Quick update. Sorry, no pictures. It's late and I'm not really in the mood to go thru the motions of loading them onto the computer. Maybe tomorrow? Anyways...
Monday we had a not-so-great day together, and I blame it on myself. I was extremely distracted, and totally unable to meet Gwen's energy level. It had to do with the fact that I was not alone at the barn; the barn manager/riding instructor was there, along with a couple of visiting ex-barn rats (the kind that grew up, moved away, and were in town to pay a visit). She was getting them ready to go down the trails and even though I had the arena to myself, I was distracted by all the commotion of tacking up, etc. I am still self-conscious, and get very uncomfortable when I feel like I'm being watched as I play with Gwen. It's gotten a lot better, but Monday it just wasn't happening. I tried to push past it, but Gwen and I never really connected, and we probably didn't make any progress at all. But, I can happily say that we didn't move backwards.
Tuesday morning, Gwen had her shoes pulled off (Hallelujah!!). I've been dying to have them removed, but since I don't know how to do it myself... I had to wait. The barn manager did it for me, so I wouldn't have to pay the farrier (I swear, they charge for everything! Wasn't it enough to pay to have them put on?? Ah well). So when I got to the barn after work, Gwen was nice and barefoot again. Yay! I am thrilled with this... not so thrilled with the thrush infection going on in her feet. :/ Yeah. That was reason numero uno that I wanted her shoes and pads off; I just KNEW all that nasty weather was going to bring about some thrush. And since I'm a procrastinator, I don't have any thrush treatment yet (I know, I know... I'm a bad horse mama). It's on order, with rushed shipping. I've been meaning to order No Thrush since I first heard about it, but hadn't had a chance yet. Now, it's kind of a necessity...
Anyway. We played online again, as I don't really want to ride her until her feet are better, and our relationship improves again, but instead of staying in the arena, we went for a little walk. My game plan was to go down the trails with her online, but that didn't go so well when I saw how over grown the trails got. It became almost impossible for me to walk around thru all the foliage (and I hate bugs. I really hate bugs...) so we back tracked and took a walk up the road instead. It was good for her to get out of her comfort zone, and look at something new. She did very well, in that she stayed connected to me and responded when I asked her to do things. She never got super concerned, and we made it back alive (obviously) and then went to play in the arena. I blew her mind when I made her back thru the gate into the arena. She was looking at me all "Whaaa?! *back* up? But... it's a gate, we go forward... whaaaat???" As soon as she made it in and I turned to close the gate, there was lots of licking and chewing.
We played touch-it at the trot, which got a bit of frisky behaviour from her (Where did THAT come from? My little RBI acting extroverted, awww) and then settled down to practice our circling game. She's kinda not so good at maintaining gait/direction at the moment (maybe why we fail at follow the rail? hmm) so I played with changing direction every time she wanted to stop. I got lots of questions, and she made a real effort to connect with me. We quit when she made it a full circle without stopping.
Tomorrow I'd like to play more with circles, and possibly figure 8's.
J
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