Extra Interview

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to have an interview over the phone with Amy Dumas who is the manger of the adoption program for the BLM's holding facility in Litchfield.

1.  My first question is on a daily basis, how much human interaction do the mustangs get?

•  Probably fairly minimal the ones in you mean the ones in our facility. Yes. But they're fed on daily basis. They know that people come out and feed them. You know in tractors and stuff but they are not petted. You know so they're fed there where humans they see humans and people can come out and adopt them come out look at them probably not very much.

2.  So I think the guessing that they don't receive any type of training until after they are adopted?

•  Unless they're in a special program before they're adopted would have a program to do you guys offer to help give them the training. Well we have. We have our volunteers will sometimes halter trained horses. And we have partners groups to train horses such as prisons training horses. And we have. Competitions like the Mustang Make Over Challenge for example which will partner groups and they eventually people train horses and compete with them. Some horses are trained before adoption.

3. How long does it take the horses to settle into the facility after being rounded up?

• I mean every horse is in its own individual but generally. This settle down pretty quickly. I would say. I mean a lot more quickly than you think so probably within a day sometimes within an hour or two you mean. Some are much faster than others.

4.  What signs do the horses give when they have settled in?

•  When they're settling in. So they'll start eating hay and start to just stand there. So they get quiet.

5. After the horses are rounded up do you guys help them settle in or do they just kind of do it on their own?

•  It's kind of on their own I mean we put them in pens and they settle down. I mean we don't like handle them. We leave them alone when they figure things out.

6.  Do you any of the horses like the between different ages and genders do they settle in differently or do they settle in about the same?

•  This stallions seem to settle down faster than mares But that's just my observation. Somebody else might say something differently. 

7.  So once the rounded up, how do you decide what holding facility they go to and do they switch to different facilities so these after they go to one or no?

• Well. We really don't decide what facilities are going to go to. But really they go to whatever one's closest to where they are. But sometimes there's not enough room to do this and some will one and some will go to another. But then once they're in and they're settled down and they're ready for adoption. It is they had all their shots and their freezemark, and the boys are gelded. They may move to a different facility if they're going to go to adoption or something.

Audio:    https://soundcloud.com/kiley-moore/blm-interview

Blog 11: Lesson 1 Reflection

1. What are you most proud of in your lesson, and why?

• That people were engaged in the lesson and had asked questions after. I was afraid that I had made people zone out so this showed me that I can keep peoples' attention.

2. What assessment would you give yourself on your lesson? Explain why youearned that grade using evidence from the component contract.

• I would give my self a P-. Even thoungh I had to be cut off because of time I feel like I left out more than just the different training methods I have been using throughout this process.

3. If you could go back, what would you change about your lesson?  How can you use that knowledge to give a better Lesson 2?

• I would probably cut out the little details like translating the symbols of a freezemark and just showing a picture of one instead. This will help in lesson 2 of making sure I do not go over the time limit.

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

• I go to her barn sometimes and others she comes to me to give a lesson to my mustang. If I am at her barn I usually just watch her working with the horses and sometimes she will have me work with the horses as well. If she comes to my barn she will spend half the time working with my mustang and the other half working with both my mustang and I.

2.  How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you?  

• My old riding instructor introduced us when I was thinking about adopting a mustang since she has done it many times.

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person

• I would rate my comfort level a ten since I have been working with her for over a year now. This helps when working with a horse because I don't feel embarresed to ask questions.

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

• This interveiw helped me understand my mentors background with horses in general and about the BLM program that I didn't understand/know before. I feel like I need to work on more open ended questions because some of the answers were short.

interveiw link

https://soundcloud.com/kiley-moore/interview-2

Interview 2

Interview with Molly Jenks

1.       How long have you been working with the mustangs?

·         February of 2010.

2.       How did you get into working with the mustangs?

·         Well the economy had slowed down a lot, really slowed down and I had extra time. So I just decided I would give it a try. Honestly since it was in my hometown Norco, I just decided it wouldn’t  hurt to apply and when I got excepted I thought it wouldn’t hurt to get a horse. Then the rest is history, truly I had the time to devote because I knew it was going to be more time than just training a regular horse and since my business had slowed down so much, I knew I had the time.

3.       How did you hear about the mustang competions?

·         I had read about it in different publications and of course being in Norco the competion was in Norco, they  had really put out a ton of flyers and in the horse trader and stuff because the competion was in Norco, they had really tried to I think campaign to get Norco people to do it. So I had pretty much heard about it through Facebook, western, horse trader, because at the time I was not on their email list so mainly through social media is how I found out about most of it.

4.       When you were doing your first mustang did you have anyone helping you?

·         Nope all me. Even though it was the first mustang I had ever done, at that point I had been training horses for 15 years, so I just did what I knew to do.

5.       What mustang is your most memorable?

·         I would say Yeager since he was my first one and really not that I am overly, I don’t really believe in, well I hate to say that I don’t believe in destiny, but there was some reason that that horse was chosen for me and how he has become such a huge part of my life. So I would say the Yeager would be my most memorable mustang because he was my first one. Then out of the rest of them I would say that my second most memorable would be Pendleton who I sold in Texas in 2011. So he was, Yeager was the first one, I got Jake for a client, and then Pendleton. Yeager definitely takes the cake and Pendleton would be a really close second.

6.       Did Pendleton challenge you more?

·         Oh yes, oh yes. Pendleton is what they call a third striker, so he had been passed over for adoption and the competion that I did with him is more, well it is an invite only competion and instead of being able to apply for it. So Mustang Heritage invites trainers to compete in the Mustang Magic which is in Fort Worth every year. So that is because they give more challenging horses in that competion, they want to make sure that there isn’t any not quite as advanced people trying to train these horses because they are more challenging definitely. He was definitely more challenging, I was not on him until day 45 out of 100. Where I was on Yeager on day 14 so he was much more challenging

Link to audio

https://soundcloud.com/kiley-moore/interview-2

Title: Blog 9 - Advisory Prep 3

1. State whether or not you currently have a mentor, and what the status of your interview is with that person (I have completed the interview, I have scheduled the interview, I have not scheduled the interview, etc).

• I completed my interview with my mentor on October 17th.

2. At this point, your research is probably guiding your studies toward more specific areas within your topic.  Name the area or two you find most promising and explain your reasons.   

• I am going to focus more on the aspect of training wild horses.

3. What kinds of sources do you think will help you in the next month to gain more research depth?  Where will you go to get them?

• I am looking into different types of training and how they work. I have been looking around at different trainers and the methods they use.

4. Write down a possible EQ.  Please don't worry about wording other than ensuring that it provides the option for multiple correct answers.  At this point, the senior team is most interested in understanding your thought process.

• What are the key factors that will result in safe training session with a wild mustang?

Blog 8: Independent Component 1 Proposal

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• I would like to volunteer at a horse rescue and work with the trainer that is teaching the horses that humans can be trusted. I would most likely just watch the trainer working with the horses and will explain the process to me. I would also do some chores around the rescue like mucking out stalls.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• I would write entries on a google docs about what I did/saw that day with how long I was there.

3.  Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• This will help me with understanding how trust helps build a positive future and outcome for a horse with a negative encounter with humans and how a negative experience will effect a horse for the rest of their life.

Blog 7 - Second Interview Preparation

1.  Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert?

• My mentor is Molly Jenks. She is the trainer/riding instructor at Quantum Training Center and works with the Mustang Heritage Foundation.

2.  What five questions will you ask them about their background?

• How did you start getting into working with the mustangs?
• How long have you been working with the mustangs?
• Did you work under a trainer before you trained your first mustang?
• How did you get involved working with the Mustang Heritage Foundation? 
• What is your most memorable mustang that you have trained?

Blog 6-Advisory Prep

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?  

• What has worked well for me was to pick a topic that I love and find interest in. One thing that I has been a positive experience for me is to grow as a equestrian and to develop a stronger bond with my horses through working with them and my mentor.

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

• For me the hardest thing is finding research on training horses because every trainer seems to have their own method and techniques when it comes to training a wild horse and even domesticated horses. One thing I have been doing is looking at the general methods of training and the goals for those methods. One thing that I think would help would to be to have time to ask other students how they are getting their research.

Interview 1

Interview with Marissa Shotwell-Tabke

1.      I am interested in studying wild horses and training them. What can you tell me about it?

·         First thing to do is to understand the animal by knowing that the horse has had no human experience so you have to take all of their instincts into account. This means that they probably think that you are going to eat them. So you would have to start with the very basics.

2.       From your perspective, what could I study that would be significant to other people?

·         Animal behavior or in general horse behavior. And wild horses in America and their history in America.

3.       Who else would you recommend I talk to?

·         Bureau of Land Management (BLM), trainers who have specifically have had experiences with wild horses and getting them broke.

4.       What kinds of places or activates do you recommend I do for the mentorship component?

·         Working with your trainer and working here is great learning about horses in general. Working with someone who has done the mustang challenge several times.

5.       What materials should I read in this field? Who else can I interview?

·         Reading about animal behavior and BLM documentation on wild horses and any trainers that do any type of work with wild horses.

6.       What are the basic ages for different types of training?

·         There are different types of training you do all throughout a horses’ life time. So when we have baby horses here we start desensitizing them and handling them and start getting them used to people when they are born. When they are yearlings they get really well halter broke. Late in their two year old year we teach them to wear tack and start them on the process of getting broke. That is what we do with the domestic horse so obviously with a wild horse you start from the very beginning with an adult horse.

7.       When do you start training them to be handled by a vet and farrier?

·         It really depends on the baby, if we have a baby that has some kind of issue with their feet we will have the farrier on them pretty early. The earliest is three months old. And then they all get their vaccinations when they are about six months when they are getting weaned and are not getting their passive immunity from their mothers any more.

8.       How fast do you move between stages of training?

·         It really depends on the horse. It’s just like people they learn at different rates so some will get certain concepts easier than others. All of them have something they are good at and all of them have something they are really bad at. So it really depends on what skill you are working on.

9.       What is the most memorable horse that you have had that went pretty quickly?

·         We actually have a horse in the barn named Lyman Legacy and he was so easy with everything. He was just like okay let’s go, make me a show horse. I actually took him all the way to the National Futurity as a three year old. He was brand new to everything and handled it like a champ and did great.

10.   How do you reward a horse for good behavior?

·         We base our training off of operant conditioning so there is pressure and when they create the correct response we release the pressure. So if I am asking a horse to move off my leg and they don’t know what that means I’ll squeeze them on and then push a little harder and if needed kick them a little bit until they move away off the leg I will remove my leg so there is no pressure. That is how we teach them to do things. So there is pressure and accommodating to the pressure.

11.   When the horse moves away from the pressure how do you reward them for that?

·         Really the release of the pressure is the reward in itself but you can give them a pat or tell them that they are a good horse.

12.   What are the basic things you start with for each step?

·         The first thing I do is to teach them how to lunge. When the babies come in from the pasture they don’t know anything about how to work. I will take them into the bullpen and teach them that they have to stay out to the wall and to move away from me. And once they get that we start putting tack on them. So they will wear a surcingle to teach them about belly pressure, then they will wear a bit in their mouth and learn that its fine in their mouth and that they don’t have to try to spit it out all the time. Once they get that we’ll start to put some rein pressure on them so they know they have to accommodate that and to wear long lines, saddles, and eventually a rider.

13.   What techniques do you use for building trust?

·         I do a lot of talking since that is my type of personality. It’s also a lot of body language. Horses communicate through body language so you have to be very aware of what your body language is saying, so if I am working with a baby that is nervous I make sure that my body language is very passive and so they know that I am not there to hurt them. If they are extremely nervous I will go and stand in the stall with them for a while, hopefully we get to the point where I go in the stall and they come over and let me pet them and are fine with me being around them we can go on to the next step.

14.   When you said that your body language has to be passive what kind of things will you do to reinforce this?

·         I make sure that my breathing is really come and slow. I try to relax my shoulders and try to make sure that anything that is seen as aggression is taken out.

15.   Do you do anything different from any other trainers?

·         Every trainer does everything a little bit differently. They have their own style and way to do things. I have done work with many other trainers and pick and choose what things that they do that I really like and see good results from. I think that everyone along their path of becoming a trainer kind of does the same thing.  

16.   For different horses do you do things differently or do you keep things the same?

·         I keep things pretty much the same but if a horse is having issues with something then I might vary it a little and see what might work for that horse in that situation.

17.   How do you know when to end a training session?

·         Usually I try to end on a good note, so I try to end with something I know the horse is successful at. So if I am have a training session with a horse learning something new and are not getting it I will take a step back and ask them to do something they know so that we can finish with a reward and successful.

18.   How do you prepare a horse to have something on their back?

·         The first step is the surcingle then go ahead and put the saddle on and let them lunge around with it. A lot of them want to buck around with it because they feel it flapping around up there. That is another thing that I teach the babies pretty quickly is that when I am working with them they are in school so they are not allowed to play in class. So if they want to buck and jump around they are not allowed to do that in school because it’s like a kid playing in the classroom they aren’t allowed to do that. So if they try to jump around I will remind them that no they aren’t allowed to do that, usually it works pretty well. After that I like to kind of smack around the saddle and make it make loud noises and make it seem scary and have them just stand there with me. Then I will put my foot in the saddle and start bouncing up and down in the stirrup. Then I will stand in the stirrup and make sure that they can see me from both sides and if they are ok with that then it is time to swing the other leg over.

19.   When you get on the horse for the first time what do you usually do?

·         Usually we just turn them in a little circle usually to the left because we do everything from the left they are used to turning left. Let them walk around a bit and then turn them around the other way because sometimes when they see you from the off eye they will be like whoa where did you come from even though they just saw you on the other side. If they are feeling okay with that I like to trot, a lot of horses think about it and start to get wound up and need somewhere to go then they are thinking about going somewhere and going.

20.   When you are teaching a horse to lead on the ground how do you go about that?

·         We start when they are really young and how to move off of poll pressure. The foals actually have a natural response to what the mares use right by their tail head. If you see a foal down on the ground and see the mare go up to it and nip it right by the tail head the baby will get up so we call it the “go button.” It is a natural response that they have so kind of use that to our advantage and start teaching them by putting a little bit of pressure then pressing the “go button” and pretty soon they start to making the connection of pull pressure and going forward.

21.   How do you teach them to back up?

·         Usually by the time we teach them to back we have had them lunging for a while so they are starting to understand the directionality with the halter so backing is one of the last things I teach the horse leading wise. Most of the time I use their instinct to go forward to teach them to back up.

 Link to interview audio:  https://soundcloud.com/kiley-moore/interview-1

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

• The most important thing that I learned was how to word questions on the spot to get more information during the interview. 

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

• I did get more research topics. This will be useful on understanding why mustangs react the way they do and why they react differently than the domesticated horse.

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me? 

• The person I interviewed is a professional horse trainer and was able to give me some information on how most people go about training horses for the basic things like handling and riding.

Blog 4: House Advisory Prep

During my senior project I am hoping to be able to ride the wild mustang that I had adopted from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) a little over a year ago. I have been working towards this goal since I got her and without knowing if I would be able to train her. I would also like to be able to use the same techniques I am using on my mustang on my other horse.

Blog 3- First Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?

• I plan on either interviewing someone who works at the BLM or a trainer that works with wild mustangs. If I do interview someone from the BLM I would like to get some information from them about they do with the horses after they are rounded up. If I interview a trainer I want to know their process of training for the horses since everyone has their own way and techniques when it comes to training.

2.  Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?

• Mustang Trainer
• How do you show a wild mustang that there is nothing to be scared of when they get spooked?
• How can you get a mustang over their fear of foreign objects?
• What are the first steps you do when you get a new horse to work with?
• Are there any goals that you try to reach with a horse for an end product?
• BLM
• What are the first things done to a mustang after a round-up?
• What things are done on a daily basis for the mustangs?
• How often do the horses get moved to either new pens or holding facilities?
• How do you decide which horses go to a satellite office adoption site?

Blog 2- Summer Mentorship

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

• Molly Jenks
• (951)906-1848
• Quantum Training Center

2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?     

• My trainer has gentled and trained 14 wild mustangs and has trained domesticated horses as well.

3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.    

• What is the key factor of success when gentling a wild mustang?
• What should you keep in your mind when working with a wild mustang?
• Is training a wild mustang different than training a domesticated horse?

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

• Since I had adopted a wild mustang a little over a year ago and need help with the training process my mentor came to my barn to help and I had the ability to watch and do some of the training along side of my mentor. Even though I had done all of my horse's training to that point I wasn't getting to the point I should have been at (things like riding,saddling,trimming,fly spray, etc.). My mentor started working with us and had my horse doing somethings in less than a hour which I had been working on for a little over a year.

5. What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.

• My topic is going to be wild horses. Mentorship helped me with this decision since during training I would notice that my horse would react differently to new objects, one reason was because of the treatment she got after her round-up and while she was in BLM holding facilities. My mentor is also very involved in the Mustang Heritage Foundation as well as working with mustangs from the BLM. When training my wild mustang I had to understand some of the things she went through and what has caused her and many other mustangs to have a sense of PTSD. 

Blog 1 – Senior Final Lesson/Interview Reflection

1.  What three lessons were most helpful for you to see, and why?

• I like the lessons taught by Justine Solorio, Ariami Garcia, and Guadalupe Huaracha because they talked about what they found in their research and what things they found through their mentorship that wouldn't get the same experience from just reading about it and you can tell that they enjoyed their topic and had fun with it.

2. List one thing that you learned about the senior project in interviews that will help you get off to a good start?

• When you are working with your mentor try to develop a good relationship with them so if you need help or have questions you have an easier time approaching them as well as having a better outcome for the overall project.

3. What topic(s) are you considering, and why?

• I have already talked to the senior team about my topic last year to make sure it would work because once I got it approved it would take a minimum of 5 months to start. My topic is training a wild horse. This is something I have wanted to do for some time now and my parents and riding instructor thought now would be a good time to do it.

4. What EQ do you think might be interesting to consider in guiding a project like this? (Please don't worry about any sort of formula...we want this question to come from your genuine interest).

• When working with a with a wild horse what should a horse trainer keep in mind?

5. What are some ideas you have about finding summer mentorship?

• I was going to ask my horse trainer since she has gentles and trained 14 wild horses.