Played with Duck on Wednesday evening. It had rained all day Wednesday and was very cool. All the horses seemed to have that very "fresh" feeling! It was cool, it had rained and the wind was blowing some. Duck was no exception. I put on her bareback pad b/c my saddle pad was still at home needing cleaned from the trail ride. I took her down to the arena, as always we grazed our way there. LOL
I decided since she had some more "go" today that we would try circling game. So I set her right up on the grassy spot in front of the arena so that she'd have to go through the ditch twice with each circle. I am grateful for using obstacles! I am trying to get our circling transitions decent enough to pass level 2. Have lately been focusing on using the carrot stick in zone 1 to slow her down. Well it sort of worked. She was quite fast and it took a lot of rope wiggling to get through to her as well! In the end when I played "if you stop with the carrot stick you can eat grass" she got the idea real quick and came to a complete stop each time! Yeah! Besides a couple RB I'm going to RUN on the circle moments it went fairly well. The nice thing is that since I have bumped zone 1 on the circle when she starts pulling she was running on the circle but not pulling on me near as much! Yeah!
I decided we needed some thinking stuff for her to do, too much running around! So we headed to the outdoor wash stalls for sending in (trailer load simulation). To my surprise she went a lot better than last time. So well in fact that we went back to the arena, got a barrel and used it to block half the wash stall entrance so it would be a narrower squeeze in, just like the trailer. Went very well. She kept turning around at first, but then I was able to use my CS to get her to stay straight. We also practiced backing out by the tail. Cool stuff! I didn't end up riding because she felt like she had a bit too much RB for my safety. At one point she did one of her "I'm going to jump off the ground like a cat" for no apparent reason moves.
After that we headed for a walk around the property. I was looking for more squeezes. We did squeeze under the low hanging tree branches. No problem. So we headed over by the pasture fence line. Only one horse, Buddy the mini was over near us. Duck suddenly acted like she'd never seen that kind of horse before (she lived with a mini named Winnie in IL). So we played squeeze game between me and the fence line where the other horse was. Well that got the rest of the horse's attention and we then had the thundering herd coming to us! I just kept playing and we continued to play with it with the other horses reaching over the fence. Good practice for reducing Duck's "personal bubble". She gets very crabby eared etc around other horses. So we played with this until they left and it seemed to increase her tolerance for the other horses.
That was our session for Wednesday.
For Thursday what a disaster for the most part! Ok the whole thing wasn't a disaster but the end of it was especially liberty! I saddled and we played our way down to the arena. There was a "question" box type thing already set up, as well as a long walk between the 2 parallel rail set on the ground. It was pretty long and had some turns. From the ground we walked through it a couple times then I decided to back her through on the 22ft rope. My goal was to stay 22ft away from her and back her through these rails. Wow! She went great without stepping out once!
So I decided to ride and I am still working w/ the savvy string around her neck as well as her hackamore. I figure that gives me a gauge of if what I am doing is more with my body or my reins since I tend to be rein heavy (I have always been a "strong" rider and encouraged to be so) so now it is a habit I am trying NOT to do! Easier said than done! But we rode through that same pattern a couple times and once at the trot. (had to use my reins for that). We did the question box and changed directions from it, stopped in it, sidepassed out of it, trotted out of it. Most of that was with my regular reins but I did do a couple stops w/ the savvy string.
We also worked on serpentine pattern around 4 barrels. I could do this at the walk with the savvy string so yeah! Almost trotted it but realized it wasn't solid enough at the walk.
So then I decide to go to the round corral for liberty. BIG mistake. I should have quit then! Well the other day I told you Duck offered her butt to my face and then kind of went through the turn for a spin. Well all she would do today was spins! Every time I'd ask for anything she'd spin! Ok not good. Good trick, but not communication! I know she likes to learn new things but geez! Every time I teach her something new it's like that is what she automatically does if I ask for anything! I know she was just doing it because that is what she offered and thought I wanted but I found myself getting harder and harder phases to get her to move. I even tried going back online several times but nothing really got better. By the end of the session I could barely do the friendly game. I need to learn to quit when I am somewhat ahead or at least. Lesson learned. Now at that particular moment I just wanted to quit, QUIT QUIT QUIT and be done for good! Just my emotional unfitness I know, but UGH! I feel like I have been at this SO long I should be BETTER than this and I still can't even finish my level 2. Yeah yeah I know, it isn't about the string. But that being said it is also hard to sit and watch everyone else you know pass level 2 and still be stuck with what is obviously a HUGE gap in liberty savvy!
That is why yesterday was such a bad day for me. The nice thing is Duck still likes her cookies!
No comments:
Post a Comment