Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I am a dedicated student in the Parelli Natural Horsemanship program. I am currently studying Levels 3 and 4 with my wonderful horse Solo. He is an RBI, mainly LBI now. I also have another horse. He is LBE/RBI, but I can tell he's innately LBE! This blog is for me to express my ups and downs of my journey with my horses, so read and enjoy my posts! Comments are welcomed! =)
Savvy On! =)

Solo

Solo
This is my first levels horses and my main love!

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Friday, June 10, 2011

Love, Language, and LEADERSHIP!

Hey everybody! First off, I'd like to apologize for not posting for a long time! I've been so busy lately! School had me going nuts for about the last month, but now that I'm off for the summer, I can post again! (:
So I'll start off with what I've been doing with each of my horses!
Solo: We've been working on refining everything we do. I've noticed that he's become much more LBI instead of RBI, so he needs me to use my leadership tons more than I had originally done. He challenges me to see if I'll go there, and when I do his light up like "YAY we get to play!" It's super adorable. We've also been playing at liberty again with just refining stuff, and getting our circling game better. I plan on sending my Level 3 liberty in at some point this summer! With Freestyle, I just taped my Level 3 Freestyle, so I need to add some music to that and send it in! We've been working on finishing the level 3 patterns; right now we have one more figure 8 to do. We've been doing a lot of bridleless and also getting snappier departures and having him be on his hindquarter more! With Finesse, lots of exercises to get him underneath himself. When he gets it, he sure gets it! It feels like we're floating!
I hope to pass my level 3 with him by the end of the summer!
Cavallo: Online we're starting level 3!!! I never thought we'd be this far in only a year in a half! I was reading about LBEs and Linda said that you should teach them something new at least once a week to keep them interested, so that's what we've been doing! Lately, I've taught him the weave pattern, cantering on a circle, head down, and sideways towards me. He's so brilliant! He usually tests my leadership a little right when we start out, but as long as I show him I'm still on top, he respects me and we have a fun play! Liberty: well, we havent been playing tons at liberty, but he can do the 7 games in a round pen which is really neat! Freestyle: I've decided to put freestyle on hold until we get the help of a PP. We had a little scare a few weeks ago. I was teaching him lateral flexion and when he would bend to the right, he would get really scared and do this hoppy scoot sort of thing. I had to bail and decided that the next time I got on him would be with a PP. We had a chiropractor out to rule out any physical pain. Cavallo LOVED it! She found that he was really tight right behind his back, about where his hindend begins. She also adjusted his poll. This makes me believe that it is a physical pain issue, because up until that right side, he's totally confident and relaxed. I guess I'll find out next time I'm on him! I have a lesson with 3* Parelli Professional Michelle Manshardt on Sunday so hopefully we'll make some progress!
I'm really proud of how far Cavallo has come! Our farrier and chiropractor have both been impressed with how well he behaves and how calm he is, which is crazy when you think of where he came from! Well, that's all for now!
Savvy On! (: