The rest of Friday

So after getting back from the vet, i sat around feeling sorry for myself for a bit again, and then decided to get off my butt and work boogie and rocky.

I headed down to the paddock, grabbed my halter and stick, and went to it. Boogie was hanging around near me, so i just started moving her hindquarters, at liberty, to see if she would do it. I haven't done any liberty with her before so i was curious to see how she would go, and the mood just took me. She shifted her quarters away, but then decided to head on out. So I chased her. Not aggressively, but just sort of said, you want to run? You can run but on my terms. She didn't go far - just into another squarish sort of pen, in the yard area - so I worked her a bit in there. All my aim was at this point was for her to face me, and hopefully walk up to me. So I kept the pressure on (clicking, tapping my stick / string on the ground etc) while she was faced away from me, then when she faced me i stopped everything, and took what i would call a submissive stance, to encourage her to come back. She faced up well enough, but didn't like it much! She is such a head strong little thing, puts a smile on my face, every time she turned to face me, she would nod her head and do what i had been doing with the stick, sort of like - you move back now! I didn't move back, but just asked her to shift her hind a bit, to encourage some movement, so hopefully she would come towards me. We did this a number of times, she would face up pretty quick, and come towards me a few steps, but then she would start nodding at me to try and get me to move. It is so funny to see, because she is so little but she gets this look on her face like “why wouldn't you move back?, I’m the boss around here am I not?"

So a few times later, and whenever she would take those few steps I would indicate to her that she had done the right thing, finally walked up to me (only about 10 mins - not that the time counts, it can take all day, but I just want you to know that she is coming up to me because she understands what I want - not because I’ve worked her into the ground and shes just too tired to argue anymore). I gave her a rub and left it at that. With the young horses, and even horses that I have just started working with I’m happy to give them alot of reward for a little bit of work. I like to build that work ethic and let them know that I’m here to give them a fair go, really early in the relationship.

So Boogie done, I head out for Rocky. He see’s all the gear, and just slowly walks away. I do exactly the same thing with him, just put the pressure on, and he pretty much turns straight away and waits for me to get to him. I put the halter on, and today, I want to try something else again. Rockys a bit of a challenge for me, he is just taking a while to bond with me, and accept that I’m the leader. It seems that he is like that in the paddock as well, because Squizzy is the boss horse and she seems to flog him every opportunity she gets, whereas she leaves Boogie completely alone. So, to try and see what works I am doing different things with him each day, with a bit of the old stuff mixed in. He is not great at backup, so I work that everyday, but he is great about coming towards me, and will trot up if I ask him to. So today I did driving with him, and there was a different story again. I stood beside him and asked him to walk up, and sure enough he was fine, but ask him to trot and he dragged along like a sack of potatoes. So I spent today building the trot. I did a few circles with him aswell, but these proved difficult as I didn’t tie the other young horses up and they insisted on helping!

So, I did some circles, backup and forwards, and I did some sideways for the first time, he actually wasn't too bad at it. Then spent the rest of the time driving him. It took a bit, but when he was happy to trot along beside me and stop, i gave him a nice big rub and left him alone.

Time to head to the school so no time to work Cooper and Dicko, but I will give the juniors the weekend off, and work with Cooper and Dicko on Sat and Sunday.