Haven't updated about how things are going in almost FOREVER, because those darned Celebration reviews took me forever to write. But now that they're done, I can try and fill you in on the things I've been doing.
Firstly, we've started our round pen: half of the posts are in the ground already. We're making it out of wood, like the Parelli's have theirs. But we're going to paint ours blue! :)
I've had lightbulb moments almost every other day I've played with the ponies lately. From about a week ago, I went outside just to say hi to everyone. And Moose was grazing close by, so I decided to open up the pen that Bella was in when she was sick so he could eat the grass. I pulled out a handful and showed it to him, so he could come here and eat it. He looked at me very intensely, but no movement. I stayed where I was, because the alpha doesn't move his feet very much. Then, I leaned outside further to try and entice him. Again, no movement. I had a huge "How interesting!" moment. He doesn't trust me for some reason. So, I just fed him grass through the fence. But I have been thinking about this for a while, and have come to the conclusion that I need to focus on gaining trust in general.
And that conclusion was furthered when I tried to teach Moose do move his HQ towards me. Since he's so tall, I thought it might be easier to teach if I was above him for starters. So, I climbed our fence and sat on it. And he changed horsenality! He was LB before, but then he got RBI as soon as I got above him. Interesting! My horse has mounting fears, lol. So, I just had him do half-circles for a while until he calmed down a little. Then, I brought him in and tried to teach him. He moved his HQ as far away from me as he could (from fear), so after 3 unsuccessful tries, I decided I should just keep doing the half-circles some more. It's useless to practice the problem, after all.
Oh, and my birthday was on the 13th, so I am now another year older!
And I played around with giving Moose a bath today since it was SOOO muggy out. And it still hasn't rained, even though it's been threatening to all day! Stupid weather . . . I wanted it to rain because then I didn't have to sit around all day going "Is it going to rain?" Of course, like I just said I played around with the horses anyway, but I wanted to work on the round pen some more. Oh, well. We had a good time. I got soaked and so did Moose, and the other horses got cooled off a bit, too.
Bella hasn't had her normal attitude lately around me. She's not as curious and doesn't like me as much. I lost some of her rapport somehow, so not I've got to try and get it back. And Dancer is her normal self. She is quite a mud puppy, so she had a good time today.
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