You can't catch me!!

Oh, Dancer. I thought we were done with catching problems!!! Why does she have to be so smart? Lol, no wonder I like RB horses better, they're actually LOOKING for a leader!! I think I'm really going to have to think of something or analyze myself, because I must be doing something extremely wrong!! Maybe I'm reading her wrong or something, or acting differently. I think I act different when on line, because I realize that she can't escape from me. But I'm pretty sure there's more problems than just that!! Well, I'll have to fix that! She used to run to me, after all!!

But anyways on a better note, since I couldn't catch Dancer I decided to run around the pasture a little bit to ger her used to humans moving at fast speeds. I remember reading somewhere that you should run up to your horse and skp around and stuff, so I decided to try it. I took the carrot stick, and flailed it around (no where near Dancer, she was quite a ways towards one of the fences) and started skipping. Well, as soon as I reached her first threshold, she flipped out and ran WAY over to the other side of the pasture. So, I tried it again, keeping the same phase of intensity, but increasing the distance away from her. That was alright for a little while, but then she took off again. This time, I decided to try skipping and moving the CS only, not the Savvy string. Again, she totally freaked. But MAN, is she funny when she's scared, though!! It just made me laugh, I was barely skipping and it's just like ha, Dancer's afraid of people skipping!!

Expect a lot, Accept a little, Reward the slightest try

I have great news about Dancer's catching problems!! I was halfway across the pasture from Dancer today, with her halter in hand and Dancer trotted to me!! It was an amazing moment, because she looked so cute! Her ears were perked forward and she really looked happy to see me. It really made me think I'm on the right track with her, and that's such a relief!

Also, I was thinking about Dancer. She has proved to be a challenging little pony, lol. But I was thinking about how she has so much to teach me, because she's the kind of teacher who is looking for perfection from the beginning. Hence the title, because it seems like that's what she does!

Also, I'm happy about our progress together. I can see that I've still got a ways to go with her, but it's already come so far from what it was in the beginning when I was clueless. I still haven't got her respect 100% yet. I think it's going to take a LONG time for that (not that I'm not going to take that time, of course I am!!), but I know I've at least gained a few brownie points since then. Currently, Dancer respects me enough to keep her ears up when I'm with her, and watch my personal space, so that's definitely progress. If I had to guess, I'd say she respects me at near 65-70%.

I thought it was really inspiring when Heidi came to play with Dancer some months ago. What Heidi established with Dancer in a matter of minutes is something that I wish to be able to do. Plus, Heidi had Dancer's full respect! Basically, that showed me what I wanted Dancer's relationship to be with me.

Problem solved!!

I don't think I mentioned it on the posts (it's in Dancer's information, though), but I was having problems catching Dancer recently. Well, I'm excited to say that after spending some undemanding time with her - lots of scratches and brushing her - she's letting herself be caught!! I went outside to pet her today, and I took the halter. She walked away, I threw it at her once, but she barely went anywhere. Then, I went up to her and petted her and walked inside her stall. She followed, and I kept petting her. I decided try a game I found online called Matching and Mirroring where you position yourself in Zone 3

and basically do what your horse does. Dancer assumed I was going to try and catch her since I had the halter, so I decided to try this game for fun! She walked around in circles a bit, but it was still really interesting. Anyways, when I decided I was done I opened up the gate, Dancer acted like she wanted to go out. So, I'm like hmm, "how interesting!!" I got the halter and offered it to her and she let me put it on easy as pie!!! So, I let her go outside the pasture and wander around a bit. I tried to be really provocative without making her work. I let her go over tarps, rubbed her with swings, sniff things, eat a little grass. Jeez, she is difficult to entertain!! It's like practically nothing bothers her! Even the tarp I was expecting something from her, but she just sniffed it and walked over it like, 'that's it??' But after I entertained her a bit, I took her back to the pasture (yada, yada) and so I'm hoping that she'll let me catch her next time, too. I mean, what other excuses can she come up with? Lol.