Friday, August 24, 2012

day 55

today I got Robbie out and saddled and moved around to check on his attitude and see if he would be resistant or yielding. He proved yielding. I went to put the driving reins on him and was just standing on his left side getting the line ready to connect to the bit and he bit me. I immediately got after him. In hindsight I think it was one of two things: he doesn't like the drive lines and or he wanted to see if he could push me away. Well it didn't work. But trying to think like a horse and ask myself why he did it, I think it was the same he would have done with another horse he wanted to move out of his space. And just like another horse that is more dominant, he or she would have tore into him for a second and made him move, which is exactly what I did. Then I acted like nothing happened and went back to putting the line on the bit and driving him. He tried to take off, but I stopped. He tried several more times while I was untangling the lines, but each time I stopped him. Then when I was ready I moved him off. I just wanted toget a walk trot canter out of him that was relaxed in each direction. I noticed that he was really tossing his head and mouthing the bit more than ever. So something was up with that. A couple times his tongue was over the mouth piece and we got that corrected. I think it was that he was trying to get away from it. The lines kept hanging up on parts of the tack so he was not getting immediate relief. When I took the lines off and just used the rein, he still did it but not as much. I got on and flexed him both sides and had him step off and we just went in small circles and flexed to a stop and then changed directions. It all went rather well, no bucking, getting scared or anything like that. I rode him about 10--15 minutes. We didn't go in big circles, but there was no confusion at all. We stopped with flexion that was real soft.
Darkstar came out no problem. He was his usual standoffish, would rather leave it than take it kind of attitude, but once he realized he was doing this he did fine. He stood good for saddling, and putting the bridle on. I was checking to see how flexible he would be and how yielding he would be. I put the lines on him and drove him a few times around, asking for walk trot. I then got on him and we didn't take alot of straight line steps but we did. I YH and then asked him to step off and he would take a couple steps and then bend him again with softness. Then did lots of flexing side to side, even using my foot by the girth to help him flex. I could sense he was starting to get a little jumpy the longer I was on his back, but I continued as long as I thought he was going to just have a melt down. So we took steps and YH and more steps YH and stopped and flexed and rested and did it all over. We did this probably about 15 minutes and then time ran out and he was getting more jumpy so I thought to myself, well I will pay attention to what he is telling me, "I have pushed him enough." and then just flexed about 20 times each side. Especially the left side, because he seemed to have hardened right up on that side. So I flexed until he was soft both ways and then quit.
Monday is another day.

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