Didn't work Lucy very long today, maybe thirty minutes. Now that she will let me walk up to her and touch her, I feel like a lot of pressure has been lifted off of me, therefore I should take some off of her. So we just kind of played around this evening. We fine tuned her leading skills, and I led her all over her pen and then into the barn. She caught on fairly quickly that when my feet move and I'm facing front, she should follow suit. She also figured out that if I am facing her and slightly forward, she needs to back out of my space a bit. That she just picked up out of nowhere, but I was pleased that she was paying that much attention to my body. Just saves me having to teach her that respect lesson later on.
Disengaging her hindquaters proved a bit more of a challenge, but not like an Aztec challenge. More like, a simple challenge (how about that oxymoron!). I started by moving out from her shoulder sideways to the right (worked that side first). Then I crouched really low, exagerating my body movements as to prevent confusion (after she masters the skill, I will become more subtle). But I crouched and took a step towards her hind end. When she didn't move, I continued the movement, but I begin swinging the end of the lead. I got progressively quicker in my swinging until she moved her hip. The first time I didn't have to swat her. She moved away. So I let her chill with my back to her, taking away any pressure that she felt. Then I repeated the steps: step, swing, swing harder, pop.
The second time I had to pop her with the end. She bounced around on her heels until she faced me, and she dropped her head and chewed. I got what I wanted, so I turned immediately around, giving her space and time to relax and process what she had just learned. I repeated disengaging her right twice more before I did the same work on the left. So after four times on each side, I let that lesson be over.
Then I broke out the fly spray because the knats and horse flies were driving her nuts. I let her smell the yellow bottle, and she nibbled at it a bit. When she was sure it wasn't alive and/or going to eat her, she let me spray her legs and under belly where all of the bugs were grouping. She seemed relieved at this. Never gave me an ounce of trouble! She's turning out to be more like Chey than I thought after the first time with her. She's not afraid, and awfully sure of herself.
I went to Stockdale's this afternoon before I worked her, and bought a peppermint scented Jolly Ball. Aztec was terrified of it, but Lucy pranced right up to it, sniffed it, then pawed it around. She kept looking up at me (I guess to see if I was watching her being silly). She played with the new toy for a few minutes, and was so confident in herself. She's so willing to try something new, and nothing really spooks her. Which thrills me to no end! She's also started eating feed, so clicker training will begin in a few days. I had to put maple syrup over her feed yesterday, and she lured by the sweet scent to test it. Now she's eating straight sweet feed minus the syrup. (:
xx Shell
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