Crazy spring and summer plans and work have prevented me from keeping up on Jen's (or Leroy's) blogs.
But, Jen's new life is beginning. I have started some relationship groundwork with her using Dan Sumerels methods, and she is responding well. Jen loves being chosen as "the one" that gets to come out of the paddock and play with the humans. She is so eager to do things together, that it actually borders on obnoxious!
She responded well to her first session. At first, she was a little upset that I actually asked her to move away from me, and she couldn't quite figure out what I wanted, she kept banana'ing (is that really a word?) back in to me. When I insisted she move around me, she gave me the finger and raced off. She is a powerful little horse!!! Jen gets quite animated, and she is also an extremely sensitive horse in many ways. As soon as she got her wits about her and relaxed a little and put an ear on me, I relaxed my body language, inviting her in. Which she was very relieved! She came right in, and attaches herself to you like velcro. So we did some off-lead leading, and then I introduced her to the Bitless Bridle. Jen has a major aversion to bits, and she flings her head up in the air and clamps her jaw shut. No amount of treats, or patience, will get her to open her mouth short of being aggressive with her, which I won't do.
She was braced against the Bitless at first, it seemed to be an ingrained habit. Human picks up rein and yanks, horse braces against inevitable pain. So when I first picked up the rein (I stayed on the ground), she braced. I held steady, light contact, eventually she relaxed her neck a little, and she got a click and a treat. She thought that was really cool, so we did it again. She still automatically braced, but she softened quicker and quicker. We repeated many times, and she was softening and relaxing. We obviously repeated the steps with both reins. I also tried out the one-rein-stop / hip disengage from the ground, and this was beautifully soft and responsible. Interesting. So then I called it a day, and took her out in the yard for some grass. I wanted to keep it simple for our first time out.
The second time we started off the same way and it went much the same, although with a bit less animation when I asked her to move away from me. We repeated the groundwork with the Bitless, and she was still braced, but a smidge less than last time. After she was responding pretty well to the Bitless, I put the bareback pad on her, and I took my time getting on. I leaned over her, petted her, put just a leg over her, guaging her reaction as if she had never been ridden. She was a little tense and worried about what I was going to do. But I reassured her a lot. Eventually I climbed on board, and just sat there feeding her treats. She though that was really cool! The first time she tried backing up so she could get her head closer to me with the treats. LOL! It didn't work too well for her.
So then I asked her to move forward, and she was extremely tense. Her whole body was waiting, ready to leap into action at the slightest hint of movement. Hmmmm....... But when I gently squeezed, she didn't move. I tried again, and again, with very gentle contact. then I slid my legs slightly back, I have abad habit of my legs sometimes sliding too far forward, inhibiting forward motion in a sensitive horse. When I did this, she about leapt out of her skin and rushed forward, as if she was expecting me to lift my legs away from her sides and just whallop on her. So she got a little spooky after that ,but soon calmed down. Once she moved forward softly off my leg, I got off her and called it a day.
We repeated this again a third time, and she was calmer even the third time. So we are making progress. I have not had a chance to work with her more than every few weeks unfortunately, with the hot weather, kids home from school, yard work, barn work, house work, work-work, etc., etc. But we'll get there.
OK, don't make fun of the tie-dye -- the horses don't care what I'm wearing when I play with them or feed them :-)
So the next phase of Jen's life has begun! From starved little filly, to starved, abused riding horse, to starved, abused broodmare, and now a fat, unpregnant family horse.
Well, OK, she's not really fat yet. But she's getting there! She's in decent weight now. She has a small amount of topline to build up, a small amount on the top of her butt to muscle up. After that, I'm certain that she is going to continue to bulk up over the next year or two. Her chest is still pretty narrow, although it is much wider than it once was. She has muscles in her shoulders and neck and butt now, but I'm certain that they will get bigger, and firmer, and stronger.
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