change

Well I suppose you are all anxious to know how it went with Haycee today. Actually, I was ready to go. I was excited to see what kind of change, if any, had been made in her thinking. Well, I wasn't given much hope at first. I got all my tools into the pen then went to catch her. She left the stall, since she saw the halter in my hand. I could tell she wasn't overly excited about going to work with me after yesterday's experience. Which I can't blame her. I actually let her catch me 2x without putting the halter on her. Then it was play time. It took probably another 5-10 min. to get her to let me walk up to her with the halter. Then we went to the pen. I worked her a little bit on backing, shoulders and hip. Then I saddled her flank cinch and all. She didn't flinch. That was good. Then I put her to work lungeing her both directions and working on upwards and downwards transitions. I was noticing some changes, she was responding faster and with more energy, yet smooth. Then I played the c-exercise with her. After a few minutes of me asking her to change directions her resistance started to come out. Her ears would pin back, but she didn't crowd me or kick at me. So I just made her move faster and spaced out the direction changes farther apart. Then started to shorten the distance between changes. She was more responsive. Then I worked on disengaging, shoulders over. it was going good. Then I round penned her. She immediately moved off in a trot. But at the weak point in my fence where she tried to exit yesterday she kept wanting to stop. My timing was off a little bit so she could stop there. However, I soon caught on and kept her moving by it. She stayed on the rail better and I worked on her transitions up and down. In both directions.Then I remembered Jaime gave me my homework: put the flank rope on her and just let her wear it without being tightened. So I grabbed my 22' rope alot softer than the lariat, and put that on her with the halter and moved her forward. She started trotting and I kept her moving. THe rope naturally tightened as the slack dragging on the ground offered resistance. She started to pee but didn't go into hyper mode. So I eventually put pressure on the rope to slow her to a walk and stop and then helped her out with the lead. We did that a couple times, for about 10 min. then I laid her down. It took about 5 min. and she was laid out. Now I could tell she was totally giving up, she would kick out with her hind legs when I rubbed them to get her to relax and she kept swishing sand into my face with her tail. But all in all it was good. Then after 20 min I got her up and went through several exercises and then quit. I noticed a distinct change after that. In her stall I fed her grain and hay. Before she wouldnt' move out of it unless I put a lot of pressure on her to move. This time I could have almost used a feather to get her to move out of the stall. I made her wait until I was ready to let her back in. I did this 2x and she moved out quickly with just a slight feel on her. That was probably the most noticeable change in her. Anyway she has the weekend off hopefully it will sink in for her.
Adieu!