Everyone.. stop by here and say hi.. Intros!

[cowgirlkate]

Hi, I'm Kate, mother of four, Grandmother of two. I have a 24 year old sorrel gelding named Dakota, And a 14 year old double registered Palamino, Quarter horse named Mr. High Perfection, (aka Quincy)
I wanted a horse since I was a kid. I got my first horse for a 20th Wedding anniversary present from my husband. (I had a saddle in the garage for 15 years before I actually got a horse. LOL ) I was just a waitin for that horse. I can't even imagine not having a horse again. They're the best therapy a person can have.
I live in Kansas, and I board my horses about 10 miles from where I live.

[Chrisnstar]

welcome welcome to the board cowgirl kate! We're glad you're here. Quincy is gorgeous!

chris

[alexanzella93]

Hi I'm Alexa. As you know Laura is a member here and I'm her daughter. I thought this was a neat board here to talk to people and I thought it would be kind of neat to get to know people on this board. I'm a teenager. I'm a 13-year-old owner of two horses. My horse, Zella (pronounced "Zayah"), is an Arabian/Paint and Flame is an AQHA Quarter Horse. Well, I think it will be neat to get to know people on this board.

[Mary Ann]

Hi, Alexa! Your mom is a really great person; it'll be fun to get to know you, too! Are you on summer vacation?

[Chrisnstar]

Alexa, we're so glad you have joined us!

chris

[alexanzella93]

Hey every body,
Thanks for the reply that I posted. I'm enjoying summer a lot. I just got out of school on June 8, 2006. I'm enjoying the summer a lot. I've just worked with Flame yesterday. He's a chestnut with a flaxen mane and tail.

[Chrisnstar]

Hey, I have a Flame that is chestnut! His mane and tail are starting to go flaxen!

[Pat B]

MaryAnn asked me for an introduction, with an emphasis on my interest in animal behavior.

I was a kid that grew up in a house full of animals. Even though I lived well within a “big city”, I always had animals around – and although I’ve never been able to commit to the idea of owning a horse, I have certainly always loved them.

I saw an Obedience demonstration when I was in grade school – a dog on a Sit/Stay who wouldn’t even budge no matter how sincerely a crowd of little girls – including me – tried to coax and cajole him. But with one quiet word of “Come” from his handler, he sprang across the room and came to a beautiful sit in front of him. It was like magic.

Later – during my college years – I watched a trainer taking shelter dogs and teaching them to walk on a leash within minutes using what I now know were Koehler-based methods. I wasn’t sure how I felt about WHAT she was doing, but I was certainly impressed by seeing dogs learn something so quickly that I had spent weeks teaching to the family dog I grew up with.

When I finally got my first dog of my own (co-owned with my then-significant-other) we took her through the kind of Obedience training that was available in those days – work structured after the kinds of formal Obedience done in an AKC ring even though the great majority of people enrolling in these classes were just folks wanting a well-behaved companion. It was our fortuitous good luck that the woman teaching this class was rather “progressive” in her methods, and although she didn’t use treats, she DID utilize lots of praise while minimizing correction. She also firmly believed that even during training, sometimes you just had to let “a dog be a dog”, and if your dog was looking tired or distracted or whatever, she expected you to “drop out” for a few minutes of play break and then re-join the class. I had no idea at the time how RADICAL that was, but I’m sure glad we ended up with her rather than some of the other classes in the area. (I remember observing one puppy class where they were doing the classic “Walk with frequent and unexpected changes of direction to teach your puppy to pay attention on lead” and the room was full of yipping puppies and pools of puppy pee and no one seemed particularly bothered by it – except the puppies, of course.)

But there was ANOTHER reason she turned out to be a very fortuitous choice. She was a longtime Obedience exhibitor, and she pegged our puppy as a “natural talent”, predicting great things for her if we wanted to pursue that line of training. We followed her guidance, and her predictions proved accurate – our little girl was nationally-ranked in the Obedience stats throughout pretty much her entire competitive career. Not only that, but she *learned* things with an almost supernatural ability to figure out what you wanted almost as soon as you asked it of her. She was the kind of dog who – if you asked her to jump – would reply “How high, where would you like me to land, and on which foot first?”. It was astonishing.

You might think a dog like that would be almost robotic in her ring performance, but nothing could be further from the truth. She was the kind of a dog who had a happy, willing attitude in the ring in that the judges consistently complimented us on. Because of her example, I was determined that as time went on, I would NEVER take a dog into competition unless it was with that same level of joyful willingness and absence of fear or intimidation.

Fast forward to about ten years ago when I got a wonderful and sweet little 15 month old young adult Papillon who has the sweetest nature in the world but also – as it turns out – is about as soft as soft can be. Even in the then—prevalent climate of what was called “positive motivational” training (gentle pops on the lead for attention, etc.) he would wilt and cower and be CLEARLY unhappy and overwhelmed with the coercion being exerted over him. After the third night of driving home from training class in tears over how unhappy my little dog was with the whole situation, I went ahead and decided to take a look at trying this new thing called “clicker training”, and I’ve never looked back.

My boy has never made it into an Obedience ring, but frankly, that kind of training no longer holds the kind of interest for me that it once did. He forced me to become a very close student of his reactions and his learning style. I would like someday to have a dog who is not so intimidated by fresh environments and new places, but in the meantime, clicker has brought me a way to work with him that restores his sense of self-confidence once he works his way through a task and puts that look of joy and happiness back on his face that should always be there.

Clicker training has taught me to observe and interact with dogs in ways that I never knew were possible before. Suddenly training becomes a cooperative learning venture, with BOTH partners actively seeking ways to participate in the process. The “Aha!” moments are addictive, and the idea of resorting to coercion unless it is absolutely unavoidable becomes very distasteful indeed. That’s just a byproduct of the “training contract” you enter into when you do clicker with a dog.

Finding out that horse trainers were beginning to use clicker was pretty cool. Not having a horse, it wasn’t something I actively pursued learning about, but I was happy it was happening since what *I* had learned of horse training was that it was a fairly coercive and one-sided process, often without a lot of regard for the horse’s “point of view”.

So when the subject of contemporary approaches in horse training came up on a dog board I visit, I was pretty intrigued to hear that even non-clicker horse training methodology was also moving into a “kinder and gentler” realm. I was interested to know more, and interested to see if I could get into conversations that related the kinds of thought processes a clicker trainer uses to the kinds of thought processes employed in these more recent philosophies of horse training (leaving aside for the moment the point of whether this stuff is actually “new” or not – that’s a DIFFERENT discussion! LOL!)

I have been visiting another board and have participated in some wonderful and very educational and enlightening discussions with some of the members who have been generous enough to share their insights in those kinds of conversations. As is so often the case on the Internet, I recently learned of this board and came here and started reading on occasion, and then a thread on Parelli came up that drew me in since it is directly related to what kinds of interests have me visiting horse boards when I’m “only” a horse-lover who will probably never own a horse of her own!

I probably need to keep myself from getting too carried away on how many boards I frequent (G!), but a good training discussion among people who are willing to trade ideas openly to further their learning rather than get argumentative and defensive (“Because this is how it’s done. Now go away kid. You bug me!” Ran into enough of that with dog people! LOL!) generally ends up drawing me in! I like to ask questions. When someone tells me that something is different, I generally need to try and figure out *why*. Things need to hold together rationally, consistently, and logically. A well-grounded, pragmatic position is okay (e.g. MaryAnn pointing out that horses can go from “Zero to Panic” in a fraction of a second) but my personal philosophy is that one needs to be always on guard against the mindset that just because you *can* do something or that *it works* justifies actually *doing* it. Sometimes holds, sometimes it doesn’t. But if you don’t remind yourself to question “Why?” periodically, it’s way to easy to fall into some patterns that perhaps you really wish you hadn’t.

So that’s my introduction/soapbox! LOL!

Pat B!

[linda]

Pat, I hope you stick around! Your training expertise actually meshes perfectly with what some of us are looking for. Horse, dog, rabbit, rat--it doesn't matter.

Wish you were here--I have a Jack Russel that won't be a year old until late September. She really is a pretty quiet, well-behaved dog. I treat her pretty much the same as my border collie/spaniel cross and she follows his example. I have no dog fences--we live in the country. She is a good girl, at least 23 out of every 24 hours. And I find out that it is usually my fault (lack of exercise) if she gets wound up. She loves being outside where she can watch everything that happens. It is interesting to watch her behavior and figure out how I can modify it in a positive manner.

When she gets wound up, and a 5 mile hike on the mountain isn't in the cards, I cheat and get rid of that adrenaline with peanut butter-in-a-Kong. I suspect it works the same as it horses--and once that adrenaline is down to a "normal" level, so is her behavior.

Looking forward to more great discussions with you!
Linda

[amya]

Hi, all! I'm Amy, and Cynthia dragged me over from one of the draft boards - Dang it! Another board to try to keep up with! Anyhow, I live in SE Houston and board three great horses nearby. My main girl Raven, who is a 15 year-old grade QH, my "war-pony" Nipper, a half Welsh/QH who still kicks butt at 19, and my new boy, a half Welsh Cob/ Belgian named Shiloh, who was five this spring. We recently lost my 12 year-old Belgian mare to an aneurysm.
We play in the SCA (medieval re-creation) and trail ride around. I am almost entirely self-taught and not real well at that! so please excuse all my questions and feel free to correct my misconceptions! The more I know, the better I can educate my horses and be a better partner to them.
AmyA
P.S. - Linda, there is a reason that the word "terrier" sounds so much like "terror".....

[Mary Ann]

Hi, Amy! Any friend of Cynthia's is fine by me; she's very knowledgeable, and a nice person to boot! I'm glad you decided to join us, and I look forward to hearing more about your crew!

[mksmith]

If you post on stableminds and a few other boards, so you my already know me.

If not. I'm Mary & have 6 horses. You can see pics of all of them at www.leakycreek.com

Squall is my 1987 tb type mare. The queen of the farm. She is the dam of Remington & Winston.


Tiny is 1995 QH mare. Very smart. She is Amber's dam.



Willow is a 2000 standardbred mare. Very kind & sweet.


Remington is 2003 PHR gelding... he's just gotten started under saddle.


Winston is 2004 1/2 Arab colt. Personality plus!


Amber is 2004 AQHA filly... very intelligent & very athletic & very much thinks she's a princess... well... a redneck princess...


I also have a husband & 3 cats...

Punkin & Rascal are sister & brother


Winnie the house cat.


I enjoy riding english & western with two riding goals right now... to trail ride more often and I'm hoping to show dressage. I'm just getting Remi started under saddle.

I love showing my youngsters in hand. My latest pursuit is taking on the open USDF Dressage Sport Horse Breeding world with my non warmbloods... Remi & Winston have both showed open this year. I also showed rated Arabian shows for the first time this year... Sport Horse in Hand with Winston & was happy with the results.

So... that's me and my critters in a nutshell...

[Chrisnstar]

Welcome to the board Mary! Pleased to meet you and all your critters! I hope you like it here!

chris

[Matrixx]

OK I guess I need to bite the bullet and introduce myself. Some will know me from SM as Austin but I am a lurker here as well. I tried to register yesterday however it wouldn't send me an admin code

Been involved showing dogs my entire life (professional handler) now retired. I started with horses at a young age. Have shown and trained in almost every disapline. Just moved to MN a year ago to be with the man of my dreams!! We currently have 4 horses. That just about sums it up. I look forward to getting to know you all!

Sarah

[Mary Ann]

Hi Sarah! I used to be a regular at SM, but haven't been there for a very long time. So I get to meet you fresh! I look forward to hearing all about you and your critters.

Oh, and I don't know why you had to have an admin code thing. I'd suggest you just give it a bit of time and try again. Boards are quirky sometimes.