Atta girl...

Been a while since I checked in. I've been doing Level 1 On Line Parelli groundwork (not in the halter in the picture, FYI) with Ab. We've got our Friendly, Porcupine, and Yo Yo Games mastered. Driving game is a little more of a challenge, and Circle game confuses the heck out of her (why aren't you turning to follow me? and she breaks gait behind me). But we've made a lot of progress. In the last two weeks we've:

1) Learned how to back up. She did not seem to have this concept from any point in her past.
2) Walked across a tarp.
3) Learned signals for moving her feet in four directions, but not towards me yet.
4) Messed around with some Liberty, as well, in her vast pasture, and being the Right Brain Introvert that she is, she has no problem sticking with me. Liberty is almost more exhilarating than riding.
5) Made some progress with the mounting block. I think I could've gotten on her the other day but she got anxious so we went for a walk until she got out of Right Brain Extrovert mode. I think she is going to be mostly RBE under saddle, which might not be a bad thing, considering the stuff I want to do with her.
6) We're currently playing with the plastic bag on the carrot stick, which she's pretty wary of and other than letting her nose it I haven't touched her with it yet.
7) No idea how we're going to do sideways and squeeze games. There's not a fence on the place that is straight with no ditch in front of it and no barbed wire. I might have to improvise with poles and barrels or something.

I really can't wait to ride her...

In other good news, Russ has sort of decided he's interested in riding... not so much for its own sake but for things like mounted medieval games, mounted archery and such. I'd love to have a second horse that I can put just about anybody on and take them riding. And a horse trailer. Maybe by spring.

Carrot, Stick, or Carrot Stick?

Miss Abbey likes to back up when she doesn't like something (RBI behavior or LBI). For a while I tied her while grooming, then I thought, I don't want to have to tie her, so I just held the lead rope while grooming, which she mostly enjoys. Sometimes I hit a sensitive spot. She backs. Today, I thought, the heck with that, I'm not moving around you for grooming, you're going to move around ME. So we practiced "back" "step up" and a send-away turn so I could get her exactly where I needed her to reach the spot I needed (I gave her some leeway for the back-end zone). This worked pretty well since she likes grooming and I'm learning her itchy spots, so I reward her with good curry on those when she moves where I want her.

Afterwards, since grooming seemed like the lesson today, I just took her and did some mirroring. I got a big sigh that seemed to say, "Oh, I like you so much better when you're not making me do stuff. By the way, got any horsey treats?"

Just got to know what motivates a horsey partner, as the above video demonstrates!

Abbey

I'm two weeks away from being a horse owner. This is Abbey, an eight-year-old BLM Mustang. Isn't she freckly? Our first meeting was a hit; we kind of "joined up" (a la Monty Roberts) right off, and her owner said she was amazed at how quickly I was able to get on her (she has back sensitivity issues). I just took my time with her, leaned on her a bit first, and then got on, and she stood like a rock, which apparently she has not done for everyone.

She's coming home with me (not my home, but not far either) on August 10. I've wanted a horse since I was five! So she's a dream come true. We're going to start out slowly but we'll do some dressage, some trail riding, and dabble in whatever else seems like it might be fun for both of us.

Oh, the funky markings on her neck are a freeze brand (I said it looks like it's written in Klingon). Each mark represents a number and by looking it up you can find out about where she was caught (she was 2 when caught wild, apparently in California) and more. I can't read it from the pictures but I'll definitely be looking it up.

Dontcha just want to hug her neck? :) Better pictures later.