure they don’t want to be bothered and neither do I. Generally, I think if I stumbled on humans in the desert at night, I don’t think they are going to be up to any good. That’s what scares me.

With these thoughts in mind I walk down the trail shining the flashlight on any bushes I thought looked suspicious and looking behind me every so often. The desert is quiet, and that is something I like about the desert.

Once I get closer to the horses I can hear the cribber cribbing, poor horse. I start thinking there is a gate in the fence and I begin looking for a trail off to the gate, but I didn’t see one, so I carefully picked my way around bushes and avoided cactus. I found the fence I needed and climbed through.

Now that I feel safe my mind wanders back to this whole bull shit operation that I had to climb through a fence and walk all the way back here. Granted it’s not a particularly long walk, thought it would have been twice as long if I walked the drive in.

I start thinking about the night that I had to have an emergency call to have vet come out and check my horse. What would I have done if the gate didn’t work? Would the vet have been willing to walk in and look at my horse? What medical supplies would have been needed, would the vet have been willing to carry that stuff in? Should I complain to the barn manager that the gate didn’t work. People had no problem complaining about my horse when she was sick.

All these thoughts running through my head when I become vaguely aware of a large white skeletal creature looking at me. I stop… I look to my left… and there stands a giant skeletal horse… I stare, I blink my eyes, because that really can’t be standing there!

As I return to my senses I realize this creature is in a stall, its ONE of the horses in the stable.

I walk over to this thing, still not really believing what I am seeing…

And then my heart breaks…

It was a skeletal horse because it was grey and looked as if it has been starved. I don’t usually come down this way and I hadn’t ever noticed this horse. I don’t know if it is a rescue or an old horse. It IS a giant, I think it’s withers are as tall as I am… It had to be 16+ hands tall. It wasn’t a draft horse, but I suspect maybe it was a thoroughbred or maybe some exotic (to me) horse like a holsteiner.

I went over to it and it seemed to be propped up by the fence. There was hay in it’s feeder, making me think maybe it was just and old horse that was losing weight. It didn’t seem to be eating the hay. I gently stroked it’s cheek, it looked at me. I wanted to look at it’s teeth to see how old it was, but I didn’t have the heart. The horse looked like it was going to fall over any minute and the fence was the only thing keeping it vertical.

I felt silly and sad. I wished I could help this horse, of course my first impulse is to feed it, but it had food. One also never knows with something like this, if I give it food maybe that will cause it to colic or founder… If it didn’t have any feed I think I would have probably would have fed it, but there was feed.

I stepped away and went to my horse who lightened my heart, I gave her, her medicine and her ration of pellets.

On the way back out I stopped by the horse again and stroked its cheek and neck. I wish I could have offered it some comfort. It’s at the stable I am, and I’m sure that it is being cared for. I assume it’s a rescue or an old horse in decline, but it was definitely sad to see.

EDIT: I discovered that this horse was owned by an older gentleman that didn't want to put it down as long as he lived. He spent thousands and thousands of dollars to keep this horse alive. It had some sort of wasting disease where it's body could no longer absorb nutrition from it's food. It passed away some time last week.