This month Sadie and I have been working a lot on our performance. We have gotten it down to exactly how I want it and I think it’s gonna be pretty good. I know every word to the song that I'm doing so I think I could do well in karaoke  We have also been working a lot on our BBP and making sure that I can perform all of them. We had a little trouble with the fly spray and picking up her feet but after a few days working on that it was a lot better. This month I had my site visit with Lexi. She came out and watch us do our performance and said we needed to add more decoration and so we did. I also rode Sadie while she was here and loped her for the first time. That was really fun, but she doesn’t have the most comfortable lope :-) we have been preparing Sadie to go to state. By this we are giving her electrolytes loading her in different trailers, making sure that she’s OK to go somewhere else and I think she’s going to be good. I think the one thing I’m gonna miss about Sadie the most is that she’s a really quick learner and loves to be with people. I hope that whoever owns her next enjoys her sweet attitude with no fear of being around a person. As I write this, we leave tomorrow morning so I will see y’all there! I will post video after state so I can have run in there.

Now when I say I have been busy this month I really mean it. But I have worked on a lot of planning for the state show.  I now have a pattern that has logs, a bridge, a jump, and some other things. I want to have as many scary things in my pattern because Sadie isn’t easily scared. My idea for her costume is to put something around her neck and create a fake tail to give it some flair. I have not ridden Sadie this month because I’m just focusing on in hand. I have worked on putting a blanket on her. Lately, for some reason she tries to kick me when I put the blanket on and so I would put it on her and if she’d try to kick me I would make her work and now she is better. So my fairer came out and took the pads off of her feet and said that they are a lot stronger. She still has shoes on her front feet and still stays sound. I will say as the end of the program comes I really enjoy working with Sadie and am amazed at how much she has changed. From being gone from not being able to pick up her feet to be able to stand still while getting her shoes. To not being able to lope with a lot of asking to do it off my voice. I love that she enjoys people and wants to be with them and I think that her next owner will greatly enjoy her. https://youtu.be/dacT3yHBI7s

This month we've had a lot of ups and downs. Starting with the ups, I have been riding Sadie and she is doing very well. She feels much better with the new shoes and is more willing to work for me. I can trot her over logs and small jumps. One very different thing that I've been doing is dragging a log. Right now it's just on the ground but she does well with pulling it and the rope touching her. I think that ground driving her helps with being ok with the rope touching her hind end. In our 4-H we have ride days and Sadie got to go to the past two. At the ride days, I lunged her and she stood tied while I rode my other horse. With this experience, she got to ride in the trailer with another horse, got to see a beaver, and got to load in other trailers to prepare for the BBP. Keeping with the ups we have started to work on lunging and changing speeds from walk to trot to lope, in that order, and in different ones. But there were downs too. One of the biggest one was the tail incident. We have show lambs and two of them were getting ready to go to the sale barn. As they were waiting to go they stayed in the pen with Sadie. Everything was fine and everybody was getting along. However, we took one lamb away and the other one was not happy about that. So the next morning I went down to go feed and her tail was gone. I looked everywhere and I couldn't find it and it was a big chunk missing so there was no way it could just disappear. Then along came the lamb to see what I was doing and his head was covered in hair. Sadie's hair!!! It was awful to see it. Now that I've gotten used to it it's not bad and she wags it like a dog which is funny. I hope that someone will like it. https://youtu.be/ONKNus3DRcA

Sadie has been lame in her front feet so early this month I had our farrier look at her feet and he suggested that we take her to the vet and see what he thinks. Our vet said she’s still having issues with thin soles and suggested shoes and pads for her front feet. Our farrier did that and the lameness is gone. Sadie also received her flu/rhino shot. I have started thinking about what we want to do with our performance. We are going to do an in-hand trial kind of thing with some obstacles to show Sadie’s skill level. We are still ground-driving her and working on trotting while driving, serpentines, stopping, and backing. She continues to be good when we ground drive but I still do not plan to ride her. Sadie shed her winter coat about the first part of April and she’s a very pretty dark Palomino color. To keep this color, we are putting a fly sheet on her while she is out. I have continued to work on my BBP with Sadie. We have worked on oral administration of medication, fly spray, catching her from the pasture, putting a blanket or fly sheet on, and leading. For some reason, Sadie really doesn't like the fly spray and we are desensitizing her to that and already she is much better. Going along with leading I have worked on walking and stopping with a loose line. We also did a photoshoot with Sadie in our yard and she did very well. Profile pictures are in the video. https://youtu.be/ZNmnKRoJaTo

This month I've hauled Sadie to my trainer’s house twice and she does really well in the trailer. The second time she rode next to one of my horses, they got along well. At my trainer’s, we have worked on ground driving and she does really well listening to my commands. I have put three rides on her this month and the last two went really well. However, I have discussed along with a skilled horsewoman that it is not safe to ride her because of some of the things that happen when I ride her. My new goal with her is to work on groundwork. We have noticed that Sadie is sore on her front legs and we took her to the vet who said that she has thin soles. I am having our farrier come out and put a pour-in pad and shoe on her to help grow the sole. Sadie also got her flu and rhino shot when we were at the vet and she did really well. For the past month, I've been trying to put more weight on her. She isn't skinny but I would like more weight on her. One inconvenience that I've had with her is that she's an escape artist and she worked with my mare on getting out of her pen. I now have 2-3 chains on every gate that she is in contact with so she doesn't get out. I hope to start working on our performance for the state show and make sure that we can do my ideas. https://youtu.be/w8kVIKOV7Zw

Emailed my ideas.

Emergency First Aid knowledge is vital because if your horse gets hurt or needs medical attention it can't wait. Knowing how to bandage a wound is something that just doesn't apply to a horse but to other animals too. If your horse gets hurt and it's not a major cut it can be expensive to call a vet out. Having a basic knowledge of how to bandage a horse can save you money and your horse from infection. One of the two things that I've learned is having the horse's head tilted upward when you worm can help them swallow the paste and if you put your hand in the horse's mouth before you worm it helps the grass, hay, etc. come out so the horse's mouth is clear for you to give them the wormer. Part 1 https://youtu.be/2KaKRx2VZi4 Part 2 https://youtu.be/gS_mtSnI8x0

This month I haven’t got to work with Sadie as much as I would have liked to. One of the things I did work on with her was bending. She is very stiff every time I work her, so I’ve been doing some simple bending left and right to loosen her up. After we have a nice stretch I will lunge her. She is lunging a lot better now than when I first got her and she keeps improving. For the most part she doesn’t kick out but when she does it has been after a long time without work and she just feels good. I have put a saddle on her a few more times and I sat on her for the first time and rode her around while my mom led her. I had my mom lead me because Sadie doesn’t like to move forward which can be very dangerous. I also put a snaffle bit on her. She did not mind the bit and I lunged her around and she went along with whatever I asked her to do. I got on her and asked her to back and bend her left and right. She did not respond to the pressure of the bit in her mouth very well at first but learned quickly. Since it has been raining, freezing, and just plain cold and wet, Sadie’s feet have become tender. Our farrier come out and he said she has thin soles, which we already knew. In his words, God did not bless her with good feet. He recommended a product to try to help her thin soles, and if that doesn’t work she may need shoes. So right now we are trying to harden her feed up so we don’t have to put shoes on. I bought a tarp to desensitize her with. She had no problem walking right over the tarp. I was also able to lunge her over the tarp. I haven’t really found anything that spooks her yet. We have been working on basic showmanship and starting to come up with ideas for the showcase and planning what we need to work on. https://youtu.be/2HLLNvXY6ys

This month has been a long one for my family with the stock show season starting. I haven’t worked with Sadie as much as I would have liked to. I did rethink my training plan with Sadie. I've realized that she needs a lot more groundwork and work with the basics such as lunging, showmanship maneuvers, handling her feet, and desensitizing to random objects. I have been in the round pen lunging her off the line and getting respect when I ask her to stop. She is a quick learner and now stops very well. After I got her to stop both ways I put her on a lunge line and lunged her in the arena so I could see how she would do without a fence around her and she did great! She would stop and turn when asked. She will perform the gait I ask her to without kicking out. Before, when I would ask her to canter, she would kick out with her back legs each time and toss her head. Now she will just transition to a canter when asked and she will maintain her gaits until I ask her to stop. I started to work on showmanship maneuvers With Sadie. Some of those maneuvers are setting her feet up square, walking, and trotting next to me. I have worked on pivoting and I notice that she is stiff in her shoulders and it can be hard for her to bend her neck. She has gotten much better at pivoting left and right. Another thing we've been working on is backing. At first it was hard for her but now she is backing with light pressure. Desensitization is a big thing I've been working on this month. In our world there are lots of things a horse can be scared of and desensitizing your horse can help them to learn not to be scared of them and make them safer for you and themselves. Some of the things I have desensitized Sadie to are a livestock blower, a plastic bag, and a blanket. She was a champ and handled it all so well. One thing I hope to do with Sadie is to get her off of our property. We had planned to take her to our trainer’s but with us living in Texas the weather changes every 15 minutes and the weather was bad the day we planned to take her. I hope to take her to my trainer’s house next month. https://youtu.be/K7n7juUOFAE

Video 1. 1. They need to trust you first before you use bigger scarier object. 2. A and B 3. Licking there lips tells us that their thinking about what you just told them and you should release the pressure so they learn that’s what you want them to do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtyDCd_-y_o

Article: 1. You should desensitize your horse because she/he will be safer to handle, it helps the horse calm down in a scary situation, and it will be more enjoyable for you to ride if the horse is not freaking out all the time. 2. You can desensitize your horse to tarps, sheep, cattle blowers, train horns, and an inflatable waving tube. 3. A first step could be having your basic groundwork down. 4. Instead of releasing the pressure when they step away, you should keep applying pressure until they stop moving away from the object. 5. False

During the past month with Sadie, I have been working with her on showmanship and basic groundwork. Some of the things we have been doing are pivoting, backing, setting up, and walking and trotting along with me. We have also been working on desensitizing her to different objects. So far we have used clippers, a leaf blower, a box full of tissue paper over her head, and blankets. She hasn’t been bothered by any of this and isn’t very spooky at all. Sadie also got a nice, long, warm bath. I saddled her for the first time this month. The first time we saddled her she didn't do anything. I think she has been saddled before because she was so calm and did not care. I have put weight in the stirrups and she did not care. I have lunged her with her saddle on but I have not gotten on her yet. One of my friends who is on the Texas Tech ranch horse team and trains horses came over and helped me work with Sadie. We decided that she would ride Sadie for the first time just in case she flipped out. She didn’t flip out, she was fine with someone riding her. She walked around a little bit and then would just stop and not go no matter what you did. She would try to kick and buck but never really did, she would just stop. The only way we could get her to go was if I walked out there and led her by the bridle. The first time we bridled Sadie we used a smooth snaffle bit. She didn’t seem to like it much and kept getting her tongue on top of the bit. We used a mechanical hackamore the next time and it was better, but still not the right thing for her I think. I would like to try a side pull bridle next time, or the snaffle bit with a cavesson. We finally got the chance to trailer Sadie and she was amazing. She was nervous around the trailer at first and I walked her around it several times. She calmed down and then she loaded right up with no problem. Backing out for the first time took a little longer. I would just back her a few steps and let her relax, then back a few steps more. I loaded her again and backed her out and the second time she did it with ease. https://youtu.be/wdJ7RT2UNq4

https://youtu.be/wrNE66Y_Tz4

Sadie's BBP 1-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPGjnYCXYu4

Hauling Sadie home went fine. She reared up when we tried to load her in the trailer, I moved her hind end around and then she loaded up. She unloaded well, too. We have yet to put her back in the trailer but will do that soon. We tried to lunge her in the round pen without a lunge line and she did not listen to me. She wouldn’t stop, or turn, or go after she did stop. I then put a lunge line on her and she listened a lot better. At first, she would not stop when I asked her to, but she is getting much better at that. She also wouldn’t lope when asked but is getting better at that, too. We figured out that she is out of shape so it was hard for her to lope, but I think she was being stubborn, too. We have worked on leading, hip yielding, and picking up her feet. Our farrier took her shoes off because she is not ready to have that much work on her. She didn’t want to stand still for the farrier and reared up, so he tied a piece of twine around her upper gums and poll and she was great after that. I have started to tie her up and she is doing good with it but gets nervous when I leave her sight. I switched her feed to a local feed that is similar. She is getting mare magic and farriers formula. She gets Bermuda hay and is let out on pasture. Sadie doesn’t seem to be a very spooky horse, and we have some exciting stuff at our house. Some of the things are cows, sheep, dogs, crazy loud boys, and big thunderstorms. She is in a stall by herself and is let out by herself but she has shared the fence line with my other horses. She is so sweet and loves to roll. She is definitely messy, not in her stall, but it seems like she tries to find any possible way to get dirty when she is let out. Some of the goals I have for Sadie are to get a saddle on her and to basically bomb-proof her. I think my goal for her is to be a trail horse.

Howdy! My name is Ava Fry and I am a homeschooled freshman from Lone Oak, Texas. I have been riding horses since I was six years old. This is my first year doing the Homes For Horses Project. I have been paired with Lizzie, but we call her Sadie. She is a very sweet horse and I'm so excited to see what we can do! Follow us @ava.o.dell on instagram!

Do you want us to fill out the whole BBP or just page 13?