Learning new things...

I did play the day after the last post, Maya and I went down the road a bit and hopped over and through rushing ditches full of rushing water, played circling game and porcupine game a bit of sideways without a fence, but I think we need to go back to the fence or find a nice big log in an open area. We are now somewhere between a ball and a chair on porcupine - much better than a boulder!

Today we went back to the same spot, but I took some bucket lids and a 4' 1X4 with me to start playing "put your foot on something". I think she's starting to get it - it was so fun to have that purpose and watch her trying to figure out what the heck I was being so particular about. It also came in handy when we went up the road past Tommy's later and I must have missed a threshold or fifty, she kind of took off, gently but a bit snorty, into Tommy's field so I went with her, but I could see that she was unconfident - we jumped a stream a few times, played circling game and I noticed that she was snorty, impulsive and tried to lay down and roll a number of times on the circle. She succeeded, once. How interesting that I have a horse that lays down and rolls when shes *unconfident*! Anyway, on the way back home, she was still snorty and jiggy so when I spotted a couple of short boards on the side of the road I used the opportunity to play "put your foot on it" remembering that Linda says it's a great way to get a RB horse to start using her LB. It worked! At first she was trying to walk around all over the place, but I was PP in the PP (passively persistent in the proper position) and watched as she started to go, "Whoa? Huh? Oh!" and she put her foot on it! She got cookies for the first few times she put her foot ON the object as well as immediate release of all pressure, and she got a cookie that time, too. The last one. =) Then we walked back down to the bucket lids LB the whole way. When we got to our driveway she wanted to go that way, but I paused, blocked her, then got friendly and asked her to go down to collect our bucket lids with me. We put her foot on 3/4 things, picked them all up and headed home. YAY! A new arrow for my horse when she's unconfident! Get her brain busy. I swear she was thinking, "Phew, that feels better!" When she was LB again. Played for about and hour and 45 minutes.