Kristen Vanderpool Equine

Since the mane event didn't go so well (he got scared\frustrated with me and bucked me off, which is totally not my horse), I've had to rethink training. I like the phrase: A safe horse is a quiet horse, but a quiet horse isn't always a safe horse. The second one is Aslan. He can become reactive at the bat of an eye and in a high energy environment, he doesn't know how to come down. Warwick Schiller told me that horses, even so-called quiet ones, need to learn how to deal

Aslan had his vaccinations today; I did C/T so that he wouldn't start to fear needles or the vet. He was a good boy and took it all in stride. He wanted to see what the vet was holding. (Treats right?) That night I surmised that his neck muscle might be sore, so we just did a grooming session. Where most horses enjoy the fact they will get a rub down and not be exercised, Aslan finds this highly annoying. (When are we going to start? What is in this for me? Do you have

I was in a foul mood today, but fortunately horse therapy fixes that. We had to do arena work, so I wasn't sure how this was going to go (will he cooperate?) and reminded myself to be patient. I also forgot my apple treats :( But Aslan was a good boy. I kept it short, and interspersed some of the more stressful activities by allowing him to get up on his mounting step. He loves that thing almost more than the cone. He keeps trying to get up on the mounting blocks for huma

Aslan loves the new treats. I've been cutting up apple and sweet potato and trying to alternate that with the extruded feed treats. He only gets them when I ride, which makes riding a heck of a lot more valuable. (I learned that tip from Shawna too). He gets small amounts of extruded feed for ground work and misc interactions but valuable treats go towards riding. Apparently I'm not the only one who has a horse who loved the ground work and found it highly reinforcing wh