I’ve been convinced that the nod of the head and the shake of the head are pretty universal signals.  I’ve seen horses do it when they are asked to go somewhere that they think is bad or dangerous (say like a big puddle that they haven’t figured out yet).  They will shake their heads at a variety of things.  Horses also tend to bob their heads around feeding time while they nicker and/or paw.  So, I know that I’m doing well with Pie when my car pulls up and even though he’s out in the field, he starts to bob his head up in down.  I take it to mean, “YESSSSS! Mom’s here, yay, mom’s here.  Mom, mom, mom. Over here, come here!”

Also rather exciting is that I finally got a copy of Reaching the Animal Mind and I’m really enjoying it.  It is packed full of useful information.  Of course it will be most interesting to those of us who are interested in Clicker Training but it might be helpful to those who aren’t.  Although, it is an easier way that doing a lot of things so I’m sure most people won’t want to try that.

A few nights ago after I got home from the barn I read this from page 45 where Karen Pryor share’s this information:

“As soon as a dog (or other animal) has learned three cues in this fashion [introducing new cue for an existing behavior], it seems to generalize a concept: “behaviors have cues. Each behavior has a cue of its own.”  When that happens, you no longer need to go through a long shaping procedure to establish new cues.  If the dog learns a new bahavior, it’s prepared to notice and remember a new cue for the new task almost from the start.  Oh-ho, here’s a new thing that earns clicks, and that’s the cue for the new thing? Okay, got it.”

To better understand how to introduce a new cue for an existing behavior, get the book.  However, what was SO COOL was that earlier in the evening, before I read that, I had a bit of a break through with Pie.  It was so hot and muggy that yet a new and more vicious strain of flies were out and out in force.  So, after doing a little bit of work on the driveway I stopped and went back into the barn.  The flies were so bad that it was just cruel to expect him to concentrate under those conditions.

One of the things we worked on in the barn had been something that’s been discouraging me for sometime.  Pie knows how to back up with out me ‘getting big’ he will do it with many different body cues from me but I want him to do it from a verbal cue.  It’s been driving me batty.  I’ve been saying ‘back’ much of the time that I’m giving Pie the cues but I couldn’t seem to transfer behavior to the cue.  So, recalling other lessons from this form of shaping, this weekend I started saying, ‘back’ and then waited for Pie to make the slightest step back or even if he looked like he might be thinking about taking a step back and I’d click and reward.  I did that on Saturday, wasn’t able to make it to the barn on Sunday and last night, I tried that approach again.  It was a light bulb moment, folks.  Pie is giddily walking back in a straight line when I say, ‘back’ and I was so excited.

However, he started getting so over zealous that I couldn’t get him to stop training.  It was like there was no off button now that he’d learned this new thing.  I’ve given him some time off.  The next night I went to the barn to clean stalls (I’ll be doing that three days a week to offset the board of Sioux) I let all of the horses out in the field except Pie and Sioux.  I let them loose in the barnyard while I cleaned.  Eventually, Pie came to me so we could train.  But it was very relaxed and very calm and we worked on him standing on his mat.  He’d gotten so good at it that I tried adding some additional moves but it made the mat less relaxing.  So this seemed to work for getting the mat back to a happy place.

Yesterday I was so excited about spending a lot of time at the barn and it was a great day but Pie was being spooky about his saddle towel and stirrups.  I had to work on that in several different ways.  We had a nice ride after a lot of time just handling him.  I think I’m going to go back in Alex’s book to the “You Can’t Scare Me” lesson.  I thought he was pretty desensitized but evidently we need to spend a little time on that.

Pie and I had a nice ride, some work in the ring and then a fun trail ride.  I needed that time to clear my head of some demons from my past.  There was a woman who was my riding coach my freshman year of college.  She was not a good mentor and she seemed like she was trying to be part of an in crowd with some of the wealthier older riders.  She at one point said to me that she “didn’t like my personality” which at the age of 19 kind of stung.  If it hadn’t been for Jimmy Cantwell, who came and did clinics and also judged one of the shows that we had, I might have avoided riding for much longer than I did.  Anyway, someone loaned me a DVD about forward riding and this woman is a host for the DVD.  All I had to do was see her name and the mean things came flooding back.  Things that I allowed to make me feel less about myself and my skills as a horseman.  Amazing that 20 years later some unresolved issues could affect me at all.

So now I’m working with Sioux, who as a yearling was beaten in her stall for not wanting to leave the stall.  She had previously hit her head on the mantle of the stall door and was timid about going out.  Her handler started whipping on her with a dressage whip.  Sioux is now 8 and sometimes she still worried and hesitates about going in and out of her stall.  I look forward to working with her so that she can resolve some of those long ago fears.  And while doing so I’m going to focus on the good things about myself and put that negative words of that former riding coach to rest.

Well, I’m off to enjoy a beautiful day!

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All of the feedback was helpful.  It seems like when I get to hear other people’s training experience on a specific thing, like bowing, I am able to see what I am doing right and then just add some minor techniques. I like that approach better than nitpicking at myself as to what I’m doing wrong.  Incidentally, I’ve noticed that the people that I meet through clicker training (a form of positive reinforcement) are all such positive people.  They are all so quick to say what you did right and they really, seem to be very sincere in their praise and support.  They’re inspiring.

I am teaching Pie to bow on both sides, I honestly believe that has helped him.  I’m not sure if it is just that it allows the brain to practice the movement more or if it is simply that it is better for his back muscles to be equally exercised and so he is becoming more supple.  I’m less concerned that Pie grabs the target in his mouth.  I am doing what Katie suggested and letting him hang on to it a little bit before the click and reward.  It was also just helpful  to watch a video, even though Boomerang is an amazingly fast learning, trick pony, the steps are the same and very helpful.  Tonight Pie really seemed to have his balance all on his own with limited support from me.  Also, he almost went down on his knee! I think he could have done it but I’m just playing it safe.  We are working with all different muscles than a racehorse.  My experience and skill is racehorses.  And really, only in riding them.  I’m not discounting that. . . but it is a bit specialized.

Getting Pie to be enthusiastic about coming to the target when I whistle is less than exciting.   It is a little disheartening because this is for the lesson, Coming When Called.  It’s also disheartening because I used to have a horse that would run to greet me.  I’m out of treats and so he’s actually getting his dinner for treats instead.  I might try adding peppermints only for Coming When Called, and even if I do that the offering will vary after a while.  The thing is that peppermints are just so sticky and Maryland is also pretty darn sticky right now.

Ready for the And More part? It is big newsm and I know that Kevin might be amused by this. . . Sioux may end up being adopted by me and a friend of mine.  I realize that by saying, ‘and a friend of mine’  I’m just trying to justify that it looks like I’m going to try to adopt another horse.  I’m calling her the guest horse.  I really do think that she will end up being, in her heart, my friend’s horse but she could also end up being a nice horse for me to take friends and family on rides.  Another friend of mine is getting rid of her old Stubben, multi-purpose saddle and it will probably be a perfect fit for Sioux and a variety of sized human fannies. And it is old enough to be affordable and she doesn’t mind taking payments.  (small payments)

The part that worries me is that I can’t afford a horse so I hope to be able to work off most of the board.  The farm is so close that I really could just go there in the morning to do work, come home and shower and then head off to the day job.  I’ve been trying to find some reason to get up early since I quit the track and I have to admit that mucking out 8 stalls might be just the ticket!  This is genuine enthusiasm and not at all sarcasm.  I’m a horse lover, what can I say?

The Pie Blog will remain the Pie Blog, but there will just be bits of Sioux entries here and there.  She’s so sweet that I think that my nephew as well as my friend and my dad will just get along with her wonderfully.  She’s been trained under saddle but hasn’t had much done with her since, at least as I understand it.  And her feet are going to need some work before I would feel good about doing a lot with her anyway.  I guess as a goal I’d like to see what she’s all about in tack.  I imagine that she’ll get a certain bit of clicker training, too.  My guess is that she will settle into things once she realizes that she has a job and a family.  Of the other horses, she has been the one to come up to me the most when I go to get Pie.  I already feel like she’s been saying, “Pick me! Ooh ooh! Miss Pie’s Mom!! Pick me!”

Well, I want to get to bed so I can get ready to start a fun new stage.  I realize that this will cut into my art work a bit but I’ve been utterly uninspired and, well, I want to enjoy life.  I’d been hoping that being an artist might give me a way to free me from my day job which gives me so much stress and so much unhappiness.  But since that is clearly a long time out, why not enjoy all of the things in life that matter to me rather than trying to force myself to do art work when I want to be with my horse(s).  There will be plenty of time for everything and if I’m happy, my art work will get better.

: )

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We started working on this trick over a year ago but there were several reasons that I just dropped it for the time being.  Now we are comfortably settled in his new home, his feet are doing well, his diet is great and he is comfortable with his herd. It was just a quick review to get him to fold his hoof against his forearm, as well as for me to drawing his leg back. He was also rocking back his knee just fine, we actually brought that back not too long ago but he started to offer this when his farrier visited.  As he was having trouble with his feet and his farrier and I really needed him to calm down so I could focus on learning to do his feet myself, I tabled that part of the lesson.  Also, I wasn’t very sure where his head was during this and I was just worried for the physical health of both of us.

He will follow a target with his nose anywhere he is asked.  So there you have it.  All the components have been well trained and were all reviewed.

Next I needed a willing volunteer to watch the process and let me know if Pie and I actually looked like the pictures of Alex and her horse (Robin, it looks like) in the book.  That was actually a little harder to find because I needed to be someone that I felt Pie and I would both be relaxed around.  My parents have been enjoying working with me and Pie to teach him to come when called but I just knew they would stress me out too much for this.  So my best pal Jim was free and actually offered to go to the barn with me!! Perfect!

So we started that last Saturday and Pie made some great progress.  He is so enthusiastic.  He knows that if a target is held in front of him past his initial touching of it he should try to touch it with his teeth to see if I want him to pick it up.  So, for better or for worse, he’s trying to grab the target, in this case the handle of a dressage whip.  My mother came to watch on Sunday and is convinced he looks like he is so intent on the cone that he’s going to fall on me.  I wasn’t feeling that, though.  I worked on it a little on Tuesday before our farrier came out, more grabbing off the whip. Then we had a lot of rain.

Yesterday the rain stopped and we tried again when I got there after work. He seemed a bit agitated and unfocused so I almost didn’t but he didn’t seem to want to be turned back out after we’d only done a little training.  So we started on the bowing.  We work on this outside in a grassy area that is in the shade so that the ground is soft for his little knee.

I thought to switch to a cone that is a little harder to grab, I also thought that maybe he’d benefit if I’d taken a more supportive hold on his foot.  Both of these things helped.  The thing is, he is very excited and enthusiastic that I do have a nervous feeling that he may very well fall on me.

Does anyone have any suggestions.  It’s kind of tough because the photos that I have seen to teach the bow don’t seem to have many photos of the stage between “hold his hoof and have him touch a target” and “then he’ll lower his head” and “then your horse will be bowing.  I don’t feel mislead, the description says that it will take some practice for the horse to get the hang of it.  Thing is, I do not want to become a pancake in the process.  Not to mention I like the trust that is being built from this exercise and falling on me would have quite the opposite affect for both of us.

So the first question is: Does anyone have any suggestions?  One thought I had was to just stop working on it for awhile and then come back to it.  Frequently, something left alone and then revisited nets some lovely results.

The only problem is that I was sort of working on bowing while I try to figure out how to better do the duct tape lesson.  I watched the video with Alex and the adorable horse who’s name I think is Kindri.  At the moment I can’t recall his breed but since he’s kind of fluffy and pint sized and because Alex is dressed for cooler weather I can’t really get a good picture of what the ‘dance steps’ look like.  Don’t get me wrong, I can see it but I’m just not having such a great time duplicating it.

Pie is yielding to pressure on his hip and shoulders and he goes forward and back just fine.  But I’m not real good at asking for more than one or two things at once.  Pie learned to lunge long before I ever met him and he likes to do it, well, he likes to do anything that he’s pretty sure he knows how to do.  Thing is that I’m not sure if what I’m asking him to do when I’m leading him while walking with the whip in my hand is helping get us toward doing it “right”.  We aren’t suppose to expect that he lunge while doing those neat-o half pass steps, are we?

We did a lot of the work that is in “Getting To Yes” from February 09 to June 09 at which point we sort of slowed down and I enjoyed trail riding with Pie.  As I was still working two jobs at that time I found myself very overwhelmed.  Then in the fall I’d left the track and we picked back up on training again but it wasn’t long before I had to move him.  Then a whole other set of issues started.  Now, for some fun and focus, I’m doing this blog about doing The Click That Teaches.  I think sometimes I am not sure if I’m doing something right or not because Pie gets a lot right on the first try because he’s either done it before, or he did all of the steps leading up to it before from Sharon’s book.

I am not sure how to actually ask for Pie to have his shoulder out and go forward.  I feel like I am all thumbs and poor Pie is trying so hard to do it right. And I can hear him saying, “I want to do it.  I want to DO it!  I want to do it right!! or? well? whatwhatwhat?? I’ll do it wrong. . . if that is what you want. . . wait, what?”

So if anyone of you Clicker Training Gurus (you know who you are) have some general suggestions in this area (duct tape lesson and moving forward) Pie and I will be very grateful.

I think that tonight, in an effort to gain clarity I will try what Alex calls the “300 Peck Pigeon Lesson” pages 76-78 in The Click That Teaches: Riding With The Clicker.  So, I should sign off now so that I can read that with the remaining minutes of my lunch break.

I look forward to every one’s responses!!

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Before she got there I made sure he was all tidy but also I made sure that I had time to spend with just him.  Right now my time with Pie seems to be my favorite moments of each day.  We did a little bit of time on his mat and then we went out of the barn to work on bowing.  He finally rocked back and let that front right leg stretch out, but then he got real nervous about just trusting me to hold his foot.  I clicked and he grabbed his left foot out of my hand.  But the movement was correct so I gave him big praise and we worked on other stuff.

I’m trying to do the shoulder out stuff and the duct tape lessons but I’m just not real sure about it.  I think I will be better if I work on it in our ring, the good news is that it has been mowed which was why I’d been avoiding it.  The bugs are just so bad that, even if they weren’t lurking in the weeds which they probably were, the tickling of the leaves on my ankles would send me into a state of paranoia of being eaten alive.  That’s a slight exaggeration, but really, the bugs are bad this year.

I think tonight I will make a point of watching Alex’s videos again and reading the book again so that I can redirect our training goals.  I am not quite as systematic as others, but I just can’t be.  I have so many things going on that I simply follow the steps in The Click That Teaches and then reassess often.  It seems to be working for us.  Not to mention, if at any point I can’t remember where we are, I can always work on having him back better, or stand on the mat better or improve on his Coming When Called Lesson.  I think that’s the great thing about clicker training is that it’s very flexible.

Last night we did just those things.  I’ve started to add a whistle as a cue when he touches the cone.  I am excited that to know that at some point he will come when I whistle!  Won’t that just be the best?!

Well, he’s the best no matter what.  He’s my Pie.

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I also worked on the assignment for the AACC course but I don’t really like what I’ve come up with so far.  I will come up with something soon, though, I’m sure of it.  It’s just going to be essential to keep the creative juices flowing.

I am hoping that when the weather gets a bit less oppressive I will take a chair and umbrella over to the farm and sketch and paint while I’m there.  Tomorrow night I have plans to do some spinning when I friend comes over to spin with me (not the exercise, the traditional craft of making yarn from fiber).

I will just need to keep moving forward.  I was consoled when my parents relayed something that a gallery owner had recently told them.  It was that when an artist gives a solo show they can be as creatively drained after the show as if they’ve just donated blood.  I did two solo shows in close succession so I’m going to try to cut myself some slack.

I went to a small book store in town and think I’ve found someone who is interested in hanging some of my work in her store on consignment.  That will be good if it works out.

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In the mean time, we’re doing more mat work and. . . . (drum roll, please). . . . . we made progress in bowing!!!  Ta-da!

Pie and I have had the two separate steps down very nicely (I hold his hoof up to his forearm and, separately, he can follow the target around to the side with his nose).  Today I got help from my best friend who basically just watched my form and would als click for us when we got it right, and then I’d treat.  He has clicker trained his dogs basic manners, etc, so he’s good on the timing.  He’s even quite good at pointing out when we need to back things up a bit.

As I’ve mentioned before, he gets a little over zealous with lessons that involve fine motor skills.  And at one point he grabbed the tip of the target stick (a dressage whip) in his mouth and started pulling it away from me, it was rather funny, he really wanted to get it right and when he finally got that target in his teeth he wasn’t going to let go easily.

We took a wee break after that, then did it maybe one more time and then worked on the beginning stages of coming when called so we could end on a strong note.  We just stood on either side of him and asked him to touch the cone.  It was nice to see that he retained the knowledge from the last time a few of us worked with him.  He finally learned that the idea is to wait until someone shows a cone and then go to that person not just guess.

Boy, he is funny when he starts guessing, only because he is SO enthusiastic.

Pie not bowing yet, but we are making serious progress.  And tomorrow morning my mom and I are going over and she’s going to do the same basic thing.  Maybe before the end of the summer we’ll have the bow.  It’s so nice to have the help of just telling me if I’m standing right and to just tweak little things in the way I am standing.

Off to bed so we can train again in the morning!!

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Earlier I made a made an entry asking what people thought about the photos of my work, because I was starting to enter my work in some shows by submitting digital photos.  Well, I either have to get new photos or my work won’t come across in photos or I have to rethink my work and goals as an artist.  I got rejected from all three entries.  I’d be very discouraged if I hadn’t sold a fair amount of work since my debut.  But that and trying to get ready for the course at AACC has slowed.

I’d love to get an agent/rep but I don’t know if that happens much now that artists can so easily self represent.  Also, the work that seems to be represented and promoted is very abstract, and in my opinion, kind of dated looking.  I thought that De Kooning, Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg, Basquiat, and Diebenkorn were wonderful and forward thinking at that time.  I love the work of these 20th century artists, but why is some sort of knock off of them worth representing?  I am hoping that there are reasons that the pieces to which I am referring aren’t mere spin offs but I’m not seeing it.  Not seeing it means either one of two things – they are mere spin offs or I’ve somehow missed something.

Well, that is all just very negative and I’m working on moving forward but I refuse to just pretend that I am always confident about what I am doing simply because this is a public blog.

As for the moving forward, my mind has experimental ideas fluttering about but the ideas, like butterflies, are kind of unpredictable when the land and don’t stay long before they are off and flitting and floating about my head again.  I’m really trying to have a good first assignment for the Mixed Media Painting course and the experimentation that is involved does not always reveal genius.

“I have not failed.  I have just found 10,000 ways that do not work.”  ~Thomas Edison

I’ve really been enjoying dabbling in watercolors.  I’ve found it much more satisfying and easy to get results that I want when I use my sumi-e brushes. But I am being timid.  It’s funny but I seem to have this desire to prove that I’ve got watercolor under control when it hasn’t been a medium I have used since I was 18.  The reason I’ve chosen to work with it is a I am trying to get myself outside my box.    And yet. . . it has taken at least 4 paintings of the same sunflower sketch for me to start to let go.

I went to bed last night just looking at the pictures in some of my art books, one that I’ve had for several years, one that I got new just for this course.  I am feeling more excited now but I will need a chunk of time to do work.

More good news is that I am working on establishing a new habit.  After 11 years of being forced to be an early riser by working as a rider at the track, the first year of not working at the track made me very content to fall into my night owl ways.  Well, it’s been a year and I am not getting any exercise, and I am late for work more often than I’d like.  While I was on vacation I was surprised to find that I could easily go to bed early and get up early-ish.  I know that some of this is because I want to fit as much into my day as possible and since making a living takes up so much of my time. . . I just try to cram stuff onto the end of the day.

Well.  This has been a long blog.  And it has no pictures and doesn’t seem to have a point.  Let me think and see if I know what my point is.  I’ve had some set backs, I’m a little confused about how to go forward, I am going forward none-the-less, I am making changes in my life for the better, most changes don’t happen overnight.

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GUARANTEED ANALYSIS

Non-Structural Carbohydrate, min 7.00% max 12.00%

Crude Protein, min  12.00%

Lysine, min 0.75%

Methinionine, min 0.25%

Crude Fat, min 18.0%  max 22.0%

Crude Fiber, max 19.00%

Calcium, min 1.20%   max 2.50%

Phosphorous, min 1.00%

Copper, min 50.00PPM

Seleinium, min 1.50 PPM

Zinc, min 110.00 PPM

Vitamin A, min 4,000 IU/lb

Vitamin D, min 450 IU/lb

Vitamin E, min 300 IU/lb

INGREDIENT STATEMENT

Dehydrated Alfalfa Mean, Wheat Midds, Beet Pulp, Soy hulls, Soybean Oil, Vegetable Fat, Calcium Lignin Sulfonate, Salt Biotin, Yeast Culture, Monocalcium Phosphate, Calcium Carbonate, Magnesium Oxide, Biotin, L-Lysine, Methionine, Riboflavin, Niacin, Iron Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Zinc Sulfate, Magnesium Carbonate, Manganese Oxide, Cobalt Carbonate, Sodium Selenite, Orange-Anise flavor, Dried Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Fermentation Solubles, Vitamin A supplement, Vitamin D3 supplement & Vitamin E supplement.

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A couple of days ago I watched a video of Shawna Karrasch with a horse trained with her On Target Training (a form of clicker training).  The video was of a horse that she worked with 7 years ago and now she and the horse have reunited and the horse’s enthusiasm really impressed me.

After I watched that video I clicked on a related video where Shawna discusses focusing on the attitude of the horse.  Alexandra Kurland addresses this with the Happy Faces (Lesson 1: Getting Started with the Clicker).  I’ve been wanting Pie to be more enthusiastic like he used to be and I have been working on happy faces.  However, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get Pie to stand still.

Two evenings ago I worked on combining the lesson of still but also enthusiastic by being very upbeat and energetic while Pie and I worked worked on standing on his mat.  It was very cool.  For a while I have been so focused and serious because I’ve been concentrating on trying to do things right and perfect – something that isn’t the way I used to be with Pie because at the track as an exercise rider I had lots of confidence in what I was doing with Pie as well as with all the horses I rode.

Well, enough of this lack of confidence in myself and my ability to work with horses.  I may not be a pro at this new approach to training, but I do alright with horses.  Furthermore, Pie and I did a lot of work with Sharon Foley’s book.  And Pie’s really become a delightful horse just from that work, so with that in mind, we’re going to go back to having some fun.

The weather was rainy and hot and just sticky-gross, but the barn has a wide center aisle that has pavers and is well lighted.  We just worked on backing, walking and trotting in-hand, standing on his mat, and turning.  Pie seems to be really grasping the concept of standing on the mat – and standing on it squarely.  By withholding the click and helping him to adjust the placement of his feet to the ‘square position,’ Pie now adjusts where his feet are himself.  It was really fun, too, when I started jogging him in the aisle up to his mat and had him stop when his front hooves were on the mat.  We’ve done a lot of work previously with leading on and off the lead where he needed to stay with me.  Late last summer when it was kind of dark for a trail ride we used to go jogging with each other through the woods, just like a girl and her dog.  Stopping on a dime was important so that he didn’t run into me.  So while this might seem like a big jump in training, it’s not.

By adding this extra energy of jogging and lots of, “Gooood Boy, Pie!!” and pats and treats, Pie’s enthusiasm seems to be up and therefore, so is mine.  : D

We’re waiting for the DVD from Alex for the duct tape lessons but recalling some of the work we did from Sharon’s book, Getting To Yes, we did some turns in the aisle.  The turns that we did at the opposite end of the barn from where Pie’s mat was, Pie worked on disengaging his hindquarters (which I am delighted to have a new internet friend, Meg, explain to me that this simply means that his back legs cross underneath him as he turns as opposed to sort of side stepping and not crossing).  I think that I’ll try to do a dance-step type diagram for the non-horsepeople to see.  I felt so stupid not knowing what ‘disengaging the hindquarters’ was, and I had a hard time getting people to even answer me.  Meg is my new hero for not making me feel like an idiot for not knowing.

I have to remember that just because I don’t know the terms for what horses are doing, doesn’t mean that I haven’t accomplished it, nor does it discredit me as a horseman.  A very good friend of mine who I’ve ridden with has kindly pointed out when I did a nice half pass on Pie and a side pass another horse.  I didn’t know that was what I was doing.  I was just applying leg pressure and kind of holding the horse’s head in a certain way.  I just wanted the Pie to go sideways-like when we changed direction.  And the other horse, I just wanted him to start paying attention to his legs and his movement and not worry about the other horse on our ride was doing.

The point is, that I bet there are a lot of people who have spent a lot of time on the back of a horse that simply don’t know the words to what they are doing, which doesn’t make them less skilled in paying close attention to the horse or less sensitive to horse behavior.  Ha, like this long time rider at the track and semi-retired jockey once told me how a girl was laughing at him for posting on the wrong diagonal.  For an exercise rider, the diagonal only serves to tell the rider if both side of the back end are working properly.

Last night was much cooler so Pie and I did the same exercises in a field.  He did good but with out the narrow space of the aisle he was a little less straight.  Also, since he’d been in all day and was now working on grass (and since his fascinating friend, Georgie the calf, was in a nearby field it was a little harder for him to pay attention.  I got video of it but I’m still learning how to use the video feature on my camera as well as the non-professional version of Adobe Premier that my dad has.  I suppose it is more intuitive but Premiere Essentials has change int he latest “upgrade” and I’m not happy that I can’t find some of the same tools from Premiere Pro and the previous version of Premier Essentials.  (I was considering buying the Premiere Essentials but I’m not so sure, I might just have to start saving up for the most recent version of Adobe Creative Suite.  Sadly, I have the very first Creative Suite and it is no longer something from which I can upgrade, maybe when I start teaching at the community college I can get a teaching discount or something.)

The new DVD arrived today and I hope to watch some more of it soon, but I promised myself I’d do some cleaning today.  Thankfully, the sample Red Bull that I was given this spring was still in the fridge and I think it’s starting to kick in!

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