Soaring Sideways!

I'm really starting to wonder what's up with Dancer! She's RBE every time I play with her lately! I wonder if I'm accidentally making her RB, or what? Hmm, I'll have to think about that one.

Well. . . on a good note, we played with the Sideways game today!! That was my main focus, since Dancer could use some help with it. I had looked through my notes from the Madison tour stop the other day, and when Pat got the horse to go sideways, he said to walk and waggle your stick. So, I lined Dancer up and started walking and waggling (MISTAKE: next time, I'm using the carrot stick to waggle, because using the rope doesn't work well). She ran around quite a bit and it took a ways before she tried to move her forehand over. Eventually, she did and I gave her a minute or two to think about it. So, I did that a few times. One of the times, I ran out of fence and had to turn around and walk back the other way! Well, I ended the session on her moving sideways after I had walked only a little ways which was quite the accomplishment for her! So, I'm happy that I can help her with her sideways!!

Sweet Success

I played with Dancer last night. She actually ran to me, too. I was shocked, because I thought she'd hate me (our session 2 days ago didn't go very well)! So that's exciting.

Let's see, we started out doing some jumping. I actually got her to jump over a barrel twice! Though, she went a little RBE, but that was over quick. I arranged the barrels in a 'L' pattern and we played with that a little bit. And I realized how sensitive Dancer is to the Yo-yo game. She was consistently backing off of Phase 1 which is pretty good for her!

Then, I decided to try some trailer loading, since Dancer needs a tiny bit more help with that. She did really good!! After a while, I got it so that she was actually confident to load all the way in and come out. So, that was really good! Plus, she was offering to go in when I hadn't asked. Eventually, I had to ask her to circle, because she wouldn't let me close the trailer up!! Lol.

After that I took her outside to eat some grass. She had a RBE episode. Since I only had a 12' rope on her, I had her run back and forth in a half-circle while I had my back to a fence. I tried to back her up a little after and she reared up. Interesting, because I thought when horses go RBE, you're supposed to back them up to something (or put their nose/foot on something)?

Next, I took her back in the pasture and tried some porcupine on FQ and Sideways. She still doesn't really understand Sideways: she'll move her HQ, but she doesn't move her FQ yet. But she'll get there! Also, I got her to pivot on her FQ turn. I took her halter off at that, because her FQ are like a chair that weighs 2 tons!