Now what??

Part of our training process is sacking out. We’ve had one session with the tarp, and after a while, she accepted it, walked on it, and didn’t let it concern her. Round two with the tarp wasn’t so successful.
I tacked Diamond up, grabbed the tarp, and the big yellow exercise ball and out to the round pen we went. Diamond was more concerned on the way out about the big yellow ball than she was the tarp, so I thought it would go fairly smooth.
Once out to the round pen, I took some baling twine and tied the tarp to the saddle horn. She stood there fine until I shook it out to spread it over her rump and that’s when she took off like a buckin bronc. She bucked her way around the round pen and finally figured it wasn’t going to go flying off in the wind, nor was it going to eat her. At this point, she lunged both ways around the round pen. Occasionally, when she made turns, the tarp would get under her front feet, and she’d just stop and either back out of it, or wait for me to come untangle her. Somewhere, at sometime, she has learned that if she gets stuck, to just hold tight and not thrash about, that Mom will come rescue her... and so I do.
Once she was going great with the tarp, I grabbed my big yellow exercise ball and started tossing that in her direction. She HATED that ball! If the ball was thrown in front of her, she came to a sliding stop and spun around to take off in the opposite direction. If it was coming behind her, she picked up speed to avoid it. And if it accidently hit her square in the ribs, she jumped! I had hoped to work with her long enough to get her comfortable with the ball, but she was so worked up and panting, that I had to stop. We will work with the ball tonight and for as many nights as it takes for her to not be afraid of it. She also managed, in her frenzy to get away from the ball, to shred the tarp...
To cool her out, we ponied her around from Mama Spurty. Hubby and Mama took Diamond around the yard, in the arena, down the road, and even past some cars. What started out as a disaster waiting to happen with Diamond wanting to be in the lead, and Mama wanting nothing to do with the ponying crap, turned into a very good lesson for all involved. They are almost ready to pony on a trail ride 
I also rode Diamond last night for a few minutes, and she is really getting that when I squeeze with my legs, it means to move forward. Even with the “chaos” of Hubby cantering around on Mama, and TX walking Acacia around, D stayed focused on me and what I wanted... she did however think that when we stopped to chat in the far corner of the arena, that it was time to roll, but thankfully for me, she stayed upright 

STAND

This past weekend, we were playing with the girls in the pasture aisle way, and they were eating grass when I decided I wanted to see if Diamond would stand for mounting. Turns out she doesn’t... So, off to the round pen we went.
I had the halter and lead rope on, and tried again to jump up and mount, and she trotted off, so I pulled her back around to me and tried again. Again, she trotted off, so I unhooked the lead rope and sent her around the round pen. She took off at a canter and didn’t want to slow down which was fine. She could burn that extra energy because it would just make the lesson that much easier.
When she finally slowed down I asked for the Whoa, and she looked at me and kept trotting... NOT OK! So back to the canter she went.
We did lots of changing direction to reinforce to her that I control her movements and finally her speed.
After about 15 minutes of this, she was all too happy to stop and stand my mom. I hopped up again, and she took a step. Down I came and back around she went.
Finally, she figured out that if she just stood still, and let me hop on, I would get back off and she could be done and go back to muching that fresh green grass.

More Ground Work

Baby Diamond has come so far since she came to us in December it’s just amazing! I love every minute of the transformation from a baby horse that would spook at her own shadow and try to suckle my mare to a young horse that has ground manners, can lead, load, bathe, and pick up her feet. She no longer thinks cars are going to eat her, and can calmly walk down the road in hand just like Big Sister Sugar. She no longer fights the saddle, and bit, she stands calmly to get tacked up.
All this is wonderful, but in light of the accident with TX and Acacia spooking at the blackberry vine, we thought we’d take the three girls in the arena and do some ground work with them, just see how steady they really are...
After we let them run around and get their rolling done and bucking over with, we pulled out the tarp. Tarps are not Diamond’s favorite item, but she will now walk by the tarped boat in the parking lot without trying to run away from it, or crawl in my lap, so I was very curious to see how she’d handle one being put on her.


She was the first to go, so it was still nicely folded up and quite small so it only took a moment to get it over her back. However, when we unfolded it and it made all the crinkling noise, she was not a happy camper! Once she discovered she wasn’t going to be able to get away from it, she stood there like a good little girl and let me rub it all over her body, over her head, under her belly... everywhere. While she didn’t look too impressed with Hubby and me for subjecting her to this, she didn’t try to rear or bolt. We secured it under her halter and led her around the arena, and over the bridge, and finally asked her to walk on the tarp, which she did after a little coaxing...
We did the same with Acacia who again tolerated it, but wasn’t overly joyed about the situation.
And Sugar, who could have cared less, marched right over the bunched up tarp like it was a hill of grass, and proudly wore her superwoman tarp cape around the arena and over the bridge (grudgingly over the bridge!! LOL)

Just Me and Mom

Saturday was a busy day for our family. It was Hubby’s birthday, and him and Son, along with some other guys went to the AMA Supercross at Quest Field, so that left TX and myself with a day to fill with quality horse time.
We went out to Enumclaw to check out the “Extreme Trail Challenge” at V2Farms, we got some great trail obstacle ideas to try on all the girls, after that we went back to the barn to play with our horses.
It was to be the first day of actual riding for Diamond. I brought her in from the pasture while Sugar watched very inquisitively wondering what was up... it’s usually Sugar that gets brought out while Diamond stays in the pasture... We tacked her up, she didn’t fight the new metal bit at all, and looked cute as a button when we walked out of the barn down to the round pen.
One of the barn owner’s kids was mowing the grass and asked if he needed to stop so I could work with Diamond. I said “NO! Keep mowing that grass.” Mowing the grass is one of those everyday parts of life that Diamond will have to get used to, and I’d rather do it now than when I’m walking down a road to get to a trail and pass by someone while I’m in the saddle, so this was a perfect opportunity for Diamond to learn a valuable life lesson... Mowers don’t eat horses! Needless to say, she wasn’t convinced and basically refused to go on that side of the round pen, so I pushed her over there on her next time around and boy can that little girl buck! After she went around two or three times, she was fine with it and realized it wasn’t one of the horse eating varieties and we began our first lesson under saddle with a rider and no one leading her around.
She wanted to walk off when I stepped in the stirrup, and TX corrected her right away, which made me lose my balance and kick TX in the shoulder... (oops! Sorry!!) Once I was in the saddle, Diamond stood stone still really well, so I used some flexing exercises to get her moving while squeezing with my legs and she got it. She understood that meant to move which ever way her nose was being pulled. We walked around the round pen for about 15 minutes, we went both right and left, and through the center doing figure eight’s. She got it! She whoa’d and backed perfectly. I was quite impressed with my little girl! Guess all that ground work paid off.

Water Crossing Part Deux

Last night the weather was beautiful, TX, Hubby, Son and I all took a horse down to the creek to play in the water. Hubby walked Big Sugar for some exercise, I walked Baby Diamond for some experience, TX walked Acacia for the experience, and Son rode Mama Spurty to use as our pony horse. We walked down the big hill, past the llama’s, barking dogs, a rummage sale, and across a very busy road. There was only a moment of confusion when Baby Diamond and I were behind TX and Acacia, she didn’t like that too much so we switched places and all was right with Acacia’s world again. Her and Diamond bonded quickly and became fast friends and buddies. All the horses went right over the rail road tracks with no problem, and as we got into the woods, we stopped and ate some dinner and let the horses relax and munch some grass. After dinner, we continued on to the creek where Hubby walked Baby Diamond into the water and let her splash around for a minute, and then he switched her out for Acacia who also hopped right in the water and began playing around. Boy this was not expected at all. Acacia was having so much fun she decided she wanted to walk up and down the river and wasn’t ready to get out yet! After we finally convinced her to scoot out and let someone else have some fun, hubby used Mama Spurty to pony Baby Diamond across the creek. It gets pretty deep in the middle, but Diamond didn’t mind one bit! She followed right behind Spurty and took it like a little champ!

Acacia also got her turn being ponied across and did fantastic as well! All the horses had a fun and very positive experience with the water, and I have no doubts that when we cross the creek under saddle, there will be no hesitation in any of them

Water Crossing

We are fortunate enough to have some trails within walking distance from the barn where the horses will cross a road, go over some rail road tracks, through a creek, past barking dogs, and some cows and llama’s that the neighbors own. With the nice weather, we’ve decided to take Baby Diamond on a couple walks... just like walking the dog, but it’s a horse... LOL.
She’s very inquisitive and interested in seeing the world outside the barn. Everything is new and exciting to her. She sees birds fly overhead and she stops to look, she see’s the dogs and she stops to look, there isn’t any splating or bolting, she just wants to see what’s there, and that’s a great thing. We have walked her down the big hill, across the road, through the woods, over the rail road tracks, and up to the creek.
The first day, she sniffed it, took a drink, and proceeded to jump right in! Hubby was standing on a rock about 3 feet into the creek and it about knocked him down!
The 2nd walk was much less eventful since she had already seen the water; she just stood in the water as if to say “Well, are we going to go to the other side or what?”
Today, it’s supposed to be one of the nicest days of spring so far, so Hubby and I are going to take Baby Diamond, and Sugar along with TX and Acacia and we are going to go for a walk down to the creek and let the horses play and introduce Acacia to the water.