Sweet, Sweet Blu

Official Records Information:
Blu
8-11-10
evening
1 hour

I called Blu to me and he began to walk to me and then got distracted and began to walk to the two mares. Then he changed his focus again and began to go to back gate. I followed him crouching low to the ground and as he ambled, he would swing his head side to side trying to keep an eyeball on me. I kept dodging his eyes and the instant he got it in his head to turn around, I stood up and smiled and took a step back. He hesitated a few moments and then came to me and snuggled. I let him walk with me at liberty for most of the way back to the North Pasture before putting the halter on. Next time, I need to remember to have cookies so I can do the dame command with him.

I stood with Blu for a bit and enjoyed him. He is such a cool horse to be around because his energy is so positive, light, and happy. He and I stood and watched the other Green girls play with horses and he made a few comments about it and would snuggle me every now and again. I progressed our just sitting to the extreme friendly game. I was thinking about how Misty's extreme friendly game was when I had my first lesson. She was a little tight. Blu was tight for about 15 seconds before he put his head down low and was absolutely going to sleep while the carrot stick and savvy string swung and slapped around.

My play session went in phases of "work" and "rest." I moved his front and hind end around a bit to see how little I could do. He was driving around with just my eyes and I did take some time to make his porcupine off his nose a very light touch to slide back. I also played with lead by the leg. It is an unfinished and unrefined task that I would like to move into his mastered check list. I just searched for small, light successes in that area. I also did the very lightest signal with the carrot stick to get him to move sideways, another thing that I noticed was a bit "holely" at fair.

That "work" was followed with him standing on the tire pedestal while I talked with my mom, my sister, relaxed, chatted, then relaxed some more. I noticed that any time I looked at Blu, he would turn his nose to me and touch me or just check in. That is so priceless to me because Misty does not have a guaranteed "will melt your heart" sticker on her forehead the way Blu does. He makes me feel good about myself so I can play with Misty. He is my therapy.

So, Blu learned that his job was to stand on that pedestal until we were not doing that anymore. During the 15 or 20 minutes we sat there, Blu came off 2-3 times. He licked and chewed on the last time and that is when I decided our break was over. Our next work was short lived because I coached Ellie on how to get Misty to think more about her as she road her around. Ellie was trying to get her to put her nose on a barrel, but Misty was quite worried about the other horses going out back to fetch Hoosier. Blu's job was to stay away from Misty. At one point, I had asked him to back up several times by wiggling the carrot stick. At first he was not getting it, but he did start to wake up and I sent him to a ground pole to give him something to target. That helped and he did not try and come back over until I invited him back. Good boy.

I played the circling game and it is so much better than Misty's. Slack in the line is no problem, he has perfect slack, nicely shaped body, thinking about me. I had his circle going over the ground pole and he was going over the center without pulling. However, when he went over, he broke down to the lower gait. So, I did change of direction everytime he failed to maintain gait. It only took a 4 or 5 changes of direction and he was maintaining, so I rewarded him by moving the circle off of the pole. Next, I played with his transitions with the carrot stick. I counted 5 trot strides and asked for the walk, then 5 walks and the trot, so my carrot stick was going from zone 5 to zone 1 pretty quick. As soon as Blu got what I wanted, I invited him back in and we relaxed.

Next was some play time. I did mirror me/stick to me and Blu was very exuberant with flying lead changes, sliding stops, airs above ground (when I did airs above the ground!), and then putting his head down when I bent over.

Good boy, Blu.

Natural Horsewoman Out.