Sierra

Saddle Time!

FINALLY!! This pretty little mare is off to get started with Joel. Since we moved to the new facility, I have preparing Sierra for her start. She did really well transporting over to Ellensburg to Joel’s facility and settled quickly. It was great to watch the first work with Joel and to see how well she accepted a rider.

Here are a few photos of Joel working with Sierra — you can see how great she did these first days. Since dropping her off, Joel has let us know she continues to do well. He said she is going to be an easy horse to adopt out and is “a sweet little thing”. Always good to get glowing reports from the trainer on our horses!

Sierra working with Joel

Horses never cease to surprise and amaze me, both in their adaptability and intelligence. For the past 10 years, Sierra lived at the same farm with the same people and the same horse friend. So bringing her back into the rescue was undoubtedly going to be a bit of a shock to her world. However everything I thought she might have trouble with, she has been able to cope with and carry on.

She first shocked me when we went to pick her up and she jumped right in the trailer, really by accident. I was getting the dividers ready and talking to Lori who had come along to help load her. While we were chatting, Sierra jumped in the trailer! It’s like she said, hey I think I should go check this thing out. She traveled well and when we got home she took just a little while to settle in and hook up with Nala, her soon to be turnout buddy.

The move to the new facility was easy enough, but we had two mare groups that became herd bound and began calling and panicking when they couldn’t see their friends. Sierra was one of these mares. For the first few weeks, we had to work on ways to help ease these bonds and replace them with more independence, self confidence, and looking to humans for guidance.

Here is where the biggest transformation happened for Sierra. Helping her overcome her herd-bound issues might be the single most important thing that happened in her training. The foundation laid in the last few weeks has changed so much about her. She is happy to be working with me, not panicking when alone, and likes to be joined up with humans now and not just horses.

A few things made this happen. One was the help that Joel gave us at the March clinic. When Sierra would begin to call out to the other horses, he had me simply ask her to do a little work. The key here was not to come at it with any aggression or reprimand but rather just a request to pay attention to me. If she didn’t want to stand with me quietly then we would just do a little work. Nothing over the top or big, just a little hind quarter, front quarter yielding, then back to quietly standing. It was even better if I could ready her energy and if I could catch it right before she called out. This improved greatly in just that one session.

The second thing that helped was preparing her to be tied and working her while being tied. This might be easier to see than explain but I will try to do my best. After I knew that she would give to pressure and come forward off the lead, I tied her. Then I asked her to yield her hindquarters and immediately release my pressure by turning away from her. This helps her know that she is not trapped and that she can move her feet and turn to look out of either eye. I then could work with another horse while she relaxed and found patience standing. If she would call out or start to paw, I would just ask her to move her feet and yield her hind. After just a little time, she was quiet and relaxed. I then untied her and we did just a little groundwork. She was a completely different horse! She was not pushy, not calling out, and very attentive and soft to work. I immediately gave her lots of low energy praise to keep her relaxed and put her away. Bringing her out the next day, and every time since, I know that we did this right and got a lasting change. I don’t do too much, I end at the right time and put her away in a calm and relaxed state. This is the hardest thing to learn as a horseman, not to go through the good to get to the bad. Ending on a good note can mean the world of difference in seeing changes that carry through to the next session and became the foundation of future work.

Sierra has made some amazing progress since she returned to SAFE. I am excited to get her ready to go to Joel’s to be started next month and look forward to seeing her blossom into a riding horse. I think she is going to make someone an amazing friend and partner!

Sierra (aka Baby or Wildfire) was rescued by SAFE in early 2006 as a 6 month old filly, along with her dam Brandy, a pony mare. Her sire was reportedly a mustang. As a filly, Sierra was black with a blaze and two blue eyes. At the time of her rescue, Sierra was slightly underweight, but she was still nursing, so overall her condition was not too bad. She spent her first several months as a SAFE horse in foster care, and ended up as a companion to an orphaned colt. As a foal, Sierra was very friendly and loved interacting with humans. By fall of 2006, Sierra had been adopted to a wonderful home in Port Orchard where she lived in the company of other horses as well as donkeys, llamas, and other farm animals. We had several opportunities to visit Sierra at her adoptive home and watch her transformation from a little black filly to a lovely white mare:

Several months ago, we were contacted by Sierra’s adopters who told us that they could no longer keep her due to changes in their lives. Attempts to place her into another home were unsuccessful, and eventually we decided that we would take Sierra back into our herd. She’s 11 years old now, and while she remains a very nice mare and has been very well cared for by her adopters, she hasn’t had any formal training. This is something that SAFE can provide for her through our training program. Our hope is that she can become a riding horse for a child or small adult. Time will tell.

Welcome back, Sierra!