Changes at the Pinto Ranch

In the past month we have brought over two colts from next door. Mystery came first when he was 10 months old so that he could be gelded. Then we brought over Saunder even though he is younger because his mother, Mama was looking very thin and she needs to be able to rest and gain weight without having a colt to nurse. She makes beautiful babies but she teaches them bad habits, such as being pushy.  We felt Saunder would be better off learning better manners at a young age.  It is a delight to have these two colts here and they have joined the herd fairly easily.

We have a wonderful and awesome  new trainer, Karyn Shirly, of Purple Sage Equine in Nevada. She is devoted to the methods of Tom and Bill Dorrance, Ray Hunt and Buck Brannamn. Our horses feel very comfortable with her and she accomplished a lot in four days.  She worked with Kendra and Lil' (Little) One who really appreciated her gentle manner. She halter trained Mystery and assisted during his gelding. She helped Majestic and me improve our ground work skills and she also did body work on Suki to help him get out of pain.

Karyn is really adept at reading the  body language of the horse and this came in very handy when bringing Saunder over, even though Thunder was standing right next to him! She timed it just right so Thunder would not come through the gate as well.  She does a lot of research on horses and their health and gave us some very helpful suggestions.  We all had a very rewarding time, plus lots of laughter!

Our vet  Dr.John Fling has retired and so we  found another very qualified vet, Dr. Rich Brazil who comes from Ukiah.  We really appreciate his willingness to drive so far to help out the pintos. He had seen the herd in the past when they lived next door with a previous owner.  I think he was pleased to see how happy and healthy they are now.

We are very excited that the pintos have such a great new team!!!

Kendra took this photo of Karyn and Lil' One.  He looks very calm and attentive!

Kendra's photo of Mystery and Karyn during the halter gentling.

Karyn working with Mystery the  day after he was gelded.

 Saunder the morning we brought him over - he is running up the hill 

to find his new herd.

I took this photo of Mama yesterday. She was running very free - I

have never seen her run so fast!! Go Girl!

Lots Going On at The Point Arena Pinto Ranch

We have had such a busy time since the last post that I am behind  writing this blog.

1)Mama gave birth to a new colt  on May 18th and these photos were taken when he was a few hours old.

 His first human contact a few days later

Before he was born he was named Saunder after Saunder's Reef by our dear friend Eve Larson, who passed away June 16th.  When she saw his newborn photos, she referred to him as her baby.  Since that day he has been her horse and I promised her that he will stay on the ranch with the herd and will be given much love.  His wonderful spirit reminds us of Eve and he definitely holds a very special place in our hearts.

One side of his face is black and white

and the other side is all white except for his cute black spot on his forehead - I love his white eyelashes!

2)We were about to bring yearling  Majestic over to our property and 2 weeks before the date planned, he was kicked out of the herd.  He finally went to the back end of his property where there is an old corral.

While he was in exile for about 2 weeks (till he could be trailer-ed over to his new- our home) I went over to feed and check on him 2-3 times a day.  We had a great time bonding and I fell madly in love with him.  He can be  arrogant and also very sweet. He is a really beautiful horse.

When I would call him, he would appear silently to get some food.

The corral was fixed up and after some ground work, Kathe Smothers, Molly S, Kendra B, and Barbara F brought him over to the herd here safe and sound.  Many thanks to these lovely ladies for their help with him!!

Below Majestic and Sweetie running in our round pen.

3) Kathe is our wonderful horse gentler and teacher.  She was here a few weeks ago teaching  Kendra B (my horse assistant and dear friend), my grandson, and me more ground work.  We tried to absorb all the information we learned as much as possible.  Always new tools needed to work these horses!
My grandson working his horse Luna:

Kathe teaching Little One how to get use to someone sitting in a chair:

Photos from the Pinto Event

I was so busy at the event that I did not have much time to take pictures but here are a few highlights:
The horses lining up to be introduced:

Kathe Smothers talking the the audience:

 Kathe working with Little Lady in the round pen:

 Kendra and Little One going through the obstacle course:

My grandson running through the obstacle course with his yearling filly, Luna:

Our dear friend, Sally, who is an amazing baker, made some delicious  treats for everyone to enjoy: 

Blue Eye

Several of the pintos have one blue eye. The two breeding mares, Polka Dot, and Mama,as well as Little One, Majestic and Otumwa, pictured above, have one blue eye. A wonderful friend to the pintos said he thought Otumwa with her thick white mane looks like a punk rock star!  Don't you agree?!

Little One and Buck Brannaman

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, we want to be able to halter as many horses from the herd as possible so that they can get their hoofs trimmed and they can be treated by a vet if needed.  Little One was having a hard time accepting love and training for the halter so we decided that it might be helpful to take him to a Buck Brannaman clinic. You may have seen the documentary" Buck"  that came out last year. (You can read more about him and get the DVD at http://brannaman.com/)  Buck has started horses since he was a child and his approach is gentle and kind.  He spends nine months of the year traveling around the country teaching four day clinics.  We are very fortunate that Little One was able to attend  his colt starting clinic at Red Bluff fairgrounds April 27th-30th.

It was a wonderful experience - friends and family traveled to Red Bluff to learn from Buck and they also got the added treat of watching Little One.

We loaded Little One in the trailer early in the morning and eight long hours later we arrived. He was fortunate to be able to stay in an outside pen.  Kathe Smothers, our wonderful friend and trainer, had told Buck ahead of time that he would need to rope Little One in order to get him started.  We weren't sure beyond that what would happen.  There were twelve horses with owners in the indoor arena.  We were told to trailer Little One into the arena and put him in the round pen in the center.

After talking to the class for about an hour and giving the participants techniques to practice, Buck worked with Little One each morning in the pen for about an hour the first two mornings and a half hour the third morning. By the second morning, Little One was haltered and calm enough on the third afternoon for us to do ground work with him in the outside pen.  Success!

 Little One was the star as he was the only horse that needed to be readied for a halter and he basically had private sessions with Buck.  He is one very lucky horse!

A horse needs to be roped and worked with before a halter can be put on them.  Here is Little One resisting. Buck is on his horse and  Kathe is watching outside the pen.  Kathe has studied and ridden with Buck for twenty years -we and the herd are very lucky to have her as our trainer!  You can learn more about her work at http://quietmindhorsemanship.com/  Kathe will be teaching a clinic at Sea Ranch stables in June.  I will post more information about this once the date is settled.

Finally Little One gets touched!!! We have waited a long time to be able to touch this shy sweet horse.

Kevin a friend and student of Kathe's is doing ground work with Little One  in the arena on the third day.


Buster who was adopted from the Point Arena Pinto herd by Eve Larson, about a year before I became involved with them, also went to the clinic. I don't think I have posted a photo of him before so here is a photo of  Buster I took last year for the 2012 pinto calendar and is in The Point Arena Pintos Book which you can see at http://photographycreated.com/



                                   

Here is a photo of Eve (in the blue cap) riding Buster in the clinic.  She was smiling a lot and it was a delight to watch her with her lovely pinto!

This was quite an adventure for all of us and one we won't soon forget!

HARD DECISION

        Suki, Little One, Moonbeam (Missy) back end of our neighbors property the morning of the move

My intention when I adopted the herd was just to leave them be, free on their own and just feed them.  But reality and herd dynamics set in. I learned it is common for  the lead stallion to kick out the young stallions from the herd at a certain point.  Thunder sent Little One and Suki out at different times, and they found a safe haven in the back end of our neighbors property where they lived for over a year. Then after the old mare died her son, Sweetie was kicked out and ended up at our place all alone but safe.  Soon after Moonbeam (Missy) was also kicked out and got hurt in the process as she went through a barb wire fence and ended up at some kind neighbors who kept her safe until we could get her back inside the fence.  She then joined Little One and Suki.  (It is not common for a stallion to kick out a yearling mare but it is not unusual). Naturally Little One and Suki started fighting over Moonbeam ( who by the way can hold her own with the guys) so Little One ended up with marks on his body.

Enough!! We just want all these horses to get along!!  So after much soul searching it seemed, that the wisest thing to do was to bring the 3  pintos home from next door where they could join Sweetie and they would also get more daily attention from me and my friends.  We also made the hardest decision which was to geld the 3 stallions so they would get along better and so we would not end up with too many more foals as much as we love them.

The rest of the herd is still living next door on the ocean side.  The herd there consists of Thunder the lead stallion, 2 mares one of whom is about ready to give birth any day and a filly, Little Lady, born last May ( scroll down to see recent pictures of her).  All is calm over there now and Thunder will still keep making babies as we cannot fix him as he is too old.

So how do you get 3 wild horses into a trailer so they can be moved??? And in order for the vet to geld them they needed to be halter trained and who is going to do that in the kindest way???   

                                                          

                                                    KATHE SMOTHERS

                                          http://quietmindhorsemanship.com/

I met Kathe last year and  I knew she has had experience with wild horses as she has adopted and trained 8 mustangs.  She is an incredible horse trainer who studied with  Buck Brannaman the original horse whisper. You can visit his website to learn more about him and get the link to the new documentary"Buck" at  http://brannaman.com/.

Watching Kathe work with the pintos was one of the most profound, inspiring and awesome weeks of my life.  Her easy deep communications with horses, respect, love, kindness and gentleness towards them was very apparent.  I am delighted she is part of the Point Arena Pinto family! 

Kathe brought her own geldings to help with the pintos.  Apache was very helpful during training in the round pen as you will sewe in the photos below and Moonbeam enjoyed flirting with Blue!

                                                      THE MOVE

With Kathe's expertise and help from some friends we got the 3 pintos into the trailer in less than an hour!  It was a  very moving (no pun intended) to watch these graceful animals enter the trailer without fear and in a calm manner due to Kathe's gentle approach and  technique.

The more challenging part turned out to be getting her truck and trailer up my steep hilly dirt road!  Since her truck is not 4 wheel drive, we found a friend who had the right kind of truck and he thought the right kind of hitch.  The hitch was not a match for the trailer but he was brave enough to put a chain on his truck and pull Kathe's truck and trailer up the difficult hills.  Amazing day!!!

I am so happy these beautiful horses are finally home.  They are a little stunned to finally be back at the old homestead!

                                                                SWEETIE

Needless to say Sweetie was ecstatic to finally have his friends home especially the mare Moonbeam!  Here he is frolicking with her.

THE GOAL AND  NOW THE WORK BEGINS

The final outcome for these 4 horses is that they will be running free again in the meadows on our property but we will be able to walk up to them and put a halter on them in case they need to see the vet or if they break through the fence and we need to catch them easily. An additional plus is that we can touch them and give them lots of love!!  As mentioned earlier the other task is to get the stallions gelded.

In order for all of this to happen Kathe needed to work with them in the round pen.  I love the photos below, she has the 3 stallions going around the pen in sync and her only tools are a rope and a flag.  The goal this day was to be able to touch Little One, so he has the rope on his neck.                                                   

SUCCESS !  Little One experiences positive touch for the first time in his life!!

A few days later Little One and Suki were successfully gelded and are recuperating nicely with lots of love and food.  However, poor Sweetie will need to go to a vet hospital as he will require surgery since he has an undescended testicle.  We hope to schedule this for September when Kathe will come back and transport him.  At that time she will continue the training for haltering and leading all four horses.
I am deeply indebted to Kathe for all her help, expertise, and  big heart; and also for teaching the horses, me  and my friends her gentle technique so the pintos will remain happy horses!

SUKI AND LITTLE ONE

The past 2 days I have gone over next door and to my relief Little One and Suki have been together. They stand side by side while I feed them. Since last March I have been going over there regularly to feed Little One and he follows me into the corral where he takes the food from my hands. The first day I fed them outside the corral as I wasn’t sure if Suki would go in as the entrance is very narrow.


Yesterday, I decided to see if Suki would go into the corral for food and he eagerly followed me in. Then I put a chair in the corral and spent an hour with both of them while reading my book and observing them. They are very sweet together and now they have each other. Little One who will not allow me to touch him, kept coming over and checking me out. Suki was more interested in grazing. It was a very peaceful hour the three of us had in the sun and I will remember it fondly.

Feeding Time!

For the past three days the horses have calmed down enough that they decided it was time for them to go through the gate from next door and come up to get food. I feed them at the bench so they are waiting for me to show up. They have been here 2 times before since the fence was built but they weren't too happy about being fenced in here. Today they have been around all day.

There are alfalfa squares soaking in water in the bowl. Suki and Lady, the older mare, both can eat out of the bowl. It wasn't until today that Sweetie and Little One became interested in the bowl, which I am excited about since I eventually want to feed them some grain which they will have to eat out of a container.

Spring!

        Suki and Little One decided to rest by the daffodils a few days ago.

This is a blow-up of Little One from the same photo.  I love the way his tongue is slightly sticking out!