Happy Independence Day

Today is the 4th of July. I'm so fed up with the Snaps, Crackles and Pops...coming from next door.

It's understandable though. Our neighbors have 5 boys. Boys and fireworks go together like summer and swimming. They just gotta do it.

Their sixth and youngest child is a seven year old cutie who LOVES horses! She helps me whenever I have a bit of extra time to zip around our common fence to pick her up in the J.D. Gator, so she can come over to play with the horses.

She will stand at the fence waiting some times for nearly an hour. I feel terrible if I don't have time to go get her. But she gets that I can't always do that. I wish I were on kid-time, that would be great, but I'm on horse time.

Here she is standing next to Spencer. He sure has mellowed since he's been here. I would have never let her get this close to him a year ago, especially while he was eating. He's a pretty good boy now.

It's hot today. I went out to feed the horses and Forrest came up to me and started rubbing on me. At first I thought it was flies bothering him. But he was insistent. Something just didn't seem right.

So I asked him to follow me back to the barn and I sent him into the stall and gave him his hay there, with a special grain treat.

Then we got busy across the street. Rich was on the tractor mowing the field that we use when our pasture needs a rest. I came back over in the Gator to find Forrest down in the stall. He got up and came out as soon as I slid the stall door open. I grabbed a halter, but as I tried to put it on his head, he turned away to bite as his stomach.

Panic time! Why is it the faster you try to do something - the longer it takes? The rope halter got all tangled up and Forrest took off towards a pile of dirt near the back hoe. He dropped down and laid there for a moment, then rolled. I went for his head with the halter again.

He got up took off toward a grassy patch and dropped again, then walked off before I could get to him. He headed back toward the barn. I got the halter on him finally and we started walking. I noticed that he had pooped several times in the stall.

I took him out to the play field and we walked around the pond. I needed Rich to come help me walk him so I could get something for Forrest's pain. I looked across the road at Rich on the noisy old tractor.

I couldn't believe what I happened to see, just beyond Rich on the lumbering tractor. A big black bear running across the field into the trees. Holy Cow or Bear rather!

That distracted me from Forrest who just dropped on the ground. This time in the soft grass of the field. I flapped my arms and yelled at him to get up! He did and then he pooped a couple times and stretched out and took a pee. Weird.

Then, he went down again, now I had to call Rich to help me. He came and we got our big boy up again and Rich walked him while I went to get something for the pain.

After we got the pain meds on board I asked Rich if he saw the bear. Nope. Since he didn't see it, I told him it was really huge.

Seriously...it was big. I assumed it was the fireworks that scared it out into the open in the middle of the day. I hate fireworks, I really do.

We took Forrest over to the hose and let cold water run all over him. He seemed to enjoy that. We kept it up for about 20 minutes. Allowing him to stand in the water was not only cooling his feet, (colic can lead to laminitis - keeping the feet cool is critical) the water was softening them as well.

I thought, "Good, when he starts feeling better, I can trim those softened hooves. We tried to get him to take a drink out of a nearby water trough. Nothing doing.

We went back to walking and cold showers. He stopped trying to go down and roll. So I let him stand in the shade, all damp and cool now, under the big willow tree.

While he stood, feeling better I think, I went for my tools.

As he stood gazing off at the neighbor's house, I pulled up beside him in the Gator. What a comfortable place to work.

Forrest, who is normally impatient with me and gets me upset when I trim, stood quietly in the shade of the willow and listened to the kids next door, squealing and having fun playing games out in their yard.

At that moment, I was evaluating Forrest’s hooves, listening to the pops and bangs all around us now, and loving life.

A song rattled around in my old head - "let freedom ring...let the white dove sing...something something...Independence Daaaay.

It's very cool how it doesn't cost me anything to keep my horses hooves trimmed and healthy. And I sure love the gratification of turning neglected hooves into sound hooves and making horses and their owners happy. I enjoy teaching people about what I do. But most of all I appreciate the independence of working for myself and answering to no one except me, my customers, and their horses. And sometimes, my husband:0)

As corny as it sounds, this truely feels like Independence Day to me.

After I got done trimming Forrest, I offered him water again. He wasn't interested. He peed though for the 2nd time. What can that mean? Should I be worried? They are like kids to us, aren't they?

I let him hang out in the field for a while longer, until he moseyed on back to the loafing shed to visit with his buddy Spencer.

They are cute together.


Since he seemed to be back to his old self, I sent him out the gate to the pasture and he took a big, reassuring for me, drink of water.

Later I saw him standing out with the other horses, gleaming in the sun from the cold bath he’d gotten earlier. What a sweet horse he is. I would hate for anything to happen to him anytime soon.

It’s starting to get dark and the fireworks are going off in earnest. Hopefully all the horses will stand around enjoying them as they have in years past only jumping when the big ones go off.

For me, I'll probably have trouble getting to sleep, worrying...about the horses, the dogs, the cat, the neighborhood kids...and that poor bear.

Happy Fourth of July!

Pat

PS: I'll be posting pictures of our last trimming clinic soon.

Barefooters Bash 2009

It all started with a phone call from Lori Holliday and a suggestion, “We should try to get a bunch of local trimmers together for a day.

Okay! Let’s set a date. How about June 14 at 1pm?

Perfect!

Some time goes by and we decide it might be a good idea to give as many trimmers as we know of a heads up. So we gathered as many email addresses as we could and sent emails. Later I created a flyer and it was sent out to everyone we knew of (two times – the second time with the actual correct date) and was forwarded on to other trimmers.

A dozen bare-footers showed up! At first, we are pretty much all about meeting each other and...well, the food.






And the dogs were wishing they were invited to the party. Because they too were pretty much all about the food.

Scrunchie - eyeballing someone's plate.


Mae is trying to look as irresistible as she possibly can,



and Lucy, Murphy and Shiela were waiting for someone to open the gate and yell, "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? WHO...WHO!?"



Dan Becker's mare, Cru, wonders why all these predators are staring at her.
But we'd already had lunch, so instead of the main course, she was our model for Lori's power trim demo!



How cool is THAT!

Next, Boomer gets his hooves trimmed up! Oops! A quick peek under the tail and we discover that Annie is actually the demo donkey!


Here comes the parade of equines (residents of the Rainier Equine Hoof Recovery Center) and the Co-Grand Marshals are Boomer and Annie! You have to admit, they look a lot alike.




Spencer and Minnie the Mule


Danny, Neenah, Buck, Spencer, Forrest

Hank, Pearl, Peaches and Missy and Buster Brown

Hank, Buck, Danny and Missy


The horses all get bored with our hoof yakking and leave us one by one.


Jenn Smith arrives with her beautiful son, and her gorgeous barefoot reining horse, Cedar.

Cedar gets a trim!

This is how ya do it!


Jenn's little guy finds something to play with. "Hey look! What can I do with this?"



A Bucket Buddy!

Sophie the barn cat was waiting to be entertained. Looks like she's thinking, "That's pretty good kid, but is that all ya got?"



Here is the guy who made it all possible. My hubmiester, Rich. He worked hard spiffing the place up. Thanks Hon!

I have a bunch of other pictures to post about our day together. Lots of discussion and basically getting to know each other. But time has gotten away from me, so I'm going to post what I have uploaded now and will add to this post later.

Suffice it to say, we had a great time! And plan to get togeher again next year. So if you missed this year's 1st Annual Barefooters Bash, come see us next year on June 19th! It will be bigger and better! Ah, dessert was the BEST! Thanks! Lori!

Barefooters
Advocate
Sound
Hooves

How To Tie a Rope Halter

This has nothing to do with hooves, but I was outside today, dinking around with Peaches and as I was tying her rope halter, I thought of all the times I see people incorrectly tying their halters. So since I had my camera in my pocket, I decided to take pictures of how I tie a rope halter, just for fun!

On my visits to trim horses, I've noticed that many horse owners are switching over to rope halters, which is great! But the halter has to be tied correctly because an incorrectly tied halter can cause big problems in a pull-back situation.

If a horse that is wearing an incorrectly tied rope halter, should step on its lead rope and pull back hard, or go into panic mode and pull back, the knot you just tied will tighten and about the only way get the halter off will be to cut it off.

If a rope halter is tied correctly, it should never tighten to the point that you can't untie it.

So here is how I teach people to tie a rope halter:

First, I refer to the loop on the side of the halter as the "post" and the piece that comes over the top of the horse's head, as the "wire." If you were to tie a horse to a fence, you would tie his rope to the post, not the wire. Right!

This is a correctly tied halter. The rope is tied to the post, not the wire above it.

First, bring the wire down behind the post and bring it through the loop then pull the wire toward the horse's eye. (At this point, you can use your other hand to adjust the rest of the halter so that it is fitted under the chin and not hanging down the horse's nose. You can see I was concentrating on the knot here and didn't adjust the halter very well.)





Bring the tail of the wire back (in front of the post) toward the tail of the horse, leaving a loop in the wire on the head side of the post. Then run the wire behind the post and back out through "your" loop on the the head side and leaving another loop on the tail side of the. (That's all in this one picture.)


Next, I've grabbed the tail of the wire and brought it back through my loop that I made on the tail side of the post. And pull tight.

The end of the wire should end up pointing in the direction of the horse's tail. If not, you made a mistake. If your knot is above the post up on the wire, start over.

After a bit of practice, you can tie a rope faster than buckling a nylon halter.

If anyone would like more (better) pictures of this, let me know. I'll take and upload a few more.





Some rope halters are better than others though. The stiff ones, just don't have a real good feel in my opinion and I don't like more than 2 knots on the nose. Their are only 2 main pressure points on the nose and the extra knots serve no purpose really than to rub the hair off the horse's nose.

Of course my preference is the more flexible, lighter weight, Parelli halther and lead ropes. And speaking of lead ropes. there should be a snap between your halter and your lead rope. It's an extremely dangerous situation for your horse if you have the lead rope tied directly to the rope halter. If you're okay with the possiility of your horse breaking its neck, forget about the snap.

Our lovely model is 6 year old Santana Peaches. Peaches was originally rescued from a feed lot in Eastern Washingon as a weanling, along with a bunch of other weanling similar in color to her. A large group of babies going to their death because a breeder, possibly PMU breeder, had no use for them. Thankfully this group was saved, but I can't imagine how many others don't make it.

She was brought to Rainier by a neighbor who wasn't able to keep her so she came here as basically an unhandled yearling. Peaches is wonderful mare!

Barefoot Cutting Horses! An Interview with Wylie Gustafson

I just had to share the article with you all! This was sent to me by my friend Carolyn Kiesz. She and her husband, Rick, interviewed Wylie Gustafson for the publication, "2 1/2 Minutes - Celebrating the Cutting Horse in the Northwest"

This is an interview with Wylie and Carolyn tells me that at that time (July 2008) Wylie and his horse Irish Whiskey Sugar had won $80,000 and by now he's won much more. Enjoy!

Wylie Gustafson on Irish Whiskey Sugar

A Non-Pro’s Opinion
FROM MY VANTAGE POINT
~ Wylie’s World ~

2-1/2 MINUTES caught up with this month’s featured Non-Pro, Wylie Gustafson, and sat
down for a spell between herds at a Cascade Cow Cutters show in Ellensburg,
Washington. We peppered him with questions and below are his responses, which he
fired back, straight from the hip, without hesitation. Wylie’s achievements in music
and in the cutting pen are well known. In this interview we took a different approach.

Can you give us a little background on Irish Whiskey Sugar (Whiskey)?
In 1999, I went to the John Scott sale in Billings, Montana, just hangin’ out with some friends. They were all going to buy some John Scott-bred horses and I didn’t go to buy a horse, and I was the only one who ended up buying this horse.

I had some friends, Dale and Karla Camp, who were the ranch managers and they were helping with the sale and ridin’ the horses; so I went up to Dale and asked him, “What’s the best horse, 4-year-old, you’re ridin’ right now?” He said “The horse I’m on!” I asked, “Who’s the dam?” He said, “number so-and-so.” I went and
looked at the dam and looked at all her colts and I saw that they had a yearling, so I bought Whiskey as a yearling. Then I got him going as a long yearling and two-year-old.

In the spring or summer of his two-year-old year, we sent him up to Billy Speight in Canada. Bill had him for about a year, or maybe a little more. Then he came home and John Paul had him for six months.

So you’ve kept him going since then? From what you’ve told us, he’s not that hard to get show-ready. Anything in particular that you do before a show?
Yeah. I try to give him different things to do. We do big outdoor rides and climb hills ~ just odds and ends types of jobs and I try to mix it up all the time. I have a regimen where I measure his heart rate and make sure he’s in shape and his wind is good. We do a little program where he doesn’t have to look at cattle, doesn’t have to look at a string, doesn’t have to look at a buffalo. We do sprints and climb hills and things like that; and then every once in awhile I work him on the
string and work him on buffalo and very rarely on cattle.

So when you’re at a show, you don’t necessarily take him in the practice pen?
No. He’s the type of horse where I find that he just doesn’t need to see a lot of cattle. He’s such a great horse that way. Such a great-minded horse and I can almost tune him during a “go.”

If I feel like he's not getting through that cow enough, I can kick him hard and he just buckles down instead of losin’ his air . . . he just starts to really buckle down. So, I can tune him a little bit during a run.

Would he be like what you’d call a “once in a lifetime” kind of horse?
Absolutely! You know, I used to think that maybe it was me being a good rider, but then I started riding young horses and found out that I was a crappy rider and that it was purely a good horse that was taking care of me. It didn’t take me to ride too many other horses to figure out that “no, I’m really not that good”!

Is Whiskey still barefoot?
Yes,Whiskey has won close to $80,000 barefoot. You know, I don’t think that every horse should be barefoot, but in some situations, and especially cutting, it can be done and I think my horse has an advantage being barefoot in a lot of pens. He’s learned how to deal with it and I think that in the next ten years we will see more
disciplines, not only cutting, going barefoot; with the exception of reining
because they need the plates. (Pat: Boots with plates are in the developmental stages.)

Are most of your horses barefoot?
Yes, I’d say 90% of our horses are barefoot. Every once in awhile we’re doing some correctional shoeing or we get a horse that’s had shoes all his life and it takes us about two years to get him going barefoot.

In cutting, what do you think is the advantage of being barefoot?
I think he feels the ground better and handles the ground better. If it’s too hard or slick, he can do it better barefoot. That’s my theory. You know, you have to question everything ~ and that’s why we went barefoot. We asked ourselves, “Do they have to have iron on their feet all the time?” We’ve seen a hoof grow one size by taking them out of shoes. Their hooves can actually grow one size! I have seen with
my own eyes how much healthier and more sound they can be. The soundness of our horses is so much better since we’ve gone barefoot.

When did you start cutting?
In 2002. I was a team roper for several years, then I drove my wife Kimberley around to her cutting clinics and I’d turn back. So, I saw a lot of cutting starting in 1998 when I was Kim’s chauffeur, and that helped me.

How long did it take you to get out of the Amateur into the Non-Pro . . . to get your first $50,000?
Actually, they kicked me out of the Amateur in 2006, but let me back in in 2007 because they changed the rules. It had to be cumulative; so they let me back in that year and now I am out of the 50 Am weekend show, but still think I can show Amateur in the aged event because I haven’t won $100,000 total . . . and that’s all due
to Whiskey. I don’t credit anything other than having a horse that takes care of me, time and time again, on a consistent basis.

For the beginner, what do you think are the most important things? Buying the right horse?
Practice time?
Getting the right help?
Learning how to read cattle?
It’s a combination. I think it’s finding the right trainer, team members and environment where you can enjoy it; where you can work at it and build confidence. It’s just like building confidence in colts. I think young or new riders have to have that same confidence built into them. It’s really finding the right trainer who they can communicate with, so they can get the idea of cutting. Then going to as many
clinics, watching as much cutting and videos as they can. We do everything.
We work really hard at it. Cutting is the type of thing where you get out of
it as much as you put into it. If you put lots of time into it, chances are
your success rate will be a little better.
Finding a good horse; if you don’t have a lot of time for the practice pen, then find a horse that will take care of you. There are all these things and there’s no “one magic formula.” You know, I bought a four-year-old horse my first year cutting ~ that doesn’t usually work out, but I worked really hard at it and had good trainers. John Paul was a real blessing to be with for the four-year-old year. Different things work for different people.

By Rick & Carolyn Kiesz - written for their publication "2-1/2 Minutes". There is more to this article regarding cutting...

Lee the Horselogger!

Hey, check this guy out!

His draft horses are pulling his homemade wagon across the country...barefoot! Awesome!

http://leehorselogger.com/

Pat

Are Horseshoes Good Enough?

Well, we got back early (3am) Monday morning from the Parelli conference in Reno.

We had a great time! Learned lots! The 3-day conferences are so different from the weekend-long tour stops. There is way more showing-how, than just showing-off. Of course, the tour stops were free, and tickets are purchased for the Conferences, so that makes sense.

The Reno Livestock and Events Center is HUGE!

Students came in to audition for Pat and the other Professionals who were there to learn to assess the Patterns auditions. We learned a lot from their experiences.

The Parellis have partnered with the Humane Society of the United States, Equine Division. Rather than working with a horse owned by a local horseperson, they brought in a rescue horse and Pat worked with it, all three days, showing some real breakthroughs for the horse. It was awesome.

So since the Rainier Equine Hoof Recovery Center is also a non-profit entity created to rescue and help horses with hoof ailments, we too have partnered with the HSUS, Equine Coalition! We’re excited about that!

Linda came out 2 times. Once to compare the horsenalities of Remmer and Allure, and once to take a dressage riding lesson from Walter Z.

Her horses seemed to be moving pretty well at liberty. Remmer looked good. I couldn’t get a close shot of his feet, but I could see that his hooves are still run forward and his heels are still jacked-up with pads, and his toes are squared off. That’s pretty typical of how run-forward hooves are corrected with shoes. As far as I know, their genius farrier isn’t doing anything with the shoes that is new.

I had all sorts of things I would was going to say about the Parellis and their choice in hoof care, but then I asked myself what the point would be of doing that. People know what they know and do what they do and that's just how it is.

Then I realized, Pat Parelli himself, kept saying everything for me! All I had to do was replace the word "horsemanship" with "hoofcare!"

He said, he’d rather not invite people into his program who were not ready for the journey that natural horsemanship is. Those people are looking for a quick fix.

It’s interesting to me that the Parellis are happy with the work being done on their horse’s hooves. Linda mentioned that whenever a new hoof related issue crops up with one of her horses, their “genius farrier” simply adds a shim here or there and Presto! The horse is fixed!

Neat!

Funny, how Pat says the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. They must not wonder why so many of their horses need corrective shoes and have issues that constantly need fixing.

The highlight of the weekend for me was when a long stock trailer backed into the arena. The doors opened and 13 Atwood Ranch weanlings piled out of the trailer and behind them came Kallie the Cowgirl riding her gelding!

She was playing with them in the arena with a flag. That reminded me of a post I had recently read on the FUGLY blog. The opinion was that flags were a stupid training device for horses.

But I watched as this master horsewoman sat on her gelding, gently flagging these babies using approach and retreat, and passive persistence, patiently loaded all 13 weaners back into the trailer. How many people have trouble loading one horse into a trailer?

My opinion of flags? It's never the tool that's at issue, it's always the tool-handler.

It was breathtaking to watch her technical care and patience as she did this. She got a deserved standing ovation. I wish I had a picture to show you, or a video, but I need a new camera.

At one point during the celebration, I was walking out to our car and I was stopped cold as I passed the corral that the Atwood Ranch weanlings were hanging out in. Kallie’s gelding was in the corral with them and he was lying down flat-out on his side and I could see that he was wearing shoes. The site of what had been done to his feet nearly caused me lose my lunch. (Which might not have been a bad thing.)

His heels were severely contracted on his fronts and he had eggbar shoes on the hinds and pads on all four feet. Wow, I thought, eggbars on the hinds! Are you kidding me! How, I wondered, could her horse need so much correction on the hinds that they would apply eggbars? Incredible.
I simply cannot understand why the motive of some farrier work is to completely eradicate any feeling the hoof has of the ground. Horses hooves were meant to feel the ground. For the best performance possible, hooves need to feel the ground.

People look at me funny when I tell them that. "Hooves can “feel?”

Yes, they can feel just as nature intended. If not, why does a tenderfooted horse flinch going over rocks? The object of natural hoof care is to help transition the hoof so it can negotiate and feel rough terrain without feeling pain. Just like I once could do as a kid when I rarely wore shoes outside.

Pat has a lot of sayings that he uses over and over. I used to wonder why he said the same things over and over again, at every event. Now I know. So we will commit them to our memory just as he has. It has worked for me. And I like being reminded of the sayings I sometimes forget.

Idle hooves are the devils workshop. Wow, is that ever true. Lack of movement is the biggest culprit for destroying hooves.

Pressure motivates and release teaches. I know that pressure and release creates healthy circulation and constant pressure kills living tissue.

Confidence, Acceptance, Understanding gets results. Yes!

It’s a matter of trust. Yes, it is. Owners who have doubts about me and my experience, make me very uncomfortable to work for. I’d rather they call someone else.

Flat halters are NOT part of their program. Yet, ridiculous corrective horseshoes are.

Pat also said that “Today we are judged on things that are superficial and artificial.” What are horseshoes?

At any rate, I could go on and on and many of you, I know, don’t agree with me. But that’s okay.

People come to natural hoof care when they are ready for the journey and tired of seeing the short-term quick fixes cause long-term damage.

There is nothing anyone can say or do to grab horseowners and drag them into natural horsemanship, which Pat describes as simply learning to communicate with the horse in their language.

The same is true for Natural Hoof Trims. We don’t try to force the hoof into an artificial or superficial situation that just keeps the horse from limping. Natural hooves are allowed to function properly. Natural trims are healing trims, not fixing trims and natural hoofcare is a journey that I’d rather not invite people into if they aren’t ready.

So, the answer is yes, if all you want is for your horses not to limp, than horseshoes are good enough.

PS: The next thing on my wish list is a real camera!:0)