Equine Assisted Psychotherapy

Last weekend I was down in Portland, Oregon area for a training in EAP for work. It's a really interesting model and if you're in the health care field I recommend you take a look at it. EAGALA (Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Assoc.) puts on trainings throughout the US and abroad (for some reason my boss didn't think it was necessary for me to go to Europe or South America to get certified...???) and offer them pretty much year round.

It's a team approach, so there's a licensed Mental Health person, an Equine Specialist, and a horse or horses. The client (or clients) come in, are given a task (for instance, go get a horse and bring it over here), and the MH and ES step back and watch what happens. The MH person is watching the people, while the ES person watches the horses and looks for Shifts, Patterns, Uniqueness, Discrepancies, and/or Self-awareness.

When the client feels they are done, you process what happened. It doesn't matter if they complete the task or not. Questions are asked in the here and now, and always relate back to the horses. (In other words, it is not talk therapy). For instance, if the task is to bring a horse back to a certain area (probably without ropes, etc.) the ES might ask, "I noticed when you walked towards the horses, the one you were closest to ran very quickly down the side of the arena. What was that about?" I would ask this question because I'm interested to know if the client saw the horse running away as a success or a failure, and if it brought up issues for them.

-I thought it was good, the horse got to have some freedom and do what it wanted.
-It ran away from me like everyone else does.
-I didn't really notice when that happened.
-I just went on to a different horse.
-I felt like I failed, because I was going after that horse.
-etc. etc. etc. etc.

You can see that all of these answers would tell something about the client. Then the MH person comes in and either asks another question or relates the answer back to the client's life.

It's a great way for kids, especially angry and somewhat reluctant kids to start opening up. You're lucky to get some kids to sit across from you and talk for 10 minutes, while they can be doing EAP and processing for an hour.

Oh, and the horses are AMAZING. You would not believe some of the things they do in these sessions. It's like they know exactly what the client needs and take care of business. Pretty cool. I'm looking forward to getting this started at the Ranch.

Letting Gogo go.

Andrea at Eventing-A-Gogo is letting her beautiful young mare go today rather than keeping her around to live in pain. One of the most popular blogs in our horsey community, most of us have been following Andrea and Gogo's adventures into eventing for years. Unfortunately the injuries to Gogo's hind legs are not healing and instead are breaking down further. Today Andrea lets her beloved mare leave her pain behind.

Andrea, Gogo's story has been inspirational to us all. I think every one of us out here in blogger land has shed a few tears for you today. Hang in there and just know you have a huge community of support to fall back on if you need to. Hugs to you and Gogo.

Pre-Green Division Champions!

We came. We saw. We walked about 15 miles up and down and up and down the dirt road while everyone else sat on their half asleep horses and watched the competition. We won!

Jasper was... tense. I'd say he was high as a kite, but it gives the wrong impression. He wasn't rearing and screaming and spinning in circles, but he would not stand still. For. a. second. He was humpy and tail swishy and oh so in front of my leg, and I'm wondering if maybe he was a little bit sore. It's hard to tell because he was so excited. At the same time he would walk happily around the grounds on a loose rein.

The jumping classes got better as the day went on, the jumps are great because they give him something to focus on. We warmed up in the 2' division, ending our first class in a nice kick and bolt when the audience clapped. Luckily they were an attentive bunch and waited to clap from then on.

The classes in the Pre-Green division (2'-2'6) were by far our best, he was finally starting to relax a bit. In each division you had to ride a flat class at the end, and the judge suggested that perhaps my horse was "not fond of the flat classes". I don't know why, just because he broke into canter often, did hopping transitions, picked up the wrong leads, and even kicked out a few times!

The video shows our last and best class of the day. He's great once he's jumping. There were people on the hillside, horses in pastures on the far side of the arena, a road down below, and the usual show hubbub. He never thought about refusing anything and was very, very brave, especially considering he hasn't been out of the barn since April. He also does an automatic lead change, which I missed, so I made him trot and do a simple one. Doh!

Pam & the goods!

We won our jumping classes and got last I think in the flat class, putting us in first for the division. The "trophy" is a nice saddle pad from SmartPak with fancy 2 tone rope edging and the Post Falls Equestrian Center's logo on it. It is the nicest one I own. They're so... white when they're new...! :)

Fresh and Clean as a...

(Ignore dirt and rocks on mat and slight holes in front of it, just concentrate on the er... calm expression and all four hooves in contact with the ground)

All cleaned up with somewhere to go. I had to take a picture for posterity since today was Jasper's first bath with shampoo this year. On the first of October. This is as clean as he gets. He was not happy about it and got in trouble several times. Clean horse, clean tack, ready to go have some fun tomorrow... Post Falls here we come!



The new indoor! They did all this structural work today. IN ONE DAY. Three guys and tractor type lifty machines. Yesterday it was just a flat expanse of dirt with some concrete & rebar footings sticking out. Today it has a ribcage. It's going to have lighting and a sprinkler system. Very exciting.

I heard that Alexandre's new people have bought materials to put in fencing and build shelters so they can put their horses on their property. What will I do when I drive up in my car and there's not a deep, rumbling Harley Davidson greeting?

We're going to a show... woot!

I think we're going to head to the little Hunter/Jumper show on Sunday! Jasper's knee seems fine and we had a good schooling day today. I think we'll do a couple of 2' classes and a couple of 2'-2'6 classes. My friend Kodi came out this morning to play jump crew and take some video with my crappy point and shoot camera.

I've been trying to not jump ahead. When I watch the video frame by frame it looks like I'm jumping waaaay ahead on the way up, but then end up in a pretty good position over the top of the fence. He, however, looks pretty good to me considering the lack of schooling we've had this summer. There is a little more tail swishing than I like... but he's got a nice rhythm and isn't rushing.



I think he really likes jumping. He even started to do a flying lead change for me right as I was asking him to trot to do a simple change. Cool!

Whoooooa, Waterford!

Jasper was SO angry about having the Waterford in his mouth. He HATED it. Sure did listen though, a little too well. He tried rooting a few times, popped himself in the mouth, and about flew over backwards. I was being as soft as possible and trying to leave some slack in the reins but he still went around tense with his ears back. It wasn't all because of the bit... he was hyper and wanting to run and really just wanted to give all his attention to the horses in the nearby field. He would speed up and then realize the punishment was that damn bit and would throw his head up in defense. And then down in defense. And then get angry and begin to hop. So anyway I'm just going back to the KK Ultra for dressage and the French Link for jumping and am going to quit worrying about his tongue. I believe I'm going to try the Waterford on a horse at the ranch that pulls the reins out of the boys' hands. I think it might be perfect for him.

Today was a great ride. Same arena, but the middle of the day instead of dusk with all the horse eating shadows. I set up a grid, barrels, one stride to a vertical, one stride to a second vertical, 2 strides to barrels. I'd say the verticals were about 2'3, a little higher than the barrels. The first time we fleeeeeewwww through it and did the 2 strides in one. I second guessed myself... was that really a long one stride? I thought I measured 30'. So we did it backwards and lo and behold, it was two. I discovered something really important today. Jasper responds to half halts between jumps. I never even tried before because I totally assumed he'd be oblivious to them. We jumped the grid both ways, first from a trot and then from an easy canter. Our last time through we landed over the last vertical, I gave a half halt and a "whoa!" and got a nice 2 tot he barrels. He was balanced enough after barrels that he was able to stop easily and smoothly and I jumped off and gave him lots of praise. Good 'nuff...!

It's the first time we've jumped since he injured his knee. He seemed very sound to me. He'll have tomorrow off for sure, then I'll go out on Tues. or Wed. to see how he's doing.

Musings of no real relevance.

The guilt was getting to me even though I've been fatigued lately and only had one day off this weekend. I forced myself to drive out to the barn to at least clean Jasper's run-in and give him carrots. Then I got there and he had his head over the door of the stall, all bright eyed and expectant and adorable. So we went on a ride, I thought it would be good to get him out of the barn area and hit the trails since it's been a couple of weeks.

He was really amazingly well behaved. Soooo out of shape though. We saw deer and 3 flocks of turkeys. As usual, the last field I make him walk through on the way home got him all amped up so by the time we got back to the driveway leading back to the barn he was more excited than when we left.

I'm thinking of taking him to a little jumper schooling show on Oct. 2. It would be our one and only competition this year. I figure we could to the 2' division without much practice or need to get in shape. Just kind of go and pop around, see what happens. I don't want him to forget how to do it! I would like to start competing again next year... hopefully with a horse trials or two thrown in there.

I LOVE his color, especially now that his dark winter hair is starting to come in. All three of my horses have been bay with no white. Mindy was very red, almost a blood bay. Alexandre is a dark bay with red highlights. Jasper is a dark bay with golden highlights. He almost takes on a grulla-ish buckin-ish look in the fall.