It may surprise a few horse lovers to know that I have only visited Stu one time since he went to training - about two weeks after I sent him there. Life gets pretty busy, that's all I can say. Luckily he has been in good hands, and I haven't worried about him at all. I have been wanting to s[...]
Back in November, Stu was living at my farm, enjoying the good life. He got fed, he got water, he slept and ate as much as he wanted. But Stu wanted more. He knew there was something out there he was missing. So Stu started jumping the fence. Again. The first time, well, I guess things happen[...]
I started out with trying to work with Stu on the lunge, but I realized that he just really needs the ground work element to build upon. I'm moving forward on heavy ground workout for Stu, so I went to YouTube for some ideas. I've done groundwork before, but it was so long ago, back when I was a te[...]
Stu is a dominant horse. It took me a surprisingly long time to realize this. There were many times I made excuses for his behavior. He's a little bit slow, he doesn't understand what I want, etc. etc. But what actually is taking place is he just doesn't want to do it. He's incredibly l[...]
My deck overlooks my pasture, and I've been wanting to experiment with getting overhead photos of the horses. One day the horses were hanging out by the deck so I seized my chance. While I didn't get exactly what I was looking for, I love their reactions. Pony is trying to figure out[...]
Several days after Stu's last breakout, I was again mucking stalls. The stalls happen everyday, but this time was going to be different. (This blog is well on its way to just being a chronicle of Stu breaking my fences.) You know the movie, "The Butterfly Effect," where the tiniest thing can cha[...]
It was late afternoon, and I was walking into my kitchen after hanging out with baby. My tiny yorkie wanted to go outside, so I let her out, and turned to grab some food before I went back to baby. My eye caught something out of place, and I paused, looking out the window. Stu was grazing in[...]
Stu annoying another horse. Stu is no longer mostly idle. Instead he gets worked every night, or every other night. (Basically, like 40% idle now, which is why it can be mostly not idle.) We've been working on the lunge line at a walk still, which is a bit disappointing to me. I'd like t[...]
After a week of Stu's antics, I was ready to sell him. I was almost ready to give him away to the first person who said they wanted him. Not only did he knock down a fence to get to the mares, he learned from that experience how to knock down fences. In total, he took out three fences in less than[...]
I find TTouch fascinating. I don't know if how accurate it is, but it does seem to have some truth behind it. It's more accurate than palm reading, but it seems to fall into that realm. TTouch was created by Linda Tellington-Jones. It's both an encyclopdia of horse characteristics and how the[...]