horsegirlonajourney

Rocky’s custom Horsenality report arrived today

Posted on February 25, 2010 by horsegirlonajourney

I’m so excited about the horsenality report! (For a quick overview of horsenality, see my Parelli Reference page.)

In typical Parelli fashion, the packaging is beautiful and sturdy, the paper is strong enough to stand up to years of use, and it’s all in color. It does give one more pleasure and more sense of value than just getting an online PDF the moment you finish the questionnaire, though of course I’d like an e-copy as a backup. Maybe I’ll scan all 50 pages.

The Box

The Horsenality report is the first stage of a three-part project. The next stage is a Personality report; I don’t know if they’re going with something already standard, like Myers-Briggs, or if they’re devising their own. I do know that Linda is working with people from the online dating industry, who have extensive experience in database publishing and personality matching. The final stage is the Horsenality-Personality Match report.

Opening the box

While Parelli does understand that it is a media and publishing organization, it took a while for them to realize that this is a database-driven software project, so it has taken longer than they expected to pull it all together. The Savvy Club forum has a few threads already about whether the report is worth the retail price, which is something like $395 for Horsenality and $795 for the complete match report. Given that they have [iy decades of horsenality research and at least two years of software development into this project, this is not actually as outrageous as it sounds.

But I do hope the price becomes more accessible over time as they recoup the costs of development. I figure that the first few hundred Gold and Silver members who got the report for free are also the beta testers, and our opinions will sway the next batch of people about whether they are willing to pay a a months’ barn bill for such a report.

Contents of the box

After reverently opening the box, I flipped straight to page 6, where they show Rocky’s horsenality type. Right Brain Introvert, Mild Spirit, is the diagnosis. I’m ecstatic! It took me almost two years to settle on RBI as his innate horsenality, and now I have confirmation. One of the characteristics of the RBI is “hard to read” which was one of the final ah-ha moments for me in settling on RBI, as was just becoming more savvy about reading horses in general.

RBI, mild spirit

This assessment is based on the answers I gave on the intake form. I suddenly can’t remember how many questions it had, though I remember being surprised that it was so brief. 40 questions? 70?

The genius though is that you did not get to have a middle answer. The choices were along the lines of Always | Sometimes | Rarely | Never. Just like the Respect mastery manual, in which I wanted to say “yes, but” or “no, but,” there was no room for excuses. Nor did I overanalyze every question. I went with my gut instinct, as advised, and didn’t have to change very many answers in my “did I click what I meant to click?” check.

The questions also asked about the same or similar behavior in more than one way, which meant it was possible to answer both Sometimes and Rarely about shades of the same trait.

So far I have only read the quick overview, as I wanted to get outside at the right time to help Leslie blanket the horses and to ride Rocky down to the turnout (again, with fewer stops and wiggles, and more awareness of my part in that wigglyness). I know I’ll be blogging a lot more about horsenality this year as I delve deeper into it with both Rocky and Salsa (LBE).

Categories: Horsenality | 4 Comments

All biologic phenomena act to adjust: there are no biologic actions other than adjustments. Adjustment is another name for Equilibrium. ~ Charles Fort

Posted on February 24, 2010 by horsegirlonajourney

Given the cold and the rain, and the time and hassle it would be to unblanket/tack/ride/untack/reblanket wet horse, these past two days I have walked our route from arena to turnout, rather than ride. Yesterday I just led him and Salsa together from tie posts to tack trunk to lane to turnout.

Today, I left Salsa tied at his specially designed tie ring, scaled to his height, and took Rocky on the 22-foot line over to the tack trunk. I tried to drive from zone 3 or even zone 4, using the carrot stick and the line for course corrections. It’s our first time doing that, so I wasn’t too particular for either of us. I just tried hard to keep my motions less wobbly and more intense, mimicking what I learned from watching Maurice Thibault and Susan Nelson at their Bakersfield demo on Sartuday, and from Christine here at the ranch last Thursday.

In the 20 minutes or so that we practiced, I learned that I should:

Keep the carrot stick on my shoulder except when needing it to guide, the way I would if I were riding.
Let the end of the rope drag even though it’s raining and mucky.
Tap zone 3 if Rocky stopped, but don’t stop my feet.
Focus on the destination, but pick a destination that is fairly close, and give Rocky a long break once we get there.
Exaggerate the release; when I sank down to a squat and turned my core away from him, I could ensure a true break.

Then I pushed too hard by asking for sideways without a rail, and continuing to ask when he became tense. No horse does sullen as well as an Appy.

Most of us, however, don’t adjust when the horse adjusts – we carry on trying to accomplish a task despite the horse getting tense (losing trust) or nervous (losing calmness) or getting lazy or unwilling, and sooner or later the problem becomes impossible to ignore! ~ Linda Parelli, 2/23/2010

At least this time I figured out what I was doing wrong. I didn’t get frustrated. I did slow down and release at the weight shift, like I did in the very beginning when we were first learning sideways with a fence. I feel bad when I’m driving zone 1 or zone 4 with intent for a sideways step, while also moving the rope up and down rather vigorously to stop him from stepping forward. I’ve done this enough to know that I’m not communicating well, because he consistently attempts to walk forward. I gave him a break today and then asked again, this time ceasing all motion and sinking into a ball when he just leaned his weight as if to cross-step. After the lick-and-chew, I did the same for zone 4.