Saturday, I drove down to Sedona and stayed with my brother and sister-in-law. It was nice being there. Sunday, I drove down to Tucson and arrived at the ranch early afternoon. It was just out of town, and Tucson is a big city . . . which is not exactly my cup of tea! But, the ranch is spacious and close to a nice mountain range, so it is very nice.
While I waited for the group to start, I walked around the ranch and went to the little petting zoo. They had a deer, some goats, miniature donkeys, and some big birds which I think are emus. The supposed emus had some eggs that they were guarding, and one of them kept rushing up to the fence every time I looked in. I snuck a few pets in as it pressed against the fence!
At five o'clock was when our group first met, and we all introduced ourselves. Then, Frank gave us an overview of the program. Some more stuff went on, but I don't remember! Sorry! Too much time has gone by, and I haven't had a chance to write anything down! Sorry! Oh yeah, we each got our own lead rope and halter, and a notebook with important information about horses and such.
Monday, we had a classroom lecture first, and learned how to tie a proper knot. Every cowboy has their favorite knot to tie horses with. I learned two different ones at my therapeutic riding place, and unfortunately, with each new one I learn, I promptly forget the old ones! Oh, well! We also had exercises where we had a partner, and one of us was the horse and one the rider . . . so we could feel what doing different things in the saddle feels like to the horse.
Then, we all went out to work with the horses. They all had a halter on and tied to a fence. We choose our horses . . . my horses name was Hondo and we worked the first three steps of the Seven Step Safety program. First, is bonding with the horse. Basically, we just cuddle up to him and pet him and try to find the spots he likes best. That's usually easy, but with "stable" horses like this, who are used to being jerked around by unknowledgeable people, they pretty much ignore everything, so it's hard to find a spot they really like. But, we were supposed to put our fingers in their mouth and in their nose (yes!), scratch their ears and rub their eyes.
Next is "give and take" which is where you pull on the halter trying to get the horse to put his head down. You kneel down at the same time to kind of show the horse what you want. You just exert constant pressure on the lead rope until they move their head the slightest bit down. You reward immediately, for even just one millimeter of movement. Then, each time, the horse will move his head down more. After that you try to get him to bend his head very far to the side . . . and as he gets his head close to his body, you breathe in his nose . . . horses really like that, too. You do that on both sides.
Intimacy is next. You get the horse to bend his head around again, and at the same time you put your fingers under his tail (a very sensitive spot) and rub there. Horses really like that, and if they allow you to do all this, it means they're very relaxed with you . . . which is what you want.
After a great lunch, we went back to the classroom to watch a great video . . . a day in the life of a horse whisperer. It was a great video showing Frank doing remarkable things with a client's horse. He had never seen the horse before, and afterward, the owner said her horse did more for Frank than it had done for her in the past five years!
Then, Jim did a talk on nutrition that was very interesting. He is incredibly knowledgeable about all that stuff.
After dinner, the day wound down with a guy doing cowboy poetry. He was excellent! What a great show! What a great day! Awesome!
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