Yet another good day

A perfect, slightly warm Fall day, with nice colors in the trees here in
sunny northern Virginia.

Hubby is back from shoring up the retirement home for the winter, so we
went out to see Yankee (aka Fuzzbutt), and I drafted him (hubby, not
Fuzzbutt) to run the video camera. My husband isn't really into horses,
he loves Yankee but hasn't shown too much of an interest in working with
him. Just in petting him and giving him treats

This video is pretty much the entire session:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEo_s9wz0_k

Lots of improvement at both ends of the lunge line I think, though my
timing is still off sometimes, and I'm still working on reducing the
chatter. You can see he tests me quite a few times, neck ringing a bit
when I correct him

It's interesting how smoothly he moves from trot to amble, I'm not sure
why he chooses one over the other at any particular time.

He's a joy to work with though, very quick, and it'd be boring if he
didn't test those boundaries. It is hard to teach where the boundaries
are if your student doesn't try to bypass them, after all He's
getting quite tuned into me though not for very long - a few times all
it took was for me to drop/relax my shoulders and he'd halt.

I did noticing him trip a couple of times. The ground is slightly
uneven, I think he just needs to learn to pick up his feet more.

After his usual 10 minute graze break after lunging, all three of us
went for a walk. He was very animated today, up on his toes and
looky-looky, but no problem at all until he spotted some Paints in
western gear through the trees. He called a bit, and bounced around,
wanting to go greet them, but quickly settled when I said we must move on.

Aside from that moment, he was very good. We went into further new
territory, cars passing without slowing down (grrr), and he was a model
citizen. He still looks to me for reassurance, and when he sees I'm
calm and relaxed, he settles too. I'm trying to wean him from touching
me every few seconds when we're out, he's improving with that too.

And! I got two in-hand gaits from him by just increasing my speed! No
voice command at all, and he kept moving until I slowed down. Yay!

Nothing better than spending a fantastic, colorful fall day outdoors
with your favorite equine, and your favorite human, eh?

As always, comments on what we're doing right, and how we can improve,
are welcome.

jmc

Whoops! Posted to wrong NG!


Suddenly, without warning, jmc exclaimed (10/24/2010 4:22 PM):
A perfect, slightly warm Fall day, with nice colors in the trees here in
sunny northern Virginia.

Hubby is back from shoring up the retirement home for the winter, so we
went out to see Yankee (aka Fuzzbutt), and I drafted him (hubby, not
Fuzzbutt) to run the video camera. My husband isn't really into horses,
he loves Yankee but hasn't shown too much of an interest in working with
him. Just in petting him and giving him treats

This video is pretty much the entire session:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEo_s9wz0_k

Lots of improvement at both ends of the lunge line I think, though my
timing is still off sometimes, and I'm still working on reducing the
chatter. You can see he tests me quite a few times, neck ringing a bit
when I correct him

It's interesting how smoothly he moves from trot to amble, I'm not sure
why he chooses one over the other at any particular time.

He's a joy to work with though, very quick, and it'd be boring if he
didn't test those boundaries. It is hard to teach where the boundaries
are if your student doesn't try to bypass them, after all He's
getting quite tuned into me though not for very long - a few times all
it took was for me to drop/relax my shoulders and he'd halt.

I did noticing him trip a couple of times. The ground is slightly
uneven, I think he just needs to learn to pick up his feet more.

After his usual 10 minute graze break after lunging, all three of us
went for a walk. He was very animated today, up on his toes and
looky-looky, but no problem at all until he spotted some Paints in
western gear through the trees. He called a bit, and bounced around,
wanting to go greet them, but quickly settled when I said we must move on.

Aside from that moment, he was very good. We went into further new
territory, cars passing without slowing down (grrr), and he was a model
citizen. He still looks to me for reassurance, and when he sees I'm
calm and relaxed, he settles too. I'm trying to wean him from touching
me every few seconds when we're out, he's improving with that too.

And! I got two in-hand gaits from him by just increasing my speed! No
voice command at all, and he kept moving until I slowed down. Yay!

Nothing better than spending a fantastic, colorful fall day outdoors
with your favorite equine, and your favorite human, eh?

As always, comments on what we're doing right, and how we can improve,
are welcome.

jmc

"jmc" wrote in message
...
Whoops! Posted to wrong NG!

jmc


I'm glad you did. That's a beautiful horse, and I enjoyed watching it. My
mother used to keep a picture of me in her room in the nursing home. It
shows me on our horse, taken when I was about a senior in high
school...*lots* of years ago. People would do a "double take" when they saw
it and take another look because I was riding him without a saddle or
bridle. Of course, I only did that when we were within the fenced-in area
of the pasture.

MaryL