More Trail Rides

More Trail Rides

We had 2 more trail rides.  Though I wanted to do a bunch of consecutive trail rides--the weather just didn't want to cooperate.  After each ride, we would get a lot of rain, and I would have to wait for the river to go back down before we could do it again.  Also, we are only doing them when Ellen doesn't have to go to work, so that limits us, too.

The river crossing on our second trail ride went better than the first.  Trifecta was happy to walk along, slowly, with Ellen when we crossed the river.  Everything was going so well that Ellen and I had the same thought--we would try a little trotting.  This was way ahead of the schedule I had in my head, but I wanted to see where he was at.  We got to a great spot for trotting, so I mentioned it to Ellen--and she said she was just thinking of it herself.  If we both think of it, it has to be a good idea.

We both thought we would do it the same way we originally started trotting Cole on the trail--which is the same way that we worked on slowing Trifecta on the steep slopes on the hill.  I made him stand and wait while Ellen went up the trail, and I then asked him to trot to her.

I didn't know what to expect.  When we did it with Cole, he was rather scary.  He went fast and big and Ellen had to be very brave to stand her ground.  (That is how we taught him hand signals to stop.)  I asked Trifecta to trot, and he acted just like he was in the arena.  He gave me a moderate, smooth trot and readily stopped right in front of Ellen.  It wasn't scary at all.  We only did it once.  My real goal was to ride all the way to the next river crossing.  He had never gone that far before, and it would make the ride about 3 miles round trip.  

Once we get past Willow Bend, the trail is well away from the street and very easy to ride.  It went great except for all the mosquitoes.  In fact, the whole ride went great.  We made it home with no problems.

Ride #3

We had a new plan for our third ride.  Based on our success trotting, we decided that that would be our goal.

We got back to the good section of trail, and I told Ellen to walk up ahead.  We waited until she turned around and trotted to her.  Trifecta stopped when I asked him to, and we clicked and treated him-and then we repeated it a number of times until we got to Willow Bend.  We then turned around and went back to the beginning of the stretch of trail.  Each time, she went further away from us.  Each time, he traveled a little faster.  

We repeated the exercise.  This time, he got measurably faster and once he even broke into a canter!  I didn't make a big deal about it, but since I didn't ask him for it, he didn't get clicked.  (This is also the way we introduced cantering on trail with Cole--so it will probably be in his future.)  We were getting towards Willow Bend, so I told Ellen I wanted to go on my own.  At first, Trifecta didn't want to leave her, but once he got going, he was wonderful.  I asked him to stop and clicked him for it.  We then turned and walked towards Ellen.  

I told her I wanted to do a much longer stretch on my own, so we went back to the mud puddle, turned around and trotted away from her.  Once again, he was great, but as we neared the spot where we previously stopped, he surged to get there.  Since that wasn't the lesson I wanted him to learn, I kept him going past that spot and told him to stop in a different spot.  You have to be careful with clicker training that you don't teach them the wrong thing.  It is such a powerful tool.  I didn't want him to learn to rush to a certain spot to get a treat.  I wanted him to learn to keep going and stop when I tell him.

It was all such a total success!  Instead of continuing on to the second river crossing, I told Ellen that we did enough for the day and we went home.  The rest of the ride was wonderfully uneventful.  I believe I have a terrific horse!

Real Trail Ride on Trifecta

Real Trail Ride on Trifecta

One day last month, I met Ellen at the barn and she asked me what I wanted to do that morning.  I told her that I wanted to take Trifecta across the river.  It caught her totally be surprise--which was a good thing.  She didn't have to worry all the night before about taking him on a real trail ride.  

Last year, I led him across the river and on the trail a number of times before I started riding him.  Once I was riding, we did the hill a lot and finally one real trail ride before the weather got bad, so this wasn't completely new for him, and the ride last year was very successful.  Where Ellen was nervous, I was like Trifecta--very excited.

Ellen was going to walk with us.  Talk about having a wonderful sister--she was going to cross the river on foot.

Going down the hill was uneventful.  We passed up the exit ramp for the river, turned around and went to the bank.  My thinking on this was to prevent him from refusing to pass the river ramp when I just wanted to ride on the hill.  I had a lot of problems with him last summer doing just that, and I didn't want to lose all the progress I made with him.

He was so excited when I told him to go down to the river.  He didn't want to wait for Ellen to roll up her jeans--he just wanted to cross.  I made him wait.  Ellen hooked up the lead rope, and we stepped in.  It only took a couple steps to know that she wouldn't be able to safely walk as fast as he wanted to walk, so she unhooked him.  He did walk faster than I wanted him, but I was able to get a "whoa" which helped slow him down.  He walked up the bank on the other side, and we waited for Ellen to catch up.

She hooked the lead rope back up.  I didn't think we really needed it, so she made the rope very slack as a compromise.  She would just be an emergency brake.  We walked quickly and uneventfully down the trail.  I decided to turn at Willow Bend--which would make it a 2 mile ride.  The bugs were ferocious, and they really aggravated him.  Is there any good bug sprays out there?  

On the way home, there were 3 joggers that came towards us.  They walked to pass us and then started jogging--and that spooked him.  I am just not used to him spooking!  It was just a little spook--he shot forward a few strides, and I was able to stop him easily.  He settled back down very quickly, and that is so important.

When it came time to cross the river on the way home, he tried a whole new method.  Instead of walking fast to get across, he wanted to stay next to Ellen.  Since Ellen had to go slow by necessity, he did the same thing--matching her step by step.  It made us laugh. Trifecta often makes us laugh.

What a wonderful first ride!  If this is his starting point, I really don't foresee many problems.

Trifecta on Trail

Trifecta on Trail

As I have mentioned, the weather has not been cooperative for trail riding--any horses--let alone a new horse.  I don't want to cross the river with Trifecta unless it is low enough that I can see the bottom.  I also wanted to be able to ride him a few days in a row on the trail.  Things just weren't working.

So, I decided to just do the hill.  A lot can be accomplished riding up and down the hill.  Our hill is about a quarter mile long, and the trail goes just a little past the exit ramp to the river.  There are 2 very steep but short sections, 3 level sections and one longer moderately sloped section.

We have been doing 2 trips at a time with Trifecta.  Ellen walks along with a lead rope, which she will attach to Trifecta whenever there is a problem or she just gets nervous.  

It also helps her to keep up with us.  It is the strangest phenomenon that we both experience.  If we are leading a fast-walking horse, we can keep up.  If we are just walking next to a fast-walking horse, it is hard to keep up.  It is just the oddest thing.

And Trifecta goes fast when he is on the trail.  It is because he just gets so excited.  He really enjoys himself.  The speed does give us a problem, though.  He goes too fast down the steep sections and wants to trot, which is unacceptable.  We came up with a solution.  With the help of clicker training, Ellen walks ahead of us, stops and Trifecta walks to her and stops.  Of course, he gets clicked and treated.  In the beginning, it took 3 clicks to get down the slopes, but now we can do it in 1 or 2.

This actually teaches him a lot.  First, he has to stop and stand while his best buddy is leaving him.  That is his biggest challenge.  He must wait until I tell him to walk.  He then has to walk like a gentleman and stop in front of Ellen.  He gets clicked, and then we repeat it.

It has worked marvelously, and sometimes we just do it without Ellen's help at all.  Most of the time he does pretty well.

We started to do the hill 3-4 times a week.  Sometimes he gets to see other horses and that is challenging for him.  We practice our "whoas" and "stands."

He is still not entirely consistent on the road.  Every now and then, a vehicle will startle him.  We only have to go a few hundred feet on the street to get to the trail, fortunately.  I lead him to the trail.

Taking him on the hill has actually helped his arena work.  When we go back to the arena, he is more enthusiastic about it.  I think he likes the variety.  I really feel the hill work is time well spent.

Update on Trifecta--Arena Work

Update on Trifecta--Arena Work

These last few months have been very difficult for me, but all through it, Trifecta has been the bright spot.  Though he has been challenging at times, he has never been dangerous and has always been fun.

The weather definitely didn't help us at all.  Since he had only gone on one "real" trail ride last year, I certainly wasn't going to try and cross the river on him when it was at all high.  Ideally, I wanted to be able to ride him on the other side for 2-3 days in a row.  The weather just didn't cooperate for us.  

That didn't mean that we wasted this time.  Since the weather was warmer, we moved the majority of our riding outside to our very large outdoor arena.  It has all-weather footing, so we never have to deal with mud, sloppiness or deep puddles.  We do have to deal with a closed gate that he wanted to go out of.  That was the most frustrating aspect of our outdoor adventures.  He would try to stop at the gate, get stuck at the gate and veer towards the gate as we went by it.  

This problem hasn't completely gone away, but it is vastly better than it was in the beginning.  There are 2 things that I did that really helped.  The first one was to practice "perfect corners" at a trot.  We started at the far corners where the gate wasn't even an issue.  When I say perfect, I mean perfect.  I did the first corner over and over until he got it right--and then he got clicked.  After that, he was getting it perfect most of the time in just a few minutes.  He would only get clicked for perfect.  We then went to the next corner and did the same thing.  It took less time for him to understand what I wanted, and when he was perfect, he got a click.  

The next plan was to do both corners in a row.  I wanted a definitive straightening between the corners, and that was the hardest part for him to understand, but he did after a while.  After a few practices, I didn't click him but headed down to corner number 3.  He did that one perfectly, and I clicked him.  I walked him past corner number 4 where the gate was located and headed back to corner #1.  We trotted through #1, #2 and #3.  I kept going and he did #4 perfectly!  Of course, he got a click.  We practiced some more and called it quits for the day.

The next time I rode him in there, we practiced "perfect corners" the other direction.  He became more consistent from then on when I wanted to simply trot past the gate.

The following week, I decided to teach him to go in and out of the gate.  I didn't know if this would help or hurt.  All along, I would dismount on the far end of the arena and lead him out of the gate.  Now I was going to ride out.  I decided I couldn't just ride out--I needed a way to give him permission to go.  I rode to a spot about 10 feet from the gate--facing it--stopped him and then told him to walk out.  I rode out, rode him around, went back in, rode back out--and did this a number of times.  I wanted him to learn that going out didn't mean we were going back to the barn and going in didn't necessarily mean we were going to work hard.  A few days later, I added trotting around when I was outside the arena and just walking leisurely inside the arena.  

Since then, when he gets "gate-ish" it is only half hearted.  I am still wrestling with his circles bulging towards the gate when we are near it, but that is way better than before.

I have gotten him to do some cantering.  It hasn't been easy, and it is very sporadic.  The good news is that it is a lovely, smooth and balanced canter--not racy at all.  That is so much different than Cole was in his beginning days of cantering.  Cole used to buck, too.  Tri has no inclination to buck.  The hard part is just getting him to do it.  I haven't been clicking him for it, because horses stop what they are doing immediately when they hear a click, and I don't like that sudden stop.  I think we will probably do best working on the canter when we are on the trail.

Ellen has ridden him a few times, and she really likes him.  He is very responsive to leg and weight aids.  My theory is to ride a horse like they know what you want them to do, and they will learn all the more subtle cues without you spending a lot of time actually teaching them the cues--and it really worked with Trifecta.  Ellen's told me that he actually responds to cues like the books say a horse is supposed to.  He picked up on indirect reining without me even knowing I was teaching it to him.  I have started to teach him neck reining, and he is catching on.

After riding in the indoor arena most of the winter with him, it is so great to be outside.  He is also learning to work when there are distractions like horses being turned out, ducks in the pond and people walking all about.  I wish all these rides had been on the trail, but the time has been well spent.

100 Miles...

I haven't been writing much--I just lost my mojo.  There has been so much bad news, and I just hate writing about bad news.  I am going to try and get things caught up.

Back in April, Ellen and I signed up for the Virtual Tevis Cup, once again.  This is our sixth year of participation.  The goal, unlike the real Tevis Cup where you ride your horse 100 miles in a day, is to ride 100 miles in 100 days.  That is something very easy for us to do, but we enjoy doing it, and the money goes to a good cause.

The weather was crummy right from the get go.  Most of the time, we were just riding up and down the hill to the river.  In the spring, Ellen is very nervous about crossing the river if it is a little high.  There were a lot of times that I could of crossed, but she didn't want to, so I was happy to stay on the hill with her.  I was able to ride with Kevin a few times on the other side of the river.  Ellen would just hike along with us, and Cole just loves that.

Then, Kevin had a terrible accident.  I won't go into any details here; except that he broke 7 ribs--2 in 2 places and punctured his lung.  He ended up in the hospital for 4 days.  Of course, when he got out, he couldn't ride--he couldn't even safely lead Starry.  We were happy to help with Starry all we could.  He didn't miss much good riding.  It still continued to rain, so most of our time was spent going up and down the hill...

I was up to around 84 miles--a bit ahead of Ellen from the days that I crossed the river and she didn't when Cole colicked.  I got the vet out, and she determined that he had an impaction in his colon.  When she went to tube him, a couple gallons of reflux came pouring out of his stomach--this was an emergency.  I either had to take him to the emergency hospital or put him down.  I opted for the hospital.

I won't go into all the gory details, because I simply just don't want to relive them again.  To make the long story short, he was there for 12 days.  The first week, they were draining his stomach every 2 hours.  The rest of the time was spent trying to get him to eat and waiting for something to come out the other side.

I brought home a horse with severe ulcers, nerve damage in his nose, a muted appetite, loads of drugs he needs to take for weeks and a quite a bit thinner body.  For a while, we were just doing hand walking, and I recorded those miles as part of our Virtual Tevis Cup total.  As he improved, we started leading up and down the hill.

Back when he was still in the hospital, I had to take Fairy Floss, my cat, for a follow up appointment for her skin allergies.  The vet and I finally sleuthed out the problem.  Blood work showed that she was extremely allergic to yeast.  Her whole body was itchy--including her ears.  When we treated her ears, she improved, but it wouldn't last.  Then, the vet had an inspiration--she realized Floss had a yeast infection in her ears and it made her whole body have a reaction.  We aggressively attacked the ear infection, and the problem was solved.  The treatment involved flushing her ears out every 3 days because the vet thought she may be so allergic that even dead yeast cells could cause a reaction.

I was taking her to the vet for her last visit.  We were playing shortly before leaving, and she ran between my legs and got tangled in them.  She came out very lame on the other side.  At least I was able to get her into the vet right away.  X-rays showed that 3 ligaments were ruptured--one was completely gone.  We had to schedule an operation, which was a week later.  Until then, she had to live in a dog cage.

Cole was home when she had the operation, and she is healing up beautifully.  She was able to use her leg right away, and on day 5 she snuck up the stairs.  I now have the stairs blocked.  She just went in for her 2 week checkup, and they said she doesn't need to come back.

Back to Cole.  We are still working our way through the medicine.  I am now riding him lightly, and he seems to be enjoying his little excursions--up and down the hill.  While he was away, Ellen was able to almost catch up with us in miles, so I decided to stop recording until we were tied.  That way, we would be able to finish together.

Through all of this, I have been quite a wreck.  Things are finally looking up.  I am still very anxious about Cole.  The vet thinks that the colic was caused by something he ate, but we don't know for certain.  If it happens again, I will make the other decision, because it will be evident that something internal isn't working.  I don't know if I will ever get over this feeling of uncertainty with him.  Kevin is just starting to ride again.  We weren't sure even just a few days ago if he would.  Fairy Floss is doing terrific.  There is a real silver lining on her black cloud.  She is only 7 years old.  I have had her for less than a year.  When Thunder died, I went to the shelter and picked out their most unadoptable cat.  No one wanted a cat with skin allergies.  Anyway, when they x-rayed her, it showed that she has very bad arthritis in her hips.  I now have medicine to help her arthritis.

Finally, the day came to finish the Virtual Tevis Cup.  We probably could have crossed the river, but it was still a little too high for Ellen's comfort.  We thought it would be very appropriate to finish it on the hill.  We determined the finish line would be at the bottom of the hill on the third trip down.  When we got there, we gave each other a big high five!  I didn't know if I would even have a horse to finish it on, so it was very satisfying to do it--even if most of the ride was on the hill.

Time for the Trail for Tri

Time for the Trail for Tri

We had a lousy winter, and we barely took Starry, Dante and Cole on the trail.  It was very cold and icy.  The ice was the worst.  It didn't only apply to the frozen river, but the trails themselves were very icy.  Much of the time, we couldn't even get the horses down the driveway because it was too icy.  Even when the driveway, trail and river thawed out, there was a huge pile of ice chunks blocking our access to the river crossing for a few weeks.  

I just gave up with Trifecta in the fall and worked with him in the indoor arena.  Once things got better, I started riding him in the outdoor arena and reviewing traffic by standing at the end of the driveway.

A few weeks ago, I took him on one trip down the hill to the river.  He wasn't too bad.  Basically, he was right about where he left off last fall.  That gave me a lot of hope--and then the rain began.  For a few more weeks, it was too high to cross it with him.  It did get low enough for Cole, but I don't want to push my luck with Trifecta on a higher river for a while.  We just stayed up at the barn.

Finally, the river was very low and clear--perfect for crossing with Trifecta.  Ellen and I rode out on a trail ride first with Cole and Dante.  When I got back, Kevin was at the barn.  He offered to go with us on Starry.  How could I say no?

I tacked Tri up and met Kevin out by the driveway.  Trifecta knew what was happening, and he got very excited--too excited.  All of our horses have always really enjoyed going on trail rides--but Trifecta takes it to an extreme.  He is like a dog who knows he is going to go on a walk.  He marched right past the Starry and headed down the driveway; nearly dragging me.  As I led him down the street, he could barely contain himself--and then he saw the other horses down the street; heading our way.  That was the last straw.  The excitement level went through the roof.

We met the other horses at the beginning of the trail.  I let them ride off until they were out of sight and gave Tri time to unwind.  He did a little bit.  I mounted and started our ride.  Ellen was walking next to us and Starry was behind us.  After a few steps, I checked the brakes--and I didn't have any at all.   I needed to install the brakes before we did anything else.  We did walk/whoa/walk/whoa transitions.  I clicked him for stopping, and soon his brakes were much better.  I then started clicking him for just walking.  

I told Ellen and Kevin we weren't going to cross the river.  My reasons were multiple.  First, he was so hyper, I feared he would cross the river too quickly and possibly fall.  The bottom of that river crossing is very slippery and uneven.  My brakes weren't good enough to slow him down.  My second reason was that he would be aware of the other horses just ahead of him and might obsess on them.  Lastly, I thought that riding him up and down the hill a few times would be the best way to get him to calm down.  We call it "demoralization."  

Ellen breathed a sigh of relief when I told her of my decision.  Kevin later told me that he agreed, too.  Trifecta would have to wait for another day to cross the river.

At the end of the trail, we turned around to head back up.  Immediately, Trifecta improved.  Once he realized he wasn't crossing and following the other horses, he relaxed and started to listen to me.  He is smart enough to know that he is better off not rushing up the hill.  On the steep parts of the slope, he remember he is supposed to lower his naturally high head and use it as a fulcrum to aid him up the hill.  (Yes, we actually taught him that last summer.  He has a head down command.  Once he learned it was easier, he started to do it all the time.) 

He still walked faster than Starry, so we had to stop and let Starry catch up multiple times.  That is a great thing for a horse to learn, so we didn't mind waiting.

We got to our turnaround spot and we headed back down the hill.  He was a whole different horse from the  first time.  I was able to stop him easily, and he walked a more reasonable speed.  He was just so much better!  We still had to wait for Starry.  I asked Ellen if she was up to a third trip on the hill, and she agreed.  On the third trip, he was just wonderful.

Overall, he wasn't that bad, just so very, very excited in the beginning.  He didn't do anything dangerous, and he really seemed to have fun.  I am so looking forward to our future rides.

Trifecta Plays Ball

  

Trifecta likes to play ball.  He will bring it to us in exchange for a click/treat.  If we throw it out, he will retrieve it, too.  Sometimes he likes to just pick it up and carry it around.  He will try to give it to Dante--who doesn't give him a treat.