Rodney and I have gone back to … well, work is overstating the case. I be messing with him. Plus, I have started a new exercise. I use an idea previously floated but not developed combined with an approach that wouldn’t work with 99% of horses but might work with him. If it works, I credit the last 3 months [?!, How] of watching his behavior while futzing with Mathilda. What we are doing is both counter-intuitive and silly, so I want to try a few runs before I expose the theory to the gaze of the world. I promise to report on results, good or bad, as soon as we have some. Fear not, the exercise errs on the side of overly permissive rather than overly strict.HintGold star to me for doing something, anything, with my horse. Even if I am being cryptic about it.
Have you had success with non-traditional training approaches?
This was Mathilda’s shoulder one morning recently. We have no idea where in her pen she found mud to lie on. More importantly, we are glad she lays down to rest. We are glad she can get back up. We are overjoyed that we don’t have to watch [Debriefing].
Picture was taken with a zoom from outside the field. Check out the suspicious look I’m getting even from 75 feet away.
Earlier, I whined that no one took us seriously [HHPR#2]. One reason is a clash of cultures. Hubby and I grew from an amalgam of New England and Mid-Atlantic influences. New Englanders are know for being thrifty. Part of this is practical. If you live in a cold place where the roads get salted, why spend money on a car when the undercarriage will only get eaten to pieces? Part of the New England thriftiness is an existential hangover from the Puritans.
Just as rich Americans from old-money families in New England frown on ostentation – they might invest in land, furniture, and boats, for instance, but drive run-down old cars and wear ancient khakis and holey sweaters – so do many old-money Britons recoil from lavish displays.
The Anglo Files: A Field Guide To The British by Sarah Lyall [Norton 2008]
Add to that the concept of inverse snobbery. The idea that I am so cool I don’t have to prove to you how cool I am. The story goes that when my father was an up-and-coming yuppie in the big city, his co-workers established enormous ego-walls with framed diplomas from fancy schools. My father’s response was to hang a certificate of literacy he earned from the state DMV when he had to replace an expired license. When he could not prove he had graduated from high school, they made him take the test. Dunno if the tale is true, but it could be. My father was black belt at this maneuver. What you learn young stays with you.
Stir in a strain of outright cheapness (partly genetic on Hubby’s side) and add a dash of slovenliness. You get an outward appearance that is short on flash. I once wore a pair of barn boots so far into the ground that when I bought a replacement pair, the store owner (& friend) insisted I throw out my old pair then & there. I believe in getting my money’s worth.
When I try a horse, I’m neat, in good britches, with clean boots. However, I show up in a truck that is older than most of their horses. This does not promote confidence in sellers. The same ratty truck pulled Previous Horse to all of his shows down here. A dilapidated ride does not sit well with the high-tech rednecks in their pimped-out pickups. My turn-out in the ring is beyond reproach. Outside of the ring; less so. Over the years, this left a certain impression among the area trainers. When I started shopping for Rodney and said, “Okay, I’m ready to fork over big bucks for a deluxe model.”, no one believed me.
Thrift. Cheapness. Inverse snobbery. Call it what you will. The South does not grok it.
Are you flashy or frugal?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Finally, something good on TV.
My essay “Talking with Animals” appears in Horse Illustrated, August 2012. The non-compete contract says I have to wait 6 months to post. Go buy a copy. Bump up those circulation numbers. My issues will be so in demand that editors will clamor for my copy & I’ll get so popular that folks buy the magazine just to read what I have to say. Sorry, channeling my inner Wofford there for a minute.
To avoid narrative confusion, the speakers in the essay appear unattributed. The cat was Mew, my Siamese. He started with a classier name but it devolved over time. The horses are Caesar [Previous Horse] with Mathilda in a supporting role and the jumper mare pictured in the Yin & Yang post.
In return for such shameless self-promotion, I offer an online bonus of two that didn’t make the final cut. The first, with Rodney & Mathilda, was deemed too snarky. The second was insufficiently equine.
Animals place blame. Our two current horses eat al fresco. Since the Thoroughbred gelding gets less and eats faster than our retired mare, one of us stays in the field to keep them separated until she finishes. The Thoroughbred is largely resigned to this but occasionally slips past. If he gets too close, she looks up, not at the other horse but at us. Her look says, ‘You brought him on the property. He’s your problem’.
Animals convey judgment, even the non-domesticated ones. One day, while I was a part-time zookeeper in a bird department, I had the opportunity to feed a sea lion. The lady in question was old and sedate. All I had to do was hold the fish over her open mouth and drop it in. Over the years, many zookeepers had come through her life. When she saw me come out onto the pool deck, I received a mental eye-roll accompanied by, ‘Oh no, not another one to train’. She sat in front of me as quietly as several hundred pounds of marine mammal can sit. I held up the first fish. She opened her mouth. I tried to hold the fish steady. Sea lions possess a startlingly large number of teeth. The fish landed slightly askew. I heard a heavy mental sigh and the resigned tones of, ‘Really, how hard is it to hold a fish?’
Anyone who says animals can’t talk just isn’t listening.
Remessaged the two individuals with horses for sale [HHPR#1]. Whatever made me think they would get back to me with more details &/or videos? Just because I might want to shovel wheelbarrow loads of money at them? It’s not unique to horse shopping. When we were farm hunting, Realtors found us boring. This was at the height of the housing market. They could live the good life by selling cookiecutter units in developments. Why mess with one-off properties that required actual work, with no easy comparables, and a land/house imbalance that did no appeal to mortgage resellers… But I digress. When we fenced the field, one company showed up but never bothered to send an estimate. I figure they took one look around & couldn’t believe we would build a fence that outclassed our house. (We did.) Another company didn’t even express interest in showing up. Dunno what his excuse was. Recently, an HVAC repair company came out, pronounced our AC throughly dead, gave us an estimate – we are talking horse-purchase amounts of money – but never got back to us with the modest amount of information we requested, or followed up in any way. Is it me? Is it the South? Perhaps the economy has improved and they have all the money they need. Grumble, grumble. We will now attempt to return to our regularly scheduled, sunny-tempered broadcast.
How do you reboot from a bad mood?
Later: In talking with Fairy Godmother [HHPR#1] about a horse, I reformulated [Truck Shopping] my mission statement. I have the tortured hero. I’m looking for the comedic sidekick. List of Horse Shopping Posts
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Helping with the dishes
When I graze Mathilda, my wants are simple. Is she about to roll? Am I downhill from her in the event of catastrophic system failure? If the answer is no to both, I go back to my book and let her get on with it. Hubby pays more attention [Grazing]. The most recent time out he noticed that there were certain grasses she preferred. So, he began to look for patches of those. When he tried to show her what he had found, the exchange went like this:
Hubby tugs on leadrope.
Mare resists.
Hubby drags her head out of the grass and over to new place.
Mare: What? Leave me alone.
Hubby: Here. Look at what I found.
Mare: Go away. What could you possibly know about grazing? Oh look, the good stuff.
Repeat.
Mare: Why are you hassling me? Oh look, the good stuff.
She never did admit that he was of any assistance.
Virtual Brush Box 