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Wednesday, February 01, 2012
 Come winter things slow down a bit around here.
I don’t mind riding in the cold, but lately all the horizontal surfaces have an inch-thick layer of ice. My girls don’t have shoes, say nothing for shoes with borium points. I’ve done the icy Slip ‘n’ Fall on horseback. It ain’t fun.
So we’re playing it safe and staying put.
So to speak.
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The pony, Peppermint, has still managed to break through the fencing once and trot over to my ever-tolerant neighbors. I think she may have discovered the seed at their back window bird feeder.
It’s squirrel-proof, but is it pony-proof?
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About the most excitement has been the trip for a fresh 100 bales of hay. They can smell it, of course. And you could see them licking their lips and salivating at the prospect.
Alas!
They had to suffer through 10 bales of the old stuff – full of canary grass and twiggy weeds – before I fed out the fresh stuff. Now they are doubly eager for their forage.
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Every day I look out to survey the barn and paddock and often catch a glance of the kind of activity that goes on without me:
I’ve never been too fond of crows. They are big roadkill scavengers and seem to have flourished by filling this niche. Yuck. Plus, there’s too many of them.
 But today I looked up to see a Red Tailed Hawk. He was drooling at the prospect of a chicken dinner. Chicken a la Maddy. Really. I could see the drool dripping from his beak as he circled 50 feet above the barn.
But my neighborhood crows were having none of it. All over him. Gave him no reprieve. As two black bombers finished a maneuver, another pair of reinforcements swooped in. Mr. Hawk gave up.
Chickens saved.
Thanks, Crows.
Shea can go back to sleep now.
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
 I am so excited by the prospect of seeing dozens of talented horsemen start colts at the inaugural Horsemen’s Reunion in California this April.
Craig Cameron has just been added to the list!
But am I the only one to notice a glaring omission?
Where are the ladies?
C’mon, fellas.
You've got a former ice hockey player from Switzerland participating...You mean to tell me there are no women talented enough and available for this event?
Or are all those women too intimidated to participate?
Neither is true, I'm sure.
This non-competitive event has a marvelous mission and it will certainly be a big crowd-pleaser. But I hope the producers will hurry up and bring some qualified horsewomen into the fold.
I know they're out there.
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Friday, January 20, 2012
I’m not the only one looking forward to the publication of Evidence-Based Horsemanship.
The book, written by Dr. Steve Peters and Martin Black and due out April 1st, is getting advance notice from California to the Czech Republic and Australia, according to hits on Peters’ Evidence-Based Horsemanship website.
How will folks react to what I think is their pioneering, game-changing contribution to the horse world?
My hunch is that people will feel the same way I felt last summer, when I first listened to Peters and Black talk about their project:
--- EBH is the kind of stuff that causes horse people to exclaim, “Wow! I knew there was something going on!”
--- It will be a pivotal reference used with equal appreciation by the very best horsemen and by those just beginning their journey.
Randy Rieman put it best in commenting on the project:
"Most horsemen agree that timing, feel, and balance are the holy trinity of horsemanship. They are also key elements of this book.
The timing couldn’t be better. We are in the midst of a revival of interest  in horsemanship. People are hungry for factual information and intelligent conversation.
The feel of the book is genuinely refreshing and original. It is unpretentious, straight forward, and informative.
The balance is brilliant: scientific facts and the empirical evidence to support those facts assembled by two highly respected professionals in their respective disciplines."
[Disclosure: I was excited and honored to have lent a hand with the
book’s preparation and production. I sure learned a lot in the process!]
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Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Lots of us are passionate about horses, but not many can turn that passion  into a business.
That’s just what Ginny Parker has done with Whispering Cowgirl, an online store based on Cape Cod.
Who’d have thought you could buy McCall Saddles and Douglas Krause mecates and bosals from a little store in Wellfleet, MA?
Parker began her cowboy artisan retailer journey several years ago after leaving her job as a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch. She wanted to sell the best and did her research by taking trips out West, especially to WESA, the Denver International Western/English Apparel &  Equipment January Market, one of the country’s oldest and most established apparel and accessories trade shows.
From there, she visited with individual artisans, toured the McCall plant, and refined her selection with the help of working horsemen and women.
She introduced the “After the Ride” collection of jewelry, clothing, and accessories.
The result is a funky, high quality niche boutique with some of the finest horse gear available in New England.
With the release of movies like “Buck” and the ongoing growth of Vacquero style followers, Parker expects business to stay strong and grow.
“My customers have educated themselves about the craft and the  handmade nature of (the tack),” said Parker. Her products and the customer service are better for the horse than most online retailers, she added.
“When you have something you’re passionate about, it makes it easy. I started it so others could avoid my pitfalls. If was really to make a difference, to make things better for the horse.”
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Friday, January 13, 2012
Pretty common plea from kids, right?
That was you and me a few decades back, I'm thinkin'.
I heard a great response and the other day...a Proof is in the Pu dding trial and solution:
The parent said OK. But you need to show me you can take care of it first.
For a winter month, the little girl had to take flakes of hay and buckets of water to the barn where the pony WOULD be if she got her wish.
Morning and night. Slogging water and shlepping hay.
At night, she had to move the uneaten hay and dump the water.
Next morning, same routine.
This is what you’ll be doing when you get your cute, little pony, said the parent.
At the end of the month, the girl wasn’t too sure.
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Saturday, January 07, 2012
 Maine winters have a tendency to get us hibernating.
But Wendy Gray and Chris Lombard have a better idea.
Check out Lombard's Versatility Clinic in Bowdoinham next month.
Super affordable. Super fun. And heck, you will always learn something!
Click here for more details!
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Wednesday, January 04, 2012
In the winter, I separate the most bullied horse from my other three horses at night so that she can have her hay in peace.
She is in a stall which has an outdoor space all its own. It's an ideal set-up.  She can eat her hay without being pushed off, but is still not penned in a stall.
Ideal for her.
Not for her herdmates, especially Peppermint and Brooke who are keen on eating, especially this time of year.
Last night, when they couldn't untie the baling twine I knotted around the latch to secure it (because, of course, the pony can open latches). They leveraged the door off its hinges. Really.
Yup, under the cover darkness, between 10 pm and 6 am, somehow they maneuvered a 60-pound door off its pins.
When I got there, the door hung by the still knotted twine. Brooke and Pep were in Comet's stall, polishing off the last of her hay.
Arrggh.
Click to read more about Pep's winter escapades.
Click to watch herd dynamics video
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
It’s winter so I get used to the furnace going on and off during the night. I listen for it like a mother listens for a baby stirring. So when I didn’t hear that comforting sound all night, I got worried and thought I’d run out of oil.
For once, I was happy to be wrong!
It was just so dang warm.
The horses pawed the water and raced around, spring-fever style. They shook their heads and bucked at each other. Then paused to eat the two green blades of grass in the paddock. Then pranced 'piaffe' style to the other end of their space.
By tomorrow, they’ll return to statues as they try to conserve energy. They’ll stare at the house window, trying to send urgent telepathic messages for my next delivery of hay.
But today, it’s Fun Town, U.S.A.
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Thursday, December 22, 2011
As many of us know, Congress recently made horse slaughter legal again. That means the hundreds of thousands of horses going to Canada and Mexico for meat, may soon have a shorter trip.
Needless to say, many have disparaged the politicians and the meat industry, which lobbied heavily for the change.
Locally, Robert Fisk of Maine Friends of Animals, and Skowhegan Democrat Jeff McCabe and many others have issued initiatives and statements against slaughter.
Click here for Kennebec Journal article.
In California, the situation is similar in some ways, quite different in others.
Click here for Los Angeles Times story.
Perhaps the most compelling voice is Vickery Eckhoff. She is a free-lance reporter for Forbes and has written extensively about events, politics, effects of the lifting of the slaughter ban. An excellent series of four stories.
Click here for her articles.
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Thursday, December 15, 2011
If you read NickerNews, you know how much disdain I have for the horse world’s glitz and glamour.
The slicker a product – be it boots, brushes, or training programs – the less I  cotton to it.
Keep it real, please.
So when I heard about the Horsemen’s Reunion, I got REAL excited.
It’s an April, 2012 event in California with no contest and no winners.
“True Horsemanship! Not Salesmanship! Not Showmanship!” states the web site.
Martin Black, Chris Cox, and about 20 other trainers will start 40 young horses over six days.
For more info, CLICK HERE.
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Tuesday, December 06, 2011
The other day, we went to the beach. I double-checked my gear to make sure I had everything. Usually, I leave behind something fairly significant.
Saddle. Bridle. Cell phone. Wallet. Muck rake. Halter. Treats. Hay. First Aid kit. Coffee. Peanutbutter crackers.
Yup. I had everything.
We get to the beach and tack up the horses.
I placed the saddle on Peppermint, fished my hand under her belly and reached for the girth.
Um, the girth was at home. On another saddle.
What to do?
 Bareback is sometimes an option but I didn’t think it would be too wise with this pony. It’s not that she’s uncomfortable. She’s built like a tank and can handle my bareback weight.
It’s not that I’d be uncomfortable. She’s round and has no harsh backbone or withers. Actually, you could say she has NO withers at all.
But Pep has go. Motion is her middle name. And she has no problem turning at sharp angles. Zigging and zagging can be at my request. Or not.
I was looking forward to letting her run on the beach. But with no saddle? I’d ask her to turn and she’d oblige. I’d be on the sand.
So I took both latigos and ran them under her belly and cinched them loosely on the opposite side. I tried wrapping a stretchy first aid bandage around the leather straps so they wouldn’t pinch her, but it was too flimsy.
Off we went.
Had a blast.
Stayed on.
I tried to avoid turning too tightly since I knew the rig was fairly bogus. At one point, I checked the “girth” and laughed. It hung more like a back cinch, with plenty of air between the latigos and her belly.
Yahoo!
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Monday, November 28, 2011
Peppermint can be a bit of a felon.
I bought a round pen to keep her home. The conventional, three-rail wooden stuff doesn’t phase her much
Pony just likes greener grass, you say?
It can be zero degrees with a three feet of snow outside the paddock. Don't matter none.
Poor pony must be starved, you say?
She is roll-y, poll-y.
The pony just plain abhors fencing.
If containment were a religion, she’d be an atheist.
My usual routine is to put her in the round pen and let the other, more  compliant horses loose in the paddock. They all get hay. Pep looks dejected by the separation. But, heck, my neighbors don’t need any more of her lawn and bird feeder visits.
Today, I tried supervised visitation and let Pep join the others in the paddock. It took five minutes before she was testing the fencing.
“Peppermint!” I yelled as she nosed the middle rail and tested its strength.
She looked up with that ‘shoot, I just got busted’ look. Then she trotted down the hill, through the mud, and right into the round pen.
No kidding.
I didn’t ask her.
There was no hay to lure her.
It was like an old gangster movie when the bad guy knows he’s been nabbed and holds out both wrists for the cuffs.
Save me from myself....Put me into protective custody, ma'am.
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Saturday, November 26, 2011
What do CIA interrogations have anything to do with horsemanship?
In either arena, torture or use of force doesn’t pay. Science shows us this much is true. You’ll get the terrorist or the horse scared and compliant but what good is it if his compliance is rooted in fear?
 No good.
-- The terrorist will make up stuff.
-- The horse will freak out or shut down.
You don’t have to baby them, but for the horse to learn or for the terrorist to give up information, you have to let behavioral science work to your advantage.
Some folks translate this concept as being gentler. Not surprisingly, some tough guys (military men, cowboys) brace against being Gentle.
So I was happy when one of their own, Craig Cameron, spoke up. He’s met lots of men, he recalled at the recent Equine Affaire, who give their horses one cold, quick pat as an indication of praise.
He said: “C’mon! Really get your hands on that horse!
"A horses knows if you like him and a horse knows if you don’t like him!”
So don’t call it gentle. Call it effective. Call it positive reinforcement. It’s rooted firmly observation and experiment. That's science. And heck, science is enough manly, isn’t it?
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Saturday, November 19, 2011
Remember when kindergarten teachers used to force lefties to write with their right hands? It messed them up. Some teachers knew it intuitively, but it took studies by a bunch of scientists to confirm that yes, indeed,  switching handedness messes kids up.
So when The Horse recently wrote about Dr. Witold Kedzierski’s presentation at the 2011 International Society for Equitation Science Conference, held last month in Holland, I tried really hard not to say, “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
Kedzierski led a team to study the effects of “natural” versus “conventional” training when starting 32 young Arabian colts and fillies.
Natural: working with horses individually in a round pen, starting them on the ground, working with them to avoid pressure and get used to unfamiliar objects.
Trainers waited for each horse to show acceptance to the saddle and to having the weight on its back before riding.
Conventional: putting the horse on an automated walker and then longeing it. Once the horse could be controlled at a trot on the longe line, it was saddled and longed under saddle until it accepted the saddle, and then it was ridden.
Those horses in the Natural group had consistently lower heart rates than those in the Conventional group. Heart rates can indicate stress and  engagement of the sympathetic (Flight or Fight) nervous system. And as we learned from Dr. Steve Peters, Martin Black and others, horses don’t learn well or at all when stressed.
So, now we know empirically what many knew intuitively all along: Throwing a horse on a machine-walker, then longeing him around and around, then throwing a saddle on him and jumping aboard PROBABLY is not the best way to start a horse.
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Thursday, November 17, 2011
The woman in Craig Cameron’s clinic was pulling on the reins too much. Cameron smiled and yelled, ‘Let go! Where’s he gonna go? You’re in an arena!’
His thought, I presume, was that we’re safer in an arena if the horse ends up doing something unsafe like bucking or bolting.
But a recent ride with my pony, Pep, taught me that Wide Open Spaces can be exhilarating AND safe, too.
 Pep is another one with a strong distaste for rein contact. She’s tossed me a few times when I wanted her to stop and did so with too much rein. But with a friend’s help, I’ve learned to let her go. If she wants to move, I let her. But I get to direct where she’s going.
At the beach for the first time, she had no interest in standing still or even walking. So I directed her in big, quick circles. Then we did small, quick circles. There were no fences to run into. No trees to duck. No rocks or holes to dodge.
Within 10 minutes, she was walking and stopping with hardly any rein contact. She felt better. I felt better.
On this late autumn day in deer season, we soaked up beach time until sunset. It was calm, mild, and uncrowded and we felt like the outing was a real treat.
I like talking with fellow beach riders and I’ve found one thing mentioned over and over – We’re all seem so darn appreciative. Coming here is more than a safe place to ride during hunting season. It’s more than an alternative to arenas or the usual muddy trails.
Beach rides liberate you, reinvigorate you, and send you home with salt air in your lungs. The sensations are positive, physical, and spiritual.
I was inspired by Vivian, Pat, and Linda. (photo below) The mother and daughters have ridden for decades but this very first trip was the first one together to the beach.
Glad to see you out here, gals!
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Friday, November 11, 2011
Overbreeding is an issue every where you look.
Often owners struggle to have afford gelding costs.
We welcome this brilliant, inaugural event down in Georgia:
For FIFTY BUCKS you can bring your stud to eleven different locations in the state and have him gelded.
The one-day event is sponsored by the Georgia Equine Rescue League and involves many willing vets.
How great!
Everyone collaborating for the betterment of the equine population!
Check out the Georgia Equine Rescue League, maybe even buy a t-shirt or sumthin to show your support.
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Same vendors, different year.
That’s what I usually say when I head down to Springfield to the biggest horse expo of the year.
This year, though, I walked slower and was pleasantly surprised by what caught my eye:
Cynthia Riegle offered a nifty organizer system for sale at her Keeping Tabz booth. It’ll help you keep your equine paperwork straight – from vet  visits to worming schedules and more. Riegle will write about her vendor experience here on NickerNews soon! Find her in the Mallary Building.
I chatted with Susan Domizi, founder and president of Source, the micronutrient supplement company. Source harvests algae from Quahog Bay, right here in Harpswell, Maine. And Domizi is a leader in introducing sustainable practices, so the harvest will be healthy for years to come. Find Source in the Mallary Building, too.
Horse people are dog people, too. And I really liked the Ultimate Leash products. The leashes are simple, well-made and versatile. You can use one leash 11 different ways, walk hands free, or walk two dogs with one leash, even shorten the leash to use as a restraint in the car. They’re in the  Young building.
Most of those big tack vendors blend together, but Allie’s from North Kingstown, Rhode Island, stands out. We looked at beautiful John Willemsma and McCall saddles at their booth. You can have one for about $3,300 or admire them for free. Also in Young Building.
I was happy to see the folks from Redmond Rock again. Who needs Himalayan salt when you can get Redmond salt right from the U.S.A.? Two bucks will get you a five pound chunk of it in the Young building.
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Thursday, November 03, 2011
Greg Salvatore stopped by the other day so I could check out his new water dispensing innovation.
 Are you sick of hauling buckets out to the barn after you pull in the hose for the winter season?
Don’t you hate it when you wipe out on the ice with said buckets?
Welcome this lil’ water wagon!
With it's 20- or 30-gallon barrel, you can fill up to six stall buckets without lugging a single one.
Greg owns Muller’s Smart Carts, a successful Maine business based in Gorham. Smart Carts take the “ugh” out of stable work because they can be handled with just one hand and maneuver super-easily.
Check out his site.
Mainers get a hefty discount!
Oh, and he'll be at the Equine Affaire, in the Stroh Building.
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
 I thought for sure my horses would have been jolted into friskiness by this rare October winter storm. Caught unawares, they would have smelled the air, run their whiskers across the snow, stepped tentatively, and then bucked and reared in the newly coated field. Surely, they would have to relearn the dynamics of moving in the white stuff.
Instead, they seemed resigned, even ho-hum at the debut of the cold, white season.
It’s cold and wet. Where’s our hay? is what they seemed to say.
Last year, the first snow came with much colder temperatures. Rolling in it was refreshing and left them with nothing they couldn’t shake off.
Rolling in this stuff would get them soaked and muddy. They seemed to know this. There was no rolling. No prancing. No fun.
Yup. I know the feeling.
Real First Snow Skitties: CLICK
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Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The can of worms that is Horse Slaughter in America was opened back up with a front page article in the New York Times this week.
Gotta say, the pro-slaughter forces sounded pretty impressive, as reported by A.G. Sulzberger. They say not having domestic horse slaughter has taken the bottom out of horse prices and has put money into Canadian and Mexican hands instead of ours.
But animal advocates say, essentially 'it’s the economy, stupid,' not the slaughter ban that has driven down horse value.
Where do you stand?
As I wrote several months ago, I don’t have a problem with slaughter as long as it’s done humanely. I have heard horror stories of terror-inducing, misery-rendering transport en route to foreign plants. I have, in the past, welcomed the return of domestic slaughter plants as long as they are run humanely. That way, I reasoned, horses could avoid the wretched trek to Canada or Mexico. Surely, we could do a decent job ensuring their welfare before being killed. Click for article
Or so I thought.
There were many, many thoughtful, articulate comments left on the NY Times site. The comments were more insightful than the article.
One by “Pennell Hopkins” stuck with me and has made me waver on the possibly absurd notion of slaughter ever being humane:
She writes:
For a decade I enforced Pennsylvania Anti-Cruelty law at horse slaughter auctions. Handling and transport of slaughter horses was just as horrific when we had slaughter in the U.S.
Broken legs, eyes hanging from sockets, gaping wounds are still today observed today in as many numbers as when domestic horse slaughter existed.
When the U.S. Office of the Inspector General audited the USDA's Transport to Slaughter program the I.G. stated that the program was basically a sham.
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