This has been around a few times, but still brings a smile! (Thanks to SC)
Dear Dogs and Cats:
The dishes with the paw prints are yours and contain your food. The other
dishes are mine and contain my food. Please note, placing a paw print in
the middle of my plate and food does not stake a claim for it becoming your
food and dish, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.
The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Beating me
to the bottom is not the object. Tripping me doesn’t help because I fall
faster than you can run.
I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about
this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your
comfort. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep. It
is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other stretched out to the
fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and
having tongues hanging out the other end to maximize space is nothing but
sarcasm.
For the last time, there is no secret exit from the bathroom. If by some
miracle I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not
necessary to claw, whine, meow, try to turn the knob or get your paw under
the edge and try to pull the door open. I must exit through the same door I
entered. Also, I have been using the bathroom for years — canine or feline
attendance is not required.
The proper order is kiss me, then go smell the other dog or cat’s butt. I
cannot stress this enough!
And, to pacify you, my dear pets, I have posted the following message on our front door:
To All Non-Pet Owners Who Visit & Like to Complain About Our Pets:
1. They live here. You don’t.
2. If you don’t want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. That’s why they call it “fur”niture.
3. I like my pets a lot better than I like most people.
4. To you, they are an animal. To me, he/she is an adopted son/daughter who
is short, hairy, walks on all fours and doesn’t speak clearly.
Remember– Dogs and cats are better than kids because they:
1. Eat less
2. Don’t ask for money all the time
3. Are easier to train
4. Normally come when called
5. Never ask to drive the car
6. Don’t hang out with drug-using friends
7. Don’t smoke or drink
8. Don’t have to buy the latest fashions
9. Don’t want to wear your clothes
10. Don’t need a gazillion dollars for college, and…
11. If they get pregnant, you can sell their children
Icehorses on youTube has several videos demonstrating clicker training and bridleless riding.
Many of the horses are Icelandics, which are such wonderful little guys. Icleandics “tolt” which is a gait like a very fast walk. To me they’re like the teddy bears of the horse world, cute, lovable, docile, extremely comfy to ride (from what I hear, that tolt sure looks smooth) and practical. And not too tall to get up onto– what more could you want!
Recently I discovered this interesting site packed with outstanding videos, including Arabians and Arab/warmbloods in the beautiful Rocky Mountains in Kalispell, Montana. One particularly awesome video shows Stacy Westfall performing a NO TACK Championship Run at the Quarter Horse Congress in 2006!
Shelley provides this description of her website: arabianhorseplanet.com (Arabian Horse Planet LLC) was founded in March 2006 by CEO Shelley Volovic.
two of Shelley’s own horses, Zero Gravity and Dardawa…
The idea for the site surfaced when Shelley could not find Arabian horse lovers and fox hunting afficionados to ride with on her own Arabians. She felt very strongly that a compartmentalized search driven by an internal worldwide database of other Arabian afficionados and Warmblood fox hunting/eventing riders would allow the user to find other horse souls and needed resources around the planet.
CA The Iceman (foxhunter) and ZB Ruffian play fighting
Encompassed on Arabian Horse Planet are gorgeous international stallions and mares of all breeds and bloodlines (with their amazing promotional videos), fox hunting videos and club contacts, trainers, ranches for sale, vets and equine hospitals, news of racing, eventing, rodeo and other disciplines, horse rescue and adoption, bulletin board, multi-lingual forum, and much more.
German Andalusian palomino stallion performing Pessade. This stallion has green eyes! (Featured on Arabian Horse Planet)
Says Shelley, Arabian Horse Planet is a compelling, powerful connection in the Horse universe, to connect every enthusiast and entrepreneur who has a passion for their horses. The Arabian Horse Planet mission is to be a bridge to leap into the future with all Horse afficionados and to unite all horse souls under the Arabian Horse Planet wingspan to create an electric synergy unmatched in the horse world.
You’d be happy too if you lived here!! (more of Shelley’s herd)
The passion to build this website was fueled by Shelley’s deceased father’s great love of his horse. Her father, Dr.Gregori Ossipovich Volovic of Lowville, New York and Orengrod, Russia loved to gallop his friend in the field behind his house. When his high performance friend died of colic Gregori was heartbroken. He never bought another horse; his friend was irreplaceable.
arabianhorseplanet.com is dedicated to the memory of Shelley’s father, Gregori
Ossipovich Volovic, who loved his horse with all his heart and soul… a great love only horse lovers know.
________________________
Submit your news to AHP at: info@arabianhorseplanet.com Submit your videos, foal announcements, farm stories, Three Day Eventing, Foxhunting, Horse Shows, Horse Racing, Ranch news, videos and pictures to be featured
Never thought I’d say it, since snowboarding is such fun, but we are getting fed up with the snowstorms. ENOUGH ALREADY!!! There’s no place to even put it anymore because the piles alongside driveways are so high you can’t reach the top with our tractor bucket. We got only 4 inches last night, but the snowplow who does the driveway couldn’t come because there’s nowhere to push the snow. Hubby had to pick up each bucketload and cart it down the street to somewhere.
Now there’s YET ANOTHER snow heading our way for Friday night and Saturday– the plowtruck won’t be able to come, it’s too cold for any of the piles to melt down.
Horsepeople are more sick of it than many folks because of all the extra shoveling and plowing around the barn and the horse paddocks every time.
HERE’S THE WORST OF IT!!! Right now our fence wires which are on fence posts are mostly buried in the snow (posts are 3 ft. to 4 ft. high)– the electric wire above our stone walls is buried, and the horses are standing up on the stone walls chewing on trees they have never been able to reach before. We’ve had to limit where they can roam to keep them from possibly getting entangled in tape fencing they can’t even see anymore, and we’re starting to get worried they might walk out into the street, we’ll have to string temporary string up high on trees I guess.
Jeez… it’s helpful to vent. And I did have a wonderful snowshoe excursion yesterday into our neighboring town woods… was perfectly beautiful, though I had to do much breaking trail in 2 ft. depths or more, it was well worth it!
These are from last November after we first hitched Glendale to the training cart on November 6, 2007. (Somehow I overlooked posting these before…) Please see my Horse training disclaimer.
Walk, trot, canter, Dad early session in paddock, Nov. 9ish.
You can see Glen is a bit fussy with his head and seems unsure of what to do– that’s because all this is still so new to him. He is learning that single rein pressure means to steer that direction, and he’s learning he has to adjust his pace with the cart behind him on uneven ground.
Towards the end of this video, on a slight downhill, the weight of the cart pushing on him causes him to trot faster and then he breaks into a canter for a few strides.* Hubby lets him canter for a second, so he won’t be afraid to go forward, then stops him for a break to let him relax and think about it a minute. The horse through continued training will learn that on a downhill slope he needs to hold back the weight of the cart by going slower.
After driving him twice in a small paddock behind the barn, we moved down to a large lower field to practice. In each case there was another horse present for Glen’s reassurance, either his mom Willy or his brother Gilford, and usually it was me on the other horse taking pix and videos. (With Glen being just over two years old and having no experience yet going out alone, we feel it’s much safer to train him away from the barn by having another horse nearby. This helps the young horse become confident.)
Walking in the lower field, Nov.12. Notice his open bridle (no blinders.) (The leadline is a safety rope– in case of emergency, the driver can potentially bail out and grab the leadline, or the helper can walk alongside while he is being driven.)
Neighbor horses looking on and laughing! (cause Glen’s working and they’re not) Nov.12
Glen working at the trot, pulling Hubby in the training cart, Nov.14
It was our goal to get as much mileage on Glen as we could before the snows fell– and lucky we did all that work in November because the snows started early and heavy in December. By late November the ground had frozen pretty hard so the footing wasn’t great, but Glendale didn’t seem to mind. So far he’s seeming just as tractable as his big brother Gilford, but with a tad more energy to give us (his Arabian blood coming through)! He therefore needs his driver to be more alert to what’s going on with him and to his potential reactions to his surroundings. But that Percheron blood sure adds a lot of stability to a horse’s temperament!
Neighbor horses with their riders, returning from the trails… who’s laughing now? Nov.14
Yes I drive him too, but it’s sorta hard to take videos at the same time! Nov.16
In this session daughter Emmie and HorseGal were both present, so Em videoed while I drove the cart and HorseGal played around the edges on “her” Willy mare. By now you’ll see Glen is much smoother in his gaits, and does very little fussing (shaking) of his head. In fact he was mouthing the bit this day and was working nicely, quite willing to go forward. I let him canter a couple of times, and his transitions were so smooth you could barely tell he had changed gaits from his trot!
* Natural (respectful) horse training says you should not get after him in his early training for speeding up, he doesn’t yet know any better and you really do WANT him to be forward. So we let him canter a little so long as he’s not panicky or overly nervous. A driving horse should be used to cantering once in a while, so that when it DOES happen due to a scare (and it WILL) he doesn’t become even more frightened just because he’s never done it before.
My friend (and client) Patti S. has an idyllic 75 acres or so in N.H., including a to-die-for 30 acre field surrounded by woods and well away from the access road. She allows her two black Arabians, Moses and Eli, to free graze literally in her front yard. These horses are conditioned to come to her when called and obviously have no desire to roam anywhere else.
How would you like a black Arabian in YOUR front yard?
Eli and Moses wander around the driveway…
then get down to the important business.
Meal with a view!
I assume Patti is able to keep them out of flower beds and away from bushes, though I doubt they pay much attention to those things… Patti also is extremely talented at clicker training, and she gives public demonstrations. She drives Eli and is training Moses (the younger of the two), and she’s the one who sold us our new 4-wheel carriage last December.
Hubby checks out the Eagle combo we were buying from Patti while her dog runs around underneath it
This Eagle sports a brass whip holder and birdseye maple dashboard.
FYI, this is the portrait painting I did for Patti, which combines the elements she chose for her painting, with her home in the background. (Included is a companion pony for the boys.) See how I did the reference photographs of horses running in this unfenced field for Patti’s portrait, Black Horse Farm…
All is well when horses are content! Life is good!
The website Whatkindofworlddoyouwant.com allocates money to autism research, Save the Children, and other charities for every video viewed, and is described as legit by snopes.com. Details of How This Works are found on the site.
John Ondraski and the pop group, Five for Fighting, are donating $0.40 to Autism Speaks research for “each time” this video, Change her world, is viewed. There are over 8,000 comments on this video alone, and there are currently 205 videos on the World site.
Tell the WORLD “What Kind of World You Want” and raise money for charity!
The community of Williamson County, Tenn., is still reeling from the trio of tornados that ripped through Tennessee Feb. 5 and 6. The storms destroyed homes, demolished barns, and swept up horses in strong winds, according to resident Vivi Miller.
They were especially hard hit by the storms possibly 3 tornados at once. Vivi’s blog is that of a true horsewoman, a diary of the day to day picking up the pieces. She also gives addresses where people can donate, commenting on how the animal rescue is the bottom of the feeding chain and you have to strongly earmark your donation for animal rescue.
Her blog is almost a manual on what to do, expect and not to expect in a natural disaster. I have one question. How many of us are ready for something like this. Where are our courses for D.A.R.T. (Disaster Animal Response Team)?
I’d like to hear what others have to say on this. Are we ready?
Our three stooges were photographed by neighboring Gilford photographer John Gill. He dropped by on a foggy morning recently and spent a while with them as they munched their breakfast in the snow.
John’s website features outstanding nature photography, especially lots of wonderful birds, and scenes from New England and around the country. They are available as fine art prints; please visit johngillphoto.com
You start out dead and get that out of the way.
Then you wake up in a nursing home feeling better every day.
Then you get kicked out for being too healthy.
You enjoy your retirement and collect your pension.
Then when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day.
You work 40 years until you’re too young to work.
You get ready for High School: drink alcohol, party, and you’re generally promiscuous.
Then you go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, and you have no responsibilities.
Then you become a baby, and then… You spend your last 9 months floating peacefully in luxury, in Spa-like conditions - central heating, room service on tap, and then…
You finish off as an act of love.
I rest my case.
_____________________________ jdtp4e sent me this, I couldn’t resist sharing it!
