The End is in Sight?

Well, it is yet again dead week here at school and finals week begins in a few short days so I haven't been able to ride much, so I thought I'd just talk about life stuff. Especially since I had to complete my conditioning assignment with Jetta, that definitely took away from riding time. I didn't quite get to the "fetch" part, but at least she was fairly consistent with picking up the cone and giving it to me. Kind of.


Misty is fine from her little fumble on the cross country course. Her scrapes are very shallow so they'll have no problem healing. Her left hind above the fetlock was a little puffy so I hosed and re-wrapped her back legs and they look pretty much back to normal now. She was never off at all on the lunge line. She she's just gotten a very long (and well-deserved!) break after our show last weekend.

In the meantime... I'm kind of graduating. I mentioned a while ago that I had applied for vet school and had two interviews. I didn't mention how they went. The first interview was at Washington State University. This ended up being my favorite. Everyone there was super nice and I loved how their program was run. I had a good interview (not quite great because I'm not the best at interviewing being rather shy and concise, but I thought it went quite well). The second interview was at Oregon State University.  I didn't have as great an experience with this interview. They did the MMI (multiple mini-interview) format which I just did not like. It just didn't mesh with me how the more general format does.  But honestly, I don't care where I go to school I just would love to get in somewhere.

Well, I didn't. I am actually on the wait list for Washington State, so there's still the tiniest chance I will still get in, but I'm not holding my breath. I won't even know for sure until August if I do by some miracle get in. So here I am, planning on taking a 5th year (well, additional term or two) at school which was not even close to being in "the plan". I'm still walking at commencement since I'm not going to stick around for next year's one. This isn't the end of the world. After all, it take on average three tries to get into vet school. But I can't help feeling like I failed and watching as other peers in my age group prepare to transition from undergrad to vet school.

I will finish out my Honors degree by completing my thesis, beginning this summer. I've started preparing my project (my experimental design has a rough draft and my proposal is waiting to be signed and submitted) which I am REALLY excited about. I'm doing a project on dog reproduction and while it sounds like it's going to be really intense and a lot of work I am just so completely excited about it I can't wait to get started.

This time next Thursday I'll finally be done for the term and I plan on rewarding myself with a nice long trail ride on Jetta. We both definitely need one! Sorry for the non-horse related post, but I just wanted to share!

Inavale One-Day Horse Trial

I had SO MUCH FUN today. I'm still so in love with this horse and I really wish I didn't have to sell her :/

In true worst-prepared-horse-show-person ever I didn't get to ride or bathe or load or clean any of my tack the day before the show. I had the best intentions, but ended up in urgent care to get an inhaler to deal with my asthma that has returned after almost 10 years of being gone... Needing to breathe is definitely high on my list of priorities though.

Got to the barn at 9am and quickly hooked up the trailer, lunged Misty and gave her a quick bath. Shoved everything I needed in the trailer and loaded up. Got to the show at 10:20 and my ride was at 11:10. I was completely calm and collected while checking in until a friend commented "You sure are calm for having only 30 minutes to tack up and warm up. You're not even dressed!" Thank you for that, cue panic attack. Misty got braided, tacked and I got dressed and memorized my test in time for a 15 minute warm up. Not ideal, but we could work with it. Only to find that they were running 20 minutes behind. Perfect! We really needed that extra warm up time. Misty was great in dealing with the craziness, but she was really not wanting to bend right or take consistent contact.

The test went ok, not great. I don't think Misty was too sure about the grass footing and it was rather uneven so we didn't maintain that great of a tempo and she was really behind my leg the whole time. I felt the judging was accurate but wish the judge gave a little more comments, though I can't blame them for not because that takes too much time when you're running behind! Mostly 7's, a few 8's and 6's. Comments mostly consisted of "inconsistent tempo" or "inconsistent contact". It landed us a fairly respectable 31.5 and 4th place.

Of course, it wouldn't be a horse show without something unexpected. The seam in my breeches, right at the crotch, split open just before I went in to ride my test. Lovely. I would love to share my brightly colored underwear with the world. Luckily there were lots of pony club moms around so I asked one if she had a needle and thread. She did! PM (who also took all the amazing photos of us) stitched it right up for me, since of course I did not have a spare pair of breeches to wear.

Additionally, I was "that person" again. Misty decided to untie herself and go for a little stroll when I went up to see the cross country course. Sigh. I really need to hurry up and buy a single cross tie so that I can snap her in and she can't untie herself. 

Stadium was what I was most worried about since we've never jumped these bright decorative jumps. Make that, "we've only ever jumped a grand total of 6 times before this show". I needn't have worried though. It wasn't pretty (my stadium round at a horse trial never is... I can do a respectable and well put together hunter or jumper round, but for some reason the stadium round at a horse trial just gets me all frazzled) but Misty didn't refuse anything or pull any rails. She definitely sucked back and asked a few times, "Are you absolutely sure we need to jump this?" But she was great and I couldn't have been happier. Need to work on straightness for sure (well, plus I need to actually ride well), but all she really needs is just some more miles over fences!

After stadium I was super excited for cross country. We'd jumped everything that was on the course before and it was a nice, easy-to-remember course, nothing too scary. The only jump I was nervous for was the very last blue barn. Anyways, she was fantastic and I was smiling the whole time. She never even tried to refuse anything and the only issue we had was sucking back at the combination and the baby trakehner (they added some brush underneath it so that was "new") and the blue barn was a little scary, but you can see that in the pictures.


It was great, there was a single turkey on course just before we left the box. It popped out of the trees as we went along the back fence and Misty stared intensely at it when it ran right in front of us then flew away. She was a rock star though! I know Jetta probably would have done a spook/blot/spin at that moment, but Misty just kept trucking on to jump the roll top!

Trolls live under this jump!

Oww. Poor pony

The blue barn jump... My fault on that one. I was nervous about it so of course I didn't ride it very well. A) I stared at it. Always helpful when convincing your horse that trolls do not in fact live beneath it. B) I crunched up instead of sitting up tall. Also not helpful. C) Kind of combined with B, but she was just too strung out, I was just intent on setting a nice forward pace to the jump, but I should have sat up and collected her a tad and got her more uphill and bouncy. She got way too close to the jump and didn't have enough room to bring her back feet up over the jump so she just kind of dragged them over. Poor pony. She had three little shallow scrapes along her hind legs and I'm sure she's going to be sore. She trotted sound, but she's going to get at least a couple days off.

The result? Second place out of 12! How fantastic is that? I am so proud of my little roany paint pony :)

Viva Carlos Blog Hop: Makin' Babies

Love this blog hop topic! So fun to see all the imaginary crosses out there :)

This is perfect because I already have Jetta's baby daddies all worked out!

First is Mirabeau. My dream is to have a buckskin warmblood some day so breeding her to a cremello would guarantee that (unless they have a smoky black gene which I'm not sure if he does or not).

I like his conformation and bone. Things I'd like to improve in Jetta are her neck and length of pastern. I'd also love a nicer trot and canter. He's got a lovely trot, not too sure about his canter but he's got an awesome jump. Plus I adore every single baby that he's produced. I just want a baby I can bring up to do eventing/dressage/jumpers whatever they are best at, I don't care.

If I was breeding for a more dressage only baby I would breed her to Diamond Hit. Lovely stallion, he's got the neck I want and his movement is great. Love his breeding.

Now if I was interested in breeding Misty, I would either find a thoroughbred to add some height and athleticism, or if I was sticking with paint, I would definitely choose this guy, Forest Midnight Comet. They would produce adorable roan paint babies! He'd improve her cowiness a bit and athleticism in reining and cowhorse, maybe add a little height since he's 16hh. There's not too much conformationally I'd change about Misty. I'd just make sure that if I was breeding to a stockhorse that they had good bone and feet, and none of that ridiculous exaggerated rump high/weak loin.

 

Not too completely awful conformationally

"Look What I Can Do!"

I took Misty xc schooling again today and while she was still good, it was definitely a different experience from last time. Last time Misty was like, "Look what I can do, I can jump all the jumps!" and this time it was more like, "Look what I can do, I can jump from an almost standstill!"

I decided to not wear spurs this time around since she was so reactive to them last time, but I also forgot my crop this time too. I could have used at least one of them this time around!

I was a little more ambitious this time and I wanted to jump the things that I didn't last time and do it without first approaching them to sniff. We had more refusals this time around, mostly because I asked her for some bigger fences and also the whole no impulsion thing definitely didn't help.

We did get over the A-frame coop that was the Novice version of the one we jumped last time. Stuck with the small barn still, jumped the blue house/barn thing (which was really scary to Misty!), jumped the actual Novice trakehner, not just the baby log/ditch version, lots of logs and this big brush fence. It looked huge to me, but I'm sure it was still just the Beginner Novice fence we jumped at the recognized HT last year.

"Are pictures really necessary?"

Misty decided to taste test the brush. Obviously it does not taste good lol

It looks ginormous compared to little Misty. We jumped it!

Where'd the Misty go?

Also, she cantered through the water immediately with no prompting, so that was good. The one-day trial this Sunday is going to be... interesting. The stadium jumps are going  to be super bright and fun looking so they might be a tad scary considering we've jumped only a handful of times ever. Plus cross country will also be interesting because a) she's not quite in cross country shape, b) everything looks ginormous to me, c) she's done cross country twice. So yeah. It's going to be FUN!!

Love this sport

Drill and Dressage Ponies

First off, an update on Mr. Tux (I keep forgetting they call him Tuck now). I absolutely love getting updates on past horses. It makes me so happy!

"Sorry I still haven't gotten pics of Tuck up yet. He's still training up well and looking great. He's in perfect weight about 1400# with no belly. We put him back in his own bit and I bought him a nice bridle with a cavesson and flash - just over $100 from England on Ebay - Rheingold brand. He is a real favorite in the barn. We were very pleased with the job you did with Tuck. Have a good summer."


His "own bit" would be the Myler loose ring, versus they had him in a Sprenger loose ring for a while. Not sure why the bridle is relevant, lol but I'm thrilled that he's going well! He is such a fancy dressage horse, I can't wait to see pictures and I hope she starts showing him soon. And hey, they might be interested in Misty so I could have two horses in the same area! I need to take them up on their offer to come up and stay a weekend to visit Tux and take lessons with his owner's sister who's a dressage trainer. 

In my current horse land... Monday I rode Jetta, the poor ponies were completely forgotten last week with the busyness. Two and a half weeks till summer!! She wasn't as amazing as she'd been the past few rides. She warmed up quite spooky and full of herself on the lunge line. Probably didn't help that I'd decided to lunge at the spooky end of the arena. 

It kind of set the tone for the rest of the ride. She wasn't bad, she was just tense and didn't want to soften or unlock her jaw so we ended up doing a lot of serpentines and counterbending to get her to relax. The counterbending helped a lot and by the end she was a lo more supple doing the serpentines than at first, but it was still just an eh sort of ride. I can't wait till I can ride her more regularly as I'm sure that's 90% of the problem. 

Jetta looks fat too. Geez. But what I was hoping you could see (but can't) is that she's got some nice sweat at the base of her withers. Yay, lifting at the base of her neck!

How Jetta feels about baths

Misty was very good today. I think she needs to have her grain drastically cut though, lol. She's definitely a chunk at the moment and after watching her gallop around me for about 5 minutes on the lunge... she certainly doesn't need the extra energy! It's funny what a change this past year has brought! Last year I was stuffing her full of all sorts of orchard grass hay and alfalfa and grain and still pondering what else I could give her to boost her energy levels. 

We had a nice dressage ride, until I discovered a major training hole. We have absolutely zero ability to do a counter canter. Like none. First off it's so hard it's nearly impossible to get her to pick up the "wrong" lead. You cue for it, she gets it for a stride then immediately switches to the "correct" lead. Finally I convinced her that she could canter in a straight line on the wrong lead. Then as soon as she'd get any sort of "turn" going, she'd switch. By the end, we could make it halfway around a corner before switching, so I just called it good. We'll come back to that. 

So to end the ride, I picked up the flag again. I think she'll make a nice drill horse! She could care less about the flag and we cantered around with it snapping in the wind. I've always wanted to try drill! Jazz was the only horse I could have ever done it with and the absolute one thing she was terrified (this is the horse that would go through, over, under, between anything) was flags. 

Flag pony!

Then I decided to play around on her back to make sure she'd tolerate any shenanigans likely to be thrown at her if she gets a young rider. She could care less, but note to self: apparently I am too old now to slide off the butts of my horses because I tweaked my knee coming off. Oww. 

The result of the butt-sliding. Misty's going through round 2 of shedding I think...

Clicker Training Horses

Clicker training horses is a very interesting topic. Lots of people have very strong opinions for or against it. Personally, I was interested in it having seen some neat things that people had trained for, however I wasn't that motivated to try it since traditional methods worked for me and it's what I'd always done. Two bloggers that I know of use clicker training though, first is Matt the Cowpony who I've seen has a clicker-trained spin on the ground (really neat to watch). Secondly, just recently Bad Eventer posted about her success in using clicker training with her monster pony. Neat stuff!

Enter my animal learning class where our term project is to clicker train an animal. I am actually really enjoying this class contrary to how I thought it would be. I just find training so fascinating and I've loved training animals since I was little. Our family dog knows at least 15 different commands as a result of having to hang out at my family's store every day when I was between 8 and 10 years old. Boredom often has great results, haha.

First, some terminology. I didn't know the distinction between these terms before this class, though we so often use them in general life incorrectly.

Positive = adding something to the environment. Not good or bad, just the addition of a stimuli or object.

Negative = removing something from the environment.

Punishment = anything that makes an animal perform the specified action less

Reinforcement = anything that makes an animal perform the specified action more

So therefore positive reinforcement is adding something to the environment (such as treats or praise) to make the animal perform the behavior more often, negative reinforcement is removing something from the environment (such as pressure or an annoying sound) to get an animal to perform a behavior more often. Negative punishment is removing something (such as a child's favorite toy) to make them perform a behavior less often and positive punishment is adding something (an aversive stimuli such as a shock or slap) to make them perform the behavior less often.

The majority of horse training is done through negative reinforcement. Put pressure on the reins to get the horse to give to the bit, pressure on the sides with your calf to get the horse to move forward or turn, etc. There's some positive reinforcement through praise, but mostly it's negative. The reward is removing the pressure. For the most part I don't see too much punishment in training horses and it's something that is generally avoided in my experience, but the most common I've experienced is smacking a horse with a crop for refusing a fence.

Clicker training is all about positive reinforcement. You don't have to use a clicker, but the reason it is used is to mark a positive behavior as soon as it happens. I think many people have experienced training a dog to sit and as soon as they do, you reach down to give them a treat and they immediately jump up to get the food, thus getting rewarded for standing up. Usually in training dogs (without a clicker) you still mark the good behavior as soon as it happens with a "good dog!" so they know exactly what is getting them that reward.

The most common arguments I've heard against clicker training horses are that the horse will become pushy and rude to get the treats (common argument against hand-feeding treats), that the horse will perform the trained behavior even when it's not asked for, and that the horse will only perform for treats, so if you don't have the treat forget it.

My opinion (notice it's an opinion!) is that these are both very untrue if done correctly. You can read another completely different opinion here. (Note: this was my first introduction to a view on clicker training horses several years ago. I'd never really considered using clicker training on horses before. Somehow I ran across this woman's blog. I really hope that this piece is intended to be more sarcastic than educational).

Anyways. The first argument against clicker training: the horse will become pushy and rude to get treats. They really shouldn't actually. I was slightly worried about this because Jetta is, well, apt to become just that: rude and pushy. But, the thing is that after the first session, where she sniffed me up and down and rifled through my clothes pockets to get the treats (which she got reprimanded for "positive punishment" because that is rude and not allowed) she quickly figured out the ONLY way to get a treat was to perform the behavior I wanted. In this case, she only got a treat if she touched the traffic cone and heard a click. And she's not going to "take off my hand" trying to get the treat, because as soon as I click to mark the behavior I basically shoved the treat in her face where she politely took it. There's no opportunity to bite even if she thought that was appropriate behavior, which she doesn't. If I had to struggle to get the treat out of my pocket, Jetta waited somewhat patiently because she knew that she's not allowed to beg for a treat. That doesn't get her anywhere.

Second argument, the horse will perform the trained behavior even when it's not asked for. If that is the case, then by definition, this behavior is not correctly or completely trained. A behavior is only completely trained when the animal performs it immediately upon command, it never occurs when not commanded, it never occurs in response to a different command (such as telling a dog to lie down and they sit instead), and no other behavior occurs in response to this command (so telling a dog to sit wouldn't result in them jumping up). If a behavior is completely trained, then the animal knows that they will receive no reinforcement for a behavior that is unasked for. In the beginning of training, yes the animal must offer behaviors that you will choose to reinforce, but by the end of training you can attach a verbal, visual or tactile cue and then animal will learn to ONLY perform that behavior when that cue is given.

Third argument, the horse will only perform for treats so if you don't have treats, forget it. Also a very common thought. What I never realized is that there are two basic schedules of reinforcement, meaning how often you reinforce for something. There is fixed ratio (FR) and variable ratio (VR). Initially, you'll use an FR1 schedule of reinforcement, meaning that every time the behavior is performed, the animal will be reinforced. Other types of FR schedules could be FR5, meaning that the behavior has to be performed five times to get one reinforcement. A VR schedule of reinforcement means that the number of times the behavior must be performed to get reinforced varies each time. A VR5 schedule means that the behavior must be performed an AVERAGE of 5 times. This could mean they do it once to get a treat or do it ten times to get a treat. They never know how many times it will take to get the treat. The great thing about this is that once a behavior is established, you can change from an FR1 schedule to a variable schedule. VR schedules are great because they create behaviors that are also really resistant to extinction, meaning if you forget treats, that behavior will still be performed when asked because eventually the animal knows that they will get reinforced.

Extinction is the decrease or disappearance of a behavior that was previously reinforced once reinforcement stops. So if a horse is reinforced for, let's say, laying down. All of the sudden if you stop giving them treats whenever they lay down then eventually that behavior will decrease or stop altogether. However, it's not something that happens immediately. Commonly there is an "extinction burst" where the animal will increase the behavior at first to try to get reinforced before slowly decreasing the behavior. This is something that I think a lot of people don't realize, but makes a lot of sense if you think about it. I think a great example is with little kids. If you're on a road trip and they ask "Are we there yet?" and you respond, giving them attention (reinforcement) then they will continue to ask this question throughout the trip. However, if you all of the sudden stop responding to them and start ignoring the question to try and get them to stop bugging you, at first they will increase their rate of asking, often escalating their obnoxiousness levels trying to get that attention back. However, if you wait it out long enough, they'll lose interest and eventually learn to stop asking because they won't get attention that way.

So that's my basic overview of clicker training. I'm still having a blast doing it with Jetta and plan to continue to use it after the class is over. Next thing on the list is teaching her to stand still in the wash stall cross ties. Still not something we've mastered over the past six years...

If you're interested in reading more, one of the required books for the class I'm in is Karen Pryor's "Don't Shoot the Dog". Easy to understand and an easy read.

The Other Good Pony

Poor Jetta has been getting the short end. With me trying to get Misty all ready to sell and show, I've been riding her way more often. I haven't ridden Jetta since last Monday during our not-so-good jump school (if you can even call it schooling).

But despite the jumping fail, she's actually been REALLY good lately. I wrote about our last awesome ride and how I could definitely see us getting to second level by the end of this year. And after our ride today, I can say that should be the case!

I finally have my sweet, hard-working (if not still a little bit hard-headed and stubborn) horse back. Can't believe a month ago we were dealing with bucking, bolting, rearing and spooking. No more! She didn't hardly put a foot wrong.

I started out with our clicker training session. The due date on our class project is coming up quickly and I'm afraid we're not going to have enough time to get to our goal behavior. But, she learns so fast that hopefully it won't be a big problem. This was only our second session and there was a huge gap between the two so I was bracing myself for her having forgotten everything. I needn't have worried because she immediately started touching the cone to get her treat even when it was sitting on the ground, so I started shaping for a new behavior.

She was touching the cone for a second. But the end goal is to get her to pick up the cone and hold it in her mouth, so I started waiting for her to hold her nose to the cone for a couple seconds instead of just a split-second. She quickly picked that up so I started waiting for her to mouth the cone a little bit. She caught onto that fairly quickly, but unfortunately when I thought I was reinforcing her for mouthing the cone, she thought she was getting reinforced for wiggling her lips all over it. I wanted the next step to be her biting the cone, but she was happily going to town with her camel lips all over the cone so there wasn't the opportunity to reinforce her for the new behavior.

I ended up having to hold the cone for her and wait for her to bite it out of being upset lol. She got kind of offended a couple times and left when she didn't get her treat (we were in the roundpen) but she always came back. Ended it on a good note when she bit the cone three times in a row.

Next time we'll hopefully get the biting the cone behavior more set then if I can get her to actually pick it up off the ground I'll be happy.

After the clicker session I lunged her and got on. I was expecting her to be a witch because I haven't ridden (or even lunged) her for a week plus she's in heat. But I couldn't even tell when I got in the saddle. She warmed up really well so I decided to run through some second level movements. 10 meter circles are really nice. She has great rein-backs and a nice collected trot. Shoulder-in wasn't quite as nice as our last ride (where they were literally perfect) but still acceptable. Medium gaits need lots more work. Simple changes are ok, but she still gives about three trot strides before she walks and I usually have to give a bigger half halt than I'd like. But she picks up her leads from the walk perfectly. The canter serpentines on the same lead are a little interesting. She gets kind of worried and braces, but doesn't try to change so we'll keep working on those.

Overall, an awesome ride. We're going to keep chipping away at second level and start putting all the pieces together to ride a test at a show and hopefully once summer rolls around we'll get a lesson or two to clean up any loose ends. I'm excited!

And, here are the pics of Jetta jumping last week.

Can we just say how good she's looking? That neck!

Proof that we can actually jump 3'3" like normal people. Except where on Earth is my leg??

Warming up over the 2'9" I think this is the one picture where Jetta deigned to actually pick up her feet over the jump.