More 7 games with Indy

Today I worked with Indy. I wasn't sure if I would ride or not when I started, but for sure I was going to get through all 7 games with her. In the end, I didn't ride... the 7 games took longer than I thought it would with her! Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist!

Friendly game: no problem.

Porcupine Game: Zone 1 - phase 1. Zone 2 - phase 1/2. Zone 3 - phase 1. I don't think I did the porcupine game in zone 4 or 5. She started not paying much attention to me, but I got her attention with the carrot stick on her chest when she was ignoring my finger pressure on her nose. That got her attention which resulted in mostly phase 1 after that!

Driving Game: Really good driving her hind end. But she didn't always step under, but rather stepped sideways and back. So I persisted each time until she stepped under. Probably being too picky? Driving her front end was not as easy. She tends to be rather pushy and tried avoiding the carrot stick instead of yielding, but once she figured out she couldn't get her head over the stick, she yielded. Again I was picky about her crossing in front rather than behind before I released. We've done the 7 games before, so I figured it was safe to be picky (i.e. not releasing as soon as she shifted sideways, but waiting for the specific foot movement).

Yoyo Game: We worked on this a fair bit. Her yoyo back was pretty decent. After a quick phase 4 I did when she looked like she was falling asleep with phase 1, she really paid attention and was fairly consistent with backing at around phase 2. But there was a lot of resistance with her bring back. And it didn't improve a ton the rest of the day. I tried to yoyo her back through some barrels and my first attempt did not work at all. She kept veering away and trying to trot off. So I tried it backwards and let her lead through the barrels, stop between them, yoyo them back and a bit forward of the barrels, then back, etc. etc. until she was able to start well in front of the barrels and back quietly through them. The last few 2 or 3 times back she did lots of licking and chewing

Circle Game: Wow, we spent lots of time on this one. She had a really hard time with maintaining gate, or perhaps it was just not understanding what I wanted. In hindsight, I should have started with the small circle game (like I showed Sarah with Jake). She would trot ahead and abruptly stop. Then do that again over and over each time I re-sent her. Many times she would stop behind me and when I asked her to go again, she'd cut the circle toward me and I would have to defend my space to keep her from coming over me. A couple times as I tried to drive her hindquarters away from me, she made like she was going to kick. She's done this a lot this year. Serious attitude from this girl!! At one point she ignorned my send and tossed her head at me and I immediately went to phase 4 with the string behind her, which launched her (and ultimately me too) sideways into the air. Then she stood there blowing and staring at me. Hmmm maybe I mean business, hey? I sent her again (phase 1), she stared but didn't move, then I slowly lifted the carrot stick to the side and she launched into a trot around me pulling all the way around, the abruptly stopped and changed direction and kept trotting around. I left her doing that. I think she did about 4 or 5 wonky circles and started blowing, so this was when I disengaged her and rubbed her a fair bit. I tried a couple more circles after that and tried to keep her at a walk. The last couple were a more relaxed, but not precisely "circles".

Squeeze Game: No problem with this one. Maybe a bit slow, but she got it. Nice disengagement and back up after as well. We did both the basic squeeze against the fence as well as squeeze over a jump. She didn't really jump. She kind of just stepped over. I didn't ask for anything faster today.... I'll maybe ask for some more life next time!

Sideways game: She struggled with this one as well. And maybe I was too picky with this too. She moved her front and back separately most of the way. As soon as she was able to take a sideways step with both front and back feet I stopped and rubbed her with the stick. But again, a few times while I was driving her hind end, she threatened to kick. I was far enough away to be safe, but it irked me! She was able to go sideways better to the right than the left. Not sure if that had anything to do with going downhill in that direction or not? But I continued to ask both way until she gave me at least one simultaneous sideways step before the release. I guess we'll see if it worked if it gets better next time!

She's definitely flexing her left-brained muscles. She may be more of a challenge than I first thought! But this threatening to kick has got to stop! Anyone out there have any advice? Do I put her to work as soon as she does that? Not sure.

Thanks for listening! See you next time!