Like Yoga for Horses

*Note: I am leaning forward...ARGH! But at least the horse looks good. Working on a 10 meter circle.


It never fails to make me laugh. Inevitably when someone finds out that I ride and train both English and Western horses, they ask: "do you do dressage?"

The answer is: always.

Then another statement from this new person: "I have always wanted to do dressage, I wonder if my horse could do it."

This single statement is probably the dumbest thing I have ever heard (no offense to those of you who wonder...keep reading). It is like wondering if you can do yoga. Any person can do at least a little yoga, and will benefit from it. This is the same with horses. Can you drink water? should you breathe air? These are all similar questions.

Yes, your horse CAN do dressage. You can do it too, and the sooner that you start, the better your life and the life of your horse will be. Here are some reasons to do dressage:

*It will improve balance and posture in your horse

*It will improve your balance and Posture (you see, dressage is like yoga for people too)

*It will strengthen the effectiveness of horse/rider communication

*A responsive horse is more likely to find a good home if (God forbid) you should ever need to re-home it.

*Dressage increases muscle tone and overall fitness in both horse and rider.

*It will make your reining horse stronger and more efficient, and ultimately able to do a prettier pattern

*It will develop the back muscles needed in cutting and quick cow work

*It will develop all muscles needed for jumping

*It will create a pretty rounded and natural look for your western or english pleasure horse.

*or any show horse

*rhythmic exercises are soothing for high strung horses

*extension and flexion exercises are wonderful for lazy horses

*Dull horses learn to respond

*hyper-sensitive horses learn to wait for cues

*Riders learn to be patient, relax and rejoice in small victories (you would be surprised at how many small victories are in a day...it leads to a much more satisfied life)

*Dressage, unlike any other equine sport, focuses on the longevity of the horse. A lot of the Prix St Georges horses are in their late teens and early twenties and much more fit than a 10 year old show horse. Their usable life is extended and their quality of life is improved.

*Older horses tend to lose muscle tone first, creating that "ridge back" effect. Slow dressage workouts help build that muscle back and keep your horse looking well.

Here are some reasons not to do dressage:

*

*

OK, I can't think of one! There is no reason not to do it. If you have a stick horse or no horse at all, at the very least, learning dressage terminology and "riding" a pattern in your living room will improve memory and muscle memory. It feels silly, but my friends and I use to do tests on foot just to commit them to memory. Don't be ashamed!

Now, I know that not every horse is Prix St Georges material, some of them may never make it past training level, but that isn't what is important here. The "tricks" of high School dressage are amazing, but that shouldn't be your goal. When you start, your goal is to improve the life of you and your horse.

Honestly, this seems counter intuitive, but Training level and lower levels are the hardest. Do you remember how hard Kindergarten was? I do, coloring inside the lines seemed purposeless and why would I learn to read or add when mommy and daddy do it for me? But, when you get going and really start learning, school would get easier and easier. Sure, we hit roadblocks in each grade and it became hard, but kindergarten had taught us to learn, take instruction and the value and fun of knowledge.

Your horse will go through the same process. If you have never done any dressage he will question and maybe even get frustrated from time to time. you will feel like your kindergarten teacher did. It might frustrate you too, but just remember to have patience. He is upset because he doesn't know the answer. Try to find ways to make it easier for him to FIND the answer. Don't give it to him. And don't ever try to force him.

Here is a very basic dressage exercise that will help you both learn. Your horse will learn to seek the correct answer and you will learn patience. Some of you may already do this. Without knowing it, you are doing dressage!

First a few tips: I ride with my inside leg up by the girth, and my outside leg just slightly back. This helps cue my horse as to my intentions. It is a good thing to ALWAYS make your intentions clear. If I am out in a random field or on a trail and I ask for a canter or lope from the walk, they know which lead to take based on my leg position. It is OK to do this without head and neck flexion. That will come with time. Don't expect this to be perfect! Have patience and your horse will learn more quickly than you think. Also, I always start these exercises with loose-ish reins. don't try to fight for control, but don't throw the horse away either. A plain snaffle bit, or rubber mouth snaffle is perfect. But you can do this in a halter, bitless, whatever. The instructions are for riding with two hands though so I recommend a mild snaffle or bitless affair.

OK, here it goes:

You will start this exercise at the walk. A field, hill, center of the arena, any where you can do a circle. Start out on a 5 meter circle. Now don't go panicking already 5 meters is about 15 feet across. Just a moderate circle in the center of your workspace is fine. Get a good consistent walk. If all you do during the first lesson is learn how to walk on a 5 meter circle then no big deal. Small victories are big victories in the long run. If your horse is really having a hard time walking on a small circle, then spiral out until he is comfortable. We can reverse this exercise to build enough muscle to handle a 5 meter circle.

Once the horse has a very consistent cadence, not quite plodding, but not rushing either, increase the pressure from the inside leg at the girth. HEELS DOWN!!!! Just use the side of your calf to press against the area just behind the girth. At the same time release pressure from your outside leg. If your horse is confused, take your outside leg completely off of him...point it out, whatever. What you are doing is asking him to move sideways and forward at the same time. Your hands/reins do not change and your seat does not change. If he is still having trouble, increase the weight on your inside seat bone, but don't lean. Think of it as closing the door for any inside movement and opening the outside door. When the horse takes ONE STEP in the direction (sideways and still forward) RELEASE!

The release is the most important part. This is the reward for the horse. If he does it and you keep asking, he thinks he has given the wrong answer. So, when he even makes the slightest try at first release to let him know he is doing well. You will be surprised at how quickly he learns. Pet him, tell him how good he is and try again. The next time, if your release was correct, he will respond much more quickly. Once he responds well, add steps. Keep increasing the size of your circle until you can't anymore or until you feel that he is doing well on that side.

DO NOT QUIT HERE. It is vitally important that you train both the left and right sides of your horse. Do this exercise in both directions. If you are only working on a good circle, do it in both directions. Always, always, always work both directions!

Another very important thing to keep in mind is not to overdo it. This can be as bad as expecting too much, and is very closely related to that. This may seem so simple and easy, but it is building muscle, and thought in you and your horse. When you first start only work a maximum of 15 minutes in each direction. Work your way up to longer sessions, then add trot and canter (or jog and lope for you western gurus) when you are ready. More importantly don't add these before the horse is ready. He will get sore, and become less and less compliant and maybe even bored. I am not saying to limit your entire ride to 30 minutes total, but the gymnastic dressage sessions should start out with that. Remember, dedicate equal time to both sides. One side may need more work than the other but you will find that out when you start. that's OK. As long as the horse learns the same exercise on both sides you are golden.

Don't forget to warm up and cool down. a nice walk and trot on loose reins to start, and a good walk after you are done. This should be one where you aren't trying to teach him something. Let him walk and think. Prepare and cool down from each lesson. It is good for you too; I promise!

I know that this may sound so hard for those of you just starting out. The key is to have patience. With yourself as well as your horse. It is hard for a lot of people to learn to separate their leg movements, but you can learn how. After all, you learned how to walk, and it was hard, but you did it. You can do this too. Sometimes it helps to explain the goals and process to someone who does not ride and ask them to critique you. I get so frustrated sometimes when my non-horsey boyfriend tells me to sit up straight, but then I have to remember, he is looking at me with only the knowledge that I have given him. The correct way to do it, and he can process that and recognize that I am not being correct. It helps that he doesn't know what I am doing. Even when I am bunched up trying to get a colt to understand my legs and an experienced horse person might overlook that and not mention it, DB just sees me not sitting up straight and calls me on it.

Presents for co-workers (another tutorial...Woot!)

I am so excited about this method! I found the original idea here. I have to say on a side note that I am totally addicted to Tip Junkie. There are lots of great ideas over there!

Anyhow, I work with horsey people (lucky me) so I found some horse head cookie cutters in which to make the fudge. Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 Cups Semisweet chocolate chips
1 Cup Peanut Butter Chips
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 tbs butter or margarine
1 tsp Vanilla extract

The original recipe says to mix the chips and milk and butter and microwave for 2 minutes stirring every 30 seconds.

YOu can do that if you want, but I think that the microwave was meant to be a time saver...so if I have to babysit it I don't want to play; I may as well cook over the stove. Which is what I did.

I set up my pyrex bowl on a shallow pot with water in it. Insta-double boiler.



I mixed the chips, milk and softened butter together and turned it on. You do have to stir it to make sure it heats evenly, but it smells so yummy, and the results are worth the time spent in front of the stove.



While the chips were melting I prepared the cookie cutters. I placed each one on a square of foil and wrapped. I had to get creative in the tight corners, but I figured out a system. Then I sprayed each one with cooking spray. I would take regular breaks throughout this process to stir my chips.




With all six cookie cutters prepared and my chips really starting to melt, I concentrated on stirring at this point. When the mixture was almost all the way melted and combined I mixed in the vanilla. Then let it get pretty melty. Once it was at a loose fudge consistency, I scooped it into each cookie cutter. I used a big table spoon (like really, a table spoon used at the table...)and I got about 3 scoops into each cookie cutter. I smoothed the mixture out as much as possible, then I covered the whole cookie sheet and put it out to chill. I have a handy dandy front room/porch thing that works as a cold room during the winter. Great for when I am doing Holiday baking.

While the cutters were cooling, I put a tub of leftover royal icing that I had from assembling my gingerbread house into the still hot but not boiling water in the pan. Then I cleaned up a little. Made some dip for the office party. Played with the dogs. Washed my hands.

After about a half hour, the royal icing was soft enough to use so I packed it into an icing bag with a medium small tip. I am sorry that I can't be more specific but I got a set of decorating tips and there is a tiny one, a medium small one and a bigger one...I used the one that was most medium. I put manes anf forelocks on all of the horses. Peter thought that they should have smiles but I didn't want to get too cheesey so I just added mouths. I think they turned out really cute!



And a close up. What a pretty chocolate palomino...har har.



I covered them and put them back out into the cold room to chill overnight. Then I headed upstairs and set up Crikey (that is the name of my Cricut machine for those of you just tuning in). I loaded my Winter Woodland Cartridge and selected the card feature, then the horse. I set it at 1 1/2 inches and cut. I used contrasting paper and shift+card+horse to get the background.



This morning I peeled the tinfoil off of each cutter, and wiped away the excess cooking spray. Then I put them into individual baggies and tied the gift tags to them.



So cute! I love the way they turned out, and I think that this would work with any cookie cutter. I tested one of them and the fudge would slide out easily, even though the cookie cutters I used were somewhat complicated. I think I am going to do a lot more of these. I got the cutters off of ebay in a big lot (9 total)so I might get more of different varieties to send friends and family. These are small so they would be cheap to ship and still let everyone know that you are thinking of them.

A word of warning, each fudge piece is about 700 calories. Not to put a damper on your excitement, but I thought that I should be up front about the drawbacks. I don't think that I could even eat a whole one though...the fudge is very rich as I found out from licking the spoon after I had finished filling the cutters.

Well, I get a big fat "F" in Blogging. I haven't updated for quite a while. Since I wrote last, Pippy got severely hurt, then got better, has been weaned, I enrolled in an MBA program and we have gotten into Dairy goats. Yes, I have just crossed the line.

I am officially: "Just Plain Crazy."

But, don't you want to hear about the goats? I am overly obsessed with self sufficiency, and the more research I did, the more I liked the idea of having dairy goats. They could cut milk and cheese (and possibly even butter if I can muster the patience of Job) right out of our grocery bill. Of course, they add some back on top of the grain and feed bill, but I will analyze that later, and then continue to not care.

After finally deciding to go ahead with the goats, I put out feelers and an ad on craigslist stating my purpose. Almost immediately I was contacted by sherry. She had 2 Saanen/Oberhasli doelings and offered them to me cheap. Perfect. Babies we could raise the way we like. So, about a week later, Trixie and Honey joined our Family.

About 2 weeks later, Sherry contacted me again to say that she has one more doeling that she would part with. A little Saanen/Lamancha. I have a huge soft spot for Lamancha goats, so Amy Farah Fowler (or just Amy in most cases) came to live with us also.

Along with Amy, we decided to take one of Sherry's bucklings. A small mini alpine/cashmere ball of adorable. We are going to use him to breed the does this winter and then castrate him. I think he will make a much better pet than a herd sire, and I can't wait to learn to spin his glorious fiber.

As if I didn't have enough on my plate.

I do have to say that these goats have added just the right amount of joy to my life. Amy is a little trickster, and we call her the "Parcor" goat. She will do a wheelie off of a bale, hit the wall and spin around before landing. Honey is a quiet little thing that follows me around and doesn't ask for much. Trixie likes attention. She wants to be loved and pet and scratched all the time.

We named the buck Willie, and he is so cute I can hardly stand it. He follows me around like a dog and seems to take part in every conversation. Cute. Cute. Cute. I got supplies to make drop spindles (I will post a tutorial when I actually get around to doing it) and I bought a few different kinds of fiber to learn to spin. Having one small cashmere goat won't give me enough for a sweater, but it will probably contribute to some pretty sweet mittens! Maybe a hat...I don't really know what to expect.

Which brings me to a bit of a gripe: Even on this marvelous World Wide Web, it is nearly impossible to find information on managing a small number of Cashmere goats. I plan to document what I learn by trial and error here so that maybe someday, someone can learn from me. Cashmere type goats are said to be hardier than Angora goats, they have finer fiber and I hear they give a decent amount of milk. Why don't more people have one or two? Maybe I can help to change all that.

As far as the rest of my life goes, I am behind in school, I haven't spent much time with my lovely Cricut, and my horses get ridden on the weekends (sometimes) because at 4:00 pm, when I get off work, it is pitch dark outside. Lovely.

Anyway, I promise (as an advance resolution for 2012) to update more often, provide pictures and maybe even some tutorials. Finally, a resolution that does not require me to give up chocolate; I am liking this more and more as I think about it.

Crazy (as in "I've gone")

So....Lets start with last week when my Wallet got stolen. Don't know how or where, but it did. I cancelled my debit card and hoped to heaven it would show up somewhere stupid...like the refrigerator...no such luck. Some guy saw it fly out of a car window on the highway and I had a professors card in it so he called her...she called me and I recovered the wallet on Thursday. It was stripped of the cash I was going to take to the school to pay off my account, and my card but my ID was still in there...lucky me.

Then, Saturday I had a horse show. A stupid local county show that I was taking Sissy to for Halter, and Dreamer for one english pleasure class. I started practicing halter stuff with Sissy on Monday, so my expectations were dirt low, but she is so smart and ready to please that she took right to it...even squaring fairly well! So My mom and I loaded the horses and set out. And the fun began. Dreamer in his telltale way immediately started misbehaving in the trailer. Only this time, instead of pounding and kicking, he was trying to fall down and scramble around. We got to Orofino and Dreamer had scraped the skin off of his knee, was dripping wet, the floor under him was pooled with sweat (not even exaggerating a little) and was lame. Awesome. Sissy was dry and calm, bless her heart! So I had to scratch dreamer and add sis to his class and I proceded to walk him out. The announcer kept saying "okay, now we are going to take a ten minute break..." and it would never happen. Then she said "okay now we are really taking a ten minute break...wait never mind calling halter mares." SHIT. So I had to run with my sweet girl in tow to the arena, go in, she was a saint and performed perfectly...really, I couldn't believe how good she was! Then she got second...okay out of two but she placed. The Mare that placed first was black and white and a little on the thin side...like right between needs groceries and perfect weight. Well the judge walked up to the girl who handled her and said that the mare was too fat....EXCUSE ME?????????? I was so pissed! MY mare is fat, yes, but that mare could use some grain!!!! What kind of horrible person says that???????? Like if that mare were any thinner I would say she was absolutely skinny! When a horse is "too fat" you cannot see ribs of any sort and this mare was a BCS 3!!!!! Grrrrr. I put my horses in the trailer and we bounced back up the hill. But I decided then and there that I am not taking Dreamer to any more of those shows. It isn't worth it! There is nothing more he can learn from that sort of thing, whereas I have Rocky and Sissy who would both benefit from the experience. Nope, never again. Unless we are going to an event or something that will mean anything in the end, Dreamer stays home. I hate to put him through that when I know, at the end of the day, he hates walk, trot, canter around the ring five minutes each way, halt, back up, repeat.

Now for Sunday: I started the day by sleeping in until 8:30 (yes, I AM a rebel) and then reading until 9:30. Then I went to my mom's house and we spent 3 hours picking blueberries and I made blueberry muffins...let me tell you how much I kick ass at making fresh blueberry muffins!!!!! Then I went home to take a nap, but I got a little OCD on my house. I vacuumed, dusted, cleaned and put away! It sparkles! Then I made dinner and read for a few more hours and tried to go to bed. I had to read here too because I couldn't sleep. Then the kitten curled up on my stomach and started purring and I zonked out...only to wake fifteen minutes later when said kitten got bored of being sweet and dumped my water all over me! Cold calculating brat!!!

SO, I got cleaned up, went to bed and zonked out again. Then 30 minutes later, Peter show up finally and said "you have to drive your truck tomorrow I hit a deer with the car." Whatever I thought....wait....WHAT?????????????? I went out to the shop and thankfully he hit the deer with the left front marker and it flipped up and destroyed the drivers side of the windshield...therefore the windshield in it's entirety as it is difficult and, consequently, illegal to drive with a shattered windshield. But Peter was not hurt, the car still runs well, and we had not put the new radiator in yet....phew. But, I was so keyed up that it took me another two hours to get to sleep, and then, the next thing I knew it was 5:00 and I had to get up so I could drive two hours to work...blech.

This coming weekend and the following week I am staying in Moscow to Babysit for Megan and Scott, and the weekend after that I have company. But I solemnly swear right now that I am going to do NOTHING the weekend after that! SO far being a grownup has been a real bitch! Peter and I can't seem to catch a break! And now, I am earning 26 a year with a BS in Ag management...BS is right!!!!!!!!!! I'm already considering going back to school...which will have to wait until I can earn the money that was stolen back so that I can get my transcripts... woe is me!