Danny's First Trim.

After a few lessons in letting me handle his feet, Danny was about to get his first trim. His feet were long and needed a good clipping.

We do hoof care a little differently than most horse owners. We don't put shoes on our horses. If there was a real need, we would use shoes, but the vast majority of horses do not need shoes and are much healthier without them. Without shoes there is more blood flow through the leg, promoting healing and reducing strain on the heart. That is just one of the many benefits. My good friend, Toni Jackloski has studied natural hoof care and paired it with her knowledge and experience from years of professional farrier service.

With barn full of observers, I walked Danny up and down the aisle to get a before look of his movement.

Then we took some "before" pictures. I did not get good shots of all his feet, but the right front pictures came out well. Danny's hooves were long from inactivity due to being in the BLM holding yards for ten months.

This is much better! His hoof walls are straight, excess and dead hoof was paired away and a even roll was given to the circumference. The bottom view is dirty because of a short trot in the pen.

Look at this beautiful round foot. And it should only get better from here.

If you have interest in Natural Hoof Care, check out http://www.hoofrehab.com/.

First Week Done

Horses are known to be fast changers. They have minds like sponges. Riders learn that no matter what they are doing around the horse, they are always teaching the horse something.


But to my utter amazement, Danny has blown me away with how fast he learns!!! I've seen many horses overcome bad habits, learn to trust after mistreatment, and grasp new lessons way faster than we would naturally expect. It's a testament to the incredible nature of the horse; God's unfathomable design. And Danny is exemplifying his Creator's handiwork.


In less than seven days of training, Danny has easily flowed through the first series of lessons. From travelling around the pen in the direction I ask, to turning and stopping parallel to the fence, allowing me to approach and pet his face, shoulders, ribcage, tail and legs, to turning and facing me when I ask, and accepting the rope being rubbed all over his body. Then came the halter, and turning to face me with the lead rope attached and gradually showing him that pressure on his face also was a turn and face me cue. Next came the bridle and bit, and more practice of turning to face me on cue with the lead rope attached to the bit. The rope-rubbing prepared him for contacts with a towel, a saddle pad and then the saddle, with gradual increasing pressure around his girth so that when I fully tightened the saddle and asked for him to trot around the pen, he was unfazed and only reacted with a small jump when the stirrup bumped his shoulder. From there, we began more specific lessons on how to respond to the bit.


While we worked, my sister Melanie practiced cracking the bull whip on the other side of the barn. A very loud, un-mufflered truck rumbled up the dirt road beside the round pen. Neither caused Danny to even raise his head.


The speed of a horse's progression is determined by how comfortable he is with what he's being taught. Danny has shown me only willingness and therefore we're going along quite quickly at this stage. So after less than 14 hours of training, he stood quietly while I pulled on the saddle, jumped up and down beside him and finally put my foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. I sat only for a split second, dismounted and gave him a hug. In another session, I swung into the saddle and stayed for about a minute while I used one rein and a cluck to ask for a small circle. He did it! Our first steps under saddle! When he stopped, I dismounted and gave him another hug and a scratch under the bridle.

A couple days ago, while Melanie cleaned his stall, she rubbed his neck and found his 'sweet spot.' While she scratched, he curled his upper lip and swayed back and forth, plainly enjoying the moment.


I've picked up Danny's feet and cleaned them for possibly the first times in his life. His hooves are overgrown, which will be remedied shortly when one of my good friends, a professional natural hoof trimmer comes to help me with his first trim. I know many of you are interested in this aspect of Danny's care and I will be sure to get pictures posted for you.


Till I post again, thank you for your interest and may God richly bless!

Details of Danny's First Lesson

Have you ever watched a movie following someone visiting the present from another time period or society? Remember the scenes where the character looks with bewilderment at a tv or car? Well, when Danny walks by a small window of the barn, he sees his own reflection in the glass and knickers a greeting! I laughed, it was so cute!

While Melanie and I were setting up the pen for teaching, Danny bent his head down to rub his nose on his leg. But he sandwiched a shoot of stinging nettle between his face and cannon bone! He walked a couple circles with his crinkled nose stuck straight out and rubbed his face repeatedly on whatever he could fine, while we sympathized. Poor guy!!

Imagine that you were dropped in a different country, a different culture with a strange language. You had no idea what to do, who intended you good or evil, or what people were saying. Now you may have a picture of what Danny is feeling. But so far, his easy-going personality lets him take all the new changes in stride.

Danny has no idea of the huge plans and goals I have for him. If I throw too many expectations on him too fast, it could discourage his curious and courageous tendencies. For these first couple days, I have only a few guidelines.

#1. "Go forward when I ask." All training requires movement. If I can't get Danny to move when I ask, I won't be able to teach him anything. I use a specific cue to tell him to move. I make a kissing sound and if needs be, toss my lariat at his hindquarters. How long I pressure him this way tells him how fast to move. At this point, I only ask him to move forward, left and right.

#2. "Don't back up when I approach you." If I let him develop that habit, he will in effect be protecting himself from me. If he backs up when I approach, I need to do two things; step off to the side and ask him to take a few steps forward, and be careful not to get so close next time I approach. This is known as the "advance and retreat" method. As a teacher, my job is to set up Danny's lessons to build his confidence. When I approach his nose, I watch his ears, face and body language. My goal is to turn around and leave before he gets worried enough that he wants to flee. If I retreat before he does, he'll gradually realize that running away from me isn't necessary. The next time I walk up to him, he'll let me get closer.

I began by asking Danny to move around the pen at a trot. I asked him to change directions by moving in front of him and herding him in the other direction. It took only a few minutes for him to learn that I wouldn't let him stop or change directions when he wanted to. Whenever I'm with him, I'm in charge.

Next I asked him to stop parallel to the fence by having him change directions only a little bit. Since there is a stop in the transition from right to left, if I stop cueing him at the right moment, he stops moving. This is far easier with a horse that likes to stay quiet, like Danny.

With Danny standing beside the fence, I walk to the fence, directly in front of him at a distance that doesn't trouble him. I close the distance between us, watching his comfort level. Before he decides to leave, I leave. I walk about twenty feet, then turn around and approach him again. Before long, within half hour I think it was with Danny, (some animals will require hours), I raised my hand toward his nose. I very gently rubbed his nose for few moments then rewarded him by retreating. This gave him a chance to breathe and see that I hadn't hurt him.

With advance and retreat for his peace of mind always in view, by the end of an hour and a half, I could rub his face and ears, the right side of his neck, mane and ribcage. If he got restless and wanted to move away, I used the opportunity to move him around the pen, practicing his go forward cue. A couple very positive side affects to doing this are beginning to build muscle moving around the sloped pen, and giving Danny motivation to stay beside me. He learns that going away from me will result in work, a little bit of sweat and heavy breathing. After just a minute or two of heavy trotting and some loping around the pen, he was ready to stand quietly beside the fence again and let me rub on him.

It was a wonderful session! I got to rub my fingers in his mane and stroke his neck and shoulders for the first time! Since he has never had a grooming, let alone a bath, my hands were quite coated in grime when the lesson was over. I can hardly wait to give him a bath! Mom is eager for his thin, but three inch long facial hair to get shaved. But basics first, more rubbing lessons next.

Pictures of Pick Up Day and 1st Lesson

Some of the mustangs in one of the pens at the Piney Woods School holding yard.

Melanie took this picture before we knew which horse would be ours.

There's Danny to the left looking in our direction!!

Number 903 eating with the other horses in the pen.

First day of school! He was a little worried about that hand at first.

He's starting to look better already.

One of the few times his head came up that high. Gotta love his straight legs!

Some of our first rubs! Doing great Danny!

A very special thank you to Melanie for taking all these wonderful pictures!

Beginning

In 2007, I heard about the Extreme Mustang Makeover. Selected trainers took an unhandled mustang home for 100 days, then traveled to a common place to be judged on the horse's conditioning, ground work, and riding performance. Then the top ten finalists duke it out in a Saturday night freestyle show, complete with music and props!

I was hooked!! Here was an event that didn't judge you on how fancy your clothes were, how much silver was on your saddle or how amazing your horse's conformation (body structure) was. Points are given based on the quality of training, how relaxed and trusting the horse is and the level of difficulty horse and rider achieve. I watched YouTube videos, DVDs and kept up with blogs and articles.

Three years passed before I formally applied to enter the EMM. But I never stopped thinking about the possibility. I always thought about it with a smile. I would drive, letting my mind wander over performance moves that would wow the judges, or fun ways we would use our music to liven the crowd. Invariably, I would come back to present and realize I was grinning like a goof.

Now the adventure is here! Day before yesterday, July 16th, my wonderful sister Melanie and I got up from our motel room in Jackson, Mississippi to drive my old '96 Dodge Ram, pulling our green stock trailer, to Piney Woods School. We signed in at the gate and turned down a dirt road bending around some trees before opening to a field. A few trucks and trailers were already there and excitement made my stomach full of butterflies. Hundreds of heavy duty pipe panels were set up in a maze of pens where mustangs milled around.

We parked the truck in what I hoped was a sensible place and grabbed our cameras! I saw what looked like a line of people standing behind a tail gate while a lady sorted through files and papers set neatly in the bed of a truck. She announced that since we were early, a certain man wasn't there with the right paperwork so we would need to wait. So Melanie and I went to look over the horses. We immediately spied a couple outstanding looking geldings with big broad shoulders, smooth backs and graceful necks. One pen held a couple horses that were really not getting along! They screamed and hollered, putting themselves tail to tail and letting the hooves fly. The impact of hoof against bone or muscle sounded clear across the stock yards.

"That one's yours," Melanie said as she flipped a thumb in their direction.

"I hope not." I replied. I had been praying for months to get a small gelding with a gentle nature. Those were the specifics I had in mind. I wanted short because I enjoy handling them more (I really don't see why regular working horses need to be bigger than 14:3hh!) and a gelding because...well sometimes mares get moody. But that's not to say I don't like mares. Our family owns nothing but five mares.

The EMM computer randomly draws the horses' numbers for each of 55 trainers competing in 2010's Tennessee division. It wasn't long before the right paperwork arrived and we were able to learn my mustang's number. "0903." Off we went to look for him. He wasn't in the first pen. We didn't see him in the second either. The third pen held more horses so we had to look longer. There was a horse with "903" on the tag held by a string around his throat. He seemed a very unassuming little guy. He ate his hay quietly, was not at all pushy to the other horses and yet didn't mind being on the outskirts of the herd. But my eyes were not impressed with his conformation. His back was shaped more like a mule's, his withers were low, his neck too short and face too long. He did have good points too. He had big thick leg bones and joints, a very kind and generous eye, and nice markings. He was short, maybe 14:1hh, a trait I appreciated.

Had I been allowed to choose a horse based on my own criteria, number 903 would not even have made the top 20. But I can't count the amount of times a decision I thought should be my own, ended up not mine to make, and the result was absolutely right. We don't always get what we think we want, but God gives us what is just right for us at that time.

Finally, it was 903's turn to be separated and loaded into the trailer. I backed the trailer between a couple panels and the wranglers secured them with chains to the side. Having watched a few horses load, I could see why. Some had frantically run into fences, or tried to turn and escape. One even ran like a bull and smashed his forehead into a gate. Ouch.

Number 903 was quiet as could be to load. He walked to the back of the trailer, stopped just short of entering and looked. The wranglers patted and urged, until finally he got in. He didn't turn around right away, just bent his nose to calmly look back at us.





We began the 20 hour drive north east around 10:30am. We had to make quite a few stops, thanks to my truck getting 10 - sometimes 11 miles to the gallon. One of my main worries was that my old truck wouldn't take the travel. But where there is a will, there's a way. There are usually obstacles to adventures, that's what makes them adventures! So I subscribed to a road side assistance plan for horse trailers and double checked all the fluids.

Somewhere not too far out of Mississippi, I decided on his name. Danny. He looked like a Danny to me. Not only did he now have a name, he was stealing my heart! He had eyes like Micheal Landon and no tendency to getting flustered, qualities that would make any horse person thankful. When we stopped he just looked at me, readily ate the hay I pushed in, and rode as quietly as a seasoned traveler.







Melanie and I took turns driving and sleeping through the night and day. We pulled into the drive beside our barn near 11:30am, July 17th. She went to bring our other horses into the barn so I could drive into the pasture and back up to the pen I'd made ready for Danny. While she was doing that, Mom came walking over from where she left her riding mower. She gave me a welcome home hug and went to the back of the trailer to see him.

"You know what I've been singing all morning?" she smiled. I had no idea. "Oh, Danny Boy."

Danny unloaded as quietly as he had loaded. He simply walked out and surveyed his new abode. The 6' high strong panels were set in a circle, albeit not perfect, beside the barn and opening to a section of the run in shelter. I didn't know what kind of gumption my mustang would have, so I had cut two feet of orange warning fence and attached it to the top of the panels all the way around. But I could have skipped the work. I doubt Danny's nose could even reach that high if he stood on his hind legs.

We unloaded the trailer, dropped hay, I checked on my garden and we had some lunch. Before and after making dinner I went outside with Danny. He is quite willing to let me stand within 3 feet of him, sometimes even closer. But he does not want me to touch him. I think I've counted eight or ten times he's touched his nose to me but only for a second and then his nose quivers and he moves away. I sat or stood beside his hay and let him hear the sounds of my voice as he ate.
Here is one of his 'before' conditioning photos. It'll be fun to see what happens to his build with some added muscle and weight!

I've never done a blog before. Never really had the inspiration. Being part of the EMM is exciting to be sure, but another blessing that I simply can't get over is how many wonderful people are interested in this adventure. I hope this blog keeps you in the loop and if it gives you a little smile, it will be more than worth it. Please tell me what you would like to hear about, what I talk too much about or any questions you may have.

At the end of the EMM competition in Murfreesboro, TN, October 22 - 24th, 2010, the mustangs trained by the 55 trainers will be auctioned off for adoption. This blog's main purpose is to expose Danny to as many people as possible and hopefully give him the perfect new home. With God's help, I will do all I can to make him a willing citizen for his next owner. Your help to get the word out would be greatly appreciated. Tell your friends about this blog so that come the end of October potential bidders will be well informed of the training and experience Danny has had.

I can't promise I will write every day, or even on a regular basis. We'll just see how things go. Thank you again for your interest and may God richly bless!

Heading out to give Danny his first lessons! :D