Snip had a review of yesterdays lesson and remembered everything. In addition to walk and spiral into stop on the driving lines, I added some trot and rollbacks. The increased speed didn't seem to bother him. Afterwards he hung out over the fence and let Barry scratch his head for a long time.
Red let me catch him right away and put on the surcingle. I laid the rope over his back to drag and he thought it was going to eat his butt. Almost sitting down while moving forward, finally he remembered his lesson with the blanket falling off him and spun around to face it. Smart boy. A few minutes later I put the driving lines on the halter and worked on direction changes and breathing out to stop.
The plan was for Cocoa to have the same lesson but first I had to spend about 15 minutes getting the halter up over the nose. The horse is just a little taller than me. He wasn't really trying to leave, just keep his nose protected. Once I got the halter on I followed the same procedure with laying the rope over his back to drag. He had been the one that was the most afraid of the rope so I took a little extra time and threw it across him and dragged it back a few times. When I asked him to lunge and pack it I had to remind him he could move. He was smart enough to know if he didn't move, it wouldn't chase him. After awhile I got him going and making direction changes dragging it, he took it better than the other two. Next I did the rope around the butt turns, he never scooted his butt down at all. When I put the driving lines on his halter I learned that when he is wearing a surcingle and has lines around his butt, he forgets how to steer. I just let him pack the lines a little and then undressed him. Will work more on steering next time.
Blue had a little longer session today. It took a few minutes to get a rope around his neck so I could work on handling his face. He also kept trying to lift it away but he's not as tall as Cocoa. Once the halter was on I added the surcingle and lunged him a little. He needs more work on turning in from the feel on the halter and coming in when I call him. I let him drag a rope across his back while I lunged him. He was the worst so far for thinking it was going to eat his butt and trying to sit and walk at the same time when it touched his legs, but none of them kicked at it. Imagine if a person skipped this step and just put the driving lines straight on. They'd be running away from the back end and getting bumped in the front, no fun. I had to talk to someone for awhile so I took the ropes off. When I came back I had to catch him again to take off the surcingle and halter. It took awhile. I was going to work on the turns with the rope around the butt but was happy at that point with just getting him caught.
No comments:
Post a Comment