Posts Tagged ‘Durango’

This week Durango & I went to Dressage Camp – 2 days of intense schooling sessions with clinicians from different parts of the country, lessons in hands-on equine stretching and show braiding followed by a schooling show.

Carolyn from Backstretch Equine Massage showed our horse enthusiast group how to stretch our horses’ muscles.  We were able to practice on our own horses and Durango really enjoyed his stretching session as well as the carrots that come with a couple of stretches.You can check out several how to stretching videos here from Horse Channel.

We learned how to braid Anky Style Sewn In Dressage Buttons.  Mellisa Bosma,
our mentor tried our In Control Braiding & Mane Setting Cream and loved the smell, the texture and the job it did. It’s a slightly sticky conditioning cream that eliminates fly-aways and moisturizes at the same time.  Unlike Quick Braid, In Control doesn’t dry out manes.

And the best part : if you have “helmet hair” you can use In Control to smooth your own do! Just remember to use only a little bit, it’s concentrated. Video with instructions on how to make your own Anky Braids  is coming soon.

Here’s Durango and I on the final day of the camp – the schooling show. In spite of couple of “on-course-errors” (yeah – I lost it TWICE! I blame it on the total lack of sleep) the judges feedback was very encouraging and we finally saw eights on the score sheet. Thanks judges for not letting us roast in our jackets!

Are you going to a horse camp this summer? Let me know…

Ride Green,

The EcoLicious Equestrian
Your Horse. Your Earth. Your Choice.

Check out our full line of earth friendly & all natural yet effective EcoLicious equine care & grooming products at www.ecoliciousequestrian.com

I love hacking my sport horses.  It’s a great way to condition a horse after an injury or give him a mental break from his job. My horse Durango is a green horse with not much trail experience. I don’t have anyone to hack with, so we hack solo. Our last outing left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.  The speed limit is 31 mph / 50 km/h on our country road. There was a huge noisy bike thundering down at least 50 mph / 80 km/h  towards us. I expected him to slow down – nope. We were riding on a narrow gravel road and my horse had never seen such a huge beast of a bike before. This guy did not move an inch. My horse tried to keep his cool, but ended up freaking out and jumping into a deep muddy ditch almost falling down with me. Thinking this was an unusual incident, we shrugged it off and kept on keeping on. Next a line of cars is coming towards us, again well over the speed limit on a narrow gravel road. I tried to slow them down by waving my hand and moving into the centre of the road, but that didn’t work – they almost clipped us and even revved their engines when they were passing us – arrghhh…

I am an experienced rider, but I often feel  uncomfortable hacking out. I don’t want me or my horse to get hurt by an ignorant driver. There is a growing crisis of loss of land for equine related activities and with ATVs on virtually every  trail, it’s harder and harder to find places where we can enjoy riding our horses safely. Is there a lack of awareness among motorists about this issue? Do you remember learning anything about how to safely pass horses on the road in your driving school? I have driver’s licenses from three different continents, yet I do not recall being taught any lesson on horse/rider safety.  It’s important that drivers understand that by not respecting such a large animal on the road they can end up badly injured too. A horse through a driver’s windshield is not pretty for both driver and rider. Horses are flight animals and it only takes an instant for something to go wrong. Some drivers actually speed up, beep or yell out the window. It’s an injury waiting to happen.

Here are some headlines from the last couple of months:

Woman, horse hit by car; driver flees

Crash that killed a horse and injured a rider lands man in jail

Rider injured and horse killed in Surrey road crash

Horse and rider injured in hit and run

What is your experience? Do you feel vulnerable riding on the roads? Did you have a bad encounter with oblivious motorists? Let us know…

Stay tuned for our next post about this issue. Let’s see if together we can drum up some awareness and keep both horses and humans safe on the roads.

Ride Green,

Team EcoLicious Equestrian
Your Horse. Your Earth. Your Choice.

Check out our full line of EcoLicious equine care & grooming products at www.ecoliciousequestrian.com

We’re excited to report that our horses eagerly respond to clicker training and learn faster and more willingly that when we use the classical negative reinforcement training method. To  find  out more about clicker training in general read up our 1st INTRO blog post.

The first lesson consists purely of teaching your horse to touch the Target and relate the sound of clicker to a positive response – treat or reward if you wish.  We’ve improvised and in the spirit of reduce-reuse-recycle we re-purposed one of our lids from a container with our 100% Natural Leave Me Be bug spray as you can see below.

It’s easy to start. You just need a clicker (we’re  using our agility dog’s clicker) and a target – you can get them at Shawna’s On Target website or you can improvise just like us. A clicker can be  purchased at a pet store. Then you just need a pouch for treats – make sure you go with treats that your horse adores. After all you want him sufficiently motivated.

Durango managed to squeeze in one nice roll before his lesson started. My dog (also trained with a clicker) got little confused. She didn’t understand that this time I was clicking for my horse and wanted to be in on the action.

It wasn’t difficult for my horse to figure out what was required from him. Touch the target – click – and here’s a treat. I could even toss it like a frisbee and off he went to touch it. Oooh boy he was a willing student.   We played touch for a while and he got the right response faster and faster getting more and more excited that he got it right. It was so much fun watching him being so into it.

Stay tuned for more of our On Target adventures. We will start applying the clicker principles to the ground work first and follow with mounted training.

Check out Shawna’s ON Target website for more tips and go play with your horse. He’ll appreciate that and you’ll have an eager to please student.You can also ask Shawna clicker training questions directly at her FB page “Ask Shawna”.

Anyone out there playing click with his horse? Share your experience with us.

Ride Green,

Team EcoLicious Equestrian
Your Horse. Your Earth. Your Choice.

Check out our full line of EcoLicious equine care & grooming products at www.ecoliciousequestrian.com

We confess. We go nuts over our horses’ tails and when we find them all tangled up with burrs, caked with mud, dry and damaged; we freak out. I still remember when Durango’s new pasture mate used his tail as a chewing gum.  I cried.  We all know that a flowing silky & vibrant tail is the crown of every horse. A thin stringy tail  doesn’t only mar the overall picture, it also doesn’t serve its purpose from the practical point of view – protecting  your horse from bugs and in colder climates, protecting his nether regions from wind, rain and frostbite.

So what can we do to keep our horse’s tail flawless?

Beauty from within

Make sure your horse is on a well balanced nutritious diet. Consider a Biotin supplement known to enhance and promote a healthy coat, mane & tail quality from within.

Beauty from without

Keep It Clean

Keep your horse’s tail clean with regular shampooing. Irritated, dry and itchy
base of a tail clogged with sweat and dirt will make your horse rub his tail and break his tail hairs. Use a mild non-irritating shampoo without SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulphate) that dries the skin & hair and are toxic to fish and wildlife.  Look for shampoos containing Tea Tree known for its anti-fungal, anti-itch  & anti-dandruff properties with emollient ingredients like Silk.  Try our Squeaky Green & Clean Shampoo – heavy duty yet mild, it’ll make your horse’s tail squeaky clean and ooh-soo-soft. BONUS: It smells heavenly – like Sweet Orange – known in equine aromatherapy as an uplifting scent.

Condition & Condition

To keep the tail moisturized and prevent it from breakage, always use a rinse-our conditioner after shampooing. Leave in for several minutes, pick carefully through your horse’s tail & work through tangles and knots. Look for conditioners with emollient ingredients like Silk or Hemp Oil.  Avoid products with artificial dyes or fragrances that cause irritation. Try our Silky Rinse Out Coat, Mane & Tail Conditioner. It’s full of natural goodness and  nourishes the hair making them shiny and smooth.

& Condition….

If your horse’s tail in in real distress go with De-Stress Intensive Restructuring Treatment. It infuses the hair with moisture, essential fatty acids and other natural emollient ingredients; and makes it go from drab to fab. Use it in place of your regular conditioner or go with an EcoLicious Spa Treatment – see how to do it here. This product also removes burrs and witches knots at the speed of light and soothes the itchy “dandruffy” tail dock.

Handle with Care

Do not over- handle your horse’s tail. Always use a conditioner (try our EcoLicious Moisture Maniac Mane & Tail Infusion) and work from the bottom. Pick through the tail with your fingers or work the tangles very carefully with a comb. Always work in section and if you’re pulling any hairs out back off on the comb.

Braid & Protect

For the ultimate protection use a tail bag or braid the tail . However don’t do that in the middle of fly season where your horse  needs his tail to protect himself from the pesky bugs. Always apply a conditioner before the braiding or bagging. The hair needs to stay moist to prevent breakage. Try In Control – our Conditioning Mane Setting & Braiding Cream that’s infused with natural conditioning & moisturizing ingredients that make braiding easy.

Do you have tips on how to keep tails beautiful? Please share them with us!

Ride Green,

Team EcoLicious Equestrian
Your Horse. Your Earth. Your Choice.

Check out our full line of EcoLicious equine care & grooming products at www.ecoliciousequestrian.com

It was with a great pleasure to find out that my EcoLicious “Pony” Durango has almost shed out his winter coat. We have long and very cold winters here and some horses  take their sweet time to shed out the “woolly-mammoth-winter-do.

And with the help of GLOSSY Gloss Coat Enhancing Tonic with reflective Mica Mineral Durango’s coat became dazzlingly shiny. It is silicone free and it is made with natural & organic ingredients such as Organic Hemp Oil,  Silk & Sweet Orange Essential Oil  that gives it a heavenly smell that bugs don’t dig.

Ride Green!

Team EcoLicious Equestrian