Elusive Moose

Well, I've been trying really hard recently to only spend undemanding time with the ponies (hehe). And it's going well, so I don't really have anything new to report. I'm a little impatient with the progress, but as they say "do less sooner rather than more later". Besides, he's improving!! Just not at the speed I want, lol. Anyways . . .

I realized there's a  predator in me, and that' s a little shocking! I always feel the need to just put the halter on and go, so I ended up forcing the halter onto the ponies (when they'd actually let me play with them, ah the good ol' days). I guess I found the right teachers then, lol. Neither Moose nor Dancer will let me get away with that!! :) Especially Dancer, she's made it clear she won't be forced into anything. *Nervous laugh*

On another note, we went to see a horse for my mom yesterday. She was everything she was looking for and then some!! I mean, she even costed more! So, yeah bottom line is we're not getting our hopes up. Mom wants her, yeah, but she costs too much. So, she made an offer, but we'll see. If it all pans out, I'll certainly give you more details!! Plus pictures (stupid camera didn't work at the time).

Lastly, I found another Parelli instructor!! Well, not a PP, but an instructor that does Parelli that lives about 20 minutes away from me! Fine by me!! So, we're going to go see her this weekend and if we like her I'll have a new riding lessons instructor! Which would be great, considering that the ones I currently attend are capitalizing on some of my progress-killing talents. Lol, lessons are great and all, it's just that I ride school horses and the ways I treat them are different than how I can treat the horses at home. So, I'm developing habits that aren't what I'd like to have (including, but not limited to: using a concentrated rein during Freestyle, over-analyzing, nagging, and expectations over principles). So, I'm hoping that I can downplay some of these 'talents' and learn how to get better results with a 100% Parelli mentor. Maybe there's hope for me yet! ;)

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.