EE Horses

These are stories about the horses at our rescue

Jan

2020

Emerson Vlog: Some review of behaviors with Celest

Dec

2019

Emerson’s Introductory Vlog

Emerson has been my student and friend for 6 years now, she is one special girl who has grown up with horses knowing only a positive reinforcement lifestyle. She has studied positive reinforcement horse care as a whole with me, but also from a variety of continuing education programs, taking part in online classes, Clicker Expo, Pet Professional Guild, and a number of clinics with positive reinforcement trainers. Emerson has spent the last few years accompanying me to all my clinics, demos, and conventions, starting as my lovely assistant and has now progressed to teaching on her own. She’s begun online and local positive reinforcement teaching for anyone interested.
In this video she discusses her experience in training with our wide variety of rescue horses – and her four personal projects at our rescue. She started with Revel, a huge, silly, playful belgian who she got to learn how to train every step of R+ and riding with him. Then a very emotionally and physically challenged neurological colt – this pushed her learning of every aspect of horse care, keeping, and training – anatomy, physiology, body work, massage, chiropractics, emotional impulse control, and finally the pain of loss. Her next project was her lovely Clydesdale mare with an attitude problem, and now her very own baby mustang to enjoy, love and grow with.

Dec

2019

Taina Exploring

Taina and I have taken to going on walks about the property regularly now, we explore new things and check out what the other horses are up to. So far she doesn't have the courage to approach another horse over a fence, I'm hopeful that will come, I'm still her safety net. I am eager to be able to start turning her out, I don't always have an hour plus to spend exploring with her, but she still needs time out. Next really nice day I'm going to try putting her in the small paddock next to Wisp with a few of her favorite puzzle toys in hopes she will stay out without me there for a bit. Last time we tried anything of the sort she just paced the fence line. When I take her out she likes to offer me behaviors and follow me around to get treats instead of eating the grass (she is a tropical horse and not a fan of our winter tufts of brown "grass"). So I've been trying to get her to graze more instead of focusing on me, so I pour the treats in the grass to use it like a snuffle mat. The treats I'm using are only hay pellets, so the only value they have is the history of our relationship, I'm sure the grass is better tasting.

Dec

2019

Taina’s Rainbow Day Miracle

A couple days ago we set up our Rainbow day decorations and as usual I let Taina out into the barn aisle. We did our usual training and target sessions and I showed her our tree and let her meet Rainbow. When I told her about the special day she was so inspired she immediately walked right outside!!! WHAT?! Outside - in the snow!! She threw herself a bit over threshold and scared me quite a bit. Haha! But after she composed herself and reconnected with me we explored the area just outside the barn and we played with the snow a bit before returning happily to her stall.

Dec

2019

Rainbow Day

December 23rd - the day before Christmas Eve is a very special day indeed. Santa's reindeer have a special mission, because all the good animals deserve some love too. Horses and sheep, donkeys and kittens, chickens and ferrets all celebrate when they hear the pitter patter of Rainbow the Reindeer arriving two days before Christmas. The kids have forgotten this special day, because the gifts aren't for them, they don't seem to notice. But a few special kids with a few special bonds have noticed what happens on this special day. If there's a tree in the barn or a stocking on the cat house, many little gifts appear for the animals who need them.

Dec

2019

Taina’s Social Life

Taina has spent the last few weeks inside, she won't go out in the snow. She hates snow. We are introducing it bit by bit, bringing buckets in and hiding treats in the snow for her to snuffle out or paw in. She is starting to be ok with this idea. But this prolonged time indoors and our desire to stay in good spirits means we needed to look at ways to get her out of her stall. So we turned the barn aisle into an enrichment play pen for her. We scatter a variety of objects and toys and puzzle feeders around the aisle. This has WORKED!! Taina loves going out into the aisle, now if I open her door but leave her stall guard up she will whicker and buzz until I let her out to play. This is good for my heart. Until recently...

Dec

2019

Emotions Before Behaviors

My lovely flower Taina and I have been struggling lately. Her world continues to shrink smaller as her fear overcomes her. With her trauma, the concept of new is scary, and right now - everythng is new, even the world changed colors and became so cold. Her fear turns quickly to aggression, she violently defends her safety bubble, her stall. Every day we go through the same terrible cycle when I need to clean her stall. She refuses to go outside, no amount of treats will lure her out, even on a lead she won't go out. Especially now that there is snow - I'm sure now that she's never seen snow before. We spent time playing with snow together, in a bucket I brought to her, she tolerated it to get the treats - but was not interested in going out and actually touching it. It was fun for us both to puzzle through in this small dose of enrichment, but in it's massive size and coldness make it not so fun. So, I need to clean around her. I usually put her soup in her bucket in the corner and clean carefully around her. But whenever the pitchfork comes close to her legs she jumps or kicks, or turns to bite me. We carefully work around that issue, but there is no clean spot in her stall to put her where the pitchfork doesn't have to come close. If I don't give her soup to keep her in one spot, we dance around the stall, me carefully avoiding invading her constantly changing personal space bubble. It's exhausting for us both. We had one bad day the other day where I was cleaning in the back of her stall, well away from her, and she turned and lunged a bite towards me. I don't know exactly what happened, there was some drama with people outside the stall which may have been the trigger. Unfortunately her teeth hit the pitchfork and she became overwhelmed with fear for a few minutes. She started stomping and biting in my direction, but not touching me - I could tell this took great restraint on her part to not actually kill me. I carefully slid down the wall of her stall and out her door. A half an hour later she was totally fine with me retrieving my tools and finishing the job. We have been spending the last few days working on things like touch acceptance and trying to push the boundaries of her comfort zone - this all together obviously stimulus stacked just too much over the passing days.

Dec

2019

Taina’s Opinion on Aversives

Taina tells me all day long "I HATE!" with her pinned ears and dragon face she says "back off!", she bares her fangs and swings her head to tell me she really, really wants to bite me. This is extremely kind of her. I try hard to listen to all of her communication, but her emotions are extremely conflicted and quickly changing. She wants so badly to trust and to be friends, she has really come to love me (if I do say so myself), but her fear is so deeply ingrained. Through her past life her whole world has become aversive, her whole world is a threat to her existence, all new, all different, is definitely dangerous.

Nov

2019

Wispy’s Winter Fitness Update 1

It's been a couple weeks but Wisp and I are still doing well!! Janneke helped kick us off on the right foot with lots of ideas to play with. We have been mixing it all up to keep it as interesting and engaging as possible. Too much of anything gets old, even something good! First of all, I have to say, Tumble Mats have become one of the greatest investments in our whole barn! Everyone is enjoying them. They have given us a list of fun exercise behaviors to do with Wispy too! We are starting on easy as Wisp and I don't do "stretching" - we both need a little yoga! So here we go, double sized Yoga mats for Wispy and we're ready to get started!

Nov

2019

Taina Beginning to Explore

Those of you who don't know Taina, she's one of the most damaged horses I've ever met. She came to us last summer as an extreme neglect case, she was emaciated and lame when she stumbled off the truck and up our driveway to her new home. Over the next few weeks we unwrapped layers of her terrible past. With X-rays and grooming the filth off her body we learned she's had the ligaments cut in her tail so it forms the "J" shape so popular in the Paso Fino shows. Her legs lashed with whip marks from dancing in pillars, and her trachea crushed from being roped in rodeo events. As her winter coat grows in the white marks of scars become more and more apparent all over her body. Emotionally she was much worse than physically, which is hard to imagine. When it was time for any sort of interaction she'd tuck her head into the back corner of her stall and tremble while we haltered her and began whatever treatment was needed. While she'd stand near the front of her stall and carefully take handfuls of treats from us, she would leap away at the first sign of danger. Soon her fear began to fade and her feeling of control expressed as aggression. She rapidly learned she could keep humans at a safe distance with her beautiful dragon impersonation.