My Mini-Clinic with Tripp and Tips from Wrangler Jayne...

I subscribe to Wrangler Jaynes newsletter. I would LOVE to go to one of her clinics but there is one tiny problem...she is in Australia! :-) Someday I am going to order her DVD's. Here are her tips that I received the other night - I thought they were awesome!

Tip 1: Set the scene
Prepare yourself, your tools, your environment. Put forethought into planning for better results.

Tip 2: Keep sessions short & sweet
Rather than countless repetitions, if you get a positive improvement 3 times in a row, quit the lesson!

Tip 3: Leave 'em wanting more!
Don't 'overstay your welcome'! End the session with something for your horse - ie: scratches and rubs, and walk away when they're really enjoying it! They'll look forward to your next session all the more!

A lot of us have heard this before, just maybe worded differently. I really love her and her gentle ways...look up her web site!

Now on to my mini-clinic. I have never attended a clinic before so what better way to start than a Basic Natural Horsemanship mini clinic. It was last Monday night and lasted for 2 1/2 hrs. All of it was ground work, and even tho I already had a grasp on most of what we covered, we were shown different ways to do things. There were 5 of us with horses and Tripp was the only mustang. He did so good! He didn't start getting bored until about 20 minutes before quitting time. There was one horse that was more experienced than the rest of ours, but all in all I think we were pretty evenly matched. We had a very good time!

Since most of the pictures were action shots, they didn't turn out very good, so I grabbed what I could...

Here we have our attention on the clinician, and Tripp is making sure Brian is taking his picture! He wanted proof to show his friends he was there. :-)



The hardest thing for me to put together was my lead, my stick and string, and getting Tripp to move along the wall preparing him to learn to side-pass. I was a big time klutz! Melanie, the clinician, used Tripp as an example and she got him moving. I think that helped me a lot because Tripp had an idea of what he should do, so now he could do what he 'thinks' I am asking. It was the hardest thing we did all night but also the most fun once we got it going on!

Tripp was curious about Melanie and even tho she doesn't want a horse in her space, she will never squash their curiosity.



We don't have a ball like this at home - in fact we want one of those big giant balls! Tripp enjoyed moving the ball and pawing at it.



Here is Tripp with some of his class mates.



Here I am giving the 'pressure look' to try to get him to back up - okay, this was also hard for me because when he looks at me like he is looking at me here, it is hard not to laugh! Mainly because I think he is laughing at me. :-)

With the lead rope wiggle and the exaggerated look, he finally backed up. When he made it to the end of the poles on the ground, I would stop him, let him think about it, then ask him for another step or two. I have never done this before even tho I have seen it on RFD several times...and even tho I don't like wacking on the lead line, we both did pretty darn good!



I thought Tripp would roll because he has not seen dry ground since the BLM adoption! He pawed a lot, but never did roll.

OH! There are huge mirrors on the wall at each end, and the first time we walked by the mirror and Tripp noticed himself it was awesome! He saw himself, with another me, plus there was a rider in the background for him to watch. I love when they discover new things, and Tripp is so expressive it is hard not to smile. Brian was not in the arena yet so missed the shock factor. Brian laughed and said that was the first time Tripp met his equal.

Another thing - since horse herds do most of their communicating with body language, we were not to use verbal cues. Oh my goodness...I talk non-stop to my horses so it was tough on me to keep my mouth shut! Ha ha! She did not say to never use verbal - just for this class we weren't...and even tho it was tough it was very cool. When we saw Chris Cox a few years ago, he said the same thing. He doesn't 'talk' to his horses with his voice, he talks to them with his body.

We had a great time and hopefully we will be able to do something else like this real soon.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Until later, Karen and Tripp who finally met his equal...