My Adventure at Joy's

Yesterday morning, after Sunday school, Mom drove me up the mountain to my friend Joy's farm (my car is dead from not driving due to all the snow and ice). I met Terrie and Eve there, and off we went, bundled up warmly, down to the "babies" and their mothers... and Chance. The "babies" are Aphrodite and Shiloh, not even two years old yet, but big and very entertaining.
 Terrie trimmed Aphrodite first, and Eve worked with Shiloh as I helped Joy and Terrie with Aphrodite. She was having some trouble holding up her front feet, so once we made some progress with picking them up, Terrie just decided to nip them from the top, so as not to cause Aphrodite so much stress.
After she was done I took her and played with her some. I was mainly focused on allowing her to become aware of my boundaries. She is very unaware of personal space, so since she was a bit antsy in the beginning we would play the game of walk when I walk, stop when I stop. She knows the walking part quite well and leads off wonderful, but the stopping is where she needed improvement. If I stopped and she was still going, I would take the halter underneath her chin and ask her to back up. After what seemed a VERY long time of doing this, she finally got the hang of stopping when I do. I scratched on her a bit, and then moved on. I wanted her to also know that it is ok to just stand. She was very fidgety, wanting to move around, not wanting to stand still. So, I would gently bring her back every time she left, and ask her to stand. Finally, she was able to stand, and hang out, watching her buddy get trimmed. Somewhere in our play session I threw in some Friendly type stuff with the rope, because she was a little skeptical of me touching her with the rope. She did well though, and she made great progress. It was fun getting to play with a young horse and teach her some basic manners.
Next up was Sprite, who is Aphrodite's mom. She was so well behaved, and did a great job of helping Terrie do her job, and moving and picking up everything she needed to. Well done Sprite! I took her back in, and Eve brought out Chance, the big, black wonder. This horse is so gorgeous.. and HUGE! She is a drum horse (a cross of a gypsy cob and a Clydesdale/Shire/draft). Eve worked with her with picking up her feet some, as she is very unconfident with her feet being handled. She is such a people pleaser, and really tries to do what you ask. She is a sweetheart, but very unconfident with certain things, which is odd because of her size.
While Chance was being trimmed, I played with Lilly, Shiloh's mom. She, too is a sweetheart, and she already knows manners, a plus for me. However, as I was testing the waters, and seeing what she could use help with, I noticed she was very skeptical of the rope. So, for the majority of our time together I was leading her, swinging a rope around. I started walking away from her swinging the rope, and once she was ok with that, I led her a bit closer, still leading her, and swinging the rope. Then I turned around, and faced her, but walked backward, swinging the rope. I then practiced stopping, with the rope still swinging, and waiting for her to relax and stop, then start walking again. This all went very well, and by the end of our time she was able to stand with the rope swinging and also let me lay it over her back. We also did some hindquarter disengagements, and worked with lateral flexion, which she was very good at.
After Terrie trimmed her, I put her away and we were done! It was a fun afternoon, and I enjoyed the chance to work with all kinds of different horses.
~Eden