Sarah tries 7 games on Jake

A couple days after the Parelli clinic Sarah (friend visiting from England) and I took Gypsy and Jake out of the pasture for some Parelli fun. After watching 3 days of L2 clinic in Redwater, Sarah was raring to go with trying some of what she'd learned on Jake.

I gave her some pointers for starting the Friendly game with him, starting with rubbing him with the carrot stick, then flipping the string over him, then rhythmically flapping the ground near him. This last always makes Jake start trotting around. So I encouraged her to walk away from him, but that didn't work as he just kept going around her. Then I suggested she back up against the fence and if he stopped to look at her, to stop moving the string around. This eventually worked and she quit on that and moved on to porcupine and driving games and then went back to the friendly game later (which went lots better the second time).

Jake was very much a chair that day. A heavy recliner actually. So it took phase 4 of the porcupine game for him to budge. Last year he was easily moved with phase 1. Just goes to show you that if you don't keep it up, the horses easily regress! Sarah's fingers were getting tired, so she switched to the carrot stick.

At this point I wasn't paying too much attention since I was playing with Gypsy. I started just playing the driving game around some pylons, and then a figure-8 around 2 barrels (one of which I was standing on). Then I decided to hop on while she was standing so nicely beside my barrel. With just the halter on, I tried to get her to change direction just with leg pressure. Unfortunately, she still thinks that means move faster. So with only one rein, we did lots of circles. Eventually I gave up on the one rein and went and got the cradle bridle. It was really hard to correct her with one rein because by the time I got it on the right side to turn her in the direction my leg was asking, she'd forgotten what I was asking in the first place. So supporting her with the reins needs to be quicker.

With the cradle bridle I worked on softening her feel, and collecting her trot a bit. Definitely WAY better since the clinic. Then I spread out the pylons a bit more and asked her to sidepass through them back and forth. She managed to stay soft through the first two, but got heavier and picked up speed through the last two and almost trotted through them. We repeated until she was able to walk slowly and calmly through all of them, then disengage at the end. Then I tried weaving through them again just using my body and leg pressure to direct her. Again, she picked up speed again and I used the suspension rein to slow her. After about 5 or 6 turns through the cones (using very exaggerated body movements), she seemed to be responding to my turn cues. Cool! We didn't try the trot. That's too much for today.

Then I let her wander while I helped Sarah some more with Jake. By this time she was ready to try the circle game. So I suggested she start with the close circle game (resting the carrot stick in neutral on his back, but ready to encourage him to move if he stopped). They did well with that, so I showed her how to incorporate the yoyo into the larger circle game. Jake had a tendency to leave as soon as he was yoyo'd back, so I encouraged her just to do a couple more yoyo's to get him to wait for her. He did and she asked for the send. He did several lazy circles around her and I showed her how to disengage him. His disengage was pretty half-hearted and lazy, so then I showed her how to play "hide the hiney" after which Jake started to disengage rather smartly! :-)

I left her to play with that a bit more and I went to play the catching game with Gypsy. She didn't move away from me when I started walking toward her. When she looked up I stopped. Then she did move away, so I followed. When she turned away from me again, I added some pressure in zone 5 and she trotted off a few steps then changed her mind and came back. I backed away and she followed. So I swung my savvy string over her back, backed away some more and she sidepassed toward me!! So cool! Then I just draped the string over her neck and asked her to follow me and she did!

Unfortunately Sarah had to head back to England last week, so now I'm on my own again (sniff, sniff). But I think she really enjoyed playing with the horses and is hoping to find a horse back home to play with.

Hopefully I'll get Indy and Skittles up to speed again this week. Stay tuned!

Parelli L2 clinic June 21-23

The Parelli level 2 clinic last weekend was fantastic. A LOT of questions and problems were fixed with me and Gypsy and we made a great deal of progress into L2 tasks. For me it was the best clinic I've attended so far. It also re-charged my energy and motivation and improved my confidence. I had a friend (Sarah) visiting from England who came as my auditor. It was great to get feedback on what she was seeing... what I might be doing right or wrong. Excellent, excellent clinic!

DAY 1
For most of Day 1 we reviewed Level 1 stuff, which was good because we (I) had kind of gone back to a lot of that anyway. We went through all the 7 games on line and started refining it and adding obstacles. Of course we started with friendly game and then the extreme friendly game. Gypsy quickly learned that to stop the "flogging the ground" with the stick and savvy string, all she had to do was lower her head. So I continued to move around her with the extreme friendly game and she kept lowering her head. Then when I stopped, but everyone else kept at it around her with their own horses, she looked like she was trying to bury her nose in the ground to get everyone else to stop!

Gypsy and I also got better at the sideways over a pole, and yoyo over a pole. At home she had trouble with both, but really improved at the clinic. She has very little resistance backing over the pole now. And I'm also able to ask her to go sideways over a pole now without holding her head. We're not at the end of the 22' line yet, but she's definitely better.

We worked on doing needle simulations as well... encouraging them to relax their neck when pinched. We've worked on this at home and she's doing fairly well with this too.

With the circle game, we added the level 2 tasks of transitions and change of direction, which Gypsy is also really doing well at. Still struggling with maintaining the walk, but she's listening to the request for the down transition at least. We didn't do any cantering online (too little space for everyone to try that), but I know that one is going to be a challenge as she hasn't been able to do that yet.

In the afternoon, we reviewed saddling and bridling with savvy as well as mounting. Then once everyone was mounted, we started with lateral flexion, reviewing rein positions, disengaging the hindquarters, emergency stop, etc. I had a lightbulb moment while riding ... in the middle of reviewing the rein positions while we were all still walking around on a loose rein, Gypsy lowered her head for the first time since I got on and started blowing. And from that moment on she became more focussed, relaxed and responsive. Major BFO (blinding flash of the obvious): Hey, maybe I should do this every time with her... wait until she starts to blow before "riding" her. And by that I mean asking for riding manoevers, transitions, sidepasses, etc. Maybe then we'll have more successful riding sessions!! I can't recall if I've ever done that before (at least not consciously)... so that pretty much explains why she always (usually) seems so right-brained while we're riding. The suspension rein to stop or slow was one I had forgotten. And I definitely need to work on that one more... I still have a tendency to pull back rather than up. I also have to remember to start with STOP RIDING before using the reins. Not so good at that yet. Usually I use the rein, then go "oh ya" forgot to stop riding. I think I need to start a mantra: "don't use the reins to stop, use the reins if she doesn't stop!" Maybe doing the stop transitions at a target like in the June Savvey Club DVD will help me with that.

We also worked on front and back pivots. Gypsy still has a lot of forward movement in both of those manoevers, so I was doing a lot of circling to try to isolate either the front or back pivot before releasing. She did eventually do each of those manoevers, but she's not able to do it consistently yet. The supporting rein is helping out a lot with this (preventing her forward movement), but my timing has to get better. I think I'm way better than a year ago with my timing, but it can definitely be better.

DAY 2
Day 2 we dove right into L2 tasks and refining riding skills. The morning was on the ground and the afternoon in the saddle. On the ground we worked on trying to get the horses quiet while holding their tongue. Don was able to do this with Gypsy, but I wasn't able to actually get ahold of her tongue... slippery little sucker (I also tried this with my gelding Jake just yesterday and promptly got bit....OUCH! must remember not to let him roll my fingers into his teeth!). She was fairly quiet with my fingers in her mouth though.

We also worked a fair bit on being specific about where we want the horse to lead (throat latch at the shoulder) at the walk or trot and change of direction. We followed this up with leading at liberty as Don asked people individually to remove their halters when he thought they were ready. A couple horses got away from their owners at which time we got ahold of our own horses and proceeded to make it uncomfortable for the rogue horse to be anywhere but with his owner (waving arms, sticks, strings, anytime he moved away from his owner, until he figured out the safest place for him was with his owner). Some took a fair bit of convincing. Gypsy left me once, but only went about 40 feet away, saw a waving stick and promptly turned back to me. Good girl!!

We did more refining with the 7 games on line, improving our L2 tasks. One was sideways toward (rather than away). Gypsy and I have worked on this, so with only a couple taps on the opposite hind, I was able to get her to move sideways toward me just with moving the stick in the air and toward me.

We also tried sideways over a barrel. At home we've never been able to do this. Actually at home, straddling a pole is difficult for her, so we've only been able to get close to the barrel, never straddling it. I think my barrels at home are too big. At the clinic we did manage to do sideways over the barrel. I started with just getting her to stop beside the barrel and just let her stand there until she relaxed and started licking and chewing. Then I only asked for one step at a time until she was over the barrel and then again let her stop until she lowered her head licking and chewing. This was huge for her! Moving sideways the rest of the way went quicker and now we have to work on her just stopping and standing beside the barrel when she's done. Once she was clear of the barrel, she trotted forward. Definitely a breakthrough for her, so we'll keep building on that (once I get some smaller barrels)

In the afternoon with the riding we did a lot of sideways and disengaging on a change of direction. After quite a bit of this, she really started to soften up on those turns. We also learned to get the soft feel on a concentrated rein. This was the first time I've been able to do that with Gypsy... mostly because I didn't know how to ask for that. At first she really tossed her head a lot and rooting into the bit. Once Don taught me how to fix my hands until she got quiet, asking for the soft feel and lowering her head was a breeze. Another huge breakthrough!!

Another technique I learned which worked really well for down transitions from trot to a stop was doing a rising trot to sitting to ask for the stop. Another BFO! Of course that's going to feel a lot different to Gypsy than just trying to "sit deeper" from a sitting trot to a stop. She really responded well to that. So at home I'm going to start with the rising trot to stop before moving to a sitting trot to stop.

Then we tried cantering. We divided into two groups at each end of the arena and each took turns trying to get the canter on the circle. I'd been dreading this, but at the same time knew I needed help. We struggled and I did a LOT of saddle slapping around the circle at a really fast trot while trying desperately to sit in the proper position (weight to the outside, inside leg off, outside leg back and squeezing). Gypsy managed a couple awkward strides at the canter, but mostly we did a lot of fast trotting. Quite a few others had trouble with this, which made me feel a bit better (I'm not the only one!), but a lot also had no trouble at all. Don said I was doing the right things, I just had to keep trying until she got it.

DAY 3
LOTS of stuff on Day 3. More creativity with the 7 games. We did tandem circling game (back to back). Lynn and I partnered up for this and I think we did really well. We even managed a change of direction. Very cool!! And fun! :-)

Then Don asked me to yoyo Gypsy back over a pole while standing on a barrel. At first she was a bit disconcerted with me being above her, but she did the yoyo as asked without any problem.

I also did the circle game with her while sitting on a chair. She did this without any problem. Then we did some transitions as well as change of direction from the chair. She did awesome. Very cool.

We did the driving game too -- driving the back end and following through with driving the front end into a pivot on the haunches. That definitely takes a lot of coordination with changing hands on the carrot stick behind your back! Poor Gypsy got poked a couple times with the stick while I was trying to change hands, but after a few tries, I think we got it. I swear sometimes Gypsy does some of these things in spite of me. She almost seems to know what I want before I ask it. Maybe she's watching and learning from the others too!

Then we started combining multiple games in a row: Yoyo to half circle to sideways down the side of the arena to squeeze game, wait, lead forward at a trot to squeeze over a jump, back up and rub. Up to this point, Gypsy hadn't jumped a barrel. On the first attempt through this combination, she didn't jump. But I circled her around again and she jumped it the second time with only a couple moments of hesitation. After we finished, my friend Sarah who was auditing, told me one of the other auditors noticed that I had lifted my leading hand just as she was approaching the jump which Gypsy interpreted to mean stop. I obviously didn't know I was doing this (I was probably simulating jumping with my leading hand), so it was definitely good information which will help me with future attempts. The other thing I learned was that it's OK to put pressure behind her as she's moving toward the jump, but to leave her alone as soon as she's at the jump (the "allow") and then to move her back as soon as she stops trying. The window between approaching and allowing is pretty small too, so my timing really has to be on.

In the afternoon riding session, we worked a lot more on feeling the horse while riding (feeling which feet were moving and when, feeling for the step under during a disengagement, and feeling with and of the horse on a transition (up and down)... in other words: don't leave without your horse. Feel forward, then go forward with your horse. This is no problem with Gypsy (it takes very little "feel" for Gypsy to go forward), but she's definitely less responsive with the down transitions, so we have lots to do there.

We also worked a lot on change of direction, starting without the reins. Eyes - Belly Button - Reins - Leg (and Think - Ask - Tell - Support). "Don't use your reins to turn, use your reins if she doesn't turn." Definitely slow responses, but I think she was actually trying. Of course with all the horses drifting around the arena, a few times you'd have to pick up your reins fairly quickly to avoid collisions, but a few times I think she was starting to respond to my body before the reins.

We worked on sideways without a fence as well. Here we worked on isolating the sideways and the correction if she moved forward. In other words, don't try to back up (if she drifts forward) WHILE asking for the sideways. If she drifts forward, stop going sideways, ask her to back up, then ask for sideways again. We've also tried this at home a few times and she's starting to get better at this. She still drifts forward a lot, and requires correcting, but she's really trying.

One new thing I learned -- because Gypsy frequently resists backing up -- is that disengaging the hindquarters before backing really helps. When she gets stuck and starts tossing her head, Don told me to ask her to disengage the hind end with an indirect rein, then bump her with the other rein for a back up. This really helped.

Then we did the cantering exercises again. Again, I kind of dreaded it. Then just before my turn, Shirley said "think canter, believe it will happen!" And guess what? She did!!! I set her up slowly and made sure she was in the right position. She knew what was coming -- probably a combination of watching the other horses, while standing in the middle (same as the day before), plus my own body energy. After a couple false starts, she picked up the canter and cantered half way around the circle before losing it and breaking into the trot again. Don said to go again and keep going until it was my idea to stop. The second attempt we got up into a canter quicker and she stayed in the canter for more than a full circle and didn't stop until I asked her to!!! I was so happy I cried! What an emotional moment. I got off and cried happy tears into Gypsy's mane with lots of hugs and kisses for her. I was so proud of her!! That was huge for both of us. What a great way to end the clinic!

Transitions, transitions

I had a better day with Gypsy today. She let me walk right up to her today and didn't move away. She sniffed me, then resumed eating grass, but didn't move away. I scratched her all over, then asked her to put her nose in the halter. No resistance. Which is good! Especially considering my session with her yesterday.

I took her out, groomed her, let her graze, then put on the saddle. I didn't get on right away though, I started by doing some yoyo between the barrels, backing over the pole again, sideways without a fence, squeeze over a jump and circling game. The yoyo through the barrels was almost perfect. Almost straight and very little resistance (almost all phase 1). The second time was even better because she understood what I was asking with the barrels. Nice positive look on her face when she stopped and lots of licking and chewing. Yay!

She still had trouble backing over a pole. But she did it, hesitantly. I didn't push that one. Sideways without a fence still has a lot of forward drift. This time I tried to just get her to move sideways one step at a time and if she stepped forward, I stopped and asked her to back up. Unfortunately, when I asked her to back, she'd turn and face me then back up. So I drove her head away from me, then asked her to back again. Pretty crooked, but I got her going in the right direction eventually. Then I asked for sideways again. Still lots of drift forward and lots of asking her to back up. We switched sides and she seemed to have an easier time of it going to her left. I found that riding her as well... she'd go sideways easier to the left than to the right.

We only did squeeze over a jump a couple of times; the only problem she has with that (as with most tasks) is turning to face me, then standing still. After each squeeze I mostly worked on getting her to stand still for 10 seconds. It took a few rope wiggles to get her to stand, but eventually she did. Then I asked her to circle. As usual, she stopped after each circle and started to come in. It took about 4 or 5 re-sends to get her to circle 3 times without asking to come in. After the 3 circles at the trot (she always trots), I started asking her to walk. Each time I wiggled the rope though, she would stop and try to come in and I would re-send, she would walk, then trot, I wiggled the rope, she'd stop and turn in .... re-send etc. etc. for about 7-8 times. Finally she walked one whole circle. I asked her to disengage.

Then I put on the bridle (snaffle this time to see if it made any difference) and got on. We walked around for a while, then I asked her to trot. Immediately she started speeding up. I tried the one-rein stop and she turned and slowed, then trotted off again as soon as I released. I repeated this every time she trotted off without waiting for me to ask her. Finally she walked off (fast walk though) and we did some smaller circles at the walk and then I asked her to trot and immediately asked her to walk again. We did this about 20 times, but she never got softer. If anything she got stronger and it got harder to get her to slow down. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. Eventually I started circling her smaller and smaller each time she sped up and only let her straighten out when she softened. As long as she stayed at a collected trot, I left her alone. Eventually I could get about half way around the paddock at a nice collected trot before she would speed up. Partly that was because she had to trot downhill, so it's hard to stay collected downhill. On the downhill - as soon as she started to speed up, I asked her to walk. I'm still having to pull way too hard on the rein to get a response. I know I'm doing this wrong, I just don't know how to do it right. Maybe picking the same two spots to ride to and stop? Would she anticipate the stop or transition then?

I also tried to canter her. She did pick up the canter, but she's REALLY front heavy at the canter and she really leans and drops her shoulder into the turn. Picking up on the reins to try to collect her a bit only makes her trot. She can't maintain a canter around any kind of direction change. She always breaks to a rough trot as soon as I ask for a turn (because that involves picking up the rein!) Don't know what to do at all. It's not a nice canter at all and no matter what I do, I can't keep her going for more than about a quarter of the way around the paddock. And there's no cantering her at all in the round pen, she just won't do it. ARRGH!! I'm really at a loss as to what to do about the cantering.

I abandoned the cantering, because she also goes right-brained when we canter, and we lost all of her collection at the trot. So we went back to trotting and trying to get her collected again (lots of circles). Then we did some backing up and sideways, and once she was focussed again, I let her walk around, then let my daughter ride her a bit in the round pen. Not sure what Holly did with my camera to get the photos to show only black and white except for green.... but it's kind of a cool effect!

2 steps back with Gypsy

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours with Gypsy. I downloaded all the Level 2 tasks I need to master in order to pass Level 2 yesterday - and there are a lot of them we're not close to (most of them). So right off the bat, I started out goal-oriented, since I was hoping I'd be at least half way there when we go to the L2 clinic on the 21st (just over a week away!). The result was a pretty frustrating session because I was goal-oriented and consequently she spent most of the session right-brained. And looking back, I didn't address that.

Actually I started out waiting for permission from Gypsy to catch her. She's usually pretty easy to catch, even though she doesn't exactly come up to me. But yesterday, I waited until she came up to me. For a while there (as it was taking longer than I thought it would), I fought with that voice in my head that said "screw it, just go catch her so we can get started!". Instead I waited it out and followed her around until she came to me (I would stop following and/or back up if she turned toward me instead of away). It took about 15-20 minutes. Which sounds like a short time, but really, seemed like an eternity.

I wanted to work on a more straight yoyo, more precise driving game (getting her to move her hind end without moving her front end), getting her to wait at the end of a task rather than always immediately coming in to me, backing over a rail and then a more consistent circling game. We worked on all of those and accomplished some success with the yoyo. She managed to back over the rail only once after about 9 or 10 attempts (she'd always veer sideways or come forward when she got to the rail). I left that one alone after she did it. She backed through a couple of barrels which helped with the straightness, but we have lots of work still to do to keep her standing still at the end of the line (not coming forward as soon as she's done).

The hardest for her, for some reason, is the circling game. She can't do this at a walk and really pulls to the outside. And she stops every time after one circle and asks to come in. She was doing this so beautifully last year, that I don't know what has changed. Maybe it's because I've started changing it with transitions and change of direction that now she's constantly questioning what I want. Maybe I should just go back to plain old circling and keeping her there for the 4+ rounds before asking for anything else. Either that or using her stop as a change of direction (turning her idea into my idea??) not sure what would work best. Also, she frequently changes direction on her own and always at the same place. I tried moving the circle to a different location, but that didn't change it. I've been stopping her and making her go back in the original direction, but that hasn't worked either. I'm lost.

So each time I failed at trying to get her to do the tasks, we moved to something else in the hopes we would succeed at something. We did some sideways with a fence and then without a fence. Without a fence she is constantly going forward, so that going sideways with her involves constantly wiggling the rope to keep her from moving forward. The L2 pass requires no more than 2 corrections! Long way to go there.

Then I tried to get her to back up by pulling her tail. At first all she did was pull away from me. So I strung the lead line between her legs under her belly to use that as a support. I started out just pulling her tail, then supported with the line. She eventually got it, but was far from responding softly and never from just pulling the tail. I then tried pulling her sideways a bit, but she resisted and pulled the other way. Instead of going back to just backing up, I tried again, until she pulled away more, stepped on the line, startled herself, got tangled and freaked out. She then spent the next 10 minutes or so avoiding me. So again, I collected myself, took a deep breath and kept following her until she turned and came back to me. A number of times I could easily have picked up the 22' line dragging behind her, but I waited until she chose to come back to me. So at least I did that much right.

I finished the session by playing "put your nose on it" using treats. I wanted to end with something positive so she wouldn't avoid me forever the next time. She enjoyed that and found all the treats pretty quickly and nosed around for more.

Also, I didn't blog my last session with her a few days ago. I rode her for about an hour or so working on up/down transitions. Since she's always moving forward, we mostly worked on the down transitions and at the same time, staying on the rail. She still really pulls into the bit. By the end of the session she was starting to collect a bit and soften on the transition. Not a lot, but a small change. She really can't stay collected though. If I leave her alone, she always picks up speed. I've done lots of circles with her, but maybe not enough. We'll need to do a lot more of these and a lot more transitions. Backing up is also a huge challenge for her and we worked on that a fair bit as well. Lots of head-tossing and pawing the ground when I ask her to back.

These last two sessions with her have convinced me that we're a LOOOONGG way from passing Level 2. I just hope we make it through the clinic with some improvement!

I'm actually concerned about having to canter at this clinic. She can canter, but it's really awkward, stumbly and uncontrolled. I have NO idea how to fix that. I rarely canter with her because it's so awkward, but now that we have to for the L2 pass (as well as do smooth transitions... HA!), I really need to address this. I sure hope Don has a lot of patience! :-)

Spring turnout

Yesterday I picked up a few bags of oats at G&E. After emptying them into my bins I decided to use one of the bags to do some "friendly game" with the horses. Gypsy came right up and started chewing on the bag and flipping it around subsequently scaring off all the other horses. It was a windy day as well, so as soon as she let it go the wind picked it up and blew it across the paddock, scaring the horses even more in the opposite direction. The bag stopped at the gate and all the horses stood with their bums against the fence at the other end, heads up, ears forward just waiting for that sabre-toothed oat bag to come and devour them. So I picked it up and folded it nice and small and did approach and retreat with all the other horses (besides Gypsy) until I could rub it over all of them. Surprisingly, IndyAnna was the least able to stand still (a year ago, she would let me do just about anything around her without flinching!). I didn't use any halters on them, just moved amongst them with the folded bag and kept going until I could rub it over all of them without them having to leave. Indy couldn't do it. I will have to try again, maybe in the round pen later.

It was a spectacular day yesterday and I should have been working with the horses. But the veranda and my book were calling me and persuaded me to take the afternoon off. And Yarrow and Jake kept pawing at the gate to get at the grass in the pasture. So, since we were out of hay as of yesterday morning, I opened the gate and let them out. They barely got their front feet through the gate before they were grazing! Mmmmm... yummy grass!! Pretty happy horses. :-) Me too... good book and a cup of coffee on the veranda... a perfect day all around.

Trying to get a canter from Gypsy

Yesterday I worked with Gypsy again in the paddock and in the round pen. I started with the 7 games, including more sideways without a fence (she's starting to get pretty good at this!). Then I took her into the round pen to see if being in there would help her to pick up a canter. We started with just doing walk-trot transitions on line along with changing direction, then I tried to get her to canter. I used slow deliberate swings of my carrot-stick and string in zone 5 repeatedly until she picked up a canter. Also, I had taken her line off to give her some more freedom. Except for a couple of disunited strides, she really couldn't do it. She kept trotting faster and faster (above) and all I really succeeded in doing was scaring the crap out of her. She wouldn't turn into me after that and kept crowding the gate clearly wanting to get away from me - the crazy woman with the stick. I never touched her with the stick or string, but it was too much pressure and it was obvious she couldn't (or wouldn't??) canter. The few strides she did pick up where really choppy and short. Not sure why she couldn't canter. I know she can (I've seen her!). Maybe she's just a really long horse and needs more space? (at least until she's capable of being more collected). She's also really "downhill" (I used 3 large shims when I rode her last and the saddle was still tipped forward), so not sure there's a discomfort factor involved or not?? I don't know. I wish I knew what it was so I could do something about it. Just not sure where to go from here with the cantering.

Anyway, we carried on with the session because I wanted her to calm down and finish on a positive note. So we abandoned cantering and started working on the walk-trot transitions on line. Once I had her doing that a bit more calmly, I decided to try doing some of the change-direction at liberty, which is much easier to do in a round pen! (remaining photos). She did really really well with the changing direction at liberty. She was really focussed on me. Except for a couple of out-turns when I wanted her to turn in to me, she responded very well. The only trouble after that was that I actually asked for too many changes of direction, so when I wanted her to keep trotting around me, she would stop behind me and come in or change direction on her own. So then I had to try to keep her on a circle in one direction. That took some doing. Just about every 3rd or 4th stride, she'd turn in asking "do you want me to turn now? how about now?...." Loved that she was asking me questions all the time and, OH BOY, I got to practice my send over and over! :-) The session turned out really well in the end. I'm glad I was able to settle her down and get her to trust me again. These horses really are the most amazing animals. And I love this one, in particular, a great deal! :-)

Trying the cradle bridle on Gypsy

A couple of days ago I took Gypsy out for a ride to try out the cradle bridle I got earlier this year. I hadn't used it up to now because I wanted to work on softening Gypsy without a bit before introducing a bit again. She's actually been doing fairly well, so I thought I'd give it a try.

As long as she is in the paddock, she's pretty soft and responsive. But once I get her out of the paddock and take her down the road, she goes right-brained and a forward-aholic. Keeping her to a walk is a challenge. She definitely did better this time out that she did the last time (her first outing this year back in March), but she was still pulling more than I would like. When she would speed up while we were still in the subdivision, I would circle her until she slowed or stopped. But once we were on the County road, there really wasn't any space to do that safely, so we got in a bit of a tug-of-war. Again, she was softer than she usually is, but not as soft as I would like. She still roots and pulls and tosses her head too much. I think maybe I better just keep her in the paddock for a while and work on her softness there before taking her out again. Next time I ride her I'll work on the "million transitions" ... maybe that will help get her more responsive and softer. I might have been able to do some of those while on the road, but she really didn't have a down transition and every time I asked her to slow down, she would toss her head and root into the bit. Or if I stopped her, she would paw the ground impatiently.

Displaced right-brained behaviour, right? I guess I'm pushing her out of her comfort zone too soon.

Cramming for L2 clinic!

Boy I really am getting lazy at this blogging. Sorry to those who check this frequently. Or am I being optimistic? :-)

I am now done with the conference I've been working on for the last year (YAY!), and no more gymnastics competitions for my son until next year (double-YAY!). So now it's CRAM CRAM CRAM for the Parelli L2 clinic in 3 weeks.

I worked with Gypsy yesterday for an hour or so. When I went to go get her she saw me go into the shed to get a halter and when I came out she was at the gate. Very cool! :-) I took her out and let her graze for about 15 minutes while I groomed her. Then we went back into the paddock to start our session. I started with the 7 games, this time with the 22' line to see if she'd be as responsive further away than 12'. I haven't used the 22' line since last fall. She did everything really well. Even sideways without a fence. It took us quite a few tries to keep her from moving forward (she's a forward-aholic), but after about 6 tries, she did pretty well. Only moved forward a couple steps. Here she is (above) looking at me after the last really good sideways -- waiting for her "atta girl!".

We also worked on the squeeze over a cavaletti. She did really well with that too. But when I got 22' away, she tended to go around the jump rather than over it. I'll stick to working a bit closer for a while on that one and move further away slower until she's got it.

Then we did some sideways over a rail. She had a pretty tough time with that one. She's uncomfortable with straddling a pole. I think my initial mistake was trying to ask her sideways from too far away and once she stepped forward over the pole, she couldn't back up. So I slowed it down and held her head while asking for the sideways. She leaned on me a fair bit as she wanted to push forward, but with the closer communication, she managed to figure out what I wanted and stayed over the rail while going sideways. A few tries later, I was barely touching her halter, but just had my hand there to correct if she needed it. And when I did correct her, it was with a much softer touch. She's doing so well! I find each time I work with her, she's really paying attention and really trying hard. It's amazing, and an amazing feeling to see her so focused.

Then we got to the transitions online. Last time we did this, she was pretty right-brained and whether I asked her to transition up or down she just got faster. This time, probably because we had done so much playing already, she was very left-brained and attentive that nearly all of my cues were phase 1. Well, actually all of my cues for her to transition up were phase 1. To transition down were about phase 2-3 (forward-aholic). I never did get a tranisition up to a canter, just a really fast trot (which I accepted as good enough for today). And as she speeds up she really leans on the line. So she doesn't seem confident enough to try the canter online yet. I may move her into the round pen next time and see if that helps. She stumbles a lot at the canter, so that may have something to do with her confidence. I've always wondered about that, actually... what do you do with a horse that stumbles a lot??

We also did some very nice changes of direction. Again, last time - change of direction meant speed up to her. This time, she was way more relaxed and I got some very nice steady changes at the walk and the trot.

Every time I disengaged her she came right in and buried her head in my chest. I completely melt when she does that (picture left is her coming in for her snuggle) :-)

Then I let her out with all the other horses to mow my lawn (below).