Good to be home!

Missing Alice from Randall Barr on Vimeo.



Having completed the two week Level Two Breakthrough course yesterday, I must say it's nice to be home. If only I could have brought the Florida weather with me & maybe moved the Parelli center just down the road too! Had a wonderful time, learned a lot & made some good friends. My favorite part? Well, let's just say there were several people it took the entire two weeks to learn much of anything about their life back home. Sound weird? This is because everyone I met was as happy as I was to discuss horses, horses & more horses. Love it!
So, I learned many small things...small details to improve my game play & my horse's opinion of me. Horses are so very sensitive to body language & the small things. I'm looking forward to applying these details to my time with my horses. In particular my LB Kisia who I've let the relationship slip with....not on purpose but really just through taking her for granted. Kindof like a couple who's been together so long, they don't worry about the importance of the small things. This has totally been on my part so we shall see what she thinks of her new more polite, more clear & relationship focused girl. The video above is my gang here while I was away doing what they do & some of them apparently getting quite plump! Wow, what a round bale of hay can do in two weeks is amazing. This video was a wonderful gift from my husband who never fails to set the best example of "putting the relationship first".

Review of The Game of Contact clinic

Today completed Linda Parelli's clinic The Game of Contact. The morning of the first day we had classroom style lecture where Linda (sporting a sleek new petite figure) explained her concepts behind the game of contact. She showed examples of progress made by several different horse & rider pairs. And she of course discussed how horsenality is interrelated to this game. It's a difficult concept to explain in any terms; classical, modern or natural. My understanding thus far is that The Game of Contact is a method of teaching the horse to understand what's going on & take as much responsibility in the contact as the rider should. Holding hands equally & comfortably. One interesting point for me personally was when she described reactions common to particular horsenalities. Kisia, a Left Brain Extrovert, did exactly as Linda described was typical for her horsenality type. Even more pleasing to me was when she described the best method of helping a LBE to begin to gain understanding, as it was just what my experienced & talented instructor had me do in a lesson with Kisia. How lucky am I to have the treasure of Evie Tumlin in our area to provide learning & enrichment to our horse community! Looking forward to next week & some Freestyle!

Learning to take home

Day five into Level 2 Breakthrough at the Parelli Center. This week our focus has been online play & getting ready to ride. My first day was pretty rough. Looking back, that day was a floodlight on "my problem". One of the hallmarks of this program is the Horsenality Model. Similar the the Meyers-Briggs formula, horsenality assigns horses to either Right Brained (RB) or Left Brained (LB) then Extrovert (Ext) or Introvert (Int). I always got on pretty well or at least better than anyone else to that point with a very RB Miles. Foxy, a mild but still innate RB mare & I seem to absolutely "get" each other. And well, everyone gets along with Kisia....right? My very sweet Right Brained Introvert lease mare, Faith, has helped me to see how rude, bossy & intolerant I am with my own easy going & very LB Kisia. Hoping this will be a breakthrough in my relationship with Kisia & looking forward to applying this huge lesson to our time together. Had some really nice demos yesterday with our main course instructor Kathy Baar in which I took some notes that will be worth reading over & over. Will share those notes later here. We also got news that our class will be allowed to audit Linda Parelli's course this weekend on The game of contact. Talk about a sweet perk to the timing of being here just now!

News from Florida!

So I'm writing this from Ocala, FL where I am taking a 2 week course at the Parelli Center. I'm thinking some short blogs on the goings on here are in order. My course started yesterday with a half day including orientation, a classroom lesson, then a game with my horse called me & my shadow. In between all that we did a simulation. Yes, the conga horse. The first time I saw this on video I was horrified of the idea of acting like a horse with 4 other people. Now it's my opinion that most people enjoy this type of learning. For me it's for sure out of my comfort zone & well into the learning zone. You basically take turns (4 people involved here) being the human, horse head, horse middle & horse hind end. I was of course a very good & obedient horse...as the human my horse was a nut who totally ran all over me....as the hind end of an opinionated horse I got beat up with a mean noodle (1-2 foot foam tube/stick). Learned that if you pick on the hind end too much it avoids you like the plague, RBI's made really nice conga horse heads ;) & even with humans, one must adjust how you handle the "horse" depending on the individual & horsenality. Good stuff! More to come....

Cash N Zorra video & update

Cash n Zorra from Randall Barr on Vimeo.


Video here is Cash & Zorra getting some hands-on time after breakfast. Zorra is totally weaned now. Cash is still able to nurse through the fence as his mom allows which is becoming less & less. Since I wasn't sure of his age, I wanted to make weaning very slow & easy on him. My big, sweet Zorra at 6 months was independent & ready! As seen here, Cash is a total love-bug. He seeks out attention & is very calm about new things. Sedona got her first natural trim last week. Her feet look pretty good but after who knows how long of inattention will take some time to get into their best shape. Nothing that can't grow or heal though. She is looking fabulous with no more visible bones protruding. With the added weight she doesn't look quite so far along in her pregnancy but still has a belly that indicates she must be pregnant. Sedona & Cash are very much beginner friendly types, small but quick & athletic. Sedona is about 14.1 hands & a nice build even while still too thin. They have nice confirmation & will be wonderful partners for someone. Kisia is enjoying her break to heal an "over-extended" tendon. No heat but slightly off when moving to the right or under-saddle so should be good-to-go when I'm back from my trip to FL at the end of November.

Article from the Clarion Ledger about Equine Rescue & the Leake County Herd

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20101101/NEWS/11010317/Neglect-abuse-of-horses-on-rise-in-bad-economy