Patterns

Kayce told me that she doesn't ride her horse because she doesn't have medical insurance right now. This is a big red flag, no? Either she is paranoid or the horse is not very reliable, either way it doesn't sound like an endorsement for that style of training. Too bad.

Today was a hard day for Chester and Loretta. I put a upside-down feeder barrel in the center of the round pen. The task was to start at a post on the outside of the pen, travel in and around the barrel, cross the pathway and go to two posts down from where you started. Going around the barrel was hard for some reason. They got frustrated with this pattern.

Loretta tried to bite my leg. I jumped off and chased her around the round pen. When she looked like she was sorry, I climbed up the fence and called for her to come pick me up. She swings her body parallel to the fence and I slide on to her back. They all have learned to pick me up this way and they don't seem to mind, even Chester.

I walked JD through the pattern four times before I got on him. He did it perfectly from the start. Was it that he got the idea right away from the ground or was he just more willing to take direction from me? He was abnormally affectionate so maybe it was just attitude. Tomorrow I will try walking the frustrated animals.

Paisley is working on the calm down still. She is getting better but it is so hard for a baby to make itself be calm. She, too, will sidle up to me when I climb the fence, putting the spot on her left shoulder up against my knee, but she is months away from actually riding, so I just reach across her back and hold her reward out to the right side of her mouth.

Tobiah had a different deal. I took him to the larger paddock and asked him to walk along the fence to the far corners. At every post I rewarded him for his progress. He kept wanting to turn and go back to the gate. I couldn't pull hard enough to ever get him to turn his head if he doesn't want to, so I did what I could do and made him trot if he was going toward the gate or anywhere except in the correct direction. He could turn and go back, but then it meant we shifted into higher gears, as soon as he was going in the right direction the pace could go back to low gear. It took a long time to get past the first ten posts, then he suddenly realized the consequences weren't worth it, so he just went charging down to the far corner where he knew he had a jackpot coming. I jumped off and made a big deal of loving on him. Then I led him back to the gate and got back on. He made it back to the far corner with no problem. He got every last cookie I had and we called it a day. Will he remember this tomorrow?

Yrs,
JRW