The Art of Natural Dressage

hi there. my name is jess. i am so happy that i have been told about this site. i watched for a little while befor i felt brave enough to join, as my experience with another forum has not been good. (i dont think it is too hard to tell which one)

i am here because i have been on a journey for a long time now with my horses. i was born and raised with them and have a deep love for them. to me my horses are my family.

i have many rescue horses, and a few that are not. i have three kids that also love horses, (Boys) they have a very natural way with them. i used to teach children to work with horses naturally. how to use body language and understand what they were saying. kids are unbelievable at using their bodies, and they have a natural feel for horses.

i have spent so much time though, teaching, i have forgotten about me. i used to be a dressage rider, competed to advanced, and trained to PSG. but at sixteen/seventeen, i realised that i hated that i was forcing my horse to do something that she did not love. so i gave it up. started working with herds and communicating with horses on a natural basis. i have had some magic experiences, and i hope to have more. but i have some horses that are keen to keep learning, they are waiting for what we can do next, so i am on this forum to learn where to go from here. please, i would greatly appreciate any advice that i could get. i will try to work out how to set up photos, but other wise i will put on a link to my photo bucket.

please excuse some of the hoof photos, i have been taking photos of the hoof of a horse i do not own, we are working together with a barefoot farrier to improve them and documenting the improvement. but she is not mine.

http://photobucket.com/jessyplumm


i cant wait to hear from you!!

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just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

hi. could someone please help me on how to post a photo?

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just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

Sure, Jess.

First with the very post, so you'll still have my words easily available to you, chose [quote] in the upper right hand corner.

This post will appear with my comments between quote remarks and close quote remarks.

You will be in an edit mode, so can add a photo if you wish.

On your photobucket page pick a photo you wish to place here on AND. Move your pointer over the pic, then the dropdown list appears. Move your pointer down to the item that appears with [img] at the beginning of the link statement. Copy that URL.

Come back here and paste it wherever you'll like to paste the photo.

You may then check to make sure you got all the URL by hitting the button at the end of your post marked [Preview]. You should see the photo when your post reloads in an editable form and a copy of the finished product as it will appear.

I did just that as I was writing this, using your photobucket page and this picture:



The URL is and must be complete as http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp16 ... ess589.jpg

Preceding it will be the (IMG)marker,and at the end the (/img) marker. The first tells your browser to read the URL and display the contents, the end marker just tells your browser to read nothing further than the string that preceded it. I had to use parenthesis because using the actual square bracketed marker would cause everything afterward to go to code ... very confusing to the reader unless they know this already.

You can, actually, display any pic from any source if you can find it's location address (and you can by right clicking with your pointer over it, usually). The only caveat would be to not use someone's copyrighted pictures without their express permission.

I just used yours without your permission, of course. Though I understand that anything posted to photo bucket is not copyrighted to the originator.

Hope this helps.

Donald Redux


If you are curious, you can see both my current and my historic photo and video albums at - (guest password is 'haumea')

http://photobucket.com/guestlogin?albumUrl=http://s236.photobucket.com/albums/ff51/donald_redux/

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Love is Trust, trust is All
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So say Don, Altea, and Bonnie the Wonder Filly.

Welcome, Jess!!

Great that you are here and very nice to have more people from all over the world. I just went to your photobucket account - your horses are beautiful and also your pastures just look wonderful!

I hope you will enjoy AND and I am looking forward to reading more about your time with your horses.

Warm Regards,
Romy

Hi Jess,
I am glad you made it here! No one here will judge you and you are free to really write what you would like to.......
I was there too, and it does take a while to "de-cult" yourself. LOL!

I also have three boys so I know what hard work that can be. Your horses look fabulous and it appears from your photo's that you are already playing lots from the ground. Here you will find loads of games and interesting things to try with your horse that don't involve pressure. There are so many interesting threads from everyone that I am sure you will have lots of fun doing new things.

Welcome here!
Best
Annette

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Annette O'Sullivan

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

Welcome Jess!

Enjoy your stay in the AND lounge and get your feet up on the vivid green hocker

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www.equusuniversalis.com

hi. thankyou every one for the welcome. it is nice to be on a forum that is accepting. although i will probably be a little reserved for a while. especially over herds, as this is a tense subject. i love them!!! rescue horses, which i am right into, and children and horses. these are sensitive topics as they did not go well on the last site. you can see my kids and their horses on photo bucket link that i put on befor. they make me proud. (three boys are really hard huh!!! but they are a lot of fun!!)


donald, thankyou for allowing me to share a look at your photos. i was looking at the snow and finding it hard to imagine the cold. it was in fourties (deg cen) today and there are bush fires near. i went out with the hose today and some of the horses stood under for a cool down, but they all have dams to swim and cool in.

my mum and i have over fifty horses. we have many rescues, but mum also breeds a few stockhorses, (befor her accident) so i have many younghorses to play with. they are alot of fun.

about myself and what i have done with horses....i have been with hores my whole life. i used to sneak out in the night to go sleep in the paddock with the herd when i was little, and i have had some great herd experiences since.

i spend nearly all of my horsey time on the ground. i just like to play on the ground. i have a warmblood that is wonderful to play with at liberty. he will passage then extend, then passage just in sinc with me he gets almost a little intimidating though because he really plays and he is close to 17hh. if i duck down and jump up, he will rear and spin on his back legs and then trott up to me. his expressions are so youthful and playful. he is like a puppy!

i had a great experience the other day with one of the young ones. he is pretty much unhandled as he was born when mum had her accident. i sat in the yard with him, and his friends i had near so he would not frett. i just sat and looked at the sky, and befor i knew it, he was turning in circles right next to me, pawing the ground, then he plonked on the ground and lay down right on top of me!!! i cried!

i have chosen a few horses that i was trying to practice NHe with. i found that it is really not too far off what i do naturally. but when i said this, it was not recieved well. i will introduce you. Danni is a quater horse mare, she is ten and up until a year ago, belonged to family that just did basic dressage with bit. she is a nice little mare, but is very strung!!! tense!!! this is a pic of her.


she is really loving the games we are playing, and she loves bitless. i do ride her everyso often. i went and rounded up some cattle for about 20 minutes. it was just walk and a little trott. but i did it without a bridle. she was great. but most of the time, i play on the ground. she lifts her legs on command, and is learning spanish walk. this is the way she went, i just followed what she offered. she will walk, walk, walk, lift....etc. but she gets a little excited and stomps. but it is a work in progress.

this is nova


he was surrendered to me. he was terrified of everything. he is the spookiest horse i have ever seen. but he has bonded to me and trusts me. he is very willing and is a very elegant horse. he gets very excited, but when he plays, he still has moments where the past comes back to him, and then he gets frightened. i think though, he will come along beautifully.

this next horse is bobby. he is my stallion. he is a stockhorse. he does not actually belong to me, but he belongs to my mum. but bobby just loves me. i can walk into the paddock with a mare in season and he will wait till i look down and let him know he can approach. i can tell him to approach slowly and i can ask him to get off if the mare is uncomefortable. i do not ever have him on a lead, he is at liberty. he just is very in tune with body language. and he really does love the time i spend with him. he has issues that he needs to overcome, even though he is only four, he was trained by a campdraughter, and he did not cope. i am just making it easy and enjoyable for him at the moment.





i have alot of horses that i am doing alot of ground work with. but these are the ones that i am focusing on at the moment. then i will turn them out a little while and bring someone else in. i would love some ideas on some games to help very nervouse horses like nova, and some help for a stompy spanish walk. thankyou

from jessy

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just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

nice to hear from someone in the same boat as me!!! i am lucky because i dont have to de cult too much, because that is why i was removed!!! i dont think i was "IN" to start with thank goodness!! ...i had too many questions, and i bitt back when attacked over matters i knew better (herds are not wrong! ) i only wanted to learn what is best for the horse, not what is best for their education.

could you give me some advice on where to look first? all this info is just so wonderful, but it is a little overwhelming after being on a forum with total secrecy!!! thankyou

jessy

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just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

Hi Jess,

I am on the rescue boat as well
Every horse I ever had I rescued except for Owen which I really bought just because he was my dream come true. (And I then still had to rescue him, but that was only after he rescued me of course )
Having said that... I am more rescued by my horses then I can even begin to describe

And I think it is safe to say: we all love HERDS! even more so, it is part of the AND philosophy
There are even AND movies about training in a (small) herd. I wonder even if there is anyone on this forum who does not have his horses outside in a herd (at least during day time).
(And if there was, no worries either of course )

So no worries, stretch your legs and take some veggy snacks from the lounge table

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www.equusuniversalis.com

thankyou thanyou thankyou. what a breath of fresh air. i will do as much reading as possible, and i think that when i get a little braver i will share a little more. i would love to share my rescue stories, do you have a post where i can do that? it will give people a little insight as to why i am working with them in an individual way each. i do not treat any two horses the same. (some have the most horrific past!!! ) i love them all so much, and i know why you say that they rescued you...mine have done the same for me. i do not know where i would be without these wonderful beings in my life.

from jessy

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just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

That depends on what you want to know. As you seem to like doing groundwork, an overview of AND groundwork is given in the description of the levels (which are no levels in the Parelli sense at all, no fixed order but just a guideline that you can use or not ). And then there are several stickies in the groundwork section that might be interesting to read. Also the diaries are a great source of information. So you are right... I think if I came to this forum now that it is so big (when I arrived here there were something between 1000 and 2000 posts altogether), I sure would go crazy with all the information to choose from.

Enjoy!

I agree with Romy there is a lot of info here. I think you are someone who has a good feel for what you want to do and where you are headed with each horse so perhaps start with some new games and see how they go. It is useful to start a diary (daily training) and post as you go along if you are unsure or need help with some aspects. As you say every horse has his or her own personality and thoughts and even with this there are always others here who have experienced the same or similar. I love it when I get stuck and ask a question as there are so many angles or approaches we can try and so many more heads thinking of logical answers!
Some have diaries for each horse, others just the one diary where they write what is relevent that day or week.
For me the most important thing here is that the horses well being and happiness comes first and when that happens the rest seems to come easier. Your horses certainly look very happy!
The research material and training methods was also very nteresting to me when I got here. It was wonderful to read many posts discussing other trainers openy and honestly and what was liked and disliked and why.
So it's really up to you what you choose to read and what interests you and what you would like to implement in your horse training.

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Annette O'Sullivan

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

hi. have been reading through sooe posts and i am so happy to be somewhere that all different horse people can be appreciated. i do believe that everyone has something to share, and that all people are a source to learn from (even if it is to say, "i will never do it that way")

i love the info that Klouse H. teaches. i think that he is very in tune. i agree with almost everything that he says, because growing up with horses in herds, i learnt that breathing, heart rate and body language were my telephone line to the horse. i wish we had seminars here is Aus by Klouse. i would love to hear more of what he teaches, as i only have the dancing with horses d.v.d.

i really love to take info from everyone that i can. i see my relationship with horses as being like creating my own recipe for a cake. i take ingrediants from everywhere, i put in my own measurements that suits my personality and my horse, and mix it all together and when i am finished i have the best cake i can get out of that tin. i may only get cupcakes....but i am happy with cupcakes, but with some, they have the capasity to be a wonderful and intricate cake!! i am sorry, i tend to ramble on with illustrations. it is a way i learn. i only understand through feel or illustration.

i am mostly using shaping. i used to use pressure, but i have always felt that this was not the way i wanted for my relationship with my horse. it felt wrong. but since discovering that i can still achive everything i have ever dreamed of with out this pressure, i am back into it.... i had thought that i would have to give up dressage forevery!!! i do love the dance, but this way it will feel more mutual!!

where should i start a diary? do i make this one? or do i go somewhere else. i have not had the chance to full look through this forum.

i will leave you with photo of my horses. this is one of my herds. these are mostly rescues. one of these horses is a fit and healthy thirty six yr old. no arthritis or any other complaints, just no teeth!!! (he has a special diet, but otherwise lives naturally. my hope is that when he goes, it is without pain and it is quick)

these are my babies

this next photo is of my favorite baby. i first started handling her at six months, she was completely unhandles and would agressively try to kick if you approached. i just love her so much


now, she would not hurt a fly. she does not know anything bad from humans, and so does not respond bad to them. she is a wonderful filly and every moment with her is rewarding.

the next photo is of big boy. he is my dutch warmblood. i bought him for $1. he was origionally purchares for very very very big money by a big trainer here in Aus, but he did not cope and ended up a dangerouse mess. he then belonged to man who knew nothing. he was beaten and starved, to the point where he had gone down with starvation and the dogs tried to kill him. but Big boy killed the dogs and earned his name as a killer!!! someone i know saw him and picked him up, but he had so many issues that they gave him to me. he was afraid of his shadow!!!! he was dangerouse, but he had something there. i mostly just left him lone till he wanted to have something to do with me. when he did, i took him into the arena and played at liberty. but as his experiences of an arena was not good, it took a while for him to relax into the games.

after about six months, he was mimicking me with my movements, and really showing off his elaborate movement. he is so intune to energy. if i just slightly lift my energy, he will expressively dance around, when i lower it, he goes to walk and comes in. i turned him out for one year to just be a horse and finnish growing, and now i have a settled and ready to learn six year old dutch warmblood. i have more to tell about his progress, but i will leave it for now...

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just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

So many beautiful horses...I don't even know where to start. I love the land there too...the pond is lovely!

I'm glad you found your way here. I'm looking forward to hearing more!

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

hi everyone. i just have to say that i am rapidly feeling more and more comefortable on this forum. everyone is so enviting.

i just got back in from my morning feed up. i just was having a little play with danni. she is now offering alternating legs, one lift and then the other. the stomping is settling, but i am finding that she does not lift as high. i think that she was trying a little too hard and that is why she was stomping. i think that her fitness and strength is not good enough yet. so i will do only a little here and there and possibly start with something else.

we have been working on natural collection. but i am a little unsure if i am taking it the right way and if i am using too many treats. unlike this leg lift/spanish walk, which she found fresh and new and exciting, she feels a little that natural collection is associated with the past, with bits!!! so i think that i am more bribing her at the moment, not to collect, but to enjoy the experience. i would love some advice on how to slowly make this more of a natural and enjoyable experience rather than her thinking too much about it.

i just wanted to also put on three photos of my kids. jordan is best on the ground with horses. he can feel their pain and their emotion. he is extreamly sensitive and horses just love to be near him


this is my favorite photo of jordan. you can see his connection, he did not know that i was there.

this next photo is of lachlan, who is not so great on the ground, but who can confidently communicate from on the horse so brilliantly, it is amazing to watch. he was not taught this, i just encourage him




he is amazing!! he instinctively understands how to use his body and energy. he almost seems to have a constant conversation going that knowone else can see. they just seem to know what he wants and they are calm and happy to do anything for him without any pressure.

this next photo is of dyl. he was six months in this photo. he was a reflux baby, screamed all night, and the only thing that would calm him is if i went outside and called up the herd. he loved hearng their hooves thundering up the paddock, it soothed him. but mostly, they would surround us and they would just put their faces gently near him and he would just reach out and touch.


in this photo, he took off across the lawn in his walker and got a hold of Kristen, (26yr old wonderful pony) he scared the life out of me, as this was his first real mobility!! he decided he could walk in this thing to get the horsey.



i hope you like meeting my children. jordan is eight, lachlan is six and dylan is 18months.

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just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy