The weather here has been windy and cool the last 10 days or so. There hasn't been much to do except some grooming and close quarters groundwork.
Monday afternoon was nice and I was home with a little daylight to spare, so I took Jessie back out to the canal. Yes, we went by the stud who was just as rambunctious as ever. This time I kept my head down and kept walking and Jessie did a much better job of following me.
There was a theory I wanted to test: "The farther away from home, the less she pays attention to me". When I go into Jessie's pen I walk to the center and wait for her to come up to me. She is very good at this and I start on the off side and rub her as I walk around to the on side to put on the halter. Then I flex her on one side, yield her forequarters, and flex the other side. These flexes are quick and responsive. We walked out the front gate and I flexed her again. These were a little less quick and not quite as far as the ones in her pen.
After we were passed the stud, I asked her to flex. Out here she was slow to give. The flex was shallow, a hasty touch to her shoulder and a whip of her head back. We spent a few minutes doing the flex with the bump, bump, bump exercise and she was once again paying attention to me.
We did some side-passing and yielding hindquarter before heading back. The wind blew most of Tuesday and Wednesday and the temps cooled. It's supposed to warm up for the weekend. We take them to the vet on Saturday morning for routine dental work and I think the girls were talking about a ranch penning something-or-other on Sunday.
3 comments:
So what you are saying is that it is like 90* w/a bit of wind out there right? lol
So what are you going to do in order to get Jessie listening to you no matter how far away from the barn you are?
It may be 90 this weekend, but last night the news said there might be a frost overnight which NEVER happens here this time of year. Today is quite nice.
I think that if I keep doing groundwork "out there" that we'll achieve the same attention span I'm getting in her pen. Just doing the flex/bump exercise seemed to bring her mind back to me. It'll be interesting to see if she improves and if she does then does that mean I wasn't doing enough from the saddle?
Hi John, we had our first show this weekend, if you want to read all the details, and there are a few pictures: http://cricketsjourney.livejournal.com/36212.html
I thought of this when I got home, that I could have done some C-sending on the grandstand side of the arena, letting her relax/rest on the rail, to help get her over the fear, but of course, I was home. Sounds like we are working on similar things, but different situations!
diane
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