Skittles + Tarp

I know it's been ages since I've blogged, and I apologize for those who've mentioned it :-).
I've been busy with the horses, I just haven't taken photos or blogged, and I apologize.

Saphira is coming along really well. She started out with sticky feet (didn't want to go) and wiggly lines (couldn't walk in a straight line), and was very stiff circling to the right -- which was more like a square actually. Left was nice and soft. However, now she's got lots of forward, is getting nice and straight, has maintained very quick, soft responses to cues and has even started softening on the circle to the right. I haven't done anything in about a week with her now because one hind leg was swollen the last time I took her out, so I've been leaving her to heal. She doesn't appear to be lame, so it could have just been a kick or a strain from slipping in the mud or something. She seems a lot better now, so will probably try to ride her again tomorrow.

I've also been working a lot with Skittles. She's also been doing well. She had about 2 months off after she dumped me back at the beginning of August. Did I ever mention that? We were walking along in the ditch near my house and she reached her nose down (I thought she was reaching for a bite of clover). She sniffed a scrap of newspaper, it fluttered, and she LAUNCHED into the stratosphere, striking at the killer piece of paper with her front feet, and lept sideways at the same time, leaving me hovering up in the clouds. I landed, as you can imagine, quite hard -- on my left cheek. Thankfully there's lots of padding there, but it still hurt like hell and required sitting on ice for several days, while it turned every possible shade of purple, black and blue. There's still a dent. After I was able to breathe again, I got up, picked up the offending piece of paper, put it in my pocket, got back on Skittles and walked her up and down the ditch again, got off at home and played friendly game with the paper. She got as far as sniffing it with her neck outstretched and I left it at that (she started with flying around me on the 12' line, so I felt that was pretty good progress).

Since then, I've mostly been focusing on the colts and Saphira (i.e. not sitting in a saddle for a while). So it was way past time to get back on Skittles... which I did early in Oct. and have been riding her every week since.

Last week - on Monday, I spent close to an hour with her and a tarp. Tarps are categorized in the same "killer" category as fluttery pieces of paper. I've been avoiding tarps - because they're difficult, and I'd rather work on things that are easy. Wrong approach, I know, but that's the way my brain works (and don't tell me yours doesn't either!). Anyway, long story short, we made a bit of a breakthrough.... she's still not entirely hunky dorey with the tarps, so we'll continue to work with it, but she's WAYYYYYY better than before. At the end of Monday, she was able to put one toe (if she had a toe) on the tarp, and I was able to rub her all over on both sides with it, walk away and she was licking and chewing.

The video clip below is last Wednesday -- session #2 with the tarp. She even stepped on it with a back foot! :-) I will continue to play with the tarp until it's as common as dirt for her. The difficult is starting to get easier.