What a busy couple of weeks

Ok lots have happened since my last post.

I was away for a 4 days to go to Festival of the horse and then the Parelli gold summit. Whilst there I arranged for David Zuend 3* instructor and horse specialist to assist me with Eclipse both on haltering and I had noticed he would sometimes head towards me with his ears back so I hoped he could help me with this too.

On Tuesday 13th I drove 2hrs to Hartland Devon and had a fantastic session with David, where he really helped me understand how to put my heart in my hand and feel of my horse when I played the friendly game, and just how easily it was then to move this to steady pressure of the porcupine.

He also showed me the steps for haltering and Eclipse seemed alot happier after this session. On the 2 hour drive home he was wondering around the box exploring before finally laying down next to his dam.

I then left him again on the wednesday and Thursday as I was away for my sisters graduation. Friday & Saturday I was supporting Alison Jones 3* and David Zuend 3* at there demos in Devon and Somerset so I never got much chance to play with Eclipse on the Friday.

On Saturday we played some more with the friendly and with haltering and on Sunday we did our first water crossing. He chose not to follow his dam through the water intially but went through when my father lead him, after that he was quite happy to go through the water following Mel.

I will post some photos on here soon of the water crossing and the session with David Zuend.

Undemanding time

Eclipse is now 11 days old. We've just been spending the last few days mainly just chiiling out with me giving him itches. I've also been spending alot of time inside looking out to see how he relates to the other horses, he seems very dominant with our coloured pony, Jazz Ofcrouse she can move him but he usually bites or kicks her until she tells him off then he goes trotting back to his mother and she very rarely puts him in his place. He's still coming out each day to the front living area and following his mother into the horsebox where she eats her daily feed. Yesterday I did take Mel and Eclipse out to see a friend who live about 1/4 of a mile from me. Eclipse seemed particulary curious this time out alot more so than last time.

1 week and 1 day

This morning I was going to walk to our local shops to get a news paper. As I often take the horses with me I decided to take Eclipes and Mel (my father leading Mel).

It was very intersting to see all of the new sites and how he reacted to them, there are some large rocks along the side of the road that his mother used to be scared of and he went up to them and licked them. We went under the subway and he never batted an eye lid at it, when we came out in a housing estate whilst still being calm he decided to stay closed to his mother as until then when she stopped for grass he just carried on (and I was just staying with him walking beside him).

The only moment he spooked atall was when a car went past quite fast but the next time a car went past he was fine. At the stop a little kid came over to say high and stroked him whilst Mel enjoyed her recently bought Polos.

When we returned home I thought he would have been tired with all of the excitment from the outing but instead when I came in I watched him having races out back by himself, boy is he fast!

I went back out this evening to stroke him and noticed his ears were back alot, and then I had a BFO (Blinding flash of the obvious) I had somehow in the last week rather than wait for permission to enter his space / touch him I had got wrapped up in him being "cuddly" and had with out meaning to stopped respecting him properly. My PNH instructor had said to me years ago that I should respect the horse first as a Prey animal, then as a horse, then a breed of horse and lastly as "Mel" or whatever the horse in question is called. I have realised that whilst I did this to begin with and he was ok with me, I seem to have made an assumption that because I "own" him and I love him it must be reciprocal and I had somehow stopped respecting his views as a horse and a prey animal. I had failed to uphold my responsiblity to think like a horse, and he was there for not acting like a partner. Well I'm on a journey to be a horseman and I guess this is all part of the route ;-).

1 week old.

When I woke up this morning to let Eclipse and Mel in to the front "living area/ garden" I saw Eclipse drinking from the water bucket for the first time, he certainly is growing up quick.

He really is the most curios horse I've ever came across, he found an old plastic bag that had blown out of the feedbox and thought it was the greatest fun to hold it in his mouth and wave it around. I somehow thought horses had a natural fear of these, but apparently not to Clips ;-)

A bit later I had to pop out to the shops, Eclipse was right next to the motor when I started it up but he didn't bat an eye lid and on the way back in he was in the middle of our drive so I beeped the horn at him to get him to move but he just looked at me so I had to hop out of the car to move him on. He sure is brave.

When I arrived back from the shops I noticed his main and face was full of horse poo, as it seems his mother pooped on him. So as it was attracting alot of flys I thought it was a good time to sponge him down. I started to do this but he got up and ran away, so I put the lead on him and he accepted it fine and even gave me an itch back whislt I was sponging him. However, (I'm sure some of you more experience in these matters may have seen this coming) when I went to wash him further back I wasn't paying enough attention to the kick range and he whacked me with his back leg. Thankfully it didn't hurt much atall, but it has made me take abit more notice of him. I then proceeded to wash him but also had lots of hindquarter yeilds by swinging the rope, when he stepped towards me.

He is now getting very playful with everything including his mother who he ran and reared up on so that he had two front hooves over the other side of his mothers neck, as she raised her head i thought he was going to go over backwards as he kept getting higher but thankfully Mel then turned her head away from him so he landed back down on all fours.

I introduced them to an umberala again today but Mel who used to be a massive scaredy cat, but thanks to parelli is now quite calm, seemed to be a bit cautious of it. Mel does seem more aware of things since having the foal. But little clips was still very curious and infact his mother was only approaching the umberella as he was and she wanted to stay close to him.

With the kicking episode this morning I came back in to watch some more smart 7 DVDs to see if I could get any more pointers. It was nice to see we had already done alot of the stuff including backwards porcupine, of which he is unbeleivable light. However a couple of things I no I haven't been doing up to now politley discouraging him from grooming me, and I hadn't done any barbwire training. In the Smart Seven dvd Pat does this by puting the leadrope around the back legs so that seven learns to yeild backwards to pressure from the hind legs.

I attempted this but he seemed to panick and kick and buck. I held the line and I released when he stopped bucking for a second but we didn't actually learn to yield backwards. I tried it again with a lead rope around his front to stop him from going forwards but we still had bucking and again I released when he stood still. So I think perhaps we need more friendly in this zone before we progress to porcupine. So this session I didn't feel went very well as he was now a little nervous around me. So I didn't want to leave on a negative note so I got an old sleeping bag that was not much good now following Glastonbury and put it down next to where he had layed down and we laid there and I stroked him before we both dosed off together.

6 days old. Eclipse uses my legs as a pillow!

I'm afaid there are no pictures from Eclipses 6th day as my phone battery died i think due to the over use of photographing everything Eclipse does.

This morning Eclipse was already trying to establish his place in the pecking order and was rearing up ontop of our little coloured pony Jazz, Eclipse is almost as tall as and her already and he has been pulling her mane. When Mel seen that Jazz was not best pleased by this she called Clips back.

My main aim today, whilse still thinking about the amazing mirroring I seen yesterday was to get in harmony with Eclipse so I did lots of mirroing, but with me trying to mirror him. This took me on some very interesting adventures, I wish i had photos you would have laughed, I ended up walking bent over in between gaps in trees you never would have thought was there It really was like being a kid again! we left mel for a long time and wondered into the horse box which I've just been leaving open when they are out. I tried to copy bucking but just ended up in hysterics laughing atmyself and then we went for a gallop but at 6 days old he can alreay out run me but bless him when he realised I couldn't keep up he turned around and looked at me like why are you back there?.

He then had some milk from his Mel (I decided not to mirror this lol) and then looked sleepy so I let them back into the feild with the stable/Feild shelter. I layed down into there to watch him and his mum and once he'd had another drink he layed down next to me to sleep, as his drifted off to sleep his head kept going towards my legs but when it hit my legs he went to jump up, I gently restrained him by stroking him but in a way that didn't allow him to rise and after about 5 seconds of wanting to get up he gave up on the idea and laid down completely with his head on my legs. We laid like that for half an hour until he decided to get up and drink agian. What a truley wonderful feeling having him sleep on me like that.

* If you have already read day 3 you might want to take another look as I've now uploaded a video of the horses playing ball with us.

Jumping 5 days old.

Today when I woke up I looked out and my jaw dropped, Eclipse and Mel were about 5 feet apart mirroring each other doing perfectly straight backwards steps after about 5 or 6 backwards steps they turned ran down to the other end of the field again in perfect harmony as if they were synchornised dancers and repeated the backwards steps before turning on the hindquaters and cantering off to the field shelter. It was one of the most remakable things I've seen, and although I had my phone with me I was in too much shock and intrigue to think to video it.

A bit later I noticed that Mel wasn't letting Eclipse suckle when he wanted to and I got concerned, I checked the mare over and she appeared fine and then when I went out and asked her to stand still she did let her foal drink, I asked my parents to keep an eye on the situation whilst I was at work and it appears that if he ran in too fast she wouldn't let him drink but when he went in politely she would. So it looks like she is teaching him manners too.

Anyhow this mornings mirroring I witnessed got me thinking so I decided to play some games with Mel and watch what Clips did. I thought it was so cute when I did the circling game and Mel jumped over the big barrels and Clips jumped over the little tyres next to her that I asked my dad to video it for the blog. Anyhow as you will see in this Video on this shoot little Clips decided to jump the big barrels, wich I really wasn't expecting!! Hope you enjoy.

Clip's first outing outside of our land. 4 days old

Today we had the vet out to check his Dam over as she wasn't cleansing as well as we would have liked so she is now on anti biotics. However, both Mel and Eclipse seem to look well. Today I led Clips over the tarp wich he seemed to be more curious about than when he chooses to cross it on his own accord. Then we went just hung out in our "garden" exploring where he met some tyres, he re-introduced himself to the rubber ball and tried eating plants despite not having any teeth and decided that a fold up chair was a great itching post. We went on our first ever outing outside of our own land into the neighbours fields the plans was to go on our first water crossing but the field with the water in now is fenced off with cows in it so we used this opportunity to see cows for the first time. Interestingly Mel, his Dam, seems less bothered if he is a few feet away from her now and today he has had the fun of meeting our little coloured mare Jazz who up until now his mother has stopped him from sniffing.