Daisy has been doing great.  I think I wrote about my lesson with that trainer from out of town-she gave me some things to work on and I’m finally starting to understand how to do them.  I know what a counter canter is, but I wasn’t sure how to ask for it and continue to ask for it, but now I’m seeing where I made mistakes.  We would start on the correct lead, cross the diagonal, and Daisy would either drop to a trot or else switch leads.  (she has a nice change, so that’s kind of a good thing, but since I didn’t ask for it, it’s not such a good thing to offer it)  I was riding her on Saturday and we had some help from another person who has done this stuff before-I asked what I was doing wrong and it turns out that I’m not keeping her flexed to the outside enough.  At least, that’s what’s working for now.  When you’re teaching a new thing to a horse, you have to reinforce it appropriately until they understand what you’re asking.  It makes sense, but I guess at the time I didn’t understand that what I was doing was confusing to her.  She’s a good girl and she’s trying, but I knew there was just something not clicking there.  I’m glad I talked to this other person and cleared it up at least a little!  Hopefully we’ll be able to work on it more now and next time that trainer is in town we’ll be a little better.

Jake and Bandit are doing good-Jake is still slowing down and he’s developed a bit of a dry cough that comes and goes.  It’s only one cough about every 3 days, but I know it’s different and I’m starting to wonder if the cancer has spread to his lungs now.  He’s going on 11 and he’s looking good otherwise, so I know he’s had a good life.  I have pretty much decided that we aren’t going to remove anything else and he’s not going through chemo.  He’s a very happy boy and he still has quite a bit of energy, so I don’t want to ruin that for him in his old age.  Bandit is getting more and more brave-he will go up to people and play a little now, but he still doesn’t really want them to touch him.  When it’s someone he knows, he’s a little less reluctant and he’ll lay down by them or play or whatever, but strangers he still doesn’t like.  Lots better than he used to be for sure!

Here’s my fun story to end this post on-I went to my Mom’s yesterday with Bandit and we stopped at my husband’s grave briefly because I wanted to say hi and I wanted to take a picture of a part of his headstone because I’m going to make a letterbox stamp for him-it’ll be my first one that I’m really making and placing, so that’ll be cool!  (look up letterboxing on the internet and you guys will see what it’s all about-I recently get into it a bit with my little sister and stepmom when they came for a visit a week ago and I figured I’d place a couple of them too-this one will be my tribute to Mike and my first letterbox!)  Anyway, Bandit and I headed back and there was a small deer eating in the distance.  The deer over there are pretty used to people because the cemetery is kind of a nature preserve, too.  This one was very young, but she had lost her spots already, so she was old enough to be on her own.  Bandit didn’t notice her at first and he was sniffing stuff-I pulled out my camera phone and decided to try to get in closer for a picture.  I took pictures every couple steps until we go within about 15 feet of the thing!  Bandit FINALLY noticed it and froze-staring at her.  He started lunging a little on the leash but she wasn’t too worried apparently.  We started walking away because I didn’t want to scare her off and she started following us!  LOL!  My big dog lunging at her on a leash and she’s following us.  We paused to take another picture from that angle and she started eating some weeds.  I guess she wasn’t too nervous.  Eventually she walked off, but not before I got some really good pictures of her.

This is where she started following us-she got closer than we did! We were within 15 feet of her, she walked within 10 feet of us!

She turned and went to eat some weeds when we paused to take another picture

She was within 15 feet again here-obviously not too put off by us because she was looking at something else! Pretty!!

Another idea that I had was making handmade note cards-not with stamps, but hand-drawn.  Everyone says I’m a pretty good artist, and Sharon makes note cards with stamps, so we’re thinking about trying it together.  I have a friend who owns a travelling tack shop, too, so I think I could probably get her to sell some for me!  We’d do note cards and we’d do framed pictures probably.  I can see how that goes.  Hopefully it works out ok.  I’ll probably start working on things very soon.  I can start by taking some pictures of different things, then drawing them out and working with what I like.  The coolest thing about the friend with the traveling tack shop is that when people are at shows, they tend to be a bit more impulsive-I think we could do ok with that   We’ll see!  It certainly can’t hurt because it’s all free to do  

I’m very lucky to have such a great family and wonderful friends   It’s so nice to go out and see everyone when I’m stressed out-it relaxes me to be with them all.  So thank you to all the friends and family who read my blog-you guys are the best!  Sharon-we’ll start working on our ideas really soon!!

Well, while we’re on the topic of how good my dogs are, I have a new favorite picture to share:

"Hey Bandit! Check that out!"

Kellen is finally starting to stand up on his own-just almost walking   Bandit was hanging out at Mom’s house with me and Kellen kept coming over to see him.  I guess something caught both their eyes because Kellen started pointing and Bandit was looking at whatever it was too.  I just happened to catch it on my phone

Bandit is doing great, Jake is doing ok (he sprained his tail again today, wagging a little too much I guess), and Daisy is doing pretty well, too.  We’ve been working on my balance more than anything else lately.  Pilates is really helping to pay off.  I had one of those huge realizations when  things just click and we took a huge step forward in training.  I still want to start taking lessons from a good trainer, but I’m going to hold off just a LITTLE longer to get my balance just a little better.  In  addition to Pilates, I’ve been reading this book called “Balance in Movement” and it makes a lot of sense!  I’m excited to be reading and learning at the same time.  We’ll probably do some more training tomorrow because we took the day off today-I figured with the holiday, Daisy deserved a little time off too.  We went out to the pasture, she got turned out, and I read a book for about 2 1/2 hours today.  It was wonderful.  I really needed to mental break with all the stress at work right now.  Anyway, I’m rambling-back to the training.  I’ve found that if I keep my hip flexors elongated in the saddle, it puts my body in the right position.  I balance with the trunk of my body and I don’t need my arms or legs for balance anymore (ok a little, but the main part is in the pelvis and abs).  We cantered a 10 meter circle like that (not an easy thing for an unbalanced horse), and Daisy was able to keep herself slow and balanced-no leaning to the inside and speeding up to compensate for me throwing her off balance.  We did this her good way and we didn’t attempt the bad way yet.  I figured that she did so well that I wanted to end it there.  Since we didn’t canter too much and we worked both ways at the trot, I wasn’t too concerned about her being worked too hard one way and not at all the other.  We’ll see how it goes next time.

We went to the show anyway and did what we could.  She seemed ok the day before-no REAL signs of being off, but I knew something was up because she doesn’t ever act like that.  On show day she looked pretty good.  I toughed it out and did both my classes.  The first one was my typical crappy class, and during the warm up for the second class, the sky opened up and it just started POURING.  She wasn’t happy about that.  Lots of head tossing and just a general pissed off look about her, but she did it anyway.  We went in for the class and it went very well until she decided that she was just DONE riding in the rain.  We went by some people who had all glomed together under an eave-one of them jumped as some rain poured off on to them and she spooked just a little-hardly enough to notice, but the judge still commented on it.  After that spook, I think she was sick of having the rain hit her in the butt and we went to pick up the canter.  She bucked and kicked out then went into a decent canter after that.  We, of course, got counted off for that as well.  If she hadn’t done those two dumb moves, I think we probably would have done very well, but of course you can’t make excuses for everything, so I’ll take what I got.  I think we got a 57 or 58 overall-pretty good considering she was being a brat.  Still no qualifier, though.   

My back is still sore, but I got on yesterday for the first time since last Sunday anyway.  She was pretty good, but she didn’t really feel like cooperating much.  I made her do it, then she was fine and we finished.  I think I’m going to ride for a little bit today, too, but it won’t be very much again.

The babies at the stable are starting to get bigger already.  The first one is certainly the beauty of the two, but the second one is starting to come along now too.  They play every night outside while the mothers stand guard-it’s pretty cool to see.  Daisy has gotten over them being there, too.  She’s back to being interested only in food again.  I actually heard a story about her-I got there later in the afternoon one day, as usual, and someone told me that they saw her outside while she was turned out.  The guys that tend the stables went and started mowing the lawn-apparently they have done it before while Daisy was outside because she heard them start up the mower and ran over to keep an eye on them and wait for them to mow past her pasture.  Apparently the mower shoots grass into her pasture and she follows them, eating the whole way.  Ugh.  What a horse-following the lawn mower like it’s fast food.  She’s got a show coming up this weekend and I really just haven’t had much time to work with her!  I hope I remember my tests because I don’t think I’m going to have a reader this time, either.  I’m pretty sure I’m going this one alone-I have someone taking me there, but she has someone else that she is helping out and that other person is in my classes so I think she’s going to be busy while I’m getting ready and warming up.  No big deal, thoough-I think we can handle it

I’m loving my Pilates class, too-I started off in the beginners class about 15-20 weeks ago at once a week.   The class was turned into an intermediate class by the second session, and I’m really starting to do some of the more advanced moves.  The rest of the class is still on some of the beginner stuff and I’ve been personally instructed to do the “next” parts of each movement.  My favorite one is “teasers”-It takes a lot of whole body strength and there’s 3 levels.  The rest of the class is still on the first level.  I’ve been doing the second level the past couple weeks, and the instructor today told me to try the teasers 3-that’s the one where you lay flat on the ground, then lift your legs and arms simultaneously, reach to your toes while balancing on your butt, and then go all the way back down.  I did a couple of them very well, but it’s a lot harder that it looks.  It’s pretty cool because there are a lot of people who have done this a lot longer than I have and they are still doing teasers 1.  So I’m pretty proud of that LOL!

Work is going well, too.  Since Diane left, we have cleaned up the entire front office.  It looks like a different place!  We have several new rules in place because I see now where the flaws were in the old front office-there is NO paperwork left out at ALL is rule #1.  No charts are left laying around EVER-if it’s not in use, it’s put away.  There were STACKS of papers that weren’t filed for a LONG time in different piles throughout the front area, and I’m seeing that things were literally thrown on my desk-my office is treated a lot differently now, and it doesn’t get anywhere near as bad.  Now that I can really see where the problem was, these issues are resolved.  The newest thing is that I won’t be putting up with ANY crap from anyone-I think I did that way too long, and I see where my errors were in management styles.  I don’t allow any fluctuation in the core rules, otherwise there will be write ups and dismissals.  I should have done write ups and dismissals a long time ago.  The new billing company is working out GREAT, too!  It’s amazing how well we do when the billing is actually done right   Quite shocking how one small change can make such a huge impact.  Anyway, I’m very happy-I’m working some overtime and I’m coming home tired, but it’ll all pay off when I have things running the way they are supposed to be again.  Gone are the days of allowing someone freedom to do things their way-especially when I knew for a long time that their way was the WRONG way.  They knew it too, but chose not to chage it out of lazinessand probably some degree of ignorance, stupidity, and lack of better judgement-and I can totally see that now.  I love how things always seem to work out

Bandit and Jake are doing great-Bandit has his new friend, Kuma, next door, and they play about once every other weekend.  Jake is slowing down more, but he’s still holding his own.  Since he’s 10 now, I’ve kind of decided that we are going to just play things by ear.  If I have things that MUST be done, I will do them with him.  Otherwise, I’m going to let him have a happy life. I don’t want him to suffer going through chemotherapy treatments and surgeries that may or may not help his situation at all.  I can’t tell if the cancer is back or not, but I would tend to think it proabably is.  He seems happy, though, and that’s what matters to me.  Bandit is doing well with his commands-he comes, sits, lays down, stays, heels, etc, and he’s happy to do it.  It seems like it builds his self esteem when he knows he does things right, so we try to do a little every day.  He’s being a little more brave with the neighbors, going up and sniffing them (although he barks when he does it), and ocassionally licking them on the hand or something.  Not too bad. 

I’ll try to post more pictures soon!

Here’s a pic of the new baby now-there will be better ones soon.  He’s not a very strong boy, so he doesn’t get up too much.  It’s a little concerning, but they are keeping a close eye on him to make sure things go ok. 

New Baby Boy

While I was waiting, Daisy was VERY jealous-it was cute!  If I was away from her stall (the baby is being born directly across the hall from her, so I was like 5 feet from her), she would nicker and call to me.  When I came back over she was fine again.  So I sat on my tack box outside her stall, leaning up against her wall, and I held my hand in her stall through the bars.  She would come up and lip my fingers and just softly nicker to me the whole time.  I was there for about 45 minutes, just hanging out, letting her come up and nuzzle my hand through the bars on and off the whole time.  Eventually she went to her corner to go to sleep, so I left after that.  I was very surprised at how attached she is!  Everyone laughs at me when she calls me from her stall if I’m talking outside the stable without her, so I knew that she wants me around, but I always figured that she just wants to be outside too.  I think she REALLY just wants to be with ME!  Very cute   That’s my girl!

Well, here are some pics from when the baby was 2 days old-I’ll post these, and hopefully by later today I’ll have some more pics of another baby!

Zena's foal-first day she was outside! 48 hours old!!