Monday, June 23, 2008

I think my horse summer camp might be over.  I hope not, but it's possible.  I asked Pat today if I could stay longer than a month.  She said that I could, but I might not want to.  Two more people are coming tomorrow, so everything will change.  We will all be given chores to do, and there is a good chance that mine won't have anything to do with horses.

Later on, when she said we all need to talk about our priorities and goals, I said that my main priority is my book, and my secondary goal would be working with horses.  She said that is pretty vague, so I said that I like training and I would like to ride better.

Somewhere in the conversation this morning, she said I was frail.  OMG!  Frail!  It makes me sound like a senior citizen or something.  OMG, am I a senior citizen?  She is saying that because of yesterday and last week, when I couldn't take the heat.  Literally.  I don't know if it's something I can change by slow exposure, or if it's just something in my body chemistry.  I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Frail.  Yuck.

Before she left today, she told she wanted me to teach Chaco, the stallion, to bend his head at the poll.  The poll is along the mane about a third of the way down from the top of the head.  She showed me a picture in a book, but it was still difficult to understand.  I guess when they do it, it makes them look like a knight in a chess set.  Plus, I have been working with Chaco slowly to just get him to let me pet him on the nose.  He usually gives me about five seconds, and I had to work up to that.  So, I mentioned to Pat something about him still being shy with me, and she said, "You can catch him, can't you?"  Then she said to put a string around his neck and put him in a stall by himself where I can work with him.

Ok, I'll try it.  So, I prepped him a little bit by giving him cookies when I was cleaning the corrals.  I even got him to step toward me.  Then, since Pat said a string and not a rope, I found a piece of string used to tie the hay bales together.  When he was standing by a stall, I walked slowly up to him, offered him a cookie, and then gently put the string around his neck and led him into the stall.  Sparky, his best friend, tried to get in, too, but I wouldn't let him.

First, I did the "click charge" how Pat showed me to.  You click the clicker and give him a horse cookie.  Then you do it long enough that when you click the clicker, he's expecting the cookie.  That's when you start training.  I got him to put his head down, but then realized that's not really what she wants.  So I stopped, and let Chaco go.

Chaco is a beautiful paint/pinto stallion with one blue eye.  Pat said he would be a shaman's horse.  I guess that's why I like him.  I kind of fancy myself a shaman.  Or is that too woo woo?