October 10, 2011

Ah! Today was SUCH a good learning experience for me. Hillary and I had the arena to ourselves for awhile. While we were there a truck came in a loaded the railing. Cowboy did so good! He was nervous by the sounds and the truck but we played the friendly game gradually getting closer, keeping him engaged, allowing him to follow a suggestion, promoting curiosity and he finally went up to the truck and put his nose on it (that is a long ways from being on the other side of the arena from it). I feel like I'm getting better at communicating with him.

When the truck finally left Hillary wanted to let Jack loose so he could get some energy out. So we let them both go and it was super interesting (and fun) to play with them at liberty. It was good for me not to have a lead rope because it completely changed my mentally from "correcting" to "engaging." It was great. Cowboy is more than willing to be engaged and it makes it a lot of fun. After awhile Hillary and I switched and I worked with Jack for awhile while she worked with Cowboy. They are so different that it was good for us both to have to change ourselves. Jack was more sensitive to pressure than Cowboy, but he doesn't match energy nearly like Cowboy does.

Eventually Shannon and Milo, and Caitlyn and Spirit showed up. They turned their horses loose with ours and the four of us watched them form their own herd again. It was interesting to observe Cowboy, again being the content follower. It was also interesting to the four of us to watch Milo and Jack and their dominant play. We observed how well Milo was able to move Jack and the other horses by his body position and pressure. After a few minutes I went out and worked with all four of them. I attempted to drive and turn them all. I had to be bigger than Milo to keep him engaged and keep me in charge of our small herd. In those 15 minutes I worked with all of them I learned SO much about body movement and pressure and each different horse and how I am communicating with them.

I won't lie, it was fun to be apart of their little herd.