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ARRIVED April 2004
ADOPTABILITY adopted!
SPONSORED BY adopted! went home Sept 2007
BREED/AGE 8-year-old certified wild mustang (1998 model)

leighannonsonny.jpg (372481 bytes)       firstride.jpg (58872 bytes)      SONNY DEE    formerownerspic.jpg (32153 bytes)     

 BABY SONNY: babypetted.jpg (77003 bytes)babysonny.jpg (60290 bytes)babywalking.jpg (99513 bytes) 

(click to enlarge pictures)

Overview:  Sonny was born in the wild, brought into captivity at about 4-5 months old. We don't know what happened for the next several years, then was sold across the internet to a trusting young lady as beginner safe. Sadly, she had been cheated, as Sonny barely knew how to lead, was un-ridable, had been unsuccessfully "cowboy trained" and we don't know if he ever rode successfully at all.  He was very skilled at throwing riders. We spent a lot of time teaching him ground manners, and he became a joy to handle on the ground, but we doubt that Sonny will ever be able to be a trusted mount. We feel he may be a very good driving horse in the right hands, but don't have the skills or equipment to teach him.

On Arrival: Sonny came to us in the summer of 2004 as a 6-year-old mustang -- taken from the wild as roughly a 4-month-old, had some level of training but unsure what, was sold to a well meaning young lady as beginner safe. She quickly realized she and Sonny were not on the same skill level, and looked to return him to his former home. The old owners would not accept him in return, and, not wanting Sonny's life to go the wrong direction, she donated him to Crosswinds for us to work toward giving this youngster a new life and eventually a fitting new home with a rider to match his skills.

Sonny threw his recent owner's trainers on at least 3 occasions, with bucking skills significant enough that the trainer recommended donating him to the rodeo. He is amazingly bright, and adorably cute, and we hope that we can help him learn to work in our world, rather than fighting it every step of the way.

Sonny arrived in exceptionally good health, with great muscle tone, wonderful feet, full shots and all possibly needed medical care. For a change, we don't need to work through healing Sonny's body before we can get to working on Sonny's mind and mindset.

August 2004 update: Sonny quickly picked up our version of the basics of round pen work, but continued to be spooky for several months -- even difficult to lead in normal situations. Despite regular work, Sonny simply wasn't making the kind of progress we would've liked to see. We did get him to a point where he seemed confident in the round pen, even though he was still timid outside it. He allowed us to saddle and bridle him without difficulty, and to lay across his saddle, but the moment anyone went to swing across, he was explosive.

leighannonsonny.jpg (372481 bytes) September 2004 update: In comes Leighann, a young lady with lots of great training experience who volunteered for Crosswinds. She offered to work with Sonny, & her more refined approach appears to be just what Sonny needed! Sonny now leads confidently in most situations and, as you can see in the photo, Leigh-Ann sat astride the boy without any 'explosions'. Leighann hopes to be riding Sonny shortly, and then we would work him back into our normal program of exposure to a variety of riding conditions and riders. As soon as Leigh-Ann feels he is ready, he will be available for adoption for an experienced rider. If he does not promptly find that type of home, we will continue to train and evaluate him and will update his page as we see if he settles into a more intermediate level mount.
sonnyfirstride.jpg (279682 bytes)

October 2004 update: Sonny successfully completed his first ride this first week of October! We were thrilled at this progress. Sadly, we're not sure what set him back, but a few days later Sonny threw Leigh-Ann again. We guessed that he simply didn't trust any other handler on the ground, or on his back, and we couldn't clone Leigh-Ann! (Read on for what we now believe the problem really was.) Then Leigh-Ann had a job change and was no longer able to volunteer regularly, to continue her work with Sonny.
Spring 05: Sonny's adoption fell through. We had hoped we'd found Sonny a forever home, but unfortunately we were not happy with the facilities when we delivered. Sonny is back and we will continue his training.
Summer 05:  We've been unsuccessful at resolving Sonny's bucking issues. He isn't a mean colt, he's simply learned that he can get people to leave him alone with this behavior, and at the time seemed to think it "fun". Believing that every horse has a 'right job', and that working 8 seconds a week as a bucking horse in a GOOD rodeo isn't the worst career available a horse, we loaned him to an exceptional local rodeo company. There, Sonny was kept in far greener pastures and got far better care than we could hope to provide him here. Due to his smaller size than most rodeo horses, he was tried out as a "bucking trainer" where local high school rodeo future stars were hoping to use Sonny to learn how to ride out a strong but not "Big Show" quality bucking horse. Sonny seemed to initially enjoy trying out his possible new job, but even when exercised on the ground to get him more fit, would only give 3-4 bucks and then gave up. Since they were unable to utilize him as a bucking trainer, they saddled him normally and had several rides where they rode him until he quit bucking completely, in hopes of curing him of this bad habit, then returned him home.
November 2005: Sonny Dee has returned from his summer with the rodeo, and is truly, a changed horse. Sonny now has NICE pasture manners, after being re-educated by a pasture of mature, young drafts, and then returned to the regular rough-stock pasture where his newfound manners made him numerous friends in the herd.
December 2005:

SONNY RIDES!

firstride.jpg (58872 bytes)

 We cannot begin to express how utterly and completely thrilled we are!!

SONNY RIDES!!!!

Sonny really, honestly, truly rides. Rides like a horse that's never had a bucking career, with likely LESS interest in bucking than many a green horse that's never ridden.

This weekend we hauled Sonny to Hartmeyers in Indiana, where Laddie, Majesty and Buster live, so that Andrew, Lad's owner, could attempt to ride Sonny. The rodeo boys indicated that Sonny had, at most, given 3-4 good bucks, then simply gave up in his sessions with them. Andrew was confident he could ride out those 3-4 bucks, and hoped he could then truly ride Sonny out and help us to help Sonny to understand his new career as a riding horse.

To everyone's surprise, and CWER staff satisfaction, Sonny didn't buck once for Andrew. We were as patient and gentle with the gelding as possible, and he danced and was nervous some, and spun once, but otherwise was very manageable. Andrew was like an old pro up there! He was patient, taking suggestions, encouraging the young horse, not being pushy or harsh at all. After about 30 minutes, we switched and AMC rode Sonny for quite a while. At one point, I gave him a little too much leg behind his girth and he responded with a small buck followed by, I swear, a complete apology for doing so. All I could think was running through his head was, "No, please, i don't want to try to buck 8 seconds!!"

Sonny was just plain fabulous. Absolutely wonderfully fabulous. Of course, he has lots more to learn, and we'll have to see how future sessions go, but we are so excited about this new breakthrough!

January 2006: Sonny is in need of dental work before his riding training can continue. He still has his gelding's wolf's teeth, and we think they may be bothering him when bridled. Our vet has had several emergencies come up, so that he's not been able to get his dental work done, so Sonny is on a temporary layoff from riding training.
May 2006: Sonny has had his dental work done, and we had 1 quiet, successful ride. Sadly, the next was not so successful. Sonny got upset, reared, and threw AnnMarie and galloped away. We went back to ground work.
June/July 2006: Andrew Kaluf worked with Sonny again after the open house, and did fantastic with him. We noticed that saddle position and especially rider weight position (staying deep toward the back of the saddle) seemed to really work wonders with him. If Andrew's weight came forward, Sonny became awkward and tense. We immediately began trying to raise the funds for him to go board at Andrew's barn for the month of July and maybe August, so Andrew can continue to work one-on-one with him, on a daily basis, in hopes that we may have found the magic combination to get Sonny past his issues and on to a successful career as a riding horse.

In under 24 hours, we raised the entire $250 and, on July 1, Sonny was transported, courtesy of AK&J Equine Services Hauling and Hay, to Kaluf's boarding barn for his training time! Thanks so much, Tracy RC & of course the Kaluf's!

July 3 update from the Kaluf family, courtesy of the CWER email list -- join the list to keep up with this ongoing saga!! There's even ride photos and video posted already...

 

A quick few words about Sonny.  I promise I'll write more soon.
 
Sonny arrived at our boarding barn about 9:30 p.m. on Sunday.  Expertly delivered by Tracy R-C.  Tracy had to stop about every 45 minutes to check on the boy and give him some water.  It was a very hot/humid night.  As AnnMarie has mentioned many times, if you need a horse transported consider Tracy's business I cannot imagine someone giving your animal better care over the road.
 
Sonny settled in fine that night, even seemed to calm down when he saw Andrew..go figure.  Andrew took him into a wash stall and cleaned him up and then put him to bed for the night.  The next day at around noon Andrew and I loaded up our three horses, Sonny and all of our equine tack feed, hay etc. and moved the whole lot to a different boarding facility.  I'll not discuss it here.
 
Monday evening Andrew got to work with Sonny for the first time here.  After about 20 mins of lounge line work Andrew suited up and worked on mounting Sonny, this normally takes a few tries to get Sonny to settle down and stand perfectly still for mounting.  This time was no different.  Andrew got mounted and was placing his right foot in the stirrup when Sonny decided his time was up and bucked three big bucks, throwing Andrew several feet in the air.  As soon as Andrew hit the ground (soft sand) Sonny basically ground tied himself and stood perfectly still.  Andrew shook it off and went over to retrieve Sonny. 

So, what happened?...we figured it out.  When Andrew saddled Sonny we noticed his breast plate/collar seemed looser than normal.  Sonny is not a big horse and this is actually Laddie's tack, but it was looser than whe he rode successfully at CWER.  So, what we figured out was that the saddle was further forward than Sonny likes it to be.  Andrew moved the saddle back and I stood by while he tried mounting again.  This time no explosion and after a lap or two Sonny was relaxing and dropping his head.  Andrew rode 15 minutes at the walk.

 
Last night (Tuesday), again lounge line work for 15-20 mins looking for join up and relaxation.  There was a lot of activity in the barn, with feeding going on so this was different for Sonny, but good for him.  However it did make him a bit more tense.  Mounting took some time (to get him to stand still) but was uneventful.  Sonny was not paying a close attention to Andrew as he has in the past.  At one point he paused to urinate, following that his own wet spot scared him a bit! Silly Mustang!  I covered it up for him.  After about 25 mins of walked Andrew took him into a very short trot.  Sensing Sonny was still a bit tense Andrew did not push it past that.  Andrew dismounted and remounted, this again took a few minutes to accomplish.  Sonny worked okay, but was not paying attention to Andrew very well.  Andrew dismounted again, removed his protective gear and lounged Sonny for about 10 more minutes to explain it to him.  That ended the session on a positive note with Andrew in charge.

On a different note, Sonny has bonded with Buster (our AQH), they are like one in the pasture and call for each other when separated.

July 12 update by Steve Kaluf: (to read all updates and join in the discussion on sonny's training, please either visit our home page and join the email list or, at groups.yahoo.com/group/crosswindseqresq , you can read the prior discussions, view files, etc for the discussion list, instead of just getting the emails from this point forward!)
I had hoped that Andrew would write this update, but it appears he might have fallen asleep last night before he did it..oh well, you get me again.
 
Sonny got the weekend off as I was flying in our National Aeromodeling Championships and was unable to watch as Andrew rode.
 
However he got back on track Monday with ground/lunge line work for a couple of hours Monday morning.  We had an issue come up on Friday as Laddie (Andrew's horse) came into a rather flaming heat.  Sonny seems to feel Lads is his mare and became quite protective of her.  Driving some 14+ other horses away (except Majesty and Buster).  No one drives Maj away unless she allows it.  In fact, she's pretty indifferent to most of what goes on around her.
 
Tuesday Andrew move Lads, Maj and Buster to a smaller pasture away from the main herd and Sonny was left with the herd.  The two pastures share a common fence line so Sonny spent the day standing next to Lads on the opposite side of the fence.
 
Andrew worked Sonny on lunge line Tuesday morning and reported he was more attentive to him then he had been on Monday.  Tuesday night Karen and I were at the barn with Andrew so riding could finally happen again.  Andrew worked him for about 1/2 hour on the lunge line.  I noted that Sonny appeared relaxed and for the most part was paying attention.  When he did not Andrew either ran him or walked quickly directly at him causing Sonny to back up very quickly for 20 feet or so.  Join up is very quick with Sonny so we feel he really wants to please and certainly respects Andrew.  After lunging Andrew saddled him up, making sure to not allow the saddle to get too far forward.  I held Sonny while he mounted and that was uneventful (which is always a good thing).  Andrew walked Sonny around the arena for some time; Sonny was paying good attention to him and was carrying himself in a relaxed manner.  He did not seemed too concerned about what was going on around him.
 
Andrew did several straight line trots with him and a few partial turns at a trot.  Sonny is still a bit directionally challenged at times as any horse, new under saddle tends to be.  He does take rein/bit cues well though.  Andrew will begin to do some despooking things with Sonny in the next day or so to make him even more calm.  He needs lots of riding to work the bugs out and get him more and more comfortable.  He's going to be a work in progress for a while (nothing like the speed at which Paris is coming along).  But the really good news is that I firmly feel Sonny will become a ridable horse.  I do think he's going to be best as kind of a one person horse.  He's probably going to have some quirks that will have to be paid attention to.  He is a very smart horse and I truly believe he likes people. Right now, he takes a little gentle talking to too keep him calm.  After all, he is a 'STANG!
 
July 17 update:
Well Andrew got Sonny to what I feel is a major milestone Sunday morning.  They did some riding in the indoor arena which including a short canter.  The canter started a bit oddly as when Andrew asked for the canter Sonny lowered his rear end and began to dig in hard with his rears, it looked like he was not sure what to do, canter, gallop or whatever.  Andrew got him pulled in and got a good straight line canter out of him. 
 
At that point we opened up arena gate and Andrew rode him out into the PASTURE!  No issues at all with that ride.  Probably rode him around 1/2 mile total outside.  He came back in and mounted dismounted a couple of times.  While not perfect it great progress in the right direction.
 
Sonny still requires some careful handling.  Saddle placement is critical.  He needs a line on him that says "place saddle behind this line".  He also requires constant reinforcement of who is boss.  When he does not do something right, he must be sent away to work and reaffirm who is in charge.  Sonny is always very gentle to people and really seems to like people.  However when he does not stand for mounting or something like that, he must be driven away and caused to rejoin with the person working him.
August 2006 update Sonny threw Andrew near the end of the week. Andrew tried to put some weight over his shoulder, testing out the theory that Sonny associated the shoulder with pain. Sonny threw him aggressively, and is now tender over that shoulder.

He came home to CWER, and Dr King checked the shoulder thoroughly and found several small points that were significant pain spots for sonny. It will take several adjustments to set things right again. But Sonny again associates saddling with pain. We are no longer confident he will ever be able to ride safely.

We will look for a home either with someone who can train him to drive, or ideally as an ambassador of how fantastic mustangs can be on the ground.

July 2007 update -- ADOPTED! Pam, Paris' mom, has always had a connection with Sonny. He has helped her to learn to round pen and some other crucial skills in her trip into the world of horse ownership. Now that Pam and Larry have purchased a horse farm of their own, we're utterly thrilled to announce THAT PAM IS ADOPTING SONNY! He will be about 20-minutes from CWER, and we hope to still borrow him for events like the open house, for his unique talents in the round pen, but are thrilled he'll have a safe haven forever home with Pam and Larry, Paris and their boarders!!
Sept 07 Sonny and Paris went home today! Pam's now got her 2 horses at home, in her fabulous classic barn. Sonny seems happy with his single mare, in his own space, and Pam and Larry seem thrilled. CONGRATS!!