Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone has a safe, happy Thanksgiving with good company and great food!

What Now?

This morning I cleaned up my room and was excited to start working on tack for the first time in a while! Well...things didn't go as planned.

My once clean room is now a disaster with tack stuff. This immediately made me feel overwhelmed. Where do I even begin? My friend Travis and I have an upcoming project, but I am going to need a lot of practice before I even think about that stuff.

I need to focus. What do I want to do? I want to make english tack, along with halters and random things. I have that western saddle started and it makes me uncomfortable not to finish it. But I am an all or nothing type of person, so I feel like just trashing it because I know I will never go back to it now.

I guess I will start with a couple bridles and simpler things, then focus on practicing with english saddles. Maybe one day I will go back and order another western saddle kit and give it a shot, but I first need to work with what I really want to do.

So hopefully I will have some bridles made in the near future :).

Getting Back At It

Since I dropped my chemistry class this quarter, I am only taking two classes and have a good bit of free time. Along with that, winter break is coming up soon! And along with that, my friend Travis and I have decided to embark on a project together. I am not sure how it is going to work out or how long it is going to take, but I want to give it my all! Which requires me to start making tack again.

So expect some updates! I have a few fun 'on the side' things planned, too!

I have been busy updated my new blog for Sonny lately, so please check it out!

See you soon :)

Updates

So much has changed lately, I am not even too sure where to begin?

I guess I will start with my realization that my true passion is (obviously) horses, so why am I not making a career out of it? Plenty of people are coming up with ways to make horses profitable, so why can't I?

My true dream would be a Parelli Professional, a certified parelli instructor. It could be a rough start since the education is going to cost so much, so I am going to need a solid job on the side. I am currently going to school for Medical Technology and despise every second of it. While talking to my aunt about it, she suggested I look into a career with horses, like Vet Tech. Uh, why didn't I think about that before? It isn't a very profitable career, only about $30,000 a year. BUT, if I have my parelli career on the side, that would be beyond perfect. I could have a stable job working with horses in the Vet Tech pathway, but always get to live my dream by being a parelli professional. It sounds perfect, but getting there is going to be everything but easy.

Considering I am trying to make a career out of parelli, I decided to start a blog to track my progress (just as I have done with this blog and tack). You can visit my new blog here:

http://savvywithsonny.blogspot.com/

Feel free to follow Sonny and me there :).

Also, I just discovered http://draft.blogger.com/ . Why didn't anyone tell me about that before? I am not sure if I understand why blogger has two websites, but the 'draft' one is beyond awesome. It makes life so much easier when it comes to writing a post. I found it just in time to start my new blog!

What does all this mean for model horses? I am not exactly sure. I know it means that I won't have a penny to spend on them. But, I plan on keeping up with the blog and making tack when I can. If there are any specific posts you would like to see, (as always) just comment or e-mail me at labelle012@yahoo.com

Savvy on!

AQHA Congres - LIVE

For those of you who don't live close enough to attend, be sure to check the shows out here!

Congress Live

Whata Weekend

This weekend was nothing like I was expecting.

I was suposed to go to my very first hunter pace on Saturday! I was so excited; it was Halloween themed so I had purchased a bunch of stuff to dress up Sonny and I as bumble bees! My new saddle, pad, and shims were here and everything was working out perfectly!

Friday night (around 6 P.M.) I was giving Sonny a bath and noticed my friend's horse, the horse that was going to the hunter pace with me, looked colic-y. After about twenty minutes of him laying down, I decided that he was in fact colicing and called out the owner and the barn manager.

LONG (emphasis on the 'long') story short, we found out from the vet that there was gas in his small intestine which means something was blocking it there since there isn't supposed to be anything in the small intestine. There was not a whole lot we could do but surgery. The owner couldn't afford surgery, so we tried some not-so-promising methods. When the vet left around midnight, she said he had less than a 20% of surviving. Around 3 A.M. we decided he was not getting any better (actually getting much worse) and it would be the best for the horse to have the vet back out and put him down.

Immediately after we called the vet the horse farted! That meant the gas was moving through his body! After about an hour of nothing but farts, he was doing much, much better. The vet cannot believe that he is still alive. He is currently doing well, pooping and all the normal stuff. He can eat only small amounts for now but can have grain again Tuesday. Lets hope that he continues to improve!

Needless to say, the hunter pace was out of question. Stephen and I didn't even leave the barn until 5 A.M. Saturday morning! Talk about a long night! Then I spent the rest of my weekend working and writing a paper. Fun, right? Not.

I was planning on posting some great hunter pace pictures today, so it is a bummer than I don't have any!

All I have is a photo showing off how skinny/in shape Sonny looked yesterday. Nice, huh?

All Smiles

A while ago I got a message from a customer telling me about a recent purchase she made from me. Here is what she said:

Hello,

Thanks for the tips. I just got the box today and I don't think I can praise you enough. The nylon halter is looks wonderful and the leadrope is amazing. I don't know how you got it to twist like that, but the effect looks great. Elizabeth's halter fits perfectly (big relief) and it looks soooo good on her. The foal slip was a bit trickier to get on (I was extremely careful with it, and the glue held just fine), but once I got it adjusted, it looked fabulous. I will definately take your advice and leave the noseband buckled from now on. Should save me an extra minute or two. I was also really impressed by the ID collar. The nameplate looks exactly like the real ones and the buckle and keeper make it look so neat and tidy. And the leather halter is simply wonderful. I looks so accurate, I love the rolled throatlatch and the stitchmarks. I could probably go on, but I'm running out of adjectives. I've attached a few pictures, but I can only send 3 at a time, so expect another e-mail with a few more pics. Thank you so much for the great tack. You have been so wonderful throughout this whole process, especially with your help in measuring Elizabeth's halter. Thanks ever so much.

How awesome is that? When I read it, I got goosebumps!

I put a lot of effort into making my take the best quality that I can and to see that someone appreciates it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I couldn't be happier!

Here are a few pictures that she sent:

Believe it or not, that guy is a customized Gilen! How cool is he? The owner is doing all the custom work herself!

This is a customized Elizabeth resin. She is the first horse I have made a halter for without having in front of me. She was a challenge, but I am so pleased with the outcome!

What isn't there to smile about?

Parelli Level 2 Online Audition - PASSED!

One of my favorite things about Parelli is they have a great system for setting goals and improving without any pressure!

The levels of dressage made it easy to set goals and identify where you're at, but there was so much pressure. I always felt the need to improve a half pass or a collected canter before a show. With Parelli, I don't feel any of that pressure.

Our trot Figure 8 isn't the greatest, but I have no deadline to make it better by. When auditioning to pass a level in Parelli, it is not the quality of the movement that matters, but more of your relationship with your horse. You can't find that in any other sport.

The audition works like this: You send in a tape of you and you horse playing for 10 minutes. The video must include a few things depending on the level and the savvy. For level 2 online you must show a leg massage, figure 8, trot to back up, and touch it! As long as you do all of those things, the rest of the time is yours.

Then a Parelli Professional will watch your video, fill out a score sheet, let you know what level you're at and give a bit of feedback! The score sheet is set up so that there is a column for each level and they can check of what level you are for each criteria. Here is our score sheet that we got back:

As you can see, we passed 2++ which means we did the best we could for level 2! On to level 3 it is!!!

The goal is you help you identify where you are, what you're good at and what needs work. For the most part I knew everything beforehand, but it is really reassuring to have it there on paper from a Parelli Professional! AND, if you pass all savvys for that level, you get a colored savvy string and a certificate!

So here is our very first audition, level 2 online!

Too Many S's

I haven't posted on here lately because I have been:

-Sick
-at School
-Studying
-buying a new Saddle
-Shopping for Supplements

I got sick the first day of school. Seriously, immune system? Just because I took the summer off school doesn't mean you get a vacation too. (I am FINALLY getting better!)

School has been okay so far. It is going to be a really tough quarter. LOTS of work; more than I would ever want. I am really going to have to break down and study my butt off to just get these classes behind me.

I got a new saddle for Sonny! Yay! There will be much more on that later...

The vet came out last Tuesday and recommended I put Sonny on a joint supplement. He will be 13 soon and I want to prolong arthritis for as long as I can. The problem is...there are about 3 billion choices. I have got it narrowed down to the 4 main ingredients I want, but then there are so many things you have to take into consideration along with that. The big issue is can the horse absorb it into his blood stream for the supplement to really work? So...my search continues!

I have a couple posts coming soon so stay tuned!

Hello, College

School started back up yesterday. It is going to be a really tough quarter. I am taking my last general Chemistry class (almost failed the second to last one), a molecular bio chemistry class, and an art history class (which I know nothing about!). This isn't going to be easy.

So, if you don't hear from me for a while, I will probably be up to my eyeballs in homework/studying. :(

Goodbye, Stormy

Stormwatch left for his new home in Australia yesterday morning! I am so sad to let him go :(. He has the most adorable face. Who couldn't love that lip?

Although he is gone, I can assure you I feel better tonight. With all that has been going on, the timing couldn't have been more perfect.

Along with everything, I had the vet out today. Sonny had to have some major chiropratic work done, along with getting his sheath cleaned. On top of that, I found out that his pasterns are so upright he is going to have arthritis when he is older. Considering I want to have him for forever, I have to put him on a joint supplement now to help prolong it. Oh, well. It will be worth it in the end!

Another Foal Halter

Thanks to an excellent customer, I have another foal halter under my belt!

This time it is a regular halter, unlike the foal slip halter I made previously.

First of all, this halter is NOT made for Amber, which is why it doesn't fit her properly. The halter was made for the foal resin, Elizabeth.

I used 3/32" lace and classic scale hardware. I am really pleased with how it turned out; I think the scale works perfectly.

We had a really hard time fitting the halter correctly, so I am really anxious to see how it looks on Elizabeth!

100th Post

I always thought that my 100th post would be something fancy and exciting! But now that it comes down to it, I've got nothing.

I couldn't think of a single neat thing to do for my 100th post. Apparently my creativity has gone with summer.

Even though it is not that exciting, I thought it would be interesting to look back at my stats from my first 100 posts.

During May I was working really hard to pass chemistry and June was my first month of summer. Other than those two crazy months, everything seems pretty consistent. It will be fun to see how the stats mature over time.

Finally: Something Tack Related

With summer being so busy, I haven't had half the time I wanted to work on tack. Things are slowing down around here so I hope that will change.

For now, here is what's on the workbench!

Stormwatch For Sale

Please pass along the link if you know anyone that might be interested!

Stormwatch on MH$P

Myrtle Beach

In a Wordless Wednesday fashion, here are photos of my trip to Myrtle Beach!

For some reason Dad and I didn't take a ton of photos. Maybe we were too busy relaxing? ;)

View from our hotel:

Outings:

The biggest Chicken Parmesan I have ever seen.

In comes Irene:

Ripley's Aquarium (my camera didn't like the aquarium, but I thought some of the pictures were worth sharing anyways!):

Parelli Playday!!

This might be my first post that has an explanation mark in the title. That is just how good it is.

First of all, let me begin by saying that Saturday was a disaster. My flight was supposed to leave out of Myrtle Beach at 12:30, which turned into 5:00 (thanks a lot, Irene). So I didn't even get back to my house until 7:00. At that point, I had to change clothes and leave for the barn to play with Sonny, give him a bath, and start packing. After that, Stephen and I had to go pick up my friend Melissa's horse to get her back to my barn. Her horse didn't want to get into the trailer, so by the time we got him in the trailer, dropped her off at my barn, and got home, it was 1:30AM! Stephen had to stay up later and drive here early Sunday morning, so he only got two hours of sleep. He slept most of the playday, which is why I don't have a ton of pictures. But, he did get some in the hour that he was awake so here is what we have!

The Playday started around 10:00. It was held at Jesse Peter's house, who is a three star Parelli Instructor. His house was the perfect parelli playground. He had two big fields with lot of interesting stuff. He had a ton of log jumps, two bridges,barrels, cones, pedestals, tires, a car wash, ground poles, a teeter-toter, and a honeycomb (a bunch of round pens inside a circle). It was pretty much do what you want. Everyone just did their own thing; it was just a way to play with your horse. Jesse would ride by and throw out some comments here and there, but for the most part it was just like we do at home, except with a bunch of toys somewhere else!

I went with my friend Melissa. She also goes to OSU and does Parelli! I am so lucky to have found her. Here are the two of us when we first arrived, along with Sonny and her mare Rydel.

After we got settled in, the playing began! It was so perfect. All the horses were relaxed, the humans were happy, and everyone was having fun!

Sonny has never jumped anything except for poles, so I was really excited that he jumped the log! Not only did he jump this log, he continued to jump REALLY big logs throughout the day! He has never jumped over two foot before, and was jumping almost three foot yesterday! I was really shocked and impressed.

Rydel was awesome yesterday. She is very unconfident and gets scared easily, but yesterday she was so brave and relaxed.

Here are our first attempts at the bridge. Sonny is confident with his front feet, but not his hind. So it took some time for him to walk over it.

Rydel loved the carwash (Sonny, not so much!).

Working with the pedestal.

Masters of the bridge!

Melissa and Rydel work with the bridge, while I attempt to sidepass Sonny over the smallest log.

Success!

I didn't ride much; Sonny and I don't ride much at home so I didn't think it would be a good idea to ride much there. But, I did want to work in the honeycomb and see if he was confident enough to do some things with me on his back!

The playday ran from 10:00-3:00. After everyone left, Melissa and I had one hour private lessons with Jesse. That was probably the best thing I had ever done. Melissa and I accomplished so much in that hour! She worked on confidence (with the trailer, the water hose, a ball, and the tarp). I wanted to work on respect and ways to get Sonny to put effort into things.

I didn't realize that effort went along with respect. In Linda Parelli's words, respect is the appropriate response to pressure. Sonny has a bad habit of responding negatively to pressure (pretty much blowing me off a lot of the time). So, Jesse showed me some really great ways to make him happy to do things for me!

It was really amazing at how quickly Sonny changed the look on his face. He went from pinned ears and wrinkled nose to making happy faces when I asked him to back (and he actually BACKED when I asked him to, not trying to find ways to get out of it).

Jesse took me through all the seven games (the foundation of Parelli) and we worked on respect within every one of them. The circling game has always been challenging for us. Sonny is so lazy, he would never complete more than a lap or two before he stopped. With the help of Jesse, Sonny was cantering (not even trotting!) endless circles until I asked him to stop.

Here Jesse and I are playing the circling game together with Sonny, passing the rope to and from each other. Notice that Jesse and I are approximately the same height ;).

Also, he informed me that when Sonny barrels into me once the circling game is over, that is disrespecting my personal space. So we worked on keeping him out on the circle until I asked for him to come in.

We also worked on a lot of sideways and backwards, helping him put effort into what I ask.

The day was a huge success. Everyone had a great time, and we all learned a ton. I was SO proud of Sonny for all he accomplished. I never would have thought that he would do some of the things he did. He even backed into a tent that was misting water without thinking twice! He was one of the few horses to even go through it, let alone back into it!

That was one of the best days I have had and hope to do it again soon!