Clinton Anderson Downunder Horsemanship Clinic

This past weekend Lisa of Laughing Orca Ranch flew in from New Mexico to put some use to that second free ticket I won to attend the Clinton Anderson Downunder Horsemanship clinic at the Reno-Sparks Livestock Events Center. When I mentioned that I was having a hard time finding someone to go with me, she left a comment that she'd like to attend the show. I doubted that she could get away from all of her responsibilities at home to visit little old me in a faraway land, but thanks to Ranchman John taking some time off from work and Jem & Jax holding down the fort, she was able to make the trip after all.

I've been to Arabian horse shows at the Livestock Events Center before, but Clinton Anderson's clinic turned out to be a much more popular event. Not only did Lisa overhear some girls at the airport talking about the clinic, but we got stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway for quite some time before we reached the parking lot.

I was surprised to find out that Clinton taught the two-day long clinic all by himself. Some horse trainers bring in their apprentices to do some of the presentations. His clinic progressed in a logical order, beginning with Clinton talking about his philosophy followed by examples of ground training followed by a presentation under saddle. We only attended the Saturday show. I don't think our butts could have withstood another day of sitting in those plastic seats.

Clinton has a wonderful sense of humor. He's not just a knowledgable horse trainer, but a good entertainer as well. He had the audience laughing throughout the show. Whenever the roar of our laughter frightened his horse, he asked the entire audience to stand up, scream, and sit down repeatedly until his horse stopped moving his feet and showed one of these signs of relaxation (i.e. using the thinking side of its brain instead of the reactionary side):

1. Lowering head.
2. Licking and chewing.
3. Cocking a hind hoof.
4. Taking a deep breath.

While Clinton was talking to the audience, everyone started giggling because his horse Diaz was licking and chewing just at the sound of his voice.

Diaz followed him around more like a puppy than a horse. Just look at the muscle on that pup...

I'm not wild about pigeon-holing horse breeds, but Clinton cracked a joke about horse breeds that gave everyone the fits. He said that if a mountain lion were stalking a Mustang, the Mustang would run for 325-feet before stopping to look back to see if the mountain lion was still chasing it. If a Thoroughbred were being stalked by a mountain lion, it would run for three miles before stopping to look back. If an Arabian were being stalked, it would run to Canada. If a Draft Horse were being stalked, it would move three-feet before checking on that status of the mountain lion. Of course, his fast-talking delivery made it all the more entertaining.

I know that Clinton does not want videos being taken at his clinics, nor does he want a word-for-word script published regarding his teachings, so I'll just touch on a few topics that he covered. He's actually very accomodating of the audience. He said he's willing to answer all questions with just a couple of rules. Number one was that if you ask a question during the clinic, you need to keep it on the current topic. That's totally fair, because the other thousand audience members don't want to get side-tracked by questions from audience members who weren't paying attention or by people monopolizing the horse trainer's time with personal problems. Number two was that if you approach him with a question while he is walking somewhere, you have to walk with him so that he can get from Point A to Point B. He said, "If I walk into the bathroom, just follow me right in there and slip napkins with questions on them under the stall door."

Here are some thoughts that Clinton passed on regarding horses:

1. If you walk sideways, your horse better walk sideways. Training your horse to stay out of your space is a safety precaution.

2. The left side and the right side of a horse do not share information, so you have to train both sides of the horse. We saw evidence of this multiple times throughout the show when the horses learned a behavior from one side and perfected it, only to retreat into their reactionary behavior once Clinton started the process over on the opposite side of the horse's body. As Lisa said, I think I own three horses, but I actually own six.

3. When your horse is being reactionary, the way to get him thinking is to get his feet moving. Move him forward, backward, left and right as quickly as you can.

4. When it comes to horses and humans, whoever moves his feet first loses. The leader stands still, the follower moves his feet.

5. Training horses is a subtle dance between sensitizing and desensitizing. You need to sensitize your horse to your leg, rein, and seat cues, so that he responds right away, yet you want to desensitize your horse to sudden movements and loud sounds that would normally draw out his reactionary side.

6. The three ways to control your horse's mind are to create his movement, redirect his movement, and inhibit his movement.

We interrupt this broadcast with some commercial advertising. Be sure to wash your horse with the XYZ Soap Sprayer. It's convenient, easy, and offers even coverage all over your horse's body...

Right before each break, Clinton brought out some products and endorsed them. He also gave away either a coupon for the product or the product itself to audience members as a reward for answering his questions correctly when he quizzed us after each section of the clinic. He sold programs for $5.00. Each one had a number on it, and the announcer called out a couple of numbers during each break to win a prize. Lisa and I were good about keeping our pocketbooks tightly shut with the exception of giving in to our hunger and thirst.

Taking indoor pictures was difficult. We had to keep waiting for Clinton and his horse to hold still, otherwise they turned out blurry. Clinton is very animated, so getting him to hold still required a lot of patience. I decided to show you this picture because it does a good job of capturing the speed involved in some of the maneuvers he performed on Diaz.

Back to our regularly scheduled program...

7. When teaching a horse to stand tied, only untie him when he is quiet and using the thinking side of his brain. Untying is a release or a reward, and whatever his last action was before you released him is the behavior that you taught him to do. Therefore, if you release your horse from a tie while he is pulling back, you teach him to get out of tying by pulling back.

8. To train a horse to accept being haltered, start by teaching him to face you. With a lead rope in one hand attached to the halter on his head, keep him facing you with both eyes. With a whip in the other hand, creep around his side like you are going to whack him in the butt with the whip. If he doesn't continue to face you, wave the whip in the air near his butt. If he still doesn't turn to face you, whack him on the butt with the whip. Soon he'll learn to not turn his butt toward you, which is always a good thing since no one wants to be kicked by a horse. Then you can play a game where you carry the halter toward his butt and pretend like you are going to halter his tail. He won't want you near his butt, and he'll turn to face you. If you do that enough times, he will be begging you to just put that dang halter on his head. (Hopefully, he'll still let you near his tail to wash it.)

9. Moving the hindquarters: Start with the body language, use the whip first in the air then on the horse, and move away as soon as the horse responds by moving his hindquarters.

10. Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard for the horse.

11. With each set of four, increase the pressure until the horse responds correctly, then release the pressure. Releasing the pressure means that if you were walking toward the horse, walk away. If you were waving a stick, stop waving it. If you were pulling on the lead rope, stop pulling. If you were squeezing with your legs, stop squeezing. Horses don't need a sticker chart or candy for a reward. Their needs are very simple. They just want to rest and grow fatter. It doesn't hurt to rub the horse with the stick or whip as a part of the reward, so that he learns that the stick can bring both reward and pressure.

12. A 45-degree angle toward the horse's shoulder is the safest location to stand while doing ground training.

During the breaks, Clinton signed autographs, answered questions and posed for pictures. Here's Lisa patiently waiting for the money shot...

Wouldn't it be amazing to be your own product and help a lot of people all at the same time?

At the end of the day on Saturday, Clinton posed on Diaz with his many admirers for even more photographs...

Check out the length of this line...

I have to commend all these people for having the patience to wait their turn. Patience is a great trait to have if you work around horses. I was telling Lisa that because I am familiar with so many horse trainers, I can avoid standing in long lines to talk to them by attending the Western States Horse Expo on the very first day at opening time. Since I recognize their faces, I can approach them to chat before most people even know who they are. Once the curtain parts and they ride out on their horses, they are suddenly mobbed with admirers and horsemen seeking their knowledge. It must be odd to be treated like a god.

Sunday Stills: Currency

Lisa asked me if I planned on doing the Sunday Stills Challenge this weekend. I had said no, because I didn't have any creative ideas. However, I later spotted our spare change jar sitting on the floor in a dusty corner and realized I could include some shots of our stockpile. Hopefully, it's not enough to inspire anyone to mug me.

Does Horseback Riding Have an Age Limit?

Working in the software industry, code releases are what drive my schedule. Every time that my company has a code release for a product, I have to put in 10 to 15-hour workdays, which doesn't leave me much time to take care of my family's needs, take care of myself, or do the activities that I enjoy. Lately, my company has been having major code releases every one to two weeks, and I am exhausted.

I had a talk with my husband about what it is like to feel owned by your employer. There's a fine line between being employed and being a slave. I really, really, really would like to spend more time with my horses. If I could cut back to part-time hours and trust my employer to not force me to work any longer than my agreed upon schedule allows, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The problem is that I used to work part-time for my company, and ended up being forced to work 40 hours while I was only getting paid for 20. I said, "If you are going to make me work 40 hours a week, you may as well pay me for full-time work and give me the benefits that go along with it."

Now I am stuck working 60 hours a week and getting paid for a salaried 40 hours. Anyway, my husband made the comment that he doesn't feel pressure to hurry up and do the things he loves anymore, because he has realized that when he retires, he will have plenty of time to do what he pleases. He says he's just content to do his job. That's good to hear, because for many years he was not content, and he spent a bit of time hopping from job to job. It's nice to have the security of being married to a man who is happy with his job.

However, I pointed out that by the time I am able to retire, around the age of 65, I will probably be too old, too fragile, and in too much pain to be able to do what I love, which is to ride horses. Not to mention that my horses will probably be too old to have me riding them, assuming they are still alive. My husband agreed. It's better that I get a chance to ride now while I have the strength.

If my favorite pastime were reading books or knitting, I wouldn't be worried. I know there are plenty of people well into their 70's who still ride horses, but I believe most of those people are ranchers who rode every day of their lives anyway. The riding is what kept them in shape. I have to look at my own genes, and the closest thing to me is my mother. There's no way she can safely ride a horse at her age. Her bones are the consistency of dust. She has to be careful where she places her foot each time she takes a step, because she once took a wrong step and the top of her tibia crumbled. She now walks thanks to the bone of an organ donor.

Do you see yourself riding horses in retirement? Do you know people who do ride later in life?

Placing a Value on Time

I made it in to see a specialist earlier this week, and she did a good job examining me and running tests, unlike the previous doctor. She ruled out all the big, scary possibilities to my health problems and even debunked the previous doctor's suggestion that I was just suffering from an anxiety disorder. She said that since I've been sleeping well and eating well, I most likely don't have an anxiety disorder, but I already knew that. Most of the really bad symptoms I've had over the past two months subsided this past weekend. All that is left are the dizzy spells.

Despite the good news about my health, things started going downhill when this latest doctor ordered a pelvic sonogram. I walked from the doctor's office to x-ray and asked if they could by any chance fit me in right then. They said they could and had me sign some papers, and then I sat and read a book in the waiting room, feeling quite pleased that I was going to kill two birds with one stone in one day.

Then they called me back to the billing desk and said, "Why is your doctor ordering a mammogram for you when you just had one six months ago?"

I said, "She didn't order a mammogram. She ordered a pelvic sonogram."

"That's not what she has marked here. We'll have to reschedule you for another day, and you will need to take this back to your doctor to have it fixed."

So, I walked all the way back to my doctor's office and read a book in her waiting room while she finished up with a patient, and then crossed off her previous checkmark and checked the correct box. Had I known that was all she was going to do, I would have done it myself and saved twenty minutes of my time.

I had my appointment scheduled for 2:00 PM today, but received a call at 8:15 AM telling me that the technician who does the sonograms is feeling ill and wants to go home early today. She asked if I could reschedule for 11:30 AM. I said, "Sure." She then said, "Make sure you actually show up at 11:15 AM to fill out the paperwork."

I had already filled out the paperwork three days before, but still arrived at 11:15 AM like the lady requested, and the receptionist started arguing with me telling me I had arrived at the wrong time. I was scheduled for 2:00 PM. As usual, the right hand doth not know what the left hand is doing.

I straightened that out, only to be bombarded with questions to verify my name, birth date, address, phone number, insurance, etc. I hate it when medical offices ask me for all the personal information while a whole slew of strangers are sitting right behind me listening in. If someone wants to steal someone's identity, all they have to do is sit in a waiting room near a medical billing desk and they will get an earful. I once had a doctor follow me out into a waiting room and say loudly, "You have to wait a week to turn in that urine sample because you have your period!"

You could have heard a pin drop as all eyes turned toward my crotch. Talk about slinking out of some place with your tail tucked between you legs.

I interjected that I had just been in there three days before answering all these questions, and nothing had changed in the past three days. I did not move to a different address, I did not change my phone number, and I did not get new insurance. The lady ignored me and continued asking her robotic questions as I tried to hide my contempt over her inability to use common sense. I understand that they need to make sure they have matched the right person with the right file so that they don't perform the wrong procedure on the wrong person, however the chances of someone else having my exact same name, birth date and address are slim. She probably could have stopped with the questions at that point.

The whole scene kind of reminded me of what I go through at the market each weekend. While I am handing the Courtesy Clerk my canvas shopping bags, he or she always asks, "Paper or plastic?" The question has become such a habit for them that they don't use their brains anymore.

Despite signing all the paperwork three days before and her having it sitting right in front of her, she made me sign a fresh set of papers a second time simply because it was a new day. When a patient checks into a hospital, do they have to keep signing papers each day offering consent for the doctors to work on them simply because the date changes? I know they have to sign consent for each different procedure, but this paperwork was identical to the paperwork I previously signed. I was baffled by the stupidity of it all, but went along with the process in hopes of getting in and out as quickly as possible. I signed my life away, and then retreated to the waiting room with a book.

Around me, people with the flu coughed and sputtered while I held my breath as much as possible. I wasn't wild about having a sick technician rub jelly on my belly, but I planned to place a coat sleeve over my mouth and nose during the procedure. Many people came in after me and got called in before me. However, I knew there were different lab technicians and equipment, so I figured they were going in for some other procedure. Before I knew it, an hour had passed, the receptionists were taking their lunch break, and I was starving.

I approached the window and told them I had been waiting an hour and would need to reschedule, as my hour lunch break was all I had to spare, and I needed to get back to work. The receptionist looked confused like she had forgotten all about me and didn't even know who I was, despite me taking the seat closest to her window so that I'd be right in front of her face. I suspect she left the 2:00 PM label on my folder, so no one ever called me in, because they thought my folder was inadvertently left out on the counter by mistake.

She kept apologizing and then waiting for a response from me. I said nothing. I wasn't about to say, "That's okay," because it wasn't. I was told an hour before that someone would be out to get me "in a moment." Because they wasted my entire lunch break, I didn't get to muck out my stalls, so now my horses have to spend a night standing in their own poop. Wasting people's time has far-reaching effects.

I rescheduled, then stopped at Subway for some lunch on the way back to work. Though I love their sandwiches, their customer service is about as flaky as what I've been experiencing with the medical industry.

"What kind of bread would you like?"

"A wheat foot-long, please."

"You want six inches or a foot-long?"

"A wheat foot-long, please."

"Do you want wheat, white, or something else?"

"For the third time, I want wheat."

"What type of sandwich?"

"Subway Melt."

The clerk sets down my bread and starts talking to her friend, returns to my bread and says, "What type of sandwich do you want?"

"For the second time, I want a Subway Melt."

"Right. What kind of cheese?"

"Sweeeeeeiiiiiisssss," I say in a loud, funny accent in hopes that it will catch her attention and she won't instantly forget what I said.

She starts picking up and dropping each type of cheese, confused now, then looks up at me with a pleading expression.

"SWISS!" I say with much less patience.

With each question she asked, I could see her eyes glaze over while she retreated into La La Land as I answered. I wouldn't be surprised if the girl was on dope. This is actually the same routine that I go through at every sandwich shop I visit. I'd swear that delis always hire the worst listeners.

On and on it went until I got to the cash register to pay, and the guy at the register couldn't figure out how much change to give me when I handed him $7.25 for a $7.23 sandwich. Meanwhile, this pushy lady in line behind me kept stepping on my toes and bumping into me to try to push me out of her way when I hadn't even received my change yet. I finally got my two cents, but the woman wouldn't let me take the time to put the pennies in my wallet, put my wallet in my purse, zip it closed, get my freakin' sandwich and leave.

Truth be told, I should have just told him to keep the change, grabbed my sandwich and bailed out of there before I flipped out. However, this pushy woman was pissing me off so much that I couldn't resist jerking her around. It's kind of like when you are already going 10 MPH over the speed limit and some jerk gets right on your rear bumper and starts weaving back and forth because he wants you to go faster. Most people in that situation tend to react by slowing down just to annoy the impatient speeder.

The situation with this lady next to me in line was bizarre. It was like I was a ghost and she didn't see me, so she kept stepping into the space I was standing in. Like a good rebel, I took my sweet time going through all those motions of putting the two measly pennies in my wallet, zipping my wallet closed, putting my wallet in my purse, zipping my purse closed, etc. while the guy behind the register stared at me dumbfounded for taking up so much of his time and counter space. (Probably a whopping 30-seconds.) Little did he know, I probably spent the same amount of time waiting for him to figure out my change. I gave him the courtesy of keeping quiet while he did his math, and now I was being rushed to move away from the counter for the next customer to pay. They were literally piling sandwiches on top of mine, so I had to sort through all of them to figure out which was mine once I got my purse zipped up.

When I got home I fed the horses, let the dogs out, and then started work and ate at the same time. I needed to pick up the mail and was waiting for a break where I could spare one minute to walk out to the curb to pick it up. I finally got that minute and headed out for the mailboxes.

This is what always astounds me. There are 1,440 minutes in a day and 10 neighbors who need 1 minute to pick up their mail. What are the odds that two or more of those neighbors will collide with one another while picking up their mail? Pretty slim odds, huh? Well, it happens to me all the time.

I'm walking to my mailbox, and someone pulls into the turnout in their car. The driver doesn't see me, and then proceeds to sit there in her car reading her mail while I stand there waiting for her to move her big, fat sedan or whatever out of the way so I can get to my mailbox. I usually end up having to knock on the passenger window to get the driver's attention, which scares the $#*% out of her, and then she moves her car. If it is one of my more chatty neighbors, I prefer not to knock on her window, because I only have a moment to spare between work tasks and don't want to get caught in a web of conversation. In those cases, I go back to the house and try again later.

I posted a NO PARKING sign in the mailbox turnout, because too many people were parking their vehicles right up against the mailboxes, and then walking across the street to visit homes there, oblivious to the fact that they were preventing everyone in the neighborhood from getting their mail. It's beginning to look like I might need to post a sign that says something like, "30-Second Stopping Only." Obviously, people have to stop there to pick up their mail, but they don't need to stay there for several minutes while they read it. They can drive the rest of the way home and read their mail at home.

It is reasonable for them to sort through their mail before driving off, so that they can make sure that it is all addressed to them, but actually opening each envelope and reading the contents word for word while someone is waiting is not acceptable. You wouldn't do that in a post office while people are waiting in line behind you.

I also think that it is polite to let people in stores put their wallets away and zip up their purses before pushing them out of the store. There have been so many times when I wasn't given enough time to zip up my purse, and I forgot that it was open. Next thing I knew, I was in a crowd of people and someone was bumping into my purse. I looked down and saw it was open. I had to check the contents to make sure I hadn't been the victim of a pick-pocket.

In some ways, by being impatient with people who read their mail and block the mailboxes with their car,I feel like I'm behaving no differently than the pushy woman in line who wouldn't give me time to get my change, but in other ways I feel I am justified in taking action to make others realize that they are wasting my time, and my time is just as valuable as the next person's. Where do you draw the line when someone is wasting your time? And how do you handle it? Likewise, how do you deal with unreasonably pushy people like the woman in line who couldn't wait for me to get my change?

Living in a rural community for 20 years, we've been fortunate enough to share the community with people who were mostly polite. However, now that our community is growing quickly with people from all different backgrounds making this valley their home, I'm finding myself being confronted by rude behavior more and more often. On one end of the rude spectrum, you've got groups of people who stand in doorways having conversations, blocking everyone else from getting in or out of the store. On the other end of the rude spectrum, you've got people who push up against you in line and start swiping their card to pay for their groceries while your groceries are still on the conveyor belt waiting to be bagged. I feel like both parties need to be kept in check. People won't change their behavior unless you call them on it... or at the very least jerk them around so that their rude behavior does not pay off.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to what is reasonable. Not everyone can move at the same speed. I'm sensitive to people who walk with canes, I actually wait for pedestrians to reach the sidewalk before proceeding through intersections, I pull over for emergency vehicles, I go 15 MPH in school zones, and I give people their space in lines. I always wait my turn at both intersections and in delis, yet every time I go somewhere someone else always manages to cut me off or take my turn. I was happy to see a speed trap set up in the school zone of my son's school today, since I'm one of the rare few who actually respects the speed limit there. I'm so used to being on the receiving end of a middle finger for obeying the law. However, I've seen a lot of kids in comas thanks to idiots who blast through school zones. In fact, I saw one child killed right before my eyes many years ago. That's something you never forget.

Nobody knows as well as I do the pressure to be in two or three different places at once and knowing there will never be enough hours in the day to get it all done. But it's not worth killing someone over. It's not even worth being rude to someone and putting a damper on their day or thwarting their schedule by cutting in line or taking their turn. Alternatively, someone who is retired or on vacation needs to realize that others around them may still have jobs to do. If you want to loiter somewhere and tell someone your life story, step to the side so that those who don't have time to wait for you to finish can pass. If you are in a line of work where you serve customers, pay attention to them and be sensitive to their time. Most of us don't have much to spare. We need to be civilized, respect each others space, respect each others safety, and respect each others time. I suspect that those who do respect these things find that they get what they need fastest of all.

P.S. If you had the patience to read through this entire post, consider yourself one of the fortunate few who has time to spare. I am deeply envious. If you just skimmed through this post, I'll give you a couple of points for trying. If you took one look at its length and moved on to some blog with cute pictures of puppies, bunnies, donkeys, and horses, I totally understand.

New Books

I stopped at the bookstore the other day and picked up these two books. I haven't had time to read them yet, but thought that my experience in making this purchase was worthy of writing a post about.

First of all, "Angel Horses" by Allen & Linda Anderson is one in a long line of feel-good books where authors compile a series of short stories about how horses touched people's lives. This one was published in 2006 and must still be selling well. Many, many years ago there were a whole slew of angel books being published. I enjoyed reading them as long as they didn't go too deep into preaching specific religions or the Bible. I just enjoyed reading about people's spiritual experiences. Eventually, publishers extended that genre into people's spiritual experiences with animals. I'm glad they included horses. I'll write a review for this book when I finish it.

Secondly, I've been looking for a horseback riding trail guide for my area. So far, I have only found one and heard of one other decent trail where people can safely ride their horses. Each time I looked through the bookstore, I could only find books on the history of my region. I finally approached the bookstore's information booth to ask for help. I found both a lady and a young man who were more than happy to help me hunt down what I was looking for, even though I warned them that it probably doesn't exist. A search of the computer proved me right.

So, they walked me over to this hidden bookshelf that contained a good selection of trail books. I've been shopping in this store for years and never knew that bookshelf was there. It was hidden in a nook in the cafe. The young man pulled a book off the shelf and said, "This one describes all the motorcycle and ATV trails in the area."

I said, "That's what I'm trying to avoid. I don't want to ride a horse around motorized vehicles."

He put it back on the shelf, but I found it interesting that off-road motorized sports have grown enough in popularity that people are publishing books that help motorcyclists and ATVers locate places to ride. Yet people have been riding horses for centuries, and it is almost impossible to find a horseback trail riding book. What's up with that? Are we trail riders just a very small minority not worthy of the publishing business's time?

Anyway, after having dozens of hiking trail books piled into my arms, I sat down at a table in the cafe and sorted through them. I settled on "Afoot & Afield Reno-Tahoe" by Mike White because in its index it listed equestrian trails, and the descriptions for each trail were thorough. Not surprisingly, the best horseback riding trail is the one I've been using. The others are all in California and will require me to get a different set of shots and papers, and a brand inspection for my horses. I'll plan to take care of that next spring.

A Romp in the Leaves

There's nothing quite like a romp in the leaves after taking a bath and getting your butt shaved...