Mounting Fun With Mo

In the onslaught of crap-tastic weather up here in the great white north, I really havent had much oppurtunity to do anything for the last little while. It feels like it has been raining non stop! Everything is under water or so muddy/moist its dangerous, so doing anything big is RIGHT OUT! [obviously, intoned with the tone of Mr. Counts to Three for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch a la Monty Python..]

Today, there was a little break in the near-constant waterfall, so I took the chance to go out to visit my poor Mo, who, when I pulled up was in the shed and looked happily at my truck when it pulled in. By the time I went out to the barn though, after seeing my cousins and Aunty, she was, of course, out in the middle of the pasture. I called her name and she looked at me at least, but didnt come over, of course. Lazy lazy pony :-)

As I walked over to her though she started to come over, so that was a nice thing. Trixie came over to, so I got to play with protecting my little herd of two, which was nice. I mostly just loved on Mo, scratching her, rubbing her, just hanging out with her. Some how I got the great idea to play with leading by the lip.. I cant remember why it came up, but it did, and it worked out rather fabulously. I am pretty proud of the way Mo plays her porcupine games! I even tried spontaneously leading her backwards by the tail and she responded perfectly! I was surprised by that a bit, because usually I really have to get her thinking 'backwards' before that comes to easily. We must be making progress!

After playing around a little bit with all these things and little other things to like leading by the mane and holding her tongue and such, I thought it would be a fabulous idea to see if I could teach Mo how to help me mount bareback. I am honestly not sure if this was the most clever idea, seeing as we were at liberty in a 25 acre pasture, but it worked out ok, so ... thats just how it went.

I started asking Mo to put her head down and keep it there. Our head down is usually really soft, but the 'keep it there' is not awesome, so we played with that a lot. It got pretty ok, so I started playing a friendly game with my foot and leg coming up around her head. My goal is to be able to swing my leg over her neck and then have her boost me up onto her back, then to sit proper I would have to turn around, but thats ok.

Mo was having a hard time with the friendly with my leg because when it was coming up I think I had my energy wrong or something, and I wasnt athletic enough to make it smooth and be able to follow with her right until she relaxed. It also looked a lot like a block to keep her head up. So I changed tactics. I went over to a fallen tree that I could stand on that puts me at a height where I could play friendly games without having to worry about her keeping her head down. Isolate, Separate, Recombine, right?

That helped things A LOT! Once she figured out it was just another crazy friendly thing I was doing she relaxed right away. Since she figured that out I went to a lower tree, about six inches off the ground and attempted to combine the head down with me swinging my leg over. It went beautifully! Our friendly game paid off. I started asking her to bring her head up a little at a time until she felt my leg over her neck. The first time or two she thought it was a porcupine thing and put her head back down but then figured out I was asking and would just sort of hold and push a little into me. That was cool.

I finally got my courage up to just try it. I felt like Mo was confident enough and I was going to survive in case I was misreading her and I swung my leg over her neck, grabbed mane and asked her head up. And just like that I was sitting on Mo!!! WHOO!! Without a single issue I was sitting on Mo [backwards, mind you] it was perfect! And, with no further issues, I just put all that friendly game on her back to good use and turned myself around. Voila! All done!

I jumped off and tried again, with the same result! How cool! Go prior and proper preparation!! Now I just have to take it to the next level and do it from the ground... will work on that! I thought that was pretty cool, doing it all at liberty, no halter, rope or string or anything. Pretty proud of my pony! I brought Mo back to the barn after that, backed her into the gate and gave her some treats in the barn before backing her out once more and giving her even more cookies :-)

Gotta Love Mo!

:-)
S