05.14.07
coke music video Buenos Aires style
Tanks to ben for finding this on youTube and posting on the blog Say No to Crack May 12…
Temper Tantrum
What good is a temper tantrum if nobody’s around to see it? Just had to, good for a real belly laugh!
Posted by sunnyhawaianmorning on youTube.
Talking Cats Videos
Not to slight the kitties…
Posted by jessebelcher on youTube.
Posted by P14stoc on youTube.
Wally McRae: Cowboy and a Poet
Mix equal portions of Montana cowboy and modern society, add a dash of humor, heap on the social commentary– the result is the internationally renowned cowboy and poet, Wally McRae.
Here is a short film with Wally McRae out on his land here in Eastern Montana. Beautiful time of day, sun was setting, and he recited a very powerful poem about the mining in this area. An exclusive and private performance from a true cowboy and poet.
His poem “Reincarnation” has entered the oral tradition of cowboy poetry as a classic recitation and he’s presented his poems to rave reviews at Cowboy Poetry Gatherings and Folklife Festivals nationwide. He has also received the Governor’s Award for the Arts in Montana, was the first cowboy poet to receive the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Award and was nominated by former President Bill Clinton to serve on the National Council of the Arts.
“Cowboy Magazine” writes “Wally brings humor and insight to anyone who ever… sat on a horse (or wanted to).” and “Western Horseman” says, “His poetry is something like the Montana landscape - the years and wind take away anything that isn’t solid as bedrock. McRae not only knows how to make you listen, he has something to say that’s worth listening to.”
by Spooly, posted on youTube
President Clinton’s Last Days in Office
A man who can laugh at himself! So refreshing!
In President Clinton’s last days in office, he made this funny 5-6 minute video, which features Helen Thomas, Tim Russert, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Kevin Spacey, and many more. It’s kind of sad to remember the days when we had a competent, intelligent leader, remember? When everything was good…
(per supermoviesdownload.com)
Horse Fun in Mud Season
HorseGal visits Connie’s horses, who visited Emmie during April…
I recently had the wonderful opportunity of having all three of Connie’s horses right in my own back yard during April. I just could not believe my good luck!! I thought it was too good to be true. (And you know what; even though I did spend time with them, I still feel like it WAS too good to be true!!) What made this so fantastic is that while I would have been happy with any 3 (or one!) horses, these weren’t just anybody’s horses– they were Connie’s; that’s what made it even more terrific!
Arabian/percheron yearling cantering. Roundpen training improves horse’s responsiveness to humans.
Brothers hanging out in their temporary quarters…
What a great chance to get to know and spend time with “The Herd”! Connie’s daughter Emmie was taking care of them so I got to see Em do some hands-on training of Connie’s two young arabian/percheron geldings That in itself is such a great opportunity that I have never had, and may never have the chance again, to see.
Impatience of Youth– Gilford paws on the crossties.
I mean really — getting to see two youngsters learning how to be horses and how it’s done??!! How many chances does a HorseGal, who’s still so new to this horse life, get to see that?? All of the horses I usually come into contact with are already “all grown up” and teaching a horse how to have horse manners is so fascinating! I’ve read an awful lot about it, but never thought I’d ever be lucky enough to see it happen in person!
Emmie riding Gilford, arab/percheron nearly four years old.
Anyways, on one of my trips down, Emmie rode Gilford and Willy [Willow's Bask, the arabian mother.] Gilford is so out of shape, poor guy!! But he did what Em asked of him. Let me stop here and say how amazing Emmie is!! I knew this before from seeing her work with Princess, [The Princess and the Canter] but nevertheless, I again was SO impressed with her knowledge and her hands-on work with the two youngsters. I’m all goosebumpy just writing about it– she really blew me away! You can just see her love and passion for these 3 horses (especially Momma Willy– the two of them go waaay back.)
Oh, and I got to see a trunk that Em’s Dad made for her to put all her tack in when she was young. It’s beautiful!! 
You can see that Em has such wonderful memories and she is so proud of that trunk. I’m so glad that I got to see it and that she shared some of her stories with me. I’m digressing a bit– but I’m still reeling from all the excitement and I can still feel it. So, I hope you’ll forgive me for all this chatter!
Back to my story– Em rode Gilford and Willy that Saturday. These 3 horses are so close [ie:, HERD-BOUND.] When Em was riding one of them, the other two would be calling out to their missing member! They can be quite vocal and it’s so funny to hear and see.
Glen and Willy pine for Gilford while he’s with Em.
Em rode Gilford English and she’d coax him along when needed. She rode Momma Willy Western with a beautiful macrame breastplate that Connie made, and her cordura nylon/leather endurance saddle. Em & I took measurements of Gilford so that Connie can make a breastplate for him too. I can’t wait to see the finished product!
Em let me help groom all 3 and I got to pick Momma’s feet. The mare is SO good. All I had to do was run my hand down her leg and up the foot came! And she didn’t try to take it back. She let me take however long I needed to clean all 4 feet. Em let me clean up the barn (yes, I said LET… I love even cleaning up after them!) And don’t you love that horsy smell? I do! I spent a few hours with them that day and it was so fabulous.
Sweet momma mare
On another trip down, Em didn’t do any riding that day, but she did some round pen work with Gilford and Glendale helping them with their gaits. You can see such a difference in the way these two horses move. Gilford is heavier in his gait whereas his younger brother has a light springy step. [Gilford is more drafty and Glendale, who looks exactly like his momma, has more arabian-like movement.] You could see both of them trying to get away with not working, but Em was in full control and they knew it.
GILFORD TROTS IN ROUND PEN video
I got to see Em teaching young Glendale how give his human their space and to not crowd. She’d walk him around in a small tight circle but would keep him about elbow’s length away from her by pressing on him with her elbow and talking to him. [ED. NOTE: by pressing against the horse's flank at the girth area, she begins teaching him to move away from (future) leg pressure. The shoulder pressure tells him not to move his shoulder into her space.] I don’t know if you can tell, but on one of my videos Glendale balks at moving around the pen and Em walked right up to him and would not let him get away with that. Pretty cool stuff.
Teaching young arabian/percheron to respect the human’s space and not crowd in with his body; working in a round pen video.
Yearling acting up a little bit and being corrected by Emmie.
Goofy baby Glendale
I can’t wait to read Connie’s blog about their return home to their own pastures! [COMING SOON!]
This was such a wonderful opportunity for me– and on a personal note to Momma Willy, Gilford and Glendale: If you are all (or even one of you) back here for another visit, Horse Gal will be waiting…
[CONNIE'S NOTE: They weren't exactly on their best behavior-- poor guys were so bored confined to smaller muddy paddock with horrible rainy weather limiting how often they got played with; they are normally used to a larger area with variety to roam in. The brothers rough-housed and broke fence boards and chewed on rails something awful. Horse fencing REALLY NEEDS to be protected with electric wire. PS. just ignore dates on these photos-- HorseGal with new camera!]
Bye HorseGal! Until next time!
05.05.07
Training Dog to Invisible Fence
Invisible fencing for dogs is the greatest thing since sliced bread! With it we are able to give our English Setter Peaches a huge yard area to run around in, including accompanying us to the barn when we tend the horses.
With Peaches we use a combo contain-and-train invisible fence made by Innotek. They recommend a dog is not old enough until 6 months to train to an invisible fence. With our Innotek model, settings are changeable on the collar itself– the contain mode is for everyday use of the fenced area. We can also manually use a handheld controller to reinforce other training– using warning sounds and/or pulsing corrective shock– either inside or outside of the contained yard.
Peaches plays inside her invisible-fenced yard, slip-sliding on icy snow in this video!
The invisible fencing system will come with instructions and possibly a DVD with examples. Basically, you first set up the fence. There must be visible boundaries for the dog to see, either obvious natural boundaries (hedge, treeline, other fencing etc.) or you place a line of flags in the ground to mark featurelsss boundaries. The fence emits an audible warning sound to the dog’s collar from up to 12 feet away from the fence, which changes in tonal intensity as the fence is approached, and then to a corrective pulsating vibration (shock) about 2-3 feet away from the fence. The distance range is adjustable.
To start training, put the dog on a leash and walk it around the fenceline in both directions, inside the boundary, and whenever the dog approaches the boundary you stop it with the leash and pull it back towards you sharply with a verbal NO command. You do this many times; a retractable leash could be helpful. Essentially you are establishing the boundary location in the dog’s mind and conditioning it to retreat from the boundary.
Next you put the training collar on the dog and repeat the boundary walking using the warning sound as a cue to tell the dog when to retreat from the fence (still reinforcing with the leash.) When the dog has this idea reliably, remove the leash and test the dog’s understanding of retreating from the fence at the warning signal, reinforcing verbally by calling the dog back to you if it encroaches towards the fence.
The last step is to set the collar for the corrective shock if the dog ignores the warning sound. Remember, the typical invisible fence has a warning sound which gets progressively more insistent as the collar approaches the fence, until it turns into a corrective vibrating (intermittent) shock. With Peaches it took her three shocks to learn that she dare not ignore the warning signal. She would not approach the fence after that, and she knew the limits of the boundaries. Thereafter she retreated from the fence as soon as she heard the warning signal from her collar. Final testing of the fence’s effectiveness is to cross the fence yourself and walk away from the dog; however, you should never call the dog to cross the fence.
To solve the problem of taking the dog on a walk outside the fence perimeter, we carry Peaches over the line (with her collar turned off, of course.) I have also heard of folks using a carpet remnant they place on the ground, and teach the dog it is OK to walk across the carpet and on a leash to cross the line.
When we installed our own invisible fence, we buried it only in areas where we had to, such as driveway and lawn. We had a lot of natural boundaries– stone walls, horse fences, treelines– which were protective enough to simply lay the fencewire on top of the ground. We DID have to protect it from the horses, so anywhere it’s within a pasture we either buried it at the fenceline or tied it up to the bottom fencerail. Our horses paw and dig near fencelines, especially in winter, searching for acorns and grass morsels. They seem to like nothing better than chewing up a section of dog fence wire, so we have had to patch it together in many places. We had to bury it inside a piece of rubber hose under a horse gate which they use frequently.
If we had not put up this dog fence, Peaches would most certainly be dead– most likely run over by a car or killed by a coyote. There’s no doubt that an invisible fence is less expensive (around $100-$200 self-installed) than any other kind of fencing to keep the dog at home. I have heard some people are afraid it is cruel to use shock training of any kind; I think it is crueler to let the dog be run over or be staked out on a chain or given no freedom at all. Of course some dogs are not inclined to run around or to wander like an English Setter is, but peace of mind is important to consider.
Your comments and suggestions are welcome, as always!
Snowshoe Pied Piper Horses Video
Hubby is on snowshoes carrying chainsaw in mid-February snowstorm… just keep watching a second!
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See my other videos of horses, dogs, snowboarding etc., on this blog (search term= video,) or go to YouTube.com and use search term= Horsepaintings (my username.)
