Not What I Hoped for, but Moving on and Learning!

I got the chance to play with the horses this past Saturday, and it was really good to get out and work with them again. I played with Woody first, and then I played a little bit with Teddy, my little man.
Woody was a little difficult, in that he would sniff me and the halter, then walk away, and so when he did I started following behind him in his blind spot, and immediately he would turn to look at me and face up. We did for a while until he stood still to be haltered, and because of his reluctancy and his behavior at liberty, I decided it might be good to play a bit at liberty in the round pen. I led him in there, all the while tuning him up and reminding him of the standard set before him: walking off the lead rope without a drag, stopping when I stop, going when I go, and backing up when I back up. He began to put effort into paying attention to my body language, and it was nice to see he didn't have a snotty look on his face about it. I took him to the round pen, released him, and he immediately began eating grass. I made a racket with my flag to tell him that's not what I wanted and he shouldn't ignore me and tune me out with the grass, and from then on he was pretty good about not trying to eat.
Though he didn't try to eat, he tried tuning me out in other ways. The vibe I got from him was, "yeah, I know, I'm supposed to follow you around, but not eat, and move when you tell me to, and stop when you tell me too." I felt like I was directing a reluctant puppet who wasn't interested in communicating back with me. He was conforming to my wishes, and not willingly submitting to my ideas, as Harry and Ronnie would say. I tried thinking of what Harry would do in the situation, and when I tried to get his attention back and say hey! You need to pay attention, his conformity increased and his mind went off even more. I drew a blank on what to do, so I haltered him again (much easier this time), and took him back to the pasture. I decided to work on his bridling, since last time Terrie was out she gave me some ideas with working with him. I asked him to out his head down, and when it went up I waited with the pressure til he came down, then released. I got him ok with the bridle hanging over his face in position, then put the bit on his lips and waited a bit for him to accept that. Once he did I slipped it in his mouth and over his head and fastened the throat latch. He did very well with it, and I was pleased how we both handled ourselves.
I decided that what he and I both needed was a nice trail ride, just a quick walk around to clear our head and be positive again. I mounted up outside, and immediately his brain went places. I right away got in there and fixed it, getting him to focus on verrry specific things. I gave myself a course to follow; such as doing a barrel-racing type pattern turns around the three trees, and waiting for his thought to come around the turn, and then releasing him. We would then circle the barrel, stop in between two trees and get a back, just all kinds of little tasks to get me focused so he could latch onto that focus and be with me. This seemed to really go over well, and before I knew it he was really focusing on me and tuning in. Then, once he was really with me, we rode up the hill that he was wanting to go up so bad. We played up there a bit, then rode back. He gave me two really nice spurts of trot (I was riding bareback), and I forgot how much I love that pony's bareback trot.
I played with Teddy and bit, and went really slow with him. I introduced him to the bareback pad (not sure why, because I'm not allowed to ride him, unfortunately). We played with sending him thought to the pad (it was resting on a bucket) and once he understood what I meant he was really great at going and thinking where I directed him. We played with putting it on his back, and a little bit with the cinch (just moving it around under his belly), then called it a day. It was a fun day with my two men that I learned a lot from.
~Eden