My Horse Journey: Long Overdue

Wow. I can't believe it's been over a MONTH since I last updated! I am a terrible blogger. At least I'm better at other things, right? Heehee :)

Anyways, here's a summary of what Gwen and I have been up to:

Lots of online games. Been focusing on Yo-yo /= circle. She likes to back up, and then go right into a circle, so I've been focusing on backing up, standing, and then giving her something to do (either moving into a circle, or coming back to me, mostly). There's been a lot of emphasis on standing patiently and waiting for me to ask her to do something. A lot of this had to do with ME, rather than Gwen. I got into a really bad habit of backing her up and then sending her off to do something else, without a lot of waiting.

More recently, I've stopped using the yoyo as a preclude to the circle game entirly. Instead, I just porcupine her nose until she's about arms length from me, and then ask her to circle while I let the lead slide through my hands.

The Circling game is my favorite, and I've been trying really hard to stay concious of how many times I ask her to circle, so that it doesn't become boring for her. I try to mix it up, so that sometimes she circles once before I ask her to come in, sometimes it's twice, sometimes it's only half a circle. Sometimes we walk half, trot half, stop. Sometimes we walk a little, trot two steps and stop, etc. I've been working on her canter, too, which she's not overly fond of. I think it's a balance issue, though. When I ask her to canter, I know she understands what I want because she'll get a grumpy face, arch her neck/round her back, and kind of hop along at a really bouncy/weird trot for a stride or two, and then she'll either settle back into a trot (if I don't say anything) or "sorta" canter if I reinforce the request with another verbal "Canter!" And by sort of canter, I mean that it's not really a canter, but it's not really a kick/buck. As soon as she takes even half a stride of canter, I ask her to yield and slow down, so that she's rewarded as soon as she complies.

The reason I think it's a balance issue is because she has NO problem cantering when we're in the round pen, which has a bigger circumfrance than what the 12' line can give her. So I think she feels unconfident, and is worried she's on too tight a turn to canter without tripping. It's one of my biggest motivators for wanting a 22' line, so that we can practice cantering more. She's always had a small "issue" with cantering, even before I began playing Parelli. I remember riding her, and dreading the canter because she'd usually buck. Not a bronco-busting kind of buck, just a kick with both feet, but it was enough to throw me off balance and ruin our departure. As a result, I don't plan to ask for anything under saddle until she's comfortable on the line/ground, for obvious reasons.

We've also been "jumping"! Or, Gwen has. In an effort to spice up our circles and to introduce her to the concept of jumps, she's been going over poles and small caveletti-like jumps. She's not a big horse, so even the smaller stuff makes her hop over it like a real jump. She was very unsure of this game when we first played it, and there were a lot of trot circles that screeched to a halt before the jump so that she could investigate and walk gingerly over the pole. After the second day, she was actually hopping over the jump at a trot, both directions. She's not a huge fan of jumping, but her confidence has grown. Instead of worry, she's more apathetic towards the jump. Sort of an "Another jump? Mooooom, whyyyyyy? *pout*"

Our "jump" with barrels as standards.

We can confidently walk over the bridge now, too. And we've begun to practice with figure 8's around cones and barrels.

Last week we did absolutely nothing, mostly due to the fact that, a week ago last thursday, I brought Gwen out of the turn out with a huge bite on her neck (horse bite, not bug bite). Poor thing! It was very swollen on one side, and actually bleeding on the other. So she got a lot of down time as I waited for it to heal. Tomorrow will be our first day back in the arena.