|
Sunday, 15 March 2009
This week as been a pretty awsome week for me and the ponies. For the first time in, i cant remember how many months, i rode Andy Pandy, following a really succesful play session. We had began learning driving from zone 3, the best way, i thought, to teach this to Andy Pandy was to involve cookies. So i dotted them all around the play area, on fence posts, cones, hid them in tyres, i even chopped up some apples and put them in the bath tub we have in the corner of the field (we use it as a water feeder.) Andy has already gotten really good at the touch it game, i can lead him over to with in a couple of meters of an obstical, point to it and he'll go over and investigate it for treats :). Andy was a little uncondident with me being in zone 3 to begin with, but as the session went on the only thing he had on his mind was going to the next obstical in hope that there might me a treat hidden there, athough i noticed that when i tried to be more particualr about what it was i wanted him to touch, he felt the pressure and would back up untill i was in his zone 1. Great Feedback! So i tried to be less critical and just try to build up his confidence in zone 3. I also found out this session how much Andy enjoys apple bobbing :) By the end of the session Andy was totaly calm, confident, and curious :) and my yard friend had asked if id like to tagg along with her on a trail ride, this i thought is a good as time as ever. Considering it was the first time he'd been out in probably a good 6 months he did perfectly :) Come our next session Andy was reluctant to do anything, he hid behind Shinobi in his stable, i lurded him out in the open and played lots of friendly game, he seemed quite unconfident to want to leave his wooden house so, we took it real slow, i sat on the floor to make sure he didnt feel under any pressure at all and rubbed him with the CS, soon the tension left his body his head lowered and then he was asleep! Okay, so now i have a confident horse but not a very motivated one, so we started playing touch it again, i put the odd treat around the stables so he wouldnt have to leave the saftey of his heard, and i drove him from place to place whilst in zon3, being the clever little pony Andy is, he picked it up straight away :) To cut an already too longer a story short by the end of the session me and andy were trotting from place to place with me in zone 3. Thats what i call confidence :) I was even driving him through a set of very narrow, zig-zagged poles i had layed on the ground :) Cool! We were also playing great porcupine games all at phases 1 and 2, squeeze games through the tighest of spaces, we even manged to get a whole circiut of the circle game without breaking gate or direction and we were doing all of this Calm, Confident and Willing :) The following day, it took a matter of minuets, if that, for Andy to catch me, okay so i had already walked kind of close to him but he swang his hind away to face me, did this a few times then he walked right over :) and we went out for our second ride of the week, i must admitt i did skimp abit of the "Pre flight Checks" Andy was calm and confident but we were definalty not connected and this showed when we went out, as good as he was, he did get a little unconfident at times. This the last bit i promise! As if this week couldnt get any better after the 5 minuet treck up the drive to the ponies field when i got to the gate Andy said "Hello" YAY!!!!!!!!!! I rode Blaze today too, which was wonderful, just around the field in walk, doing things like backing up, turn on the forhands and so on but even so just be sat on her is such a wonderful feeling :) Peace out guys :)
11:18
0 comments |
|