Friday Favorite #7

This week's Friday Favorite is:

No Thrush!
http://www.nothrushshop.com/index.html

With fall upon us, muddy weather is just around the corner. You know what that means: thrush!

Last summer I switched to a natural trimmer, who informed me that Sonny had really bad thrush. I felt so embarrassed that I didn't realize it before! I also felt angry that I have gone through more than 5 farriers with Sonny and only one of them had casually brought it up to me. Rodger, the barefoot trimmer who I still use, made me away that it was a huge problem and I probably shouldn't have even been riding. I felt so bad!

He had me soak Sonny's feet in the beginning, then had me use two different treatments. When the weather was dry out, he had me mix 50/50 athlete's foot and triple-antibiotic cream together in a syringe and squirt it in the thrush cracks of Sonny's frogs. When it was wet out, which is was a LOT last year with the mild winter, he had me use No Thrush.

No Thrush is "the first ever dry treatment" for thrush that happens to be natural and safe. The stuff is awesome. To treat thrush, everyone I know uses bleach or a liquid. Bleach may kill the thrush, but it will also kill the healthy tissue. So even if you are killing the thrush you aren't setting youself up for success. The problem with a liquid is that it adds to the issue: thrush thrives in wet areas so why would you continue to make the feet wet? That's why No Thrush is so amazing!

This summer  Sonny was completely thrush free! It felt so good! His heels were so contracted and he had huge cracks, but now (as of the last month or so), he feet look awesome! Better than ever. He is getting rid of the false sole that protected his sore feet and his hooves look great. I am absolutely thrilled!

If your horse gets thrushy or stands in a wet/stall paddock in the winter, this is a must have. Address the problem before it gets as bad as Sonny's! It's so easy to use, it isn't messy, and it works great. The website has some great photos and information on how to use it, but feel free to ask if you have any questions!

You can buy it here for as cheap as I can find it: Jeffer's Equine

Let It Be

Sonny and I had a fabulous liberty session today! I didn't have a whole lot of time (what's new?) so I just wanted it to be short, sweet, and successful. I haven't played at liberty very much this summer, if even at all. Well, besides walking him to his paddock and back, but that's about the extent of it!

We went in the big outdoor, which probably wasn't the best place to go, but it was so nice out today I definitely didn't want to be inside. For once I didn't have any plans in my head about what I wanted to do, I just kind of flew by the seat of my pants. I practiced some sideways over me, realizing that the one way is broken. Did some driving game to fix it and it turned out great! Then I played with the difference in going sideways towards me and backwards towards me at a distance. He caught on really quickly!

Everything was going great so I tried circling game. This game has always been hard for us at liberty so I usually avoid it. I get frustrated and he knows it and ends up trotting around the arena and pretending I don't exist. That frustrates me even more and I end up giving up. So today I set myself up for success by standing about 10 feet away from the long side of the fence, so a portion of my circle would be along the rail. I sent him off at the walk and it was perfect! He was doing these perfect circles, maintaing gait, direction, and flexing towards me! Then, when I took a single step back, he came in to me! I was blown away! I played with some changes of direction, a bit of trot, and he was awesome! I was so impressed!

Walking a small circle :). 

So my lesson of the day: Let it be! Of course I should always aim to get my good better and my better, best, but there is no rush. You have to have all of the pieces of the puzzle to see the big picture. There is no point in trying to force things, but rather to figure out what is broken and go from there. It reminds me of back when I started Parelli and was flying through things because Sonny was so smart. Before I knew it we could do level 3 tasks, but did we have a level 3 relationship? Of course not! I was forcing him to do things, there wasn't any communication, I was just demanding things of him like the rest of the un-natural horse world does. I didn't find a level 3 relationship wasn't until I slowed down focused on what was important: the relationship not the tasks. So today was a friendly reminder to just take it slow, go with the flow, and focus on what really matters! :)

Trotting on a circle with a great expression! 

Wordless Wednesday

Here comes Sonny Boo Boo! 

What the Cat Dragged In...

So the cat would be my boyfriend, and maybe he didn't drag it, but as I studied at home this is what he brought back to me:

Now I have an excuse to buy 2 more horses!!

YAY!!!!!!!! No longer does Sonny have to be a sardine in my old trailer. Hello beautiful, big, slant load trailer. Life is good!!!

Level 1 With Excellence

I have often heard people say level 4 is just level 1 with excellence. So every time I play with Sonny I try to run a checklist through my head of the seven games and what type of quality they are. Less is more with Sonny, so I have been trying to focus on one idea per play session to really improve our overall horsemanship. Rather than focusing on everything at once, picking a piece to focus on makes a really great picture when you put it all back together. Isolate, separate, and recombine!

I could tell he was very, very sleepy so I wanted to make it short, sweet, and successful. I took his halter off and used my bareback pad for the first time in a while (I forgot how much I adore it!). I had two poles on the ground laying in a straight line with a gap between them. I made the gap my 'question box' and we did figure 8's around them. Here is how it went:

Emily Rodgers with Sonny, (Freestyle, 45 mins) Rode Sonny bridlelessand bareback today for the first time in a long while. He was so sleepy, but absolutely wonderful! I focused on "phases within phases", influencing him to respond to the "heat" of my leg, rather than actual pressure from my leg. My aim was to get him to focus on my focus, so to have him respond to phase one for direction. He did awesome! Before I knew it we were trotting figure 8s without having to use almost any leg at all. Definitely made me happy. The best part: he was flexed perfectly! For some reason flexion has been a difficult thing for us, but today he was flexed perfectly on the figure 8! Best he has ever done. He is such a superstar!

Fri 12 Oct 2012 at 08:52PM

I was absolutely thrilled with our ride last night. Just last month I posted about our freestyle figure 8s needing work because he just waits for me to use my leg. It blew my mind that last night he was so great about it! But more than anything, I definitely couldn't have been happier with his flexing. Bending around my leg is something he has never offered to do. I am not sure what clicked last night, but it was definitely something because he was flexed perfectly! I would have died to have that with my dressage horses with a bridle, let alone without. How interested! I can't wait to try it again!

Lick & Chew

Yesterday a friend from the barn rode Sonny. It was a really neat to see someone else ride him and I think it was a great experience for us all!

I explained phases to her and how to not 'kick 'em to go and pull 'em to stop'. It was definitely a new concept to her, but from her dressage background she understood how it worked. She played with walk transitions and follow the rail while I explained some theory to her. She mentioned that Sonny didn't want to walk in a straight line so I talked about reverse psychology and "here let me help you!" So she turned and twisted and turned and twisted him and didn't let him walk in a straight line. After doing that for a little while he walked perfectly straight so I told her to stop him as a reward. I started to explain how pressure motivates, but the release teaches and I think that gave her something to lick and chew on! Both of us came from dressage backgrounds and are both LBE around horses, so I completely understood when she said if you get a few good steps of half pass, you ask for a few more and a few more and without realizing it you never reward the horse. I went on to explain the important of giving them time to think, which comes as a lick and chew. As I kept talking, Sonny was, in a very extroverted manner, licking and chewing. It went on forever! We talked and talked and he licked and chewed and chewed and chewed. It was so funny!

It was very....exciting/rewarding/motivational to see the concepts of natural horsemanship made an expereinced rider lick and chew. Most of the time people who have ridden all their life blow off Sonny and I, calling what we do "tricks" and never giving us a second look. It really meant a lot to me that she even gave me the time of day, was interested, asked questions, and tried so hard with Sonny. Definitely brought a huge smile to my face!!

Hunt the Jump

On Saturday Sonny and I participated in our second ever hunter pace! Just like the first one, it was a blast!

It was the annual halloween pace so we dressed up! Sonny and I were bumble bees and my friend Katie was Dr. Who with her horse being the Tardis. I think our costumes looked great!

I loved how the ribbons in his mane turned out!

The pace was LONG. We did the moderate and the slow pace; the ideal time was 53 minutes for 6 miles! We got pretty close to that and ended up placing second :).

A dirty and VERY tired Sonny! 

Sonny was very good! He was a lot more forward this pace and not as well behaved as the last one, but he was so much better jumping! He jumped everything I pointed him at (except the very last one...go figure!). He even jumped some pretty big logs! What a good boy :). I am so impressed that for one he was jumping as much as he did and for two he jumped so many big things! It is hard to imagine that just a few years ago he had no idea how to jump and just two months ago he was spooking at longs and he is now soaring over big tree trunks! He is such a superstar.

He wasn't going to jump this, then did. Caught me off guard,
hence the position. Whoops! ;) At least he looks great! 

For those of you who might be interested, here is a helmet cam video from the pace! It is not me, but you can still see the jumps and all!