I'm Not Dead!

Promise! I'm alive and well and not infected anymore...oh wait, I haven't shared that story, have I?

I just recently got over a very badly infected leg, due to a serious friction burn I incurred when playing indoor soccer on Astroturf. If anyone has ever fallen on asphalt, imagine that but with slide, i.e. you don't just stop and rough up the skin, you slide and remove it completely. You then have Astroturf. The stuff is horribly unforgiving...anyway, four days later after caring for it myself and suffering through what appeared to be increasing pain and sensitivity, I barely made it through my Thursday afternoon classes without crying. I could hardly walk, my leg looked like a deformed sausage, and the wound was incredibly painful and sensitive to the touch. At the urging of my classmates, I drove to the ER and was diagnosed with borderline septicemia. Luckily we caught it before that point, so I was scrubbed (OW) and given a goodiebag of Bacitracin topical gel, non-stick pads and rolls and rolls of sterile gauze as well as a prescription for some heavy duty antibiotics (which were almost guaranteed to give me a yeast infection, so I spent a week eating yogurt and taking probiotics). Three days on the couch and two weeks later and it's almost entirely healed, but it meant no Stella time for a while. It was only as of this past Thursday that I really felt good on my feet.

Stella is happily shed, shed, shedding away, and I have had the opportunity to work her in the arena a couple times. I have talked a bit about Birdie Theory here before (I think), but if not, let me review: Birdie is a metaphor for the leading edge of the horse's attention. I think most good horsepeople recognize that you cannot get anything done with a horse unless he is paying attention to you. We use the horse's "Birdie" to describe where his mind, AKA his focus, is when you are with him. Stella and I have been working with Birdie for a while now, because it is the biggest barrier to our relationship. Stella is not fully confident in me, and her Birdie has a tendency to fly off readily if something new appears (that is to say, her attention is easily drawn elsewhere if something interesting or potentially threatening pops up) and so I have been in the process of teaching her to stay in her own body and pay attention to me and only me. I must get her to the point where she would rather be with me than anywhere else, and so naturally her Birdie stays with her no matter where we go or what we do.

This has been progressing slowly, but it has been progressing. I fully expect her to get distracted, and it's an opportunity to see how quickly I observe her "leaving" and how quickly I can get her Birdie back. The first sign that a horse is focused somewhere other than you, the rider/trainer/owner, is when you can hear, even very quietly, the horse breathing. It's the first sign of what will likely lead to a blow-up or a dangerous behavior or an all-out refusal to do something, if it's allowed to escalate that far. When I hear that from Stella, which I often do at the beginning of our sessions, I ask her to do something, then another something, and another something. I ask her to take two steps back, one step forward, track under left, track under right, two steps back, etc. I poke her shoulder, touch her neck, touch her leg, anything to bring sensation back into her body so that she must focus on it. Then, I bring out the lunge whip. We've been practicing not being afraid of the snapping and it touching her, and now she's so OK with it that it's become a focus tool. I gently wave the whip back and forth over her neck, back, haunches so that it drapes/taps her. It brings a physical sensation to her body that she cannot ignore and also gives her a very specific point to focus on. Within a minute she cocks a hind leg and settles. That's exactly what I want, and I usually let her hang out there for a few minutes while I pet her.

Stella's Birdie still strays when we leave the arena, unfortunately. I think her attention flies way back to the barn by the time we get to the gate, and so it takes a few minutes longer to get back than it would otherwise. But this is OK, I'm not really in any rush. I'd love to get on her come summer, but if I don't, it will hardly be the end of the world. I'm just so freaking happy to have my girl back, and to be feeling good about where we're going.

I know I've promised conformation shots and a discussion to follow, and that is still in the works, but spring grass is tempting and Stella finds it hard to stand still long enough for me to get a decent shot before she drops her head to graze...I wonder where her attention is there!