6W Ranch Training Tips
...And My 2 Cents Worth
(Sometimes A Little More
than $.02 worth...)
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The following are suggestions regarding methods that have worked
for the 6W Ranch. It is well to remember that the safety of the handler is the
priority and that a horse, whether domestic or former wild horse, can easily
injure or kill a much more frail human being. Always train and ride with your
safety in mind and that of the animal.
Thank you, The
6W
Each
Basic Exercise Builds Upon Itself to the Next Level;
When
Encountering Difficulty in a Movement, Break it Down to its Basic Exercise
Whenever
we work with the horse, we should always enter the training arena with the
thought of working towards the goal and never go in with the attitude of
absolutely attaining it within the confines of that session. We are the ones with
the higher level of thought (or at least we should be), yet all too often we
fail to recognize and reward the horse for a really good give or try,
especially if that movement we were working on was difficult for the animal.
To
illustrate the first line of the title above, Each Basic Exercise Builds Upon Itself to the
Next Level, everything we do in the work builds upon itself from the most
basic to the advanced. I may teach the horse with the tap of the hand whip, to
pick up its foot upon the asking. Pretty basic stuff.
Later, merely picking up the foot isn’t enough, I want
the horse to stretch the leg forward when I ask it to pick it up. What 4 things
have we done in preparation for the next level of training there?
1.
The horse
must pick up its foot and stretch the leg forward to step into the back of the
trailer.
2.
The horse
must shift its balance onto the other side of its body to raise that leg
3.
The
foundations of Spanish Walk
4.
The most
basic of picking up the foot upon the asking
So how do
these all come together you ask? Let’s do just like we need to do with the
horse and break it down into the basics:
1.
The horse must pick up its foot and stretch
the leg forward to step into the back of the trailer: as we work with the
horse in the lunging, we teach it to advance around the round pen just as if we
were riding it. If we’re too far in front of the shoulder, the horse stops. If
we’re too far behind, we’re driving it. As we teach the horse to move, a tap on
the croup means to walk forward. This in combination with picking up the foot
works to trailer loading. Tap on the leg to pick up and place the foot in the
trailer as well as a tap on the croup to walk forward. Very basic without going
into all of the exercise of trailer loading teaching
2.
The horse must shift its balance onto the
other side of its body to raise that leg: This simple exercise will be
built upon in combination with the rein and contact in the bit to raise a
shoulder or turn on the haunches as well as our request to pick a particular
lead. In the leads, too often we see untrained riders and horses that cheat the
lead be bringing the horse’s nose into the leg (bringing the horse off balance)
and then pushing the same leg into the horse. The horse loses its balance and
picks up the lead in order to gain its footing. But in the training, we can
teach the horse through the ground work, to raise that shoulder upon the asking
by doing simple turns on the haunches where the horse must take the weight off
of the shoulder by shifting its balance to raise that leg, just like in picking
up a lead. Too often we lead the horse around like a fish with a hook in the
end of its nose pulling the nose left and right to walk a straight line. If
we’re working on the rail and the horse drops its shoulder and comes too far
off of the rail, we can raise that shoulder up in the contact with the bit and
movement laterally back onto the rail instead of that wonderful serpentine
pattern of a snake in the arena. As we teach the horse to move the shoulders by
raising the rein, we are also teaching the horse to neck rein at the same time,
thus eliminating much kicking and yanking when mounted, yet another benefit of a simple movement training.
3.
The foundations of Spanish Walk: If we
want to incorporate Spanish Walk into the horse, a simple giggle of the bit on
each side of the mouth corresponding to the tap and extension of the lift of
the leg. This will be able to be worked into performing under rider when the
movement is secure in hand.
4.
The Most Basic of Picking up the Foot Upon
the Asking: Fairly self explanatory, but with the caveat of the horse doing
it upon the asking. But when doing so, we have set the basis/basics for all of
the above and then-some from merely picking up a foot.
Now enter
in the more advanced movements of the horse and for this I’m going to use the
example of the “
To break
it down, we’re going to open the rein and maintain enough contact with the bit
to keep the horse from moving forward, yet not so much contact that the horse
backs up. Give the leg cue and the horse takes a proper step away from the leg
and “turn on the shoulder.” Then the next step will be raising that same rein,
again keeping enough contact with the bit so the horse doesn’t walk forward
through the bit nor so much contact that the horse backs up, and with the same
leg as the leg, cue the leg to do a cross-over step with the front legs (a
basic step of turning on the haunches). Then we’re going to reward the horse.
Now,
whether it’s the animal of whether it’s us that’s having the problem, by
breaking it down into a methodical step forces us and/or the horse to
concentrate on the correct cues. As we/it become more proficient in those
single steps of haunch/shoulders, we begin to combine our cues closer and
closer until the movement is as one, but, it’s still a turn on the haunches and
the shoulders at the same time which result in side-pass.
Take the
time to work toward the end goal of the movement and learn to recognize when
the horse gives a really good try when that issue may have been very difficult
for it, and learn to end on a good note. It’s much easier to pick up on that
good note tomorrow than driving it into the ground today.
The 6W
The Western Watersheds Project’s Assault on Family Ranchers
Posted By Patrick Dorinson
On
Pajamasmedia.com
Another
Earth Day has come and gone. Earth Day has become a holy day of obligation for
America’s secular religion, the environmentalist movement.
But hidden
behind the facade of planting trees or discussing the virtues of “paper or
plastic” is a well-financed global group of dedicated radicals who are bent on
changing the way we live whether we like it or not. They are funded by a vast
network of wealthy individuals, trust funds, and foundations who selectively
give money to organizations they can control like puppets on a string (think
George Soros).
One such
organization has dedicated its entire existence to the warped dream of one man
who says that his ultimate goal in life is to destroy families and a way of
life with absolutely no regard for the economic or human cost.
Meet Jon
Marvel and the Western Watersheds Project.
This is an
organization that talks a big game about saving the environment but in truth
has never lifted a finger or raised a dollar to mitigate the environmental
issues they claim to care so much about.
This is an
organization that bills itself, according to its mission statement [1], as a group dedicated “to protect
and restore western watersheds and wildlife through public education, public
policy initiatives and litigation.”
That last
word “litigation” is the key, because in truth they are nothing more than a
group of professional plaintiffs who have filed hundreds of lawsuits against
the government and individuals to accomplish their goals. Between 2000 and 2009
they have filed 91 lawsuits and 31 appeals in
And this
is an organization that has been funded in part with the hard-earned tax
dollars of the American people to the tune of $1.2 million in Idaho Federal
District courts alone by the abuse of the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA),
which others have written about [2] on these pages.
The
Western Watersheds Project is headquartered in that playground of the rich and
famous,
Marvel’s
ultimate goal? Ending any and all economic activity on the vast public lands that
make up 75% of the American West. These are lands that are rich in
resources and provide recreational opportunities like hunting, fishing, and
hiking. They are also a critical part of our food supply, as grazing rights
make cattle and sheep ranching possible.
Marvel
saves his particular venom for the ranching communities of the West who lease
the public lands from the government to graze their cattle or sheep.
Marvel and
WWP claim that the ranchers pay very little to the government for the right to
use the land for livestock grazing and that this is a form of “welfare” to the
ranchers and the cowboys who work the land.
What he
won’t tell you is that the rancher who enters into a lease agreement with the
federal government is taking on the same responsibilities
of environmental stewardship that they would on private land.
The ranchers are
responsible for all the financial costs associated with maintaining the land as
well as the wildlife that inhabit it. Failure to do so can result in fines,
penalties, and the loss of the permit.
So here’s a question
to ponder when you look at the wild claims of WWP and other environmental
outlaws when it comes to cattle grazing on
If livestock grazing
is destroying the public lands, how come every year the grass comes back, the
streams run clear with water, and the cycle of life continues as the land
yields its nutrients to produce more meat for our tables?
Many ranching families
can trace their history back five or six generations. So if everything that Jon
Marvel and WWP say about the alleged abuse of the land were true, they would
never have lasted one generation.
This is just the
beginning. In the coming weeks I will be going into greater detail about WWP
and the environmental cartel that is waging their war against the American West
and the people who survived and prospered against everything Mother Nature has
thrown at them and who are still fighting against a man-made pestilence —
radical environmentalists armed with lawsuits.
Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-western-watersheds-projectsassault-
on-family-ranchers/
URLs in this post:
[1] mission statement: http://westernwatersheds.org/about
[2] others have written
about: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/a-taxpayer-funded-waragainst-
ranchers-pjm-exclusive/
