Ride 18: Taggart Lake, Grand Teton NP

Robin wanted to take the girls on a ride, so Sunday was lady's choice. Robin chose the Taggart Lake trail. It wasn't going to be a long ride, so I took Smooch. Robin prepared lunches,we loaded four horses into Robin's three horse trailer (thank goodness for small horses) and headed out. The parking lot was packed with cars. I felt odd being the only horse trailer there. I think by this time of year, most trail riders are headed more into the back country and off the beaten path to avoid the tourists. I don't mind really though. It's good training for the horses to be around crowds and you get your picture taken a lot.

Robin was on kid tending detail, so Smooch and I got to lead out. This is such good confidence building for him. For me too. I'm feeling pretty confident with him at this point, so I went sans bridle. I even did the one rein thing for the entire ride. Let me say that Pat Parelli knows what he's talking about. When you have a horse and rider that are comfortable and can ride one reined, you have this rock solid base that gives you the confidence in each other and the relationship necessary to have a fun, safe ride. Which is exactly what we had. There was one scary bridge crossing (high narrow bridge across rushing water) where I had to lead Rose and Sugar across, but to her credit, on the way back she did it by herself.

The trail is well used and well marked, and in just a little while we made it to Taggart Lake. Rose wanted to turn around and go back (Grace is much more into horses and trail riding), but Robin and I wanted to to the 1.4 miles to the next lake. She was making a fit and squawking like one of the birds nearby, so I started squawking like the bird too. I was surprised that my squawking really bothered Smooch. It probably bothered him as much as Rose's squawking bothered me. Anyway, despite Rose's squawking, the trail was nice, the scenery was beautiful, and I was having a good time. We saw a covey of Ruffed Grouse (are Grouse in coveys?) and a view of the Tetons that was new to me.

When we finally made it to the next lake, we tied up the horses, broke out the lunches and cameras, and had a great time. It was at this point that Rose actually realized she was indeed having a good time and everything was right with the world.

Smooch took a nap

While the rest of us ate lunch

and acted goofy.

(our version of "Blue Steel" look from the movie "Zoolander")

(our "serious" look like in the old timey pictures...Robin had a hard time with this one)
Aren't they adorable?

Grace got this one of me when I wasn't expecting it. I think it turned out great.

My attempt at taking a picture backwards off a horse (with a broken LCD display)
Robin is much better at it than I am

So these trail rides are great confidence builders for a young horse. When I step back and look, I can see that Smooch is on his way to developing a nice base for future work and I know that I am happy with the way things are going. Despite my limited experience.

Happy trails. Don't suck down too much trail dust and we'll see you at the next installment.

The Colt Journal: ride 17, Wilson Arena

Last Wednesday was arena day again. I spent the evening working on and refining bending, leg yields and side passing. I also worked a little on transitions and one rein stopping (I was working with halter and one rope rein, sans bridle again). And again, as is custom, I made him open and close the gate to finish things off. For whatever reason, Smooch is still intolerant of the gate. He dances around and avoids it. He's not afraid of it, and he knows his cues, so I think it is still a little of that intolerant youth in him. I found the best way to get him over it is a process: walk him up to the gate, make him stand still. Once he is satisfactorily standing still, give him cues to put him in position where I can open the gate. If he refuses, I take him to the rail to reinforce leg cues and side passing. And then back to the gate, make him stand still, and then cue him into the gate. I do this process, approach and retreat, as many times as it takes for the whole process to come together in his little mind. Once the gate is open, the entire process is repeated to close the gate, until at last the gate is closed and he is standing still beside it. What I am trying to avoid is getting too rushed so that he anticipates opening and closing the gate and then walking off right away. His rider may need some time at the gate to work a latch, adjust something or hold it for other riders, so I want to make sure the colt understands that we are finished with the gate when I say we are finished with the gate. All too often you see horses that think they know the drill and take off on their own accord with the rider still holding the gate in one hand. At best you have a run-away gate. At worst there is a train wreck with horses running into gates and riders falling off, or whatever stock you are trying to contain in the gate escapes and then you end up spending time to round them up. I am also trying to avoid a battle at the gate, which is why if he's starting a battle with me, I'll back off and reinforce in a safer situation until his mind is back where it needs to be to continue with the task. Believe me, my leg was plenty bruised by the end of this exercise. It makes me stop to think that I'm not completely competent to be doing this, but in the end we had the gate opened and closed, and Smooch was standing by it patiently awaiting his next cues.

Safety First On The Trail

Shiloh The Dog

Shiloh Of Indian Creek - Dec. 1994 to Oct. 2008

He lived to be almost 14. He had epilepsy, arthritis and was deaf, but was otherwise healthy and enjoyed life right up to the end. The last few years he had become increasingly less mobile until this summer he could hardly stand by himself.

He was my dog until he went to live in retirement with my parents nearly six years ago. He never lived up to my dreams of becoming a field trial champion, but that's ok. He was the best hunting partner and companion a guy could hope for. He was always ready to go. He retrieved countless upland birds and waterfowl for me. He loved the swamp, he loved the woods, he loved the ocean, and he loved the desert.

For years he has kept my father company while he worked out of his home. He had been a faithful and eager companion for my mother on her walks until he could not go any more. He was the talk of the neighborhood kids. Everyone loved Shiloh and he would play fetch countless hours on end.

I know it was a hard decision for my parents to make, but they felt he was living too painful of a life. Shiloh was put to sleep on Saturday.

We will all miss him.

There are a lot of photos of Shiloh somewhere. Unfortunately I can't find the disks that hold the digital files. This is a scan of a photo copy of a photo from when he was around two or three years old.

This was taken by my father last winter.

As far as I know these photos from last week were the last ever taken of him.

He was as great dog!

The Colt Journal, ride 16: Poker Flats, Grand Teton NP

Labor day was a good day to get out by myself for that first solo trail ride with Smooch. I am blessed because I am near such good colt starting trails. Poker Flats is perfect because it is close by, it is flat, it has both meadows and forest, the footing is good, it has bridges, stream crossings, bog crossings, log crossing, and plenty of wildlife.

The weather was perfect. It was between 40 and 50 degrees depending on if the sun was out, and slightly windy. It had rained in the morning and it started raining during the ride about ten minutes before I got back to the truck, so I got to finally try out my rain slicker (worked great). It was also the first snow fall of the season in the mountains.

I had decided to bridle Smooch for this ride. It was an arbitrary decision as most decisions feel at this point in my experience. Mostly it was because I wanted the security and control of the bit in case I got into a situation.

We started out a bit rough. He had to get used to the bit once again and I worked some drills in the parking lot. Then we started down the trail and headed across a meadow where I saw what looked like a set of wolf tracks. Dang, left the camera in the truck. I also noticed that I left my Leather Man in the truck too.

Then there was a puddle in the trail and the rodeo began. I couldn't let him walk around the puddle like he wanted. Then I might never get him through puddles or anything that looks remotely like a puddle. It took a few minutes, but I got him straight and he walked through the puddle. And then more puddles (it had rained that morning). Puddles everywhere and each was becoming more of a battle until he just blew up and tried to throw me. He was completely broke down and wouldn't even move forward. I'm fairly sure at this point that he knew what I wanted, he knew what the cues meant, but he was just being a little rebel. So I moved him into a meadow away from trees or anything dangerous and proceeded to work through our drills again, starting with making him stand still (which he didn't want to do) and then bending him in both directions, working on leg cues, rein cues, etc. until he was working for me again. Then I took him back to that puddle and made him walk through it, and he never refused another puddle the rest of the day.

When we got to the canal, instead of crossing it like I usually do, I turned east down a trail that followed the canal for some distance. That's when Smooch started getting spooky. He had his head held high in the air. Then I saw an elk. I made sure Smooch saw it too and continued. We walked right up to it and there turned out to be a small nursery group of cows and calves. Once he saw what they were, he was fine. So we walked by them, and then turned around and walked back. I made him stand there watching them for about 5 minutes. They just sat there and ate grass. Both Smooch and the elk that is. Dang, the camera was in the truck. One of the cows even looked like she was in estrus already. These park elk are very much used to horses. I believe there are some outfitters that guide tourists on horse back here and they must work this heard every day in the summer. I was probably stopped about 15 feet from one of the cows. Continuing down the trial, it came down off the canal and headed east. It wasn't long before we came upon Lake Creek, crossed it, and found a larger herd of elk. There were a bunch of cows and a pretty decent looking bull along with some rag horns. Dang, camera still in the truck...so I went back for it.

On the way back to the truck, I took what I was hoping was a detour and came upon another, much larger herd of elk. This time there were several nice bulls (dang, still no camera). Again, I rode right through them. Some didn't even get up from laying down when I rode 20 feet from them. Smooch seemed to find all this interesting. He was a little apprehensive, which is understandable. After all, I haven't even introduced him to cattle yet.

We finally made it back to the truck where I picked up my camera and Leather Man.

The first stop on our way back was to take pictures of the wolf? tracks. It could be a large dog, I'm not completely sure, but it's unlikely because dogs are not allowed on these trails as far as I am aware. My Nalgene bottle is for reference. It is about 3.25 inches in diameter.

So then we headed back to find the elk herd. They weren't very hard to find. As I got close, I could hear them bugling. The large herd I saw on the way out was in the same place, so I just rode through them snapping photos at leisure. There were hundreds of them.

Then I spotted one of the big bulls. This guy is a nice 6x6.


He let me get pretty close before he got up. Sorry about the focus, it was hard riding through a herd of elk one handed while snapping photos on a colt that's never seen them before.

There was another bull that was a non-typical that I never found the second time. I did find this other nice bull that was from the Lake Creek group that had joined up with this group sometime while I was gone.

I crossed Lake Creek again and tried one of those between the ears shots. It didn't quite turn out like I had hoped.

On the other side of the creek I ran into yet another group. This gal had a radio collar.


We made the loop back to the truck and it started to rain. Smooch wasn't concerned at all about the slicker. It is one of those yellow cowboy slickers that are over sized to cover not only your legs when you are in the saddle, but the entire saddle as well. I was a little worried he might spook or be worried about it, but he was fine. So we finished off the ride in the rain, never even seeing a hiker or another rider the entire time.


It was a good day.

The Colt Journal, ride 15: Wilson Arena

Last Wednesday found me once more at Wilson Arena. Time to really get down to business. The goal was to work on checking and bending the colt, with a rope halter and one rein Parelli style. Since I have not graduated level one from Parelli yet, I am only supposed to be riding one rein. I figured I had better get on it if I am to take a level 1 assessment this fall, because you have to trot around the arena with one rein. It's a pain, but it drills in the basics of equitation. It's sink or swim. The rein is basically your 12 foot lead rope tied to the halter. If you want indirect or direct reining in the other direction from which side of the horse's head the rein is on, you have to flip the rope over his head. The basic idea is that an inexperienced rider will overuse the second rein. If you can learn to ride with one rein, you are communicating with the horse more effectively.

It was hard work because from the beginning Smooch tried to take control. He knew that he was on one rein and he knew that I really didn't know what I was doing. Not to mention that he is only green broke to begin with. If one or the other of us knew what they were doing, things might be easier. So in that situation what came natural for him was to try to escape the rein, which is easy for him to do with an inexperienced rider because all he has to do is turn and walk in the direction on which side the rein is on. And as most horses, his off side, or his right side, is worse than his left side. Horse's brains are wired differently than say for example a person's brain. Each side of the horse has to be trained independently. So if you teach a horse to bend laterally left, you must also teach it to bend laterally right. If you show a horse an object (such as a flag) to desensitize it on his left side, you must also do so on his right side. So Smooch is much worse clockwise around the arena than counter clockwise. As you ride the horse clockwise around the arena, you want his nose tipped inside (to the right) so you can see half his eye ball. This lifts his inside shoulder and with inside leg pressure causes him to step his body towards the rail while bending his rib cage around your right foot and circling to the right. Doing all this and teaching the colt to tip his nose in, or bend, with one rein doesn't come easy.

To start things off with, I kind of did a serpentine pattern so that I could practice flipping the rope from side to side, while at the same time worked on bending his head and tipping his nose from side to side.

Then I moved to the rail. After many rounds of circling the arena in both directions, I think I finally had the idea of how to effectively use the rein. Then I trotted him and it was like starting over. Once I thought I had him fairly solid at the trot, I gave him a break and then started with the side pass. All of this bending and tipping the nose, checking, and lifting the shoulders eventually translates to side passing and spinning the horse on his haunches, which starts to become the basis for many things down the road such as reining or just simple tasks such as opening a ranch gate. So side passing is nothing more than tipping the horses head to one direction, lifting the shoulder and passing the horse in the other direction, just like circling, except at this point you are asking the horse to cross over both his back and front feet while moving sideways. Remember we started this exercise by asking him to lift his shoulder and moving his front end to the outside. Now he is going the same thing except we are taking the circle away. It takes a few minutes for the horse to understand what is going on. He will try all kinds of things to get out of the pressure, so it's important that when he does get it right, his reward is a break. He will try going forwards. He will try going backwards. He will try going the opposite direction from which you want. He may even try bucking or rearing. But eventually he will take that first step, crossing one foot in front of the other in the direction you want him to go and that's when he gets his break. Then you ask for two steps. And then a break. And then three steps. By the time it was dark I had him side passing the entire length of the arena both ways. That is with the rail in front of us as a guide. All of this, once again, with one rein.

I'll have to admit that I was almost thrown at one point. Whether it was my fault and I deserved it, or this is typical of a confident and dominant horse I'm not too sure. Smooch has reared on me before when he was confused, and I'm sure he'll do so again. At least I know what circumstances it happens under and hopefully I'm learning how to avoid such situations, but I think it may be a little of both.

Next up, Smooch's first solo trail ride. And some nice wildlife pictures.

The Colt Journal, ride 14: Leigh Lake

Swimming day, how fun!

Last Saturday the Back Country Horsemen went on a ride to swim horses in Leigh Lake. They do some fun rides, so Robin and I are going to join. They also have informative meetings and there is some opportunity to support and get involved in the political aspect of horses (trails, horses in parks, etc.) so it sounds like fun.

The ride was easy and flat to the lake, so I decided it would be a good opportunity to take Smooch on a trail ride with a group of horses (and take him swimming to boot!). Our friend Jayme (also a mule guy) couldn't get his mule, Big Momma, over the pass so I loaned him Sara for the day. More on that later.

I don't have a lot to say about the ride except that Smooch behaved Smoochingly (it's a word I invented to describe Smooch's smooth, calm demeanor and willingness to do pretty much anything I ask of him, so that's what Smoochingly means). He was fine with being in a group of strange horses, he kept up for the most part (he is still a slow mover) and he even jumped a small log in the trail. On the way back there were a handful of people portaging canoes and kayaks (ie, carrying them on top of their heads) to the lake and Smooch didn't even acknowledge them. On our Colorado trip there were some canoes by a lake that Smooch didn't seem to like, so I made him ride through them until he wasn't bothered anymore. It just goes to show that when you have an opportunity to show your horse something in a safe situation, you should take advantage of it because it may pay off one day when you don't have so much control of things, like canoes coming at you down the trail.

So Jayme and Sara. Jayme is quite used to mules. He also grew up with gaited horses. I was anxious for him to ride Sara because I've suspected for some time that she is gaited. Turns out I was right. Jayme brought his own treeless saddle and crupper. A crupper acts like a britchen in keeping the saddle from sliding forward, except that instead of a harness around the mule's hind end, it is a strap that attaches to the back of the saddle and loops around the base of the tail. Sara really seemed to enjoy the saddle. I know she's ridden in a crupper before, but I just think a britchen looks cool. Anyway, I kept waiting for the moment and then it happened...Jayme commented on Sara's walk. He had tried to get her to trot and she went into gait. Verified. Vindicated. Well, not so much vindicated as relieved that I wasn't imagining things. So Katherine, there you go, that's why Dusty felt like "that mule". She is gaited. Jayme had fun gaiting her during the ride. And I had fun watching. Of course Smooch would have to trot to catch up, but he didn't mind so long as he got to keep up with his Sara. I think I'll buy a crupper because it really seemed to free Sara up and she seemed more willing to go into gait.

We got to the lake and stripped off the horses. We had been told in advance that the operation was bare back and bridleless. So everyone de-tacked, changed into shorts, and headed to the water. Some people seemed impressed how well Smooch stood while I hopped on from a log. Hmmm, first time bare back on him. I'm used to a more filled out and substantial horse (Amigo, who is very pleasant to ride bare back when he is behaving). I found the skinny, bony backed little two year old difficult to bare back. I really had to wrap my legs around him to stay on. And to my surprise he followed the other horses right into the water. He didn't even seem to pay attention to one or two rodeos going on around us. But all in all everyone did well. No one got hurt. Sara wouldn't go deeper than her belly and Jayme had no control with the rope halter, so he ditched her for a painted horse.

We rode in circles as a group, making the circles bigger until the horses were swimming. Smooch, not quite understanding what was going on put up some fuss, but not much and not as much as I thought he would. We basically just circled until I was crotch deep, and then his back disappeared in the water. We were instructed to dismount once the horse was actually swimming and hold onto the mane and swim along with the horse. You can imagine that Smooch isn't very buoyant, being mostly bone and muscle, so it was difficult for him. I could feel his body sinking until his back legs hit bottom, and then he would push off until they would sink and hit again. But he did great. And after the first swim, he let me jump right back on in the water. The next few circles and I could tell he was getting cold and tired. At one point he wouldn't stand still for me to mount. But I was having so much fun I didn't want to quit. Jayme fell off his horse once, and then I fell off Smooch while mounting (he began running toward shore and I was still hanging over his rear and trying to pull my swim suit up at the same time). I figured that was the end. There were only two or three of us still in the water, so I collected my horse, mounted in the water, and called it a day. Luckily, our friend Pam was taking some pictures towards the end, so you get to see Robin, Jayme and myself swimming our horses! By the way, Rocky did great too!

Me and Robin (photos by Pam)

Getting deeper...

Swimming! That's Jayme on the paint, me and Robin past him.

Jayme fell off!

Some rest.

Down we go. I'm just about to hop off.

Robin took some candid shots on the way back.