Tales from the Trail Part 2

The Beijing Family

(This is not them. Just a google pic that made me think of them and to develop some imagery haha)

So this family was rather interesting. They were all from Beijing and actually spoke a little bit of English (the mother didn't I don't think but the father and daughter were able to speak pretty well) During their initial check in the father said "You visit Beijing some day!" 
I said alright sounds good. Though to be honest I don't think I would handle their culture very well, so realistically, probably not.  I did however teach him the words "okay" and "sounds good" haha. 

So the father and daughter said they had a little bit of riding experience, whereas the mom was terrified and never spoke the entire time. The first moment struck me as add when I had all our horses tacked up and ready (two people plus myself) and I came over to let them know we were ready to go. The father said "okay she just has to go pick up my wife and daughter!" to which the travel agent who was with him, frantically jumped in the car. I thought ...okay. Why weren't they already here? Luckily we only had to wait about ten minutes, but then the daughter told me that her mother wanted to ride. So I went to get another horse ready and gave them the waivers to sign. 
We ended up starting about half an hour later than what we were supposed to since I was surprised by the additional person and horse, after they showed up late, and good god. Do you think we could get down that trail?
The mother's horse, who is a big paint named Clara and never does anything wrong, literally stopped to eat every single leaf on every single bush. I was trying to help this poor lady with pulling her reins, turning the horse's head, and using her legs. She was so weak and little, or completely afraid, she had no strength or control over her  horse. Plus she didn't understand me, so I had to try and get the daughter to translate what I was saying. Typically in this situation we "pony" the horses- except the horse she was on will kick someone behind her, so she has to ride in the back. It was a slow and painful process getting this lady to ride but eventually we got there.
It took us 35 min to get about a quarter of the way through the trail so I decided to cut it short. (Plus we had to go through a very dense vegetative area and I was afraid I would lose the mom) so we turned around and I brought them to the spot on the beach where we take pictures. I handed the daughter back her phone, and look over my shoulder, to see Clara (the horse) toss her head and the mother literally toss the reins forward so it falls over Clara's head and hits the ground. 
By now, this is the hundreth time I've had to help this woman hold her reins and she just keeps letting go. As soon as those reins hit the ground I literally bailed off of my horse (If Poppy ran back without me it wouldn't be the worst thing to happen) grabbed the reins, and tied them to the saddle horn. I repeated, again, that she absolutely had to hang on to them.
Thank god Clara is a good horse and didn't step on them or panic and end up in a tangled heap.
The ride back was a struggle since the mother had a difficult time keeping up. and the daughter kept asking me if she could make the horse run. I said "no. We don't go faster than a walk on this trail, and it is really dangerous to make the horse run home." She understands english by the way. She rode ahead of me about three times while I was trying to help her poor mother and I continuously had to call her back. (At least the dad was fine!) So we struggled along until we got back to the barn, and to my dismay, my boss was standing out in the paddock watching this girl keep riding ahead of me.
I of course got in trouble for letting the group get too spread out and let the girl go in front of me (I explained the situation and he said I should have made her get off the horse if she wasn't going to listen haha) and the father had signed the waiver for everyone, which wasn't allowed. I hadn't realized he did that, but he also didn't understand why he couldn't sign for the ladies in his family. So that was a whole thing.
A little frustrating but it was fine- they were extremely pleased with their ride and hung out for the next half an hour taking pictures with me and every horse they could find. Woo! The struggle is real. 

Riko's Hawaiian time Part 2! And Tidbits from Bella

So Riko's leg turned out to be a super contracted gracilis muscle (luckily not torn we don't think) so he is currently doing some physical therapy. The vet used a cold laser on him, massaged it, and gave us stretching exercises. Right now he has to stand on my yoga mat and put his two front feet up onto the stairs, which forces him to put weight on his back legs and stretch out the muscle. He is allowed to go for walks but not any spazz-attack running sprees!

Yesterday we decided to take a trip to the dog beach! Bella is absolutely terrified of the ocean- she likes to run away from the tide. We got her to actually swim in it once but she is not to keen on getting in. I've heard about the dog beach on the air force base so we went to check it out. Its about six inches deep for most of the way out- just enough to splash in! Her and Riko were probably the happiest dogs on the planet. Riko had to stay restricted to the leash, which was too bad because he really wanted to run, but the water seemed to help him do some therapy on his leg.

They were some very happy salty and wet dogs!

Examiner Articles

So I'm writing dog training articles on examiner.com and each time the page gets viewed I get paid like 5 cents. I'm attaching a few of my links if anybody would like to be amazing and go click on my pages =)

I'm also going to be starting some articles on hubpages.com but I think you have to click on ads for those. I'll keep you updated!

It certainly feels good to write again.

http://www.examiner.com/article/how-to-clicker-train-your-dog-loading-the-clicker-3-easy-steps
http://www.examiner.com/article/positive-reinforcement-what-is-it
http://www.examiner.com/article/nutrition-for-your-dog-what-s-your-food
http://www.examiner.com/article/counter-conditioning-the-anxious-dog

Its Okay...Nothing is Under Control

Last week we had one of those days where absolutely nothing goes right. Not only did it not go right, it went pretty badly! The morning started like this: (and I wish I had my own pictures to share but they got lost from my old phone. more about that in a minute)

Bella wakes me up at 7 or so in order to go out and go potty. I pulled on my slippers and shuffle down there in the dark. I let her out and walk into the kitchen to start making Tony's breakfast, I flip on the light, and what I see pretty much jolts me awake.

These nasty little mother fu**ers all literally erupting from the trash can and climbing up the kitchen wall. Even worse, as I'm stepping away in panic, I look around in the now lit room and see them everywhere. I mean all over the dining room floor, up the wall in the dining room, the kitchen floor, the living room rug....It was a scene straight out of a horror movie (at least mine. yuck) So of course I'm panicking and jumping around and Tony comes down to see this and doesn't do much better. Turns out a small piece of fruit had rotted into our trash can and these things were combusting from it (we had flies in the house the day before too) So number rule learned in Hawaii- take out the trash every night. The moisture and heat really helps disgusting things grow. 

So we went on a battle cry of vacuuming these things up, and as we are checking the stairs, Tony looks up and goes "omg what is that?" I thought it was a bat. I would have been much happier if it was a bat because it could have been eating all these disgusting little maggots. But instead it was a moth about the size of a bird! Tony threw a shoe at it and it flew up into the light- to which we thought was its death. 

I took Tony to work and picked stuff up from the Nex so that I could bleach the house, and as I'm killing the survivors I walk by the couch and something darts out onto my foot. I of course jump into the air and I'm jumping around and freaking out- the moth had somehow flown down the stairs and been hiding under the couch. Its wings were so fried it couldn't even fly in a straight line, but luckily he flew on the screen and I helped him out the window.

In the mean time I had called my boss and asked if I could come in a little late since I was dealing with this infestation. Once I got that taken care of I had some time to kill, so I thought I would be nice and brought Tony some lunch. I then jumped into the car to head to work finally, and as I'm (slowly) cruising through the parking lot, I see this car backing out of her space. She's not just backing out either- she is pedal to the floor backing out of her space and not even bothering to look. I hit the brakes and my car stopped (in my mind I'm saying woo that was close!) but nope. She flies out of that space and back into me. Crunch goes my front bumper. She was mortified- I was even more late to work. Luckily the damage wasn't that bad but we exchanged contact information and I hurried on my way to work, as my boss starts calling to wonder where I am. (We had no bookings that day, and of course, four people walked in)

I told him what happened and he high fived me for not punching someone and doing jail time. I then had a family that was ridiculous to control on the trail (they will be featured on Tales from the Trail part 2) and ended up getting in trouble. 

At least that was enough crap for one day. Unfortunately the next day, we went out on a trail ride and got caught in the pouring rain. My phone got completely soaked and the touch screen stopped working. I was able to get my warranty, but for whatever reason, my newest contacts and pictures weren't backed up onto the card. I lost all my pictures and more importantly- the girl's information that hit my car.

Sometimes these days just happen. The thing is this- I definitely admit I'm a control freak. I need my environment to be stable (more importantly clean) at all times. At this point, I threw my hands in the air, told myself nothing was under control.....

and went to the beach.