First neighborhood walk, and some training videos I found

My husband came along for our first neighborhood walk, where I thought I might actually get on the mare and ride a bit, but it turns out she's not ready yet.

Although I practiced leading with her in our driveway, making sure she stays behind me and stops when I do and stays out of my space, going out for a walk pushed her over the limit. She was scared of everything and barged into me a few times. Mostly she just didn't want to stay behind me and kept trying to pass. The turning in a tight circle method worked better than the propeller lead rope thing. She got whacked in the nose quite a few times, which I'm sure didn't make it a very fun experience.

We stopped to visit with a neighbor and it was extremely difficult for the mare, she was twitching all over the place and a few times I had to hold my hand up in the air to remind her not to come into my space. My man said, "Watch out for that car there" not wanting the horse to ram into it. We stood there quite a long time, it seemed much longer to me, and longer yet to the mare, I'm sure, but she didn't run anyone over or hit the car. The neighbor has a new baby and wanted the baby to see the horse, but she realized it wasn't safe. The neighbor said, "I don't know anything about horses, I wouldn't know what to do with a nervous one." I said, "I'm not exactly comfortable right now!"

We also did some bushwhacking to get to a geocache and branches scraped all over her sides but that didn't bother her more than anything else. Standing at the geocache was very difficult for her, but she did it.

A few neighbor houses really terrified her, junk lying around, plastic tarps, bags, oh it was a challenge! "You sure you don't wanna ride?" my man asked.

My man was nice enough to suggest an extra long loop, and stick with me when I spun her around so often.

So I wouldn't call it a successful walk, more of a trial by fire, but it can only get better from here. I think.

I will go back to the driveway and pracice leading with her and then just take her a little way up our street, until she's good with that.

Today I got permission to use the outdoor ring across the street. Just getting there will be a challenge: )

A big reason for her to be anxious - she's from the flatlands of Niedersachsen and hasn't ever seen a hill or valley in her life, and we're in a valley here. It's not the preferred landscape of horses, to see hills going up on both sides of their home. On Baasha's first day here, he lay down in the grass and went to sleep. However I'm sure if he were the one shopping for property, it would have been on the top of a hill, not in this wedge.

At home she has not really settled down yet, she's constantly moving, going in and out of the stall, and turning them out to graze a few hours resulted in lots of trotting and cantering, and less grazing than I'd hoped.

At one point she came cantering toward me and wanted to take a tight turn and I raised my arms to deflect her from running me down and she fell down trying to get around me.

She trembles in anxiety just like Mac used to do, but there's nothing I can do about that. When the herd of sheep went down the street, she almost lost it, and actually tested our electric fence on purpose! Good thing it's hot.

Another thing that Mac used to do, she tosses her head in large circles as she trots around. Mac was the endurance horse of a friend of mine and she let me do CMO and endurance with him. He was a nervous horse but gained confidence from his rider, interestingly. When you got on him, he felt better immediately.

Good things: She ground ties pretty well - I have nowhere really safe to tie, so I need her to ground tie.

She gives me her feet, she is good with sadddling and is not girthy at all. My saddle has never had the extra wide gullet inside until now. That is one broad horse.

She doesn't seem to be herd bound - last night I brought Bellis in from the pasture and the mare just stayed out there. Luckily she let herself be caught. I'm curious if I'll be able to catch her once she's in the big pasture though. Yesterday, as you can see in the video at the bottom of this post, we tried to use Bellis to lure her to the lower grazing strip. It took a very long time.

I am going to the store today to buy a rope halter because at this point she needs it.

My photographer friend is coming over tomorrow morning to get photos of her. I'll let them on the big pasture for the first time for that, it should be spectacular.

The more I look at her, the more I realize she could in fact be purebred. I called the breeder today and she asked me to call back tonight to discuss our options for getting papers. I will have my man on the phone cuz I'm sure I won't understand the technical terms very well. A DNA test is probably required. Let's do it!

The farrier is coming tomorrow cuz her hooves look like crap. They're not overly long, they're just not evenly worn, and chipped all over from our walk yesterday. Chips just don't occur when a horse is trimmed right, in my experience. Her feet sound very loud on pavement, much louder than Baasha's. Her feet ring out almost like she's shod.

I'm gonna trim one of her hooves before the farrier arrives to get his feedback. Can't wait to get her naturally good, round hooves, looking great.

I'm reading/watching Warwick Schiller and Julie Goodnight for training ideas. If you haven't seen Warwick Schiller, you should look him up on Youtube. Specifically - this one is great, and funny too, "The horse goes and smells the poop, the owner goes and smells the poop."

The way he deals with a spooking horse makes sense, check it out.

The love language of horses (from the 5 love languages book).

The leading skills video makes me think he is a dog trainer, because I've used this with dogs.

Ok photos from yesterday below. (Note: That is not Baasha's halter, his hangs in our entryway.)

***UPDATE***
OK it's a whole nother day but I have to tell you how it went cuz it relates to this post. I did a little leading and standing still work with her in our driveway, and she was great, so I moved her out into the street, and then up into our front yard (new and scary, a little pond oh dear!). Then I just took her up to Herr S's house to use his outdoor arena. He was very curious about the mare and pet her a bit, and opened two gates for us.

In the arena, a herd of mares came running and all the geldings in their Winter paddock came over too, so we had horses on both sides. I led her one time around and then started lunging. She was perfect! I had no idea if she could lunge. I love how she knows how to just walk on a lunge line, someone taught her that. When I finally asked her to trot she was breathtaking. She can really move! Even Herr S was like, "Wow, she's got movement!" It's been a long time since I've had a perfectly sound horse, and she just floats. She kept calm with horses all around, pushing each other to get closer. I didn't canter her because I just wanted to see if she can walk and trot today. I was tempted to keep her trotting so I could enjoy the eye candy, but that wasn't the point, and to me lunging is
training, not exercising. Then she stood perfectly still for me for a while. I always count to ten at every whoa, and focus on my breathing, and relax, gazing at the ground until asking again.

Changes of direction were also no problem. As long as I kept my eyes on her hip, she kept moving forward. If I stepped back and looked at her head, she'd stop. I am so happy she can do this, I'm really no good at teaching horses to lunge!

Then I did some tiny walking circles where we changed direction every time around, because finely tuned direction changes can be very elegant and that is my goal.

I worked her maybe 15 minutes total. Herr S was like "That's it?" but I said I just wanted to see what she can do.

Another girl, Mandy, was there with a huge 5 year old who was frantically pawing and fussing at the tie rail. She says she's in the process of breaking her in. I felt quite satisfied with my round hot red mare at that moment, because mine was standing perfectly still, one meter away from me.

On the way home two neighbors wanted to talk (the terrier couple). They were working in two parts of their yard so it was two separate stop and talks. This is very good for the mare. She neighed for the first time there, and the donkey answered. This mare has a much deeper voice than Baasha. He always neighed like a baby, she neighs like a grown-up. While talking to the terrier lady, something spooked her and she ran a circle around me, and the terrier lady was quite afraid and told me, "OK you can go, let her go home!" but that is not the right answer. I admit on the way back she didn't stay behind me as well as on the way there, so I just did a few circles and she was fine.

Enough for today!

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