Cowboy Day at Pre-school

"Cowboy Day" at pre-school had all the pre-school kids just excited, because their teacher had told them that they were going to get rides on horses and a pony. Also, she mentioned to them that there would be a couple real cowboys show up. It was a hit and our daughter had talked about the wild mustang for quite some time during school, so I decided to take Ally "the wild mustang" to pre-school for my show and tell. We also provided the horseback rides with our pony and 14 year old mare. Everyone that wanted a ride was able get a chance to get on one or both kid horses. Ally was there just for the experience. When we were finished with the rides, some of the children wanted to see Ally ridden, so I mounted her and rode her around for a while. One student, asked if I could ride her fast, so I loped her down the dirt road. Also, I am sure that this was an experience for Ally as I used this as a great experience to desensitize her to twenty plus screaming kids. Everyone had a good time and it was a great experience for Ally also. Below is a video of her wild reaction from the pre-schoolers cheering.

Later that day, a local rancher called and asked if I would help gather some cows with calves on side into a corral to ship the next day. Ally and I went to help, and we had to cross a canal, ride up on a steep hill and ride through a couple hundred bawling cattle. It was a great experience for her as she was able to see several new sights, smells, and situations. Also, when we had the cattle in the catch pen, I rode Ally through the herd and there were cattle surrounding us completely and she wasn't bothered at all. The only thing that she looked twice at and had showed some concern was walking through a yard where there were sheep and goats in pens on each side of the road.

When we made it home, I let Ally pack some blue tarps that were tied onto each side of the saddle, that hung down and almost touched the ground. After a little while she wasn't concerned about them at all. It was a great day for everyone.

It has been a while since I have been near the computer, as it was having some problems for a while. Anyways, we are back on track and I have been out on the desert putting some time on Ali. She is navigating pretty well. There was only one thing that really got her attention out in the desert. It was the token appliance that someone threw out in the desert. You would have thought it was a mountain lion by the way she reacted, but after she smelled it, things went back to smooth sailing. There is still a lot of things that we have to encounter and get to in the next month or so. Gotta run.

Ride # 9...Doing fine!

Today was a great day. I finally feel like spring is here. The wind quit and it was great weather for training horses. Ally was great today. I thought I would push her buttons to see what would get in her head and I found out that she is going to be a pretty level headed horse. Between the whip cracking lesson, roping lesson, barrel desensitization, turning and stopping, and standing on the saddle, I wasn't able to get her into a frazzle. (I've add pictures of today throughout my blog.) She is really starting to travel well and is becoming a fun horse to ride.

Looks like I've got a shadow.

I put her in the round pen and walked over to pick something up and Ali was following me around the round pen and was in my back pocket. I've always thought this was funny about this horse. She's really turned loyal.

Friday the Fourth

Today was another great day. Ali and I worked on getting desensitized to things swinging overhead. I used my stock whip and rode her around the round pen then transitioned to a rope. I let the rope drag from behind until this didn't bother her anymore. Next, I pulled the rope to the opposite side so the rope was around her hindquarters and against her back legs as she was in motion. She was a little unsure about the whole process but she soon figured out that it wasn't a huge earthshaking experience. Once she was used to all the ropes being swung and drug everywhere, I began to throw a loop on the ground in front of her as she travelled around the round pen. Eventually, I threw a loop onto a plastic 55 gallon drum and drug it around the pen with Ali paying attention to the barrel for the first few minutes. I am heading to a branding in the morning and she will go with me just to make the trip, but she isn't quite ready for all the branding pen action. Maybe in a few weeks, we will be ready to drag a calf to the fire. She is beginning to stop fairly well and moves out well. At the end of the ride, as I was flexing her, I stood up in the saddle and stood on her and she just stood there. She makes huge progress everyday, and I am sure enjoying the experience.

Finally back to training...

Well, I didn't get to work with my mustang for the last week and a half. Between going to a Montana horse sale and building another round pen and corrals at a new location, that didn't leave any time to work with Ali at all. I had a vacationing friend from California help me build my solid wood round pen and a corral. Without his help it would have taken me a lot longer.

I rode Ali the last couple days and was very glad she did well and hadn't regressed any. I taught her to load into a trailer. She wasn't excited to go into the trailer at all...probably because of her last time in the trailer was a long old trip! But aftera stretch of time lunging her, she decided the trailer wasn't a bad place to be. She realized she could rest in the trailer and not have to work. After a 1/2 hour or so she was loading and unloading in the trailer. Eventually, she was turning around in the 3-horse slant and also backing out. She completely retained everything from the trailer loading lesson because the next day, she loaded into the trailer with ease and we headed to the BLM ground behind my house. While I was riding another horse she stayed in the trailer for a while and I was so proud of her because she didn't paw or wasn't impatient at all. You would have never known she was in there.

I rode her out on the BLM desert for a little over and hour. She was very cautious about all of the sage brush and navigating through steep empty canals. She was very watchy and would pause to check things out. We past some grates in the empty canal and she thought they were "the devil." She didn't spook, but she was very scared to walk by them. I had a friend that was riding with me and Ali was not too concerned about other riders. She didn't really want to leave my friend's horse as I tried to ride off on my own because the other horse was her safety net. We managed to go on our own independent route on occasion. She was pretty unsure where to put her feet as we were navigating up and down hills. It kind of suprised me because mustangs are known to be very sure-footed. I know she will be fine as time progresses and we travel out into the big wide open spaces. Tomorrow I hope to go out into the desert again with her.

A funny thing happened that I thought I would mention, I was laying Ali down on Tuesday right about the time the school bus came to drop off the neighbor kids. She went down right when the bus pulled up. All of the kids on the bus had their faces pressed against the windows. And the little neighbor girl ran up all excited, "Is your mustang dead, Matt?!" It was pretty funny. I guess Ali went down and was so relaxed all of the kids thought she had died right in front of them!