H&H Ranch

Yesterday we said goodbye to one of the greatest cats that ever walked the earth when our beloved Puddy crossed over the rainbow bridge. Puddy was the smartest, funniest and absolute best barn cat ever. He was a stealthy, ferocious hunter, and was known for his swift kills and rapid ingestion of his prey in front of spectators. As a younger cat, he defended his horses and barn with bravery and vigilance, often injuring himself in the process, and he carried his scars with pride. He survived a suspected mountain lion attack, and had his ear nearly torn off more than once. He was a powerful soul, and an iconic fixture at H&H Ranch, and he greeted us with his unique squawk and meow every single morning when we arrived at the barn, often trotting out to the vehicle as we pulled down into the parking area in the front of the stable. He is the main poser in countless photos over so many years. In his later months, his health was failing, and more recently we cared for him like the beloved elderly family member he was, feeding him constantly, providing gallons of cool fresh water in his favorite little bowl in the wash stall, and placing hand warmers under the down jacket he slept on inside his kitty bed in the arena each night. We will miss this little creature, but our time at H&H Ranch is coming to an end, and we know that our beautiful Puddy will always be with us, and his soul will follow us and our horses as we soon begin a new chapter at The Whileaway Ranch.

Keep the Inside Leg Honest with Courtney King-Dye Courtney King-Dye explains how to cultivate this important tool for the simple act of turning or bending.

“Farm work doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t make you anything. It reveals you.
There’s gym strong and then there’s farm strong. They’re mutually exclusive. The toughest women you’ll ever meet spend their days on a farm.

There are more uses for twine than you can possibly imagine. You can tie up a hole in a slow feeder, fashion a tail strap for a horse’s blanket, mend a broken fence and use it as a belt.

“Well that certainly didn’t go as planned,” is one thing you’ll say quite a bit.
Control is a mere illusion. The thought that you have any, at any given time, is utterly false.
Sometimes sleep is a luxury. So are lunch and dinner. And brushing your hair.

If you’ve never felt your obliques contract, then you’ve never tried stopping an overly full wheelbarrow of horse manure from tipping over sideways. Trust me, you’ll find muscles that you never knew existed on the human skeleton to prevent this from happening.

When one of the animals is ill, you’ll go to heroic lengths to minimize their discomfort.
Their needs come first. In summer heat and coldest winter days. Clean water, clean bed, and plenty of feed. Before you have your first meal, they all eat.

When you lose one of them, even though you know that day is inevitable, you still feel sadness, angst and emotional pain from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. And it’s a heaviness that lingers even though you must regroup and press on.
You’ll cry a lot. But you’ll never live more fully. You’ll remain present no matter what because you must. There is no other option.
You’ll ask for so many miracles and hold out hope until the very last.

You will, at least once, face-plant in the manure pile. You’ll find yourself saying things like, “we have maybe twenty minutes of daylight left to git ‘er done” whilst gazing up at a nonspecific place in the sky.
You’ll become weirdly obsessive about the weather.
You’ll go out in public wearing filthy clothes and smelling of dirt, sweat and p**p. People will look at you sideways and krinkle their noses but you won’t care.
Your entire day can derail within ten seconds of the rising sun.
You can wash your coveralls. They won’t look any cleaner, but they will smell much nicer.

Farm work is difficult in its simplicity.
You’ll always notice just how beautiful sunrises and sunsets really are.
Should you ever have the opportunity to work on a farm, take the chance! You will never do anything more satisfying in your entire life.”

-Author Unknown

Olympic Equestrian Live Streams & Schedule Watch Equestrian live from the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games on NBCOlympics.com

// Friday Fact - Rewarding the horse //

In negative reinforcement, the reward is intrinsic - the removal of pressure is reinforcing. However, when the horse performs random behavioural responses that the trainer deems worthy of reward, primary reinforcers, such as food, or tactile rewards (caressing) can be administered, or else secondary reinforcers, including voice or petting, can be trained. Because of the risk of competing stimuli, it is prudent to use positive reinforcement when the motivating pressures of negative reinforcement have been diminished to light cues.

Secondary reinforcers should be carefully trained if they are to become effective rewards. For example, verbal praise should be trained using the same approach as clicker training, where a precise vocal stimulus marks the correct behaviour (this must be accurately timed) and food or caressing the horse at the wither region follows. Given that caressing the horse at the wither region lowers heart rate and increases the duration of relaxed behaviour, this activity provides an easy reward.

In addition, the tactile rewards in this region may be aligned with what is known as 'attachment theory', in that the tactile rewards to the horse may consolidate the bond between horse and rider. The effects of tactile soothing rewards on human-human relationships and human-companion animal relationship are well-documented. However, they are yet to be fully explored in horse-human interactions and represent a promising field of research.

(Excerpt from the book 'Equitation Science', p. 132)

Happy Independence Day!🇺🇸