Skittles - Parelli L1 and the Bareback Pad

Skittles is a quick learner! Man she's quick and sensitive and so inquisitive once she gets past her habit of snorting at everything new. However, despite always snorting, she tends to come around fairly quickly, settles down and trusts me. She asks LOTS of questions and today, when I gave her answers she could understand, there was lots of licking and chewing. It was an awesome day.

I started by just swinging the savvy string around her just to get her back to where we left off last time. She twitched a few times, but didn't leave and we moved on to a saddle pad. She sniffed it then ignored it. So I swung rubbed her all over then swung it up on her back a few times. No problem. This was all up by the tack shed. So I just left the saddle pad on her back, grabbed the bareback pad, girth, my carrot stick & savvy string, and my red exercise ball and headed down to the round ring. I just kicked the ball ahead of me and she wasn't too sure about that at first, but followed a ways behind me.

In the round pen, I swung the saddle pad off and on her a few more times, then got the bareback pad. I let her sniff that a while, then moved it around her body, legs, and swung it up on her back as well. Then I pulled the girth up under her, and then let it down and repeated this several times - each time bringing it up a bit tighter. The first couple times she tensed up, but then relaxed and appeared OK with it. So I pulled the girth snug again and did it up to the bareback pad. It never got overly tight - just snug enough to keep the bareback pad from moving. Then once I stepped away from her, she jumped sideways and up at the same time and circled the pen a couple times bucking the whole time. After a couple times around she slowed to a trot and then stopped by the gate and looked at me. I approached her but didn't touch her until she came to me. Once she reached out to me, I took hold of her lead line and led her around the pen. She let out a big sigh and followed quietly.

The rest of the time we spent doing the Parelli friendly game with the savvy string, carrot stick, and red ball, the driving game, porcupine game, yoyo game and circle game. I am astounded at how sensitive she is and how quickly she has responded to the cues for the circle game and yoyo game. I never got past phase 2 for pressure on anything and she very quickly responded to phase 1. She's brilliant - so focussed and sensitive. She's really going to teach me to lower my phases and see just how little it takes. Very cool.

A few times when I had her at liberty, she would leave. Which is fine, she's allowed to do that! So when she left, I just would swing the string back and forth on the ground, and as soon as she turned back, I stopped swinging it. I think by the third time she left (I was sitting on the ball at this time), I just lifted the carrot stick slightly and she came back. What an amazing feeling to have her do that. At liberty!!

I did a few other things like jumping up and down beside her leaning my weight on her back by pulling on the saddle pad handle. She didn't flinch from either side. And I rolled the red exercise ball up both sides of her up to her back and let it drop, rolled it around her legs and under her belly. No significant reaction. She'd raise her head each time I rolled it up on her back, but didn't do anything else. I probably should have held it up there until she lowered her head. Maybe next time.

She was so awesome! I'm thrilled by how well she's coming along! So cool! This warm fuzzy feeling is what makes everything worth it! The last photo is Yarrow peering over the fence watching all the fun!