Quality Girl Time

Patterns

I started the Patters with Aspire about a week ago I think. I went through the Level One assessment and we can do everything required for the online portion with the exception of picking up her hind feet. It's getting better but she's still not sure about it and there's no big rush so I just have been playing with it a little every day. Whether it's rubbing her hind legs or asking her to lift them for a moment by touching her hocks or lifting and holding them up with a rope. We're just starting to play with some L2 concepts online but I wanted to begin the patters from the beginning so we're starting with the Touch-It and Figure-8.

Touch it is going awesome. It really relaxes her and has been a lot of fun for me - adding some purpose to our moseying. I've never seen her lower lip hang loose until we did the Touch-It pattern. To expand on it I took her for a walk around the feedlot, up and down the alley ways, and had her touch gates, boards, poles on the ground, garbage, whatever. The first time I took her for a walk down the alley she wasn't spooky but was unsure, speedy, and worried but when I did it earlier this week she was a totally different horse. For two reasons, the first being our relationship is developing and she is becoming more confident in general and second the Touch-It gave us a focus and really helped me meander and not want to just walk down and back really quick and it helped her know what we were doing, investigate, check it out, have fun, and Touch-It! I really like this game. She's definitely ready to move onto the L2 Touch-It pattern, problem is there isn't a whole lot available for standing on, pawing at, or upping the ante so to speak at all in out feed lot situation. So I'm looking into building some items like a pedestal and bringing in different objects to maybe jump (or not) and check out.

The Figure-8 pattern is going.... so-so. She has great drive/draw combination around one turn but on one side of the 8 she gets stuck. She'll round the barrel and turn, face, and stop. She has great draw to me most times so I'm really not sure what the deal is here. I thought maybe I'd confused her and somehow helped her develop that stopping pattern around that particular barrel so I sent her around it and instead of stopping had her continue circling a handful of times until she no longer wanted to park it in that spot. I began the Figure-8 pattern again and she went around one barrel great but got stuck again when I asked her to face. Maybe I'll use a bit of incentive when she figures it out and offer her a treat now and again as she comes back into me.

Speaking of treats her bowing is going really well! I'll try and get a picture of that up here soon.

Something kind of cool to note - I had her on a circle and was mixing it up with change of direction and the Falling Leaf pattern so at one point we were down at an end of the pen where I had a single barrel set out near the fence line. I decided to let the circle drift over there to see if she'd watch where she was going and navigate around it. Instead she made sure to center herself over that single barrel, jump it, land, and then turn, face, and come in all on her own. I was very impressed. She not only is a smart horse but extremely athletic as well. I saw her sire before I bought her and he looked like one of those Lipizzaners that do the airs above the ground stuff - just leaping about so light on his feet. She certainly inherited that from her daddy! She got excited the other day when I took Jazz and Dutchess out to lead them to water and she was doing flying lead changes every two strides in addition to all sorts of athletic turns and twists in the air. It was really fun to watch. I can't wait to get her out of that feedlot and into a big pasture. That's my goal for next month sometime I think.

Aspire's New Friends

Aspire meeting her new friends Jazz (bay) & Dutchess (gray). These fillies are the same age and about where Spy was in handling when I first brought her home. Spy is definitely the dominate horse among them and has chosen Dutchess to be her special friend that she likes to beat up one minute and as you can see love on the next minute. :)

Clever Pony

Aspire is such a clever girl. Everything she did today really made me laugh - she's really starting to guess what I want and is offering more. Especially bowing for carrots, lol! I went to pick up her foot and she instantly offered to assume the bow position that we've established so far. It was really adorable actually. I also sent her at the barrels today without a gap between them to see if she'd offer to jump it or what she'd do. She put one leg over, decided the barrels were too tall for stepping, so methodically pawed them out of her way so she could step through like a lady and come see me. Not exactly what I was hoping for but hey we got the nose, neck, one foot and by her cleverness eventually the whole horse. :)

On an interesting note, at the end of our play session I sat with her and rubbed her face, her mouth, her jaws, just being friendly since she really enjoys being itched there. I couldn't believe all the yawning, sighing, and licking and chewing she did. I wonder if that bit of me rubbing her face and helping her relax really kicked out any tension she'd been keeping that I wasn't aware of...

Backing By The Hairs On Her Tail

I've played with Aspire twice in regards to backing by her tail. I'd gently pick up and tug a pinch of tail hair for a long phase one and gently wiggle the rope with me still standing in zone 5 and she'd step back. Yesterday I picked up her tail hairs and barely tugged and she took a step back - so responsive and soft that I figured it had to be a coincidence...so I did it 3 or 4 more times to make sure! :) She did it every time just as light as she was before!!! WOW! I felt like someone slapped me in the face, I just can't believe how fast she learned, how soft she was, and how sensitive she is.

I also introduced her to yielding towards me by looping the 22 ft' line around her mid section and using the rope to porcupine her off side so, as I said, she yields toward me. She did it, first try, at phase one. It was simply awesome.

I've also got her almost down on her knee to bow as well. It's to the point she sees a carrot and gets as close to bowing as she can so far and then looks at me, like, "Well? Where is it? Don't play with me, where's my carrot?" It's hilarious and really clever of her.

The place where I am keeping her just brought two fillies in today, I think they're either coming three or coming two...I can't remember. I might link a second blog to this one to track their progress together. I am hoping to catch them up to Aspire so I can keep them all on a similar program.

Oh, and Spy is licking and chewing a lot more now and she's really asking me questions and checking in every chance she gets. She makes me laugh because she'll start doing something then quickly look at me "Is this right Mom? Should I keep going or should I come back so you can scratch my neck pleeeeeease??". Today I sent her in a tight squeeze between two barrels, she got part way through before knocking one sideways and partly under herself. She stopped, contemplated her predicament, then looked at me and delicately maneuvered around the barrel, abandoning our squeeze pattern, to stand by me and put her forehead against my chest and sighed. So sweet. :)

I Need to Stop Screaming!

Egads! What's wrong with me sometimes. Aspire has been doing really well in general and so today I wanted to play with our circling game. I broke out the 22 foot line and really just wanted one circle calmly at any gait. She took off and being flying around like a kite. Jumping all the obstacles I had set out in her pen instead of simply navigating around them, skidding and sliding, pulling, and leaping. It was chaos! Every time I went to slow her down it worried her more and she'd speed up. The pen is rectangular and she'd squirt between me and the short side and then go all the way out between me and the long sides. Finally it dawned on me - even though I should just ideally pass the rope around my back and let her circle it created no pressure behind me on one short side but too much pressure on the short side that I was facing, if I stood so that the short sides were side on to me and I was facing either long side she'd still squirt through... I hope that made sense. So I broke it down to an 1/8 of a circle, disengage, friendly, then resend, an 1/8 of a circle, disengage, friendly, resend. When it came to the short sides I'd turn and put my back to her entirely and then do it again on the other short side. No pressure. Duh. Within 10 minutes she walked one full lap blowing her nose with her head down.

Aspire is showing me that even when I think I'm going slow enough to go even slower and to take even more pressure off. Good for me to learn but poor thing keeps having to forgive my shortcomings. We'll figure it out eventually.

Steady Progress

Nothing terribly new and exciting to post today... I was able to pick out her front hooves for the first time two days ago which was very neat. All of our ground games are going pretty well with the exception of circling. She either wants to walk slowly half a lap and check in or wants to zoom off. Not sure if it's just excess energy or her RBE characteristics coming through when she gets to moving her feet she can't manage her emotions at the same time. I've been working really hard on replacing her panic reaction with a more appropriate response. My mantra I'm trying to convey to her is "when you get scared the only right answer is to stop moving your feet and look/check in with me. if you want to move your feet because you're afraid and on adrenaline, that's ok. I will help you, but I will make it more difficult than you want it to be. when you decide it's too much work to be afraid look at me and I will help you feel safe." She's still reactive but is coming around quicker to that idea. She's really starting to lick and chew a lot more and she checks in constantly. We played the Stick To Me game and that was a really hard exercise for her. She was nervous about the stick and string dragging on the ground next to her and fractious/panicky when I tapped her with it to catch up and over did it when I asked her to back up with me as well. By the end of it she took a huge sigh and relaxed, but wow this horse feels a lot of pressure. Pressure I didn't even know I was putting on her... She's really making me work on me. I am hoping to figure out a way to take a few lessons with her so I can ensure that I am doing the best possible things for her education and our relationship.