REELEE RESTARTING AND TRAINING LLC

Green Horse AdventuresGreen and Green Does Not Mean Black and Blue; So Long as You Have Help

6/1/2024

We were able to get two green horses out in a group for the first time yesterday. We had a great day, but I want our followers to know that there are “training moments,” that aren’t captured on video. Because we can’t film them… our hands are full! But as a trainer, I want to share the entire training process. So, for every positive you see here, I want to give a quick caveat of why it was an accomplishment. 1)Charlie has had loading problems for a few weeks. It took multiple daily schooling sessions of late to make yesterday better, but not perfect. 2) When you see me in the sand about to mount, Charlie had just rolled with me on her. 3) Charlie wasn’t spooky today. She saw new things and didn’t have hesitation. She went in water and was in a group. But, she was also wanting to go faster than I asked for most of the ride. It took serpentines on trail, and through trees to keep her focused on me and not up the rear end of the horse in front of her. She was head strong, and we are still working on her not needing actual strength to cue for turns and stops. When I did let her move out, as to not teach her to run through my hands, we many times used our one rein stop. These things do not mean Charlie is not an amazing horse. She came out of holding in November, has had less than 30 rides, and this was her third ever trail ride. She is beyond impressive. But, if an inexperienced person had been on Charlie today, it could have been dangerous. Green horses need to be told what to do every step of every ride, because they are absorbing EVERYTHING. So, don’t get mad at your green horse. Don’t judge someone when a green horse is not acting like an old pro. It’s all a part of the journey to create a seasoned and reliable mount. This doesn’t take 30,60, or 90 days. It takes years. #dayslikethis are a trainers dream. Challenging but fun. If that’s not what you are ready for, you need a seasoned horse, or a trainer so your horse can meet you at a stage you can take over. A safe trained horse is a fun happy horse.

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setting boundaries; similarities in how we set them with humans and horses

11/19/2022

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I’m going to need you to bear with me on this one. It does wrap around and relate to horses. But I really want to show the similarities of setting a human to human boundary and to that of setting one with your horse. So you need to hear the human story first….
About a week ago I was struggling with a level of anxiety. Nothing drastic, but just enough to interfere with my day to day. I was doing my best to work through and ignore it, but found that if I did not do something to address it, it was not going to go away. Without going into too much detail, the situation had to do with some unknowns with a person I wanted to get to know better. There were some things happening within our interactions that, based on past experiences, I was drawing similarities to a situation that had gotten me hurt in the past. I was back and forth on how to best find a solution. And then as I was cleaning stalls, I put on the podcast “We Can Do Hard Things.” It was like the universe was smacking me in the face. The entire episode was about boundaries. At one point in the podcast something was said that stuck with me. It was something along the lines of the following… You set boundaries to keep yourself safe. When you set one, you are not making a demand of another person, you are saying what you accept in a situation and what you do not. Their example was; You don’t tell someone to stop smoking, you tell them that they cannot smoke in your house. What they do with that boundary and how they react to it (which may not be favorable, but you need to be ok with that) is out of your control. In their example, you are not telling them they cannot come to your home, if they feel they cannot manage not smoking in your home they are making the choice to not be there. You just set the boundary and put the ball in their court.
With this in mind, I reached out looking for the answers I sought. I was not at this point setting a boundary, but rather trying to find out if one was even needed in the fist place. By the end of the week there was some back and forth on the situation. A lot of confusion and unknown still in the air. Eventually I had to make a choice. As things stood, I did not feel secure in the situation, and despite brining up what made me uncomfortable, I was not being reassured by how things were developing. Do I keep at this, or do I set a boundary? I eventually ended up deciding a boundary was needed. The short version of what I decided on was… This isn’t working. I am going to agree with a statement you made about not being able to give what I need for this to work. If things change, I’ll be here, and I would really like for that to happen one day. The reaction to this was not the best. There was a level of defensiveness, and some attempts to flip the script. I did my best to not let my emotions dictate further response, but I am only human and I got a bit defensive as well. I think my emotions were not unreasonable to have, but I readily admit my response could have been better and I probably should have just left it at setting the boundary and saying nothing more.
Now I’m in the aftermath of this situation. Sitting at my computer and watching my fish hover around the light from the screen. If you read about DBT and emotional regulation you could say I was in the aftereffects of several emotions. The situation was something I had seen promise in, and it ended up not working out. But I’m going to stand behind the boundary I set. I did what I had to to attempt to make a safe emotional environment for myself because that was what I needed if that relationship were to have been able to work.
So… How in the heck does this relate to horse training.

Boundaries and horses is HUGE! Now, with horses our boundaries have more to do with physical safety than emotional safety. But, with how everything played out this week, I could not help but draw many similarities between the two.
For example, let’s take something basic. If you have ever dealt with a horse that has no regard for a personal bubble, you will probably be working in a more preventative manner with horses you interact with in the future. You are going to set a boundary based on past experience to keep you safe. (Just like I did above, I saw a situation developing and reacted to prevent being hurt as I have been in the past.) In this situation, your boundary is, if you enter my space (lets say a 2 foot distance around yourself), I will not accept your presence there. Notice how the boundary is not that you are going to always stay two feet from your horse. You are giving the horse a choice, and you are choosing to not accept what to you is considered unsafe. The horse will likely not be a fan of this situation at first. They will likely test you on it, and you have to be consistent. You don’t walk away, you don’t give them more space, you tell them they cannot be within that boundary you have set. It is going to be hard, just like it is when you set a boundary with a person because you don’t want to push them away, but you need to be safe. With horses they can just be so darn cute. They want attention or treats and you want so badly to give in. But you keep in mind that one hose from the past that took a chunk out of your arm, or bowled you over at feed time… Is giving in to the boundary worth risking your safety?

In the end, that boundary is going to create a much stronger relationship between you and your horse. You will feel safe around them, and they will find security in your ability to be a leader to them. The same goes for human to human boundaries. When you set a boundary, and someone not only acknowledges it but respects it, you can feel emotionally safe them and your relationship becomes stronger. You’re not sacrificing something to keep someone else happy, or allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable just to maintain a relationship. All of a sudden, when you communicate with each other what you need, what is acceptable, and what is not, everything just gets a whole lot easier.

Now, there is a significant difference between boundaries with humans and people. The difference is not in how you set the boundary, but rather the reactions that a horse can have vs those of a human. The perk to boundaries with horses, is that they have less of an emotional response. They react in a way that models herd dynamics, or goes back to the base principles of being a prey animal. They will test a boundary until enough reinforcement causes them to respect the boundary. With humans, you set a boundary for your emotional safety, and as an emotional being the other person has the choice to respect that boundary and remain in the relationship, or if you are firm in your boundary and they do not wish to respect or acknowledge it they are in that moment choosing to no longer associate with you in regard to that boundary. That could mean something as drastic as a complete severance of a relationship, or as the podcast example said, just a separation of where an action is acceptable. It is hard. It can even hurt depending on what the relationship with this person was or what you wanted it to be. But I will tell you this, if someone can’t give you what you need to feel safe, and you set a boundary, you can leave a door open for them. A boundary is not a wall. At any time if they feel they can be a part of your life in a way that respects your needs and keeps your emotional safety in mind. They can come right on in. You never told them to leave. You just told them the price of admission.

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7 Years later, finally letting go

10/21/2022

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I want to preface this post with the following...
Trauma can be one of the biggest tricksters in the human experience. You can hold on to it for so long and find ways to mask its ever-present effects on how you live your life. It took me 7 years to finally get to the place I am now after the events of the day I lost Disco. I do not think I could have confronted it in this way (EMDR) immediately after it happened, but I probably did not need to live with it for 7 years. Reliving trauma is scary and painful. But in making the choice to relive those experiences under the guidance of a trained professional, you can change how you continue to live your day to day life. Do not be afraid to find help. Do not be afraid to confront why you are holding on to something from your past. There are people out there who have been there, and people out there who can help. There is no shame in asking for it.

My therapist asked me to close my eyes, breathe deeply and bring up an image from that day. Once I had that image firmly in my mind, I was to rate my distress when recalling that image on a scale of 0-10. Without hesitation, I described the gruesome image of my horse Disco wedged under four stands of high tensile wire. The flesh from de-gloved from his shoulder to his knee, revealing every striation of his well muscled forearm. I described that despite the lack of pooling blood, his body was convulsing with every shock that pulsed through the lines from which he could not escape. Lathered in sweat, I could see the whites of his eyes, and I knew the fear behind them was worse than the pain he felt.

It has been 7 years. I’ve been through therapy. I can talk about that day without crying. I can tell the story, and say I am past it. I can relate to the trauma of others, and tell them I had learned from it. So as I tried to think of how that image made me feel, I told myself it can’t be a 10… I’ve done the work to be here today. So, I told her an 8. But if I was being honest, it was undeniably a 10. Seeing him there bought back every feeling of guilt and shame that even though I had heard it a million times, “It’s not your fault,” I always held on to the knowing that it was. In that moment, despite being in a safe space, I still felt ashamed to admit I had held on to that trauma for so long. Ashamed that I had been punishing myself on some subconscious level for years, because deep down I still thought I deserved to feel that trauma after what I had caused to happen. My therapist asked me to start there. Right at that image. To tell her about the scene. Not the before. Just that moment. So I began…

I began to narrate the scene with how I wailed for help wondering if anyone could even hear my cries. I told her how I used all the strength I had to hold up the wire from his body with a piece of wood. Enough to keep him from getting shocked, but not enough to get him out. How my neighbors finally came out after hearing me scream for help, cut the fence, and started bucketing cold water onto his sweat lathered body. How I then called the vet and in an inaudible tone I could only say; “He’s dying.” I told her how I had a sliver of hope when the vet arrived and said; “It’s bad, but we can save him.” Followed by the pit in my stomach when after all of our efforts, the vet told me there was nothing more we could do but end his suffering. I described falling to the ground, holding his head in my hands, and how all I could say was “I’m sorry.” I recounted how I got sick seeing his lifeless body; and how my own went numb when the vet guided me in my zombie like state to her car. The next thing I could remember was calling a mentor and friend while sitting on the stairs to my apartment. As he answered the phone I just sobbed out “I killed him, it was my fault.”

The voice of my therapist chimes in now, asking me if she could check in. She told me to take a breath, and then bring up the original image again, and asked once more 0-10. I don’t quite know how, because even with a tear stained face and labored breathing, seeing it now was slightly less jarring. She then told me to start again. This time from the beginning. So I told her. Every detail. That I knowingly wrapped that kite string around the horn of the saddle so I could keep a hold of him when he spooked at what was scaring him, and make him “get over it.” I confessed to her that my decision to rush him that day came from competitiveness, frustration, and arrogance. It may not have seemed like anything bad could happen in that arena, it was a safe place. But if I was being honest, the thought that there could be a consequence to my choice didn’t even cross my mind. I admitted that most of what I had just told her, I had always sugar coated or omitted for fear of being judged. Those were the details that, in my mind, revealed exactly how it was a distinct decision I made that caused that day to be my fault. How, it was shame and guilt that made me hold those cards close and not reveal their faces.

She then asked again, bring up the image, and asked what I felt on the scale of 0-10. In admitting what I had hidden for so long a small weight lifted off my shoulders, but there was more which was preventing me from letting go. She asked me what I thought could still be holding me back. At this point I was so deep into being back in that day, I no longer had the filter on my thoughts that had make me say 8 instead of 10 when we started. What came out of my mouth was something that I don’t think had ever consciously crossed my mind.

“Because I shouldn’t be ok with what happened that day. The trauma of that day is what reminds me of how my decisions caused him to lose his life. The trauma is what makes sure I will never make a mistake like that again.”

I paused after saying it. She then suggested to me to go back again, and identify every part of that day from which I could have done something different, and lock those moments into my brain. And to use the ability to recall those lessons, as my permission to let go of my guilt. So I did. I once again repeated in my mind every moment that happened that day. Pausing at every decision I had made where I could have done something differently. Stopping at every chance I could have given myself to take a step back, and in doing do possibly been able to prevent the events that came after.

When she checked back in this time, she didn’t right away ask me to rate the original image from 0-10. She asked me to talk about him, just as he was before anything bad had happened. So I told her how he was one of the most stunning horses I had ever worked with, and that he didn’t act like that at all. He had this silly personality that made him fit into herd dynamics unlike any horse I had ever seen. No one ever messed with him, but he wasn’t the manager of anyone else’s business. I told her how he always had his tongue out, and how he would lick the mud off the legs of other horses. I described how he had this way of looking into you, and seeing you. How saying that sounded like it was only something from movies, but for him I swore it was real. Then before she asked me to rate the image again, she asked me to bring up another image. One that was not from that day. One that was less gruesome, because there would always be something about seeing him in the state when he died that would be triggering. She told me to ask myself if I could remember him how I just described instead. So when I needed to pick a new image of him, I knew exactly the one I would choose. It is one that still hangs on my wall today. A candid shot of him and I, in black and white. His head in my arms, embraced and loved.

That’s when she asked me one final time, 0-10. Finally, for the first time in 7 years, I could say 0. The feeling of dread, the physical manifestation of the terror I felt from that day, it was gone. I was still sad, I still missed him. I think recalling that day will always have some level of sadness. But it was not until now that I could separate the sadness form the trauma. It was my shame and guilt that for the longest time made me not able to separate the two. The friend I had called on the steps to my apartment that day had once asked me sometime in the years after the accident, that if Disco had crashed through the arena gate that day and turned left instead of right, what would have been there? I told I’m, "Nothing was there. Fields of corn, no fences. Just open space.” So, he replied… “What you did started a chain of events. But you did not intend for him to die. You could not control anything after it started, and thus the outcome was not your fault." For seven years I had held on to that statement. I had told myself I stood behind it, but it wasn’t until now that believed it.

Trauma has a funny way of tricking us. Time passes and we learn to live with it, assuming it’s just now a part of who we are. When in reality, it is possible to let it go. 7 years…. I can finally say I’ve let go. The sadness of the loss, and the lessons learned from that day will always be with me, but now I, not the trauma and the shame, control the narrative.

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Coming Back

8/25/2022

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A big part of this page used to be a blog. It was taken down in 2019 when I stopped operations for a little over a year. Deciding whether or not to bring it back has been something I have gone back and forth on for some time. Recently, I strung together some thoughts that turned into posts that were shared to the ReeLee Facebook Page. The feedback was more positive than I expected, and it felt pretty good to be writing again. As of now I won’t be committing to any type of schedule for posting. However, I wanted to have a home for all of the posts where they could be accessed more easily than having to scroll through the ReeLee Facebook Timeline. As I find older blog posts from 2019 and earlier I will try to archive them here as well. So, here we go!

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It’s Not Just What You Say, It’s How You Say It

7/11/2022

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I’ve been thinking a lot about tone, and sensitivity lately. In these moments of deeper thought, and then moments of less deep thought that led to google searching, I came across a study that I found quite interesting. This study concluded that body language is responsible for 55% of how someone interprets us, tone accounts for 38%, and the actual words we speak and their literal meaning make up a mere 7% of how someone understands how we are communicating with them. That got me thinking, no wonder people who work with animals on a daily basis are even more sensitive to the subtleties (or sometimes not so subtle) of body language and tone. Because the majority of our communication day in and day out, occurs with something that uses no words at all.

Horse trainers spend their lives honing in on the ability to read intent through movement, and how to use their own bodies to communicate what they want. Dog trainers, read movement and sometimes even sound as they interpret growls and barks as fear, vs aggression, vs excitement. Trainers use words as well, but the animal has no idea the literal meaning of the word. They understand a repeated sound/word during a specific action. Whoah meaning stop for a horse, cluck to increase speed, or saying sit to a dog. During initial training, words are only used after an animal has done said action in response to a physical cue. Because in training, if you use the word as a precursor to the action the precursor then becomes what the animal associates with that word. Furthermore trainers use tone not only in their words, everyone knows the excited voice we use for puppies when teaching them to come to their name, but also in body language. This is especially true in horse training. If a trainer has a reactive horse they need to stop in a pen, it may only take a smooth subtle step ahead to get them to stop. A harder headed horse that is less focused may need a stomp and arms raised. Good trainers get to the point where they can read intent from a glance, the flick of an ear, the twitch of a leg, or the softness in the eye of an animal they are working.

All of this then had me thinking about myself. About something that I’ve fought with my entire life as a quality many go after as a weakness. That is, my sensitivity. My natural instinct is to nearly ignore the literal meaning of words, but rather take meaning from tone or body language. For a long time I deduced this trait came from being bullied when I was younger, or growing up with strong personalities in my household. These things are true, but I’m seeing now that this trait of mine, my sensitivity, may have started out as a defense mechanism to read for trouble from people in my life, but it was strengthened and turned into an asset when I began training animals. May be this is why many people who are so good with animals have a history that is a bit jaded with their peers or families (my family is great by the way, just making a general statement here). Made sensitive out of fear, these people turn to animals for comfort, and then find a kinship because they have learned to read others in the same way. They then grow together, learning from one another how to communicate without words. Thus creating some of the best trainers and animal handlers in the world.

So for all of you out there who have children or partners with sensitive traits. Think about how you are talking to them. Not just the words you choose, but the body movements and your nuances of tone. Those things matter. And be extra considerate to us animal trainers, because we not only read those choices of tone and movement from you, we try to predict them. On a daily basis that ability to read others can be life or death for us. We can’t it turn off with the flip of a switch, and most of us wouldn’t trade our ability to read those tones and movements for the world because it allows us to do what we love every day and be great at it.

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When Things Don’t Go As Planned…

6/30/2022

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This weekend I was supposed to ride in my first endurance race with Outlaw. I felt so proud to finally be ready to compete and the race we chose was a fundraiser for Suicide Awareness. Unfortunately, I had to scratch last minute due to a small poorly placed puncture wound above his hoof. Outlaw will be just fine, but the disappointment was and is real on my end. I may not be a religious person, but I think a good part of me believes in fate and the timing of this race just seemed almost like fate. We will miss this weekend, but there will be another race and we will eventually make our debut. But, because we have to miss the ride, I wanted to say a few words about my experience with mental health. If we can’t ride to help raise awareness, I might as well talk about it and make it less taboo. At least for those who are in my life via social media.

Depression comes in many forms and can happen to anyone at any time in their life. Sometimes it’s caused by a specific event or loss, sometimes it‘s bought on by a lack of satisfaction in life that builds up over time. It can happen to young or old, to people that are single or with a spouse or partner. Sometimes it ebs and flows, other times it feels like it’s unbeatable. Sometimes, you don’t realize depression is the problem. You attribute the symptoms to something else entirely. Trying to make changes to the things you can control, hoping you’ll dig yourself out of the apparent rut you’ve found yourself in. Sometimes you’ll be sitting right in front of what should make you happy, but you can’t bring yourself to get up and do it.

For some, depression can be caused by a chemical or hormonal imbalance. Others may have hit a rut that they have yet to encounter in life, and they have never developed the skills needed to climb back out.

Here’s the thing, none of the above is something you should be ashamed of or feel you need to hide. One, it’s not your fault you are depressed. No matter if it’s chemical, hormonal, or bought on by life circumstances. The biggest misconception about mental health that I have found, is that people are embarrassed because they think if they are having any of these problems it’s because they aren’t strong enough. They assume that if they are depressed, it’s because they did something wrong, or failed to push hard enough. This then leads one to feel worse about being depressed, because why can’t you just snap out of it? I’ve battled depression for most of my life. Only having sought treatment for it in the last 10 years, I am still learning ways to recognize if I’m slipping back down that road, and I’m always picking up new coping mechanisms. Even still, I am one that needs an additional boost from medication. But I’m no longer ashamed of that. I’ll tell people all the time, I’m my best self through chemistry and thank goodness for it. I also have been in therapy on and off since my early twenties, and consistently since 2016. You wouldn’t ask someone with diabetes to just be tougher and not take insulin. If someone
was having an acute medical crisis you wouldn’t say, just suck it up. You don’t need a doctor to help you get better. So why do we make these assumptions about one of the most common conditions in the world? Why is it that even though depression can befall anyone at anytime, and no one is immune to it, that most people don’t know how to recognize the signs in themselves or others? If a man has pain in his left arm just about everyone knows to think HEART
ATTACK! But when someone is continuously too tired to go out, short fused, or plain uninterested, we are quick to assume they are being bitchy, or we take it personally. When we could be thinking, hey are you alright?

Just like you can go to the gym to get stronger, or build up immunity to an illness through exposure. The same goes for depression. But here’s the thing, most people only seek therapy or psychiatric help DURING crisis. And during crisis, you can’t strengthen yourself. During crisis you get yourself out of it. And for many, they leave it at that. Feeling better, they stop talking about what got them there in the first place. They don’t dig deeper. And they don’t learn and PRACTICE coping mechanisms when they are in a stable state. But it’s when you are stable that you should be sowing spending the time building up your mental health. For some that could be semi regular work with a therapist. It could be a class, reading books on the topic, or even listening to Ted talks and podcasts.

So for anyone out there struggling or in active crisis, don’t be afraid to reach out for help. To a friend, to me, to hotline, there’s nothing bad about any of those resources. To those reading this that are currently in a good place in life, be sure to be aware of signs others could be displaying and not recognizing. Work on skills you yourself may need one day. Talk to your kids! Normalize maintenance of mental health. I guess that’s my spiel for now. Best of luck to everyone at Muckleratz this weekend. Thanks for riding for a great cause and hopefully I’ll see you on the trail soon.

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A ReeLee Good Farm Dog

1/18/2022

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No farm is complete without a farm dog. To be honest, most families aren’t complete without what they call “man’s best friend.”

Sarge came into my life in the summer of 2009. I’ve said many times the fact that I got him in particular was due partly to fate, and more so from my absent mindedness.

The adoption event we had wanted to go to was in Denver CO. I was interning at a ranch in Yampa CO. We had some morning chores to be done at a guest cabin, and then had planned to head to Denver to pick up a Dutch Shepherd puppy that was on the rescue’s website. As we were driving down the single track “road” from the cabin back toward the ranch, another truck was coming to the cabin. I pulled off the drive to allow the other truck through, and as I drove forward to then get back on the road, what I couldn’t see due to the four foot high grass on either side of the drive was a four foot deep ditch. My truck ended up at a 45 degree angle in the ground. Rear wheels in the air. Needless to say, our ETA to the first come first serve adoption event was delayed.

With the help of some very nice cowboys, a tow chain, and a much bigger truck than my Nissan Frontier, we got out of the ditch and booked it the several hour trip to the Denver PetsMart. Despite everything we were second on the list. But of course, the first family in went right to “my” dog. Disappointed, I still took my turn to go in and see the puppies still available. Walking into the taped off area of stacked two high dog crates I looked past the little yappy puppies. Kind of still looking over my shoulder at the Dutch Shepherd and his new family filling out their adoption paperwork, there was a cage tag that said “ridgeback/hound mix.” There were three puppies inside. Two white with brown patches that almost looked jack russel like in coloring. The third, a Sandy brown male with what looked like eyeliner around his eyes. He was overshadowed by his cage mates. But ridgeback caught my eye. The grandmother on the non blood relation side of a cousin always had ridgebacks and I always loved them. So my friend and I decided to look at him. The foster family took him out and let him loose with us in a makeshift pen. The pup was more interested in getting back to his caretakers than me, but he did eventually come over and look me in the eye. And that was it… he was mine.

He would come to be named Sarge. At the time I got him, my eventual Brother in Law was deployed in Iraq. He was a Sergeant, and that’s how he got his name.

Back at the ranch that summer Sarge became my shadow. Partly because he trained me to get what he wanted (there would be no successful crate training, he slept in bed from day one), and partly because I was lucky enough to just bring him around to do absolutely everything with me. He had a pack of farm dogs to teach him how to be a dog, horses and cows that taught him how to get out of the way, and a bunch of young college age cowboys and cowgirls to dote on him (and sneak him a sip of underage cheap beer in the back of a pickup when roping steers).

When summer was over, Sarge spent three more years as a Colorado resident. He would do anything. Except be locked in a small space. Lesson learned from a few doorframes chewed. 3/4 of the year when weather was good he would wait in my truck while I was in class on campus or at the equine center. Friends would know I’d always leave the door unlocked if he was in there and visit him as they went between classes. He and I would then go from school to whatever farm I was at where he would ham it up watching me train and get dumped off of horses in roundpens. Whining when it took me too long to get up. He was a rock star trail dog. Cutting it close jumping rattle snakes, and riding up on the horses when he made me too nervous with the risks he’d take.

As I battled with anxiety and depression through those years and going forward he was, for the longest time, the only one who I would let see me cry. Neither of us understood my bouts of sadness, but he knew when I needed to be snuggled closer, nudged to go outside, or when to push a roommate or friend of mine to come check in on me.

Always leery of men, there were only a few he ever tolerated, he kept trying to tell me what I always knew about myself and my sexuality. And even once I found myself, he was 99% of the time on point with who he let into my life man or woman.

We loved in Colorado, Texas, everywhere in Pennsylvania, and road-trips to many other places. The best silent road trip companion, that made me feel the safest I would ever feel in the skeeviest of truck stops. He would stand over me and growl when someone would knock on my door at night, even if it was my own mother, until he knew it was safe. When I nearly lost my life after a blindsided broken heart pushed my own mental capacities to their brink, he sat by my side in the hospital nearly every day until I could go home.

Recovery for me took longer than two weeks in the hospital. It took over a year. And even then, I was no where near where I wanted to, or had planned for myself to be at that stage in my life. As judged as I felt by so many I knew and didn’t know, his eyes were always free of judgment, encouraging, and gave me reason to get up every morning.

He has been a guide and mentor to many a pup (and kitten), and taught quite a few nieces and nephews how to love and be gentle to animals. He stood up for himself with the grouchiest of horses (and still tries), while knowing how to be quiet around those that may need more time to learn that our four pawed friends are not like those that would prey upon them in the wild.

Although he has slowed down in the last year, up until the last month you’d never know his age unless you saw him wait for me help him into bed or into the truck. He was still chasing squirrels, running around the farm, and watching over it all.

Over the last month some of the most talented, smart, caring, and dedicated people I know came together for Sarge. I cannot be more grateful to them for all of their efforts. Sarge fought harder than anyone thought a dog could. But despite the try in his heart, his body was ailed in ways we could not repair and tonight Sarge crossed the rainbow bridge. He will be greeted by many a lost friend, some he already knows and others I’m sure he will be happy to meet. As many tears are shed, I remember the life of an amazing dog and friend. I had hoped we would get more time. More adventures. More trips to the beach, more shushing to not awake kids, and above all more “every days” many of which I took for granted. Deep in my heart I know he had a life that most of his kind would envy, and I had him for longer than many get to have a best friend. A partner like him was more than I deserved, but I am grateful to have been so lucky.

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Implications of Not Saying Enough; Our Digital Age is Far Too Focused on the Negative

9/14/2018

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Whenever something happens that is not to your liking; May be you made a poor investment. Be it with your time, your money, a career choice, or with your heart. In an effort to soften the blow someone, may be even yourself, will say “You live and you learn.” But as motivating as this mantra is supposed to be, I feel that all of these years we have left it incomplete. Recently I’ve tried to start telling myself; Live, Learn, and Keep on Living. There is something about adding that little bit at the end, that to me makes it feel more true.

I think the latter of that modified statement is supposed to be implied. I mean why take the lesson from a life experience if you’re not going to go on living with your newfound knowledge in your back pocket for later use. But one thing I have learned, is that leaving anything open ended, even something as simple as a statement, can lead to a subconscious focus on the negative.

For some reason, Live and Learn just feels like you are being down on yourself. Even reading it written here, the way it comes across in my head is more of an “oh well, you live and you learn.” Almost as if you are saying, “ I can’t do anything about it now. That result sucked because I made a mistake. Hopefully, I won’t do that again.” Then you go on focused on the mistake, and can say you learned something. Therefore justifying the bad outcome.

Now let's just ever so slightly change that mantra, and see what happens…. Live, Learn, and Keep on Living. Is it just me or does it just sound much more inspiring? If I put that into a fancy font on a white background, this would be a quote trending on social media’s “Word Porn.” Why is that? How is it that something that should go without saying, something that is so obviously implied, needs to be said in order to be understood?

In a digital age I feel like this is all too common. I want you to think about how you read a text message, an email, or a Facebook post. Think about what knee jerk reactions you have had in the past to things you have read, only to be told “Calm down, I was just kidding,” “That’s not what I meant,” or one of my favorites when it comes to social media “I wasn’t talking about you.” Where does this come from? I may be wrong, but may be it is because we would rather someone imply the wrong thing, than sound stupid in trying to get our actual point across. At least in some cases. There are those times when we are all just lazy and say “Eh, they will get what I mean.” Only to regret it later.

I unlike a lot of the digital aged millennials have the opposite problem. I tend to say too much. I tend to overanalyze and then use more words to make sure nothing gets lost in translation. So, I guess this entire scattered rant was just a long winded way of me saying the following. Say what you mean, all of it, regardless of what someone may think. Regardless of how they may respond. Because if you leave it up for debate, they will likely think the worst. When in reality, what you said could have made their day.

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Back after a break

9/1/2017

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So we have taken a bit of a hiatus from our blog the last three weeks. A lot has been happening here on the farm, including me running my first Horse as a Licensed Trainer! But we will save that for a new blog. One thing is for sure though, A LOT has been happening with me and Cooper.

For starters, I took the plunge and we are officially registered for the Makeover. We will be competing in the Freestyle division. Our routine is still in the works but our goal is to go with simplistic, clean, and fun. In the spirit of this, we have not only been working on maneuvers, but we have also done some events unrelated to our routine. The last two weeks we have tried of Team Sorting! Cooper has loved it, and it has been a great way to break up our weekly routine. The other great thing about working cattle, is that it gives purpose to a lot of the maneuvers we work on in the arena.

The other great thing about trying out ranch sorting, is that Cooper and I were able to find some like minded western riders in the heart of the Eventing Nation of Chester County Pennsylvania. It has been such a great opportunity to ride with them, and especially to be able to show them the versatility of OTTBs. In fact, most of the group was surprised to hear he was even an OTTB at all! That just goes to show the work we must continue to do to prove everyone wrong about these amazing horses. But for everything that has happened the last few weeks, I want to take a moment to talk about my ride yesterday with local trainer Larry Kuyper.

I met Larry through the team sorting events I have been attending with Cooper. We got to talking, and as I watched him ride and coach anyone and everyone who would listen I immediately took to him. Not just because of what I have had to overcome in the last year, but because I am a firm believer in continuing to better myself as a trainer. So, I got Larry’s contact information and asked him if he would be willing to let me ride with him a few times. I wanted to be able to pick his brain, and get real time feedback on some of the things I have been working on with Cooper.
We set up a time for me to go to his farm in Elkton, MD, and I cannot remember the last time I enjoyed a training session as much as I did yesterday. As trainers, we spend so much time working with others so they fit their horses, or fixing horses to fit their riders, that we rarely get the chance to work on our own riding. Even still, it can be hard as a trainer to find someone who is on the same wavelength in methodology. In riding with Larry yesterday, I got a chance to ride with someone who has the feel and experience that I can only hope to have one day. He was able to find things for me to work on that I didn’t see, correct me in real time, and show me that it was ok to push past where I have been stuck to ask for more out of fear from what happened last year with Disco.

I spent the entire rest of the day with a smile on my face. I cannot wait to expand on the drills we worked on yesterday, and put together the fun and clean freestyle routine I know Cooper has in him.

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being mindful during the mundane

8/2/2017

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Last Wednesday I had sent a video to Kevin Meyer of where Cooper and I were with our spins. I did not even watch it before I sent it. I was pretty embarrassed. My horse may be quiet and easy to ride, but how in the world will we be ready for KY in two months with where we are now in our maneuvers? He gave me some pointers, to work on, but also said this.

"It never feels as good as it looks, nor does it ever look as bad as it feels.”
Oh the times this could have been applied with my self conscious and wandering mind before now… trying on dresses for prom, prepping my freestyle routine for the Equine Comeback Challenge, attempting to learn how to shoot a basketball, or the first time I galloped a racehorse. But, that saying got me thinking, and so I started trying to be more mindful of what I felt while I was riding, and not what things might look like… That is when I got an idea..
Before I go into my lightbulb moment, I’m going to give a brief background on Mindfulness Meditation. Bear with me, you will see why, just give the hokey explanation a shot.
Mindfulness Meditation is not about clearing your mind, but rather about recognizing when your mind wanders so you can respond rather than react to what is happening. Your mind is actually incapable of thinking about more than one thing at once. You may think its possible, especially when you feel extremely overwhelmed, but its not. When you feel like your mind is thinking too much it’s really just jumping from thought to thought extremely quickly. So, with Mindfulness, you typically identify somewhere to feel your breath, and mentally note In, Out, In, Out. Even if you are just identifying with one breath, for that moment you were not thinking about anything else. When your mind wanders, and when you realize it has done so, you just start again; In, Out, In, Out. The act of recognition, and returning is the act of being mindful, not the focus on the breath itself. Why is this relevant? Well, Mindfulness is something I have been working on since the accident. I need to get better about practicing it, because especially when things get tough, it does help. With how bad things got last month, I see I should have been doing this more, so I recently took it up again and cranked it up in scale. As it helped me feel better over the last two weeks, I thought to myself… I think I can apply this while riding.
Ok, so being mindful while riding seems like it could be useful. But in order for this to work, I’ve got to take away all other stimuli while riding. This is where things got a little tricky.
See, typically I ride with my phone. I say it is because of safety, or because I want to ride with music, as the music keeps me focused. When in reality, really the phone is a huge distraction. I end up checking texts, scrolling through Facebook (no longer a problem now as I took that off of my phone. FREEDOM!! I highly recommend it), or answering messages about horses for sale. Pretty much the second it goes off I am no longer training, I’m just along for the ride.. Not only that, but when I ride with music I find that I tend to react and ask for things in tempo with whatever I am listening too, without even realizing it. Think about it, one of the reasons you make running playlists is so you can run with what you are hearing. In reining, when you have a song for a freestyle, you want to be able to keep with that beat in your maneuvers. But as you are doing slow work, and start rocking out to the Trolls Soundtrack (really… no one else but me does that?) you don’t even realize that when you should have released for one good lateral step, you end up asking for more of them with the speed and tempo of the music.
With that in mind, I decided I am going to stop riding with music, and not even have my phone on me when I ride. This then led to another problem… Without music, and with doing mundane basic exercises that require A LOT of repetition, my mind was wandering EVERYWHERE! This is where the Mindfulness while riding came into play. I decided, instead of noting the In, and Out of a breath, I will mentally note the steps Cooper takes with his from Left and Right feet. I can then use this to improve my timing in asking him to wind down his circle, and I can correctly time asking him to take lateral steps in a spin. Here is how it started…
Left, right, left, right, left, right….. Should I delete SnapChat from my phone?(side note, this happened today. Yay for going off the grid) Left, right, left, right, left, right, left…. What should I do with the babies in our session today? Left, right, left, right…. I should call my blog “We can do it Wednesdays” Left, right, left… Circle feels good. Open left hand and left leg, apply right leg, crossover release, crossover release; he is starting to move his hip, quick push him back into the circle. Left, right, left, right… I can’t believe I’m getting in a horse to train for the races. Am I excited or terrified? Left, right, left, right, left… I wonder if the pickles I’m making are going to taste good. Left, right, left, right, left…. And so on and so forth.
Oh, and my rides on Cooper this week were at least an hour each, so you are getting the cliff notes version of how this process started. But, because I was able to identify when I was distracted or thinking about the accident as I rode and just come back to Cooper's steps; As the week went on, my focus and timing kept getting better. More than that, riding him started to feel good again.
Two days ago I was a little unsure on if I could say “yes” to riding Cooper. I had a rathe rough night with not a lot of sleep, which led into a tough morning. I ended up going rock climbing for the day to try and distract myself. But with a friend showing up at the farm that evening, I worked babies for her, and made the decision to get on Cooper at around 7pm. Once I got on, I started on my circles. Left, right, left, right… Especially with the day I had, the above thinking mind was trying ever so hard to weasel its way into this ride. But I kept coming back to the steps. Left, right, left, right… and then, as his left foot was about to leave the ground I changed to my right seat bone, added right leg pressure, his foot moved laterally, his hips stayed still, I released, asked again, released and asked again… HOLY CRAP!!! We just did a full spin with cadence (albeit slow) and a pivot foot!!!
I don’t know where where that spin truly was on the look vs feel scale. It was about an hour and a half into the ride. It was dark and I was by myself when it happened, and we haven’t quite repeated a spin to what that felt like yet, but I now know it’s in there. With improved focus and timing, it can only get more consistent from there. May be it looked even better than it felt, and may be KY is not so out of reach.

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setting boundaries; similarities in how we set them with humans and horses

7 Years later, finally letting go

Coming Back

It’s Not Just What You Say, It’s How You Say It

When Things Don’t Go As Planned…

A ReeLee Good Farm Dog

Implications of Not Saying Enough; Our Digital Age is Far Too Focused on the Negative

Back after a break

being mindful during the mundane

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