2015 Update

Zuni found a new adopter and was in saddle training and being ridden last we heard.

August 26, 2014

Zuni is a 6yo BLM Mustang mare available for reassignment for $25 reassignment fee. Any adopter MUST be approved by BLM to adopt. Zuni has basic ground training, can be haltered, leads, loads, picks up all four feet and ties. Zuni is wonderful over the obstacle course, and is working toward starting under saddle.

Zuni is a sensitive mare that needs an educated hand and a lot of patience. She is sensitive about being cinched (she doesn’t mind the saddle) and we are working with her on it but it will be a slow process. She will be a longer term project but will be well worth it in the end. This is a nice mare with a lot of try.

Please contact Jen Lyon at Dusty Jeans Ranch for more details.

(951) 818-0859 or dustyjeansranch@gmail.com

July 1, 2014

Had Vivian halter Zuni for the 2nd time. Introduced Zuni to the brand new sand box obstacle! Check out her video!

 

June 23, 2014

Vivian worked with Zuni on the obstacle course today. She hadn’t seen it for over a month and was checking things out and very curious. Investigating everything anew. Very sensible mare!!

June 4, 2014

Tied Zuni up outside. She’s nice and quiet!

May 28, 2014

I haltered Zuni today and then Vivian took her for a walk around the property. She wasn’t sure about following a stranger around but did so without incident. Such a good girl. Zuni has been moved to a 12×24 corral for now so we’ll see tomorrow how she feels about haltering in the smaller space (she’s pretty easy to halter in the big corral).

May 26, 2014

Introduced Zuni to the flag. She was previously introduced to the plastic bag about a month ago but we hadn’t done any followup work with that. She obviously retains her lessons well! She is concerned which is to be expected but tries really hard to be brave and stand still! Also continuing daily review of picking up her feet. This awesome girl will be going home soon but we will still enjoy her while we have her!

May 21, 2014

Zuni received a brief review of haltering / picking up feet. She was awesome..as usual.

May 20, 2014

Continued work reinforcing the basics. Here is a quick video of her picking up her feet. We did the other side too but the video turned out too dark to see anything. She’s such a nice mare!

May 19, 2014

We are continuing review with Zuni on haltering and picking up feet each time we work with her. Her front feet are easy and we are still building up the amount of time that she can tolerate having her back feet up but she has never, ever offered to kick. Today we started something new, introducing pressure around her barrel / girth area in preparation for being saddled. I used a lead line to start just to see what her thought about it was. She is used to my hand under her belly so I flipped her lead line over her back and grabbed the tail end of it. Then I used pressure and release repeatedly. The first time she felt really firm pressure she got scared and bolted off but every time after that she was a gem! I’ll try a bit of a tighter rope tomorrow with my ring rope and we’ll move on from there!

May 14, 2014

Zuni and I have been working on reinforcing the basics including haltering and picking up all four feet. Some days she walks right up to me to be haltered, some days she lets me walk right up and halter her, and some days she wants to play a little first. She is a very kind mare and a lot of fun to work with.

May 7, 2014 – Day 21

More review tonight for Zuni on haltering and picking up all four feet. She was excellent as always. We hope to start working with her to see what she thinks of the bareback pad next!

May 6, 2014 – Day 20

Today was focused on review for Zuni. It was quite a windy evening so working with my gentled horses was a good bet and it also allows me to find holes in them. If a horse is unsure about a particular behavior but still does it well in normal, quiet weather, wind can exacerbate their fears and cause them to show their unease. I am happy to say that Zuni didn’t show any issues with her review. We worked on approach and retreat in her stall. I am really trying to encourage her to catch me when I go in her pen. I can halter her just fine but she naturally wants to approach me but is still unsure so I am continuing to develop that in her.

Once she was haltered we went for a nice walk around the property. Visited the goat pens, walked by the scary outhouse etc. Then we watched as Joe removed the trailer divider from the trailer so we could practice trailer loading. A large man carrying a large piece of metal (the divider) out of a big metal box is scary for most horses…Zuni did take a couple steps back but stared intently! She couldn’t figure it out but didn’t spook or bolt. Such a curious mare.

Trailer loading was a breeze. Zuni is so light on the line that we would ask for one step, she would give and we’d let her wait and think. Then we would ask for another. Pretty soon she was in the trailer. After the intial time in she loaded in and out like a pro! Even voluntarily came in the trailer to hang out with us a couple times (we were deciding what improvements we want to make on the interior). All in all a VERY good session for Zuni. First video is trailer loading. Second video is just a 1 min Magisto creation of us working on approach and our walk to the goat pen 😀

May 3, 2014 – Day 17
Training Day 13

Again worked with Zuni on haltering and then worked towards being able to pick up all four feet. She is getting really good with her front feet. With her left hind she is getting pretty good and will hold it for a moment for me. The right hind we have finally built some confidence in her being able to stand while I rub all the way down the leg. I’ll continue to work with both her front and hind feet during our next training session.

May 2, 2014 – Day 16
Training Day 12

Continued to work with Zuni on haltering. Once again she was excellent, actively seeking me out instead of the reverse. We worked on that for about 15 minutes. Haltered and unhaltered her with no issues. We’ll now be able to focus on other stuff with her like picking up her feet and possibly saddle / cinch work.

May 1, 2014 – Day 15
Training Day 11

WOW What a change for Zuni today! Instead of having to work to catch her she was figuring out how to catch me! Started off using approach and retreat as usual with today’s goal to get her more accepting of approach to be haltered. Towards the beginning of the lesson I started to notice her wanting to walk towards me. I tried to encourage her to do that by relieving pressure, turning or walking away. Within just a few minutes she was actively seeking me out, walking up to me and overall being very friendly! We played at that for a while and instead of haltering her and working on other stuff we quit on a great note and she got her dinner. Very pleased, not how I expected our training session to go. Such a sweet mare!

April 30, 2014 – Day 14 –  Off

April 29, 2014 – Day 13
Training Day 10

Today was a very busy day at the ranch. We had lots of activity. New horses coming in which meant Zuni had to make the change to a 5′ stall instead of a 6′ stall. It took about 5 minutes or so to halter her using approach and retreat. I never just halter her right when I get up to her. There are always lots of approaches and retreats, scratches and pets before I actually put the halter on so each time I actually halter her she has had to allow my approach at least 10 times. Repetition, repetition. For the time being she is in a 12×24 stall that is just 5′ high instead of the six required for wild horses. Zuni is no longer “wild”. Apprehensive and unsure when you first catch her, yes, but wild not anymore! She gets along well with others and is absolutely no problem in the smaller stall.

April 28, 2014 – Day 12
Training Day 9

More haltering practice for Zuni again today. Lots of approach and retreat. She is doing very well but it takes her a few minutes to settle enough to be approached. Once she is OK to be approached it takes her another few minutes to allow a lead rope to be slipped over her neck. Once the lead rope is on she lets out a big sigh, relaxes and will willingly lead around her pen with just the rope around her neck. When she does get caught she gets carrots or rubs or scratches. She’s still not sure about food and affection but we are sure she’ll learn those are all good things!

April 27, 2014 – Day 11
Training Day 8

Today we worked on more approach and retreat with Zuni. She is OK for me to catch but needs to get better. I did lots of approach, rewarding when she looks at me, approach and pet, approach and carrot, approach and halter, just mixing things up. I’m working with her on turning her face towards me when I put the halter on so I work on that both with the halter and without. Once haltered we continued working towards being able to pick up all four feet. Zuni is very brave when it comes to obstacles but she isn’t sure when I am in her personal space. She is not bad at all but gets worried. This is a video excerpt of one of our many training sessions for the day!

April 26, 2014- Day 10
Training Day 7

Today was quite eventful at the ranch as we were straightening our existing pipe stalls and installing new pipe stalls. As such, all horses had to be removed from their pens and tied elsewhere. Since this was only Zuni’s second tying lesson she was tied in an enclosed pen just in case. For around two hours she was perfect. Gave when she stepped far enough back to feel pressure, yielded when she needed to and for most of the day stood just like the picture below. That is until my husband went to untie her and let her back into her stall. She set back, HARD and did rub the hair off her face in some places. There wasn’t much we could do to help her except just step back and wait for her to figure it out. She did, we untied her and put her away. A little later in the day I took her back out and tied her again. Again she stood quiet for about 3o min and was fine when I went to untie her and put her away.

April 24 &25, 2014 –  – Off.

April 23, 2014 – Day 7
Training Day 6

Tonight again there was some wind so we did lots more review in her pen. Desensitization with the rope over her back, around her legs, etc. My hand over her legs, back, buttocks. Lots of approach and retreat. New for tonight was hindquarter disengagement. In this lesson I would throw the rope over her back and behind her butt, then put pressure on the line and ask her to turn her body away from me in response to the pressure on the rope (pictures would have been great!!).  She figured out turning to the left really quick. She did get confused going to the right and so we had to work on that a bit but by the end she had definitely started to understand the concept.

April 22, 2014 – Day 6
Training Day 5

Well today proved that you must be flexible when it comes to training horses! I had plans to work on approach and retreat, do a quick lap around the property to visit the goats and then tying. It was extraordinarily windy today so I didn’t feel it was fair to tie her. Instead we worked on approach and retreat, she wasn’t bad but the metal shelters were banging, things were blowing, and every few minutes there was a dust storm!

All in all I am very happy with how she did. We only worked for about 10 min total today because of the nasty weather but we continue to work on being able to touch front and hind legs in preparation for eventually picking them up. Haltering wasn’t an issue at all. It did take her a few minutes to decide it was OK for me to walk up to her and touch her but she never bolted off or did anything silly! Two videos..one kinda modern mix with approach and retreat as well as part of the foot handling video. And then just a plain jane one showing me working with her feet! You can see her “Holy Moly WHY would you touch me there!!” response on the right front. I did continue with the right hind but what Zuni was looking at in the last portion of the video is that TIP horse Taffy had gotten loose from the tie rail so we stopped filming to go catch her and tie her back up!

April 21, 2014 – Day 5
Training Day 4

Worked with Zuni today on a few different exercises. One of her training requirements is to be able to pick up all four feet. She is fairly confident with things around her feet like the stick and plastic bag so tonight I worked with her and my hand touching her below the knees. She isn’t too sure she likes that! A lot of the time we notice that it isn’t so much the contact on the leg that bothers them it is the change in position a person makes when they have to reach down that far. So we worked on that quite a bit with both front legs. Just touching not asking for her to pick the leg up at all. I also worked down both back legs which was less of an issue. Again haven’t asked her to pick them up yet until she is comfortable with me touching them.

Since she is leading very soft the next step we take with horses in training is teaching them to tie. Zuni set back a few times, then tried leaning back to see if that got her anywhere…and eventually figured out that if she took some steps forward, she could stand with slack in the rope. It was interesting to watch you could really see the light bulb go on in her head when she figured it out. Once she discovered the answer she didn’t set back again. We’ll continue to tie her every night from now on. Usually they will pull back for the first few days so we will see how things go. Overall for just four days of training she is doing very well!!

April 20, 2014 – Day 4
Training Day 3

Todays lesson with Zuni went very well!! We started with a review from yesterday working on softening to the lead line. She responded very, very well today. There was no resistance on the lead line forward, left and right. She was super soft and willing. We revisited the plastic bag. She still isn’t sure at first and then remembers it isn’t going to hurt her and stands quietly.

Because Zuni was doing so well leading, stopping and yielding her hindquarters when asked, the next logical step was to take her out of her pen for the first time. She was excellent! So soft we decided to go ahead and try her on our obstacle course. The bridge was the first obstacle we worked on and the one that took the longest. She would walk up to it but wasn’t sure what she should do once she got to the edge. She would bite it and pawed it a couple times. Three or four minutes later and she figured she could try stepping on it. That was all it took. From there we successfully introduced her to other obstacles on our obstacle course. It was as if once she understood the concept was to go “over” each of the other obstacles was a breeze! Funniest part was near the teeter bridge she found it very hard to concentrate because the goats were directly behind her. She spent a few minutes just staring at them trying to figure out what the heck they were. It was very humorous.

April 19, 2014 – Day 3
Training Day 2

Today’s lesson with Zuni started out with a refresher lesson on following the feel of the lead rope. She has side to side pretty good and will follow me forward but is having trouble with the concept of following the feel of the rope when going forward so we worked for five or six minutes on that.

After working / reinforcing that she should follow the feel of the lead rope we worked on introducing the plastic bag at the end of a stick. I used approach and retreat. At first she was worried alternating between wanting to smell it and wanting to run off. When she did feel the need to leave I let her and guided her in a circle using pressure on the leadline. She responded to the pressure well and eventually settled. Before too long she was accepting the plastic bag on both her left and right side. She will need more desensitization over the coming days but handled everything pretty well considering this is only the second time I worked with her!

At the tail end of our session I worked on teaching Zuni to back in response to light pressure on her nose. She picked that up SUPER quick as if she had been doing it all her life!! No struggle or resistance at all. I kept repeating it just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke! Later in the day I was able to get some brief footage of Zuni and her water bucket. She LOVES it! Today I gave her a jolly ball so we will see if she likes that any better! I don’t mind a horse that plays in their waterer (as long as they don’t tip it over) but there are sure less muddy activities she could partake in!

April 18, 2014 – Day 2 

Just a quick video from this morning stall cleaning for the first time.

Day 1 – Training Day 1

The first two lessons for the first day went very well. Right away Zuni was very curious about me in her pen and OK with me approaching her. With a little bit of approach and retreat I was quickly able to be able to pet her on her neck and shoulder. She is a very sensible mare and didn’t spook or run off at all. If she did get a little scared she would back away but still maintain eye contact.

We also worked on leading. For the first day my primary goal is just to assess the horse and it’s individual personality. To get a general idea of how they are going to be for training and establish an idea of what my next step / training plan might be. Their reaction to me in the pen helps with that. If they are quiet enough at that point for me to be able to pick up the lead rope, their reaction to pressure on the halter for the first time also tells me a little bit about how they will respond to pressure in other aspects of their training. If they panic and run, crash off, that’s OK they will just need things presented slowly until they gain confidence in people and domestic life in general. Zuni’s reaction was to shake her head kind of like “Eww…what is that” reaction to the halter. Video will be uploaded soon!

Day 1 – Pickup

Pickup day was quite a fun day for all involved. I was able to spend approximately 2 hours at the BLM holding facility looking at the horses they have available. Zuni’s adopter had already selected her from pictures posted on Facebook! Here are some pictures of Zuni at the BLM holding facility. She was handled gently and even got her feet trimmed by BLM wranglers.