Hours to Drive 2017

Twenty minutes of circles in the pasture then around the house. Then we went to a neighbor's. They are demolishing a house so we checked on the progress. It is .6 mile to their house, part gravel part paved. Did transitions. Rowdy stood nicely in the drive while I chatted, then we left when the trac-hoe fired up. Didn't want to risk our successful outing. .6 home again, then more circles in the pasture. Finished off with a couple of tricks. I do believe he was a little more flexible in the turns today. And he had an open, inquiring, friendly eye today.

All around successful. He has been working in harness for one year in January.

Oh that is good work with Rowdy, sounds like he (and you) enjoyed his outing. Nice to hear about his "eye", that right there tells you alot!

I had Peanut out for one hour today. He started off fussy but once he got trotting he settled down.

One hour with Peanut yesterday.

One hour of befuddlement with Cappy today, poor Cappy. Following the path my husband made in the snow, he took a too tight turn and I fell out. Twice. One step forward and two steps over the edge...at least I landed in a foot or so of snow!

I'm so happy to report that last Sunday i finally could get Charlie out to drive. He syood like an angel to get harnessed and hooked up and when we left the barn he was gung ho. we trotted and walked and did a lot of whoa and go. he was as happy as i was to get ouy and go. we were out almost an hour..

hey i waan't done, hehehe. i hit the wrong button

I believe we can have as many sections as we want. for instance driving, competing, ground work, after all tat is as important as driving in the cart. i wrote a list on the old thread, i will look it up, and i think we should all keep our records at home too and when we decide how to run this we can turn them in. NO CHEATING. hehehe.

have a great week everyone.

I wish there was a easier way to keep track of the hours on here somehow like a chart.

I drove Cappy a half hour on Sat 2/11

Peanut today for an half hour.

Hubby fixed the hair-pin turns on my path with the snow blower so thing went much smoother. We have even more snow coming on Thursday.

Glad to hear that you got out for a drive Jeannie!

ok, i looked up my suggestions and they are:

GROUND DRIVING

SINGLE HITCHED

MULTIPLE HITCHED

ARENA HITCHED

are there any other suggestions? i just put a calender in the barn with a pen(hehe) so i can keep track.i will still be on here, but will report my totals for the month on the first of each month.

if you want, i will keep a running list for all of us and we can deecide if we want to chip in for awards or i can do paper certificates.

Good idea about a calender!

I ground drove Peanut 15 minutes yeasterday.

Cappy got 15 minutes of driving in today. The footing was sloppy, we had rain then snow.

Rowdy and I did circles for about 15 minutes. Pasture was still squelchy, but I felt that made him have to work a little harder--a good thing. He is still resistant, but his body is straighter in the turns. When I put pressure on the rein for a turn, I try to give/take with my fingers until he responds. Unless we are in fear of running into a fence or tree, then I do solid pressure. Does that sound correct?

Then we did road work for 1 mile. A strange dog came out of a yard and Rowdy had his eye on it, but I smacked it with my whip and it went back to its yard.

I got no feeling of a potential bolt today. A good drive.

Marsha, I think that I similar to what I do with Cappy, who is stiff sometimes. I ask for a turn and if I get a response I immediately release and give him a lot of praise. If he is slow to respond I increase the pressure until he does, then "give" with my hand as soon as I get the correct reaction. The woman who was helping me with him said "his reward is in the release of the pressure". It seems to work with him and I use that theory in ground work too. Say if he gets in my space and won't move, I put my thumb on him and slowly increase the pressure on his shoulder, telling him to " move over" and increase the push with the thumb until he responds, then immediately release and praise. I barely have to touch him now to get him to "move over" where when I first got him, it was a project!

Cappy does not do well with a steady pull, it give him something to pull against and I end up in a tug o' war game with him.

Sounds like Rowdy is gaining confidence, he was a good guy about that dog! Random dogs scare me.

Having a park to drive in sounds heavenly. There is one about a half hour from me but I've never gone. Too much work bringing the cart, I can't move it alone and I don't like to trailer alone. And I can't hitch Peanut alone, lol, so I'm out of luck with that.

You will have to take some pictures for us to see if you go to the park!

I drove Cappy in the sled for 45 minutes on Saturday. Now the snow paths are mud so I don't know when I'll get to drive again.

Per suggestion of the woman who helps me train, I took Rowdy to town today sans cart. We went downtown and timed our outing very well. Lots of noisy, big delivery trucks, generators and power tools. The welding shop was busy, and the fire station was open. There was a cement mixer tumbling some steel pieces--super noisy and scary. And we got up close and personal with the garbage truck dumping a dumpster. He obligingly honked his horn and did the air brakes, too. We went into the adult handicap thrift shop to visit, chatted on the streets, then on the way back to the trailer stopped at the day care and he got mobbed by tiny children. Whew. His little furry brain was awhirl. We spent about 1 1/2 hours on the jaunt.

I will do this again with him. I'm pretty sure it helped him.

Happened upon a horse acquaintance who told me the woman who wants Rowdy back cannot take him. So, if I can't make him work out for me pretty soon, I will advertise him.

Sounds like Rowdy should be proud of himself !

Did you ground drive him on his excursion? I wonder what he was thinking during all the excitement.

Go Rowdy!

Cayuse said:

Sounds like Rowdy should be proud of himself !

Did you ground drive him on his excursion? I wonder what he was thinking during all the excitement.

Go Rowdy!

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No. He was just in hand. We will go again, hopefully next week, and go to a different part of town. Or, I might take him to a different town. I think much of his problem is the way he was raised.

That is such a good idea. I have no town center I could visit if I wanted to do that. But I do live two houses away from the Fire Department and that sure helps with horn and siren desensitization.

Okay I'm going to start a spreadsheet with everyone's hours. Be sure to include your driving time AND distance if you know it. Thanks!

For those keeping track of time maybe it would be easier to all do a similar format with our hours. Example

Date: 2/23

Horse: Clementine

Time: 1 hr driving (or 'ground driving')

Distance: 4 miles

If we put that part at the top of our post then talk about our drive below it might be easier to keep track. I'm thinking keeping it simple and having "Driving" and "Ground Driving".

I was going through trying to sort out the info for a spreadsheet but the info is a bit jumbled in with the discussion right now. Sometimes we put the distance we drove but not the amount of time we spent driving.

I hope this doesn't sound bossy, just trying to get us all on the same page so we can get this organized. I think ribbons might be fun at the end of the year for most hours driven, most hours ground driven, and most miles.

A really great phone app for tracking time and distance is Endomondo. It's free and has a setting for "riding" which is pretty close

Happy Driving! I don't care what the weather is like I'm hitching up next week come rain, snow, or shine (I'm hoping for shine)!

Sounds good to me. I have absolutely no idea how many miles I drive though as I'm in my field so I'll have to leave out that part. I would not want to even venture a guess as to what it might be.

Ribbons would be fun.

Do you want me to go through my posts and give you a total?

My place is so muddy I can't see getting out any time soon. I'll probably loose all of March, if this year is like most.

I still have not recived the shafts yet and winter is almost over!