Haha!! Okay, "RICHARD" Tracey!
The Dogpatch Horses
I hope I am doing this right. I seem to be very sub-forum challenged! Anyway, this is a continuation of my recent posts in other sub-forums.
Just for amusement's sake, what the heck is "Dogpatch"? For those who aren't old enough to remember, Dogpatch is a ficticious place in a cartoon strip from the 20th century. Kind of a political satire. It was a poverty stricken dump of a community in the back country someplace. We moved to this place in 1980 and it acquired its nickname almost immediately, being a tommy-tumbledown dump, with past residents being of a reportedly unsavory character. The nickname stuck and we still find it amusing.
Anybody who's been kind enough to read my recent posts knows my current project is Laddie, a half Clydesdale, half Standardbred gelding, about 23 years old. A very gentle but troubled soul. I'll just pick up where I left off.
Laddie and I continued to work on jogging on the right rein, but we've hit the anticipation/anxiety threshold and Laddie's responses were deteriorating a little bit. I was asking for some "long interval" transitions, jogging from one letter to the next, dropping to a walk, jogging again, etc. But the "whoa" button got messed up, he wasn't stopping quite as well when asked, REALLY anticipating the jog cue and tensing up because I was starting to use a little more rein pressure to get the downward or stop transition, and he responded by getting a little more bracey.
There's no way at this point that I'm going to let him fall apart! So we backed our transitions down to walk/whoa/stand and abandoned the jog for the rest of the lesson. Stops got sloppy, so we just walked a small circle. He "knew" why we had to do this and preferred to stop after that. We did a few really good repetitions, enough to be sure he was relaxed and feeling successful.
Chatted with the neighbor over the fence when we were done, and Laddie stood there with his big ol' head in my arms.
Here is today's mud...er...mug shot. Next time I'll take that ugly halter off.
![Horse Head Eye Plant Working animal]()
Just for amusement's sake, what the heck is "Dogpatch"? For those who aren't old enough to remember, Dogpatch is a ficticious place in a cartoon strip from the 20th century. Kind of a political satire. It was a poverty stricken dump of a community in the back country someplace. We moved to this place in 1980 and it acquired its nickname almost immediately, being a tommy-tumbledown dump, with past residents being of a reportedly unsavory character. The nickname stuck and we still find it amusing.
Anybody who's been kind enough to read my recent posts knows my current project is Laddie, a half Clydesdale, half Standardbred gelding, about 23 years old. A very gentle but troubled soul. I'll just pick up where I left off.
Laddie and I continued to work on jogging on the right rein, but we've hit the anticipation/anxiety threshold and Laddie's responses were deteriorating a little bit. I was asking for some "long interval" transitions, jogging from one letter to the next, dropping to a walk, jogging again, etc. But the "whoa" button got messed up, he wasn't stopping quite as well when asked, REALLY anticipating the jog cue and tensing up because I was starting to use a little more rein pressure to get the downward or stop transition, and he responded by getting a little more bracey.
There's no way at this point that I'm going to let him fall apart! So we backed our transitions down to walk/whoa/stand and abandoned the jog for the rest of the lesson. Stops got sloppy, so we just walked a small circle. He "knew" why we had to do this and preferred to stop after that. We did a few really good repetitions, enough to be sure he was relaxed and feeling successful.
Chatted with the neighbor over the fence when we were done, and Laddie stood there with his big ol' head in my arms.
Here is today's mud...er...mug shot. Next time I'll take that ugly halter off.
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Since we're reminiscing... I was going through a box of old photos looking for a particular one, which I never found. But I did get some unexpected surprises. Thought I'd share a photo or two of some of the past Horses of Dogpatch.
This is Gizmo, the toughest little nut that ever walked, both physically and mentally. This would have been around maybe, 2003. He was a Morgan.
![Horse Vertebrate Working animal Hat Horse tack]()
This is Gizmo, the toughest little nut that ever walked, both physically and mentally. This would have been around maybe, 2003. He was a Morgan.
Can't say the same about being fond of revisiting the past. Except for some things. Gizmo was a very tough horse, but he took us on some of the most astounding mountain drives!!! Wanna hear a story?
We were camping and driving out of Cyrus Horse Camp in the Crooked River Grasslands of central Oregon. Our BLM map was just terrible. It showed a road going up a butte and down the other end. We found the road, with some effort, and I piloted Giz up the butte. The top looked so close, but it went on and on and on. There were two of us in the cart, and a Jack Russel pup in a basket on the back. We had to get out many times to give little 14.1 hand Gizmo a break. The road was extremely rutted and rock-strewn, but "quit" was not a word in Gizmo's language. He was also extremely fit.
After what seemed an age, we finally arrived at the top of the butte and the view was utterly breathtaking! The grasslands swept away to the west far below us, then upwards to the many snowy volcanoes of the Cascade Range. It seemed we could see from Washington State to California!! We finally had to leave, so we followed our BLM map, which promised us a road on the other side. Well, there was a road...for a short distance down a razorback...It was incredibly steep and rough. And then it got narrow. And then it ended in a massive pile of boulders. I looked to my left and saw Haystack Reservoir about 300 feet down, and to my right, the grasslands about the same distance down. I remember so clearly, all the colors I saw seemed to become extremely vibrant as I was paralyzed with fear that we might take one...wrong...step.
So I told my husband to get out, in case Gizmo and I were about to meet our maker. I asked Giz to turn about. He spun the inside wheel on a dime and BOLTED up that miserable pile of rubble called a road!!! At the top, I discovered the pup dangling by his harness, having been bounced out of his basket! Hubby had a bit of a climb. But I don't actually know if Giz could have dragged us both back up to the top of the butte. Probably.
Everybody was fine, but we had a long, tiresome drive back to camp.
One old horse logger that watched Giz and me try to learn to plow, never said anything about my bumbling performance, but of Gizmo, he said, "He's all heart, and what ain't heart is lungs. I'd be proud to have him in my barn!" He was a Belgian man.
Photo credit: Bonnie Moreland from Flikr. Not mine, but very much like what we'd have seen from the top of the butte.
A Break in the Weather...
Looks like it's been over a week since I rode Laddie. But today is almost nice after all the wild weather. It was 38F when I went out to ride, now it's 49, about 1.5 hours later. That's close to our forecast high.
I was able to try Laddie's halter bridle out. It was custom made for him and given to me when I bought him ten years ago, but I've never used it. I quite like it! I want to let the noseband down another hole. I thought it needed a browband, but I can see that it isn't made to accommodate one. At least not without shortening the throatlatch by about 6". The adjustable chinstrap could be longer, but I "solved" that with a snap.
Anyway, a little regression was to be expected. Halts were heavy and sluggish, every go-forward touch of the legs was go sideways, every walk cue was trot. So I let Laddie decide what we were going to work on. In the end, he was 100% successful and very happy. Can't ask for more than that.
I tried to get a picture of Laddie's marbled eye, but his long eyelashes were doing a good job of casting shade. Mug shot is of his "new" head gear. He sure makes an inch-wide strap look flimsy!
![Hair Nose Brown Horse Head]()
![Hair Horse Eye Working animal Horse tack]()
Looks like it's been over a week since I rode Laddie. But today is almost nice after all the wild weather. It was 38F when I went out to ride, now it's 49, about 1.5 hours later. That's close to our forecast high.
I was able to try Laddie's halter bridle out. It was custom made for him and given to me when I bought him ten years ago, but I've never used it. I quite like it! I want to let the noseband down another hole. I thought it needed a browband, but I can see that it isn't made to accommodate one. At least not without shortening the throatlatch by about 6". The adjustable chinstrap could be longer, but I "solved" that with a snap.
Anyway, a little regression was to be expected. Halts were heavy and sluggish, every go-forward touch of the legs was go sideways, every walk cue was trot. So I let Laddie decide what we were going to work on. In the end, he was 100% successful and very happy. Can't ask for more than that.
I tried to get a picture of Laddie's marbled eye, but his long eyelashes were doing a good job of casting shade. Mug shot is of his "new" head gear. He sure makes an inch-wide strap look flimsy!
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