PS - "The Perfect Horse" Profile

Yesterday a curious thing happened: a friend sent me an ad she'd seen for a Paso Fino mare for sale. Now she knows what kind of horse we're looking for, for The Sean Project. She also knows that a 6 yo Paso Fino mare is NOT that horse. And she also knows how much I love that breed, and that I will need another trail horse in the not-too-distant future myself.

I called the owner and then got excited about the horse as we talked. The more I learned about the horse, the more I liked the horse. But this horse was the OPPOSITE of what I had been thinking about, for The Sean Project! I can't justify having two more horses. No way can we afford that. So why was I even thinking about this young horse which would be only for me??

The price was very reasonable because the horse needs training. While the horse has been ridden some, it is a "project" in that it lacks training. But that's a good project. A bad project in my view, would be a horse that had been abused or a horse that I would extensively have to RE-TRAIN. This was not the case with this horse! I still almost felt guilty getting excited about this horse though, because it was not a Sean Project horse I was looking at!!

Well, Mick and I talked all about it as soon as he got home. For the price, and for the info about the horse, it seemed like a dream come true. Mick said he was amazed I wasn't driving down to the see the horse right now! Well of course I was feeling strange because this horse was so totally different from the type I'd been thinking of getting for Sean. Mick is good about these things. He is the greatest person in the world to talk to. He has a way of pointing things out and he helped me see a few things here.

What it all comes down to is this: Sean will follow our enthusiasm. He always has and he always will. And every time that we have gone out of our way to get something "for Sean" that we think he'll love, we fall flat on our faces!!! We can't second guess Sean- ever!!

On the other hand, Mick told me that I am good enough with horses now to get a younger horse and train that horse myself - something I have never (until now) considered myself good enough to do. But he is right. My trail horse is pretty old, even though she is in great shape. If I get a horse that WE are enthusiastic about, we can use it for the Sean Project maybe in another way - perhaps Sean can ride one horse while I pony him from mine.... who knows. But the main point of my thought on this is that when we try to second guess Sean, it just doesn't work.

Our next horse wil just have to be one that we love, personality wise, and that will bond to us and we'll see what happens from there with Sean and how the horse will fit into The Sean Project. Maybe it won't. Maybe Sean will just be happy to feed it carrots and goodies the way he is with our other horses, who knows? But we'll just have to go one step at a time while we explore our horse journey!! Be daring! Be passionate! Follow your nose! Mick has always said that to me, and he's always right. Every time I have followed my nose, things have worked out for us and the horses. This is another time when I just have to follow my nose!!

That particular horse may already be sold, by the way. There was a gentleman who went to see her last night and put a deposit down on her, but he has to come back next week to ride her. If he buys her, then she wasn't the right horse for us, but the whole experience of looking at the ad, talking to the owner, examining my own horsemanship skills, and re-evaluating our goals was a tremendous experience!!! I feel much more open to things on the "horse front" now.

This is all so fun and exciting! Who knows where it is leading us, but it sure is exciting!!
Nancy

While we roast in the Colorado heat, the horses seem to be doing OK in it. Chuparosa ("Rosa") never goes into the shade but prefers to stay out in the hot sun. It's over 100 degrees again today. The heat has been breaking records for the past two weeks. Bailey, our old gelding, doesn't have much to munch on anymore in his 10 acre pasture because the relentless heat has turned the green to brown out there. I have begun giving him hay in the middle of the day to augment the weeds. He is still happy to wander around the field munching all day long and to nap in the sun once in a while.

The dogs have been happy to get out early, have a romp around and sleep the rest of the day! And our newest addition to the family is a tiny kitten Mick named Kokopelli, who sleeps on my pillow every night. He's napping there by himself now! I've added a picture of him on our computer desk to show how small he is. I hope I have added the photo right!!

Sean is sitting right in front of the cooler, in our living room floor! Sean prefers sitting on the floor to sitting on furniture. I think it's because he can't trip or fall if he's already on the floor. It's carpeted, and just plain comfortable for him.

Later today we'll take Sean swimming. Ever since Sean was 7 years old, he has loved swimming. He learned to move his body in a therapy pool when he was tiny, being held by one of the staff. He couldn't move much when he was little, but the daily therapy pool work helped teach him that he can move his body around. He started walking when he was 5 and I'm sure if it hadn't been for the pool work it would have taken him much longer!

How Sean taught himself to swim will be the subject of another entry.
Nancy

Profile of our "Perfect Horse"

We are continuing with Sean's relearning how to mount a horse. The weather for the past week however has been so intense that the only time I could do anything with Sean is very early in the morning, or in the evening, just before sunset.
So while we continue working on this goal with Sean, I thought it would be a good idea to describe what the "perfect" Sean Project Horse might be. Our two horses do not fit this criteria, so we will need to find this "perfect horse" somewhere!

If you or anyone you know has a horse that sounds like this, please let us know!!!

BUILD: 1) The "perfect" Sean Project horse will be between 14 hands and 15 hands in height. (a "hand" is 4 inches. In the horse world, height is measured in "hands"). This is NOT a tall horse. In fact, I don't want a horse taller than 15 hands. Why? Because if Sean decides to slide off the horse, he can do so without a huge drop, which could hurt his ankles.
2) The horse will be wide-backed and quite stocky. This is because such a horse can more easily take weight than a slender horse. This is crucial. The first part of our riding again (after several years) is going to be double. Sean and I will ride the horse, at a walk, just around our pasture. I'm sure Sean will remember our double riding, and this will be a great, secure way for him to get used to it again. Riding double like this, until Sean feels secure, may take weeks, or months. Obviously we are not going to put a strain on the horse, but it's important that the horse can handle this weight, for short periods of probably 20 to 30 minutes at a time.
3) Built so its trot is not bone-jarring. If the horse is gaited, so much the better, but that's not a requirement for The Sean Project. (It would be great for everyone else though!)

TEMPERAMENT: This horse will love people. It will want attention and enjoy the company of people, It will be very caring of its rider. It will take care if it feels the rider losing balance and will stop or adjust itself to keep the rider on. This is not unusual, but it is vital to us in this Sean Project. We do not want a horse that will just keep going no matter what is happening on its back. This temperament is just as important as the horse's physical build.

TRAINING: 1) Obviously this horse has to be extremely well trained. It has to be trail savvy, meaning it is familiar with all sorts of things it might encounter out on the trail: water, holes, ditches, snakes, etc. These are things that may be in our pasture from time to time and the horse must be completely at ease around general trail obstacles. Part of this includes having a horse trained to not spook at noises, moving objects like plastic bags in the wind, etc. Ideally, the horse would have been a "schooling" horse - one used to new riders and very well trained to be calm amidst noises, changes of weather, moving objects etc. Or the horse could be a successful field trial horse which would include that it is trained to gunshots.


2) The horse also has to know where its feet are at all times (many don't!). This may sound silly, but some horses have never been trained to actually look at the footing themselves! Some horses have been trained to NEVER make a decision on their own and that's not good. We'll need a horse that knows where its feet are at all times, is sure-footed, and can be allowed and trusted to pick its way through something.

3) The horse also has to be trained to ground tie, meaning if a rein drops to the ground. it won't shy but it WILL stop.

While I can teach a horse to ground tie, the first 2 items in this "Training" category really need to be in place before the horse comes to us. This is because I can do training of a horse, but not while doing The Sean Project.
The above points are what I consider necessary. In addition to being The Sean Project Horse, this horse would also double as a trail horse for visitors.

AGE: It just has to be physically mature - I'd say at least 7 or 8 years old - up to 18 if the horse is sound and in excellent condition. I would think a horse about 13 or 14 would be ideal. Again, build and personality are key.

GENDER: No matter. I would prefer a gelding but if the perfect horse turns out to be a mare (and it could very well be) than so be it!

PRICE: Honestly, we don't have much money, so the price has to be within our means. If a person who has this "perfect horse" is willing to work with us, then I'm sure we can work with them and come to some equitable arrangement.

So there it is. Sometimes it helps to just write it all out - as a sort of wish list. Notice I have NOT said anything about breed. Breed doesn't matter a whit. What matters is the horse's personality and its build, more than anything else.

If any of you horse people out there have some suggestions please comment, we'd love to hear your ideas!! Someone suggested getting a mule instead of a horse for The Sean Project. Mules can be more laid back and they won't put themselves in harms way, but mules can also spook. I love mules but the first part of this project is riding double. Some mules' backs are just not suited to double riding. However there may very well be a mule out there with the personality and training as outlined above and so that might work very well! We're open to anything that will work!!!

Nancy

Teaching Sean to mount a horse

Thanks to our friend, Mike and his suggestion, we made more progress this weekend!
Mike suggested making some sort of barrier in front of the horse barrel, so that Sean can not swing his leg over the front of the "horse". Good suggestion!! To make such a barrier, I pulled a 2nd barrel over and placed it in front of, and at a 90 degree angle to the 1st barrel. So the 2 barrels looked like a T. This is so that Sean can't dismount by swinging his leg over IN FRONT.

To practice mounting the barrel, I got Sean to get his hip as close to the barrel as possible and to face the front, instead of facing across the barrel. This way it's much more natrual for him to put his weight on his hands and swing his leg over. That went really well!! Then, because of that 2nd barrel in place to block the "front" of the horse, Sean could not swing his leg over the front. Instead, being the clever fellow that he is, he just slid right off the back!! I'll probably take a 3rd barrel and put it across the back too. That front barrel DID stop Sean from swinging his leg over front-wise, so thanks, Mike, for your suggestion! That's one part of the bad habit that is getting re-trained!!

Later on, I took Sean for a walk on our dirt road, just for some exercise. When it was time to come home, instead of retracing our steps, I thought it would be interesting to teach Sean to go through our fence. We have a smooth wire, 3-strand fence. Anyone in the western US will know what this is, but in Europe this is pretty rare I think. Anyway, it's just 3 strands of wire (not barbed!!) strung between fence posts. Well, I had to get Sean's hip lined up with the fencing, and I had to get him facing forward and then he could put his leg through the fence. He kept trying to face the fence and put his foot on the wire. But with a little patience and by gently guiding him, I moved his hip toward the fence and got him to put his foot THROUGH the wire. Once his weight was on that foot, he easily leaned down and put the rest of his body through that wire. It was neat to see and it was a great practice run for mounting the horse facing forward too!

Alas, no pictures! The next phase of this will be to add a saddle to the barrel and see how it goes. Hey, I may even get Sean on our Paso Fino by the end of the week at this rate!!

Comments and suggestions are always welcome of course!!
Cheers,
Nancy from HOT HOT HOT Colorado. We've had a week of 90-degree weather and we're in for another week of it!

The Holiday weekend

Nancy posted a quick note yesterday about some of the activities over the weekend. I thought I would add my tuppence worth as well because I think the work with the barrel and with Sean pointed up a shortfall in the way I was thinking about this and helps illustrate for me, once again, that dealing with deafblindness is sometimes not as straightforward as I would like it to be.

When I first thought of the idea, last week, it seemed pretty clear to me that getting Sean to correctly straddle a barrel and getting him to do it comfortably would be a great way to put him on the path to getting up on a horse. It all seemed as clear as daylight to me.

So I collected up one of the barrels we had that had been blown down to the end of the pasture, got it set up and on Sunday Nancy I and Sean went out to the barrel to have some fun.

When Nancy and I has talked about it I had sub-consciously thought that just getting Sean to lean forward, put his hands on the barrel and then swing his leg over would take but a moment.

I am sure that you, the reader, will be ahead of me on this. The first reaction from Sean was, I think, "why the hell should I do this?" Of course he lacks the sign language to be able to express that exact thought but the sequence went;

1) Sean went along with standing next to the barrel, he allowed us to place his hands to the 'front' , he allowed me to help ease his leg over and he sat on the barrel. Success!! Nancy and I smiled at each other, this was going swimmingly.

2) We tried to get Sean to 'dismount' - ie do the reverse of what he had just done. Nope. No way. He got off the barrel the way he wanted to do it which was to slide his leg over in front of him. Rats.

3) So, Oh well, we start out to try again and this time Sean does not want to swing his leg the way we want him to, he wants to do it the way HE wants to do it.

Now of course Nancy and I know that this will not work for getting on a horse. But I suddenly realized this morning (well no-one accused me of being a genius) - I know why I want him to do this exercise. But Sean has no idea why he should be doing it. And we lack the framework of sign language that would enable us to explain this sequence to him.

And that, in a nutshell, is one of the major hurdles we face with Sean - no matter how grand and exciting the final activity may be, earning the intermediate and more mundane steps that lead up to it can be pretty boring. nancy and I lack the skills to be able to explain so we need to work on making each step fulfilling in and of itself.

Sometimes this dense Dad needs to remember that what Sean sees is not necessarily what I see.

Yesterday and today, Mick and I have been helping Sean relearn how to mount a horse. When Sean was little, he was very good at climbing up on Pappy from either side. He learned how really fast.

Later on, after Sean had grown, he rode the pony led by Kevin. Kevin would help Sean onto the pony, but they did it in an awkward way: Sean would face the same way as the pony, lean back, and Kevin would help Sean swing his right leg over the horse's neck. Now we have to help Sean unlearn that habit and learn to swing his leg over behind him. It may take some time.

We are using a barrel to assist. So far, the first few tries have gone OK. But Sean won't get OFF the barrel the same way. For right now, that's OK. The main thing we want to do is build up a pattern of Sean putting his weight on his hands and swinging his leg over the right way. One step at a time! This may take days, but as long as Sean is learning it and not getting bent out of shape about having to do it, we count it as a success! Right now Sean can't see a purpose to this so he gets frustrated easily but that's OK. We keep our sessions short and end each one on a good note.

Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday "working the barrel".
Nancy