Random thoughts and questions!

Hey guys, so its been cold lately so havn't been doing much for riding. Anyways not much going on in my life lol, so anyways some questions that have been asked to me and random thoughts bout tons of other stuff.....

Why don't you pat your horse when they do something good?
Well thats a pretty easy question to answer, horses are prey animals, they would much rather have a scratch than a pat, dogs (preditors) like pats but most prey animals would prefer a scratch. Its more enjoyable for them, they scratch eachother all the time, but you don't see them patting eachother right? There has even been a scientific study done on it! It fully supports scratching over patting!
http://www.thehorse.com/articles/34855/do-horses-prefer-patting-or-scratching

Why do you always use a mounting block?
I see people haul themselves up and down to work on mounting, and it really isn't very nice on the horses back, yes mounting up once every hour isn't bad, but constantly getting on and off isn't doing your horse any good, now there is a difference between being able to mount and choosing not to, I can mount from the ground, just have to let my stirrup down, but if I can use something to make it easier on Chuck or Jet then I will, I have mounted from the ground before on the trails and such.

And now on to a few issues I would like to talk about!

So its no secret that I am not an itty bitty girl.... but guess what on horses that doesn't matter! I am an appropriate weight for my horses, would you like to know why someone even  heavier would even be okay for my horses? A balanced rider does SO SO SO much less damage to a horses back than an unbalanced rider even if the unbalanced rider is lighter. Its common sense! If you had to carry someone would you rather carry a person that was stable but heavyer or a light person that moved all over.You may say the light person but it would actually be harder. Heres a experiment done to help show this.

Anyway not much else I can think to talk about right now, will update later this week if anything interesting happens.