Days One and Two

And so it begins...
My course in Liberty and Horse Behaviour has begun!

Yesterday was all about reading the horse and the nature of the horse. We played with a game called me and my shadow. Well now! If I didnt discover that I personally own a green bucket fiend [thats what all the grain and cubes are fed in] While playing Me and My Sahdow the whole point of the game is to be able to hand over the 51% leadership to the horse and take the 49% for yourself, and just go with the flow and see what they do.

Mo took me on quite the adventure! We power walked everywhere for starters. And I mean POWER walked! We sped around, bucket to bucket up and down the lane of pens. At one point, one of the girls offered to go around and start blocking all the food buckets... well if Mo doesnt start RACING her to get to the buckets before her. It was HYSTERICAL!

Interesting to note that Once Mo got the idea that Her Supreme Highness was in charge, she WENT and was curious and a few times I had to say GAME OVER and get my leadership back up. That was interesting to note because I never realized how close to the surface her dominance was! So that was cool to learn. And her curiosity! About EVERYTHING! There are some shelter things the size of about a bigish standing stall and they are raised and she walked right into and out of several just exploring! Not so much for the claustrophobia that one!

So that was pretty much our day yesterday - Pat came to talk to us in the afternoon so we had less horsey time, but that was TOTALLY OK! He was explaining to us about the new intern/extern program and such that you can apply for. John gave another Q&A Session on it this afternoon which was really interesting.

So today was Horsenality day. We went into all the dfferent horsenalities and then were sent out armed to see what kind of horse had showed up today. So I went up to my pen to see which Mo I had to visit with today. Well, first she nickered at me, which is always a good Mo-sign. She also basically thrust her head into the halter so off we went. I sort of drove from zone three and sort of shadowed her out to the Enchanted Forrest.

Once there we went into one of the round corrals and I let her go to see what she would do. She sort of stuck by me so I experimented with what we could do. We can do sideways towards, yo-yo, driving and porcupine. I forgot to try squeeze - my bad. Then I tried our sideaways circle which went pretty well to!! Out on the circle she was really good, yesterday we got a canter/trot transition with just a minor finger point, and we were pretty much on the same page today. That was neat. And she kept LOOKING at me! Like "OH BOY! What are we doing now??" she trotted to me a bunch of times which was super awesome.

When we had the circling thing and bring back down ok we attempted sideways. And I say attempted because thats just what it was. It wasnt to pretty but I was able to get about four good steps each way and be really pleased with that and walk away. I learned that my send was to strong for sideways. I need to be more sublte and not yell so that she leaves completley. Very neat to play with that - her leaving flight line got smaller and smaller... very cool. So I snapped my 22' back on and we went out exploring in the playground.

There was supposed to be a workshop on a few things in different areas but I missed them because Mo went on adrenaline adventures! We cruised around and she went LBE adrenalized for a bit so we squeezed over a line of logs that made her think about her feet, then moved to a box jump, which she actually jumped, and I promise you it came to her chest! I was so proud! When we got off of that we went to a big tire filled with sand and Mo promptly put four feet on - nothing new for her really. OH! And also, there is a bridge - a real one made of wood - that you have to cross to get to this part of the playground and she crossed it like nothing the first time I asked. To cool.

So after the tire we went to a little bridgy thing on the ground, more like a plank type deal and she semi jumped it and stepped over it and across it again no problem, but a little adrenalized still, and not really coming down because horses around us were going right brain. There is a little round corral up in that corner so I decided to head in there. In there I took off my lead to see what she would do and started on a vircle. Well,real fast I got worried about Mo jumping the little panels because she kept looking at the other horses. So I strarted mirroring her again. And she did a total 180 and went ... what ARE you doing?>? And then she was with me and we walked out of the roundpen [online] and went around, still a little adrenalized, but now responding so we did grass point to points.

Eat some grass, trot or canter to here, eat some more grass. I usually put some logs in her way or something. Big ones. It was awesome watching her jump the giant logs at a tiny send and at a trot. Sometimes even a walk! So she was more in control of herself and reading my energy down part to go for grass so we headed back over the big round pen where the ball workshop was. They were playing ball soccer with the horses and people, the poeple having to stand still!

So when that semi ended I went in and got to play and that was cool. Mo was in a good mood. Then we went over to the hill playground just a little to two cavellti on the ground and played with energy up and down with grazing point to point over the caveletti. She got to where she would slide to a halt when my nergy went down and dive for grass! How cool!

Finally we had to go in for the night because it was dinner time. Then I ate dinner and now I sit here :-)

Will hopefully post some more tomorrow,
Gotta Run!
:-)
S