Went and took Maya out yesterday, her usual gig when I approach her with the halter is to allow me to approach, sniff the halther and then casually saunter off a few times. Normally, I outpersist her but yesterday I put some pressure on her as she left. She cantered away and I walked along behind her. She curved around and started to come towards me, so I kept walking in the same direction (which was now away from her). She stopped, so I arced my curve towards her and she kept turning to face me. Casually I approached with halther offered for a sniff, and I could tell the moment she relaxed and was going to STAY STILL. That was a first, usually it takes a good while to have her catch me. She must have liked having her brain engaged with the put your foot on it!

We walked down the driveway and then I saw that my electrician had just arrived - he didn't tell me he was coming, but I was expecting him yesterday and he didn't make it. He went to work, I got a phone call from my neighbours saying they'd be here in 10 minutes to help me pull my truck out from where it was stuck, so I decided we'd just "put your foot on it" a couple of times and put her away. It seriously took THREE little tries (and the 2nd try her foot knocked the lid out of the way) to put her foot on the bucket lids. I swear she had a look on her face like "Whaddaya think of THAT?! Eh? Where's my cookie?!" I was so proud I could burst. So we moseyed back to he paddock, I gave them a few flakes of hay and we called it a session.

That rocked.

Today I'm going to build a pedestal out of a really sturdy oak pallet that I have kicking around and we'll see if we can't advance our "put your foot on it" Whee!

I haven't been this excited about *my* horsemanship journey in a long time, and that's saying something - cuz usually I'm pretty excited. What ELSE can we try??!

I'll have to either bring a chair down to the gate, or just sit on the ground and back her in (as per Pat Parelli's challenge on the February Savvy Club DVD) but since I haven't been riding much, I have been sending her through puddles and ditches and rushing water and other things, so I think I've got that down from the ground. Here's hoping we can have some saddle play soon, too. Seriously, I think we'll just incorporate what we've learned on the ground with put your foot on it and we'll aim for the biggest puddles we can find, to start with.