And Dream of Spots: mars 2019

Saddly, having a horse isn't as easy as we can dream it. No, you're not just gonna sit under a rainbow & have the best friend of your life in a lickety-split!

Trust & confidence needs... foot work!
And we do a lot with my capricious, stubborn -horrid- mare! 'Cuz every things that you earned on her, will need to be worked, reworked and re-reworked. She nevers learns forever. NEVER.
It's not a mare, it's a nightmare.

She's really cute? Don't be fooled!

We started on basis lunging. Everyone should start with this.

This sounds easy? It's not. Having the horse to respond to your voice is a long path and as everyone will have it's own way of doing it, founding code with your beast may take time. But once you got it: you can start work for good.

Also, your horse can be like my mare who always pick a scary corner, so she can pretend she too scary to listen you :)

"I've seen somethin', I swear! I'm going to watch for a while to be sure that somethin' is really there."

And of course, you'll have to remember: Asking a lot, be happy with a little. Reward a lot.

My mare only understand rewards btw, don't even try to work with her if you're not ready to gave her a treat at the end! Her soul connect to the treat not to you ;)

"You've got it? Right, I may discuss with myself about listening to you, my response under 24h"

Then, you can have a little magic...

Good girl!

Of course, it's a first step.
When we got voice code, I wanted to work freedom. But before, we came to precise asking. Always initiating things with helpers like the lunge and stick (and treat). Starting with little reminder before getting on saddle...

The first challenge with my mare, is to have her respect your space and not going over you!
It sounds simple but it's really somethin' I have to work on a daily basis.

And I want that, no matter the speed.

When basically the horse is on your side, it's time to try some free moves! We started with walking side by side, trotting side by side, stop when I stop, go back when I go back etc.

You're listening right?

Then circle around you.

When I'm lunging I ask the mare to really work, when it's about freedom I ask the mare to listen. That's not the same for me. The two are good for the mental health!!

"Free moves"

I kow she enjoys best to be free and express herself. She really have energy to spend and she can go, fly and buck if she wants. Not a problem for me.

Just look at her happy face :)

But that doesn't mean, she cannot came to work by herself too. I always cheers her a lot, so she understand it's good to push a little more this way.

Another difficulties was to make difference between "stop" and "come back". With time, I've found to sit myself to have her back. It really works! She knows by reading on my body langage what to do.

That's really the best things so far! To connect the horse to yours moves.
Magic again?!

One day as well, with a friend we tryied another lunging step to gain time...

Two for the price of one!

It requires horses that knews them. But it was really fun. They were like young foals showing around...

Of course, to have serious work we'll need to push this a bit.
For my mare the real work was to go first, as I've already explained she can be really sheep-like.

Recently, I came to another way of working. Driving reins.
For me that's a perfect way to be more precise on your asking, as every thing you own on foot step is owned on saddle too!

Really great to have a good impulse and the horse round!

As well as precise direction...

She's good at it.
Explaining things is in the same way easyiest and more difficult with a bit. You need to be really accurate. And accuracy is what I want best on our relationship.