The Art of Natural Dressage

Hi,
I have been reading for a few days and enjoying the atmosphere here very much so thought it was probably a good time to introduce myself.
My name is Annette, I am female, 38 years old and live in the Western Cape in South Africa. Morgan is the name of my horse and he is the of course the sweetest horse on the planet! He has just turned 5 and I have owned him for just over a year. I was lucky enough to be able to choose him out of a band of young geldings and apart from being gelded and a brief backing at two years of age he was pretty much wild and untouched by humans. I started him myself with a mixture of Parelli (without the hectic pressure), some natural horseman ideas and basically letting him decide what was appropriate or not and when. He was a dream to start under saddle with none of the usual wobbles that horses with past issues have and after about 6 months under saddle I was taking him for short trail rides with other horses and hacking him alone with a snaffle. I started basic schooling with him but was very uncomfortable with forced collection and equally uncomfortable with riding him hollow. At this point I found NHE. I spent the next 5 months learning lots about anatomy and stopped riding and put away my tack. I am no longer on the NHE forum and am looking forward to being able to continue to educate my horse the way I choose to with support from others that think along the same lines. Last week I got back in the saddle and took Morgan for a ride 3 times. The first two I used the snaffle and the last ride I hacked him out alone with a rope halter.
I am happy to find that I can continue our games on the ground as we have learnt a lot and making beginning strides on walking and turning with the cordeo, lifting front legs and walking/trotting and cantering at liberty.
I want to thank Werner for his posts on the NHE thread as it was very helpful for me to understand many of the feelings I had not resolved.
I look forward to meeting you all and am happy to see that there are some members that I already know......
I am sure I am going to ask many questions and already know that there is a wealth of knowledge here to be shared.

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

YAY! More South Africans! Are you far from Cape Town? We are having and AND clinic there this weekend ...

My horse has just turned 5 as well, and I've had him for almost a year now.

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Glen Grobler

Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. Anon

Welcome, Annette!!

So great that you had the chance to start working with your horse from the beginning. It´s such a difference to working with horses who have some issues already. I am looking forward to reading more about your training with Morgan. Do you have pictures of him?

Warm Regards,
Romy

Hi Romy,
I remember you from NHE, it's good to see a few familiar faces. Yes of course I have photo's......5 months of "doing nothing" .......I took tons of photo's!!!!!
If you can give me a little time I will start a diary and put some pics in there.
I am thrilled that Josepha is coming out here and that I will get to meet some other members in the flesh!
Thanks for the warm welcome....I feel at home already.

Glen,
It's good to be here too. I am sure we will have lots to talk about. I touched briefly on your diary and your horses look lovely (are they appaloosa's?). If so I envy you....my friend breeds them and they are just the most amazing horses ever, such wonderful temperaments.

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

The big chap has a little Appaloosa (1/8th - from the Toby's line) but he's actually a WachmanIII warmblood, and the little chap is (we think) Nooitgedacht with a little Percheron.

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Glen Grobler



Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. Anon

Dear Annette!

Put your beautiful pictures I saw before! They are gorgeous! They will fall in love of your horses and where you live.



I disagree, it is mine the cutest one!

Nice to see you here! I'm looking forward to read more! And I know that you love write long post!!

With Love,

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*Marie Madec*

Oeww I read you have gorgeous pictures...

Show them
I really look forward to see them.

Welcome!!

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I wish I knew your world

Welcome Morgan!
It is always a joy to see more people arriving here in this friendly and open place

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Andrea
http://www.youtube.com/user/FinhorsesAndPinscher
http://basichorsemanship.blogspot.com/

Hi Annette!

Welcome! I am new here too -- I remember your kind welcome to me on the other board (TOB)


blessings,
Mouschi

(prairiebutterfly)

I can't keep up at the moment....but I will post (probably long....yes Marie!) soon as well as start my diary and ask all kinds of annoying questions.
I have a bit of a busy schedule family wise (no need to bore you all with that) and as for being welcoming....I like to think that I am mostly kind and considerate and try to treat people like I would like to be treated. I do think that daily life in general is hard today with less time/more demands and tons of rude people. I want my horse time (and that includes this forum) to be a positive time and to leave me with good feelings.....so I won't be looking for any fights!!!!!!!
I am a bit edgy as I have not been able to see Morgan for 3 days as it has just not stopped raining and the road is closed to get to him. I can go around but it would mean a 3 hour trip! My friend is keeping me up to date and I know she will be letting him out to graze. She gets beside herself when the camp gets really wet and makes a plan for them to come up to her house for them to eat. The only problem with this is that they now think they can come inside too!
Well hopefully tomorrow I can go and spend some time with him and will start my diary when I get back.
I would like to start now in the present (I am so tired of using reading time) to upload photo's again!!!! I think as we go along anyone that doesn't understand anything I post due to history can ask and I will gladly answer along the way.....

I want to say a big THANK YOU again to everyone that has welcomed me here. It really is good to be here and after feeling displaced for a bit, I think I can get some sleep now!!!! I am hoping to be at the clinic on Wed next week so will give you all an update (and take some pics) about how that goes.

Can someone tell me if I need an avatar and what the requirements are? Signature etc. I have jumped right in here with both feet and don't want to upset anyone by not doing something correctly.

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

Don´t worry, there are no requirements for avatars and signatures. The only thing is that, if you choose to use an avatar, it would be nice to not make it wider than 150 pixels, because otherwise the posts get so squished... although it seems that the new forum software automatically resizes them.

Great thank you Romy.

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

Hi Annette,

Welcome here!!


Kind regards

Bianca

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Thank you Bianca.
I can't say enough times how happy I am to be here.....

I am a little overwhelmed with the speed and amount of responses, it's all good but taking time to get through and then wanting to concentrate on aspects that are relevant to Morgan and myself right now and also not wanting to miss anything and then the diaries to learn more about everyone here. Phew!!!

I love the fact that the forum is so open minded and respectful to others ideas and thoughts and that can only be beneficial for learning, which is why we are all here!
You seem to have some extremely knowledgeable people gathered here and I feel priviledged that I can learn from them.

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

Welcome here Annette! It's good to see you again.. Are you still on Maksida's forum?