(Pt. 3) Chances Are

Thanks!

1/19


I haven't been riding much in the last week. In fact, today was the first time I've ridden since the clinic last weekend. I haven't actually worked my horse in too long; I've just been trail riding and playing.

Today we did more of that. Megan came down from Atlanta. She borrowed a horse from Ronnie and we trailered down to Mingo to camp for a night.

We got there at dark on Friday, settled in horses on the high lines, made a fire, and cooked brussel sprouts.




The morning after, we rode for around four hours. Nothing much happened. Just a chill little pleasure ride. BG isn't much of a pleasure horse. Walking aimlessly frustrates her. She likes to be on a mission. It was more me to who enjoyed just riding for the sake of it!








It's still good for BG to ride with as many other horses as she can, so I at least felt I accomplished that. She needs a refresher ring work course, which is in the books for next ride.


Also, those who read last year's journal, remember how Amy got me 20 minutes on the phone with an animal communicator for Christmas? I finally have a date and time. 4:00 this Monday. I'll make sure I tell you all about it. I've really got to think up some questions.

OH MY WORD. That looks+sounds like so much fun!
I miss riding...and riding with other people! Haha And exploring via horses...

Glad you had fun! :)

Yeah, it was awesome! I love riding in good company. And camping. I adore camping.

1/20

Arena work, I promised. Well, my ankles hurt today (tendinitis), but heck if I wasn't going to work this horse. Maybe not ride, but work. Heck, it can even in the arena. So I decided to challenge myself and see if I should free lunge the whole arena.

The results were interesting. I had NO speed control. The large space made her pretty sassy! I had decent directional control and some control over the size of the circle. Her stop was alright. I could step back and she would trot up to me the first time I asked 50% of the time.


Main result: interesting, though small, pictures of running sassy poneh.








Run, little horse!

1/21


Colleen was very friendly! And knew way too much about my pets.

The session was only 20 minutes, but it was pretty packed. I have very talkative pets.

I sat in Amy's office to limit distraction. I had a list made before hand with about 10 questions I wanted to ask Baby Girl. I didn't know how this was all going to work; Amy had only given me a faint idea and always ended with, "You just gotta try it. You'll see."

It doesn't help that I have a horrible anxiety about talking to strangers on phones. That anxiety disappeared almost immediately when Colleen brightly said hello and asked me for my horse's age and a brief description of her appearance. (She was just super nice to talk to.)

Animal communicators act of a sort of translator between animal and person. When I asked questions, Colleen would often get a picture and sometimes receive a more precise "quote" from the animal. Some of the stuff BG and the other animals said made sense to me, but not to Colleen. Which was neat.

I asked BG several questions. I can remember snatches of dialogue. A lot more was said, but I can only remember so much at the moment:

Me: "What does she like to do?"

Colleen: "She enjoys doing things with her feet. She loves to learn. She likes doing things that work her brain and not just her body."

Colleen: "She also likes to do something that involves her picking up her feet really high. It's not fast. It's sort of a side-to-side motion. Gliding over the ground, not much faster than a walk. Like a dance. 'Shay-say' was the word she used particularly. I don't know a lot about horses, but does that make sense to you?"

(I'm not sure what she means here, but it sounds like some sort of gait. Possibly a step pace or saddle rack. As far as "shay-say" goes... I have no idea what that word means. I spelled it like it sounded when Colleen said it.)

Me: "She got really sick about six months ago. Does she ever hurt anymore?"

Colleen: "I'm feeling pain right behind the rib cage, in the flanks and hindquarters. Was this where she was hurting? She says, 'My ass is fine now.'"

(Thanks, BG. That's a relief.)

Colleen: "She says she likes the peppermint things. The round ones."

(How'd she know about those?!)

Me: "She must be talking about the treats I got her for Christmas."

Colleen: "Probably! She also likes green apples."

Me: "She doesn't get a lot of those. They're harder to find."

Colleen: "She says you'll do anything for her. You'll find those apples."

Colleen: "She also enjoys kisses. Is she a kissy sort of horse?"

Me: "Ha, she loves to give me 'nose kisses.' She's super affectionate."

Colleen: "She says she really enjoys performance time. She appreciates that you always do different thing with her, so she never gets bored."

Me: "I'm glad! I try to keep things interesting!"


Me: "I'm not sure if she doesn't get it or something, but whenever I circle her around during trail rides, it's because I want her to slow down. She likes to walk fast, especially towards the barn."

Colleen: "Ha! She does understand exactly what you want, but doesn't see the point of going slow. Especially going back towards the barn. Being finished for the day is a joyous thing."

Me: "Can you ask her to please slow down? It'll be a lot easier for both of us."

Colleen: "She says she'll try, but only if you give her something special as a reward."

Me: "She can have two huge handfuls of cookies if she walks slow."

Colleen (speaking for BG): "Okay. I'll try."

(Did I just telepathically argue with my horse? )

Me: "Does she like traveling?"

Colleen: "Yes. She likes going new places. Especially places where she can learn new things. She really loves to learn. She isn't very fond of traveling during the summer. She hates hot, still air. She would rather ride in the little opened trailer."

(BG prefers the small stock trailer we use sometimes to the large goose neck.)

Me: "Does she like being ridden in a bit or without one?"

Colleen: "She finds it a little easier to understand what you ask when you're doing brain work if you use a bit, but she likes them both and thinks she has the best of both worlds."

Me: "How does the new saddle fit?"

Colleen: "She says it feels a little strange, but it's much more comfortable than the last one. She likes the new pad."

(Possibly talking about the way the bottom of the saddle uses two large fitting pads instead of hard panels.)

It only gets stranger from there. Because my dog butts in. To be clear, Colleen didn't eve know I had a dog.

Colleen: "Your dog wants to speak with you. What's her name? She's a short haired dog, right?"

Me: "Yes. Her name is Mushroom."

So Mushroom tells me how happy she is and how much she loves me and how she loves living with me. It's funny, because she "spoke" exactly the way I would imagine she would.

Colleen: "How old is Mushroom?"

Me: "We don't really know. She's stray. Maybe around three."

Colleen: "Mushroom says she's five. But stray dogs often say they're older than they really are. Hard lives make them age faster mentally. She says she was with four others, and they all left together."

(Weird. She knew Mushroom as a stray and she knew I found her wandering with a pack of four other dogs.)

Colleen: "Mushroom says she loves riding in the car with you. She likes listening to music with the windows open. She likes how you put on quiet music when everything's calm."

(Weird. Because that's exactly what Mushroom and I do all the time.)

Me: "Ask Mushroom about her puppy hood."

Coleen: "She really doesn't want to talk about it. She's shutting down on me. Some dogs don't want to revisit their pasts because it isn't a place they want to be. She's very happy you found her and loves you very much."


The weirdest part was about my tortoises. I don't think I've ever mentioned them, but I own two large sulcata tortoises. I have NO CLUE how Colleen knew. I mean, everyone has a dog, right? She might have guessed that. But she knew I had two desert tortoises. If that's luck, that's crazy.

Colleen: "What are your two tortoise's names?"

Me: "Steve and Tommy."

Colleen: "Tommy is the one that comes out most. Steve is shy. He likes to hang out in the burrow."

(That's so perfectly right.)

Colleen: "Tommy wants water. Did you use to have a dish for then to soak in?"

Me: "Yes. I haven't used it since they were babies, but I had one."

Colleen: "They also request some kind of white stuff. I'm not sure what they mean. It's some sort of nutritional need."

(They probably want their calcium block, which I haven't put out in a couple weeks.)

I thanked Colleen for her time. 20 minutes passed amazingly fast. My only regret is I didn't record the whole thing.

So I'll come out and say it. I think this is pretty legit. I mean, it wasn't just that she knew a ton about my animals without being told anything before hand. It was that when she spoke for my animals, it sounded like them. BG sounded young and sweet and a little sassy and just... Like I always thought she would. Mushroom spoke just the way I thought she would. Word choice, mannerism... Everything was just so them.


(And I can't get over the fact she knew I had two desert tortoises.)

I forgot my favorite part:

Colleen (speaking for BG): "What are we going to do tomorrow?"

Me: "Whatever you want."

Colleen/BG: "Let's do everything." <3

Perhaps, for that strange word:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sash...ient=firefox-a

?

Hmm... So it's a type of dance? *looks it up* It seems there is an alternate spelling, chassé, as well.

Definition:

n.1.A movement in dancing, as across or to the right or left.

v. I.1. (Dancing) To make the movement called chassé; as, all chassé; chasse to the right or left.



I get it now! She's talking about lateral movements. When we do "dressage" in the arena, we do leg yields, shoulders in, etc. with the radio playing in the background. She thinks she's dancing.

1/24


I had a wonderful ride today. After a rough day at school, all I wanted to do was run to the barn and go for a ride. I didn't want to see or speak to anyone. I grabbed by bridle from the tack room, jumped on my horse bareback in the pature, and let myself out of the back gate. I disappeared for two hours. We covered around eight miles of trail. Baby Girl was perfectly lovely and walked the whole time. We stopped to eat nice patches of grass, cleaned limbs off the trail, and even got within ten feet of a deer at one point.

BG even kindly did two things she hates to do: backed around a tree while I touched the trunk with one hand, and backed between two trees that were barely wide enough to fit through. All this with no fight.

I usually share only "interesting" days in this journal, but sometimes ordinary days have a memorable quality to them. As I sat on her back and let her eat a patch of green winter grass, I felt like I was returning to a place where something important had happened. And I thought, "Wow. This is why I fell in love with horses."