Questions, Self-Doubt, and the Inevitable (not-easy) Answers.

 The adopting-a-wild-mustang thing might be something best left to professionals or "naturals". 

So many questions and doubts along the way. Especially when you know that what you do (or don't do) now will likely influence her forever.

The main thing I want to put forward here, though, is that the answer to nearly every situation I encounter is "it depends"....!

Most people who know me know that I didn't grow up around horses and really only started my horse "thing" at age 41, after being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at 37 and during an interval of good health, taking a dude ranch vacation in Wyoming.

So, I have been a student since then.

As with domestic horses (or child, or any being in your care), when they are yours, their distress is your distress. Galloping around the paddocks with nose outward like she’s going to jump….  (=largely distress)! She was doing this for the first 7 to 9 days.  ....I wasn't sure if I should interrupt the behavior... get her attention to try and soothe her... or, does she just need to “learn” to be here, and alone? (Note: some of the running was pure joy IMHO, after being "captive" in a small training pen for the previous 3 1/2 months).

I can usually come to a conclusion for most of my questions like this…. But documenting them will keep me reminded that this is so not a simple or straightforward journey.

Without dragging her around by her face, what is the best way to discourage her from eating grass when I am trying to walk her - or do anything - on the grass?  

The constant face-bump with the rope halter seems quite annoying to me, and is not all that effective (so far anyway). So, is this a matter of John Lyons’ “it takes 1000 times of doing something before creating a pattern” (not a verbatim quote): do I just stick with it until she knows I will not waver? 

Unfortunately then, I am screwing it up because I do want to reward her with grazing after we successfully completed a big walk. Using a flag behind her or a stick, which usually she’s quite sensitive to, does not faze her if she’s managed to get the grass, even though in the round pen it is generally very effective.

For now I am taking the approach: at this time, under no circumstance, can she graze while we are walking. The problem with this is that it is nearly impossible, as long as Tori (my dog) is along, since periodically I need to remove sharp sand burrs from her paws or get her back with us when she goes squirrel-hunting. Answer: don’t bring Tori. …OK, not my fave answer! Tori helps with the overall feel of fun and pleasure and confidence and safety during the walks. Her value on the walks is great. 

However... it may be best to not include her.

How do I get her attention or work on feet when I do not have a round pen or suitable arena without the distraction of grass?

How bad is it that she does not have someone to share a paddock with? 

How bad is it that she doesn’t have an equine friend to touch noses with? 

How close should you get when you are leading your horse near other (fenced in) horses?

How do I “respect her opinion“ when what she wants is not in the plan or recommended? 

Two main things are showing up: eating grass as mentioned, and her asking (quite firmly) to go back to visit with horses (pseudo-)met along the way…. she showed me her obvious desire to go back to spend time near some horses that live next to the horse trail. It was a challenge to get her to go in my direction… Pulling on her face, flagging her, even touching her rump, did not result in much. She would move forward 2 to 4 steps and stop again, looking longingly in the direction of those horses. Should I indulge this? I had the time and could have actually gone back although it was about a quarter mile behind us. What would the result of that be? Would it be helpful? Would it make things worse?

This is a learn-as-you-go-game. I am of the mind that each horse and each situation is its own unique thing. She is doing very well with what I am doing thus far. It is tempting to think I am "on it" and know what I am doing. But I don't. I just know that if a situation comes up where I really don't have a tool or skill, the first step is stay calm... and as Mark Rashid would, employ miso no kokoro... in Japanese, "mind like still water".

More than anything I take the route that my brain and heart have more influence on her than any technical skill or task I might employ. 

I am listening to an audiobook by John Saint Ryan (A Voice For the Horse), much of which clarifies Tom Dorrance's concepts in True Unity.  Dorrance is the master of them all, but I found this book to be extremely difficult to decipher. Saint Ryan's discussion and stories are giving me insight.

Pic for interest :-)

I thank my personal or online trainers who have most influenced me in this heart-centered, softness-seeking journey: Terry Church, Anne and Stephen Duchac, Mark Rashid, Bruno Gonzales and Karen Rohlf.

Off-Property walk #7

Our biggest walk yet - around the block (partly through the woods which we had done before). This included much more road-walking, and we stopped at the neighbors', whose horses are the ones Kai can see about 50 feet from her paddock's back corner shown here:

Kiki is a 24 yo quarter horse who is (frequently) in season, and looking to Kai for romance!

Kai was appropriate in her response: tolerating only so much until she had to tell Kiki to back off a bit!

Kiki and Sassy

Some of the road walking:

I would like to get her back at a safer distance, though she has been compliant all along, never rushing forward or ahead of me, or past my space, and stopping right when I do. Still, with her lack of experience I would like her at this stage to remain 100% behind me by about four feet. (Working on it....!!)

Overall for her experience, it is amazing how okay she is with everything. A very loud sports car starting up, heavy equipment across the street (lots of building happening here in Pine Ridge), dogs coming at us, etc.

Today we will either load up and go to the Equestrian Center (a mile away) to play in the obstacle arena or round pen or jumping arena, or, I will take her for a longer walk, our first on the actual horse trails! Tori would much prefer this option since at the EC she will have to be tied and on leash (anyone that knows me knows she's rarely on leash... 😯).

When we got home I rewarded Kai with a little grazing session. My grass is pathetic... but weeds are good...!

Video Catchup : Kai's Mouth

 These were taken during a meeting with Kai at Kelby's with no real work happening. I just wanted to catch up on simply being with each other.

Lots of people are wary or warn not to play with a horse's mouth, with fears or beliefs that they become more mouthy and can bite (same for giving treats). I don't. I believe that it is a source of comfort and curiosity for them. 

I let Kai feel each finger; I rub her gums between her teeth and cheek; I play with the area where there are no teeth (the bar). She feels good when we do this. I used to do it with Zante and I swear it helped our relationship immensely. You DO have to be a bit careful. Just pay attention! And enjoy it; it's fun.

I also let her smell anything new. This day I didn't have anything except my cell phone. Makes for a not-award-winning video.

Kai Home and Meeting the Donks

 Bill and Ethel the donkeys live behind us. Bill (the "paint") was not into meeting Kai initially.

Ethel (brown) is pretty blind so does not have the same reactivity. This is just a silly clip. Love Bill's ears. And Kai's body language.

Too Much to Write, But I'll Try

The previous post (Feb 13) is the first in a long while. Lots to catch up on.

Kelby the trainer was in a vehicle accident the day after she got her new mustang (she was accepted into the 2024 Makeover), from TN by way of GA. She will be OK but has a good long recovery. 

So - Kai is back here.

I have tried to edit the various videos I've taken into short connected clips and I am useless thus far, so I'm uploading some screenshots from the videos and added below.

The following is what I wrote Saturday:

Saturday February 10, 2024

It’s a beautiful spring morning; cardinals are singing (a classic sound I know so well from living in MA) and crows are calling. The sun is slowly making its way higher into the sky, and temps are cool but mild and pleasant.

I am taking a breath ...and a moment ...to just pay attention, quietly.

The last week flew by. 

Kai stayed at the trainers for a few days after Kelby the trainer was in an accident, broke a vertebrae in her neck and needed to get the training horses out. 

Picked Kai up yesterday, Friday, and then stopped at Sumter Equestrian Center next door to have her hooves trimmed under sedation… (not ideal, and not what I would prefer but fronts needed doing, and this takes pressure off me to complete the challenge of the feet before they get TOO long; she still is not giving all four happily and consistently).

Kai's return home could not be without some drama although the trimming, the sedation, the trailering home, the delivery, etc. all went well. 

She was eating everything in sight and this had me a little concerned, but there really wasn't a lot I could do about it right now. Mostly she seemed content enough to be here.

After a few hours hanging with her in various parts of the yard I decided  she was fine and I’d go inside and take a break. 60 seconds later as I was just out of sight, Catherine my neighbor started screaming at me from her (abutting) back yard, shouting that Kai is stuck. I chuckled, and visualized her in the midst of a bunch of vines because that’s where she had been eating (virtually everything). I was already somewhat worried about her getting colic from eating weird things, but that wasn’t the concern for now.

It turned out she had stuck herself between two trees, literally… and could not free herself. 

You can’t make it up.

It appeared to me that she got lodged at the soft point between two protrusions or tubercles of her (primarily) left femur. The right side was similarly lodged but it was more obvious on the left. It seemed like three hours, but it was just a little over a very intense 80 minutes or so that it took us to collectively get her free, and it was 5 pm..... dark is not all that far off. We tried everything… including Jeff, Catherine’s husband, using a ladder to climb above the horse and lodge himself between the trees in an attempt to get them to split enough for her to squish out. I knew this wasn’t going to work; she was between two 12-14-inch diameter, 80-90-foot-tall longleaf pines. They bend in the wind at about 60 feet up, but not down here at 3-5 feet off the ground. 

This is a situation where any horse person would recognize the potential panic it could cause for Kai: a human (the ladder was bad enough…) looming rather unsteadily above her back end… where lions and cougars attack.  

There ended up five of us; also difficult, because typically mustangs as wild horses are not fond of multiple people surrounding them at once, and Kai is generally used to dealing with only one human at a time.

We discussed using a chain saw but debated the noise and proximity to her hind legs…. Jeff volunteered trying to use his larger electric saw….. and IT WORKED!  Some careful planning of where to cut a wedge, and having Catherine, John and Tracy (my other neighbors) pulling the rope to get that tall tree to land without hitting her.

My only regret is that I was so ensconced in the situation I only took this one photo, and it just does not come close to describe what we had going on!

Once the tree fell, the funniest was how she just walked out slowly, casually, calmly... went about six feet before putting her nose down to eat some palmetto!

And as a note: she was AMAZING through all this. I cannot tell you how stuck she was. Periodically she made efforts to free her self, pushing forward or backward, ending in frustration. She seemed like she consciously stifled her panic... knowing it would not help. It was heartwarming when I consoled her and I swear she understood, at the very least, that we were trying to help (in pic above she had probably just tried to squeeze through or backward, because the lead line is nearly taut, which it was not ever, unless she showed she wanted to try).

She was so stuck, and Catherine and Jeff (much more horse experience than me) confessed later that they were fearing she'd break a leg and/or we'd have a put-to-sleep situation.

And, even with their experience, neither of them had ever seen this happen.

Sigh... apparently she was not injured.

Last night at 1;30 AM, I heard the sound of logs rolling… (I was thinking that the cut-down tree and resulting logs were tumbling down the hill even though we had moved them between any and all trees with the potential for this to happen again). Taco, Tori and I all startled and jumped out of bed. Approaching the back lanai, I realized it was Kai galloping across the back paddock (and there are a lot of trees back there... yikes! Eye injuries! Tripping on stumps or branches! Crashing into the fence! So many ugly possibilities...)!

But as can often be with horses (and myself being alone and in the dark) what really am I going to do...?

I tried to determine if it was out of panic - or possibly joy.  

Hoped for the latter.

Nothing eventful came of that and I am so thankful. 

She is still (now writing this Wed 2/14) periodically galloping "victory laps" across the paddock.... It has me worried (like, quite worried... and probably the subject of the next post), but, at least she feels good.

Also have not photographed the tree debris..... this is some of it.

So that is the update. Next post I will throw in some more silly stuff. Thanks for reading!

Kai Returning Home!

Written mid-January and not finished... See updates above.

I can not believe we still don't have consistency in giving the feet! But: it takes the time that it takes. They are getting long in front.... So, still doing much of the same stuff we have worked on in past vids... I haven't posted as it probably is tedious and boring to most. Also, both Kelby and I have been busy with work projects.

Kai is certainly having more trouble than anticipated. It is a combination of learning what "no" is (think: toddler), and trusting in the human. It could be forced, but we want her giving them willingly, softly and consistently. Maybe either because she is a mare, or because she is young; some days she is happy to do so, and others she wants no part of it... or she will happily give three of the four. 

So here we have backed up a bit, using the rope, and teaching her to think forward, i.e., lead with her feet. The main thing you do not want is her pulling away and going backwards.