Continuing Progress

Well my last session with my two horses went pretty well with both of them.
First was Teddy. I had to spend some time again haltering him, but the routine is becoming easier and gradually taking less time, so there is progress being made. In the process of haltering him Woody kept coming up to greet me. This was interesting, so I said, "Alright, you can help me out." I was carrying the 22 foot line with me (I was planning on playing with it with Teddy), so I had Woody carry it for me. I put it on his back, then laid the lead rope across his neck so he would follow me down the hill. I took the lead rope off when I wanted him to stay put, and for the most part he stood still there until I moved him somewhere else. He felt useful and it was kinda cool to see he wanted to be a helper (that's not really like him).
Anyhow, I caught Teddy, got the 22' line off of Woody's back, put it on Teddy's, and headed up the hill to the gate. My goal in the session was to help Teddy feel comfortable with things on his back and around his barrel while doing different things. He was clearly ok with things on his back, so I rigged the 22' to be a flank/girth rope (to get him used to the tightness around his barrel from a long distance away), and asked him to circle. I would periodically tighten the rope by lifting up, and then let it loose by releasing the hold on it. He didn't react hardly at all to this, which I found surprising, but pleasing.
I then attached the 22' line to his halter and played with him some with it. Now, this was his first experience on the 22' so I was prepared to support him and help him if he had some trouble with the distance. I asked him to circle, only giving him about 15 or 17 feet of rope to circle on at first, and he did fine; walking and trotting around me with nice transitions and such. Frankly, where circles are concerned he didn't have a problem with the distance, and I didn't have to really help him except for having to be a little clearer in my aids so he could figure out what I wanted.
We then played some Squeezes with the pine trees, and a leading exercise with him having to follow my feel circling around all kinds of trees and demanding him to follow the line even when he couldn't see me. He was a little freaked out about this at first, but I kept going and making sure he got a release when he followed and pretty soon he was fine with it. I also took him over to the mattress and asked him to do different things with it such as put two feet on, back off, all four feet on, walk forward, sniff it, put one foot on, circle around it, etc. He really started engaging his mind in here and really focusing on what it was I was asking for. Following this I lay down on the mattress and he almost went to sleep for a bit. He had a couple BIG releases on the mattress such as yawning, licking, etc. It was a fun session with the little guy.
I then went in, caught the other little rascal (Woody), and practiced his tying skills while I brushed him. I then untied him, and while saddling him up he worked on his ground tying skills. He is getting pretty good with this and understands the concept of don't move your feet pretty well. I spent some time bridling him, then mounted up, and off through the gate we went! I met up with my dad and our dog and we went down by the pond on the dam, the one area that Woody can become a little spooky and unconfident in. He couldn't walk straight at some moments, and at others he stopped all together. When he got stuck I would disengage his HQ turn him in a circle, then ask him forward. This seemed to help a bit, but he kept stopping, so I kept turning. Eventually we got down to the end and he was fine, and which point we turned around to catch up with my dad, and do it again. It went better the second time.
I asked him to walk up this very steep hill we have, which he was prepared to run up, so he had to be reminded to walk a couple of times. At the top of the hill were a flock of geese that my dad told me to gallop Woody at to make them leave, but I told him that was a recipe for disaster. He got Chewy to do the job, and when they took off Woody spooked a little bit, but came right back down and handled the situation well after that. I then took him back to the barn because it was getting dark and cold, and untacked him at Liberty. It was a fun short ride and some things cropped up that we will be working on.

On this past Sunday I drove myself out to Joy's to meet up with Terrie and Eve to help train the horses and watch her trim. We trimmed the "oldies" first, and I got to look at some interesting feet and see how to trim them up there, then we went down to Mirage and Zoom. Zoom is the blind horse that Joy owns, and he is a really sweet old guy. Mirage is the 5 year old chunky Thoroughbred Draft cross that is young, obnoxious, and fun. I got to play with him while Zoom was being trimmed, and I taught him the basics of backing from the feel on the halter, some Yo-Yo type back up, leading forward off of pressure, and disengaging the HQ. He has the personality I love: the young obnoxious punk, so it was really fun playing with him.

Terrie is planning on coming out tomorrow to trim our horses' feet, and she is letting me do some hands on trimming work on the horses so that should be a fun learning experience. She is also going to stay after and give me a lesson on allowing Woody to become more collected and on finesse type stuff. I was originally going to ask her to help me with the trailer, but Woody still has some places when we play where I have to remind him to get him shoulder away, so I figure we should keep working on those little spots before going to where they are enlarged. So, that's the plan, and I'll update sometime tomorrow to let you know how it went!
~Eden