Rescuing Rusty

There was a time when I played around trying to teach things like a School Halt, collection, even Spanish walk. I tried to teach them by putting the moves together and asking the horse to perform them like a trick.

Then I learned how to show the horse how to move themselves properly. They taught themselves really, they including Rusty, now it’s only Sunshine. Sunshine taught himself. I clicked and rewarded every time I found him leaping into the air, doing pull ups on that magical sky hook. I encouraged that wither lift and flinging his legs around.

Now he offers school halts on his own. His Spanish walk is becoming more lovely and more willingly offered all the time. He works so hard to pull himself up on that sky hook that his front end nearly floats away regularly.

I remember years ago thinking about how collection was supposed to be back to front and trying desperately to figure out how that worked. Looking back I was on the right track, just hadn’t let go of headset yet. If only I’d had facebook back then. People complain about the content, but you see what you look for. It’s a great place to learn about horses.

I’m in no way saying we have anything figured out. I’m more confused trying to figure out what it is we’re doing now that ever. But wow he is gorgeous. He moves amazingly. He is happy and willing. He is doing things I never would have dreamed of a year ago. I only with Rusty was still here doing these things with him.

We’ll get things figured out, a little more at least. We sure are enjoying it as we go.

It was a hot, bright afternoon.

(This is my version of a dark and stormy night, only much scarier)

The flies were swarming.

I brought Sunshine in for a quick work. He was very willing all things considered. We danced together, or did our best as he stopped regularly to swat flies away with a swing of his nose.

As I asked him to step sideways I looked there in front of my nose, on the base of his neck. Right in front of my face sat not a normal fly but a big green eyed horse fly. Not the smaller deer fly, not one of the giant, evil black bull flies. I’ve sat a bucking horse before and glanced around to see that the whole fiasco was being caused by a giant bull fly biting my horse. I swatted it and the bucking stopped. That’s not usually what we think of when we say that pain is often the cause of bad behavior.

This middle of the road sized but still nasty horse fly was perched on my horses neck preparing to attack. Leaping into protective gear I swung and smashed the horrid creature before it could hurt my darling pony. It came away crushed between my fingers. I turned in triumph to show my pony what I had saved him from.

Sunshine in the mean time had been suddenly and unjustly attacked. His person for no apparent reason had gone from quietly asking hi to yield to beating him nearly to a pulp while he stood by innocently. Head thrown high he shied violently to the side.

“No Sunshine! No. I’m not beating you.” I tried to explain. I was saving you. Saving. Don’t you understand the difference?

Green bug eyes peered blindly up from my fingers as I showed him my war trophy. I saved you from this monster.

Eyeing me askance he was not convinced. First I beat him then I wave my arms about in his face. I had clearly lost my mind. Dropping the defeated insect I tried to make it up to my horse. I petted him and offered cookies. Then we got back to work. He shied every time I lifted an arm. That’s what I get for saving him from certain doom.

I got a wonderful update on Sunshine today. He is doing nicely at ranch camp. Or at least he didn’t dump the saddle because there was a hind cinch on it 🙄

This is why he is off at camp. He needs someone who is better at getting him out and moving. This is what I have not been accomplishing with him.

He looks great. I know the rider does a great job at this. Soft, quiet, and gentle with his horses. I can’t wait to see what all they get out and do together.

The wind was howling. The noise of it makes me a little crazy sitting in the house listening. The whistling through every crack and bushes scraping the side of the house make it hard to go outside. Dry storms blew through last night. Lightening sparking fires across the state.

But, there’s a chance Sunshine will be headed off on an adventure so I wanted to work with him. Bad weather is the perfect time for these things. As long as these things aren’t me trying to ride a young horse.

I brought him up into the ’round pen’. We have no facilities here. It’s a smallish pen without any roundness to it. Small enough I can almost work a horse in it. Not that I do much round penning, but I wanted Sunshine to be bale to move away from me. Just not too far away.

I got Rusty’s rope out. It’s small, light weight and easy to manage. Then let Sunshine in. I gave it a good swing and he was done. I always start with a bit too much. Maybe I should have done something less.

His mares left too. That was too much for him. He spent some time trotting the perimeter. I stood in the middle swinging the rope. If he looked at me, I stopped. He got to control the rope. It wasn’t long until he figured out the rules of this game.

Before my arm gave out, I’m not used to roping, he was coming over to investigate. Same rules still, he could stop me from moving the rope. He would approach. I would give him a cookie, pet him, hang out a bit. The I left. Swung the rope. Threw it in a direction away from him.

The sky was clear and blue over head. But I kept thinking I could feel drops of water hitting me. Just occasionally. Sunshine started flinching periodically too. He’d jerk then shake his head. There was a line of clouds up wind from us. It looked threatening, but there was zero chances of rain today. Not that we’d get it if there was a chance of rain. We have reached a point where we all are going to dry up and blow away. Checking the radar it showed a little rain in the line of clouds. The line way over there. The wind was blowing so hard it was blowing rain from the line of clouds way over there to us here under the blue sky. I suppose the people under the clouds weren’t getting anything.

We kept working through the water drops and head shaping. Soon he wanted to chew on the rope. To investigate it with his mouth. So I let him. It was Rusty’s rope after all. It was meant to be chewed on by a horse.

Soon Sunshine was grabbing it and handing it to me. I worked my way around his side until he was picking it up and handing it back to me. Almost as good as if I was on his back. Once it became a game the rope wasn’t scary any more. He was picking it up, shaking it, wiggling it around on the ground under his nose, and it was fun. When we can make the training we do a fun game that the horse is participating in and has control over then the training we do is no longer hard work or scary.

The clouds were getting closer. The drops coming more often. Sunshine was ding so good. It looked like a place to call it quits. He went from scared of the rope and running across the pen to avoid it, to playing with it and learning to pick it up off the ground without breaking a sweat and without me forcing him to stand and take it. He isn’t over his worry about ropes yet, but he made a huge step. By turning ‘serious’ training into trick training we made progress in leaps and bounds. He’ll be a great roping horse before you know it.

What type of roping is harder to say 😉