Sunday, July 28, 2013

Listen to Me!

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A bit behind on blogging, I'll admit, but oh well.  I spent a week in California on vacation--I got to hang out with my aunt, my cousin and her kids, my grandparents, and just enjoy a week of no work, no errands, no appointments, no running around, no alarm clock in the morning--it was fantastic!!

I am slowly but surely figuring out how to reprimand Cash.  First, is his spooking, I am starting to find that line between yes, he is actually spooking, and no, now he's just being a jerk.  Yesterday was a great example, I was lunging him and he initially was very looky at "that end" of the arena.  I let him stop and look, and then move on again.  But he kept looking each time we'd come around and would get this little pattern going: slow down, duck in, speed up, pull out.... and after about 10 times of this I was like "Ok, enough. Time for you to listen."

So when he slowed down I snapped his butt with the whip, when he ducked in I snapped his shoulder, when he sped up and pulled out I gave him a nice pull back in and by then we were back to his slow down spot and I repeated. He's a smart cookie, once I was onto his game it only took me doing this twice for him to go "Oh, sorry mom, I'll listen." Turd.

I experimented too with a side rein set up and I'm super pleased with the results.  When lunging (and when riding) he really braces in his neck and can pull and fall in super easily as a result.  I'm not a huge side rein fan as I feel that they are very unforgiving and hard on a horse's mouth--there just is no suppling action.  So what I did was attach a side rein to the outside to be that steady outside rein the horse works into.  On the inside I took the lunge line and ran it through the bit and back to the girth and attached it as the same height as the side rein.  This gave me that inside rein suppling factor and a GREAT way to also effectively disengage him when he tries to brace and pull on the lunge line.  I can say that I've been really happy with the results of how he carried himself the last couple of lunging sessions.

My training goals for Cash for the foreseeable future are two very simple things:
  1. Rhythm and Relaxation
  2. LISTEN
Note the emphasis on #2... this also applies to in hand.  I'm making it a point of taking him out for walks on the road, and he can sometimes loose focus and starts invading my space.  The week before I was in Cali he decided to suddenly take a feel good leap forward during which he then kicked out at me and caught me square in the knee.  I kid you not I thought I didn't have a knee anymore as it instantly went numb.  Thankfully I must have got just the end of the kick because I could still walk just fine and I promptly brought the fear of god down upon him--I was NOT happy!  He's been much, much more respectful now and listens instantly the moment I correct him.  There is a reason I hand walk this horse in a stud chain!

So, I've decided to implement a rule of that he is allowed ONE good look for each scary item, after which he HAS to listen to me.  Also, when he gets his one look, he is looking only, no slowing down, no speeding up, no stopping unless I say, and especially no spinning and trying to go the other way.  Sounds simple enough, right??

On another note, go take a look at this cutie!! If I had the money for another horse I would so snatch him up, just look at that uphill canter! http://denver.craigslist.org/grd/3935382886.html

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Hi-Yo Silver!

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With my Mom being in town for the 4th we decided to take a night and go see The Lone Ranger

Talk about a FUN movie!! I was not quite expecting the humor and punch lines scattered throughout the movie, but I enjoyed every minute of it. 

Aside from a few historical and factual errors (such as the women's clothing being more reminicient of late 1850s than late 1860s and that they were trying to say that the Transcontinental Railroad went through Texas) it was just a good ol' fun western movie.  And, Armie Hammer is pretty easy on the eyes ;)

And, can I just say that I am loving these new "modern" westerns? Movies such as this one along with "3:10 to Yuma", the remake of "True Grit", and TV mini-series shows such as "Broken Trail," "Into The West," and "The Hatfields & McCoys". Yep, I love it.

I swear, I was born in the wrong century....

Regardless, go see The Lone Ranger if you haven't yet!

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

RIP Google Reader

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As many of us now know, Google Reader was officially terminated on July 1st.  This was much to my chagrin... I had the gReader app on my phone and would happily scroll through my feeds--which were all imported from Blogger.com.  Well, with Reader down the tubes my easy phone access to my blogs was suddenly cut short.

You would think getting Blogger RSS subscriptions imported into a RSS reader app would be no big deal...

I just spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out how!!  I failed to import my subscriptions out of gReader into another app before it shut down, so I had to figure out a round-a-bout to get things switched over.

I ultimately went with Feedly as my RSS reader of choice.  I then went into Google Takeout and exported my Reader subscriptions into a .xml document (which is ultimately downloaded as a .zip file, and you have to go into it and copy/paste the subscriptions.xml document into another folder), from there I could go into the cloud portion of Feedly and import it (which is referred to as a OPML Import--and no, I don't know what that means).  That, thank goodness, finally brought all my blogger feeds into Feedly.  But, now I don't know if it will automatically pull in new feeds, or if I'll just have to subscribe to them through both Blogger and Feedly?? Guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there....

In the meantime, in honor of the 4th of July weekend and because it is the 150th Anniversary, I am watching my favorite movie of all time: Gettysburg