Bella & Stormy – January 2023

2023 🙂 HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE 🙂 2023

I’ve put a new ‘CATEGORY’ in the menu of ‘Bella & Stormy’. I’ve done this as through the last 3 years training Bella we’ve come to a good point and we’re doing more of the basic training with new things becoming less frequent SO as this year hopefully we’ll be doing more hacking out with Stormy it felt right to change the category from ‘Bella – our journey’ to include Stormy again more 😉 SO….from today new posts will be under ‘Bella & Stormy’ regardless of which horse I’m with 😉 Happy New Year again and hopefully Spring will come soon so that we can start our year up here 😉

Mon 2nd

Today the estate gamekeeper and friends are looking to get any foxes in the enclosure behind our horses paddocks out of it so they can close the gates….

I go out to the horse while this goes on as there can be quite a lot of human shouting, dogs barking and general chaotic predatory behaviour…..

My job is to create a calm, sweet spot where the horses can come to relax and know they’re safe SO I stand near the top of the paddock and let them come and go whilst do my audible breathing for them to ‘be with me’ in that calm state….

It works really well and they both hang around whilst keeping an eye on the ‘strangers’ nearby. When the dogs come out it was lovely to see Bella and Storm’s curiosity come out and follow them along the paddock without being worried or feisty 😉

When I whistled to them with my ‘call’ they came straight to me which was really lovely xxx

Wed 4th

Another fab opportunity for some familiarisation play today. I go out with my metal detector to check on the line of polypost/electric fencing I put up which Stormy broke the other day. I needed to make sure there were o metal spikes left in the ground from the broken posts…I found 2 so made this job essential fun. Whilst doing this job the horses came to investigate what I was doing and using +R (positive reinforcement – reward training) I asked them to touch the end of the machine to realise that it wasn’t going to hurt them. I love doing this familiarisation, allowing horses to be curious and brave about the world they live in with us 😉

Stormy was more curious and brave, Bella is more sceptical but both were calm, happy to interact with me and the machine and very happy to receive treats for doing it 😉

Mon 9th

Today seemed more like the Winter Solstice than Dec 21st….very very dark in the morning, the sun being very lazy getting into the sky and the moon had to hang around more waiting for it to catch up! lol.

Pic of B&S this morning under the big moon, this was about 8.15am. Roll on Spring 😉

Thurs 12th

Waiting one more day of rain before hopefully, fingers crossed, moving Bella & Storm back to their big field 😉

Today I spent a wee bit of time with them just doing some small things…first I managed to get some lovely eye shots of them…they have the most beautiful, soft eyes ever 😉

Then I got a shot of their soft inquisitive muzzles…so sweet with lots of hair on them over winter, called moustaches 😉

After that I asked them to stand together and ‘wait’ 😉 This went very well and I was very impressed with their patience today 😉

Lastly I stood on a big stone and asked them to come over, work on sidling to a ‘mounting block’ and stand still for me. It went okay, wish I had a bigger stone as I would have jumped on Stormy…missing riding a lot and just sitting on Stormy would be fun….hopefully when they’re back in the big field I can start doing some agility bits online, at liberty and ridden too. I will start this all very slowly so we can all just get our muscles exercising a bit, getting fitter together for the year ahead <3

Thurs 12th

The last couple of days the ice is slowly going from the track that leads from our house to the horses main, big field down the road…..

Fri 13th

YEEHAAA….most of the snow has gone from the track and the bits that are less are passable for the horses SO….back to the big field they go today 🙂

Really enjoyed riding Stormy while leading Bella…it’s been way too long since but hit the saddle (or bareback pad in this case) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now that they’re back in the big field I can hopefully get to trim Bella’s feet, put up some fun agility obstacles and get to ‘be’ with them more.

Hopefully no more snow to come so they can stay in the big field BUT if it snows hard again we’ll just have to bring them back to the home paddocks 😉

Once into the field they had fun kicking up their heels and it was really lovely to see them stretching their legs after being in the small paddocks at home 😉

Sat 14th

A bit grey again today but Bella’s hooves need trimming so I go out and trim her front feet, ergots, chestnuts and also her feather. I’ll do her backs tomorrow…saves my back doing them like that 😉

BUT I did put together an Agility course up with the obstacles that were already in the ‘agility arena’ from last year and while I was finishing it off Bella came over and we had an impromptu Liberty play. It was fab, put a huge smile on my face and reconnected us at liberty which was fab.

Sat 21st

Took some containers of water down to the horses as their supply has either gone (no rain) or hard to get to (burn has 6′ of ice near it) and had a wee play at liberty with both S&B as they were up for a bit of fun with me 😉 darned cold though!!

Fri 27th

‘You’re never doing nothing when you’re with your horse’ 😉 (SNC)

I always try to do something when I visit the horses at any time of year but especially in Winter. Quite often in the morning, after they’ve had their breakfast and I’m going around the field poo picking, they come over to see what I’m doing and I will ask them to interact with me at liberty for some fun. The things I often ask them to do are things like: Backing up. Sidepassing. Circle. Sidle to mounting block. Fun Agility things with obstacles like Fig 8’s. ETC. It’s always fun, we get connected and they get a treat as a reward so they really love playing at this time of year 😉

Today I was inspired to do something completely new…backing up with me behind the horse. This is a quite advanced move and I wasn’t sure if Bella was going to ‘get it’ BUT she knows the voice cue so I thought I’d just try. I used her usual voice cue and a gentle suggestion on the front of her back leg….here’s what happened 😉

I then did it with Stormy…he has done this a lot but not much recently and he goes with a voice cue and a gentle holding of his tail (no pulling) 🙂

Sun 29th

Today we brought the horses back to the home paddocks just for a change for them and us and to get them used to just doing it now and then…gave me a nice ride on Stormy too 🙂

Stormy was quite eager to move so we had a few trot sections and Bella kept up very neatly. A lovely big canter at the end too which was fun. They’ll stay here over night and go home to the big field tomorrow morning 😉

I’d like to do this a couple of times a month this year just to get them SO used to it that it’s no bother at all and maybe later on try riding Bella and leading Stormy for a change once she’s more used to leading a horse off her…more for me to do this year but they’ll be the things we’ll do more and more so well worth doing a lot now so that later on it’s easier, quicker and hassle free 🙂

Mon 30th

And after a night in the paddocks at home S&B go back to their big field today

They came up to see a friend of mine that has known Stormy most of his life when they’ve been up on holiday with their family. It was lovely for her to see him again now at 19yrs of age and her a mommy of 2 sweet kids 😉