Confidence. Confidence. Confidence.

Mine and the horses'. Been a while since I last posted, been a while since I seriously played. I was in Red Deer for the Mane Event Equine Expo - selling pottery, and the week before that was spent getting ready for it... so I haven't been as active as I'd like in the horsemanship department.

Dewormed last week with a program of getting them ready using apple sauce in a syringe. Awesome reulsts. Even after the "nasty" tasting one, 2 of the 3 horses wanted more. I managed to convince the third to try some - of course giving her apple sauce - and they all want it, now.

Now to prepare them for injections! I have my toothpicks at the ready, hypotonic muscles, here we come!

Bailey kicked me in the hand last week. I took her out for grass without preparing her, she was out of her comfort zone, I didn't have my stick and string and I used the end of the 12' line to ask her to move forward past me - she did, with an explosion that caught me in the hand. Her loss of confidence lead to my loss of confidence. Keep the confidence in your horse and you can keep yours, too!

What do you do when your horse kicks you? Say "Ow". I said "Ow" and put her away. Then I took the time to realize what I could have done to avoid being kicked and to have her confident enough to not feel the need to kick me.

Here's what I came up with. Always have the right tools with me. Keep her within her comfort zone and slowly approach and retreat from thresholds. Learn to RECOGNIZE thresholds. More friendly. Stay out of the kick zone! (the right tools will help with this one).

So then I took her out a few days later (as my hand felt better and more useable) and recognized moderate RB behaviour, retreated and all was well! I was quite wary of her hind end, mind you. I'll need some move closer, stay longer and lots of friendly with that.

Been taking all of them out for grass - they're all so sensitive. I don't realize HOW sensitive until I gently ask them to do something and they respond, almost without seeming to notice. If I'm rude and go up my phases too quickly, they react, rather than responding. Wow! How cool to notice.

At any rate, I'm still at it, just had lots of stuff going on the last few weeks. Cleaning, preparing for the show, more cleaning, organizing etc. Phew! Spring is here, the work begins!