I am in training for a few days.  I am trying to learn new things.  I did not grow up with computers.  I was in journalism school and we were still using the IBM Selectric typewriters.  They actually had little corrector tapes that made changes to your papers or articles.  When word processing came along it changed everything-things people take for granted now.  Being able to go and change one line of document without re-typing the whole thing was an enormous step forward.  And saving the document electronically for another day, wow, what an invention!   I know you don’t want to hear about the old days but I want you to understand how crazy the idea would have been for me, to do computer training.  It would be like something out of The Jetsons. And if you don’t know who the Jetson’s are…well that’s another story entirely.

So, I am learning to manage and coordinate a computer site that handles retention of files and documents.  It will be new for me.  I am a little scared.  What do I know about this stuff?  Very little is the answer.  But I will troop along and learn and grow. 

Our horses, with our dogs and even our cats to a degree, learn and grow.  The cats simply learn I will show up with the food at appointed times of the day.  The horses and dogs need more lessons.  I have heard many dog trainers comment that horse people make good dog trainers.  It is because we already get the repetition and time needed to make an animal understand what we want to teach them. 

Yesterday, Joey- the new off the track thoroughbred (OTTB) started his training with Caroline.  He was fresher and livelier.  Probably he was feeling pretty good from the pampering, the good food and rest.

He knows a lot.  But for us it is just the beginning of a process that will teach him to balance himself and hopefully to jump.  All horses will jump, but if they do it well and enjoy it make the difference in a winner in the ring and one who will never make the cut.

Lauren is working Leo-the other OTTB, to re-learn all that was taught him before so that he re-learns the use of his muscle and muscle-memory.  All of his chiropractic work is going well.  But he needs to train his right side which has been weak for so long.

Today, I learned a lot of fancy computer skills that wouldn’t have even existed 20 years ago.  I can be trained and I am pretty old.  It gives me hope that these great thoroughbreds will take to their training as I have, perhaps reluctantly, perhaps with apprehension but in the end with acceptance and a mastery of new skills.

Mickey-alert and on-fire headed for the jump-doing what he was trained to do