(Misty On Line, 45 mins) I went to the back door of the barn and called Blu, but he looked at me then continued to sunbathe. So, I took the 45’ line over to the north pasture where Misty stays. She was not put off by me unraveling the 45 to make a loop for her neck. In that fashion, we kind of pandered about doing this and that. My goal was to feel her out. She reverted to an old lack of confidence that causes her to latch onto obstacles, become stoic, and stop asking questions. However, it was mild and she was still coming to me with confidence. In any case, she was excellent with the neck line. I did some sideways to me stuff. I want to get her sideways cues more subtle and expand her sideways moves. She is better with the left side. I found a really great ending point when she followed an introversion with a question and a very positive return to me. Taking off the line, she stayed by. When I walked off she followed.
(Blu, Liberty, 45 mins) I was hoping that Blu would be ready after I finished with Misty, but he still only acknowledged me. Instead of going out and catching him, I brought out the lounge chair and read the book. Ginger was the first horse to come to me. She stood over me. She has such a soothing presence. I read aloud to her for a while. Hoosier tried to join us, but Ginger, in her misguided attempts to assimilate a confident horse-leader and is thereby very aggressive toward her pasture mates, chased him off and returned to standing over me. Eventually, she left, too. I was reading about how a horse would act up when the human’s behavior did not reflect the true emotions. I related to that with my show career because Misty dealt with that human in me.
Then, after 40 minutes of reading intently, Blu came up and began his investigative, testing behavior. I made a point to set the boundary clearly and let him do whatever he wanted on the other side of that boundary (no nosing the hands or face allowed). After five minutes, I folded up my chair and left. The "no thanks" was over. I smiled.
I hope that tomorrow reflects what I invested in today, but I do not regret the quiet time spent, as I learned a lot from my book. Perhaps Blu knew I needed to learn from Linda for 45 minutes more than I needed to teach him for 45 minutes.
Natural Horsewoman Out.
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