Horse Camp

Our 4-H group, after the 4th of July Parade (Pride and I are holding the american flag:)

I leave tomorrow at 11 am! :) I'm crazy excited, but just a tad nervous, I don't like the idea of having to tie your horses up all night every night. I read in a magazine, horses can actually become sleep deprived if they only sleep standing up, because their deapest sleep is laying down... its only 6 days and I'll make sure to give Pride the chance to lay down every day sometime.

Pride and I in the 4th of July Parade!

The last two days have gone terrible with Pride! I am so ashamed of myself... I had the best ride of my life with Pride three days ago. It was amazing, everything felt so right! Then we hit a road block, or maybe just I did. Pride tries so hard for me! I can't believe I can be so stubborn and selfish! Yesterday, we started out with a normal ride around the first field and I started to lope him and usually he lopes incredibly slow, but he acted like a race horse! I was exhausted from a hard day of work, and I was bareback, but I don't have an excuse how I acted. I can't say I was mean to him, but I started working with him without a clear goal in my mind, I felt like I needed to something, but I didn't take the time to find out! I loped him in aimless circles and we jumped the little bales (I have to admit jumping the bales was a blast, but that was not the right thing to do at that moment) untill he dripped sweat, I simply stopped because I was exhausted and I felt like I was bullieing him. While riding to the barn I thought to myself, what did I achieve with doing that to him? I couldn't think of a single thing that improved in our relationship in doing what I did. Then I realized, I didn't even know why I did that or took that aproach with him. How terribly wrong I was! How could I do that to him? His big brown eyes looked at me like, "who are you?" when I turned him loose in his padock. It was like he didn't recognize me... it really hit me. Linda Parelli talks about having a clear focus and a goal before even going into your horses corral. I've realized how often I went out and just winged it, got what I could then stopped. So unpreductive... enough with the negative thoughts! That will get me absolutely nowhere.

Parelli suggests to have FUN days arranged - get together with friends, play Can You's. Take 10 or 20 minutes and make a whole list of fun to get out of your analytical head.

Yikes, that's another thing I need to focus on. Doing my thinking ahead of time, because I tend not to think when things go a different way than I planned, that's when I get frustrated and impulsive.

Quote from Parelli: "Many of us go through this when we start to have goals greater than just having fun with your horse... we start to over-think it. Thinking is great, just do it when you're not with your horse. And then when with the horse, that's the time to experiment, practice and have some fun."

I'm trying to look at this with a positive view, which believe me is hard because I always talk about putting the horse first, taking it at your horses pace, and NOT being a predator, and then I realize I haven't been doing this consistantly. One day I would go out and it would be a blast for both of us, we would make amazing progress. Then their is another day which I go out with a "I just want to get this done." attitude and things fall apart all over again. Then there's another good day when I pick up all the pieces and put them back together, only to shatter them again the next day. Well, that's not going to happen again! :) My goal for horse camp is to become a better leader and friend to Pride, and learn alot.

Keep it natural,

                     Kaylee