I had my list ready of things I want to work on, and asked her to choose. She still cannot read English, so I translated.
I asked that we work on Mag's fabrics issue, and she said it would be difficult without a safe enclosed area to work, but we did our best on our sloped slippery paddock (geotiles are slick - both Baasha and I have fallen down on them multiple times).
I was especially glad when she was savvy enough to recognize Mag's stress even though he stood motionless.
Because when I had a similar session with Kati, Kati said "He's fine, I don't know what you're talking about."
Susanne had my rain coat over Mag's back and she said, "He finds this very unpleasant." Based on very subtle changes in his expression. And this was her going glacially slow. Then we moved on to my stupid-loud rump rug (love that thing but really, it's like a Lays potato chip sack).
Then she asked if I had any leg wraps. Oh dear - to be honest I haven't even thought of going there, besides the fact that I don't own any, too dangerous. But I do have a pair of reflective ones for riding at night that were a free gift I've never used.
She very slowly introduced them and put just one of them on a foreleg and Mag suddenly couldn't stand on that leg anymore. "It burns! Get it off!" I was cracking up as he just held it up for us and then started ripping at it with his teeth. She led him around after he figured out his leg could support weight, and then I put the other one on. He did a lovely Spanish Walk for us *lol*
I'm glad she didn't push with the hind legs, the kicky ones.
Mag yawned and she said, "That's an important sign he's giving us - he's feeling overwhelmed." She tried to explain but I knew what she was talking about, "I know it's not that he's sleepy, it's stress."
She called it a fancy German word that means displacement. "Uebersprungshandlung."
Finally I got out my spider umbrella (the one I wanted to use for sacking out, but there was a spider in it and I ran away screaming.....not my finest moment). Susanne seemed pleased about how I was using the umbrella with him. She said next time we should take a walk with him and the umbrella and coat.
What I didn't like about today was the fact that she kept repeating how much we need a round pen, at least, to work in. How much a round pen can help. How she'd be using it at this moment. How safety is important, so we should have a round pen. She mentioned it at least 10 times. I don't need to be told how helpful it would be to have a safe enclosure to work, but I sure heard about it today. (And at one point Mag slipped and almost nosedived on our geotiles - really not optimal for walking on.)
She repeated how this is the very worst part of Germany for trying to ride horses because of all the paved trails. I said, "Yes, I think I can ride a total of 10 minutes before I hit pavement again."
She told me with our busy street and these mutli-use trails full of users, everything is working against me. She told me about a horrible accident she had on pavement when her horse ran off and broke its leg and put her in the hospital. I'm not comfortable on pavement, and I never will be; I don't need to hear more stories about how pavement kills.
But it was comforting that she admits the difficulty of my situation and told me I should just go out there and lead Mag around as much as possible.
One thing she mentioned I thought was just silly.
I'd told her I don't own leg wraps because I want my horse to learn to be careful out there in the woods, and not get sloppy. I used to use leg protection always because my dressage trainer saw them as crucial. I even bought into Sports Medicine Boots's claim to support the tendons. Then I read the analogy of hanging a piano in the air by a metal cable. Does wrapping the cable strengthen or support it? Not that I can see, but I agree that it will help protect it from dings if something hits it. And since I don't jump solid objects with horses, I don't feel I need them anymore. (However since Mag is cow-hocked I can imagine he'd need ankle boots if he ever was to work hard.)
Her claim was totally new - she said that leg protection actually weakens the legs of the horse. That the legs lose their own ability! What huh?
She said she loves Arabians because even though they can be so body-sensitive/reactive, they want to work with people. She said he got very upset when I went in the house to get my jacket, I didn't realize it. She said, "He does not know me and has no trust in me."
In the end she said, "You may have to compromise. Some horses are just ultra sensitive to fabrics and you might have to buy materials they can handle. You can work on this, but be prepared that it might not ever go completely away." She said she was amazed at how many companies manufacture riding clothing with material that is difficult for horses. She said many riding rain coats are too loud for many horses. She wished it were different, that they'd think about making the fabrics quieter. I thought that was interesting and honest of her to admit that I may never fix this.
She said I have a very nice horse, and I thanked her. She laughed when I said, "I said no more greys, and no more babies...."
But she still has never asked his name. Isn't it odd to have a trainer that doesn't know your horse's name?
8 comments:
Interesting! Finally a person who agrees with me about leg wraps! I simply don't use them. If Carmen interfered with herself then maybe. Or if we were eventing (which we are not). I know that there are times to use them but probably not as much as people think!
There are lots of ways to work on this without a round pen (I don't have one). One is to teach him that if he looks at something it goes away. That helps them to be brave. The other is to use their natural curiousity. The trick is finding the spot where they start to feel discomfort and then backing off a bit.
My first mentor told me (long ago) that tendon wraps like SMBs actually weaken tendons over the long term, so I've always avoided them. I finally tracked down some research (https://thehorse.com/121423/researching-horse-boots/) that supported what she told me, and it's different than I expected: it's actually the retained HEAT that causes damage. There are also about a dozen ways to hurt your horse by mis-applying bandages and wraps, so I avoid them if possible. The exception is standing wraps, which I've had to apply daily for various injuries to various horses over the years, I think I could probably put on a decent standing wrap in my sleep.
And I think you were there the ONE time I put interference boots on the Toad (at the insistence of his owner, b/c the horse she was riding needed them): he tripped and stumbled for five miles or more with the owner telling me to just let him get used to them. I finally took the damn things off and strapped them to his breast collar for the remaining 45 miles, and we finished just fine. The horse she was riding, not so much... Kind of a two-rat study, but it convinced me not to fix that which ain't broken.
I understand about the whole "loud clothing" thing. That isn't Fiddle's problem. Hers is plastic grocery bags. Despite me feeding her mash out of plastic grocery bags for YEARS she still knows that they are Made Of Evil. I have tied them around her stall (she wouldn't come inside, even in the pouring rain which she hates). I tied them to me (she accepted it grudgingly, but was very anxious until I got rid of them). I contemplated tying them to her saddle but that would probably just be mean. It's an honest fear, not an attempt to get out of work. She can cope, barely, but if she doesn't know a bag is there and then she sees or hears it, she freaks. And after all these years, I've just decided to accept that I'm not very fond of guns and she's not very fond of plastic bags, and that is kinda just the way we are!
I've worked with a round pen and worked without them. Having one is nice, but it's not life-or-death. Can you make a space with good footing (bring in sand, maybe) on a flat place in your pasture? Or??? For me, the footing is more important than the round enclosure.
Teresa, oh, she wished I had a ring or arena too, she just mentioned the round pen as the simplest option. *sigh* I'm glad you agree about the method: )
Aarene, I remember riding behind Bree and having him somehow kick up rocks behind him like he was bowling toward me. Never had any other horse do that to me.
The HEAT - do you know, Back on Track sells leg wraps for riding that are supposed to heat up the horses' legs?
Thanks for that, about the plastic. I have hung a few rain coats in the stall by the hay, who knows. Tying a scary item to a saddle can be very risky, but I've done it.
Yah, the footing is more important than the "container" but we have nothing flat here.
Yesterday J explained to me the word in LOTR, "The Shire" - in German it means Landaue and it is literally a fertile river valley. (In German, the hobbits come from the Aue.) I told him how the horse pastures along the Snohomish flood every year, and how absurdly flat the pastures are adjacent to the foothills, especially, your house: ) I mean, look at Issaquah, river valley carved horse pastures alongside steep hills. It is a peculiar PNW feature.
On the issue of leg boots--last spring when I was first bringing Kate back from her suspensory tear, I thought it might me a good idea for her to wear her SMBs. But at my first lesson, my trainer said that they do heat up the leg, which I thought might actually be a good thing...but she said that heat is good for muscle/soft tissue strains, but bad for tendon/ligament issues. We checked Kate's leg under the boots and it was very hot! And this was before the weather even warmed up. So I've gone without since then.
On tying a scary to ones saddle: one summer when I was a wrangler for a Girl Scout horse camp, we took a group of girls out for a lunch ride. They each tied their paper sack lunches to their saddle (no problems there) and I tied a burlap sack with all their plastic and metal cups to MY saddle, on the somewhat reactive mare that wranglers got to ride, since she was too much for the campers... When that mare took her first step after I untied her, she heard those cups rattle and panicked, pulled away from me, and disappeared into the woods for THREE DAYS! When she finally returned to the corrals, bag still tied to my saddle, she came towards us...one..trembling...step...at...a...time!
I totally get how long term use of wraps could actually cause more issues than the solve. Sounds like she's more thoughtful of/with the horse than some of the others. Perhaps point out other you have no place level enough for a round pen? Its most likely what she's used to is why she kept mentioning it? Bet she know Mags name as you'd have said it at least once! Funny, I just bought a new winter coat (Ovation), it's quite noisy when my arms swing up against my torso.
I used to always put on splint boots, because my neighbor who sold me two of my horses was always dealing with her show horses popping splints. Then I started using wraps because Bombay was always kicking himself in the horse trailer and taking off skin. The shipping boots made him go ballistic because of their puffiness. Now that I'm in Arizona, I don't use wraps or split boots at all because all they do is pick up burrs and cacti needles where most of those items would not be attracted to fur like they are to fabric.
One time a friend was taking lessons in my round pen and her trainer brought a friend of his along who stood there with his arms hanging through the railings crinkling an empty water bottle repeatedly. I don't know of the guy was even aware that he was doing it, but the trainer didn't seem concerned about how the horse would react. My friend had to ride a fractious horse around and around past that crinkling water bottle for an hour, and while the horse tensed up at first, she eventually ignored it and focused on what her rider was asking her to do. Maybe crinkling a water bottle around Mag might help. I know there were clothes I'd wear that made crinkling and swishing noises, and when I'd enter the horses' stalls, they'd run away from me and snort, so if it was a jacket making the noise I'd take if off and lay it over the horse's back and make him wear it for a while. After a while, playing dress up just became a game.
Don't get me started on Back on Track stuff. Snake oil and hogwash, that. And yes, the rock-throwing time was because he was wearing those stupid boots. Some horses need interference boots, I understand that, but he did not.
Plastic: I don't know if there was a Traumatic Event prior to me ever meeting my horse, but she is absolutely convinced that Certain Death is imminent when plastic bags are near. She can only barely hold herself together, and that's with 13 years of practice. If I ever get my hands around the throat of a yabbo who chased her with a stick-and-a-bag, well. I'm glad I know several good lawyers.
A lot of our flat land is a result of
a. being a former lake
or
b. being a former lahar (lava outflow).
And both of those things can recur periodically. So I guess "be careful what you wish for" and maybe don't tell J, since he's not fond of thinking about volcanoes.
Our flat(ish) pasture is former lahar, with upheavals to the east (that big faux-mountain that rises out of my neighbor's backyard). Fortunately, our place is significantly higher ground than the river two miles away, so it doesn't flood much. But in an earthquake/volcanic event, I don't like our prospects.
I agree that he may never completely except the evil. I think part of it has to do with their hearing be more sensitive, too. Khanalee would put up with the torments I brought to him, but he was never completely relaxed about it, although as he got into his teens, he was a little more tolerant. A person just have to have an understanding with them, and also they need to be prepared for the brain farts that may happen. Mag may be uptight, but he is trying. He is putting up with your torments, and that counts for a lot. I had a Welsh pony that wasn't afraid of such things. There was a black plastic bag in the yard and he walked right over it like it was grass. Agee about the fabrics needing to be horse friendly. The time has come for such things. I bet someone like Noble Outfitters could come up with something. I ordered a coat from LLBean but returned it because I couldn't stand the crinkly sound it made.
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