Testing to Teach

Official Records Information
misty
2-7-10
1 hour 45 minutes
evening

I went out to the North pasture with a halter and 12' line, a stringed carrot stick, a savvy string, and a carrot stick. I sat on a barrel and every once in a while, I would look at her with increasing energy/intent until she looked at me. She began to wander in a path that would bring her to me in about 3 days because of all the wandering she was doing at the speed of a snail. A few times, I began to have to get up and start approaching before she would look at me. I began to change my approach to a assertive catching game. I separated Conner out of her way so she could lap around the pasture without getting drawn to him. He is getting better and better at reading when I am trying to move him and when I am not trying to move him and reading my intentions overall. Misty ran after me once and we sat in the back of the pasture so she could come off adrenaline and relax with me. I guess I did not give her long enough because she took off again after investigating a tire.
I "caught" her again, during which she slipped and fell over. This time, I took an especially long time before I asked her to go off somewhere. I gave her a good leg massage. Then, so she would have a physical connection to me, I lead her with a carrot stick over her neck for a while. I also made that sound that horses make when they blow out of their noses and she copied me every time.

Once I put the halter on, I did not go directly to doing something high energy because I wanted her to be 100% off adrenaline, so I started leading her with her head way down (by walking with my body bent over. We walked over the giant tire pedestal confidently, jumped over barrel confidently (and without pause).

My goals were to test things out today. I wanted to see how all the games were (with obstacles) and see what I wanted to work on. I started with the friendly game during the catching part of our session, and I had done stick to me (porcupine/draw), so now I worked on going sideways. I had her go sideways to me and away and she was excellent at coming to me, which was very unexpected. I have hardly been working on it, but I have used asking her hind quarters to come to me quite a bit, so I imagine that it was just a clear transition for her because the parts of the game were very solid. I would like sideways away to become lighter in phase, right now it is 2-3.

I had her do moving circles with obstacles in the way. She squeezed through a hole between two barrels no problem, but she was disinclined to maintain gait, so that is something that needs more attention. I know that my canter on the circle is not solid, for sure. I would also like the change of direction to get consistently lighter (2-4 now).

Later, I got on her and rode passenger lessons, focusing on footfalls. I would give myself a C for today because I was consistently getting the right foot falls and staying in sync. A grade of B would be if I could do it at with multiple gaits in one go without ever looking and an A would be if I could influence the feet from knowing the footfalls. It was a very good exercise.

Natural Horsewoman Out.