Game of Contact: Day 1

After watching the Game of Contact all weekend, I was eager to get started.

Yay!

I didn't have a whole lot of time today so I planned to spend it just hanging out with Sonny. That made it a perfect time to just put the bridle on and relax.

I have played with the bridle before, but haven't even touched it in over a month. Just to catch up the new readers, Sonny has a lot of emotional baggage attached to bits. So a few months ago I started out very, very, slowly with things like 'Touch-it' with the bridle. Eventually we built up enough confidence over the weeks to put it on. But, I still felt like we were missing something so I decided to hold off until I had enough funds to buy the Game of Contact.

After watching the DVDs, it finally clicked that Sonny needs to be the one to seek the bit. I understood that I shouldn't have to pry his open his mouth, but I always held the bit right in front of his muzzle. Linda clearly shows that the horse needs to seek the bit.

So today I dusted the bridle off and just held it up. Sonny immediately went after it. Huh, how interesting! Although he kept grabbing the side of the bridle, I was so happy that he was still putting effort into figuring out the answer. It didn't take him long to grab the bit and I rewarded with one of his favorite apple treats. After that, he kept searching for the bit. How cool!

After a few times I put the bridle on and continued to groom and hang out with him. He was chewing more than I would have liked; I want to have a PP double check that it is fitting correctly, but I think he is still just unconfident. I played with some bit isolations and was so surprised by how well he did. With the lightest pressure he would stretch. What a good sign! Even after a month he still retained that concept, which thrills me!

I plan on just bridling for 4 to 7 days. I hope by the end he is more quiet with the bit. Then I plan on starting to play with him online (with his halter on under the bridle), then slowing working to playing freestyle (without reins). Finally, I hope to start at least stage 1 or 2 before the end of June. With all the of the farm stuff going on, I don't have a whole lot of time so I am not sure how well my plan is going to work but we'll see!

So cute :)

When the Walls, Come Tumblin' Down

As John Mellencamp would have put it, the walls came crumblin', crumblin' today.

Stephen and I went over this afternoon and started tearing [almost] everything out. To give you a general idea of what's going on, Sonny's "stall" is 15x16 in a corner of the barn. One of the interior walls of his stall adjoins another, smaller, stall. We are going to completely inclose the smaller one and make it a tack room so that I have a room right next to his stall. Perfect, eh? Well, the barn is ancient, so most of the wood on the stall was nasty and rotted. We could have dealt with that, but the issue was how they had put it up. Pardon my language, but most of the barn was just half-assed.  Therefore, in order to build a tack room where the walls weren't completely slanted and hanging by the hair on their chiny, chin, chin, most of it had to be taken down.

The first project was getting the wall that separates the stall and the tack room out. This wall was by far the worst; it was incredibly slanted and rigged up there.

If you look at the right side, you can see how slanted it is.

The first step was to take the plywood off so we wouldn't have to worry about that once it was on the ground. 

Once the plywood was off, the wood came off [fairly] easily. After that we took the wood off the outer wall in the tack room. 

Bye, bye wall!

You can see the that the whole wall needs pushed
back onto the cement blocks. 

We then moved on to the inner-most wall of the tack room. The wall itself wasn't awful, but we needed to take most of the wood off in order to slide it down so there wouldn't be huge gaps. 

Gaps at the top, solid at the bottom.

Almost there!

You can see we also took the half-door off the tack room. We will be replacing it with a sliding door. 

Three walls done, one to go! 

Our final project of the day was to take the wood off one last wall. Just like the inner-most wall, it was gapped at the top and solid at the bottom. Again, we took all the wood off that had gaps between boards.

Along with taking down all the wood, we went around and took nails out so we have a "clean surface". Now when we have time, we will be ready to start building the walls back up. Stay tuned!

To see more on Sonny's Sanctuary and the construction process, click here. 

Thanks so much to my boyfriend Stephen, for doing most of the work. Maybe in return, I can buy him a belt. 

Super Savvy Buys

I never mentioned what all I bought at the tour! I managed to get a lot without spending a lot, which is a win, win situation :).  Since I haven't been making much money lately, I knew I had to be cautious with what I bought.

First on the list was a big green ball. But, I don't have a picture since they all look the same ;).

I don't need any equipment, so it was too difficult to talk myself out of that. Although, I did buy some snaps. I got two snaps for my featherlines, which are going to make my life SO much better!! I also got a repair snap for my old school 45' foot. I was able to sneak in a black popper, too. I figured while I am there, I might as well buy one because you never know when yours is going to break.

I wanted to get a few clothing items, since all I have is a jacket that isn't very suitable for summer. My first choice was the 'Good, Better, Best' shirt. I have had my eye on it since it came out and is by far my favorite of their new shirts. I also picked up the last small purple polo. It fits a lot better than what I would have imagined, so I can't wait to wear it! I have always wanted to get a visor and figured what the heck. I got black and I have been wearing it constantly since the tour! As you can see, I did snag a binder for my Savvy Club DVDs.

My big purchase of the weekend (drumroll).... the Game of Contact!!

With my past in dressage, I have been dying to get my hands on these DVDs. With my voucher from volunteering, I figured this was the perfect opportunity. Not only did I get to purchase it, I also was lucky enough to have Linda sign it for me. Yay!

And I am not even done yet! I worked behind the cash registers behind the weekend. While I was working, my boyfriend came up. He didn't come empty handed either! He bought a purple hackamore and bareback pad for me! I have been wishing and hoping for these for the longest time, but never willing to spend that kind of money. But, now I have both and am so excited to use them!

Now, off to watch the GoC!

In With the New

I haven't updated about Sonny's Sanctuary for a long time, so this post is going to cover a week or two worths of work. (If you need a refresher of what his place looked like in the beginning, you can go here.)

So after chopping up all the concrete, we had to remove it from his stall. We piled most of it out front, but had to have a Bobcat come get it to put it in a dump truck. There was also a HUGE solid piece that we just had the Bobcat take out instead of trying to break it up.

Outside wall. 

Standing in the door to the outside, you can see the
door from his tall to the inside (it's on an angle).

The next piece of the puzzle was to start filling it (hence in with the new). From where we took that big chunk out, there was a giant hole, almost 2 feet deep. We filled it with a sand/gravel mix. We actually over filled it and had to take some out.

Next in line was to start putting sandings where his stall mats are going to go. The sandings will help keep the ground under the mats solid, but still allow draining of urine. We decided to keep the first  8' of the stall for mats, then the back 5' for pea gravel. Therefore we just filled basically the front half.

That area will be filled with pea gravel. 

Just for reference, here is an rough view of his new home.

The black outline with Sonny's head in it will be his 15x16 stall. The white lines whee his door will open. The purple lines will be the fence. For a size reference, you can see the driveway at the bottome and the road off to the right.

In between filling and leveling, we started killing weeds around the edges of the barn. Surprisingly, that has made it look better already (not so trashy!).

Dead weeds. (and future pedestals!) 

Here are some 'before' photos of the area around his barn.

The largest part of the fenced in area. 

Now standing in the area, looking towards the road. 

His door :)

Stay turned, there should be more updates after Saturday!

Saddle Fit with Jesse Peters

Tuesday I went to a Parelli Saddle Fit and Test Ride at Jesse Peter's place. He lives about 2 hours away, so for a while I was on the fence about going. I have a fluidity saddle, a theraflex, shims, and what I think is a good shim pattern. But, my saddle always splits to the right. If you look at the big shim pattern diagram Parelli gives you, it lists multiple reasons your saddle could slide. I figured it was either me or the fact that Sonny's hips are often uneven. I had the vet (who is also the chiropractor) out for spring vaccines and said Sonny looked fine. Which lead me to believe the saddle sliding problem was me.

I talked to Molly about it over the weekend. She kindly pointed out that if you look down his spine, his right "loin" arena is not level with his left. Go figure, my saddle slips to the right. She mentioned that Saturday night, which gave me the motivation to go to Jesse's on Tuesday. I figured we would use a back shim to get it level and wanted help with that.

When I got to Jesse's, he had my stand Sonny on the concrete and we looked down his spine (well I had to stand on a bucket, of course Jesse was tall enough!). It looked like his entire back was concave to the right. His right hip was lower than his left, his right shoulder was way lower than his left, and his entire back was more hollowed out on his right than his left. Bingo! So to help correct it, he trimmed his left feet up a bit. Looked again and MUCH better!

After that we went to go put the saddle on, but he had me take it back off. He pointed to the spot in Sonny's spine that sticks up. He has had that for two years now, and I have had multiple people tell me that there isn't anything to do about it. Jesse, who happens to be a 'Jesse of all trades', mentioned that it would be good to not take no for an answer and figure out if we can do something about it. Duh! I guess I get sucked into believing everything that other people tell me. Within a few short hours Jesse had taught me differently. Well, except maybe what he says ;).

He brought out his red light and got to work. He ran his fingers down Sonny's spine and red-lighted every place that he was ouchy. It happened to be that he was only ouchy around those 3 vertebrea that were out of place. Hmmm, lick and chew. Once he was done there was a huge difference! Then Jesse put his hand on Sonny's neck behind his ears. Sonny hates that; I have always thought that my friendly game in that area isn't any good and do what I can to make it better but it never gets better. It turns out: the horse's spine is a mirror. If he is sore somewhere behind his withers, he is going to be sore in the opposite location along his neck. WOW! I never knew that! So Jesse pulled out his savvy string and measured the distance from his withers to those 3 sore vertebra. He then used his savvy string from his withers up to his neck, and guess what? Where his savvy string went was the same place that he hates to be touched. Lots of licking and chewing!

So Jesse red-lighted that area and Sonny through a fit. But, in a moment or two he stood completely still and let Jesse put the red light all over. Once he was done, you could see Sonny's brain going 100 miles an hour, ending in a big blow and lick and chew. WOW! I was so impressed!

After that we finally got to the saddle. He told me my shims looked good, but I put my saddle too far back. When I finally got on, it felt better than ever. I felt so secure and exactly where I needed to be. I rode around for a while then took the saddle off. My sweat patterns were too bad, but there was an area that was dry behind his scapula. Jesse wanted me to try the smart pad so I did. I rode around his playground and had a great time working up a sweat. I got to play with the honeycomb, which was great for testing my follow the rail. We walked across the bridge and jumped a bunch of logs. Then when I was done I took the saddle off and his sweat marks were basically perfect. Interesting!

I learned so much in those few hours at Jesses; its much more than just geting the saddle to fit. It's about the whole horse. I now know that I definitely need to invest in a red light. As expensive as it may be, it is going to make a world of difference for my horse and hopefully me, too! I am so thrilled to start riding again now that things are starting to come together!

Jesse, me, and Sonny on the pedestal :)

Super Savvy Weekend

The Horse & Soul tour was a total success (as if it would be anything else!). As I mentioned before, I had to opportunity to not only be an ambassador, but volunteer as well! It ended up being one of the best weekends of my life!

It was absolutely incredible to be a part of the Parelli staff. To be surround by so many people that have such a positive energy and understand of horses...well, it isn't just something you come across very often. It's the kind of thing that makes you warm and fuzzy inside.

My favorite ladies: Tammy and Liz

Although I didn't get to watch much of the show (you can check out some great photos here), it was more than worth it. I got to meet so many magnificent people. Actually, I would say that every single person on the Parelli Staff is just amazing. They were all beyond friendly; they went out of their way to make us volunteers feel like we are just another part of the team. I never once felt like an outsider; in fact, I felt like we were all family.

Me, Leslie, Pat, Melissa and Ginger!

A fellow Fast Tracker, Molly, came all the want from PA to volunteer. Just like any family would, I offered her to stay with me for the weekend. We totally hit it off! She also came to see Sonny and gave me some really good advice for his back. Even though we were only together two short days, it's those kind of relationships that will last a lifetime.


Molly and I with Mr. Parelli, himself!


It was so inspiring to be a part of something so wonderful.  I hope to be a forever part of not only the Parelli Program, but of the Parelli Team.

The Moment We Have All Been Waiting For

PARELLI IS IN TOWN!

Today was my first day volunteering. WOW! What an experience it was so be a part of the Parelli Team.

Leslie and I! Representing Parelli - Ohio!

We spent the day setting up the shopping area. It was a lot of work, but absolutely (times a million) worth it. Just being surround by parelli people, including the Parellis, was so wonderful.

Pat, Carol, and Jake :)

 We also got to hang out with Vinny and Moxie

Isn't Moxie just the cutest? Such
a sweetheart! 

and watch everyone reherse.

Jesse and Bo-Jangles :)

What a fabulous day it was. I am so excited for the next two days. If you will be coming to the event, I will be behind the cash register so be sure to say Hi!

(Sorry the pictures are so blurry! I recently dropped my phone resulting in a scratched up camera!)