Day 23 & 24 ~ All Aboard

Well yesterday, day 23 we worked on trailer loading. Lindsay was not even comfortable approaching it at first, but we had done lots of work on our "Showmanship" routine, which is my favorite way to teach a horse to load. She understood that when I pushed my hand forward she was expected to catch up to my hand. So we walked as close to the trailer as she was comfortable and I would ask for one more step than she was totally comfortable with. Her "Try" is just huge and even though she was afraid she took that one step into that scary zone closer to the trailer! Once she was there I rubbed on her lots and talked to her reiterating this was a happy place to be. I would then ask her to back and then walk forward again, each time our step into the scary zone became closer to the base of the trailer. After a while we were all the way at the base and her front legs were almost touching the bumper! As she become comfortable in that spot I encouraged her to sniff in the trailer all she wanted. As long as she was exploring on her own I did not get in her way. She actually did that for quite a while before she become pretty comfortable with her head stretched all the way inside the trailer. I then asked for yet another step. Of course this time her leg bumped the trailer and it rattled. This startled her and she went to shoot away, but when I asked, she came all the way back quickly and tried again....Again her degree of "Try" really does amaze me... She continued for quite a while bumping her legs on the trailer and was doing a bit of a dance with all fours in just about the same spot all shifting up and down as she desperately tried to analyze how in the world she would do what I was requesting. It was clear she understood I wanted her to go forward into the trailer, but up until this point she had never had to pick her feet a foot off the ground to go where I wanted her to go. So she danced and as long as it was obvious she was trying I let her try and did not push harder. She was pushing herself plenty :) Before long she jumped up and both front feet were in! She stood there wide eyed and looked around, rather tense, but taking it all in. I just praised her and let her make the decision if she wanted to go further or back out...either way was totally ok at this point. She opted to back and as she came to the ground she jumped back a little at the rattling of the trailer. She re-grouped quickly and I asked her to approach yet again, and again after a bit of a dance she jumped in with both front feet...and backed out again...The third time when both front feet were on and after she had relaxed I asked for another step forward. She obliged and stepped all the way on and we were in! She was relatively calm inside and we practiced walking forward to the front of the trailer as well as backing up to the back, but not off. I prefer to encourage horses to come off front ways, at least at first so that when they are tied they are not anticipating backing off. She stepped very quietly down and we loaded a couple more times with no hesitation :)

We then rode and even trotted circles in the open large arena. After we finished up we followed Mike around the pen some more and Lindsay let him touch her a few times with less apprehension than the night before.

On to today, number 24 day and number 7 ride I believe...need to go back and count. We did lots of ground work walking over a trap as well as kicking our trusty noodles around. She was really good crossing the tarp, but when I picked it up it became monstrous. I did lots of tossing it around, then throwing it on the ground and encouraging her to walk over it...She really seemed to enjoy the walking over it part and even pawed it and grabbed it with her teeth towards the end. It was as if she was being certain that big scary thing was good and dead... unfortunately I kept picking it up and bringing it back to life, but each time she seemed more confident and thoroughly enjoyed stomping the "life" out of it yet again LOL

We also practiced backing through cones, ended up going really well...but we sure need to be practicing that stuff. Lindsay does her best to figure out what I want and sometimes I'd ask a little and she'd give way more than I expected. After a while we were backing through them well though.

We rode out in the big arena trotted lots of circles, began to introduce a little leg yielding and trotted over poles. We even did some turns on the forehand :) After we worked quite a while we took advantage of all the rain and crossed some good ole mud puddles in the drive way. She was hesitant at first, but it didn't take long and she was splashing her way right on through.

It has been a great couple of days..excited to start taking her out to see the world! I think the time is nearing...