Riding Marsy down the road!

Yes, I really did ride outside of the corral! First I did some pre-road-ride checks LOL. I walked her down the road with me in z3, she did really good on that so I felt like we were ready for the next step. No, I didn't make a spur of the moment plan, I'd actually been planning to ride down the road before I even got down to the barn(not like me is it LOL).

When I mounted up she was calm quiet, but we still sat there for a little. Then I asked her forward. For a little while she did good and then she started turning and being silly. For a while I persisted in trying to get her to go down the road and then I decided to let her back up the road and past the corral. She didn't really want to go that way either, but she did better going that way than the other way. Strange that she didn't want to go down road where we had done z3 driving, but she would go up in the other direction where we hadn't walked it out! My hypothesis is that Marsan is scared of the big hills that rise up on one side of the road that we usually walk down, there are big scarey hills if you go up the road in the other direction.

Guess what! All of that z3 driving I do with Marsan is paying off! When I was riding her today I decided to see what would happen if I did in my body what I do when I'm giving her commands in z3 on the ground. She actually caught on and listened to those cues! I would look where I wanted to go and squeeze just a bit and she actually went forward! Then I would drop all of my energy and focus and she would stop instantly. When I had her at a standstill, I leaned back a little and clapped my feet near her chest and she backed up! All of this without the reins!!!!!

Wow! I'm just so amazed at how far we've come in a year! Last year when I got her she was uncontrollable, she wouldn't stop when you wanted her and she wouldn't go at the right time either! The other day I took her on a ride with a friend and she had almost perfect impulsion! Today I rode her all by herself and she actually went a little way from corral, which was more than I expected! I know a lot of it has been just letting her get settled, but another big part of her change is the bond that has come about between us as the result of lots of mistakes and some successes. That might sound weird, but honestly there was a time(I still feel this way sometimes)when I just didn't think I could ever get along with Marsan. Now I feel like we are ready to move forward :D

A super awesome rather short session!

I managed to squeeze in a rather short session tonight with Gingy. Like the title says it was pretty short, but lots of fun.

I took Gingy in RP to work on his change of direction a little since he's shown me that he has a little trouble with that. He went out on the cirlce without a ton of enthusiasm, but he wasnt' naughty(most of been somewhat mentally engaged). After a half lap he came right back to me so we hung out for thirty seconds. This time he had more energy and we were set.

Every time he passed my shoulder I would bring my energy up and start and lean back slightly. The whole time I was picturing him drawing toward me. I guess something worked because he did come in to me.

The first couple of times he got a little confused about whether I was bring him in to stay or not. However, we wasn't grumpy when I explained that I was redirecting him.

By about the fourth change of direction he understood. On one draw, he thought he tried to redirect himself before I had redirected him LOL, but then he realized I was still drawing him so he came back toward me. I think he was really connected to me! This was more than I had hoped for!

Finally I brought him in and he got a treat. I'm not sure that was a good time to give him a treat of not since was already motivated..... Hmmmmmmm, I'll have to think on that...

We did all of this fifteen minutes and it made for a great session!

(*horse whispers*) "I'm talking to you"

Gingy and I had a lot of fun today. I tried to use what I've been learning this week and it went really well.

I really had to laugh at silly Gingy is and all the subtle little games he plays. Sometimes he would start ignoring me for awhile, but I knew he was just playing so I waited until he got interested again. A couple of times he got a little treat crazy, I guess we are still working out the mechanics of using treats as bonuses not bribes.

I decided not to do the figure eight today and I think that was a good thing. Instead we did lots of little things just more as an assement of where we are today. I had him go on the circle and there happened to be a feed bucket on his path! I wanted to see if he would put his back feet in it from ten feet away, he did once but after that he was pretty confused about what I wanted. He's getting so light that it's hard be clear LOL. When he made some progress with the feedbucket then I turned my attention to a pole-like log. I wanted him to circle over to the log at the walk and straddle it, then go sideways away and back to me. He did that pretty well once, so we moved on.

I thought it might be good to brush up on our porcupine, however that was when he got pretty treat crazy. I did porcupine by the leg, but that didn't work very well since he wasn't paying much attention at that point LOL. Thinking back now I wish I had of gotten him out and away from me so he didn't get a chance to start pushing and shoving, I guess that's something to try next time. I also getting him to understand holding his front leg up when I tapped it and we had better luck there because he was interested enough to forget about the treat business. I did have to hold on to his halter at his chin so that he would start going backwards or sideways(which he tried to do at first). He did eventually hold his leg up for a little while, so I let it go at that.

To end an awesome session I did a little find the treat game and that was the best part! I had him stand with his front feet in the feed bucket while I went around the corral hiding treats. I was so proud of him because he never left the feedbucket(yay!). When I stopped him at the first treat location he got impulsive and tried to decide what I wanted before I told him LOL. The treat ended up on the ground and it sure took some serious communication to get him to put his nose down when I was 12 feet away! He got it! After that he pretty much went crazy for treats and I had some trouble getting him to listen to me. He never really did start paying attention to what I was asking, but we both had a lot of fun; maybe next time I'll have a better way to approach his treat craziness!

After I let him go he started playing the ignoring game with me, which was fine b/c I was just sitting in the corral to enjoy the fresh air. He is so funny when he ignores me b/c it's like he tries to make it as obvious as possible LOL. After awhile he settle down to eat a scattering of hay about 10 feet away from me. I had my carrot stick with me and I thought it would be interesting to see if he would notice if I asked him something. When he happened to be glancing my way I threw the slightest look at his hqs. It took three or four glances before he got interested and one or two more before he understood then he came right over. Wow! He actually knew I was asking him a question and he even figured out what I wanted! All I did was look at him!

Today the big theme was how soft can p1 for Gingy be?! I guess it was pretty soft!

Gingy had a lot to teach me.

I was doing the figure eight with Gingo yesterday. Wow, it was quite a learning exprience!

This session revealed some really important things to me and it also caused me to remember some things that I had forgotten about.

When I started him on the figure eight he was soft and willing. He was expressing himself, asking questions, the whole works. The only problem we had was that he wanted to keep cutting corners by not going all the way around the cones, silly pony LOL. My goal with doing the figure eight was to get him farther out away from me, so what he was doing was pretty much the oposite! I kept him at it for a long time and he started to get a little bored with it, his response was getting less and less enthusiastic.

After doing the figure eight for awhile and him not getting it and getting bored instead he started to want to come in at lot. The interesting thing was that as soon as I let him come in his ears would come right up and he wouldn't be grumpy. As soon as I sent him out he would be a little more grumpier and sullen then the on the last send!

Now I know he was trying to tell me something, but I didn't know what was going on then. The more I ignored his message the more difficult he got. It came to a climax when he wouldn't draw to me on one side. This tends to happen if I don't take him off the figure eight at the right time. He almost completely zoned out, although he was still watching me.

I tried everything I could think of to be more provocative and get him thinking. That turned out to be my mistake, I thought I needed to get him thinking. I don't think he needed any help to do that b/c my guess is that it was his thinking that caused him to wonder away from me mentally. Like I said before everytime he got to come in he was instantly enthusiastic again, the oposite always happened when I sent him back out.

I finally realized that he had been trying to tell me as politely as possible that he didn't know what I wanted and he was ready to move on. It took until he just stood there when I sent him to understand that message and do something about it.

I took him off the pattern and we went to do some other things that he does like to do. As soon as we started doing other things he was the way he had been when we started the figure eight pattern.

What did I learn from all of this? I learned that I wasn't listening to Gingy, imagine that! I learned about how it feels deep down when you put the horse first for no other reason then because you love them.

Dominant little Gingy LOL

I got to play yesterday, just didn't have any time to blog about it until now LOL.

Let me make you aware of what my resolution was for this session, it was: I will not let Gingo envade my space. This was an important resolution for me because lately Gingy has been envading my space a lot and getting even more dominant then that. Remember how I wrote about his being grumpy, I found out why 1) I've been letting him get away with pushing, nipping, and butting...ME 2) I am still having trouble finding a way to be effective and not nag him.

Yesterday my focus was on 1). The feeling that I had when I entered the pen was very strange, I felt like I was being the leader again like I haven't been for awhile. Gingy came right to me, I stroked him for awhile. He haltered nicely, stuck his nose right in without hesitation. Then I thought I'd take him out to the pasture which I did.

Most of the snow is melted out there so it's pretty nice for playing in. I had the weave patter already set up, so that's what we did. He was being rather sluggish and he kept wanting to stand on the cones instead of go around them. I started doing some transitions to ease his boredom and that worked out well, when we finsished with that pattern he had chosen of his own accord to go around the cone.

We did the figure eight too. Once again he wanted to walk over the cones, if he couln't just stop at them all together. Every time he stopped I just sent him on, now that I think of it, it might of been good to do something a little more provocative. He stopped walking over the cones and reverted to walking by them on the wrong side. This time I could see that look in his eye that said, "what are you going to do about this." I decided to send him a little faster every time he missed the cone. He stopped missing the cone, and I was about to ask him back in when.....he walked over one again and stuck between his back legs! I kind of just stood there and he tried to keep going(of all the times to remember your responsibilities horse!). His back legs weren't a big help to his forward motion, so it was mainly his front legs that were scrammbling trying to go forward. Eventually he stopped, and looked at me, and in that time the cone fell down and he was released. Then I burst out laughing LOL.

After that I didn't bother to put him back out on the figure eight. We did a little sideways without a fence between the cones on the weave and he did really good with that.

So that was pretty much the end of our session.

Some pics!

Here are some pony pics since the weather is bad and I don't have anything to post about LOL.

These are all from when I rode Marsan after we successfully passed all of the pre-ride checks!











Hoping this works(crosses fingers)

Gingy and puzzles

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, I'm not demotivated any more at least!

I finally had time today to make my way down the hill to the horses and visit for an hour.

Gingy was being very silly when I came down; he was standing on the hill out in the pasture watching me while I set some stuff up, then when I was walking back across the pen, he came running down to see me! I was so happy that he came running! Things worked out pretty well from there. I had some apples that mom gave me to give the horses so there was a nice sweet surprise for Gingy when he met me in the corral.

He was a bit difficult to halter since at first he was more interested in trying to get some treats out of my coat, silly boy LOL. He's so funny because after awhile of dinking around he'll stick his head right in the halter! That's exactly what he did.

I meant to for us to play in the pasture after we did some sideways, however after I'd done all the stuff I wanted to do with sideways my rope was so soggy and muddy I didn't want to go out in the sopping pasture and get all wet LOL.

When he realized what we were doing he was more than happy to do it. I had all of the feeding buckets set up in "strategic" places LOL. First, as a refresher we went down the fence to a bucket. Then I started having him going sideways without a fence to another bucket. He did beautifully! He was soooo light, I was only using the 12' because of all the mudd, but still he was really soft! And, this time he kept his hq moving for the most part!

Another reason I ended up not taking in the pasture was that by the time I was considering it things were so good I didn't want to blow it.

Goodness! Treats are such a powerful tool with Gingy, all I had to do was figure out how to use them! At the end he was so excited about finding the treat, no matter what it took that he really put his mind and energy into everything I asked him! I asked him to come sideways towards and then away towards, away, etc. Gingy was so engaged(mentally) that it took him no time to understand the difference from my energy pushing him away and my energy drawing him to me, this is something that we were really struggling with before! Best of all he did it on both sides, also something that we were having trouble with!

Ah, it was a great session :D Hopefully I can go out and play tomorrow :)

I did play with Marsy, but our session was pretty short. I took her out on the road, and quickly found out that she wasn't very RB, however she was worried about the hill running along beside the road. I got up on the hill where I was above her and started swinging the ss and cs around as soon as she relaxed we quit. Then I did a little circling with her just trying to get her to not zone out and still stay out on the circle.

It was kind of funny, but I was really enamoured with touching the ponies today. I just wanted to bury my fingers in their thick, soft, long fur!