RNR Horsemanship

This is Dusty! I'll be working him time to time! 🥰
Broke but dull and a tad lazy. Hoping overtime to quicken his response and cues!

Lil.. chunky there 😂
Too many calories and not enough work!

Last haul for the season probably!
Nothing like a day trail ride with a friend! 🥰
Enjoy your horses.

There's that one horse that reminds you why you're doing it. ❤️

Girlie was cleared for light work! Which means just hanging out with my girl!
She's in boots with pads and will likely get glue-on shoes.
So glad to see her doing well again.
Just because you can't work hard doesn't mean there isn't training to do.
Across 2 days I got her confident in letting me guide her into the pond. The first day I just asked her to step down onto the "beach". The 2nd day she walked right onto the muddy sand and was curious about the water, walking in!
Building your partnership is always a priority!

Sorry for the inactivity. With her recent diagnosis of pedal osteitis and ligament changes, she's been off work and has been living the spoiled life as I go through my options on how to help her.
Been researching up on my own of hoof trimming to keep her feet where they need to be to help rehabilitate while working with farriers.
Currently been trying to deepen sole thickness and leave her in boots and pads to encourage heel based landings.
It'll be a long journey with it, and hopefully I can stop it from getting worse.

Take your horses OFF property!
If you want your horse calm at the show or event, you need to get them used to being away from home and learning to be okay.
Training in one area gets a horse arena broke. They're used to their environment and see no need to be distracted. Plain and simple, they get bored!
You'll find when you take them somewhere new they can be a bit fresh to deal with. Honestly, this puts your training and connection to a test. Your horse will have more energy but you should be able to bring them back down from results of your hard work. If it's too much don't be afraid to just do groundwork! You don't have to ride if you don't feel confident enough. Showing your horse to trust you through trails and obstacles is much more important.
You can only get better if you push outside your boundaries, that goes for you AND your horse.

To better how you know what it feels like, look for the proper signs on the ground. I like to ask for manuevers both on the ground as well as undersaddle to see if there's conflict of confusion. It's my job to be crystal clear in my communication to make our partnership flow like a conversation. ☺️

Don't forget to enjoy the reason you have them around 🥰

Your haters are your biggest fans.

They care so much to spam you, to remind you, to keep your fire going. So don't let them down 💪😉

Let your results and passion do the work.

Yes! You have time to ride!!
Not every session should be long and panned out. Sometimes just pick one thing to work on, get it good, and call it quits. Honestly I feel like they absorb the lesson better. 😉

🌟One training spot available!! 🌟
Do you need your horse started?
Restarted?
Add some buttons or maybe just work on their groundwork?
I'm opening up my time for one horse!
I encourage owners to have lessons with me while I teach! So that they may take the training further on!
Located in Lowell, WI. I am able to haul if need be.

💥My services: 💥
▪︎Colt starting
▪︎Fundamental to Advanced groundwork
▪︎Fundamental to Advanced riding
▪︎Desensitization
▪︎Trailer Loading
▪︎Problem Horses
▪︎Trail riding

Nice to be back consistently in the saddle! 🥰

Spend time with your horse.
On their time and terms.
If you're always asking them to do what you wanna do it doesn't create a relationship.
We tend to forget about their wants when we have our own goals in mind.
So hang out with them in pasture. Take a walk. Explore. Give them some scratches. Groom them. Just love on em you know? They give so much to us.

Took advantage of the beautiful weather! ❤️

CLEAN AND MAINTAIN!!
Keeping leather supple and healthy helps keep your butt where it's supposed to be.. in the saddle.. on the horse. If your leather snaps or stirrups comes undone and you fall, it's only by a lack of care and caution. Equipment needs to be looked after with the proper care!
If your leather is cracking or has gotten too thin, it would be best to replace asap.
I always take my saddles completely apart at least twice a year.

Working at liberty is so fulfilling. It gives you the chance to work on your own body language. Horses can't communicate human, so it's our job to understand them and relate.

Lunging is not about walking the horse in circles or getting the fresh out of them.
It's about developing your horse.

Lunging allows you to see the way they carry themselves and how soft or stiff they are.
I usually let the horse tell ME what she needs work on. Of course I go out with a plan, but usually it gets tossed aside pretty quick.

The smaller the circle you go the harder it is for them to be collected, bendy, and soft! So little by little, make the circle smaller as you ask them to be supple.

Be careful where you board.
Be careful who you trust your animals to.

Just because they charge $700, doesn't mean they care about your animal.
Just because they charge $100, doesn't mean they lack care.

Fancy facilities or ranches. The cost of care vs the knowledge of care. I've come to know that the places that are more private, less fancy, more fields, have the best care for my horse.

Places that stall animals half the day create mental illnesses. Places that only feed twice a day starve your horse. Keep in mind, anything more than 4 hours is considered fasting for them. The likeness of ulcers sky rocket, the more behavior problems you'll find.
I used to work at stables where over half the horses had cribbing collars or weaved, being only turned out to clean their stall.

People are afraid to let their horse be a horse. Yes, they get injured. Yes, they're an anxious mess. Stalls have their place. And not every horse is the same. But as humans we tend to place ourselves first. Wether the facility has stalls, or an indoor, or heated tack room, rather then how the stay is for the horse who lives there.

Convenience doesn't work with horses.
But that's just my two cents.

Cin is on a break at the moment being treated for Ulcers. She's been sensitive to her flanks and having random episodes of anxiety.

After one week she's already better. Will treat for another week and then wean her off.

The only way to know if a horse has a training problem vs a health problem is by the history and knowledge of your horse. Advice is nice if you have a problem, but it's really only your decision on what to do since you know your horse best. I listen to people's experience and try to compare it to my situation.

If anything bothers my horse I always do a pain checklist. If they pass that then it's a training issue.
The connection you have with your horse should tell you which is which! :)

I guess this needs to be said.
I'm not a professional. I work in horsemanship and finding a connection and mutual trust between horse and rider. I've been around horses 5 years. In horse time, that's incredibly small. Starting out, ive done things that I'm not proud of. I listened to the strangers around me, telling me to bit up, s***k, kick, whip my horses. I've learned to always take stuff with a grain of salt. No one knows my horse and training more than me, my vets, and farriers. I'm always 100% honest when selling or training a horse. If an event happens, i tell the barn owner or owner if im able to. I encourage owners to work the horse WITH me. So that they may understand why the horse needs training to begin with.
However, what a stranger has to say without working with me will never even cross my mind twice.

I've worked with a lot of problematic horses that had issues stemmed from mishandlement from the owner. I don't do eveything perfectly, and I don't do eveything right. I do get results and better horses. I'm still learning, and always learning. I think there's always a better way to do something.

To put someone down simply because your way of training is what you claim better isn't okay. If it works for you that's great! But please don't push it onto me and slander me because I don't agree.

I don't train horses for a living, although I'd like to. I always strive for more experience.
If I get frustrated or unsure, I research and apply that to the situation. Seeing what works best for that indivual horse at that time.
Not all horses learn the same. Some are far more reactive and explosive, and some could care less about anything. Some require patience, some require more assertive methods. Though all problems have a root to look for.

I do my best in terms of my safety, the horses safety, and what they learn. If I'm doing something and I find it's not working, I'll try something else until that horse has a grasp of what's going on.
I think all horses should be roped and hobbled. Some even flanked if they're reactive. If that cinch connecter breaks and the cinch flys back, your safety is gravely at a higher risk. It's my job to create safe horses for people. And to show people how to read their horse.
I don't tolerate intended harm to a horse. If you are whipping, using chains, spikes, to get a horse to do what you want, that's not horsemanship it's slavery.
I've spoken up against multiple people for telling me to s***k my horse to get it to stop pawing. When I just trained my horse to hobble, and used hobbles for a month. The horse learned to give to pressure, be okay being trapped, and to wait for me. Rather than a slap and fear.

The horse community needs to stop slandering each other and just help one another. No one is better then each other. We are ALL learning. And we ALL make mistakes. We just have to do better for the horses sake.

Work your horse with multiple desensitization tools! Bags, noodles, tarps, cones, jackets, streamers, anything!
Horses are scared of TWO things.
Things that move.
Things that don't move.
Things that are noisy with movement are extra spooky! Such as bags.
I want my horse to not care for anything attached to her as if it was part of the saddle. If I ever have to carry something I want to know I can trust her to be confident with it.

I introduce objects around her, and touching her, before slapping them on. I don't allow her to run in circles in blind anxiety. I change directions frequently, and even ask her to back up in circles. Horses that are nervous won't back up unless it's fighting. They will always run back and forth to find escape routes.

So I have an exercise of rollback spirals.
I start her on the end of my rope in a lunge, preferably at a walk, trot if she wants, but no canter. If she does I immediately yield the HQ. If they panic, the canter escalates their instinct.
Every 3/4 of the circle I ask her to change directions. Each time my hand slides down the rope until she's 4 feet away. Then I ask her to yield and rest.
I repeat this until she can change directions with a sense of slow and relaxation.

What a beautiful day 🥰

When you see it, reward it!
A horse will go about their life running with their head upside down if you let em. Some horses are naturally good at moving, while others you have to guide them and encourage that movement.
Even with good movement, you'll still get moments of the horse out of frame when they get tense or nervous. It's our job to guide them back into it. Not by force.