Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Corgi pups are now nearly 5 weeks old and simply adorable!!

I just wanted to share with you some adorable footage of our nearly 5 week old Corgi pups. They are simply adorable.

They are now all sold and we are taking a waiting list for a next litter - which will be Molly some time in spring/early summer.

Raising pups is a lot of work as they are sneaky little guys and need lots of love, attention, and cleaning up but it's certainly worth it look at those crazy cute faces.

Check this out:

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Having fun with a musical ride at PHH

2 years in a row PHH has made a fun musical ride. In 2013 it was during the advanced teen week of summer camp, and this year it was a few keen students with Lindsey that showcased their ride during the season finale horse show at PHH.

Different this year we incorporated ground games into our musical routine. It was an interesting mix of horses and riders. 

Let me introduce you to the team on the 2014 musical ride:
  • -        Lindsey & Balius: Lindsey (me) is the owner of PHH and experienced horse professional, paired with the least experienced horse in the group Balius. Balius is an all-around goof ball. He loves to play and definitely has a cheeky streak. I’ve had him since he was 4mths old and now he is 4 years old…. But he is barely started under saddle as I was always putting miles on other people’s horses instead of him. Being part of the musical ride team with Balius was one of my ways to help start putting regular play time with my baby guy every week. He developed a lot over weeks of practice J
  • -        Christina & Thetis: Christina came to us through our summer camp program and during her 2nd year with us partnered with Thetis. Thetis is probably the best trained horse on the farm and can do some high level Parelli tasks… but she is also challenging in her own way with a high energy level, sensitivity and sass towards other horses. Thetis is the off the track TB of the group that shows us that a race horse can learn new tricks J
  • -        Caileigh & Arrowyn: Caileigh often nick names herself the clown of the group. She is an experienced hunter competitor but new to natural horsemanship and ground games when she started with us earlier this year. She’s still getting used to the ropes and ground games, but it all came together for the final ride. Arrowyn is the story of a neglected horse, she was a pasture ornament that didn’t do much until she came to us. She then went out on trial and mysteriously came back with a rearing problem. Caileigh spent the summer rehabilitating her and developed a strong connection with her. They showcase their skills beautifully together.
  • -        Maya & Rose: Maya also found PHH through our kids summer camp. She has a need for speed and loves the jumper ring. Rose and Maya competed with success in the bronze jumper shows and also diversified their talents with ground games and bareback riding. Maya does the whole pattern with no saddle J
  • -        Danica & Dreamer: Danica has been a coach with PHH for 2 years now and really has developed her skills with natural horsemanship. She now has the perfect partner in Dreamer, our QH gelding with the sweetest personality and  sensitive buttons. They do a great job of rounding out the team with some finesse to their movements J


Thanks for watching our musical ride highlights of 2014!

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Just Another day as a Corgi Grandma

Caring for puppies is such an adorable and sometimes messy job.... but the adorable cuteness factor definitely outweighs the work!

Today Lona's pups are 22 days old. Their eyes are open and they are getting a lot more mobile. We hear adorable squeaks and noises as they play and wrestle with each other.

Check out this incredibly cute video:



Currently we have sold King and Neeta. That means we have 2 males and 2 females still available - let us know if you are interested.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Schooling Show at RCRA - check out why I'm so proud :)

Today we had a lot of fun at the RCRA schooling show - jumpers! The PHH team each gained some valuable learning experience. Whenever we go to a show we always feel like the odd men out. We are the only bitless riders and we also don't have crops or spurs... and yet our horses and riders are getting better and better.

First up in the 2ft division was Franny, Christina and Maya. Franny had her first time being offsite at a show and her first time showing in 2ft jumpers. - Shania is the perfect calm teacher to do that with It was a very exciting day for her. She started off with a few refusals and a fall in the schooling round. Not the start to the day she was hoping for, but the lesson of keeping your leg on and riding to the base of each and every fence was becoming clear. Her 1st round went much better than schooling but still had 1 refusal. As she headed into her 2nd round the pace and rhythm where starting to show and she picked up a 7th. Then in the 3rd round it all clicked together and you could see her start to fly with Shania. They were clear into the jump off and 4th in the class.

What was fantastic about watching Franny was her happy and positive attitude. Even though she was starting with some refusals and not the clear rounds she hoped for, she kept smiling and trying her best. She was truly a great example to all riders how to keep a good energy about yourself. The other great thing is that Franny didn't blame her horse or take any frustration out on her horse. A lot of riders would just smack their horse when they stop or spur them, but instead Franny focused on her skill and ability to ride the course and jumps. She accepted her role as Shania's partner and leader, and strove to do better... and she did. See Franny's transformation here. 

Maya and Nillina rode into the 2fts and did very well - no refusals. Nillina likes to start with some sass and takes a few jumps to relax and find her groove. In her first round she had 1 rail down, and it was a good lesson in remembering to ride clear in the first round and leave the gutsy turns to the jump off. Despite not getting into the jump off, she still managed a 5th. Maya's next 2 rounds she got the pace going and rode cleanly with 2nd place finishes in both the 2nd and 3rd rounds!

Maya was a great example of 'keep calm and carry on.' Her horse was protesting about starting the rounds but Maya just focused ahead and everything smoothed out and she got going. She didn't resort to smacking or spurring and the result was that Nillina could focus on jumping, leaving the rails in the cups and she made it a positive experience so she's more likely to get going next time. Watch Nillina and Maya here. 

Christina brought Quartz to her first offsite show after only being with us for a couple months and having severe confidence issues and rarely jumping for over a year. We went with the hope to get over all the jumps. Quartz started with a lot of fear and anxiety, she didn't even want to ride the rail and 'squeeze' between the jumps and the rail. Christina did an amazing job keeping Quartz in control and she survived some pretty big pops over fences. We decided it would probably be safer and better for me to take Quartz around and put her only in schooling. We did a fair bit of schooling and the results of patience were amazing.

Quartz went from being incredibly spooky, refusing multiple times, not being able to hold a canter, and startling at pretty much everything to holding a canter, riding the rail, and jumping everything in the ring with ease. It was an incredible transformation to watch the confidence in the horse grow, and grow, and grow.

It was an excellent example of how we need to put our horse's needs first and do what is best for them even when under pressure at a show. It was also a great example of how to handle refusals without causing more fear in your horse - instead of whacking Quartz and getting angry with her... we used patient persistence. The result is a horse that could start jumping smoothly and with an even pace rather than scooting, bolting, rushing, bucking, or rearing which so many horses do if you get too rough with them... especially Quarta'z Right brain introvert horsenality.  Check out some video of Quartz here.

Lastly I rode the 3ft division with Thetis. We had a lot of fun and our 1st round went smoothly and effortlessly placing 1st. Our 2nd round I didn't quite set up Thetis to a box jump and we had a refusal! It was a good reminder that you can't take for granted that your horse is usually awesome and has already done one round - you still need to ride every jump properly. We ended up 3rd in our 2nd round, and then we got back on our game for the 3rd round for another 1st place , taking the champion ribbon in the end.  Check out Thetis & I in video here. 

I was super proud of all of our team at the show. The horses were fantastic partners; our riders were amazing with their horsemanship skills showing us how to put our horses first and use skill & horsemanship to improve our rounds rather than spurs & scary bits with leverage; and last but not least our helpers Tracey & Morgan were fantastic at helping us with the whole day making it so much easier and relaxing!

I'm excited to take the team to the next show in January... and you can bet we'll be there bitless, barefoot (the horses), with no crop and no spurs...putting the focus on getting better with our horsemanship and riding not bullying or manipulating.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Survey Results and Priorities for 2015




It’s important to get feedback from clients, and at PHH we take that seriously. Maybe it’s the nurse in me that wants to continuously evaluate, assess, plan, and strive for improvement, but whatever the reason I know it’s important to me and our farm.

Now I can’t work miracles, and I’m not millionaire (big bummer right?) – so the next best thing is to get everyone’s feedback and input to prioritize the things we can change. That’s what we had in mind when we launched our 2014 feedback survey in early November.

We have the results back – and I want to say a big thank you to the many people who responded. We had a variety of responses from lesson students, summer camp clients and boarders. It’s great to have the variety of people responding so that we know each area of our clients are represented.

I want to share with you some of the key themes that came from the survey, and what we’re going to do about it:

The biggest thing that most people agreed on is that
  •       You want bigger paddocks & less mud

We want to thank you for your patience on this. We know it’s an issue. We did a lot of scraping this year…. And the paddocks looked beautiful for all of a day or two, and then it rained and we were back to mud. Scraping regularly didn’t work and we know we have to do more than that. We didn’t do more than that this year because we didn’t know where the arena was going and what will be destroyed and levelled with the construction.

Now we know where the arena is going and what is happening to the paddocks.
We’re going to do what we can. We have drawn up plans to drastically change the farm. Literally not one paddock or arena is staying the same.

We’ve already started some of this fencing work… if you were up last week you would have seen some changes and if you come this weekend you’ll see even more work is being done. Until it’s all frozen and we can’t do anything, we’ll keep making improvements!

We will continue to have ‘sacrifice’ paddocks to preserve grass during vulnerable times otherwise the grass doesn’t get a chance to grow. What we are changing is making fewer paddocks so that they will be larger grass sections, and we plan to better utilize the back field, dividing it into two so the paddocks become very long and have a lot more space. We are going to look at a paddock paradise system to create more ‘tracks’ that force horses to have to travel longer distances to get to their grass or hay so they have to move more. We are going to go from 4 fields sharing the back pasture to only 2 paddocks sharing that space so you can imagine they will have a lot more. The grass ring will become a paddock, and part of the front lawn will become some pasture. It’s going to be a lot more fun for the horses.   

We will look at mud solutions for the sacrifice paddocks including grading. These things cost mega $ (like upwards of $30,000 to do 4 paddocks), so we will focus on fencing and more space for 2015 and may not get to installing tiles or concrete slabs until 2016 (we want to research it and do it right the first time… not cheap & wrong). I am very excited to reveal our paddock redesign in spring and this should be completed by the summer or soon after the arena building.

  • ·        You want a heated viewing room – you’re going to get it. Once the arena goes up we will look at building a heated viewing room before the next winter. This will likely not be central heating, but will have some form of easy to use heat for the winter.
  •      You want more obstacles: Yes! We are completely redesigning our obstacle ring and are moving it to the sand ring and surrounding area with a hill so we can build ‘stairs’, we’ve already built a new balance beam, bridge, and teeter and already have wood purchased to build a water splash box, brush box, and a turn around. If you have any ideas for obstacles please pass along  - or if you want to build any obstacles for us, please let us know and we’ll happily supply all materials!
  •      You want the barnyard/barn to be kept tidy and all students to respect the equipment: we really appreciate that you want to help keep the farm tidy… it is seemingly a constant battle to keep garbage picked up, feed bins put back, etc. We have already posted a reminder checklist in the barn, requested our daily helpers to help with keeping things tidy and will do our best to keep reminding all clients and visitors to do their part to help keeps things tidy. I also recently went through the barn back to front and completely tidied it all up and we installed new blanket hooks and saddle racks to help keep it tidy while tacking up. We encourage you to work together to help keep the farm tidy, or let us know if you notice anyone not understanding how to keep it all organized.
  •      You still want an outdoor round pen: We’ve looked at the design and we’re going to keep the round pen in the general area where it is, but it will be redone and shifted a little. The fencing will be installed professionally, and we will plan for this space to be used as part of the neighbouring paddock when not in use. We will also add sand to improve the footing in the pen once it has been rebuilt in its slightly different location.
  •      You want the shelter in paddock 2 to become a hay & storage shelter: okay! We will plan to move it nearby for that purpose, it will also help to keep the barn area tidier because the wheelbarrow, etc can be stored in there.
  •      You want.... lessons, trails, summer camp, horse shows, more cowboy events, trailering services to our clinics/events, the Halloween poker run, and horse agility – you got it! Look for dates being posted in the new year. Summer camp is already available and lessons and trails are continuing.
  •      You want even bigger lockers – okay! These will be among the first things to go in the new indoor arena once built (after footing and lights).
  •      You want an online webcam to watch the horses in their paddocks from home – we already have cameras that watch the horses (but they also watch the barn, entrances, etc) and we will look into either making this footage available to you, or installing more cameras that are dedicated to just the paddocks for watching.
  • ·        Some of you want more professional looking jumps: We’re going to start with getting a better paint job on the jumps we have now and hope you like it. Look for this to happen in spring/summer.
  • ·        Some of you want a 'real' washroom: We’re going to investigate costs and look at options. No promises here yet J


You also gave us a lot of valuable comments and suggestions – we are looking at them all. Some of the feedback included that we need to remember to be on time, have clear goals in lessons, and maintain tidiness in the farm. You also gave us many more positive comments about how much you enjoyed our services, our coaches, the variety, and general comments about loving our farm – thank you so much for both the positive & constructive criticism.

Even though the survey is now complete, please don’t hesitate to give us feedback or share your suggestions. We want to continually do better and your ideas matter.

We also want to encourage clients to keep communicating their goals and learning needs to staff to make sure you are learning what matters most to you. Please also tell your instructor if you enjoy a lesson or activity, and on the flip side also let them know if you don’t enjoy something. We are experts at reading horses, but not necessarily people… please leave the guess work out of it and tell us what you’re thinking!

We’re posting this so you can see how we plan to put your suggestions into practice. It’s part of our commitment to you. We think what we’ve planned is realistic and we can accomplish in 2015, but please keep in mind sometimes things can change and may shift our timelines or priorities…. Or who knows, maybe we’ll end up buying a bigger farm :)


Thank you again for all of your input, we hope you like what we’ve got planned for 2015!