Interesting Things....

Over the last few days I have had some really interesting experiences. Both with Zephyr and Mo. I feel like I have really grown in my understanding of both of them, just in the last few days. I want to try and write about them to digest and fully understand them - but it may not be completely coherent yet, so bear with me. [Also, my fingers are cold, so my typing may not be the best...!]

I will start with Zephyr, since her story is a single event at this time.[ I lied, I just remembered part 2, but its still shorter than Mo's, so Ill keep on it]  On Wednesday I went out to play and Mo didnt really feel like engaging, so I picked the ever present Phyr Child, because she ALWAYS wants to play. I love that about her, and I hope I never do anything to dissuade her from that opinion. We started out Online. It was VERY warm. 35-40 degrees Celcius in the humidity. For contrast, Mother Nature has shunned us now, and it is a balmy [reads: frigid] 10 degrees currently. From Heat warning to winter jackets in three days. Welcome to The Great White North!

Whether it was because of the heat, or just because its Zephyr and she is a goober, she didnt really want to go anywhere. Her expressino was really awful relating to anything like a send. Ok. So we played with yo-yo instead. Really tiny, miniscule yo-yo, unless she got crooked [her habit] and then I got much bigger. Her interest COMPLETELY perked up when I started being thoughtful in that direction! I was so surprised that she didnt take offence to me picking a direction for her feet! Every time she got straight on to me, I would release, and she would have a BIG lick and chew, and blink, with sometimes a yawn. This was HUGE stuff to her! I couldnt believe it. This is not to say that we didnt have a functional yo-yo game before this, it just wasnt functional at this level!

When that was feeling pretty good, I decided to visit sticky game numero deux - her sideways. For whatever reason, when I got Zephyr, sideways was THE hardest thing for her. She just could not sort out how her feet were supposed to move in tandem, sideways away from me! Poor kid. She is hugely improved now, but it still isnt cantering sideways or anything like that. So I isolated just turning her front end over, from a straight on position [conviently provided by my now-fixed yo-yo game!] On just phase 1 from about 17-20 feet away, I was able to direct her nose to turn so she would face side-on to me. COOL! From there I could raise my energy and ask her to take a step or two before she would think forward. Luckily, with my yo-yo being so recently empowered, when she leaked forward, I just changed my energy focus and used a phase on yo-yo to back her up! How cool is that? It was all so slow and subtle, but it felt so light and airy and interesting! Zephyr was having brain explosion after brain explosion! Licking a ton, blinking hugely and yawning over and over! I thought she was going to lay down at one point.

I thought about asking for a circle after, but her expression just so snarly I just changed my mind - because things had been going SO well, and I really wanted to put some thought into helping that before I ruined our great session. We played with back and sideways a bunch before heading back up to the barn to tack up. I figured a nice walking ride would be good for us both. I was able to keep her happy and motivated on a figure eight after saddling. Before mounting I put a savvy string around her neck and picked up a carrot stick. Never to soon to reach towards bridleless riding, right?

Mounting was great, as were Zephyrs lateral flexion checks - which means her looking for cookies! Ha! We walked forward a bit and I played with some lateral flexion with the stick for the second time ever. She is a little iffy about that - she wants to go forward through the pressure, but thats ok, she figured it out and we will continue to play with that. The coolest thing was the first time I asked her to back up with the neck string. I just asked for a backup in my body, and supported it with *maybe* a phase two on the string, and POOf there was my super nice backup! Thank you, understanding of porcupine game, you make my life so much easier!

We played with those things as we moseyed around. Really isolating those core basics of lateral flexion, stopping with out reins, backing without reins or with the neck string, HQ/FQ yields and forwards transitions from a stop. Zephyr really impressed me that day. She is SO light. Mostly because I have been SUPER vigilant on myself to not dull her - but it still surprises me when she responds just like Mo in some things. The bonus of having gone the long twisty way in developing Mo [still on that path!] means I can find the straighter path with Zephyr, which means I can set her up right, right from the start, to the best of how I know, right now.

After our mosey and checking things out, we headed up to the gate to ride out to the apple trees. This was only the second time I have ever tried to open a gate with Zephyr, and it went pretty well. Opening was good, closing got messy and I had to bail and just toss it closed because Mo was trying to escape. Coming back though, it was better and we did it two more times to get it really good, and she was perfect! Our ride out was nice and easy. We just walked around the edge of the hay field, kind of point to point to the apple trees.

That was that session, and then yesterday I played at liberty for a little bit with her, because Mo was playing another game with me. It was actually really really interesting to watch Mo get closer and closer and closer to us, as I played with Zephyr, and finally start playing with us too - all her idea! Since Zephyr was all about playing - I decided to ask her to squeeze over the little log. This is something she does all the time Online and on her own, so I figured it would be an easy start. Except it wasnt!

When I would send her, she would try to go around the log. Hmmm. Disengaging brought her right back, but she wasnt understanding the the job was to go OVER the log. Finally, I got brighter and tried to draw her to me over the log, instead of sending her. This still took a long time, and a lot of rewarding the slightest try, but she finally sorted it out and came over the log to me! Lots of cookies and rubs, licks and yawns later, we tried it again. Similar length of time, but mission still accomplished. Same after effects as well. We continued that pattern a few more times, until she really got it and I sent her over once and called it the end!

The best part was, she was engaged and trying and happy for the whole mini session! Very cool stuff, and she learned, without really feeling like she had been taught - I hope :)


Soooo... not quite as short of a story as I had thought, but there you have it. Zephyr in a few sessions. The big teller was this morning when I went to feed them, Zephyr didnt even try to crowd or come up and push in for her food. Hmmmmm!!!! Such a quick study, my Phyr. Everything I do right means so much to her. And everything I do wrong.... means ten times more!

Ill finish this post up and post it on its own so that there is a sort of organization here.... Mo's story to come !

;)
S