Beri, the big little Shooting Horse

It started with the quick 'how about...' thought, progressed to an email, that quickly expanded to include a group and ended up with a fun and productive evening.

A fellow endurance rider, Kristen Fisher, also shows her Arabians, and manages several of the local Arabian Horse Assoc horse shows.

After exchanging a couple of emails, she agreed to let my shooting club, the Texas Smokin' Guns do a mounted shooting demo between classes during prime showing time Saturday evening.

Wow ~ the pressure was on! At least for me it was. Beri and Miree and I won the Arabian Horse Association Open Events National Mounted Shooting Championship last year and the minute I opened my mouth about taking Beri to shoot at a big AHA show, the butterflies started doing their flippy thing in my stomach. What would all those fancy show people think about my fat little pasture horse?

But, as they say ... onward and onward (or something like that).

I gathered my wits and took consolation in the fact that although Beri and I hadn't been able to shoot in several months prior to the March shoot, she did better than could have been expected with the little bit of training we'd been able to do with all the transitional (divorce and restarting life) stuff that I'd been going through. I'd have to count on her to remember her base training and run on that rather than what little we'd been able to do month to recent month.

Then Mike asked the exhibitors for their bio to be read for each horse and shooter at the demo:

I started pulling stuff together, trying to figure out something that made us sound good. Of course, I wanted to mention the AHA OEIP award, and that she was an endurance horse, and that she was a homebred, and of course something about her relatively recently-imported Saudi breeding ... and I looked at what she'd done over the last couple of years...

* 2009 Arabian Horse Association OEIP National Mounted Shooting Champion
* 2008 was the Texas Smokin' Guns Ladies 1 year end highpoint.
* 2009 TSG LC1 3rd place high point.
** 2008 and again in 2009 she earned a National Top Ten recognition from the The Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse for her shooting and other activities.
* She was the 2008 Blue Arabian Horse Catalog Reserve Champion Endurance horse
** also in 2008 High Point BLUE STAR Shooting horse in both the adult and wrangler division
*** and also still in 2008, Reserve High Point Ambassador.
* She's the BAHC Champion Shooting horse for 2009
** and also again, in 2009, their Reserve High Point Ambassador for local and community events which include doing events like this demo.

Also that she's an accomplished AERC Endurance horse, having completed over 550 AERC miles with six different riders. To date, she's completed rides of up to 75 miles, including completing 50 miles at the Bluebonnet ride last weekend in Decatur.

....not bad for a fat little pasture mare. It gave me a little confidence, but also a bigger case of nerves. I had the thought that with her standing a full 14.1hh, her list of awards ended up being longer than she is tall.

But - many thanks to Mike and Mary Brucia, Robert Carlson and Maddie, Mary and Collin Flick and my son Jared, the demo went smoothly and seemed to entertain the larger than expected crowd in the stands.

Thank you again to Kristen Fisher and the Mayfest Challenge management for letting us show off a little - and we hope to be able to do it again!

(...argh. I know I've posted video here before, but I can't get it to work now so you'll have to follow the links.)

Becky and Beri Shooting Demo

Collin Flick and Desert Khai Special thanks to Mary and Collin for participating in the demo with their Blue List, Straight Egyptian, Khai. It's especially rewarding to have been able to have two Arabians in the demo at an Arabian Horse show. Too many people think that Arabians may be too 'hot' or temperamental to handle the gunfire and that simply isn't the case.

Reclaiming Andi - day seven

Today, unfortunately, she backslid. She wanted the halter on and would approach me to target it but didn't want me to approach that final step (into the Andi defined comfort zone) to put it on. I just walked around the stall with her until she stopped, and once I was within the zone, she tilted her head toward me and was glad to have it on. I think what has happened is that over the last couple of days, I've moved too fast and put too much lag time between the halter and the grain. Yes—we'll get to that point, but I see now that while the lesson was well-learned on the surface, the foundation is still shaky. I'm not going to reduce the lag time, though. I'll simply up the repetitions and gradually continue to increase the lag time, occasionally putting the halter on and off without a grain snack while it's on because eventually she'll be wearing it without a specific reward. Remember at this point, our goal is still to get her to want to have the halter put on and to like wearing the halter.

On Guard

I talk about my horses all the time, but I like to show things as well and this photo very well illustrates a herd instinct that you read about in old westerns, but don't often see.

This is a domestic herd, none of them have been feral for generations. I'm standing in my front yard, they're in a side pasture, the road is just on the other side of the trees.

Yet horsey instinct demands a guard be placed. You can see the backs of the other mares just below the crest of the hill. They're munching on a round bale. Beri is the youngest of the bunch and so she got tapped for guard duty. Even with her hip cocked and resting comfortably, you can see by her ears how alert she is, she's taking her job seriously.

If your hero rides a good mare like this, he's going to be hard to sneak up on, day or night.

Reclaiming Andi - day six

Day six was another easy review day, which was fine since it was snowing and cold even inside the barn.

I'd been there a bit earlier with the ferret under my coat. He sniffed her, and she sniffed him back, uneasy at the predator, cautious and unsure but trusting when I encouraged her—another sign of her progress.

I went in her stall with just the halter before I even scooped her bucket. She's calling to me now when she sees me come in the alley, and she came right to me but didn't like my bulky, noisy jacket that smelled of ferret she couldn't see. I quietly insisted she not step away, haltered her, and let her sniff my jacket—all was fine. I left her in the stall and went to get her grain before I fed anyone else.

Reclaiming Andi - day five addition

A fellow trainer called me on a point I mentioned earlier, and rightfully so. I made a simple comment - that I was willing to wait and let her come to me, that I was letting her make the decisions as to how much of what I wanted she was going to do, that I was passive and letting her decide if she wanted me in her comfort zone.

I want to emphasis that this is part of step one. I don't ask for trust and submission without a basis, without first building a foundation.

In the past, I've had friendly, willing babies that went a year or more into training before I realized that they had NO training at all, that we were simply a couple of buddies hanging out and having fun. These horses like people and are bold and enjoy getting out and doing fun stuff. They did everything I asked so I naively didn't realize there would come a time that I would ask something they wouldn't want to do, and because it was a 'new' situation, that we'd have problems with that.

I'm going to try real hard not to make that mistake with Andi. The lines of communication are open. She knows I'm talking to her, and she knows I'm listening when she talks back. I'm going to take the time to build a relationship, to give her a foundation and reasons to trust me, but I will, over time, be sure she understands that while I listen to her and answer her questions, that I have the final say in our discussions.

Ideally, I'll be able to do this subtly and gently over time. It's all fine lines and shades of gray, trying to find that perfect balance ... to ask more than what she'll do easily and just for fun without asking her to do something she'll outright refuse.


Over the next weeks, I'll introduce her to Linda TJ's 'wand' and 'put her in the box'. She'll learn to move her feet for me, to move away from pressure on her body, and we'll start doing some simple gymnastics in-hand. The plan is that the "go forward" cue will become simple habit as we transition from walking the barn alley or the arena to tarps, creeks, and even loading in the trailer. I'll try to find stuff for her to cross that will worry her just enough to think about it before she'll go ahead. Over time, she'll learn that I won't ask her to do something she can't do, and when there does come a time—out on a bad trail or in a trailer accident or any of those bizarre situations that horses and horseman get into—that I have to ask her to do something dangerous or at least very strange, she'll lay that trust in my hand and let me guide her out of something that frightens her or that she doesn't understand.

Reclaiming Andi - day five

 
Day five was a short and simple recap of the previous lessons. I filled her bucket with grain but left it outside the gate when I went into her stall. She approached me; she tensed slightly when I stepped toward her and started to step away but stayed with me when I reached out and tangled my fingers in her mane. I haltered her, and asked her to give to a light pressure on her poll, which she did, and we walked (leading) about three or four steps in each direction, stopped, and backed two steps.

All that done, I fetched her bucket of grain and poured it out for her and let her eat, then removed her halter.

We'll have at least one more day of review before we move on again. I've learned that when they come along so fast, it's easy to leave holes rather than the firm foundation you need in these basics. I don't want to bore her, but I will do all I can to be sure she's solid and steady in each series of lessons before we move on.

Reclaiming Andi - day four addition

I want to take a moment to address the problem of Andi pulling back in order to get pressure to release in an attempt to cue me to click=treat. This problem is two-fold.

One: it's fabulous that she's figured out that her actions command the click, but it's not good that she's trying to be in charge. That will definitely have to be turned around. She's trying to cue me to click/treat. Step three, which she skipped, is putting a cue to the behavior that gets the click.

I want her to 1)release her body to pressure and 1b) come forward when I put a little pressure on her poll with the lead rope.

1. My cue to her is to apply pressure.
2. She releases the pressure by lowering her head and stepping forward.
3. Click
4. Treat

The PROBLEM is that SHE applied the pressure in order to cue ME to click/treat.

Her sire would do this. One method of using the clicker is to 'extend' the trick. For example, I taught him to stand at my shoulder by click/treating when he positioned himself with his shoulder next to mine. Once he was doing this, I would take a step. In order to stay in position, he would have to take a step. (click/treat) Once he's done that, it's simple to take two or three steps (click treat) when he stays in position. You'd think you could go to ten steps or half a mile (which actually is the idea),but he would only go about 3-4 steps then bolt off and come back into position to try to get me to click/treat. (If I had fallen for that, I would essentially be treating him for bolting.- Tricky, tricky boy! Too smart for his own good sometimes.) I also wanted him to stand beside me as long as I wanted. You do this by not clicking immediately when they stand properly. You want a few seconds/minute. If I waited too long, he would circle and come back into position, clearly upset and anxious, worried he had done something wrong (since he wasn't getting the click/treat) and trying to get me to click/treat by redoing the trick.

We worked through it. He will free lunge both directions, stop, reverse on voice command, and jog at my side, over and through obstacles, and he'll even weave a pattern with or without poles on voice or hand signals.

One interesting aside is that I thought I had taught him the vocal commands left and right, but he actually learned toward and away from me, so when I'm working on his right side, I have to use right for left and left for right to get him to turn the way I want.

Because he's learned that some behaviors earn the click, he tries endlessly to please me. If he sees me standing in the window of the house and wants me to come outside and play, he'll start going through his tricks. He likes you to pull his tongue, so usually, that's the one he starts with. He'll stand at the gate and stick his tongue out. It's funny, but it can be very obnoxious as well, depending on the trick. Fortunately, the tongue tricks are mostly harmless, although he actually licked a judge at a show one time when she accidentally cued him.

So Andi is already self-tasking and experimenting with behaviors, seeking the click, which is really amazing, but in this specific case, she's already learned what could escalate into a terrible and dangerous behavior in pulling back on the rope, and it's something that will have to be dealt with.

Reclaiming Andi - day four

She’s asks for the halter, stands easily to have it put on, and appears totally comfortable about wearing it. She still gets a little tense if you approach her instead of letting her approach you. That's a training hole that cannot go unaddressed because it will be a huge issue later if she doesn't get over it. At this point, we're going to keep a very close and concerned eye on this behavior, but we’re going to move along because I think this is something she's going to get over with time.

To recap, she's approaching the person, asking to wear her halter, standing quietly while it's buckled on, and following the person around the stall.

The next step is leading (leading being the obvious external goal, the bigger goal being to get her to learn to give to pressure). Leading, as I see it, mainly involves moving forward beside the handler. I want her to walk beside me, stop, back up, turn left and right, and eventually turn on the fore or the quarter or bend her spine up or to the left or right without moving her feet.

I have an odd bit of failure here. Once I attach a lead rope to her halter, I can't apply pressure to her poll because when I step away with the intention of applying pressure via the lead rope, she follows me.

Smart girl . . . she's already leading, turning left and right, and stopping beside me when I stop (of course!! how would she get a treat if she kept walking past the treat pocket). While a lot of trainers would take this and shout it to the rooftops, it raises a red flag with me because unless we back up and find a way to apply pressure so she can learn to give, this will create huge (extremely dangerous) triggers and behaviors in the adult horse.

This means I have to find a couple of creative ways to cheat. I step away quickly and tug. I extend my arm out and pull the rope without moving my feet. A horse’s natural inclination to put pressure on the poll is to throw their head up and back. I use a heavy bungie leadline so there isn't a hard set for her to hit, just a gradual pressure that she applies herself and can release herself. I'm able to get her to apply pressure a few times, and the INSTANT she comes forward, click treat.

Andi's doing so well! I open the stall door, and we walk and stop and turn up and down the alley a few times. A few minutes later, we go down to the end to chill for a few minutes near the older mares, and I get a mind-boggling example of how smart this girl is.

She chills with me for a few minutes, but her baby attention span is short enough that she's soon mugging for treats. Mine aren't allowed to mug, so while I scratch and pet when she comes closer to nuzzle me, I gently dissuade her from sniffing around and trying to get in the treat pocket.

After thinking about this for a couple of minutes, she steps away, one step sideways and a step back, taking the slack out of the lead and raises her head, applying pressure to her poll. Her ears fly forward, and her sassy little bright eyes sparkle as she comes forward so I can treat her for the release. I'm dumbfounded, and while my brain is trying to deny or at least process her behavior, she does it again and then again! She's experimenting, trying to figure out why she didn't get the click treat. She steps right instead of left or maybe two steps back the next time.

She's figured out that her behavior (in this case, pressure on the poll and release) causes the click, and she's trying to get me to click and treat.

I shouldn't be surprised. You'd think that after all these years, I'd expect that from these horses, especially given her sire, but she hadn't shown me anything at all like this before.

Today has been a huge success, a moon-leap kind of step forward. The lines of communication are most definitely open. She's answering my simple requests with questions on top of questions, and she's expecting answers.

I've always liked this filly and thought she had huge potential, but she really blew my socks off today.

Reclaiming Andi - day four photos

So, in about a week, we have gone from a filly who just about couldn't be caught to one who is begging for her halter.













This is the best photo I can get of her if I'm in the stall with her.

What a huge difference. I think the title says day four. We put her up in the stall Wednesday and started consistent work with her on Thursday. This is Sunday, so yes, four days.

Reclaiming Andi - day three

Continuing on with step one—we started clicker training.

I don't subscribe to it in a religious sense as some people seem to do to one system or another, but I have found it to be a very handy communication tool.

Remember, my main goal is to open the lines of communication so I can ask her to learn and do stuff with me, and she can let me know if she understands what I'm asking or if she's uncomfortable or ready for more.

I went into the stall with her halter, the clicker, and a pocket full of grain (Notice I don't have the bucket. I want her to come to me now, not to the bucket.) ((I'm actually combining a few steps and making a fairly complex lesson day for her.)). I want her to figure out that when she hears the click, she gets a treat, so I click the clicker and offer her half a handful of grain. I've never had a horse take more than about 28 seconds to figure this out. Usually, the light dawns with the second 'click/treat' or at most, the third.

Andi is no exception. By the time she heard the third click, her nose headed for my pocket, .but that was just an aside. Remember, she's wearing her halter to eat.

At this point, we back up a half-step and get her to 'target' the halter. I do that by touching the halter to her nose and clicking (treat). I do this twice then simply stand, holding the halter close to her . . . success! She stretches out her nose to touch the halter. (click treat).

Within minutes, she is following me around the stall asking to nose the halter.

To reach the next half step, when she noses the halter, (click) I put the halter on before I treat. This takes a few more repetitions because it's a little more involved. There is some lag time between the click and treat, and she has to figure out if I've betrayed her in some way, changed the rules, or simply added to the game. I give her time to whirl it all around in her head, and we do a few more repetitions.

Halter off.
Offer halter.
Nose halter.
Click
Halter on.
Treat.

This step takes her about five or six repetitions to get comfortable with and to totally accept what we're doing.

**this photo was taken after the fact (obviously we're in the arena, not in the stall) but I wanted to show her approaching the halter and (grrrr at my slow digital camera) touching her nose to it. oh well. But isn't she cute? The young man in the photo is living and working here and learning to work with the horses, so he's training in groundwork along with Andi.

Reclaiming Andi - day two

Next, we have her looking for the bucket and standing comfortably and eating. I move a few steps left or right or away every few bites, and within minutes, she's following me (the bucket) around.

The next step is the halter. She's already worn the halter and decided she didn't like it, so the goal we need to keep in mind with this is not only to get her to wear the halter but also to get her to want to wear the halter and to like wearing the halter.

Starting today, she has to wear the halter to get her grain. This is initially somewhat of a drawn-out process. I go in the stall with a bucket of grain and the halter and just hang out. She sees the bucket and wants to approach, but she doesn't want to approach the halter. I give her a few chances to go ahead and approach me, but she decides she'd rather not eat than wear the halter.

My next step is to go ahead and put it on her anyway. I don't want to traumatize or upset her in any way, but I'm going to firmly insist she needs to do this. I manage this by just walking her in the stall. (Remember this is a largish stall) I approach, and she walks off, but I continue to approach, slowly and quietly and easily. I don’t sneak up on her, which would increase her tension, but just approach her slowly, steadily and consistently. Eventually, she stops in a corner and lets me slip her halter on. At that point, I stand with her and let her eat the entire bucket of grain. Once she's done, I remove the halter.

This step is a little harder for her because she has to unlearn her dislike of the halter before she can learn to like it and want to wear it. This part of the routine takes about three days before she can be haltered easily. She will approach a person easily enough now but still doesn't want to be approached. I'm dealing with this by walking in with the bucket and halter, letting her approach me, slipping the halter on, and letting her eat.

ASF VANIAH

 

I found this lovely photo of Andi's great-granddam while I was looking for something else, and wanted to share.  This is a recent photo so she's 20yo in this shot.

As a young mare, VANIAH was one of the herd caught up in the 'Sheets' debacle in Ohio way back when.  She was well fostered and adopted and cared for, but never part of a family until she came here a few years ago.  She was included as the bargain part of a deal with her sister, WITNESS, because she only has half a hoof on the right hind, having apparently hooked it in something as a young horse and ripping most of it off.   She was sound as far as I could tell so we started her under saddle and used her as our extra horse when we had guests.  She has a wonderfully gentle and maternal nature and as we found ourselves riding her more, we spent about a year of corrective shoeing to get her damaged hoof to grow the support it needed. She did her first LD Endurance ride at 17yo, and later did 25 miles of a 30. Her rider moved away and she's since been retired from the longer distances.

Unfortunately, she's only had three foals, the stallion ALI ZEUS who has since passed away, a filly that's still in Florida and the cute bay gelding,, LANDROVAL, in a few posts back.  Andi's dam, Marah, is a Zeus daughter and in spite of, or maybe especially because of, the small numbers in this group, it's exciting to see all that works so well through the generations.

Reclaiming Andi

Normally, when a foal is born here, it receives attention multiple times a day for a week or more then daily (at least) attention for the months until weaning. By that time, they're already trained and performing tasks that many grown horses don't even do, such as being halter-broke, leading, having their hoofs picked and trimmed, and loading in the trailer.

Marah's baby, Andi, is my 'divorce baby,' and her training has fallen through the cracks of my life. She got all the usual new-baby snuggles, but at a week old, she was turned out to pasture and not handled much at all. Much to my shame, she's seven months old this month and just now being halter broke.

Usually with the little ones, it's a case of showing them the halter, letting them sniff it, rubbing them down with it and slipping it on and off a few times until it's a non-issue. Andi wore the halter a few times; she would sorta leap alongside when you tried to lead her, but I was never consistent enough for her to learn to give in to pressure and be happy and comfortable about it so she developed an aversion rather than a liking to being handled.

In addition to all the toil and turmoil of divorce and trying to finish the new house, I've been working a lot of overtime - up until about two weeks ago.

Now, Andi's not at all feral, and she's not panicky and wild-eyed. She’s perfectly comfortable with being around people in her Andi-defined comfort zone of about three feet out—arm’s length. She simply doesn't want to be touched.

My solution to that has been to bring her up out of the pasture and put her in my large stall and start over from day one --handling her multiple times a day.

If you ask 20 horseman their opinion on this matter, you'll get 47 answers on how to handle a young horse like this: anything from rope, throw, and tarp them; withhold feed and water; bury them up to their heads in sand; round penning; to trying to give them away; or simply turn them back out and let them be wild.

I have what I consider an advantage in that I have all the time in the world and, IMO, a good focus on what I want. My main goal, aside from halter training or anything else, is to open lines of communication with her, gain her trust and get her to come around and want to work with me. I have obvious ulterior motives for all this. Her sire is a proven performance horse (and his sire and uncles and so on), as is her maternal grandsire and his dam. I have big plans for this filly, and I know through long experience that I want her working with me from the start, or we'll end up nowhere.

Since she's used to being grained, I provide (in her stall) full buckets of clean fresh water and free-choice hay, but she only gets grain out of a bucket I'm holding. She's not being starved or tormented -- I'm out there at least twice a day and she's getting her usual amounts -- but she has to make a choice to come close enough to me to eat out of the bucket.

This is a no-brainer and takes her about 30 seconds to figure out. She doesn't stand and eat at first. She’ll come in, grab a couple of big mouthfuls and pace around behind me while she chews, but by the second day, she's standing quietly and eating out of the bucket as long as I don't reach out to touch her.

So the first part of step one - to get her to come to me - has been accomplished. She's approaching the bucket while I hold it, and we'll use that baby step over the next week to work in a simple transition to get her wanting to wear the halter and follow us around.

Good reports keep rolling in...

Yes, yes, I know. In order to continually breed horses, I have to sell the babies.

Honestly, it's not that hard for me to let them go, not as hard as it is for some people, I know, because I see it in two ways. One) that they're growing up and taking their place in the world and two) that they're spreading the good word and promoting their lines. and three) that for each one that sells, I have budget and space for another little replacement. The numbers in this group are low enough that every single one is important.

Certainly the more horses under more riders doing more stuff is going to do more good in the long run than a bunch of rare-blooded horses standing in my pasture eating. I remind myself of that every time one drives out the gate. But it's never easy.

It's still hard to let them go, no matter what. You worry about them. If they're going to be good, or if they'll show their 'ass' one time too many and be a "bad advertisement" rather than a good one. (If they're going to embarrass you rather than make you proud). If you judged the individual well enough that you've managed to get them in a good home. But still knowing that even the best of circumstances can change.

So you do all that you can do to get them out in the world - and then you hold your breath. You hold your breath until you pass out, hit your head on the floor, finally wake up and stumble to the kitchen for a bag of ice. And then you wait some more.

Finally the reports start coming in, and eventually the photos.

From the young gelding a few posts ago, to GLAMDRING (top photo) who has a good start in his endurance career, LANDROVAL who is just getting started, to Eowyn, who finished Tevis in fine form this year -- the reports are looking pretty good.

(so you see my little ANDE has a lot to live up to!!)

First Week

Little ANDRETH is a week old today.

Here is she with my mom who's President of my Fillies Fan Club. Thank goodness for moms who will come out and gush over each new colt and filly, no matter how many we've had over the years.

Andreth has proven herself to be sweet, sane and sassy, all in the same package and we're delighted with her. She's friendly and curious and loves being scratched.

I like to get the babies turned out on pasture as soon as I can, but even with a good sensible filly like Andreth, it's always a little scary to let them out into the big, wide world.


Of course, she did fine with it.

I turned them into the small pasture and they snorted and bucked around before taking off to the Wild Blue.

They had a nice run-around and tucked back into the comfort zone in their pen, took a longish nappy, and went exploring again.

Andreth will likely be my 'next' endurance horse, her dad and Beri may be ready to slow down by the time she's ready to go, so this is an excellent start for her.

Jolly Balls...

So everyone reads about Telpe's tire and Miree's hay habit and wonder why I don't just buy them 'jolly balls'. (for those that don't know, they're big rubber balls they sell for horses to play with). I've tried that and found a couple of problems with them. I liked them overall, and the horses liked them well enough. But I thought, for the price (they aren't cheap) the horses didn't enjoy them *that much more* than say, a rubber feed pan or an empty milk jug.

The bigger problem I had with the balls was that they roll *head desk* ... I know what you're thinking .... it's a ball forcryingoutloud... right? But they roll under the fence and I'm the one playing fetch. (I'm not that bored). And not only do the horses toss them through the fence, but the wind blows them around. So in the summer time, the west pasture has all the balls, and in the winter time (we only have two seasons here) the south pasture has all the balls.

The obvious answer (obvious to me) is to wash out a milk jug, dribble a handful of grain in it and toss it out for them. But they don't last very long. Hours at most. And even my family doesn't drink that much milk. And then (again) I'm chasing them down and picking them up to throw away.

I thought I had a brillant idea and a break through when I finished off a jug of laundry detergent. It has a handy dandy kind of spout that doesn't allow backflow or drips and I thought it would work nicely to keep the grain snacks from pouring out too quickly.


As you can see, that part worked well. Grain goes easy in, but only sprinkles come out. Perfect for encouraging play. (as if they needed encouragement).

Not only did I like the spout, but I was excited by the heavy feel of the plastic. I thought it might last a couple of weeks.







The jug itself was a grand hit.


















but, alas, it didn't wear as well as had been hoped -- this photo was taken less then ten minutes into play and it had been completely demolished within a few hours.

go!beri

I got a wonderful surprise last night at our Texas Smokin Gun's Christmas party. Beri and I managed to accumulate enough points to win the club high point in our division. I was totally shocked because I hadn't expected anything at all, and am inordinately pleased with the award, the recognition, myself and my little mare.

We did have a good year -- a very good year, but it's been a year of learning from our mistakes, more than anything else.

- There were the shoots where we had trouble because we hadn't ridden enough between times
- and the shoots where she soured from going too often.

- and the weekends that family issues kept us home or elsewhere on the road,
- - as well as the *smacks forehead* hindsight of weekends we missed that we shouldn't have.

- We've changed saddles, bridles and bits (three times) and figured out the oddest thing that was bothering her, when we switched from 'roping reins' to 'split reins'... Beri's only 14.1hh and so the normal stock horse split reins were too long, the ends were tangling around her knees. It was a simple fix, we just cut them off.

- We've changed some of how we do our training at home, going back to some basics. It was a (mentally) difficult switch for me to going back to neck reining and more western work. I was 'raised western' (old school) "but I got better" (<= Monty Python "she turned me into a newt" reference) with the centered riding lessons, and the bits of dressage I've had and applied to my endurance and trail riding. All that said, I've never gone back and brought my western riding up to par and this sport has me started back on that journey.

- We had a good run for the AHA OEIP year-end recognition with the CMSA, but needed a couple more better runs to keep our points ahead -- CONGRATULATIONS Dottie!

I'm especially proud of our little Beri for stepping up to the plate and doing such a fantastic job with the shooting this year and just generally doing whatever needs to be done. In addition to the shooting, she added several rides to her endurance record this year and has become the 'go to girl' and grown into a good, solid all-around family horse.

For your Holiday Viewing Pleasure

... a bit of silliness brought to you by GWAIHIR the Valiant & Co. wishing you and yours lots of good food, friends and family, and safe travels as we dive into this holiday season.

Watch this space for news regarding upcoming sequels featuring GWAIHIR the Valiant.

* GWAIHIR The Valiant and the Tale of his Victory over the Medium-sized Orc

and

* GWAIHIR The Valiant and the Tale of his Victory over the Very Large Orc

(* GWAIHIR The Valiant and the Tale of his Victory over Hoards of Orc is still under contract negotiation)

Telpe's Bling

...there's one in every barn.

This is Telpe being ... well, she's just being Telpe and I'm not sure there is much else to say about it except -- this is the horse your momma warned you about.

This is the kind of filly I warn buyers to look out for... now give me a minute to explain that. I've done a lot of match-making over the years and one thing I've tried to explain to new or first time horse owners is to look at a horse's scars. Most horses that have done anything at all are going to have something to show for it. That's not a big deal. But you have to understand that if three of four legs are criss-crossed, and there are marks on the chest, head and/or butt... you have to KNOW that this horse is an instigator.

Telpe has all that and more, from a ripped eye-lid to a fractured hind leg.

I'm certainly not saying not to buy a horse like that, they frequently have more drive and more personality and in many ways can make a better horse than one that's complacent. (They certainly are more fun for authors because of the conflict and chaos they create) But you have to understand what you're getting into. This is a horse that will actively seek out every hole in your fence; this is the horse that will stand at the gate and fiddle with the latch until they figure it out (yes, Telpe's gate has a clip on it that requires a thumb to open)((it's on the *outside* of the panel so she can't easily reach it)); this is the horse that will go through any gate or open door, just to see what's in there.

The reason Telpe is wearing a tire is a little complex. She normally stays with the herd in a 20 acre pasture, but she has been a little thin (she's 2yo and growing too fast too keep up with) so I brought her up to stay in the barn for awhile, treated her with an extra dose or wormer and have been 1) feeding her extra and 2) minimally restricting her exercise.

Over the course of a couple of months, her weight is coming up nicely, but we'd noticed that she was drinking a lot of water. Waaaaay a lot, like two to three times daily what a mature horse should be drinking. After consultation the vet, we decided it was likely a behavioral issue (boredom) and that in additional to several-times-weekly (light) work (which she was already getting) that she needed some extra toys.

What I usually do it wash out an empty milk jug and drop a handful of grain in it and toss it in the stall for them to throw around, but those don't last more than a day with her, so I hung up the tire for her to play with, and dropped a handful of grain (where she couldn't reach it -- I thought) in the inside of the tire. It took her less than 14 minutes to get to the grain, but she seemed very happy with her tire since her neighbors were, of course, quite jealous that she had a tire and they didn't.

Now, the problem didn't come until two days later when I put Miree's grain in Miree's nosebag and let Miree eat out of her nosebag. That's a problem because, up until getting the tire, Telpe had been eating out of Miree's nosebag.

SO I'm out at the barn, doing various chores, waiting for those that get morning feed to finish up when I notice it's suspiciously quiet in Telpe's corner. (Those of you who have toddlers or teenagers know what I'm talking about).

.... so I'm sitting here trying to describe the situtation and find I don't have any words that don't seem to overstate the obvious - so from this point, I'll just let the photo do the talking.

those old classics

I refuse to start every post with an apology for not being more consistent with my posts, so I won't...

...but I will say that something ate my chickens. These prints are my only clue.

But that's just par for the course, recently. My life has been like one of those old black and white movies. Not anything like the good old classics It's a Wonderful Life, or The Man who Shot Liberty Valance. But more like some of the first talkies -- you know the grainy ones that jump and flicker and don't entirely make sense?

But in spite of the troubles and inanities, life goes on. Writing goes on -- slow and painful -- but it continues.

I've been bogging down with my edits and I finally decided my big, loveable hero wasn't strong enough to carry the ending of my current work so I've tossed him out with the bathwater, dragged him backwards through the rosebriars, rolled him in tar and horseshit, slapped him around a little bit and have sent him to the corner with a stack of old Conan pulps, some Heinlein and the Silmarillion.

Yeah, it hurts to do that to him. And while what he was has been fun to play with, he needs to grow up. That's painful sometimes, but we both know it's needed.

The house is coming along. The outside is nearly done. At least, the major decisions have been finalized. We had some trouble with the windows and had to change some stuff, but I think it's looking really good.

I like the rock, a lot, and am glad we did it even if we had to grit our teeth through the expense. The rock masons are craftsman and artists. If you've never seen them work, it's a real delight.

One neat thing we got to do is that we've harvested some cedar out of our pastures and are peeling it to frame the front door (I can't wait to show off our custom door!!) the four front windows (two upper and two lower), and for support beams ...umm.. not beams, posts (are the called columns if they're wood?) on the inside. I can't remember that I've posted a photo of the inside, but the second story is normal on the ends but the main section is only floored about 2/3rds across... I don't think that makes sense. I'll have to take more photos.

Otherwise, riding -- not enough, but some. GLAMDRING has been getting the work. Somebody needs to buy this lovable galoot. He's a sweet boy (is there anyone, really, who doesn't love a guy who brings home a mouthful of flowers?!?) and a hard worker. It's a combination that's hard to beat. We're trying to get him to a couple more rides this year and get a few more 50s on his record. I'm still thinking I'm going to try shooting off him next year. He doesn't like the noise, but he's fast and handy. He's doing real well setting balloons and just being around the gunfire doesn't seem to bother him any more so that makes me think that firing off his back is just a matter of time.