using a angle grinder for trimming

 

 

 

THANK YOU LACY FOR FILMING!

Colby, our burro is the demo donkey for this style of trim!

Shameless Plugging for good friends

My good friends and mentors Ginny & Dave Freeman have finally got there 501 going!

Above is their web site, and I ask people who have other blogs please spread the word about them. WE just had a clinic here at home home this past Sunday with the Freeman's showing us how to deal with some foot handling issues. here is the you tube video!

Thank you to Lacy & her friend Shasta who video our little clinic!

What is happening around my neighborhood

7-16-09
If you click the above link, you will visit Nor-cal rescues blog. These horses are only a mile from me. I have at one time worked for the former owner of this place (where the horses are at). I am thinking of contacting NER and seeing if I could offer any help for these local horses. Maybe a brushing or seeing if i can work with the untrainned ones.
One thing is for sure most of the horses that have ever lived there have always been happy go lucky. As a kid i rode by this place more times then I can count, there has always been horses on those land and it will be different once they are gone.

Celtic Proverbs

"An làmb a bheir, 's i a gheibh."

The hand that gives is the hand that gets.

Celtic Proverb

I have had a few people ask me why I have Celtic sayings on my site and pages. The Celtic's were gifted horseman who had a bond with their mounts, ancient world of people who saw meaning in everything. Our hobby farm is in a Celtic name which means wild horse acres, because of my Belladonna. We started focusing more on donkey care and abuse and not so much on horses, even though I owned my mare. That is when I first realized how much I truly enjoyed being around a bunch of wild asses (pun intended) and how a person can gentle and build a bond with them using their own methods and styles. There is no book on ways to gentle and train donkeys because of how different and smart they are. This started to make me think about my mare, how traditional methods had cause us more issues then resolved issues. Why is it okay to be a free spirit in donkey gentling and training but not in wild horses? Why do we have to go by a set of rules? Why must we run them, force and drown them in methods that keep causing more issues then solving?

"Cha chòir an t-each glan a chur uige."

(The willing horse should not be spurred.)

-Old Gaelic proverb-

This saying is on the front page of my site, it is a saying that I look at every day. What does it mean? Have we as horseman ever thought what some proverbs or old sayings really mean? Do we as people expect too much for all things? I believe one of our faults is we expect way too much over things, we rush through life and when our journey in life is over we wonder what our lives were about? Was it a good life or did we just auto pilot ourselves for the last 20 plus years? WE as people set ourselves with rules and by the book plays and I have played by the book for years with my mare.

I have called different trainers and explained her issues and I have had the same repeat response, she a useless cause. Once they do this and that, you can't help them.

WHAT?

All these trainers have methods that run by methods set by today's way of training. WE FORCE AND MAKE animals to do our bidding and when they don't do what we ask we punish them by breaking them down even more.

THERE LIES THE ISSUE WITH BELLADONNA!

I can force her all I want and guess what, we FIGHT. She isn't a horse that takes abuse, heavy handed ways or forcing.

She will try things if you play with her and ask, turn it into her thought and idea. Yet I have tried all the normal methods that have been recommended to me and we have fought for 3 years, to overcome her baggage which she welds damn good.

Can I force her? Yes, but I will not have the results or the effect I want. I will have a pissed off mare who is not retaining any of our training but if I do it how I have trained my donkeys people tell me what I am doing is dangerous and not truly training her, I am just painting over the issue.

So what is correct and not correct? Why do I need to go by rules and be judged when it been clear fact over thousands of years that different methods were used to gentle horses? Why do I as a person need to follow the horse book of training?

Why can't I have a willing horse that is my partner and we have a bond? Is that a silly fantasy?

What fills the eye fills the heart.
Gaelic: An rud a líonas an tsúil líonann sé an croí.

Another Celtic saying that I dearly love. What we put before ourselves in plain view we love and want. We have dreams because of what we have seen and witness in our lives. My dream is to be able to help horses and donkeys, take away their pain and fears and replace it with peace and happiness. To have a partnership that equals out to both man and animal, a willingness to do and live. I don't want to live as a robot in this life and neither do I want my animals to be robotic either. All animals have personalities, why should we take and break that? It is not okay to verbally and physically break a human this way but it is okay to that to a horse? Many people take horses and break them down and we get to see these beautiful empty shells walking around in circles, on auto pilot. They stumble through life as is because what they have had has now been broken and taken.

If you put a horse out he'll always find grass.
Gaelic: Mar capall agus gheogaigh tú féar.

As horseman's what do we dream to Achieve?

The Past Rant

Belladonna and her sister Bruja in Oct 2004.

Pretty wild huh? This was taken a month after we got our wild ones.

Bubba, one of the wild mustang geldings that had baggage that was deadly.

It took me from Sept. to January to build a safe and sane partnership and that was ripped a part by his org. adopter.

He taught me one thing, you have a 1K horse coming at you to do damage you better learn to scale 6 foot high fences QUICK.

Do I blame him? NO, because he was made into this monster. Any person in a pen would cause him to get upset. If you kept a safe distances you be okay.

But get more into his space and he start to wrinkle his nose and twitch a left ear Not pinning his ears back but twitching a left ear. That fooled me about a handful of times until I learned that was HIS way of telling me he about to come unglued.

But in 4 months we finally built a bond and softness, then he was ripped away. He was the first horse to teach me that one has to always be different in approaches and that not all ways will work.

Tule was a 8 year old mustang gelding who was cold. He had no emotion at all but one. that was his pissed off mode and when a look lbs mini draft comes at you the earth rumbles. Tule org people were good but never finished his training and taught him to hate ropes. Tule loved peppermints and once he realized that myself and husband weren't going to inflict pain he started to be a huggable bear. and that are touches were good things, he also learned to be haltered up like a pro.

BUT all these horses I no longer have or know where they are at. It bugs me because I want to know how and if they are okay. I made a mistake in 2006 trusting  family members with a verbal agreement on my mustangs and that beyond blew up, to the point they felt that trying to sell them behind my back was the only way. I had only enough money to get Belladonna and Colby back, even though the deal was set in stone and I gave them 2K worth of panels to secure a months boarding and hauling to Montana. My father in-law was suppose to get Bruja and Tule for hunting and if he didn't want them to return them, well they went from him to another relative who made the choice to sell everyone. Do you know how traumatizing that is to have a e-mail in your box with all your horses for sale? I told the person I knew of it because I didn't want a fuss started but that didn't happen. another person found out and send a rude e-mail to them and that went from bad to a living hell. I almost lost every one and I feel still to this day like my world been turned upside down.  I have been wondering for 3 years where Tule, Bruja and Sundance are. who took them and if they are in safe homes.

My poor mare on the day we got transport to get her and Colby was flipped and butt roped and snubbed to a trailer, to get loaded. Colby took 20 minutes to load and I was 1K miles away. This was the first time I saw my burro and mare in 6 months and I am still harassed that I still owe those morons money etc, because they broke the verbal contract.

This was Belladonna late Aug 2006

same date as above

same date as above

Can anyone see the difference in her from this pictures? She cold and stiff, ready to battle.

Belladonna, Tule and Sunny's butt in April 2006

During that bad few months of rain and rain and rain taken on the first day of SUNSHINE!

I was also accused of starving them, do they look starved or abuse?

Tule aka fatt a$$. this one and the one above was taken 2 weeks before we moved to Montana.

Sundance, he looks starved right?

I have always wonder why and  how people can do what has happen to me? How can people justice themselves when they accused a person of abuse and starving?

I was also told all the mustangs I had were Sh$t animals and that I need to off load them and I said no. My horses were fine but Sunny. Who carried the baggage of abuse and scars to prove that he wasn't going to start new for anything.

What made it okay to traumatize me and take my animals away? was it jealousy or greed? These people had their own horses and breeding farm, yet it seems that my mustangs they sold went fast and none of their stock was sold. I have to wonder if greed was it, yet that greed cost me heartache, pain and a mental breakdown for a while.

and still brings tears to my eyes still seeing these pictures. They all are the reason why I started my journey and barefoot trimming, because each of them told me of their time of being mishandled, beat and scared so bad they do a body shake. No animal deserves that, abuse isn't a answer to a problem. Compassion and understanding is the answer.

But compassion in this day and age seems to be a joke to most people. Those two words compassion and horses, are highly frowned on if used with each other.

The heat and a moment

Yes, It has been a bit since I posted. But do to the fact that life has been busy a bit. The heat has been pretty bad up here in the foothills which makes me check and provide water a few times a day to many animals.

Also hosing down Belladonna, who enjoys water time in the heat.

Our time has been filled with nothing, we just been hanging out and enjoying our time. Yesterday I changed pasture areas for the 3 wild ones. I didn't want to fool around with the halter so I garbed my lead rope and just snapped it around her neck. And prayed that she behave, since we have NEVER walked this way. well I was proud she took to it like we done this way a million times. was actually a lot better this way then a halter, hmmm.

I am still reading, it taken me forever BUT I like it. I am usually a book page burner I speed through. But with the books Brandy loan me, I am making it a fact to really take time and read them. To absorb the book into my head, I am enjoying every moment of it.

ON Sunday July 26th 2009 I will be hosting a hoof trimming clinic for people. so much to prep for and do, but I will try to post again soon. (Note to self every other day would be okay)

Goats will be arriving here on Sunday afternoon, 2 big boys that a person was giving away free. So let's see how the critter crew takes to the spotted monsters. Any one want to make a bet that the burro boys will try and kill them? Or the mare may snort and run from them?

Never a dull moment here, something is always happening.