Lucy is turning out to be my favorite, and I really don't like picking favorites. But she pretty much perfect. She's got the perfect blend of attitude and willingness and curiousity that makes training a joy. Like today. I got her in the stall area so I could touch her easily, and she came up and sniffed me all over. I showed her the brush (which we covered yesterday), and she started biting it with her teeth, not afraid of it or trying to kill it, just showing me that she can pick it up and chunk it across the pen. It was absolutely adorable! And after I brushed her down, I started trying to find her "itchy spot." Every horse has a certain spot on his body that he just loves to have scratched, so I rubbed around Lucy's shoulder area and under her neck until I found a spot right in the center of her chest that she really REALLY liked having scratched. We sat there for a good five mintutes, me scratching her and her moving her head lower and lower to the ground. She also likes having her ears scratched with my finger nails.
After our scratch and chill session, I decided to try haltering again. So I walked up to her, slipped the halter on, and that was that. Not fuss or scene. She remembered exactly what happened yesterday, and she was good with it. Then I took the halter back off and walked to the round pen with her following me at liberty. I worked on moving her feet, since she's got this thing where she wants me to move around her instead of her moving around me (i.e. if she's blocking the stall door, it's not a her problem, but a crazy two-legged problem. Luce axpects me to walk all the way around her instead of her taking two steps to the right... love her!). So I did that thing where I look her directly in the eye and face my shoulders square on her. She was a little sticky at first, but I put the rope back on the end of my lunge stick and tossed it behind her to encourage her to move forward and around. Once she took off, I took the stick away and only reintroduced it when she began ignoring my body encouragements. She ran around well after she figured things out a bit.
She's not quite as herd-centered as Aztec is, but she still focused much of her attention on the horses out in the pasture instead of staying with me. I thought about how to correct this, but then I decided that with her, anyway, this issue will eventually resolve itself once she and I have that mutual respect and relationship.
Once I was satisfied with her moving out, I put her back in the stall pen and haltered her once more. Then I added pressure to the halter, not a lot of pressure, but enough to encourage movement. Lucy is very much an into pressure horse. So when I put pressure on the halter and it pulls at her poll, she moved back. She backed into the wall and bounced forward in shock, so I rewarded her forward motion with the release of the pressure. We played that game a few moments, and then I had her leading. She's not an expert yet, but she's well on her way. (:
xx Shell
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