MUSE IS THE SECOND MOST AWESOME BAND IN THE HISTORY OF AWESOME BANDS.
Apologies for the title. Really digging Muse these days.
I am currently holding in my possession one (1) giant bag of dark chocolate chips. Life is, occasionally, good.
Heidi leant me a Parelli DVD. It's the first I've seen. I was both impressed and disgusted. First of all, the demo with Linda Parelli and Beau (random insane horse) floored me. She demonstrated and explained a lot of parts of the Parelli program that made total sense to me, and I learned a ton. Not only that, but I could really see the results, and was able to look for behaviour I work with in my OWN horses, then see how SHE dealt with it. Really, really educational. Not only that, but she's a very witty and intelligent lady, despite her bad taste in men.
On the other side of the coin is Parelli himself. What a fucking dumbass. While I admire his skill with horses, he's far, far too interested in himself. He basically thinks that he's pretty awesome, and wants everyone else to know that too. He's very elitist and throws in a "and if you buy my DVD...." every five seconds. Plus, a good portion of this movie was devoted to a "touching moment between Pat and his Granddaughter," which was definitely more revolting than touching and was totally pointless besides. Newsflash: Sweeping music, small children, and seeing a fugly cowboy's supposedly "soft" side do not make me buy into the Parelli program. Seeing horses get trained makes me buy into the Parelli program. I don't fucking care about his kids.
BUT, Linda's segment had a lot of "ahha!" moments, so I'm willing to forgive.
First, it really brough home how small and pathetic and untalented I am. Which is good, because I get cocky. After being torn into by Jolene, I REALLY could have used an ego boost, but I am nevertheless forced to admit that staying in reality is much more healthy in the long run, and Linda, unlike Jolene, was able to tell me I suck while still being nice about it, which was an agreeable change.
Second, as long as horses aren't in survival mode they are always playing games. Everything is a game to them: "Lets see if I can get a bite of grass and get out of the way before getting smacked." "Lets see if I can get out of moving forward by bucking/backing up/spinning." Conventional training gets rid of this behaviour by utilizing survival mode. When the horse refuses to move, you get a big-ass whip and hit it until survival mode kicks in and they run forward. NH, on the other hand, gets the horse to move forward because he WANTS to move forward because the trainer makes it fun and interesting enough that he's not having to think up his OWN games.
Third: If it comes to a battle of wills, which it eventually does if you work with a clever or stubborn horse, you MUST have more tricks up your sleeve than he does. I've noticed that Parelli has given me lots of tricks to use, and I regulary put them all into practice, whether I'm with a "Parelli" horse or not. Linda's video gave me a few more, which I'm looking forward to using. >3 The most important trick I think is to be unpredictable. More horses are used to predictable people. If they bite they get smacked, if they kick they get chased, if they run from the halter, the human follows, etc. If you start acting UNPREDICTABLEY it catches the horse's interest. So when they bite you stick something in their mouth, when they kick, you move their hips, when they run away, you turn around and walk in the opposite direction.
Finally, I have a response to people who say "What's the USE of teaching your horse to jump a barrel/walk under a tarp/stand on a pedestal?" I've always known the answer, but haven't been able to put it into words. The use is this: It's not actually ABOUT the barrel/tarp/pedestal - it's about asking your horse to do something unnatural and having him do it without questioning you, fighting you, or being afraid. When your horse can walk calmly over a tarp, step calmly onto a pedestal, and calming jump a barrel, he will also calmly step into a trailer. This is because he trusts his person as a dependable leader and knows that whatever you ask him to do it's going to be fun and interesting. Being able to do those seemingly useless tasks it just a stepping stone for being able to do real, useful stuff.
Um. So. I'm done talking about horses now. Except one more thing...I'm thinking of doing some NH certification after my BA, which is very exciting. Screw grad school, I'd rather ride. I'm willing to spend about 10,000 on it, which is even more exciting.
11 more days at the Museum. hoorah! My first day off EVER (okay, in two months) in two days. even BIGGER hoorah!
And I found a place in PG. It's large, cheap, and I'm sharing it with three seemingly awesome people.
I broke the lawnmower. Hoping that mom will not notice and/or blame it on Ekai.
I got rid of the old Merc. It's wierd not seeing it contaminating the yard anymore; although there is a nice pink stain from the alternator fluid to remind me of our somewhat tumultous time together. Oh Mr Topaz, I will not miss you at all.
I am currently holding in my possession one (1) giant bag of dark chocolate chips. Life is, occasionally, good.
Heidi leant me a Parelli DVD. It's the first I've seen. I was both impressed and disgusted. First of all, the demo with Linda Parelli and Beau (random insane horse) floored me. She demonstrated and explained a lot of parts of the Parelli program that made total sense to me, and I learned a ton. Not only that, but I could really see the results, and was able to look for behaviour I work with in my OWN horses, then see how SHE dealt with it. Really, really educational. Not only that, but she's a very witty and intelligent lady, despite her bad taste in men.
On the other side of the coin is Parelli himself. What a fucking dumbass. While I admire his skill with horses, he's far, far too interested in himself. He basically thinks that he's pretty awesome, and wants everyone else to know that too. He's very elitist and throws in a "and if you buy my DVD...." every five seconds. Plus, a good portion of this movie was devoted to a "touching moment between Pat and his Granddaughter," which was definitely more revolting than touching and was totally pointless besides. Newsflash: Sweeping music, small children, and seeing a fugly cowboy's supposedly "soft" side do not make me buy into the Parelli program. Seeing horses get trained makes me buy into the Parelli program. I don't fucking care about his kids.
BUT, Linda's segment had a lot of "ahha!" moments, so I'm willing to forgive.
First, it really brough home how small and pathetic and untalented I am. Which is good, because I get cocky. After being torn into by Jolene, I REALLY could have used an ego boost, but I am nevertheless forced to admit that staying in reality is much more healthy in the long run, and Linda, unlike Jolene, was able to tell me I suck while still being nice about it, which was an agreeable change.
Second, as long as horses aren't in survival mode they are always playing games. Everything is a game to them: "Lets see if I can get a bite of grass and get out of the way before getting smacked." "Lets see if I can get out of moving forward by bucking/backing up/spinning." Conventional training gets rid of this behaviour by utilizing survival mode. When the horse refuses to move, you get a big-ass whip and hit it until survival mode kicks in and they run forward. NH, on the other hand, gets the horse to move forward because he WANTS to move forward because the trainer makes it fun and interesting enough that he's not having to think up his OWN games.
Third: If it comes to a battle of wills, which it eventually does if you work with a clever or stubborn horse, you MUST have more tricks up your sleeve than he does. I've noticed that Parelli has given me lots of tricks to use, and I regulary put them all into practice, whether I'm with a "Parelli" horse or not. Linda's video gave me a few more, which I'm looking forward to using. >3 The most important trick I think is to be unpredictable. More horses are used to predictable people. If they bite they get smacked, if they kick they get chased, if they run from the halter, the human follows, etc. If you start acting UNPREDICTABLEY it catches the horse's interest. So when they bite you stick something in their mouth, when they kick, you move their hips, when they run away, you turn around and walk in the opposite direction.
Finally, I have a response to people who say "What's the USE of teaching your horse to jump a barrel/walk under a tarp/stand on a pedestal?" I've always known the answer, but haven't been able to put it into words. The use is this: It's not actually ABOUT the barrel/tarp/pedestal - it's about asking your horse to do something unnatural and having him do it without questioning you, fighting you, or being afraid. When your horse can walk calmly over a tarp, step calmly onto a pedestal, and calming jump a barrel, he will also calmly step into a trailer. This is because he trusts his person as a dependable leader and knows that whatever you ask him to do it's going to be fun and interesting. Being able to do those seemingly useless tasks it just a stepping stone for being able to do real, useful stuff.
Um. So. I'm done talking about horses now. Except one more thing...I'm thinking of doing some NH certification after my BA, which is very exciting. Screw grad school, I'd rather ride. I'm willing to spend about 10,000 on it, which is even more exciting.
11 more days at the Museum. hoorah! My first day off EVER (okay, in two months) in two days. even BIGGER hoorah!
And I found a place in PG. It's large, cheap, and I'm sharing it with three seemingly awesome people.
I broke the lawnmower. Hoping that mom will not notice and/or blame it on Ekai.
I got rid of the old Merc. It's wierd not seeing it contaminating the yard anymore; although there is a nice pink stain from the alternator fluid to remind me of our somewhat tumultous time together. Oh Mr Topaz, I will not miss you at all.