Communication doesn't need Words

[Anastasie Chevalier]

Anastasie Chevalier led her large bay gelding into the field that she used as a classroom. Rubbing the gelding on the neck, she unclipped the lead rope from his baby blue rope halter and left him at liberty in the field while she headed off to collect the things that she needed for the clinic.

Entering the field again, she dropped what she had brought in with her on the ground and then sorted out the carrot sticks (in a range of colours) and cotton leads (in a range of colours) so that the sticks were all sitting nicely with a coiled lead on top of each one, not all of the leads matched the colour of the stick, but the co-ordinated nicely with them.

She headed back over to where the bay Standardbred was cropping contentedly on the short grass in the field. She laughed as she watched him flatten her ears as she got closer, hind hoof raising so that he was standing at rest and nostrils flaring as he eyed her. "Yeah, you try that with someone who doesn't know you." She said as she continued walking and placed her hand on his shoulder. "Yes my darling, I know your tricks." The gelding had done the same thing since she had started working with him, except at the start, the flattened ears and flared nostrils were more of a warning that he would bite until she had gained his confidence. She ran her hands over the gelding's back until she reached his dock and started scratching beside his dock, smiling as he lifted his tail up and too the side so that she could really get into the scratching. "You goof." She laughed as he turned his head to look at her, his chewing on the air as he lifted his top lip in a flehmen response, a horse in heaven.

She glanced over when she saw movement at the gate and grinned as she waved toward the students and horses standing there. "Sorry bud." She said as she slapped her gelding's buttock. "Come on in, if you aren't already in my class, grab a lead and carrot stick from the ground and find yourself a space." Which was the repeated greeting she gave each time people turned up at the gate. "You don't need your helmets yet, so if you've forgotten them, you can collect them at lunch."

Calling:
@neigh
Amelia DeFoe,
@running7,
Danielle Green,
Gretchen Holmes,
@running5,
@rhythm,
@sierra,
Tyler Reynolds,

[Deleted]

Jason had almost forgotten that he had signed up for a few summer clinics until he came back to Blue Ridge and his large wall calendar. Thankfully, he had returned just in time for his first workshop, with Ms. Chevalier. He slid his feet easily into his boots and headed for Tickle's stall. It was a good thing that Natural Horsemanship was first, for the Oldenburg gelding had spent the last two weeks on vacation as well, so to speak.  "Hey there T. Miss me?" Jason greeted with a smile, slipping the orange halter on.

Grooming took a little longer than usual, as Tickle had 2 weeks of dust to get rid of. After a quick detour to the tack room for his carrot stick, Jason clipped the cotton lead rope on and led his horse to the Natural Horsemanship field. The gelding clopped obediently beside his owner, occasionally turning his nose to lip affectionately at the boy's hair. At Ms. Chevalier's welcome, Jason moved towards the gate first, as he was the closest."Hello Ms. Chevalier!" He called, grinning at the instructor. Making sure to give the others room to get in, Jason chose a spot rather far down the fence line, where he promptly began running his hands over his pinto's body, re-familiarizing himself with his horse.

[Deleted]

"Are you excited for our first clinic girl?" Amber asked her horse, as she greeted her by the stall gate.  She walked in and gave Rapunzel a quick brush.  The she checked her hoofs but they did not need to be picked out.  She then fastened Rapunzel's leather halter and lead rope to her, and lead her out to the field where they were supposed to be meeting. 

Amber had never taken a natural horsemanship clinic before, but she had read a few books on the subject.  She had even practiced some some stuff from them with her horse, but always after talking it over with her brother first.  She had better luck with Rapunzel then he did with Klein. 

Amber walked in, glancing nervously at the boy and his horse.  She looked at the instructor, whom she had not yet met.  "Hi" she greeted.  She crouched down and picked up a pink carrot stick and glanced at the instructor again.  "Um... do I have to use one of your leads or can I just use my own?" she asked, nervously. 

Rapunzel looked around at the other horses, and focused her attention back on Amber.  She didn't know these horses.  There were so many strangers here.  It was lonely.  At least she had Amber.

[Amelia DeFoe]

Amy played with the lead rope that she was holding as she walked out to the pastures, thinking about the clinic she had signed up for. While she knew it was today, she couldn't recall which horse she'd planned on bringing, since it would be fun to work with Tommy, but she needed to get closer to Amur. Finally, she decided that she'd take the crossbreed, despite the fact that she was holding a green lead, Tommy's lead. She'd put it back later.

After collecting the bay horse, she tied him outside of the White Oak Barn and collected his grooming supplies, although she wasn't going to do much, just make sure that he was presentable. After checking to make sure that his many white markings were clean and shone, she untied the gelding and led him towards the Natural Horsemanship fields, Wolf on her off side. As they entered the field, she smiled at Ms. Chevalier and then looked at the equipment they were asked to pick up, struggling for a moment before remembering that Wolf's new leash could be converted to a hands-free version.

Light blue carrot stick and purple lead in hand, she approached the teacher, before quietly asking, "Would it be alright if we stood at the corner and I had Wolf lie there, or where would you like us to stand?" Once her question was answered, she nodded and took in her place, dropping helmet, carrot stick, and the shorter lead out of the way and playing with the cotton rope that she'd attached to Amur's halter.

[Danielle Green]

Remi was standing quietly in her stall when Danny walked up. The mare’s ears immediately perked up as the girl came into sight. ”Hi baby.” The sixteen year old patted her on the neck and walked to the tack room. She returned with a brush, Danielle wanted to clean Remi up a little bit, but didn’t need to fully groom her.

The girl brushed the mare off and walked back to the tack room. Putting the brush back, she grabbed Remi’s class light blue lead rope, same colored carrot stick, and her helmet, and then walked back to the stall. Clipping the lead rope to the halter the mare already wore; Danielle walked the Curly out of her stall, out of the barn, and to the Natural Horsemanship field.

Danny smiled at Ms. Chevalier and took a spot in the field and laid the lead rope that was attached to Remi’s halter across her wither so she wouldn’t step on it. From what she could tell in the time she worked with the mare, she was friendly and didn’t wander a whole lot and so Danny decided to let her graze for a while before Ms. Chevalier started the clinic.

[Deleted]

Fore had been in the caring hands of the barn hands as Jackson took a week to visit his grandparents with Phillip. Now that he was back he was glad to get into something right away. Making his way to the White Oak barn he found the stall and saw that Fore was indeed there like he had thought. The horses were put out during the night in the summers and days during the winter, this day was no different.

Walking to the tack room, Jackson grabbed the mare’s grooming kit and walked back to the Paint. He walked her to the cross ties to groom her. Taking about twenty minutes to fully groom Fore he dusted off his hands when he was done and returned the grooming kit to the tack locker, before he walked out of the room he grabbed his helmet. Coming back the horse he immediately hugged her. ”I missed you girl.”

Taking the lead rope and clipping it back onto the halter they walked out of the barn and to the Natural Horsemanship field. Seeing a few people were already there he grabbed a carrot stick and lead rope. Jackson found a place that he and Fore could stand to give everyone space but he was close enough to her Ms. Chevalier.

[Tyler Reynolds]

Returning home didn’t cross Tyler’s mind, but his parents did contact him to see if he was coming home, his answer was no, but not as blunt. He had no desire to do anything but spend time with Roman, which was good for Roman, as Tyler felt he hadn’t had a lot of time to reconnect, almost, to the gelding.

Tyler made his way to the White Oak barn to retrieve his horse and make his way to one of the many clinics he signed up to attend this summer. He knew that Roman would need a good clean down so he got to the barn sooner than he really had to. Clipping the short lead rope to the Standardbred’s halter, his handler lead him to a set of cross ties and clipped him in place.

Ty started off currying the gelding off, there wasn’t mud caked on him, but it helped to get up dust that had settled to his skin. After the grooming was done, Tyler picked Roman’s hooves thoroughly. He then remembered that the students had to bring helmets as they would mount up bareback afterwards, quickly making his way to the tack room Ty grabbed his helmet and made his way back to Roman.

Patting the bay’s neck he reattached the lead rope and led him to the Natural Horsemanship field to see five students including the instructor already there. Picking up a dark green carrot stick and corresponding lead rope, then found his spot in the field.

[Deleted]

Caroline was excited to be back for the last month or so of summer to get ready to get back into her academics and riding. When she was at home she did mostly ranch work with her siblings and her father. It was a secret to the trio that she was taking English riding classes, but her mother knew. Trying to gain their full time respect was hard enough, but letting them know that she was trying out something they definitely didn’t respect wasn’t the way she wanted to go.

Making her way to the White Oak barn she was happy to see Lucy. The mare had stuck her head out of the stall and let out a whinny. ”Hi baby girl.” She let herself into the mare’s stall and flung her arms around her neck. The horse was happy to see her as well as she “hugged” Caroline with her head.

Letting go of the Lucy’s neck Caroline exited the stall and traveled to the tack room, grabbing Lucy’s lead rope, her helmet, and her groom kit. Returning to the mare, the sixteen year old clipped Lucy in a pair of cross ties and got to work grooming her.

Once she was done she was done grooming her, Caroline put the groom kit back in place. Collecting the mare she and the girl made their way to the Natural Horsemanship field. Grabbing a pink carrot stick and a lead rope to correspond she found a place in the field and waited.

[Anastasie Chevalier]

Ana smiled and greeted each student who entered. "For now Amber, just find a spot for yourself and Rapunzel in the field, all will be explained in due time." She replied to the girl who asked about the lead ropes, she then turned her attention to the next girl who was speaking with her. It wasn't the first time she had a student with a service dog, though she knew that Wolf's job was different from that of her pervious student's. "That would be perfectly fine, Amy." She replied, knowing that the canine would keep himself out of the way of the horses.

She took note of the new students and when a majority of the students had arrived, she knew that if they waited any longer, she wouldn't get through what she wanted to cover that day. Turning on her cordless mic, she stepped forward and spoke "Welcome to the clinic. For those of you who don’t know me, I'm Ms Chevalier and this big brute here is Cedar. He's not as nasty as he may try and convince you that he is, but I just ask that you all keep your distance from him." She stepped away from the gelding, walked over to the left over carrot sticks and ropes and then returned to where the gelding was still standing.

"If you haven’t already, I would like for you now to swap the current lead your equine friend is wearing for the longer one. I don't want to hear any protests about you being worried you might lose control of your friend without the short lead, just do as you are asked." If she'd had the supplies, she would have supplied a rope halter for everyone as well. She paused while they followed her instructions. "Today, we are going to play games with our equine friends. The technical name for what we are going to do is called The Parelli Seven Games. Some of you may have heard of them, but I can guarantee that all of you already play them." She clipped the blue lead she was holding onto Cedar's rope halter.

"The first game we are going to play is called the Friendly Game. It's called that because you have to smile while you play it. This one, is, without a doubt, the most important of the Seven Games. You need to play it with your horse first, before anything else, and then you need to continue to play it before, during and after each of the other Seven Games. Play it from the tip of your horse’s ears, inside his mouth, down all his legs to the end of his tail. There is no part of your horse’s body you should not be able to be friendly with." She looked at her gelding, who was standing out of reach and she did no more than lift her head and arch his eyebrows and the horse lowered his head and closed the space between them. "You see, I didn't have to talk to him, nor did he walk over me when he walked up. These are a couple of things you will be able to do by the end of today." She rubbed the gelding on the forehead; her hand moved in a circular motion not a thumping pat.

"I want you to hold the rope a good three feet away from the snap, don't question it, just trust me, then I was you to start by rubbing you horse in a pleasurable way wherever the horse will allow you. Begin with these areas and gradually move to the ones they feel more defensive about. These are the “Wait a minute! I don’t know you that well yet!” spots. Take note of those areas and use them to measure how far you are progressing. If you have areas where your horse is really, really defensive about; a gelding's shaft or the udder of a mare, this is why you have a carrot stick." She stepped back from Cedar and held the stick up so that everyone could see it. "This is an extension of your arm." She used the carrot stick to rub the top of the inside of the bay's hind leg. "Cedar here is terrified of whips, but he quickly learned the difference between this and a whip." She gave a smile to each of the students. "Another thing that you all need to think about is ignoring bad behaviour and rewarding good. If you horse kicks out when you are touching an area that they don't like, don't swat them as it just proves to them that they don't want you near that area. Instead, go back to an area that your horse loves. For example, when I first started working with him, he wouldn't allow me to touch his ears, but I discovered that he loves having the inside of his top lip tickled, to his mouth is his go-to spot for me if I find anywhere he doesn't like me to touch."

OOC: I was going to try and blend the first three games into one post, but I couldn't think of how to do it without giving you guys too much to take in so I'll combine the next two into one post.

[Deleted]

Every time a horse and student pair entered the field, Jason looked over to see who else was in this clinic. He recognized most of the faces from the previous school year, though he didn't know their names. He rested a hand on his gelding's neck as Ms. Chevalier addressed the class. He stifled a chuckle as Tickle's head shot up, roused from his doze by the amplified voice. As the instructor began speaking. Jason raised his eyebrows, impressed that Cedar had come with no more prompting than a look. "Why can't you do that?" Jason muttered at his horse, a grin on his face.

He eyed the rope, mentally measuring out roughly three feet as Ms. Chevalier asked. He tugged lightly on the lead rope, and the Oldenburg lowered his head obediently. Jason began rubbing his horse's bridle path, taking care to touch the base of Tickle's ears. He had learned over the past year that it was his horse's favorite spot to be petted. It was no problem at all for Jason to keep a smile on his face, especially when he looked at Tickle's blissful expression. The teen moved on to the neck, then the back, followed by the belly. Out of habit, he went in the order he usually did when grooming. When it came to the sensitive spots, he switched to the carrot stick and resumed the Friendly Game.

[Deleted]

Amber lead Rapunzel out in the field and found a spot. As she listened to the lecture, she grew nervous. She loved Rapunzel and enjoyed petting her, but there were parts of her that she just thought were cruel to touch. She hated it when her brother touched her everywhere, and she loved him more then anyone, so she certainly didn't want to do that to her horse.

She tried to reassure herself by telling herself that it was different with horses then with humans and this worry about it was silly. Also, she knew that Rapunzel would let her know if she didn't like it, because she always let Amber know if she didn't like something. Unlike her rider, Rapunzel was willing to defend herself against those she loved.

Amber took one of the long leads, as instructed and clipped it onto Rapunzel's halter. She measured the proper distance between them and and started stroking Rapunzel, running her hand along her body.  She was unable to keep a smile on her face however, especially when Rapunzel flinched at a spot, and Amber skipped over it, deciding to avoid that spot altogether.  She didn't like this game.  It wasn't really working for her. 

[Amelia DeFoe]

Hearing her answer, Amy nodded and moved to the corner she'd spotted, dropping Wolf's lead and asking him to lay down before she walked a few steps away with Amur, loosening the rope so that the gelding could graze as she considered the stick and rope that she'd picked up. The rope was relatively soft, surprisingly, but far longer than the leads she tended to use, but there was probably going to be a reason for that. The stick, on the other hand, she'd never seen before, although it looked slightly like a whip to her untrained eye. However, it was a carrot stick, whatever that meant. There was no carrot, at least, and they hadn't been told to bring one, so she hadn't.

She listened to the woman's introduction, surprised by how well the horse responded, although what she was explaining made sense. Turning to Amur, she rubbed the gelding's nose before swapping out his lead and dropping the shorter one and the carrot stick to the ground for the time being. After that, she took hold of the lead about three feet out and just looked over the gelding, choosing a spot to start before fixing a smile on her face. Reaching out a hand, she began at his poll, holding on to his ears and running a hand up them, then moving on to his face, where she knew that she would find one of his favorite spots, on the underside of his chin.

As she moved on along the gelding's body, she switched to the carrot stick (there was no carrot after all) to get under his hind legs. She hadn't had to work with Amur in that region just yet, because he'd been relatively good in regards to flies, and he hadn't seemed to happy with her approaching him there yet. It would take some time, she mused, but then, she hadn't really pushed towards that goal yet. They would get there eventually.

[Danielle Green]

Listening to Ms. Chevalier Danielle smiled as she knew Remi was a good partner when they played this game. Once she was done explaining the “game” Danny held the leadrope three feet, rough estimate, from the clip and scratched the Curly’s wither. She knew that was the mare’s happy spot. To start the sixteen year old ran her hand down Remi’s front legs and then down her chest, which led to her stomach. The mare stood there with her one ear flicking around, but one trained on her handler.

The next spot that Danny wanted to test out was the mare’s udders. She never really tried this spot and so was cautious, slowly sliding the carrot stick from her chest back to her udder. Remi let out a heavy sigh, but her ears or any other body language led Danielle to believe the horse was uncomfortable with this. Next the girl ran her hand back to this spot and still nothing had changed. Happy with this Danny went back to her happy spot.

After that she ran her hands down Remi’s back legs and then under her tail, leading to the backside of her haunches, yet nothing. Giving her another scratch Danny went to the mare’s face. Running her hand down the mare’s face around her nostrils and back up to her eyes, nothing in her body language changed. The last two places were her mouth and ears, placing her thumb in the equine’s lower lip Danny slid her finger around to the other side and did the same thing with the upper lip. Last but not least was her ears, running her hand around her ears and then partially in. ”I knew you were the perfect horse.” Danny smiled then went back and scratched her withers and waited for the next game.

[Deleted]

Jackson took everything Ms. Chevalier said into consideration. He had never really taken notice that Fore had issues with often touched areas, like her face, mouth, ears, and legs. Although he had never really touched her udder area, so that would definitely be a place that he could put on his list.

He felt sort of embarrassed but Jackson didn’t know his horse’s go to spot. Holding his head up he knew he would have to get past it and figure it out, today. He started as if he were grooming the Paint Horse. He ran his hands around her flanks and legs, across her back and then down her back legs. Fore’s stomach was next Jackson used the carrot stick as he wasn’t sure how she would react to this. The mare’s ears flickered but nothing negative.

Next he decided to test her udder area. Although he thought and knew that if she didn’t like it he would have nowhere to go to. So before testing her udder he decided to go to her face. Scratching the mare’s chin she immediately showed signs that her chin was indeed her go to spot.

Jackson smiled and then knew what was next. Using the carrot stick once again, Jackson ran it from her stomach where he knew she was ok back to the area of uncertainty. The boy made sure to pay attention to his horse’s hooves and ears, his main signs that she wasn’t okay with it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw ears flatten, no hooves though, which was good for him. The boy moved back to the front of the mare and scratched her chin. He kept working until he felt she was improving.

[Tyler Reynolds]

The seventeen year old chuckled to himself. Of course feeling a little cocky, he thought he and Roman would excel at this game, especially since Tyler had worked with the Standardbred for what felt like forever. Figuring he would start in the order in which he groomed the gelding, the boy ran his hands all over his horse. The gelding’s body language didn’t change, which was good. ”Just like I thought.”

Tyler went to Roman’s spot, which happen to be right beside his tail. The gelding curled his lips back to show his teeth and reached his neck around to the side where Tyler was standing on. ”Oh you’re such a good boy.” Using the carrot stick Ty moved it slowly back towards Roman’s shaft. The gelding let out a sharp snort, and but nothing conveyed to the boy that the Standardbred didn’t approve of what he was doing.

Ty knew his horse was a bit touchy with his ears, around hands and especially water. He ran his hands over Roman’s nose and up to his forelock. Scratching that, he slowly made his way to his ears. Before he even touched it, the gelding pinned them to his skull. ”So you have no problems with your manhood being touched but your ears, really?” Remembering what Ms. Chevalier said Tyler went back to his hindquarters and scratched right beside his tail. He really didn’t understand this horse, sometimes.