Silver Spurs Horsemanship

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Dillon, MT
Silver Spurs Horsemanship

•Transcending training for equines and their people•

11/18/2024

Willow! It took her a long time to decide working isn’t so bad, but once it clicked it really clicked! She’s become so soft and she’s doing much better working through everything instead of kicking at her problems. A couple of our bigger goals were standing nicely tied and staying inside the trailer. Today she did both very well! She jumps right in the trailer with me, stands very patiently for the divider to open or close, or to be tied, and waits to calmly walk back out. Her owners and I have tentative plans to continue training sessions and start lessons, but this pretty girl goes home tomorrow. I’m so excited for her owners to learn all her new tricks and see how well they can work together 🤍

11/18/2024

Arrow’s 30 days are officially up! While he does have a ways to go - and I hope to be able to help with that - for this season, we got a lot done! He’s much better with his feet, he’s more comfortable with new people than when we started, he’s more consistently thinking things through instead of always resorting to leaving, he’s TONS more comfortable and confident with people walking around, behind, and touching him. While he’s still not 100% catchable every single day, he is much more comfortable with the halter, and we can only go up from here 🤍 This is just barely touching the surface of all the things we worked on, and I had so much fun learning new training methods, working with his owner to create a plan for him, and getting to know this lil guy.

11/08/2024

We’re making good progress with Willow! She does not like her feet messed with, and goes back to being aggressive, so we’ve been working on being able to touch down her legs and gaining progress on her feet. Connecting to her mind and her feet is one of my main goals for her. We’ve been going back and forth with the flag to make sure she doesn’t get dull to it again, but also that she’s correctly desensitized. Because of her reactivity to her feet, when we first started this with the flag, it was a very quick in and out on any of her legs, so that it touched her and was gone before she had time to get angry with it. Today, she was relaxed the entire time, and didn’t mind it at all 🤗

11/08/2024

While Arrow is struggling again to get over being haltered, I’ve realized I’m missing subtle signs and not working him through those first, only noticing the big freak outs. As people, we’re very timeline-oriented, and sometimes lose track of our horses’ timelines, which are often much slower. It’s not really ok to just toss goals and forget about them, especially in this scenario, but it can be good to take a step or two backward sometimes. Today, we worked on re-solidifying his confidence with being pet all over by the halter, having the lead rope tossed around him, our “whoa”, backups, and disengagements. Putting my arm over/under his neck has been causing a lot of issues with his avoiding the halter recently, so we really slowed down, focused on his head coming down, licking and chewing, and being comfortable with my hands before we add back the halter.

11/07/2024

This cutie had a good day yesterday too! Arrow’s had a ton going on, with vet appointments, getting his feet done for the first time, and just lots of new people lately! While he’s very excited to see me every day (which I love!!🤗) he’s a little nervous about being haltered again, so I’ve been getting him comfortable with all the steps of being caught and doing lots of liberty work again to try to re-establish his trust in me. He “leads” like a champ without his halter, he joins up with me, lets me pick up all his feet, has an amazing, soft backup, and can disengage his hinds and turn on the forehand very, very nicely! Although getting him haltered - and able to be caught consistently - is a main goal, I love all the other ways we’re gaining so far!

11/07/2024

Willow had a great day yesterday! We’ve been working a lot on bringing some forward and willingness into us working, instead of just thinking about kicking. She’s getting a lot better about focusing on me and what we’re working on, and her sending was amazing yesterday! She’s really getting good with disengaging, following the lead rope, and is very excited to be caught every day. With having more control over her feet and her mind, I’m excited to really start all the fun desensitizing!

11/03/2024

Willow’s owners came out to watch me work with her, and are very excited about her progress! I showed them some things we’ve been working on, and let them come into the round pen to see how I’ve been cueing her and how to time our releases to keep Willow soft. I basically have an open door policy with owners coming to watch their horses. I think it’s important for owners to know how their horses are being treated day to day, and it’s always fun for them to see the progress we’ve made partway through. I give all the horses lots of turn out time and she found a good scratching spot after her owners had gone 😂

10/30/2024

Willow has made huge improvements! She’s really settled down, she’s leading like a champ, and she’s starting to piece together everything I’m asking while working on the flag, sending her around nicely and doing liberty round pen work, and she’s SO much easier to catch! Although not the greatest video, I’m happy to be able to share a video instead of working with her not pulling me around and trying to run off 😉. So excited to see this mare’s progress and continue working with her 🤗

10/29/2024

Arrow is cruising! His owner’s setup has really helped me improve reading his body language and focusing on my own, and really getting my timing correct with things to keep him calm and engaged. I’ve been working to earn his trust and hoping to get him to new ways of thinking besides running away when he gets nervous or tense. Today, he stayed with me our entire session, haltering took barely any time, and we’re working on handling his feet more and he was FANTASTIC with that today too. So proud of this little guy!

10/26/2024

Willow had a much better day today! She’s calmed down significantly, so she’s back in my pens, and was much more willing to work today. She was leading so much better, paying more attention, and even walked right up to be caught after her turn out!

10/26/2024

We haltered Arrow - the right way - today! The last few days he’s been making such big jumps in building his confidence! He’s also been sticking around for more attention when we’re done, which tells me I’m going about things the right way 🤍

10/25/2024

Another breakthrough! I’ve been working with Arrow at his owner’s facility for a little while now, building confidence with me touching him and doing lots of liberty work. He’s been such a fun challenge. It’s been good for me to learn new training methods and it’s always fun to learn how each individual horse works.
Today I got him haltered!! He’s very nervous with me on his left side, so while we’ve been working on being comfortable standing, moving around, and petting that side, his right side is much easier to work with. Today I flipped his halter inside out and haltered him backwards. (So no, you’re not looking at the picture wrong 😂). I’m hoping to teach him he’ll get haltered either way, and good things happen on the left side of him too, not just scary ones 🤍

10/25/2024

While I’m trying to get Willow to enjoy coming into work, she’s told me she’s not about it yet by kicking at me, striking at things, and not really paying attention. To top off her rough start, I moved my personal horses to their winter pasture, and Willow had a jail break through my panels and fencing to get in with them.

She’s moved temporarily to a more sturdy pen to calm down, my own horses have been moved again, and we got a really good session today. She normally turns her butt toward me whenever I ask anything, so we switched to liberty round pen work to get some more space between us, and after a few minutes of transitions and direction changes, she did face up and came all the way to me! A few minutes later, she wanted to walk with me and we worked on stops and back ups and she sighed and licked/chewed the whole time. Here’s to the start of good progress!

10/22/2024

An update from Salty and Pronto! They went home in September, and I’ve since been told “The horses are doing great. I have ridden both of them and am so impressed. Tymber has gained so much confidence thanks to you, she is my helper now”.
It makes my day to know she’s doing so well with her pony. This is what it’s all about 🤍

10/22/2024

Meet Willow! This cute mare is settled in and ready to get to work! She’s here for ground work and confidence building. She’s a little shy, but starting to show her personality, and I’m excited to see how far this girl comes 🤗

09/12/2024

Lessons! I have openings (and can do winter lessons weather-dependent through the season!) for you and your horse!
I went through the NH program so (hint hint 😉) any current students needing some help I am super happy to chat! You can message Silver Spurs Horsemanship or call/text Kaitlynn at 406-231-9557 to talk pricing or get booked 🤗

09/12/2024

I have openings through end of October if anyone is needing training! This is the perfect opportunity to get your horses something solid to soak on over winter before you pull them back out next spring, or to get some weanlings a great start! Message Silver Spurs Horsemanship or call/text Kaitlynn at 406-231-9557 🤗

08/19/2024

These boys are putting in the work! When these guys showed up, they were more than willing to plow over their owner and/or myself, and didn’t really like following the lead rope at all. We’ve been doing lots and lots of sending, disengaging, and desensitizing to get them to calm down, think things through, and follow the lead rope instead of negatively reacting. They’ve been doing MUCH better! They lead like gentlemen, are becoming so soft to lunge, and today we worked on loading into the trailer! They sent right in, didn’t crowd me at all, and stayed calm the entire time. Horses should definitely be fine being led into the trailer, but I think they become so much more willing (and safer) to load if you can send them into it and don’t HAVE to get in with them.

Address

Dillon, MT

Telephone

+14062319557

Website

http://www.silverspurshorsemanship.net/

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Videos

Happy Sunday! 🤗 I’m a firm believer that horses need time to just be horses. Sundays are scheduled break days so that the horses get turned out while I do chores and we have a day nobody’s working their butt off and the horses can have a little fun. That being said, we’re still focused on lots of progress with these ponies! A skid steer is coming in a few days to finish leveling my arena and get rid of these big hills the horses like to climb 🤣. Tomorrow, Salty will be ready for his first ride with me, and he’s been doing fantastically on the ground. Pronto is also making tons of progress with ground manners and is on his way to becoming the perfect gentleman!